Where Dustbunnies Go To Die

In the immortal words of randomyst following the Star Trek: Enterprise finale:

"Well, that sucked ass!"

I thought I might have my first good night in ages, following four strikes and a spare in six practice frames, but immediately missed two easy spares once the scores were actually being counted. The third game, I had a good start, but then had three consecutive open frames in the second half.

Final scores: 145, 144, 162.

Ugh.

We didn't even stick around to see what place we were in following tonight. We were in something like 9th out of 13 teams after the second game, and in the third game, we barely broke 1000. (I think I actually had the best score on the team in that third game, which says something as well. And that something is "ugh.")

There's no bowling next week because it's Easter weekend, but the playoffs resume the week after that. We'll have to do better.

In other news, I found one new job today to apply to - it's a mainframe position, through a recruiter who was advertising on Workopolis. I haven't had much luck with this particular recruiter, though. I remember having a meeting with one of their people a few years ago, but have never gotten an actual interview for a position through them. Still, fingers crossed... it's an intermediate position, and they're looking for five years' experience, while I have 12 years in mainframes. This makes 25 jobs I've applied to since last Thursday, plus I've spoken to or submitted my updated resume to ten recruiters.

In other other news, I had a voicemail tonight when I got home from someone I'd been trying to reach for weeks, giving me an answer to a question I'd initially asked back in November. It's not the answer I'd hoped for, but at least it's an answer and I can go back to the drawing board on this particular issue. (And yes, that paragraph is intentionally vague. :) )

Friday night was better than recent nights, but still not up to average: 148, 159, 180. Lots of splits in the first two games.

I got home later than usual because for the first time in recent memory, both teams had all five bowlers present. One of our opponents, a guy named William, is a big SF fan and we spent much of the evening talking about Samuel R. Delany. I'm not sure why, as the only book of his I've read is Dhalgren. (I do own a copy of Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand, but haven't read it yet. My library is almost as full of unread books as my DVD collection is full of unwatched series.)

Saturday, I had a Constellation Awards meeting up in northern Scarborough. The meeting was for noon, so I set the alarm for 10:30 and got out the door by 11. I figured that would be enough time. Ha! It took me longer to get there than it takes me to get to work - I arrived at 12:45. Fortunately the meeting hadn't really gotten underway yet.

After the meeting, gurudata and I looked over the map of Montreal I have and talked a little about potential Gaylaxicon 2010 hotels. Since he's an ex-Montrealer, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get some insight. There are about four or five now that I have to look up online and see if they have the kind of function space we'll need. (I still like the Delta Centre-Ville, though that may be because it's the only hotel I've ever stayed in in Montreal besides the Days Inn where Con*Cept is held.)

I got home around 6 and rushed through dinner because I was supposed to be going to travellingone's place to show her how to use Polaris' programming software and to start entering panel ideas with her. I didn't get there until about 8. She immediately offered me wine (I don't often drink wine, but this was a very nice dry red - I think she said it was Spanish?). Her roommate was there as well, and Return Of The Sith was on the TV. It's the one Star Wars movie I actually never saw, so while we waited for dx4 to return our message about our still needing our userids and passwords, we watched it for a bit and snarked about the dialogue and Anakin's overall whininess. (I can see why people were so excited about the first appearance of Vader in the suit, though - that was quite powerful, though Hayden Christiansen doesn't have the same presence, even in the suit, that David Prowse had.)

We finished up around 2 (after entering 142 panels into the database), and I left to come home. I had just missed the last subway north, but she lives within walking distance of me (even though it was about -15 out), so I got home around 2:30, finished reading the paper, and then went to bed.

travellingone emailed the exported panel lists to our web team, so the initial panel list should be up within a few days. Anyone who's looking at it, remember that it's not a full list - we're still open to suggestions.

Today I got up around 1 with the intention of going out to get my Metropass and VIVA pass, then coming home and doing some cleaning and some laundry. The lines at the Metropass machine (only one of them was working) were slow, though - a woman came up to me and said, "You know, you can buy it at Dominion." I said, "I know, but I'm getting on the subway immediately." I think she just wanted me to leave to make the line shorter. Once I had my Metropass, I went up to Finch and got my VIVA pass, then came back home.

It was nearly 4 when I got back (!), and I remembered that I had promised a couple of our Polaris author guests that I would sign and send back their contracts this weekend. So I sat down at my desk and started downloading and printing them, then scanned them back in and emailed them back. Even though there were only a handful of contracts to deal with, it took me three hours because my computer was being insanely slow. I need to reboot it - it's probably because something was causing a memory leak. (Eric told me off tonight because it's been at least two weeks since the last time I rebooted it. *blush*)

Eric was going to be home earlier than usual tonight, around 8, so I rushed through dinner and washing up, then called cuteteenboy as I'd promised him I would call this weekend. However, we didn't really have time to talk, but I suggested that we have dinner together after next weekend's Gaylaxicon concom meeting. I also tried calling my father, but he didn't pick up.

Regarding my father... I think I may be in trouble. For some reason, despite having a newspaper six days a week, and having a daily bridge calendar on my desk at work, I can never remember the date. I honestly thought on Friday that it was the 20th rather than the 27th (which led to my going to the wrong lane when I got to the bowling alley). His birthday was on the 21st, which means that I forgot to call. Oops. (I even made three LJ posts last Saturday...)

This may also explain why I'm surprised whenever I get handed a paycheque at work. I can never remember whether I was paid the previous week or not. (Part of that may also be because my boss never remembers to give it to me on time, and I usually don't get it until the following Tuesday...)

So after calling my father, I called Eric, and we chatted for a while. During the conversation, we both bought our Anime North memberships as well as tickets for the Moonlight Ball and the Saturday brunch. He's really excited about some of the voice actors they have coming. Me, I recognize some of the titles, but that's about it. Tomorrow I'll have to make some phone calls and get us a hotel room (I know we won't be able to get a room at the Doubletree - it's far too late for that even though the con isn't until late May).

He had to go to bed early - the reason he was early tonight is because he's been asked to go in two hours early tomorrow - so I've spent the last couple of hours going through the old Inbox and wrestling it back down from 190-some-odd emails to about 130. Dealt with some Anticipation emails and some job alerts that were in there, and responded to this year's first CUFF nominee to let her know that I got her nomination.

And now I think I might go to bed a little earlier than usual because I'm not feeling all that great. I think I'm coming down with a cold - my mucous membranes are all dry and my back and arms are aching, though the latter might be because I've mostly been sitting at one computer or the other almost the whole time I've been home today. I have a pillow behind my back (because I'm sitting on the couch, using the laptop), but it's not helping.

... but I had to call Eric as soon as I got home last night so that we could watch BSG, and this is the first chance I've had to post since. *grin*

I had an interesting (as in the Chinese curse) bus ride down to Toronto last night. I got on the bus and made my way to the back, and got out my newspaper. There were two guys who looked to be about 17 sitting in the back sharing a 40-ouncer of rye. Three people got on at the same stop as me - two guys sat directly across from me, and the girl sat down on my right. All three of them - who also looked to be about 17 - greeted the two who were already on the bus and then immediately pulled cans of Molson Canadian Cold Shots out of their coats and started chugging.

For the next hour, I was regaled by stories about the people whom these five wanted to beat up, the people they wanted to kill, the people they wanted to rob (or already had), a lengthy discussion about which liquor stores were easiest to rob, the home invasions they wanted to commit, and the bar brawls they were planning on starting last night.

Given that one of the two guys sharing the bottle of rye knocked it over and spilled about half of it, I suspect that they probably didn't manage to put their plans into action last night.

At one point, one of the rye drinkers said to the beer drinkers, "Is he with you?", meaning me. The latter were so drunk that they said yes (!!!) and then the first guy asked, "So why isn't he fuckin' conversating with us?" It was then that the person who answered realized what the question was and corrected his earlier response.

A little later, I looked up from my newspaper (having managed to read maybe two whole pages in 30 minutes) and looked out the window opposite, nowhere near making eye contact with these people. On top of that, I was wearing my sunglasses as it was clear last night and the sunset was rather bright. The girl said, "What the fuck are you lookin' at?" (I wanted to say, "Oh, I'm sorry, is that your window?" but who knows what would have happened...)

I couldn't even pull out my iPod and listen to music because they had spent part of their quality time together talking about how they had beaten up some kid for his iPod... and there was also mention of pulling knives on cops. The recent news story of the young man who was murdered for his iPod on an Ottawa bus was too fresh in my mind to allow myself to give them an opportunity to try to rob me... so I had to listen to all of this for an hour.

(Normally I think I'd have been able to handle them, considering how drunk they all were... barring the use of weapons. But when I'm sitting in a corner seat in the back of the bus, in the row with the tables, wearing my winter coat and boots, I probably would have been too slow to defend myself...)

Even as glad as I am every night to get to Finch station, I was doubly glad last night.

It's a good thing the VIVA buses have cameras at the back... all five of them should be easily identifiable if the cops need to find them.

So... my bowling scores from last night: 164, 147, 202. I was getting frustrated, putting the ball right into the pocket and leaving pins anyway. And then I developed a mental block about the 4-pin, missing it three times on the left while still managing to keep the ball on the lane. Let me tell you, that's not easy... and I only deliberately aimed to the left of the 4-pin once (when I had left the 4-7-10 and was actually trying to spare it). After the second game, I turned to Lindsey and said, "Lovely. I need 205 in the third game to make average for the night." She said, "You can do it. I've seen you." Well, 202 was close enough, I guess. *grin* Pity we lost two out of three games.

I came home and, as I said above, immediately called Eric. We caught each other up on our respective days and then watched BSG together...

( Wow. Don't click if you don't want spoilers. )

I had to meet gurudata at 1pm this afternoon to go to an Aurora Awards meeting at Liana K's house. I managed to get out the door by about 12:15, so I decided to go up to Future Shop first. I wanted to pick up the new Franz Ferdinand album that came out this week, and while I was in there, I thought I'd see if they got any new copies of Doctor Who S4. No joy. I asked a sales clerk, thinking that he would just look on the computer system to see if any other stores had copies, but when he found one that did, he insisted on calling them. I told him I wouldn't be able to get there until tomorrow at the earliest, and he said, "They don't usually hold things past the end of the day, but I can ask." I said, "That's okay - I have to go to a meeting. I can just pop by there tomorrow," but he just kept calling extension after extension at the other store (nobody was picking up). Finally I managed to get through to him that I didn't really have the time to wait for him to reach someone - at this point it was about 12:40, and I almost put the Franz Ferdinand album back because I didn't want to wait for the single open cashier to process the four customers who were already in line. I figured I'd get the album tomorrow too. But I couldn't remember where I'd gotten it from (they moved everything in that store around a few months ago, and I hadn't gotten it in the regular music section - it was in the New Releases), so I decided I'd just buy it and if I was five minutes late, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I managed to get to York Mills by 12:57... but still haven't found the time to listen to the album.

After our meeting, gurudata asked if I would be interested in dinner as kanecool wasn't going to be home tonight and so he was at a loose end. So we went to a Pickle Barrel somewhere in the Leslie/Steeles area (I think), where I had butternut squash soup and hoisin chicken stir-fry. It was quite good, though there was one vegetable in the stir-fry that I said to gurudata tasted a little like bleach. I never was able to identify what it was (the only other piece was in the very last mouthful).

Not that I actually know what bleach tastes like...

So I got home, dealt with some emails I had to send, and called Eric around 9. We wrapped up our call around 2 - he has to work a night shift tomorrow, and he's working Monday and Tuesday as well, so we won't see each other until Tuesday night at the earliest (depending on how tired he is after work).

After our call, I continued dealing with emails - I've got my Inbox down to 170 messages now. considering that it was at 180 this afternoon, that doesn't sound very good - but there were about 10 more that came in while I was talking to Eric. I still have some Anticipation emails to deal with regarding the Masquerade and Hugo Awards (my department heads are probably wondering why I haven't answered too many of their emails over the past week), and I have to follow up on an email exchange I had with someone a couple of weeks ago (this time the delay is on his end), and I have some more Polaris stuff to deal with...

I had to email Julie Czerneda about stuff for both cons, and I jokingly said, "Why do I do this to myself?" Her response: "Because you're indispensible and we love you?"

I actually take exception to the use of "indispensible" (I may have several fairly important responsibilities at the moment, but nobody is "indispensible"), but I can live with the second part of her response. *grin*

Oh, and work? I'll have to post about that tomorrow... since I have to be up in about eight hours, and I'm usually quite capable of sleeping for nine or ten hours on weekends.

I just got home about 15 minutes ago, and it's so cold out there that I had to have some ice cream to warm up. *shudder* -17, with a wind chill of -27??? And this has been going on for three days now. Thankfully, I don't live in the area that had the power failure last night (though I do know at least one person who does). Hell, it's even warmer in Aurora right now, according to theweathernetwork.ca. (Okay, only by one degree, but still.)

It's not even that much warmer in Chattanooga - right now it's -6. Guess I won't be packing my shorts or windbreaker. (Eric was telling me last night that it's forecast to snow in Atlanta on Sunday, though that seems to have been revised to rain with a high of 7.)

Last week, I said that I was regretting not having declared my scores for next week after I got a 559 series, and that I likely wouldn't do as well this week. Well, I was right, but I still did well enough: 178, 190, 179. All three games above my average (which is now back up to 172), so at least I won't be hurting my team. :)

The season 4.5 premiere (if one can call it that) is almost over. Because I knew I wouldn't get home until after it started, I'm recording it, and Eric and I will be watching it together shortly. :) (Though Space is running Fandom Forum at 11 - I don't know if it's a repeat of the one from last week or a new one. If it's new, I want to tape it for later viewing, which means we won't be able to watch BSG until 12. Decisions, decisions...)

Seven more sleeps 'til Chattacon! *bounce* *bounce* *bounce*

I seem to have made it through eight days with something to post about every day. Who'd've thunk it?

Today we had our Polaris holiday gathering. It was small, because of the bad weather (while I was waiting for a bus, there were times when I couldn't see the stoplights one block to the west - not just the housing of the stoplights, the lights themselves), but the 20 or so who showed up had a lot of fun.

The gathering was an afternoon of bowling - this might be the first time I've ever bowled four games in a single day, not to mention seven in a weekend. My legs are going to be killing me tomorrow. I did manage not to embarrass myself too badly - after all, I'm expected to be good at this game. (No pressure.) Though I think bnddbl07 managed to beat me in one game, and Declan almost beat me in another. (My excuse is that the lanes hadn't been oiled, and I'm sticking to that. :P )

Because we went to the same bowling alley where I have my Friday night league, and my league has a Sunday session as well, there were several people there whom I know. They all thought I was there to bowl off for some future date. (And apparently I wasn't the only one having trouble with the lanes today - one guy, whose average is something like 195, bowled a 136 in his first game.) Only a couple of people came over and said hi (on their way to the washrooms, presumably), saving me from more "Lance knows everyone" cracks.

Afterwards, a smaller group of us went to Swiss Chalet across the street for dinner. (That's a chicken-and-ribs place, for my non-Canadian friends.)

I got home to find a voicemail from my father - it's been decided that he, my mother and I are going to get together for lunch next Saturday to exchange Christmas gifts. Which reminds me, I still have to wrap theirs... I'll probably do that on Friday night. ;)

And the third thing that made me happy today was finding that I'd gotten an email from Eric - I'm meeting his family tomorrow night. *gulp* Wish me luck. :)

I suspect that I'll be told to work from home tomorrow, given the weather we had this weekend. I certainly hope that my remote access will be set up - I don't want to spend another 5 hours in transit like I did on Friday. But just in case, I should probably get to bed early tonight...

On my way to bowling tonight, I decided to walk to the bus stop in order to retrace my steps and see if I could spot the ring I lost - no joy. :(

My scores tonight were decent, if not spectacular: 147, 182, 188. That gave me a series total exactly one pin above my average (or a few pins below if you take the decimal places into account, but the league doesn't do that). Also, we won all three games. Since we were bowling against a team with which we were tied for third in the league standings, that's a good thing. I heard one of them afterwards complaining that we had a 50-pin advantage on them in handicap - it was actually 12 pins. And our flat scores beat theirs in all three games anyway. (So there. *grin*)

It was a strange night, though - I knew that Mario was going to be away, but I'm not sure that I knew that all four of my teammates were going to be away tonight, so I was all by myself. Fortunately they left some good declared scores (Lindsey, who has a 120 average, had a 170 game in the third, and Mario had two 180+ games and a 229). And the other team were pleasant to bowl against, which helped. They were very social and included me in many of their conversations throughout the evening, and even shared their Christmas candy with me (not that I needed it...).

Mario's not being there gave me an excuse to indulge myself on the way home. Last Saturday, when I was going to various supermarkets to gather the ingredients I needed to make dinner (I still can't believe I had to go to three grocery stores to find lemon juice), I discovered that the Metro at Eglinton and Bayview still carries the Stoney Creek brand of ice cream that the Metro at Yonge and Eglinton discontinued several months ago. So after bowling, I took the bus north to Eglinton and west to Bayview rather than south to the Pape subway station, and picked up some black cherry ice cream. Mmmm. :)

This promises to be a busy weekend. I need to find some time to wrap more Christmas presents, and I have an Anticipation meeting tomorrow regarding the Aurora Awards, and a Polaris Exec meeting Sunday. And, of course, Eric and I will be continuing our quest to get me caught up on BSG. (We watched "Maelstrom" Wednesday night.) And I just realized that I was supposed to email someone regarding an Aurora-related question the other day, and it slipped my mind when I got embroiled in trying to solve a work-related problem. Oops. Fortunately the person I need to email lives on the west coast, so hopefully he'll see the email and respond tonight, or by the time I get up tomorrow.

Since I haven't posted in a week, and it's been a bit busy, I'll put each paragraph behind a cut...

( Bowling went well... )

( Work is going okay, except for the 'getting there' part... )

( Headaches aren't supposed to last for six days, are they? )

( Christmas? )

( Anticipation )

( About the latest political shenanigans... )

Well, that's all for another week (or unless something really exciting happens in the next little while).

Tonight's scores: 185, 167, 180. I didn't have my best game of the year, but overall, my series total of 532 was the highest so far. And even better, we won all three games. Going into tonight, we were fourth in the league - I meant to check how far behind the third-place team we were before I left, but forgot.

I'm tired now, but I have some stuff from earlier this week to get caught up on before I can go to bed because it's going to be a busy weekend, with an Anticipation meeting tomorrow with gurudata and Liana K., and two Polaris meetings on Sunday. *yawn*

I did much better tonight, matching my best week of the season to date: 173, 201, 151. I have no idea how I got that 151 in the third game, though - I only had 65 after the first five frames, and I didn't think I finished that well. I embarrassed myself slightly in the tenth frame, though - we were down by something like seven pins, the other team was finished, and I was the anchor tonight in Mario's absence. I went up and got a strike, came back to look at the scoreboard, and was perplexed for a moment when the strike hadn't registered - and then I realized I'd bowled on the wrong lane. *facepalm* First time I've ever done that, I think. In tournament bowling it wouldn't count, but the other team let me have it.

For the first time in the ten years since I joined the league, there were no guys in drag in the Hallowe'en costume competition. In fact, there were no guys in drag there tonight at all - the closest was Florante, who came dressed as Max Minagawa, another bowler in the league (he does this schtick every year), and wore a kimono. (Florante's a strange one - every time he sees me, he says my full name. Nothing else, just my name. He says he likes the way it sounds. He also grabs my hand, strokes it, and says, "You're skin's so soft - you must not work!" He's never come on Hallowe'en dressed as me, though. It would be simple - sweatpants and a science-fiction- or convention-related t-shirt. Though I don't know how many people would get it without an explanation - the Wednesday night bowlers would get it immediately, but I've only been bowling on Fridays for a little over a year, and this group doesn't razz me about the sweats the way the Wednesday people did.)

There was one absolutely fantastic costume, though - one of the women in the league came as Wednesday Addams, and she nailed it perfectly.

I'd heard that Church Street was already closed around 6 this evening, and there were a lot of people out already at that time. I'm not going downtown to check out the costumes, though - I'm too tired, and besides, I saw plenty of costumes on the subway on my way home. Memo to the guy I saw at Davisville station: if you're going to dress as a ballerina for Hallowe'en, don't just put a pink tutu on over a pair of khakis.

And I'm hereby declaring that wings are passe. It seemed that every fifth person, and every other teenage boy, was wearing a pair of wings. I think it was three or four years ago, when I went to a Hallowe'en dance at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre with cuteteenboy, kosst_amojan and dx4, that I first saw people wearing wings. Enough already.

I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon, so I'm hoping to get to bed early tonight. I have to write something for Anticipation's Progress Report 3, though - it was actually due today, but I managed to get an extension until tomorrow. I saw the email a few weeks ago about the deadline, and left it in my Inbox so that I would remember, but then my Inbox got out of control and it wasn't until yesterday, when I went through every email that was still in there since the beginning of September, that I found it again. Oops.

First things first - tonight's scores: 157, 192, 156. I thought I was bowling decently until I got my scorecard out to record my scores at the end of the night, and discovered that this was actually my second-worst week of the season so far. I lost a fraction of a pin off my average, but it's still holding at 170. And we lost two games, including being pummeled in the last game by over 160 pins thanks to three people on the opposing team bowling 50+ above their averages and Mario being about 50 pins below his. (Though it's rather ludicrous that someone on the other team had a 123 handicap - that means his average is about 85.)

Scores across the league are still tending to be much higher than usual - a former teammate of mine who was bowling on the lane to my left had a 245 and a 230, and during the break when they drew for the mystery score pot - where if anyone bowled the selected score in their first game, they win money - and they drew 240, someone actually won it. (Someone who has about a 150 average, if memory serves.) Everyone at my end of the alley almost fainted in shock when we heard the score and, a moment later, heard the VP announce, "Please see the Treasurer for your $80."

The arm is a little sore, but I had no severe twinges tonight like I often do - that probably means that my technique was consistently good, and that it's just tired. (I'm still having trouble picking up spares on the right-hand side of the lane, though - I must have left three 6-10s tonight. Those used to be really easy. :( )

In non-bowling news, the Viva strike is still going on, so I worked from home again today. At least, that was the theory - I actually spent all day (I'm not exaggerating) waiting for the software I needed to download and install. If anyone saw me on MSN and tried to contact me, I was actually on there to communicate with my boss, so please don't be offended if you said hi and I didn't respond. (And I didn't disconnect before I left for bowling - plaidlibrarian, I noticed that you had messaged me, but I wasn't here.)

Yesterday's commute was the worst ever - there seemed to have been an accident on Yonge Street, as the entrance/exit to the bus terminal was blocked by yellow caution tape, though I didn't see any evidence of an accident. So the buses had to use the taxi entrance on the south side of the terminal, turn north onto a side street, and go north to Cummer Avenue (yes, that's really the name of the street) - which on Yonge, is only one block - then turn west and go back to Yonge. That process alone took 30 minutes. Then, on the way home, the #98 bus was about 10 minutes late (as usual) and as a result, when I got to Bernard, the #99 wasn't there, and I had to wait 28 minutes for the next one. Total commuting time yesterday: five hours. No wonder I'm so tired all the time - I almost fell asleep this afternoon while waiting for the software to download.

I want to go out tonight - I haven't been out in over a month, I don't think - but I have an email backlog I need to take care of, and I have stuff going on tomorrow and Sunday. So if I don't do it now, it probably won't happen until next weekend. Argh.