bon voyage

I have moved.

www.fishbooks.org

see you there.

where have all the flowers gone

$10 if you can tell me the remainder of that line, w/o looking it up on the 'net. Actually, it's pretty easy. It just isn't really a sentence. Anyway, just got back from an excellent spinning class. There was more climbing than speeding, so I was content. Also Michel lent me a heart-rate monitor to wear during the class. I can't really get my heartrate up much over 165 in spinning. Apparently it is tough to bring your heartrate that high while biking, compared to say, running. I wonder about swimming.

The weather has been nuts here. We had a snowstorm last week, and the snow actually stayed on the ground, and now it's overcast and like 16 degrees. Also, we had a flat tire on the weekend, while we were on our way to yoga. At least we got to test out the handy tools that come with the car to remove the tire. Woohoo.

We found a big fat nail in the tire. Damn construction work across the street.

postponed posting

Ugh, the time between posts is already lagging. Guess it has been a pretty busy two weeks. We saw 2 movies recently; Shopgirl & Harry Potter. Shopgirl, which was written by Steve Martin as a novel some years ago, was surprisingly good. The characters came to life on screen in a way that rarely happens if you've read the book before seeing it on film. Ian seemed to really enjoy it too.

Harry Potter we saw on IMAX. I don't know if the allure has gone, or the novelty, but I wasn't as enthralled with this one as the previous three. Maybe because the book was so much longer it was hard to cram everything into a 2-hour flick. In any event, Ralph Fiennes DID NOT disappoint. He was excellent. As was the actor who played Mad-Eyed Moody.

A friend of ours is having a vernissage at our gym this Thursday. You can check out his work here: http://mgz.ca/recent.html.

the days in between

Does anyone else have this problem? It happens to me all the time. Most often when Ian is with me, pointing out the obvious and then laughing *with* me and my silliness. Anyway, so song lyrics. Name a band, any band. One that you've listened to often enough to know most of the words to at least some of their songs. First of all, as my Uncle David pointed out, you rarely ever know all the words to one song. Test it out. It's pretty hard to sing an entire song w/o listening to the CD at the same time. But, I digress. I have this bad habit of not really paying that close attention to the ACTUAL lyrics. Essentially I just make up my own. I mean, who doesn't. But the problem is that of course I think they are the actual lyrics, and then Ian catches me singing some random words that sound like the same words the real singer is singing, but, well, they aren't.

Driving back from an ultimate tournament last spring, a friend mentioned a funny mis-interpretation of lyrics that had happened to her roommate. I forget the artist, but the actual verse was "the cross I bear" and my friend's friend wanted to know why the hell there was a "cross-eyed bear" in the song.

I am particularly bad at led zep and blue rodeo lyrics. I think I hold my own with Paul Simon, though.

forget me not

I just forgot my log-in. I think reading about trying to cram your brain full of facts from the encyclopedia makes me more forgetful, even though it is the author, not I, who is doing the cramming. Oh well. At least the author provides witty descriptions of his quest to be come the smartest man alive. Good stuff, I tell you.

So, the car rocks, although we have yet to really test it either on open road or on country/dirt roads. The time will come.

Ian and went to a hockey game on Tuesday, Habs vs. Panthers. We got there about 10 minutes late and the score was already 2-0 Habs. The second period wasn't super-exciting, but the third was. All tied up and then Panthers get the go-ahead goal on a 2-man advantage. Habs come back with 8 seconds left to tie it up (they too had a 2-man advantage, 6 on 4 as they had pulled the goalie). Cheap penalty call in OT gave the Habs an opportunity to score and they did, robbing us of the thrill of watching shoot outs. Oh well, it was still exciting.

Meanwhile, I'm still in the "nah, I don't have to get back into the gym yet" mode, which is fun, but I feel very sloth-like (which I am sure one M.M. would be very pleased to hear). I keep telling myself "next week." But damn, I am paying for this swanky membership, so I might as well take advantage.

Next week.

zoom zoom

We are now the proud owners of a new car! It is very exciting. It drives FAST. Ok, well we didn't drive it that fast from the dealership home, but damn it is fun to drive. The shifting is like, well, it's almost as smooth as our old car, which had so much wear and tear that you practically didn't need to use the clutch to shift at all. This car is a dream to drive.

zoom zoom. Only it's not a mazda. It's a passat. wagon. shadow blue.

going once, going twice, sold!

Negotiating is a funny business. Last night we went to make/accept an offer for our NEW car. My dad came along for several reasons. Ian and I sort of sat back and let him negotiate with the slick car dealer guy. And you could tell this man was intimidated by my father. He's not a big guy but he looks tough. Watching him sit there, staring this guy down, it was hard not to laugh. Because we know the real story. But looking from an outsider's perspective, it is easy to see how scary dad can be. Seriously. I almost thought that the car dealer was going to crack and give us the car for less than at-cost. He literally looked like he thought my dad would physically hurt him if he didn't give us a good deal.

Rosa Parks died. I hope there is a big memorial service with plenty of tears and laughter and remembering.

I now have a stack of new yorkers waiting for me to read at home. 6 or so of them. The dilemma now becomes do I read them in order (can be useful as some things carry over week to week, or reference previous articles). Or, do I read them in reverse chronological order, so I can catch up with the "new" news first and then peruse at my leisure the issues that may not be that "up-to-date" but interesting nonetheless? decisions decisions.