Unbelievable! Just like that, my blog ftp connection is miraculously restored, and no one has bothered to respond to my post in the Pyra discussion AT ALL. I'm glad it's fixed, but I would have liked to have had some assurances at the time that it was going to be fixed.

:P

Hmm, blogger doesn't want to talk to my ftp server, it seems. This has been going on all day. I don't like this one bit. Especially not in addition to my computer, which I am about to give a shit-kicking and reformat the hard drive.

~sigh~

It has been a tough day for this Limegirl.

BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!

Look what I got in the mail today! How terribly exciting! I have a 499/1000 chance of winning a Chefmaster 10 pc. Knife and Cleaver Set, A 1/1000 chance of winning a Sony Playstation Video System, a 499/1000 chance of winning a Surpise Package (approximate value: $100.00), a 1/1000000 chance of winning $5000 Cash, and a 1/1000 chance of winning a 27" Colour TV. All I have to do is allow a company to send a vacuum cleaner salesman to my door and try to badger me into buying an overpriced vacuum cleaner. Following the badgering, I may qualify to win any one of their marvelous prizes.

I tossed it.

Good thing you can't catch communicable diseases over the internet, 'cause i have one humdinger of a throat infection.

I thought it was viral, so I didn't bother to go see a doctor. Well, clearly I did have a viral infection (accompanied by muscle aches and fever), however the inflammation in my throat is clearly bacterial. Looks like I'm going to have to get some drugs today.

Well, the illness did give me a chance to catch up on my reading, and Forever North got me hooked on a series of fantasy books by Dave Duncan. I just finished the A Man of His Word series, which was absolutely fantastic! I couldn't put it down. Especially the fourth book. I read that one in one day.

I didn't used to be much of a fantasy reader, but Dave Duncan is a fantastic author. Not to mention that he lives in Calgary. How cool is that? :)

~shiver~

Who ever heard of FROST in the middle of May??? I mean, come ON! It's not supposed to suck THAT much to live here.

I can't believe it's zero degrees Celcius out there. Bleah.

:P

Hey, I'm still open to any suggestions regarding a home for my movies, so let me know if you've got some good ideas. In the meantime, I will continue my search. :)

Digital cameras are fun.

Phew, what a sudden and unexpected few days!

On Monday (around lunchtime), Forever North found out that he had to leave for Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that afternoon. At first I wasn't going with him, but he couldn't find his wallet, so I had to throw my shit in a bag and jump in Dan's (FN's colleague) truck. It turned out his wallet was in the back seat, but HONEST, it wasn't a ploy!

We left around 6:00 pm, and arrived around 12:30 that night. It was a very long drive, and if you've never driven through the Canadian prairies, it is very, very flat. As Dan put it, "You can watch your dog run away for three days.". Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, because the prairies do roll a bit. According to FN, it's much flatter around Winnepeg.

I'm a bit of a city girl, so the trip was immensely novel for me. We drove in Dan's big GMC truck with country and western music blaring all the way. I don't generally listen to C.W. music, but it added to the ambiance. ;)

Dan recounted his experiences of small town life and how he had to re-learn how to speak small town talk. He told us that one of the keys to small town talk is to pepper your language with swear words. When he went into a gas station on the way to buy a map, he waltzed in and said, "Anybody know how to get to fucking Calgary from Saskatoon?". He was immediately accepted. Of course, he's also 6'3" and white, so that helps too. I don't think it would be as charming coming out of my mouth.

Saskatoon, I was told at one time, is like a small version of Edmonton. I discovered this to be somewhat true, and somewhat not true. Both cities have a river running through them, both have the downtown area on one side of the river, and the provincial university on the other. They also have similar weather. As my cab driver put it, "We get the same weather as Edmonton, but about a day later.".

However, Saskatoon has 1/4 the population, and isn't booming nearly as much as Edmonton is. Edmonton has quite a lot of new development, whereas Saskatoon has a lot of older buildings. Saskatoon has a much more small-town feel to it, and substantially fewer minorities.

Nevertheless, Saskatoon is a lovely, charming little city. If I were still interested in pursuing veterinary medicine, I wouldn't hesitate to go to the University of Saskatchewan. Their animal sciences facility (complete with a barn and herd of dairy cattle) is very cool!

I have some pictures and movies to show you, but I'm having trouble finding a place to put my movies. I've run out of space on the one server I was using, so I'll have to find a different one to start using.

Hey, anybody wanna host my movies? :)

Ew.

Please clean your mouse, especially if you have a Logitech Trackman Marble+, like mine. Bleah.

WAHOO! It's almost 6:00 in the morning, and I'm probably going insane with fatigue, but I made the Power Bloggers list!!!

A fleeting moment in the life of this quiet blog which I must, indeed, celebrate. :)

Hands down, this has got to be one of the wildest things I've ever heard.

What do you think would happen if you decided to deposit a junk mail check for $95,093.35? Find out here.

The guy has more cajones (no, really) than I do, that's for sure.

(Found via hyperbole)

Brush with weirdness:

So I'm chatting with this guy on Yahoo, and he tells me he's from Edmonton. Really, I say, so am I! I ask him if he's in school, and he says yes, he's upgrading. Oh that's nice, I think. So I ask, "Are you planning on going to university?". He says, "No, I'm a gangster".

Ha ha, I think. No, he's serious. He's a gangster. Not in the 1930's sense of the word, but yes, he makes a living doing things that are against the law. Oh, well, that's great.

It made me want to ask, "Hey, do you get a health plan with that?".

Yep folks, it's a weird world out there.

I would also like to tell the world that I have awesome friends. Yeah, you Calgary and Edmonton people know who you are.

Thanks to all you lovely people for being who you are. *hug*

I would like to apologize for my earlier harshness.

I was very upset, and thus I was not screening my comments especially well.

I know the guy I was bitching about probably won't be reading this anytime soon, but it is possible that we will be in some kind of contact in the future, and I'd rather end my bridge burning here.

I'm sorry if any of the people who read this webpage were offended. I know there are some people who are fond of the guy I was bitching about, so again, sorry about that.

I'm feeling much better now, so all of you go out and spread some love and joy now, you hear?

I must have missed a fucking meeting.

I made a mistake, yes. I shouldn't have added my identity to Outlook Express on someone else's computer. I probably shouldn't have even been checking my email on it, even if their son uses it regularly and seemed to think it was okay.

But since when do apologies mean nothing? Since when is it appropriate to treat someone like a worthless piece of shit because they made a simple mistake? One mistake? What the fuck kind of attitude is that? From the guy who treats the waitress like a fucking moron because she brought him a double scotch instead of a triple.

I made an error. But clearly that means nothing, 'cause the asshole fucking walks on water. Certainly his behaviour is impeccable. Certainly it's a lovely way to go through the world making people feel like shit for simply making the mistake of being in the same space as him.

The whole incident meant way too much to me, since he happens to be the friend of my friend's mom. I really like my friend's mom, but I'm pretty sure she has nothing good to say about me either by this point.

Well, you know what? Fuck with it all. Even if I really wanted to be liked by these people, I will not waste one more tear, one more fucking breath on that asshole. My mistake aside, he has a fucking attitude problem. I feel fucking sorry for him, because of all the beautiful people he will never get to know. He will miss out on countless beautiful human relationships because he can't fucking treat other people with decency and respect. In fact, I'm GLAD he saved me the fucking trouble of coming to this conclusion later. I might have actually found something good to say about him by that point.

Know any assholes? Dish it out here, baby. I may just post your rant.

Boy, folks are off to an early start this morning!

Our Power Bloggers have set off at a dizzying pace, led currently by bleu blog at 13 updates today alone!

It's only 9:30 am, but if you haven't got 3 entries by now, you ain't makin' the Power Blog list today. ;)

Looking around, I've noticed a lot of blogs popping up that don't necessarily originate from the US. Some are from Belgium, UK, Singapore, etc.. And some, like mine, are from Canada.

I didn't get to go to SXSW, but why not have a Canadian Internet shindig? Show yourselves, people! Stand up and identify yourselves! I wanna know who the Canadian bloggers are! Fill out this form!

If I actually get a response, I'll post a list of Canadian bloggers, for all to ooh and ahh at. YAY.

I don't think you readers out there are interested in knowing the intimate workings of my reproductive organs, but you might be interested in hers.

If I'm wrong about this, heh, send me an email and surprise me. My life isn't exciting enough. ;)

"I'd like to find the women who inspired the pink/purple feminine market share and bash in their sagittal sutures with a big rock."

OW!!!

Whoo!

The updating minimum has now risen to 7, with Zippyblog still reigning as today's champion at 33 updates.

She's a machine, I tell ya!!!

Oooh, I'm a-trembling with delight!

She called my site " . . . this gem . . ."

What a nice thing to call it!

I really shouldn't . . . no . . . soap operas are bad . . .

ARGH! I can't resist.

I swear, I try to stay out of blogging gossip, but this takes the fucking cake. Who needs Days of Our Lives, when you have real people romancing other real people over the internet, and sending pictures that are them, but aren't them . . .

Oh well, it's too complicated to explain here. Go read it and join me in being a blogging gossip whore.

By the way, are Andy and Andrea really quarelling?

quarrel link 1


quarrel link 2

Ooh, everyone is upping the ante today! To make the top list of the most updated blogs, you now almost have to have 6 entries today! Whoa nelly! You bloggers are busy folks today!

I took the colour test (found via Pale Sky). Apparently I'm red. I don't think this accurately describes me at all, but maybe those of you who know me might think otherwise. Tell me what you think:

Your color is RED, the color of racy sportscars, blushing cheeks and luscious roses. Red symbolizes passion, romance, and love. People ruled by red trust their feelings more than their rational judgment, and are known to act spontaneously. If you see something you want, you go for it without thinking twice. Reds don't wait around for people to make decisions. They dive right in. Quite the romantic, you listen closely to your emotions. In fact, if your heart isn't in all that you do, you won't be satisfied. You may pour all of your energy into the projects you tackle, but your impulsive nature means your passions might shift as frequently as the wind. This is why some Reds have trouble with commitment. Overall, it's great to be Red. No one lives life more completely than you.

It's going to take a few days for the novelty of this to wear off. :)

Two!

~waits with baited breath~

Oooh, that's four for today, let's squeeze in two more and see what happens!

One . . . .

I wonder how many updates in a day it will take me to hit this list?

Geez, I need to read more slowly.

I almost shit a proverbial brick when I thought that Clearly Canadian was an American-owned company.

In fact, it really is a Canadian company. Not that it really matters. *sigh* It's a Canadian thing, folks. Don't mind me.

Scenes from a university computer lab:

I don't know what the three people in front of me are doing, but I'll give you the run down:

There's a blond guy with glasses, ~28-32 yrs. old, another shorter guy about the same age with dirty blond hair and glasses (and a beard), and an older man, ~55-65 yrs. old, with grey hair and glasses. Blondie and Bearded Guy appear to be computer guys. Maybe some network administrators. Old Guy seems to be a less computer-saavy person, perhaps a prof or something.

It looks like Blondie and Bearded Guy are helping Old Guy set up the lab for a future course, maybe a summer session course. Old Guy does not seem to be grasping quite what they're doing, and Blondie was just lecturing Old Guy, telling his that he needs to " . . . write all of this down . . ." because he will " . . . need to do this . . .".

Old Guy doesn't seem to be fully getting it, and one wonders if it doesn't have something to do with English clearly being his second language. Old Guy seems to have a thick eastern European accent, although I'm not sure exactly what kind of accent.

Old Guy doesn't seem to be stupid, but I think the situation is made harder by the fact that he is being told what to do by a guy half his age. Old Guy is probably quite knowledgeable in his own right, but not necessarily in computers as Blondie and Bearded Guy are.

Their banter is calmer now, and they seem to be trying to crack some complications in the system. I can't quite see what it is they're trying to set up, but Bearded Guy is quietly tapping away at the keyboard, trying to get a result out of the network.

Blondie is enjoying the occassional sip of a mystery beverage (probably coffee) from a bathtub sized mug with the Warner Bros. Tazmanian Devil on the side. Both Blondie and Old Guy are watching the monitor intently over Bearded Guy's shoulders.

Look like Bearded Guy still hasn't cracked the problem.

Now there's this other guy, who's ~45-55 yrs. old, with grey hair and glasses. He's wearing a blue plaid shirt and jeans, and looking very computer saavy as he wanders from terminal to terminal, rebooting computers.

It doesn't look like he has anything to do with Blondie, Bearded Guy, or Old Guy. It looks like he's doing his own thing. He's either with Computer Network Services, or he's a computer prof who's preparing something for a class.

The population in the computer lab is very odd indeed. I will continue monitoring the situation.

Edmonton looks like a giant slurpee today.

Mother Nature decided to give us snow today, but the weather is too warm for it to stay as snow. Thus, the city is now a giant slurpee.

Too bad it isn't mango flavoured.

~waves~

Hello, my name is Limegirl, and I am an anime-aholic.

Thanks to Hayao Miyazaki and his colleagues at Studio Ghibli, I have fallen under the intoxicating spell of Japanese anime.

Some people assume that because I'm half-Japanese, I must be an anime enthusiast. Well I wasn't, not until recently. I scoffed at Sailor Moon. I guffawed at the absurdity of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a thinly veiled remake of a popular Japanese 80's TV show. (Okay, so it wasn't anime, it was stupid anyway.)

But then I met Forever North, whose friend happens to be a very active member of the anime enthusiast community in Alberta. FN introduced me to some of his fan-dubbed tapes early on. First there was Ranma 1/2. Classic. Then DNA². Hysterical. Most of the series that he introduced me to were funny. But then I saw the Macross Plus movie. I hadn't realized that anime could be interesting and serious too.

It was really only a passing interest for me, until one day FN showed me Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro). I cried, I cried, then I cried some more. It was a lighthearted movie that struck deep. Anime was catching hold of me. The next movie I saw was Omohide Poro Poro (Only Yesterday). I'm not sure what it was about that movie, but I felt as though I was touching the memories of my mother, my grandmother, and the self that would have grown up immersed by Japanese culture in Japan, had fate took a different turn. I cried even harder than when I saw Totoro.

The fatal blow was dealt by the last movie I saw, Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). Like Totoro and Omohide Poro Poro, Mononoke Hime was a movie worked on by Miyazaki and his colleagues. I had missed seeing it in the theatres when it was here, but I was pleased to discover a fan-subtitled version available for personal viewing. I had heard it was good, but I didn't really know what it was about. Well, without giving too much away, I will tell you that I was absolutely blown away by this movie. It was more than I ever imagined. Just hearing the soundtrack brings tears to my eyes. It was one of the most moving things I'd ever seen.

Anime isn't for everyone, especially people who have a particular disdain for anything dubbed or subtitled. But for those who can appreciate it, it can be a remarkable form of media.

I am hoping to gather enough interesting visual and audio tidbits in order to create my own little anime-enthusiast's corner. I will let you know as soon as I put it all together.

In the meantime, if you too are interested in anime, you may want to visit some of the following sites:

The Official Miramax Princess Mononoke site


The Official Hayao Miyazaki site

For those of you interested in anime in Alberta, you may want to visit the Anime Alberta site, which is the group effort of Albertan anime clubs. I just recently checked the site and it didn't seem to be functioning, but it may be up later. While you're waiting, you may want to visit BAKA, the University of Alberta anime enthusiast's club.

If you're in Edmonton on July 15th and 16th, why not check out Animethon 7, the largest anime festival in Western Canada? I know my friend would be glad I sent ya. :)

I love the new changes to Blogger.

In fact, I am in love with Blogger.

Limegirl + Blogger = LOVE

Well, I have good news and I have bad news.

First, the bad news. I am no longer going to Japan. It's a rather long and protracted story, so I won't get into it. The short version of it is that circumstances do not allow me to go to Japan on the 18th.

I'm not terribly upset, but it is bad news for those of you who were hoping to get a postcard from me. I assure you that you will all still be able to receive a postcard, perhaps even a Japanese one, but it will have a Canadian postage stamp on it. Anyone who finds this particularly objectionable can complain here.

There is good news though! Oh yes, there is!

I've decided to go back to school, and for now, I'm aiming to get into engineering physics. It's going to require some upgrading (Math 31), and much blood, sweat and tears, but I can't wait. The minimum 7.0 (on a 9 point scale) that I will have to attain in my first year of engineering only serves to motivate me further. It's all very exciting! (7.0/9.0 is approximately equal to a 3.9-4.0 out of 5.0)

I know, there are some people wondering what the hell I've been smoking, but I swear, it's the scientist in my blood! I just can't shake it. I've inherited a love of science from my father. We'll see if I can attain that kind of GPA, but I'm feeling pretty confident about it. I really think I can do this!

PS) I'll be sure to update the postcard page once I get home!

Hey, did anyone out there get infected by the "ILoveYou" virus?

The local university here took a real shit-kicking today. It spread like fucking wildfire and caught tons of people off guard.

I heard one of the engineering profs bitching about how his colleague lost a whole shwack of files. Heh, funny. Not funny for that guy, but funny.

Hmmm,

Did I say I took loads of pictures? It kind of ended up being a few. I did take some movies, which I'll work on getting posted soon.

Did you know real life can be quite compelling? You probably don't, since you're reading this. I've recently discovered the value of real life. People around here in the real world don't know what the hell a blog is, and quite frankly, don't give a shit. You know what? That's a breath of fresh fucking air.

I like blogging, it's amusing. But it's certainly not going to give me a career or advance my self-development (not much, anyway). I'm not abandoning this, but I'm off to strike out into the world and find my place in flesh and blood reality.

I've got some good educational prospects in my sights, and I'm going to check them out. I'm even considering moving to Calgary. It's all very exciting. And tangible. Do you remember what the air smells like after a rainstorm? Do you remember what it feels like to have the sun shining on your face? No? Better get out there and do some review, kids. :)