All the Personality of a... What?

So we FINALLY went to the waterslides on the weekend. What fun! We were lucky to have really nice weather so late in the month. Oh, and we went on the new slide, the "Tornade", which looks like a huge funnel lying on its side. And one must not forget all of the garbage and junk strewn in front of the slide, which is supposed to be décor. You have to be 4 people to go on the Tornade, and we were only 3, so we asked this random man to join us. Naturally, he was happy to skip most of the line and accompany us! Funny little man said that he lives right near the water park and is there almost every day! Well, I think that's what he said, he had this tendency of speaking really quietly!

Last week, I went to HMV downtown after I finished my final exam for my summer class. As I was looking at some DVDs, I heard this voice coming from behind me say "Can I help you with anything?" The voice startled me, so I quickly turned around. And saw a familiar face. "Hey, you're <insert name here>!" (I won't put his name in, there's no need to go violating people's privacy without their permission, right? Especially since he's a loser with extra loser sauce). He simply said "Yes." Figuring he might not have recognized me, I said "I'm Nancy, I know Steph, who you used to go to school with." His reply: "OK". And then he just looked at me. No inquiry as to how I'm doing, no inquiry as to how Steph's doing, nothing. Just an "OK" and a stare. Flustered, I said, "Well... I just thought I'd say 'hi'... um, " and here I waved my hand toward the DVD rack, "Yeah, I'm ok, I don't need any help... thanks." And I beat a hasty retreat. Does this guy have absolutely no social skills? I can't possibly understand how he got a job at HMV. Anyway, as I escaped to the other end of the room, I couldn't believe how he had made me feel so stupid, when he was the one that was acting like a... I don't know what... something without a personality! Anyway, if I ever run into him again, maybe it'll be safer to simply pretend I don't know him!

Who's Bad?

On the weekend, Mike and his younger brother showed me the coolest video game I have ever encountered. It was this old Sega Genesis (remember those) game from 1988. Let me describe it to you:

The game begins as a tall, dark and mysterious-looking man walks through a door and onto the playing screen. He looks mysterious because he's wearing a white Dragnet-style suit, brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes. He wears a violet shirt, white tie and suspenders. As he so suavely enters the room, he nonchalantly flicks a dime from his fingers. The dime soars through the air to land perfectly in the slot of the vintage juke-box. "Smooth Criminal" begins to play. Omigod, it's Michael Jackson!

I had heard of the game "Michael Jackson's Moonwalker" before, but this was the first time I had ever seen it. And it was awesome! I have to say, I've been an MJ fan since I was very young, and this game just did it for me! So you have to run through these levels saving crying little girls, all the while beating up bad guys with your killer dance moves... he grabs his crotch, he spins on his heels, he throws his hat like a boomerang. The best part is, if Michael starts to dance, all of the bad guys dance with him, and they do choreographies straight out of the videos! Also, if ever he finds a flying blue streak and catches it, he turns into "The Moonwalker", a huge silver robot that flies with a jet-pack and shoots lasers in every direction. Yeah, didn't understand that part, either!

Moving on: so I played my very first game of golf on Sunday, with Mike, Dave and Kim. What a fun game! I'm not very good, but I've been practicing and I was happy to note that I don't completely suck! I got the occasional good shot, which was exciting, but I still need more practice!

Before I go, I just want to comment on the comments I've been getting lately. In my last 3 posts, or so, I've gotten 3 comments that were simply advertisements. Am I the only one with this problem? Getting comments is exciting, but it's a big disappointment to find that it's actually someone that has simply left links to their own pages for advertising purposes. This is MY SITE, guys, I'll promote what I care to promote! Anyhow, any more advertising I find on my blog will be 'BALEETED' (that's 'deleted' for those of you who don't watch Homestar Runner - now there's a site that deserves some promotion!), just like the page-long crap about investing in who-knows-what that I found yesterday.

Birthday Wishes

**Happy Birthday Dave #2!**

As long as Dave L. is celebrating his birthday at the beginning of August, I guess Dave D. will always have to be the second Dave!

"You don't just come to a meeting and say 'Bugs'"

I got really excited this morning when I was riding the train on my way to school. The guy announcing the stations said "Prochaine station, Vendome," and then 'doo-doo-dooed' the first bar of the Twilight Zone theme song. I hadn't heard any stops announced that way since I was 18, when I was taking the train home from a concert at the (then) Molson Centre. I had never forgotten it, and I finally heard it again today. I'm assuming it was the same guy, but announcing train stops for over 7 years seems kinda strange...

Earlier in the week, I was sitting outside at a picnic table with a bunch of people from my class. At one point, these two guys, one with a video camera, approached us, asking if any of us would be willing to answer some questions about politics on camera. When everybody started to mull the idea over and discuss it among themselves, the guy with the camera looked right at me and said "What about you?" and started walking over to me. This is when another guy volunteered and they interviewed him instead. As soon as he was done, the camera guy asked me again, "Would you like to answer the same questions as him, with the camera?". There was no way I was gonna do anything for this skeevy dude. You see, I had seen these two guys about an hour before, when I was heading down the escalator at school. They passed me while they were heading up and the camera guy was ogling me so openly, I gave him the evil eye. Anyhow, I didn't want him to have any visual record of me that he could take home with him... how creepy!

Oh yeah, and my class is going fairly well. The program we're learning is pretty complicated and requires very precise instructions in order to make models run properly. It gets really frustrating at times, but when something finally does work properly, or when you figure out a problem on your own, it's really rewarding. And it can actually be pretty fun if you know what you're doing! Today, one other student and I tag-teamed to figure out a problem the whole class was stuck on. When we finally figured it out, we became the class heroes and the prof was so impressed with us! We were so excited, a bunch of us went out and had some beers during our break!

Another Line Without a Book

Had an interesting weekend. I felt like quite the socialite, we went to 2 BBQs on Saturday! BBQ #1 was in St. Lazare, thrown by one of Mike's coworkers. So I finally got to meet some of the people that Mike works with and they were all really nice! It was a lot of fun, there were all kinds of drinks and snacks and we played basketball in the pool. They were firing up the grill just as we were leaving, but that was alright, we had hamburgers waiting for us at BBQ #2.

BBQ #2 was in NDG, it was a housewarming/birthday party. These people were friends of Mike's family. So I met this man who - had I not known better - seemed bent on insulting me. Honestly, it was a bit awkward. It seemed that he disapproved of everything I said: "I go to Concordia" (he scowled). "I just graduated" ("Oh, you graduated from arts"). "I'm going to grad school in environmental science" ("But it's a 'soft science' at that"). I couldn't win with this guy! Furthermore, he decided to bring up Mike's ex-girlfriend, describing them as "sweet"... Inappropriate, no? Anyhow, I was a little annoyed, but it's pretty difficult to take someone like that seriously!

Book Smart, Street Stupid

Well, it's been a busy week of getting up early and writing tests first thing in the morning. Now I can say that my course is 1/3 over. Not that I mind, I've been having some fun. Some of us even had a BBQ yesterday afternoon!

Other stuff that happened this week:

1. I rode on the new double-decker trains from Bombardier for the first time! What nice trains! It's hard to walk around on the second floor without falling over, though.
2. My Dad mistakenly bought lactose-free milk the other day and I ended up drinking a glass of what tasted like milk with a load of sugar in it... awful!
3. Mike and I tried out a Ouija board... I hadn't used one in about 10 years and even then, never really knew what I was doing. Anyway, we talked to some spirit who said his name was "TWA" and he came from a city called "RETRO". I wonder what that's supposed to mean? Anyway, that's all we got because it took us about 1/2 an hour to get just that, the thing was moving so slow!
   

Back to School

It figures that my last day at the golf club would absolutely SUCK! It was the worst shift I've experienced since I returned... very reminiscent of the crap that went on last fall. It was like absolutely nothing could go right. A member mocked me, I couldn't handle all of my tables (they all came at the same time) and that led to a frazzled Nancy which subsequently resulted in mistakes. Oh yeah, and when most of the diners were finally leaving, I got a new table and about 5 of us had to sit there until 10:00 just to serve them. In the meantime, apart from them, the place became deserted, we transformed the entire willow room for Monday breakfast, and they would not take the hint that we were closing! Anyway, it's over. Now, I have 3 glorious weeks away from the place! That is, if you consider 3 weeks of an intensive summer course as glorious! But, so far so good, it's turning out better than imagined...

Originally, I was supposed to have a lecture from 9:00 - 12:00 and a lab from 3:00 - 5:00. Monday - Friday. But now the schedule goes; Lecture 9:00 - 11:00 and then the lab is open from 12:00 - 8:00 where we can come and go as we please. Technically, labs should only take 2 hours, though. So I'm liking this revised schedule much more!

Anyway, so we sit in front of our computer workstations (we have our own computer reserved for us!) and work our way through the lab manual on our own. And the prof wanders around helping people when they ask. It's pretty laid-back so it's nice. I think it'll be a good class!

Birthday Wishes and Then Some

** Happy Birthday Leah!**

** Happy Birthday Dave!**

Ooo a double-whammy! Cool!

It's technically August 6th now, but because of the magic of the internet, I can just change the date, and publish this thing on August 5th... yay me! Oh yeah, and yay Leah cuz it's her birthday! And yay Dave cuz it's his birthday, too!

And while I'm here: let it be known that "The Beast" was drawn by Nick, bartender extraordinaire from the BGC.

Nancy's Art Exhibition!

Today I thought I'd post some of the artwork that has been made for me by various coworkers since I've returned to the golf club. Hopefully you'll enjoy the pieces de résistance as much as I did... (Click on them to see them bigger!)


Emily drew this one for me... cute, huh? (Kind of "Teen Girl Squad-esque"!) The many stages of Nancy! And apparently, I am happiest in my argyle vest and socks... argyle is indeed a happy thing! Emily drew this next one for me, too...
Now that one is definitely happy!

Last but not least, I have another coworker's "artist's rendition" of the beast that lives in the pantry...
Scary, huh?

Hope you enjoyed the exhibition! Thanks to my contributors!

The Tale of Ghost Cat

Okay, so I wrote a blog about Ghost Cat, saved it, published it, and saw it for myself on my very own blog. Two hours later, the post is gone and it's nowhere to be found in my editor. What's going on? Anyway, I'll recreate it here as best I can.

Kim hasn't told the story herself, so I'm gonna do it...

On Saturday afternoon after work, I headed over to Dave and Kim's house, where the brothers had gone over to help them lay down a patio in their backyard. They had collected flat stones from nearby construction sites to use as patio stones. Anyway, Kim showed me the grave site of what we all belive to be a cat. Just beyond the border of their backyard, in the forest, is a little wooden cross with a paper stapled to it that says "Rest in Peace" with a picture of a cartoon cat. There are flat stones laid out in front of the cross. So we decided that, despite the fact that the house is brand new, the site is haunted by Ghost Cat. Apparently, there was a mysterious wet spot on the floor outside the upstairs bathroom in the house that took a very long time to dry, and Kim jokingly suggested that this was where Ghost Cat had peed! Perhaps because his rest was disturbed?!?! Also, I am told that there is a really mangy cat that wanders around the neighbourhood. Maybe it's Ghost Cat!

I Can Be Random Too, David Firth!

Jeremy Fisher and Hubert Cumberdale are back! Check out the new Salad Fingers... same old random creepiness that we've grown to love...!

So last night at work, while I was clearing a man's plate, a fork dropped off of it and landed in his lap. So I picked it up. It was only while I was walking away when I realized that perhaps it is improper to pick forks up off of strange men's laps?