On Monday I had the pleasure of sitting in my car for about 2 hours waiting for traffic to move. This is usually a 12 minute drive, and needless to say I was pretty peeved about getting to SFU at around 10:00 when I left close to 8:00. What was the problem? It seems that as soon as a little snow hits Vancouver, everybody turns into complete wimps when it comes to driving. Now, I would rather have this than have everybody drive really fast and have lots of accidents, but please – the way to go down a small hill when its snowy is to go down it!!! Don’t linger at the top wondering wondering if its a good idea. I target this at the guy driving the huge Winnebago who wanted to do a uturn, and not having enough room for this, chose to just sit there.

Another thing is that while SFU did an admirable job in keeping their roads clear on the mountain, Burnaby is responsible for everything until 3/4 of the way up. This means, if you aren’t familiar with driving to SFU in the winter, that the first 3/4 of the mountain road receives no attention at all from sand/salt/plowing. Needless to say, this really sucks when you are trying to get to class on time, or when you are one of the approximately 70 people trapped on the crappy articulated buses that Translink chooses to run up snowy mountains. These things cannot do the job when its snowy.

Looks like we are going to have about 10-12 centimeters of snow overnight. This normally wouldn’t bother me, but with Monday as my prevailing memory of driving in the snow with idiots, I’m not looking forward to my 8:30 in the morning class.

1. Ask the guest a question that he/she has frequently been quoted as saying they don’t want to talk about. This isn’t something I would apply to a political guest on a talk show (they deserve to be badgered). Once the guest (lets hypothetically say an author:) states that he or she doesn’t want to talk about it, keep asking asinine questions and dwell on the topic for at least five minutes afterward.
2.  Know nothing about the topic you are quizzing them about.
3. Take everything the guest says, and mix it up and regurgitate it to the audience in your own words.
4. Talk about the millennium.
5. Be ignorant about what your guest is here to promote.
6. Get the worst host that the radio station has to do the interview.
7. Sensationalize your questions whenever possible.
8. Pretend to know what the hell you are doing.
9. Call the book a movie when it really is a book. Ooops.

Today I got home from a trip to the grocery store and walked in my door. I thought : “Oh no! my place has been ransacked”! Then I remembered that was the way that I left it. What a relief!

It took me well into November to reliably write 1999 (and not 1998), both on notes I take at school and these things here in the web. That was only changing 1 digit. Now I have to change four, which should take a while for me to remember. I wonder how long it will be before I write 1999 on one of these updates.

This year, for probably only the second time in the last 10 years, I had a great New Years Eve (though surreal). I tried to roll over while a cat was on top of me, and apparently claws are the way that cats react to that. Oh look – visitors/climbing toys!

If you think this update is ahead of its time – deal with it – I won’t be around to actually write on the 31st.

Edwin Newman writes in the The World Almanac Guide to Gooder Word Usage : “The first century began January 1 of the year 1 AD. It follows that the 20th century will not end until December 31, 2000, and that the 21st century will begin on January 1, 2001. Not, repeat not, January 31, 1999, as the common assumption has it.”

Now, you have to admit that the man makes a good point, that we are all raving idiots on this one. The media has not chosen to seize accuracy in this matter, which probably isn’t surprising considering how the media operates these days. The truth of it is, we have been inundated with Millennium this and Millennium that, and even some end of the century things. All of it wrong, and a year early.

I have pointed this out to numerous people, none of whom wanted to hear it. The truth hurts. There are two ways I could look at this:

1. I could staunchly cling to this notion, and tell everyone about it. I could refuse to accept that everyone else thinks it is the end of the millennium. The thing is that nobody wants to hear it, no matter how right it is. I’m not going to do this, instead I will air it in this manner, rather than pestering people verbally with it. That being said, I don’t really care all that much, and my suggestions along this line have been more of observation than that of outrage.

2. The other thing about this is that the guys like Edwin here are going to miss all the parties. These guys can cling to these ideas all they want, but the big flashy stupid ball is going to drop in Times Square whether they like it or not, and people will be calling it the new Millennium, and the next century. William Safire made a good point in saying this: “such linguistic and mathematical correctness gets tromped on and flattened by the hooves of the happily inaccurate herd, leaving a small know of hard-faced language protesters holding a sign that reads NOT YET amid the cork-popping celebrants of the new millennium.

The other thing I have though of here is that, always wanting to find a marketing opportunity, everyone really does know this. Just wait until next year – people will renounce their acceptance of the January 1, 2000 millennium, and declare that January 1, 2001 is the REAL MILLENNIUM! Think of the sales and hype that we could create out of that!

Oh, and Happy New Year, no matter what century you think that it is.

Today I had two final exams. On the same day. On a Saturday, a week before Christmas. Right before the exam someone had the audacity to start singing the Simon and Garfunkle song Cecilia, or something like that. Then it happened. It kept playing in my head, not only that which was sung but far beyond into things which were not. The exam went ok except that damn song plagued me throughout. That being said, I never want to see or hear anything about sea urchin gastrulation from any source again (I am not suggesting it was part of the song…). That means you.

Today I went to the mall. This proved to be a mistake as it appears Christmas is very close, the fact of which I have only been vaguely aware of recently. Thirty minutes to find a parking spot, and only ten to realize that the store didn’t have what I wanted. I should have stayed in bed.

On the television the other day I saw a woman being interviewed. She was anxiously gushing on and on about how she had to find the perfect Christmas presents this year because it was the last Christmas of the millennium. First of all, its not (don’t get me started). Secondly her reasoning for this was that everybody would remember if she didn’t get the perfect gifts. What the hell is that? Frankly you can ask me 2 years from now what my main disappointments in life have been and what I did or didn’t get for Christmas at any time won’t make the list.

Maybe the perfect Millennium gift is actually a flat of canned goods and a portable stove. Ask me in two weeks.

The best news that has come along in quite sometime was that my printer got fixed, to use my gooder English. The problem before was that I took it to the SFU computer store where I bought it and they told me that the only thing they could do, would cost 950 dollars. This seemed a tad extreme, so I took it to another local dealer. Took the guy there a total of ten minutes to fix the problem, AND he cleaned the thing so that it will actually suck up paper like it is supposed to. Before, I had to hand feed the damn thing so that it would take in paper. Open up, an airplane is coming in for landing.

I swear, if I was any better at procrastination I would even put off the end of this sente

nce.

Instead of studying, today I scanned many pictures that I have taken. That’s not a metaphor.

Today I took possession of four CD’s. None of them were written during my lifetime. What does this say?.

SFU’s motto is ” Nous sommes pretes” – which loosely translated means “We are lovers of bureaucracy”. I think that SFU should adopt the motto of the Parking and Security office which states : “There is no good reason for it, that is just the way that it is”. In French this is something like : Il n’y a aucune bonne raison d’elle, celle est juste la manière dont elle est, or so I have been told. I think that we all agree that this is catchier and easier to remember than “nous sommes pretes”. Anyways, this pretty sums up the entire attitude of SFU administration to my estimation, perhaps the SFU senate should take a look at changing the motto.

Myths are nothing more than easy truths for idiots. Personally I think that is a myth.

Last week I wrote my first final exam of the semester. This went rather well, even though writing 1 page long mini-essays about statistics isn’t the way this kind of thing is usually done. Conceptual exams about the intricacies of multiple regression isn’t preferred to the usual statistics exam that consists of calculations. However, it went well, even though I hadn’t a clue on how to contrast S xy with S’xy . I still can’t find it in the textbook or the notes, a week later.

Well, at long last its over. I think the usual quote is : “all good things come to an end”. Sadly, my undefeated streak in the game of Trivial Pursuit has come to an end. This time, I wasn’t playing on a team, as I had before, and succumbed to the categories that I knew little about. Oh well, its not like it was a streak of 20 or something. I’d only played trivial pursuit twice before.

The benefits of planting a university on top of a mountain once again came to fruition today. SFU is quite a ways up there, and today it snowed around 10 centimeters. This isn’t a big deal for me, I merely slow down my car and take it easy. What I really hate about snow is that most others (in this area) don’t seem to know how to drive in it. I guess I really don’t know either, but I do slow down, and have never had any problems in so doing.

I think that blue is completely overrated as a color, don’t you?

I think if I had my way I’d skip Christmas altogether and that scares me.

You are reading this, and I bet i have a 40 percent chance of guessing your name.

If i only had the ideas, I would build another web site. Most of the stuff on my parents garden site has been done. That was nice, because I could learn how to do all these things and have content provided to me with which to do them. What now?

Today I played a few games on the computer. I have always stated that I would much rather write a game than play it. I think that still holds true, so I am writing a game now. Well, soon.

I am not renowned for my culinary expertise, as I have mentioned before. However, I imagine that one thing that quickly puts a damper on the fun of preparing a meal is the presence of blood all over the place. Now, I am not saying that this happened to me, but whomever it did happen to only noticed it once he had begun typing on a keyboard. Thankfully, blood doesn’t stain plastic, or so I have heard and read.

Recently I was asked what I was doing for the new millennium. What am I doing for the next thousand years? I don’t know, stuff….. what a stupid question!

I think that the people who email me with stupid comments about how they were offended about my webpage, noticed spelling mistakes, or disagree with my ideas, just simply have too much time on their hands. You know who you are.

If you read the previous entry, you might have noticed that I was going to get my printer fixed. They told me it was going to cost about $900. The printer only cost $490! Boy am I glad that I spent all that time researching which one to buy, considering the damn thing only lasted a year and a half and printed about 900 pages! Murphy’s law strikes again! On top of it all, I wouldn’t have spent to $130 on the scanner if I didn’t have a printer to use it with!

Along with my previous and only nickname of Murphy, I have gathered evidence and have begun to conclude that there is accuracy in the statement.

Take for example what happened this past week. On a Wednesday, I received notice that SFU had given me a larger than normal bursary (about $900 as opposed to the usual approx $100). This was pretty exciting, considering I was scraping the bottom of my money barrel, and had absolutely no spending money this close to Christmas.

Wow! $900! How am I going to spend it? Well, I bought a used scanner off of my parents for about $130, and I decided to not spend the rest of it. Rather, I was going to make the next semester more comfortable than usual (a bit of money here and there…). A couple of days after this, a young woman in one of my classes asked me to go out with her, an event which was completely unprecedented in any way, shape, or form. The week was going pretty well.

On top of buying the scanner, I also decided to take my printer in to be fixed, as it developed what I can only describe as a “grand mal seizure” every time you turn it on.

That’s when I got overconfident and decided to take my car through AirCare.

AirCare is the government bureaucracy that everyone in BC has to endure every time they want to renew their car insurance. The idea is to control emissions from vehicles (a good idea, in itself). The problems is is that even a lot of brand new cars don’t pass this test, and they charge you $24 every time you want to test your car. Add to this long waits in front of the testing station, and reports that there are good testing stations to go to and bad ones (you might fail at one, but pass at the next one!).

AirCare seemed like a good idea, but ended along the lines of saying : Hey! let’s build faster ferries! Anyone familiar with BC Ferries fiasco knows what I am talking about.

Well, the week was going so well, due to the aforementioned events, and I took my car through AirCare.

It promptly failed horribly, not even close to the “pass” levels (I think it didn’t study).

Great, I have to get it fixed until it passes or I cannot drive my car, which I have deemed rather necessary, since my University is built on top of a mountain and the transit where I live is “crappy”.

You probably know what is coming next, and no Fiona, it’s not a bank card story.

Turns out that my car needs a new catalytic converter, which is only $500 for parts, and $200 for labour. Normally, a catalytic would cost about $300 dollars installed, but you must remember that I own a Subaru, a brand of vehicle that has to be coddled and babysat though everything from routine servicing to changing of windshield wipers. Just like EVIAN is “N-A-I-V-E” spelled backwards, I think I know the Japanese word for “U-R-A-BUS”.

So all my money is gone, and I am back to being virtually penniless.

But wait!!!! The week was going to end ok after all! I still had a date right? I guess the only consolation that can be found in all of this is that I was in no position to spend money like that, though I would have. However, I never got the chance as the whole charade fell apart well before the event was due to occur.

If you hear of someone speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself, you should say: ‘He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned.’ -Epictetus

On Remembrance Day of this year, there was a movement in Canada for everything to come to a stop for two minutes, to somehow mark that fact that this is the last Remembrance Day before the Millennium (or so was reported). A dubious reason to be sure, but a good idea nonetheless. The idea was that buses, subways, businesses, etc. were to pause for two minutes of silence at 11:00 AM. I personally think this is a great idea.

What I expected to happen with this was exactly what did. What I am referring to is that some people thought that this was a “severe inconvenience” and someone I overheard likened it to being “hijacked” when their transit bus pulled over for two minutes. Lets ignore for the moment the idea that was behind this. ITS TWO MINUTES!!! How inconvenient is it really for you. What would you be doing with that two minutes otherwise? The guy who was “severely inconvenienced” was about my age, and he should get his damned priorities straight. Lets place him in the mid-forties of this century and have him repeat his statement. Jackass.

Today the world is a little less full of questions than it was yesterday. Today I learned, to my immense relief, that I could in fact copyright my sightings of elvis. Now I can tell the world about how the King has visited my neighbourhood in the last few weeks, and how I caught him stealing change out of my backpack at school. You can imagine the stress I was under while attempting to keep this secret for fear that others would exploit MY experience for their own monetary gain. I need to stay silent no more!

On an unrelated matter, I was looking up how to act when hiking. Not in general, but concerning bears that may be in the area. Most of the books recommend wearing little bells to alert the bears to your presence, and to carry pepper spray if this isn’t enough of a deterrent. One of the books said to look for recent bear activity, such as droppings. They said that the way to tell grizzly vs. black bear dropping from each other is that the black bear dropping would have evidence of berries and plant material in it, and grizzly droppings would smell like pepper and have little bells in it.