Where Dustbunnies Go To Die

After reading today's newspaper, I thought I should make a post to let everyone - or, at least, everyone who knows what part of town I live in - that I'm perfectly okay.

For those who haven't heard, there was an underground explosion a couple of blocks away, in a hydro vault under the Yonge/Eglinton intersection. Apparently the condos over on Yonge Street, which are within shouting distance of my building, had to be evacuated, and the stoplights at the corner were out of service all day yesterday and this morning. Police were directing traffic (and, apparently, completely ignoring the drivers turning left onto Yonge in violation of the law).

The only effect the situation has had on me directly has been that my power was out for a few hours while I was at work yesterday, and there was a sign up by the elevators asking us not to use our stoves lest we cause another power outage. Fortunately I had a package of fish in my freezer that could be microwaved, so I didn't have to go back out. (Though it was tempting to order Swiss Chalet.)

On a lighter note, the Leafs just won 4-3 in a shootout over the Florida Panthers for their third consecutive win. Take that, everyone who said that they should have traded Mats Sundin at the deadline! Two goals and an assist look pretty good on the scoresheet. :P That being said, I'm not at all upset that they traded Hal Gill and Wade Belak; Gill was highly overrated, IMO, and as for Belak, it's easy to replace a guy who scores a goal every two years and gets into a fight every five games or so. Chad Kilger, I'll miss a little more; he was no superstar, but he'd been playing pretty well lately. I'm just surprised they didn't trade for Yanic Perreault for the fourth time.

They're not in playoff position yet, but they're only two points behind the Islanders and one behind Washington, whom they play on Saturday. Go Leafs Go! :)

Okay, Madonna winning the Grammy for "Confessions On A Dance Floor," I can see, but Justin Timberlake? Excuse me? I'd puke, but I haven't actually eaten yet. (Okay, I'm biased, I admit it... :) )

I gave in today and picked up the Doctor Who S2 box set today - Best Buy had it for $89.99, which from what I'd been hearing/reading, seemed to be about as cheap as I was going to find it. Now, whether or not to watch "Army Of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" before they're aired on CBC, that is the question...

On the way home from my excursion to the Eaton Centre, I was subjected to something that no music lover should ever have to hear. There was a busker in Eglinton station playing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"... on an accordian. My ears may still be bleeding. (Yeah, I know Weird Al did it, but he's Weird Al.)

BTW, gurudata, did you see this news story? It seems Telus is making pornography available to its cell phone customers, and the Archbishop of Vancouver is all up in arms about it, and trying to get Catholics to cancel their Telus contracts. I'm curious as how Telus will react.

Oh, and Alvaro Orozco, the gay Nicaraguan being denied refugee status, has been granted a two-month reprieve to allow him to file a request to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds. The battle has been won, but the war is not yet over...

Being the anal-retentive type that I am, I got up way too early this morning to make sure that I got to my interview on time. I had checked the York Region Transit website for the bus schedule, and knew that I had to be at Finch station by 11 to catch the bus that would get me to the Cybermation office by noon (11:35, actually, I think). So just in case the subway got stuck in a tunnel between Lawrence and York Mills, I got up at 9 this morning and got out of the apartment at about 10. Everything went smoothly, and I actually arrived at the office around 11, so I sat and read a magazine until the manager interviewing me came out and introduced himself.

The interview was actually done with the entire team - five people, one of whom I had trouble understanding as he had a thick Eastern European accent. What I want to know is why interviewers always pick some obscure item out of my resume to ask me about - a project that I worked on five or ten years ago, and don't remember that well? And then they ask questions that focus on parts that I wasn't even actually involved in... argh.

Though I was amused at the end when one of the guys said, "I noticed something interesting in the Volunteer and Other Interests section of your resume... the Toronto Historical Bowling Society. What's 'historical bowling'?" I had to admit that I had no clue why the league is called that. He was under the impression that we used antique equipment. I think he's seen that Pro-Line commercial one too many times. (For my non-Canadian friends, Pro-Line is a sports lottery. Their current ad shows a hockey coach in the dressing room, saying to the team, "The owner thinks we should go out in 'throwback' jerseys." The owner then says, "Not just jerseys, Jimmy - throwback everything. The team is then shown to be getting creamed in their antique equipment, much to the delight of a guy who bet on the other team.)

So, I'm not sure how they felt about me. I thought I did well on the questions about my approach to testing software, but not so well on the questions pertaining to my past projects that I can barely remember.

I called the headhunter when I got home around 3, and got her voice mail, so I left a message, then I headed over to the clinic to have them take a look at my elbow. They finally called me in at 5:30. First a nurse asked me to describe the problem, then ten minutes later the doctor came in and asked me all the same questions (fortunately, in between the nurse leaving and the doctor arriving, I discovered a copy of Time magazine from last October that had an article about all of the recent discoveries of planetoids in the outer solar system, so I wasn't too bored while I waited).

The upshot is, the doctor thinks I have tendonitis. He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and a referral to a sports medicine clinic in the area, and suggested that I ice my elbow a few times per day. (Ice? How? My fridge came over on the ark, and my freezer isn't frost-free, and I can barely fit a can of juice concentrate and a couple of packages of pork chops in there. Ice cubes are out of the question.) He said that if I'm feeling okay on Tuesday, he doesn't see any reason for me to have to skip bowling next week. However, if I'm still in pain, I may have to take a week or two off. :(

Anyway, the arm is still quite sore - I was having trouble reaching the back of my neck again today, though I can get to it now. I hate pain.

After seeing the doctor, I went to First Thursday, back in its original location of The Foxes Den (1075 Bay Street, for anyone who's interested - hey hoskie, what happened to you? I thought you might show up tonight). Dinner was good - corn chowder to start, linguine with chicken, mushrooms and spinach in a tomato cream sauce, and cookies-and-cream cheesecake for dessert. Throw in two pints of Rickard's Red, and it was about $31 (before tip).

I'm exhausted now. I may be in bed by 1:30. Problem is, I still haven't read today's newspaper... I really dislike it when the papers pile up.

Oh, but before I close, two things of interest from today:

Tulsa Pastor Arrested On Lewd Conduct Charge - apparently the Southern Baptists believe in "do as I say, not as I do."

And John Barrowman is getting married, though he doesn't believe in using the word "marriage" for some reason. Bang goes that fantasy. ;)

Oh, and Space is currently showing Enterprise's season-four Vulcan Reformation arc - it just seems wrong for Surak to be played by the same guy who played George Schickel on QAF. I don't need images of Surak's naked butt going through my head, thank you very much. (For that matter, I don't need images of Bruce Grey's naked butt going through my head, either. Blame CowLip for that.)