Snowed in? HA!
I'm sitting here all warm and toasty in my living room, unable to see across the street due to the layer of frost that coats my windows. The headache that I've had since last night seems to have abated for now. I hope it stays away - it was so bad that it woke me at 7 this morning. I stumbled into the bathroom and took an Excedrin for migraine - which may have been an error, since it contains caffeine. It took me 45 minutes to get back to sleep - I should have taken an Extra Strength Tylenol instead. (OTOH, in the dream I was having when I woke up, I was working on solving the problem I was having on Friday at work. Perhaps it's just as well that I woke up. I hate dreaming about work.)
It's particularly nice to sit here all toasty warm because I chose to brave the storm and go out this afternoon despite the fact that my two Polaris meetings were cancelled due to the weather. (City TV reports that the downtown core got between 20 and 25 centimetres today. eastman23, you're welcome to come and take it away if you want it. :P )
(Edited to add some snow-related weirdness: I was outside the Eaton Centre when I saw an ambulance get stuck in the snow, its wheels spinning. Fortunately the lights weren't on, so I guess they weren't responding to an emergency. I just thought it was weird. They had to back up twice and try again. It was on the third attempt that I thought to take out my cellphone and try to get some video - and of course, that was the time they successfully made it.)
I was actually surprised that the subway was running north of Bloor - last time we got this much snow in such a short period of time, the subway couldn't run in the above-ground sections of the system. (I did hear an announcement that the third rail was covered in ice.) The crowds were manageable (probably because few people were as foolish as I) and I was able to get my Christmas shopping more or less finished. I picked up a portable DVD player for Mike and his wife and the Disney version of "Scene It?" for their kids (I'd already gotten them each a book last week). Add that to yesterday's shopping, when I got my mother the paper shredder she'd requested and a piece of digital art for Ambrose (a triptych depicting a desert scene - I have no idea if it'll match the decor of his new apartment, but I figure that with his just having moved, he'll need stuff to decorate with), and I would hazard to say that I'm finished. I just have to wrap it all now. :(
Oh, and I treated myself to Lost S3 and BSG: Razor on DVD. :) (I guess this means I have to get around to watching S2 of Lost, which has been sitting on top of my TV for a year... Heroes S1 will have to go back into the pile.) Couldn't find Doctor Who S3 or Torchwood S1, though... the clerk who was helping me said that they had Doctor Who in stock, but he couldn't find it on the shelves either.
I have to admit that shopping for Ambrose was tricky, because while I know what TV shows and movies he's into, I don't know what his DVD collection is like. I don't know what clothing sizes he takes, and I have an idea of what kinds of books he might like, but again, I don't know what's in his library. (Which is pretty sad considering that it's six months since we met.) And gift certificates seem so impersonal. One thing seems to be certain: I'll never, ever be able to top what I did for him at Dragon*Con. It's kind of depressing to know that you've already hit the apex of gift shopping for a particular person... which may have been a contributing factor to the trouble I had deciding what to get him.
Flash back a bit to Friday night: it was the last night of bowling until January. It didn't go all that well for me: 156, 135, 154. I was having my usual problem of hitting the headpin a little too heavily throughout the first game, and Mario suggested I move over to the middle and put the ball over the second arrow from the right. I tried it, and I just couldn't find the line I needed to take (hence the 135 - I was at a complete loss), so I ended up switching back halfway through the third game. And even then, I had to get two strikes in the tenth (my first strikes since the first game) to salvage my score. Mario pointed out something odd: we're sixth in the league (IIRC) in total pinfall flat, and dead last (28th place) in points in the standings. Probably because our team handicap is so much lower than most other teams.
Anyhow, hopefully I'll be able to get to bed at a decent hour tonight. I expect tomorrow's commute will be hell, and for some reason I've been unable to connect to my work computer over the Internet this weekend. (I wanted to put in a couple of hours to make up for arriving late and leaving early on Friday.) So I want to get in at a decent hour and solve this problem that was bedeviling me on Friday and probably led to the dreams I was having last night.
Oh, and one other thing I bought for myself today:
Available for $20 through the Writers' Guild Of America Strike Swag website.
It's particularly nice to sit here all toasty warm because I chose to brave the storm and go out this afternoon despite the fact that my two Polaris meetings were cancelled due to the weather. (City TV reports that the downtown core got between 20 and 25 centimetres today. eastman23, you're welcome to come and take it away if you want it. :P )
(Edited to add some snow-related weirdness: I was outside the Eaton Centre when I saw an ambulance get stuck in the snow, its wheels spinning. Fortunately the lights weren't on, so I guess they weren't responding to an emergency. I just thought it was weird. They had to back up twice and try again. It was on the third attempt that I thought to take out my cellphone and try to get some video - and of course, that was the time they successfully made it.)
I was actually surprised that the subway was running north of Bloor - last time we got this much snow in such a short period of time, the subway couldn't run in the above-ground sections of the system. (I did hear an announcement that the third rail was covered in ice.) The crowds were manageable (probably because few people were as foolish as I) and I was able to get my Christmas shopping more or less finished. I picked up a portable DVD player for Mike and his wife and the Disney version of "Scene It?" for their kids (I'd already gotten them each a book last week). Add that to yesterday's shopping, when I got my mother the paper shredder she'd requested and a piece of digital art for Ambrose (a triptych depicting a desert scene - I have no idea if it'll match the decor of his new apartment, but I figure that with his just having moved, he'll need stuff to decorate with), and I would hazard to say that I'm finished. I just have to wrap it all now. :(
Oh, and I treated myself to Lost S3 and BSG: Razor on DVD. :) (I guess this means I have to get around to watching S2 of Lost, which has been sitting on top of my TV for a year... Heroes S1 will have to go back into the pile.) Couldn't find Doctor Who S3 or Torchwood S1, though... the clerk who was helping me said that they had Doctor Who in stock, but he couldn't find it on the shelves either.
I have to admit that shopping for Ambrose was tricky, because while I know what TV shows and movies he's into, I don't know what his DVD collection is like. I don't know what clothing sizes he takes, and I have an idea of what kinds of books he might like, but again, I don't know what's in his library. (Which is pretty sad considering that it's six months since we met.) And gift certificates seem so impersonal. One thing seems to be certain: I'll never, ever be able to top what I did for him at Dragon*Con. It's kind of depressing to know that you've already hit the apex of gift shopping for a particular person... which may have been a contributing factor to the trouble I had deciding what to get him.
Flash back a bit to Friday night: it was the last night of bowling until January. It didn't go all that well for me: 156, 135, 154. I was having my usual problem of hitting the headpin a little too heavily throughout the first game, and Mario suggested I move over to the middle and put the ball over the second arrow from the right. I tried it, and I just couldn't find the line I needed to take (hence the 135 - I was at a complete loss), so I ended up switching back halfway through the third game. And even then, I had to get two strikes in the tenth (my first strikes since the first game) to salvage my score. Mario pointed out something odd: we're sixth in the league (IIRC) in total pinfall flat, and dead last (28th place) in points in the standings. Probably because our team handicap is so much lower than most other teams.
Anyhow, hopefully I'll be able to get to bed at a decent hour tonight. I expect tomorrow's commute will be hell, and for some reason I've been unable to connect to my work computer over the Internet this weekend. (I wanted to put in a couple of hours to make up for arriving late and leaving early on Friday.) So I want to get in at a decent hour and solve this problem that was bedeviling me on Friday and probably led to the dreams I was having last night.
Oh, and one other thing I bought for myself today:
Available for $20 through the Writers' Guild Of America Strike Swag website.