Enough to make your head spin

I went to pay my fine, and the police were their usual charming selves. I took a number and waited in their little waiting room along with all the other hoodlums. Soon they posted my number and I went to the little wicket indicated. Unfortunately the woman working there refused to talk to me and left her post. So then I tried to talk to some of the neighbouring wickets, but they were all angry that I would even consider talking to them. I tried to show them that my ticket had been called, but that just enraged them further. The closest to me put on that special tone that they teach them in police academy, and said that I would have to wait, and that they were "ahead of themselves". At that point she shut the little blind on her window and told me to go away. So, I did since there was no choice other than yelling at her through the blind. Then to cap it off, they called a new number!!! So I had to go and argue with them, but they said that my number had already been called!!! It was almost poetically bureaucratic. At that point I just had to muscle in on the new guy's position, and she gave me a little lecture about line etiquette, but she did process my fine. Ottawa's finest are earning their keep.

The data entry pit is very excited tonight with Ottawa demolishing the Lightning 8-4 in playoff hockey!!

I am now officially booked for flights to Victoria on the 10th of May for my grandmother's 90th birthday celebrations.

Busted

I had a seriously unfortunate run in with the strong arm of the law today. I was driving out to see Julia for lunch since she came into town today, and I got caught for speeding! I'd like to tell you I was going 140 in a school zone, or drag racing in a parking lot, but actually I was going 65 in a 50 zone. So naturally the police were righteously pissed off with that kind of disregard for the law. To complicate matters I don't actually technically have my driver's licence since it was stolen back in Korea when that guy walked off with all of the teachers' wallets in July. Not having the physical licence is the kind of thing that doesn't seem all that important until some mustachioed policeman is lecturing you and all the other white haired speeders at the side of the road. Anyway, I now have 72 hours and counting to forge an accurate driver's licence or face stiff fines.

Playoffs

With playoff season here, I shall unveil my carefully calculated predictions for the outcome.

Ottawa - Tampa: Ottawa in 6
Carolina - Montreal: Carolina in 7
NJ - Rangers: NJ in 6
Philly - Buffalo: Philly in 7

Edmonton - Detroit : Detroit in 6
Dallas - Colorado: Dallas in 6
Calgary - Anaheim: Calgary in 7
San Jose - Nashville: SJ in 5


I had an early night at work yesterday. They ran out of work, and we got to go home at 7.30! It seems that Christine is gone for good, so we're now down to 2 conract workers. Battle's really on now. Ali told me he's planning to get married next year, so he's going to get his mum to fix up a marriage for him. Sure makes things easier when you can just decide to get married, and the elder generation does all the arranging. We should really make it more socially acceptable for westerners to have arranged marriages. I think it would save people a lot of stress.

Sun is Shining

I fear I might be leaving an unfair impression of my employment. My previous posts have all been very doom and gloom, but in the last month or so things have improved markedly. Now I spend much of my time at work watching Seinfeld episodes and learning Italian subliminally. Our tyrannical leader left us, so now we have complete freedom to speak, sit where we like, and generally fritter away our time. The only downside is that 75% of the workforce didn't make it through the dark times, so now there aren't many people around and we can't really talk a lot anyway. But I do now have a much stronger knowledge of Seinfeld's intricate and arching plot structure. And I can also say important things like, "Io sono divorciato" and "piaceri di conoscerti".

In other distressing news the Senators have really started to suck, just in time for the playoffs... hopefully the dozen or so injured players can make it back by then. And yes I'm well aware, irony of ironies, that my fantasy baseball team is being spanked.

Sunday Drivers

I haven't been so tired in a while. Simon and I decided to go out on our bikes and see where we could get. Unfortunately we miscalculated our distances by quite a margin and we wound up travelling a lot farther than we had really hoped for. We started out heading straight south and out of town; fairly straight forward. We tavelled out pretty far, and we knew it, but we made a critical mistake in going home a different way. We thought we were headed due north, but of course we weren't quite. So we wound up reapproaching Ottawa from a totally different direction. By the time we realised how far off course we were it was too late to do anything about it but keep going, and in the end we drove between 60-80km on what was supposed to be a lazy Sunday drive. It was a beautiful day though, so I'm just as happy really. Plus we got to see the exciting locales of Metcalfe, Ray's Reptile Zoo, Ramsayville, and the agricultural heartland of the Ottawa Valley. I guess its good practice if I'm going to do some of it in the summer. The other excitement was cutting the lock off Julia's bike so that I could use it. (Sorry Julia)

Report from Denmark

<-- anti war Danes

My mum came back from Denmark yesterday in good spirits, which is good, since it means fighting was probably at a minimum. The only problem being that she lost my camera case AND the connector cord for the computer. I'm really going to have to remember this next time I break or lose some valuable household item. So for now all the pics are still trapped on my camera, but it held up well to the gruelling trip (except for losing all its components) Turns out that Korean plugs and Europeans ones are exactly the same, after all the crap and misapplied advice I went through trying to find "Korean" adapters.

My grandmother was apparently middling to good, but my mum continues to worry about her living alone in that house. The latest problem is that she doesn't heat the rooms that she's not living in, or clean them, so apparently there's probably all sorts of molds living in there. That might be making her sicker than she actually is, explaining why she suddenly has such bad allergies. But my mum has given up on convincing her to move, because the stress of it all would be more likely to kill her than anything. So she's going to work on my uncle to clean up the house. We'll see how that turns out. The other stress in her life is that my cousin, Kasper, is keeping his motorscooters in her dining room, and thieves keep breaking in to steal parts. Not only that, but my cousin then steals their parts, and her house is now on the standard police search list, whenver there's petty thefts in the area. You might agree, not exactly what an elderly lady would most like.



<-- My handsome uncle in his store.

Apparently Bill and Kristin went along and they had a good meal together. They also went out to Solrød, where we lived, and visited Jonas' old class. They all remember him, and haven't all become drug dealers yet, so maybe he'll make a quick trip to see them when possible. All in all suburban copenhagen is largely unchanged.

Remember Tutorial 13?

After our brief encounter with the doctor in Toronto, I had another run in of sorts with Tutorial 13 alumni. I was listening to the radio, and as they were wrapping up the "poetry face off" they mentioned that Ardath Whynacht was one of the 14 national finalists! She always was the smart one in the group.

If you're interested, here's the website.