Forever North found my Half-Life CD. I've been without it since we moved, and my life hasn't been the same without it.

I don't think I've been that gleeful and delighted in months. I couldn't stop giggling and dancing around.

It's been so long, though, that jumping back into it was a bit jarring. The game can be a bit spooky, to say the least, and my heart was beating so hard and so fast that I thought I was going to pass out.

You'd think that would stop me from playing, but noooooooo. Not me. Not even when FN went upstairs to go to bed. Not even knowing that I'm alone here, and it's dark outside. It was the squeezing sensation in my chest that finally got me to stop and look for a more placid activity.

Boy, that's healthy, eh? There's enough anxiety in my life, but I feel compelled to induce it with a video game. I must be a masochist or something.

I just heard the news.

Kaycee Nicole is a hoax.

It's really too involved to be explained here, but I would like to say that my heart goes out to those who were most emotionally invested in this. That includes Halcyon and BWG.

If you'd like to better understand what the hell is going on, this is a good place to go.

Ordering from Chicago Steak & Pizza was a big mistake.

Apparently they have retarded monkeys for drivers, and they couldn't find our place. The driver tried to call, but I was on the phone. The driver then went back with our dinner.

I didn't realize this until 2 hours had passed, and I was beginning to wonder where the hell our food was. I called them and asked where it was. The guy who answered the phone was very short with me, and told me that he wouldn't be sending the driver out again. So our food, the delicious baked lasagna, was to spend the evening getting cold in their kitchen, instead of being consumed by us.

Being as hungry as I was, I wanted to climb through the phone and set the guy on the other end on fire. I was furious.

Kari and I managed to calm down and finally call Boston Pizza, which we should have called in the first place. They were very friendly, the delivery was super fast, and the food was delicious.

I won't be making that mistake twice.

We're having Boston Pizza tonight.

I'm downloading so I can view their menu.

I know you're just waiting with baited breath to hear what we're having, so I'll let you know when we've decided.

One of my old faves is the Boston Brute, which is like a toasted pizza sub, but sooooo much better than just that. Whenever I eat it, I feel like a kid again having take-out-food-bliss. Their pasta specials are great, and their pizza is good, although the crust is a bit bland.

Their baked lasagna is really great, but it would be even better if they would make sure the meat sauce is evenly distributed before they cover it with cheese and bake it.

Speaking of delivery food and baked lasagna, we got the munchies the other night after most of the delivery places had closed. We decided to be daring and call one of the unknowns in the book, Chicago Steak & Pizza. It's one of those places, like AAA AAbu's Hot Pizza, that you're not really sure what you'll be getting.

We ordered baked lasagna, and got 2 tasty orders for the price of 1, and a large pizza. We even got free wings, which were pretty good.

The baked lasagna is worth noting, since it's vastly superior to Boston Pizza's, which surprised us tremendously.

Come to think of it, I don't know why we're ordering from Boston Pizza and not Chicago Steak & Pizza. Perhaps I should rethink this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sure enough, I couldn't resist the most excellent 4 baked lasagnas and free wings for $19.95 from Chicago Steak & Pizza. There'll be enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow, which seems like a better way to spend our money.

Food will be here soon. YUM. :)

I had a chat with all the fur-kids, and they said they're interested in all the stuff the Internet can offer them.

They all have email addresses now and I showed them how to get online, but I made them promise not to use my credit card without asking me first.

If you'd like to send them an email, you can reach them as follows:

Dusty (cat) : dusty_the_cat93@yahoo.com

Mr. Cubbs (cat) : mr_cubbs@yahoo.com

Momo (bunny) : momo_the_bunny@yahoo.com

Mochi and Koji (chinchillas) : mochi_and_koji@yahoo.com

Mochi and Koji asked me to also mention that they are happy to receive any chinchilla-porn that is out there, especially those involving large, fluffy females with beige fur. (They're the only ones with their man-grapes intact, so they can't seem to keep their heads out of the gutter. ~sigh~)

I just found this on Nerve.

In case you haven't heard about this before, she doesn't exist. That's right, she's a face someone made up using SuperGoo.

At first, I thought it was kind of interesting how you could randomly invent the face of someone who probably already exists. But then I saw how serious this guy is about his imaginary girlfriend. He really thinks he's going to find her . . . bad teeth and all. And not only will the real thing look like the picture, but she'll also be " . . . beautiful... in heart and in spirit.".

Don't they have treatment for delusions like this? I mean, the guy has the picture on his headboard, in his closet and on the rear window of his truck.

God help the poor women who resemble that picture.

I continue to find reasons to revisit The Spark.

What caught my attention today was The Date-My-Sister Project. A brother setting up his sister on blind dates, then documenting it on a website without her knowledge is not generally fodder for humour, but this made me laugh out loud.

Partly because the brother in question is such a raving lunatic, and delights in hiding in bushes and behind potted plants with a camera. It doesn't hurt that his writing is also hysterical, and worth reading even if all he was writing about was his dirty socks.

Makes me wish that I had my own guinea pig to set up on blind dates. Hmmm . . . .

Scenes from Suburbia:

Last week, Forever North and I went to my mother's place to pick up some shoes of mine that we had left there. As we were pulling in, we heard a familiar squealing, wailing sound coming from a house down the street from my mother's house.

The first time I ever heard that squealing, wailing noise was several years ago, some time between 10:00 and 11:30 pm. I was either trying to sleep or study, and because the weather was nice, the window was open. My peaceful moment was shattered when I heard what sounded like a goose being run over by a truck repeatedly and for long periods of time. It was made worse by the fact that the sound got softer and louder repeatedly, over and over again. At first I waited for it to stop, but it went on for a good 5 minutes. I finally couldn't take it anymore and went storming downstairs and out the front door in my pajamas.

By the time I made it outside the front door, it was clear that the goose I had heard being run over was in fact a set of bag-pipes being played rather poorly by one of our neighbours. He was walking in and out of his garage, which was what made the sound get softer and louder repeatedly. I stood on our lawn with my arms folded across my chest and scowled in his general direction.

Now that I was closer, however, I noticed something for the first time . . . the man playing the bag-pipes was a tall Asian man with glasses. Not a beefy Scotsman in a tartan, but a rather ordinary looking Asian guy who probably has a rather ordinary desk job, but in his spare time has a burning passion for the bag-pipes.

I was no longer able to be annoyed at the squealing and wailing. I started laughing hysterically and almost fell over on our lawn. The neighbour soon finished playing, and I dragged myself back into the house, still laughing.

When Forever North and I pulled up the other day, there he was in the bright afternoon sun, still playing his bag-pipes, still walking in and out of his garage, and still very much Asian.

I pointed him out to FN, and we both had a good laugh.

I tried waxing my legs for the first time recently. It sounded something like this:

" . . . splorp . . . " (the sound of putting the sugar-wax on my legs)

" . . . rub rub rub . . . " (the sound of the fabric strips being put on over the wax)

" . . . riiiiiippp . . . "

" . . . AAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

followed by much gasping and panting, and the occassional " . . . woo . . . ".

I learned a few things:

1) Sugar wax can be very effective

2) Waxing doesn't have to be that painful

3) Waxing will give you pain like you've never felt, and delightful welts and bruises if you don't follow the instructions properly

When they say that you should apply a very thin layer of wax, it's true. When they say that you should pull the skin taut, it's true. When they say that you should pull the strip off quickly and in the opposite direction of the hair growth, let me tell you, they're not kidding about this. After the first strip I lost my nerve and didn't rip the strip off quickly and cleanly as I should have. My stupidity left me with hairs unwaxed, and the most angry, inflamed skin you've ever seen, with bruising to follow shortly afterwards.

I think I can eventually figure out my legs, but I'm thinking that the armpit area ought to be left to a professional. It could lead to a great deal of screaming otherwise.

Oh, and to add more salt to the collective wound, Douglas Adams passed away on May 11th.

When I was 10 or so, I worshipped him. I read every book in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I wanted to meet him. I wanted to be him.

He taught me that having a towel on hand is essential, that drinking beer would cushion your system against a matter transference beam, and that Earth, according to the Hitch Hiker's Guide, is "Mostly harmless".

Vogons are hideously ugly and enjoy bad poetry, tea is an excellent source of Brownian Motion, and the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.

The 10 year-old in me is distraught, but to her and all other inner-10-year-olds out there, I offer Mr. Adams own reassuring words:

DON'T PANIC

It has been an extended absence from the 'Net for me. It would have been far less extended had I not run out of time through my "free" ISP.

I return now to find that a special girl named Kaycee, a fellow blogger and friend to many, passed away on May 15th.

I didn't know her. I read her blog occassionally after seeing it as a Blog of the Week on Blogger. But I can't help but feeling a saddness at not having gotten to know her better.

When she was alive, there was always the opportunity to send an email, get one back, maybe learn a bit more about her. But now she's gone, and I can only ask those who knew her what she was like.

She is missed and mourned by many. She must have been an amazing girl, and I send my condolences to all those who mourn her passing.

I have this nasty habit for losing really useful links, so I'm going to put this here, where I'll be able to find it again:

Netscape Career Match

Ah. Better. :)

I must have been smoking crack or something, because a banner actually provoked me to click through.

What was it? It was CyberRebate.com. Apparently, for the trouble of filling out a form about what influenced your buying decisions, they will send you a check for the full amount of what you bought.

I must be a huge patsy. I never even give things like that a second glance, but this one has me snagged like a fish.

Maybe it's the scanner that would initially cost $599.99 (US$), but would be free after the rebate. Or perhaps it was the mini-fridge that plugs into your car's cigarette lighter. But now I'm really curious.

This would be a lot better if I had a US address, though. Shipping to a US address is $1.99, shipping to a Canadian address is $49.99, and $4.99 for each additional item. Not exactly a good deal for us Canadians. Part of me thinks that maybe I could drive down south and rent a P.O. box and order a whole pile of things. And the other part of me thinks that I must be out of my fucking mind.

I can't help it. I want to get piles and piles of free CD's and DVD's. I want to get cool, free stuff, period. But I'm afraid of never seeing that money again. Some of the CD's are listed at over $100, which you would get a full rebate for, but not for a while.

Kinda makes shopping a deadly addictive activity. I mean, what if you could buy all sorts of extraordinary things for free, but all you would have to do is say goodbye to a huge chunk of money for a little while? That's the kind of carrot that tight-wads like myself are deeply tempted by.

This could be my undoing.