Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Life is good, but there’s always room for improvement
I can not believe the house prices in Calgary. They’re getting as bad as Victoria! Makes me wonder why I moved here, but then I look out my office window and remember, “Oh yeah! I really like the Flames.” Seriously though! I’ve had this discussion with several people, so I’m sure they’ll roll their eyes when they read this, but what exactly do you call a Calgary Flames fan? When you ask an Oiler fan what they are, don’t they respond, “I’m an Oiler!” Similarly, with the Calgary football team, a response would be “I’m a Stampeder!” or at least “I’m a Stampeder fan!” But “Flames’ fan?” That just doesn’t roll off the tongue, and, in fact, reads like a terrible tongue twister (the sixth sick sheik, anyone). So I propose that us Flames’ fans (ugh!) call ourselves Flamers. Can you see it? Can you hear it now? As Jarome Iginla blasts one into the oppositions net after single handedly evading the entire offensive line, an arena full of Flamers start gyrating with excitement and screaming with ecstatic glee! After the game, young Flamers lean over the guard rails to get autographs or to merely touch their favourite player.
Man, I’m going to hear it about this post, aren’t I?
So odd thing just happened a couple of minutes ago. I’m sitting at my desk, working (no really, I was), when all of a sudden I hear banging on my window. I’m on the 5th floor, so automatically I rationalize that some pedestrian with nothing better to do has scaled the side of the building to tap on my window and criticize my work ethic. So I’m mad, right? I turn around to give this guy, or girl, a proverbial piece of my mind when it turns out that I had been over reacting and it was just heavy snow and hail hitting the glass. Whew! I almost made a fool out of myself there, right?
Roger’s moving in tonight, as far as I know. I warned him that I have no coffee pot to which he replied that he didn’t drink coffee anyway. I thought, well that might work out then. He’s staying with me for a bit before his family moves out to Calgary. I guess he’s looking for a place to move into for the beginning of July, but I don’t think he’s staying that long. I won’t kick him out after 14 day or anything, if that’s what you guys are thinking. But it’ll be good to have some company besides my landlords father who’s staying in the basement until he goes to the States for some sort of surgery.
Had an interesting conversation with him the other day, by the way. I’m sitting on the floor in front of the TV playing a game called Primal in which you are this buxom brunette transported to some supernatural world with your little rock-troll-gargoyle-whatever-the-heck-he-is to kick some demon butt, when my, uh, roomy comes upstairs to join me. First off, I have to say that this game is so mind numbingly dull that I asked Andrew, who loaned it to me, if he would mind if I just frisbeed the disc out my window, across the street and into a brick wall (he said, “Go ahead!”). Gamespot gave it a good rating and so did users of the website which only furthers my belief that Sony is paying them.
Anyway! My roomy comes upstairs because apparently a friend of his or of his family is coming over to fix the leak in the dishwasher. He’s supposed to arrive between 6pm an 7pm, and my roomy asks me if it is okay that he waits upstairs for the repairman’s arrival. I tell him sure, and he proceeds to sit on the futon, one that I’m leaning against, dangerously close to my left hand side. Now he’s watching me dispatch demon hordes in the bloodiest fashion and is sitting inches away. Did I mention that he’s close to three times my age? Well, he is!
I’m uncomfortable at this point, but, as it turns out, I could be even MORE uncomfortable. So here this, um, elderly man is, sitting beside me watching me disembowel creatures from the depths in beautifully 3D rendered fashion, when all of a sudden he starts giving off little grunts and groans after I dispatch each heathen and saying, “Good! Good!” Now I’m a little scared! He watches the entire hour that he’s waiting for his friend. Spooky!
But towards the end he starts to spark up a conversation. My roomy is from Iran; I don’t know if I mentioned that. He starts asking about my family, specifically my children. I tell him that I have two beautiful daughters, one 10 and one almost 8, and I love them no matter how much hair they’ve made me lose. Well, my roomy plants a big hand on my shoulder, leans in close and says, “Some day…you will have a boy!” With only a fractional pause I answered back in the same tone, “No…no I won’t!” He seemed to take this with humour but also as if it were a personal insult and smiled while asking me why, why not? I told him that I was done, no more, nada, but I didn’t mention that it is now medically impossible due to a little elective surgery on my part. He leans back on the futon and smiles and says, “In my culture…we look for the boy!” I’m aware of this, okay, but I tell him that in MY culture girls are as good as boys. I think he could sense an argument coming because he stopped contributing to that conversation.
Well, his friend didn’t show up, so he went downstairs. Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that he’s creepy or anything. He is pretty interesting. It’s just that I found that moment in time to be somewhat bizarre. But we all know that I’m no stranger to bizarre now, don’t we?
Man, I’m going to hear it about this post, aren’t I?
So odd thing just happened a couple of minutes ago. I’m sitting at my desk, working (no really, I was), when all of a sudden I hear banging on my window. I’m on the 5th floor, so automatically I rationalize that some pedestrian with nothing better to do has scaled the side of the building to tap on my window and criticize my work ethic. So I’m mad, right? I turn around to give this guy, or girl, a proverbial piece of my mind when it turns out that I had been over reacting and it was just heavy snow and hail hitting the glass. Whew! I almost made a fool out of myself there, right?
Roger’s moving in tonight, as far as I know. I warned him that I have no coffee pot to which he replied that he didn’t drink coffee anyway. I thought, well that might work out then. He’s staying with me for a bit before his family moves out to Calgary. I guess he’s looking for a place to move into for the beginning of July, but I don’t think he’s staying that long. I won’t kick him out after 14 day or anything, if that’s what you guys are thinking. But it’ll be good to have some company besides my landlords father who’s staying in the basement until he goes to the States for some sort of surgery.
Had an interesting conversation with him the other day, by the way. I’m sitting on the floor in front of the TV playing a game called Primal in which you are this buxom brunette transported to some supernatural world with your little rock-troll-gargoyle-whatever-the-heck-he-is to kick some demon butt, when my, uh, roomy comes upstairs to join me. First off, I have to say that this game is so mind numbingly dull that I asked Andrew, who loaned it to me, if he would mind if I just frisbeed the disc out my window, across the street and into a brick wall (he said, “Go ahead!”). Gamespot gave it a good rating and so did users of the website which only furthers my belief that Sony is paying them.
Anyway! My roomy comes upstairs because apparently a friend of his or of his family is coming over to fix the leak in the dishwasher. He’s supposed to arrive between 6pm an 7pm, and my roomy asks me if it is okay that he waits upstairs for the repairman’s arrival. I tell him sure, and he proceeds to sit on the futon, one that I’m leaning against, dangerously close to my left hand side. Now he’s watching me dispatch demon hordes in the bloodiest fashion and is sitting inches away. Did I mention that he’s close to three times my age? Well, he is!
I’m uncomfortable at this point, but, as it turns out, I could be even MORE uncomfortable. So here this, um, elderly man is, sitting beside me watching me disembowel creatures from the depths in beautifully 3D rendered fashion, when all of a sudden he starts giving off little grunts and groans after I dispatch each heathen and saying, “Good! Good!” Now I’m a little scared! He watches the entire hour that he’s waiting for his friend. Spooky!
But towards the end he starts to spark up a conversation. My roomy is from Iran; I don’t know if I mentioned that. He starts asking about my family, specifically my children. I tell him that I have two beautiful daughters, one 10 and one almost 8, and I love them no matter how much hair they’ve made me lose. Well, my roomy plants a big hand on my shoulder, leans in close and says, “Some day…you will have a boy!” With only a fractional pause I answered back in the same tone, “No…no I won’t!” He seemed to take this with humour but also as if it were a personal insult and smiled while asking me why, why not? I told him that I was done, no more, nada, but I didn’t mention that it is now medically impossible due to a little elective surgery on my part. He leans back on the futon and smiles and says, “In my culture…we look for the boy!” I’m aware of this, okay, but I tell him that in MY culture girls are as good as boys. I think he could sense an argument coming because he stopped contributing to that conversation.
Well, his friend didn’t show up, so he went downstairs. Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that he’s creepy or anything. He is pretty interesting. It’s just that I found that moment in time to be somewhat bizarre. But we all know that I’m no stranger to bizarre now, don’t we?
