February Sucks

Today was a balmy 3 degrees celsius! It was a nice break after the -20's we've been having lately. That said, I've still managed to contract my annual cold...boourns.

Anyway, someone shared this with me, and I thought I'd share it with you. It's dedicated to Matt:
(for those that care, the guy drops a couple f-bombs in the middle - you've been warned)

Finally

Ok, here we go....for those who don't know, here's what I'm up to these days:

I've found a job through another temp company, and have been doing work in the finance department for a big Canadian food supplier. It really is my ideal work for the moment, which is to say, maximum payment for minimal responsibility. The duties of my job pretty much consist of me sitting in front of a computer and punching numbers into an excel spreadsheet all day long. I have little interaction with others, and can listen to my MP3 player all day, enjoying music, podcasts, audio books or whatever tickles my fancy. It pays pretty well, and my supervisor(s) are really nice to boot. As I've said to folks before, if I had to do this for the rest of my life then I would probably rather kill myself as it is extremely monotonous work and really does very little to make the world a better place, however currently, as a means to greater ends it does the trick just fine. Yes, it takes up a lot of time, I have to get up early and I still come home tired after work, but it beats the coffee shop job, where I would be there til 9pm sometimes, sweaty from having to mop up, and run down from people complaining about too little or too much milk in their tea.

Hopefully this will see me through until the end of April, when I plan on attending Coachella. The big reason for the trip there is, of course, the Rage Against the Machine reunion. I absolutely love Rage and thought I would never get a chance to see them after they broke up in 2000. So far it is being billed as a 'one-off' performance by them, but I've read interviews with Tom Morello who says he hasn't "ruled out the possibility of future activities" for the band. So even though it's likely there will be more shows in the future, you never know. However, Rage isn't my only reason for going...the other two headliners (The Chili Peppers and Björk) are also performers whom I love but have never seen live. And that's in addition to the 100 or so other bands that will be there. There's a bunch in that list that I am big fans of as well, so combined with a trip to southern California at the end of April, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. To top it off, I found out a couple days ago that my buddy Ryan and his wife are planning on going too, so I'll have folks to camp out with! Score.

Well that's about it really. Sorry if I got your hopes up for something huge. I'm supposed to find out in May whether or not I got into the program at the University of Oslo, and so I should have a better idea of my next move after that. Until then, it's simply work followed by Coachella....

Stalling

I do have a big update that I would like to share, but I keep putting it off with little bite-sized entries, like this one.


Anyhow, recently I've had friends in places like England and Texas who have experienced unusual amounts of snowfall. I recognize that for the part of the world which they are in, this is indeed an unexpected treat and should be celebrated. Nevertheless, it is always a bit funny to me to see people guffawing about snow, given forecasts for the place where I'm currently living -- like this one for tomorrow: (click the little picture for the big one)


That's right, the HIGH tomorrow is MINUS TWELVE. Which, when combined with the windchill factor, will feel like MINUS TWENTY-THREE! That is tomorrow's HIGH. The 15-20cm of snow will be added to what's already frozen on the ground.

And again, this isn't to say that I'm better or tougher or anything (certainly there are people who live in much more snow than I!) It just strikes me that what is novel for some is usual for others. Conversely, if I had to live with equatorial heat all the time, I would probably drown in my own perspiration.

A lot more to come soon

I promise I have a lot more to write about, and I will do it real soon, but first I wanted to share this story about an honest guy with a good sense of humour. The summary is, he found $10,000 beside a bank machine and handed it in, but my favourite quote is this:

"Although it was short-lived, Hawkins said he enjoyed his newfound fortune by pumping his money-filled fist into the air and yelling, "party time" as astonished cafeteria-goers looked on, mouths agape."

I hope I would have done the same.