come wiki with me, part xiv
Catherine and I finally took that trip to PEI the weekend before last. We had decent weather, and crammed a lot of activity into three days. What’s more, even though she’s related on the other side of my family, she was treated like she was family, and then some. I knew my folks would be nice to her, but in the end we were simply astonished. Then again, I really hadn’t introduced them to anyone new before. It was also a revelatory experience to be able to see familiar places and people from a new perspective. Among other things, we discovered that my grandmother is a gifted comedian, but as these things so often go, you had to be there.
We had good travelling as well, and I won’t soon forget the feeling as I drove off the boat that bright, sunny Friday afternoon. As soon as I got on the road to Montague, my resting heart rate dropped about 20 beats a minute. It was so much fun to just let the car roar up and down the hills, windows open, smelling the lilacs.
The trip went so well that it had me wondering why I was bothering to come back here to my TeleJob. Actually, I can’t complain too much about that, either - my new team is fantastic, and I worked so many overtime hours last week that for a brief time I was being paid fifteen bucks an hour, which is certainly more money than I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m looking forward to putting 90% of that paycheque into my savings for school. This will be easy to do, as working from 1700 to 0030 or 0130 Monday through Friday doesn’t give me a lot of time to rack up credit card bills with that killer weeknight socializing that we’re so fond of in summers.
Working only 40 hours this week has been a bit of an adjustment, as I actually have time to think and twiddle my thumbs, which is both a blessing and a curse. When I was in PEI last April on a sabbatical of sorts, I found it difficult to force myself to stay active and productive, but I succeeded a lot better then than when I came back from Ukraine this year. That experience continues to gain value over time because I was forced to learn a lot about people that I might not have learned here, at least not so quickly.
* * *
I’m reading Wuthering Heights between calls at work, and perhaps the environment isn’t putting the book in its best light. I liked Jane Eyre more, but Heights does a better job at playing to my inner desires and motivations. At any rate, I want to get at least half of my reading list done when I’m back in PEI in August, just to help keep me from falling behind later (I’m not a quick reader by any means; I like to savour things and obsess about the details).
Thankfully, I’m not getting my Honours in English just so I can study nineteenth-century literature (or even literature at all) - if I was, I’d be re-evaluating my strategy.
* * *
The 1960’s answer to Babylon 5, The Prisoner, has also been diverting my attention lately. You need to see this show. I’m watching the A&E DVDs that I borrow from the library. By the way, if you’re the patient type, forget rental stores and just use the library. You can borrow practically everything you could name.
I’m also planning to start saying, “Be seeing you” (in place of “goodbye”) at work. It’ll probably just fly right over their heads, but it will be funny for me.
* * *
There are four bands/groups I care enough about to at least have all of their studio albums: They Might Be Giants, The Arrogant Worms, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Alanis Morissette, and Simon and Garfunkel. (Don’t worry; I’m not applying to host my own CKDU show anytime soon.) I like other kinds of music as well, but a new full-album release from any of these five will have me running to the record store.
I recently picked up Beige, the newest from The Arrogant Worms. Unfortunately, the album lives up to its name. It’s a mostly-forgettable collection of mediocre songs.
With Beige, you get your standard almost-witty lowbrow fare like, “Twins,” (the conjoined kind) “I.B.S.,” (this song shouldn’t even be allowed to exist) “Hernia Belt,” (great, now I have two hernia-related songs in my music collection, and Weird Al’s was much funnier) and “Brian’s Balls.” All of these tracks would make good (or, rather, bad) throwaway selections on any album, but when all these songs are on the same album, I think we have a problem. Musically speaking, the songs are fine, but they lack something in the sophistiqué. Then again, why should I be accusing a group of worms of being earthy?
My favourite song has to be “Mime Abduction,” which is genuinely funny, and we’ll give a close second to “The Guy with Computer Know-How.” The opening track, “Pressure Washer,” comes close to being a five-star spoof on all those Canadian Tire-type gadgets, but falls a little short of the mark. Here’s hoping that the next album will crank out more refined material of this type and less of the (often literal) crap.
At any rate, I’m still listening. Despite my misgivings, many of the songs are really quite pleasant, and grow upon me with repeated listening, especially songs like “The Prescription Drug Song.”
* * *
I’m greatly looking forward to Weird Al’s new album, which has been delayed due to “record company politics.” This delay could be partly due to Atlantic Records’ refusal to allow Weird Al’s send up of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” (the almost-too-easy “You’re Pitiful”) to be included on said album, so now it’s a freebie. On the positive side, the “Weird Al” Show DVD will be out in August, which will put a stop to my regrets that I didn’t archive the fuzzy Global TV signal back when it originally aired, just before we got cable TV. Ah, those were the days…
I should probably filter this entry so that it's not viewable by single females age 18-26.
We had good travelling as well, and I won’t soon forget the feeling as I drove off the boat that bright, sunny Friday afternoon. As soon as I got on the road to Montague, my resting heart rate dropped about 20 beats a minute. It was so much fun to just let the car roar up and down the hills, windows open, smelling the lilacs.
The trip went so well that it had me wondering why I was bothering to come back here to my TeleJob. Actually, I can’t complain too much about that, either - my new team is fantastic, and I worked so many overtime hours last week that for a brief time I was being paid fifteen bucks an hour, which is certainly more money than I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m looking forward to putting 90% of that paycheque into my savings for school. This will be easy to do, as working from 1700 to 0030 or 0130 Monday through Friday doesn’t give me a lot of time to rack up credit card bills with that killer weeknight socializing that we’re so fond of in summers.
Working only 40 hours this week has been a bit of an adjustment, as I actually have time to think and twiddle my thumbs, which is both a blessing and a curse. When I was in PEI last April on a sabbatical of sorts, I found it difficult to force myself to stay active and productive, but I succeeded a lot better then than when I came back from Ukraine this year. That experience continues to gain value over time because I was forced to learn a lot about people that I might not have learned here, at least not so quickly.
* * *
I’m reading Wuthering Heights between calls at work, and perhaps the environment isn’t putting the book in its best light. I liked Jane Eyre more, but Heights does a better job at playing to my inner desires and motivations. At any rate, I want to get at least half of my reading list done when I’m back in PEI in August, just to help keep me from falling behind later (I’m not a quick reader by any means; I like to savour things and obsess about the details).
Thankfully, I’m not getting my Honours in English just so I can study nineteenth-century literature (or even literature at all) - if I was, I’d be re-evaluating my strategy.
* * *
The 1960’s answer to Babylon 5, The Prisoner, has also been diverting my attention lately. You need to see this show. I’m watching the A&E DVDs that I borrow from the library. By the way, if you’re the patient type, forget rental stores and just use the library. You can borrow practically everything you could name.
I’m also planning to start saying, “Be seeing you” (in place of “goodbye”) at work. It’ll probably just fly right over their heads, but it will be funny for me.
* * *
There are four bands/groups I care enough about to at least have all of their studio albums: They Might Be Giants, The Arrogant Worms, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Alanis Morissette, and Simon and Garfunkel. (Don’t worry; I’m not applying to host my own CKDU show anytime soon.) I like other kinds of music as well, but a new full-album release from any of these five will have me running to the record store.
I recently picked up Beige, the newest from The Arrogant Worms. Unfortunately, the album lives up to its name. It’s a mostly-forgettable collection of mediocre songs.
With Beige, you get your standard almost-witty lowbrow fare like, “Twins,” (the conjoined kind) “I.B.S.,” (this song shouldn’t even be allowed to exist) “Hernia Belt,” (great, now I have two hernia-related songs in my music collection, and Weird Al’s was much funnier) and “Brian’s Balls.” All of these tracks would make good (or, rather, bad) throwaway selections on any album, but when all these songs are on the same album, I think we have a problem. Musically speaking, the songs are fine, but they lack something in the sophistiqué. Then again, why should I be accusing a group of worms of being earthy?
My favourite song has to be “Mime Abduction,” which is genuinely funny, and we’ll give a close second to “The Guy with Computer Know-How.” The opening track, “Pressure Washer,” comes close to being a five-star spoof on all those Canadian Tire-type gadgets, but falls a little short of the mark. Here’s hoping that the next album will crank out more refined material of this type and less of the (often literal) crap.
At any rate, I’m still listening. Despite my misgivings, many of the songs are really quite pleasant, and grow upon me with repeated listening, especially songs like “The Prescription Drug Song.”
* * *
I’m greatly looking forward to Weird Al’s new album, which has been delayed due to “record company politics.” This delay could be partly due to Atlantic Records’ refusal to allow Weird Al’s send up of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” (the almost-too-easy “You’re Pitiful”) to be included on said album, so now it’s a freebie. On the positive side, the “Weird Al” Show DVD will be out in August, which will put a stop to my regrets that I didn’t archive the fuzzy Global TV signal back when it originally aired, just before we got cable TV. Ah, those were the days…
I should probably filter this entry so that it's not viewable by single females age 18-26.