Weird City is more like it. What a strange, strange place Las Vegas is. The hotels are everything I'd imagined they'd be. Yes, everything is Over The Top. Many, many old fat white people. Riding scooters.
No, I didn't end up playing blackjack. It was a $15 minimum bet. $15! Anyone who knows me knows I don't risk $15 on one shot. I did end up losing about $45 on slots over the course of the trip. But that's 4 days worth of slot machine fun at the equivalent of 3 losing blackjack hands. I even played slots at the airport. Every airport should have slot machines in the depature area. They sure make the time pass quickly.Two photos to begin. This is Barry Manilow's Copacabana jacket on display in the lobby of the Paris hotel, where he was the headliner. And the other pic IS the lobby of the Paris hotel. It's a reproduction of fuckin' Versailles, for gawd's sake. Unreal.
I'm halfway through packing. That's pretty good for 7:00 p.m.I'm starting to relax. Yay! I shall be back on-line on Sunday. Will I have gambling exploits to regale you with? Probably not.
I went "up north" with the girls for the weekend, and now I'm home. I need to pack for Vega$ as I am leaving very early Tuesday, and I'm working tomorrow.Am I packing? No, I'm blogging instead. I am in a state of pre-trip inertia. I hate it when this happens. Shouldn't I at least have the energy to put my passport, ticket and American $$$ on the table? Oh look! a distraction....(avoids packing)
Who would've believed that Hef would outlive Guccione? Does anyone care? And is Hef actually still alive or is that some kind of creepy silk-pyjama'ed hologram we occasionally see, scaring us on our teevees? Anyway. What to say about Guccione? He made a LOT of money because people like porn a LOT. Then technology evolved and porn became free and he went broke. The End.
I've seen two news stories about a cat in the USA who has been officially declared "the world's longest cat". He is, apparently, one and a half centimeters longer than the former world's longest cat. This is measured from tip of nose to tip of tail.How does one even get a cat to lie still long enough to measure accurately.If you are looking for me this evening, I'll be home with a tape measure, and safety goggles and oven mitts, trying to measure cats. I suspect I may own the world's roundest cat. Is "world's longest cat" the new "world's oldest man"? Will we be informed each time one dies?
I've received an email from Fancy Feast asking "how are things going with you"? I don't know what to respond. This is our first communication since the Thanksgiving Day Near Massacre. Ms Mushrooms interprets this email as actually saying "are you still mad at me?" and I believe this interpretation is correct. I am. But at the same time, I don't want to reject him to the point where I never get the $60 he owes me. LOL. So what to answer? I don't want to say eff off because I know $60 is no big deal, but as FF himself said, it's the principle of the thing. I want my $60 and an apology. Which I won't get if I tell him to drop dead. You know what's great? If this is the biggest problem I face all week, my life is pretty darn easy these days. And, that, I appreciate.
I watched the news last night. Of course, the Williams trial was the top story. Since he pleaded guilty to all charges, I'm not sure what is served by displaying his deviant behaviour to the whole world. Public shaming, I guess. There must be some medieval need that is met by a good old public shaming. This being said, what an effing creep. I wanted to take a shower after seeing just two of the cropped photos. For every one like him that gets caught, how many others are out there? At the same time, I could not help but think that in frat houses across Canada, dozens of young guys immediately knew what they are going to dress up as for Halloween. Expect to see lots of hulking guys in teenage girls' underwear at a university near you. Apparently only a fraction of the people whose homes were broken into reported the theft to the police. I don't understand that. If I came home from work, and all my underwear was gone, you better believe I'd be calling the cops pronto. The other thing I don't get. Where did he find the time to commit all these crimes? It makes you wonder. The next time you're trying to phone a friend all evening and there's no answer, just think of what that friend could be up to. And did his wife never ask where he was? I know they lived apart but still there would be hours upon hours when he was not reachable and wasn't at work either. Am I overly suspicious or are most people not suspicious enough? If I don't see Blackie for a day, I'm worried. And he doesn't even have the thumbs to try on my underwear in secret.
Didn't do my mid-term tonight because I HAD to watch the finale. I guess Roger will have his fatal heart attack next season when he realizes Joan is still pregnant. Ha Ha, say I.Roger had the best line when Don announced his engagement to Megan, the girl from Montreal "Who the hell is that?"
I'm annoyed at my Con U Cont Ed professor. I am taking an on-line management class to brush up on management jargon and to have some up-to-date training on my HR file.
We were given the mid-term this weekend. It is a freakin' nightmare. There are 6 questions, and for two of them, it is written "limit your answer to 2 pages". Wha? I was thinking of limiting my WHOLE exam to 2 pages. But, no, apparently this guy is expecting Management War & Peace.
Buddy! please! It's a Continuing Ed class not a Ph.D. What is wrong with this guy? I've got to have it finished by Thursday. It's going to be a grumpy week. :(
Hey kids, can you spot the black cat among the many, many fallen leaves that the owner of the property is too lazy to rake today?
I saw the last of the rescued miners come out of the ground last night. It was a wonderful moment. But I have two comments:1) The President of Chile is a windbag. My gawd, man, shut up. The head miner has been down there for over two months. You think he wants to spend his first moments above ground listening to you drone on and on. STFU, hombre.2) The Chilean national anthem is endless. It's kinda like the Chilean President. It never ended.If I had been trapped in a hole for two months, what is the first thing I might've wanted to do upon rescue? Not sing O Canada. I would be more like that one who asked his wife: How's the dog? But I might've said: I need chips.
I don't shop at the Gap, but I saw that they unveiled a new logo last week. This change in logo apparently caused millions of people to get the vapours, start fanning themselves frantically and go into a collective tizzy. So the company scrapped the new logo. I guess I am in the minority because I really liked the new logo. I liked it a lot. Does that make me a contrarian or an avant-gardiste? Does anyone care?
We just had a lunch-time reception for staff.Two glasses of white wine later, I'm drunk at my desk again. Fun!
You may ask yourself...just how badly run is Nanuk's place of employment? Our department will soon have a new boss. This would be my boss's boss, and therefore also the boss of us wee underlings. The new boss's name was posted on the internal website for the whole organization. This man's wife also works here. She saw her husband's name on the website and called him. Nobody in HR had contacted him to tell him he had the job. Which means he had not officially accepted it. So now we don't know if he is really the new boss or whether he turned it down. Frankly, would you want to leave a secure job elsewhere to come to a place that runs like this? D'Oh!
Where do I begin? Thanksgiving dinner with Fancy Feast didn't happen. Why? He slept through it. I phoned him three times during the day to say I'm coming to pick you up. And he never responded. I was beyond furious. Then after 5:00 he emails to say he just got up and never heard the phone and he now feels quote like a giant turd unquote. I understand that he's working double shifts and is exhausted, but jeezus.
A long phone call ensued. He has now promised: 1) full financial reimbursement of my expenses for the wasted day ($60) this includes $20 for the red wine he requested (and which I opened and actually it is pretty good, so I will enjoy the remainder of the bottle over the course of the weekend); 2) the preparation and serving of a gourmet meal by him for me including dessert; 3) some other special thing that he will think of. Any wagers on whether any of this comes true? Let us not hold our collective breath.
Meanwhile, mid-afternoon, when I was in full enraged ranting mode against Fancy Feast, I get a phone call from Smoothie. I was very upset; he was trying to calm me down. Later, there is a knock on the door and a lady is standing there holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers. See photo below. With a note from Smoothie that says Happy Thanksgiving.
So, the crazy Egyptian ruins my Thanksgiving and the crazy Jew salvages it. That's one point for Zionism.
Other consolation prize: enough leftovers for 2 days of hot turkey sandwiches...mmm.
Oh noes. Apparently the blimpy photo strategy was a failure. The Leprechaun wrote back and considered this photo exchange a "positive experience". Good lord. Now what? Suggestions?In Thanksgiving prep news, Fancy Feast has requested ice wine with our meal. I mean, really. He can't just ask for a chablis or a burgundy like anyone else would, but no, ice wine. Sheesh.His nickname is the most appropriate of any I have come up with. To quote Goodfellas* "You're a piece of work, my friend". *Actually it may be from Reservoir Dogs.
I did not hear back from Mr. Shawn the Leprechaun so I am guessing that my cunning plan of using the blimpish photo worked. Heh heh.But who cares about that because JAW Fan and I agree that the biggest news of this week was in the world of marketing. Sun Chips will no longer be sold in the deafening crinkly biodegradable bags. It will soon be safe to buy Sun Chips again. Their bags will longer be a threat to your aural health.
Over the weekend, after the afternoon of video games with Smoothie, I decided I had had enough of (literally) fun and games, and maybe it was time to look into meeting a fellow close to my own age. So on Sunday I responded to two Craigslist ads, one from a man 50 years old and one from a man 49 years old.The 50-year-old responded right away. Italian, divorced with 4 kids. 4 kids! He sent me a photo of himself with his 25-year-old son. The son looked really yummy, but I digress.... I sent my photo and....he never responded. Once again, a stranger was there to remind me that I am not, in true fact, Angelina Jolie. When I informed Smoothie of this exchange, he was angry and said "You need to write back and tell him what a fuckin' douchebag he is". But I didn't. Why bother. The 49-year-old guy seems quite sharp and nice. Divorced, with one son. At least that is a reasonable number of children. After a few emails, I suggested we exchange pictures to get that out of the way quickly. Why waste time? Oddly enough, he was reluctant. If his first reply he said he would send one and added: "If you should suddenly go incommunicado after that, like someone who has fallen off the face of the planet, I'll take the hint." And I thought I was insecure! In the follow-up email he did indeed attach a couple of photos and said: "If I don't hear back, then message received loud and clear." Is that sad or what? Is he playing the pity card? I asked Smoothie what he thought. His words of wisdom: "He's just like me. His self esteem is in the toilet. He knows you're not going to answer." So, what did he look like? Let us say he is a hybrid of two celebrities: Wallace Shawn and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Which is not my type. At all.At this stage in my life, do I have the right to judge? I'm not sure. But not being a heartless beeoitch I sent my photo in return (a particularly blimpish photo), with a non-commital comment. Smoothie says this was a terrible idea because any response with a photo is a positive response, and if I am not interested I should've just ended it and not give the guy any hope. But I don't like to be mean. Should I have not answered? Or simply said sorry, I'm not interested as you will always be after me Lucky Charms? (What I am really hoping is that he'll take one look at my picture and think "I can do so much better than her" and that will end it. Please reject me, Mr. Shawn the Leprechaun.)This dating shit is hard. I think I will stick to playing Command & Conquer with Smoothie and arguing about fingerling potatoes with Fancy Feast. Better the devils I know.
Faithful readers of this blog will recall that a couple of months ago I read a late novel by Philip Roth and wasn't too impressed. Yesterday, at the Con U used book sale, I picked up Portnoy's Complaint. So now I will read some early Roth.I'm expecting it to amuse me in a Rachel Papers kind of way, i.e. a young man's book about a young man, with all the superoveractive hormones that suggests. We shall see.
In a moment of insanity, I decided to invite Fancy Feast to my place for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner next weekend. He was delighted, to say the least, because he is not from a traditional "Canadian" culture (i.e. he was born in Egypt) so he has never been invited for a real Thanksgiving before.His first question: What's the smallest turkey we can get? Answer: We're not getting a turkey for two people. If we did we would be eating leftovers and turkey soup until Xmas. We are getting a turkey breast and a turkey leg so we have enough white and dark meat for us both without excessive leftovers.This seemed to satisfy him.Next question: Can we have fingerling potatoes?Excuse me?He wants fingerling potatoes. If we cook them with the meat, they will absorb turkey juices and will be delicious, he states. No need for mashed potatoes, he says.At this point, I turned the cooking of the whole meal over to him. Why fight it? Resistance is futile. So, I'm buying everything and he is in charge of the kitchen. I'll just drink wine while he works. Stay tuned for further details.
I finally caved in and got a litter box for the Black Cat. It is in the mud room.I could not stand to think of him sleeping outside now that the cold nights are here, and the stubborn little fellah won't go home, so what could I, Miss Softee, do? The mud room is not insulated so it's not paradise, but he sleeps curled up in one of my mother's old coats and now has a litter box, so it's pretty well official: I have 4 cats. That's two into the Crazy Cat Lady Zone.He doesn't stay in there all day, however. Once he has been served his breakfast, he's out the door. He is an outdoorsman after all.*sigh*
I went to another Open House today. It was about 6 blocks away and it was a house exactly like my shack.And, boy! was it shacky.Now I know what the market expects for $359,000. A run-down 60-year-old, unrenovated house. It's ridiculous.I'm waiting to see if there is an Open House soon for the split-level on Champlain that has the pool, the bike path, and the hot male nurses. Yes, I've decided they do exist.
Yesterday I did something I had never done before. I went to an internet cafe and played video war games.Yes. I was not good at it. I went because BGTSmoothie asked me to. So I agreed. These games require speed and hand and eye coordination. I have none of these abilities. BGTSmoothie's comments were mainly "Dude, you're too slow" and "Dude, you're going to die". Yes, he calls me Dude. More than once he pulled the mouse from my hand in a panic "Dude! You're being attacked!" With a lot of assistance from him, well, more like him taking over large parts of the game, I did manage to defeat the Easy Army twice. I was China. And I was victorious.
