Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Blog Rating Update and Weird Weather
Somehow the people at www.daypop.com missed my site as one of the top 100 blogs. I'm certain they'll be picking me up one of these days now.
Whether it be a conference on whether the astronomers of the world should alert us in case of an extinction level catastrophe or a freak snowstorm in Israel, something makes me wonder - is it the end of the world or are we just bored?
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/26/2003 10:22:08 AM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Monday, February 24, 2003
Handbasket Update
I've been working on getting an American Visa for the past 4 years now. They finally sent me a letter telling me that they are now ready to begin processing my request - (Read "we wasted 4 years of your life now only another 4 years to go!") So anyway this last letter that they sent me said that they would like to continue processing my request but can only do so after they make sure they have my correct address. Need I state the obvious? How would I be able to sign the paper if they didn't have my address? Oh well I'm sure they are just headed down the road paved with good intentions much like the rest of us.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/24/2003 01:31:36 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Friday, February 21, 2003
Adventures in Medicine Hat
Things in Medicine Hat are going great. I came home, had a huge plate of mediocre Chinese food. I fixed the computers, and my mother is so happy. I guess I'll head back to Lethbridge tomorrow. Medicine Hat is snowy. It's so snowy that I almost missed it and kept driving right on through. Good thing for the World's Tallest Tepee, or I might never have arrived.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/21/2003 03:39:09 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Vacation Update
I am back from my trip to Calgary. I was supposed to go to Medicine Hat, but I'm putting it off until tomorrow. I went and saw About Schmidt with Anna and her sisters. It is definitely a movie made for the pre-MTV generation. Possibly the worst part was seeing Kathy Bates' naked body - what a shock. Anyway Gary and Tracie gave me a couple of vhs tapes that I'll have to watch sooner or later. Raising Arizona and Born in East LA.
I didn't go to Medicine Hat on Wednesday like I had originally planned. I didn't feel like it today either, so because Anna-Maria and my parents are all sad that I didn't come to Medicine Hat yesterday or today, I'd better get some sleep so I can get there in the morning.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/21/2003 01:42:59 AM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
My GREAT BIG XBOX PARTY!
Today I planned this big Xbox party for my house, but as luck would have it - I have no friends. Not even the superficial type that only like me because I throw Xbox parties. Maybe it's because I have a lisp. I was even going to have treats too. Actually no, it's not the lisp, it's not because I don't have any friends, and it's certainly not because my treats suck. Everyone is just busy with being on vacation during reading week, or working for Quest (Bryce). So anyway maybe another night.
Watersliding and Surfing in the Faux Ocean
Tonight I did get together with Bryce Shutte and his wife, oh and Zee came along too. We went to the Ramada for some sweet waterpark action. Steve, my friend that works there, is going to hook me up with a job there (hopefully). I'm actually pretty excited because being out of work and being a poor student SUCKS. The Ramada is a pretty fun place to visit, but I think it must be a law that the amount of chlorine in a hotel pool has to be at least 10 times more potent than you would find at say a city owned pool. Also for some reason the water was extremely cold. I asked Steve if they had a maintenance person to take care of that, and he said that she didn't seem to know how to work the heating machinery. Zee commented that if "she" (the maintenance person) was actually a "he", then maybe the water would be warm. All Steve could say was, "You said it, not me."
So to recap, watersliding is fun - cold water is not. The waves were a might bit small and the hot tub was a mite bit crowded. Can you say 32 people is just one too many?
I'm going to Calgary Tomorrow
I am going to visit Anna-Maria and her family at the hotel where they are staying. Hopefully I'll be able to find it. I may give my brother Gary and his wife Tracie a call but it sounds like they already have plans.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/18/2003 01:48:35 AM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Peer Gynt Cast Party and WSI Course Completed
Last night Anna-Maria persuaded me to reluctantly come with her to her cast party for Peer Gynt. Although I was really tired when we finally left at 2:30am I am glad we went. It was a fun time, and I'm beginning to know a lot of the Drama students now.
I haven't officially passed the class yet. I still have to do 10 hours of co-teaching lessons and then I pass. I must say that I'm pretty happy to be done with it though, today was my last day of classes at the pool.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/16/2003 04:49:42 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Saturday, February 15, 2003
The Power of Procrastination
I think that if more people were aware of the power of procrastination to get things done it would be much more popular. For example, a couple of weeks ago I had a Water Safety Instructor homework assignment, but instead of doing it I procrastinated and as a result, got my laundry done, the dishes done, the house clean, and worked on some of my other homework that wouldn't be due for days. Just goes to show if I hadn't been procrastinating I wouldn't have gotten any of it done.
Anna is leaving for the duration of reading week to go down to the States with her family. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do, but I guess I'll have plenty of time to clean the house while procrastinating my homework.
Since pointless flash pages seem to generate a lot of traffic (for some sites) here is my Stairway to Heaven Link. Hopefully you find it helpful, or at least interesting.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/15/2003 07:35:07 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Friday, February 14, 2003
Roommate News and Valentines Day Suckage
Today I talked to Jason, my 17 year-old roommate, about the food stealing situation. He said, "I guess you're probably getting sick of me eating all your food." and also added, "It's just that I've been meaning to go down to the food bank but I haven't gotten around to it." It made me feel kind of bad when he has no food and I don't want to share but at the same time - it is my food; this is not a room and board place. To make matters worse, I overheard him on the phone tonight and he said that he's been fired from his job at Little Caesar's. I guess that's going to make paying the rent next month that much harder. Hopefully he is smart enough to go apply for employment insurance.
Today started off as a great Valentines Day. Anna and I went out for lunch at East Side Mario's and I must say it was great as always. I didn't get her any real present though and now she is sad. I STILL don't know what to get her, so I'll run out to the store and find something she will like. Valentines Day sort of sucks, why can't we all just be valentines all the time?
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/14/2003 09:06:48 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Happy Valentines Day! (No School Today)
For Valentines Day Anna-Maria bought me a book called, "If . . . (Questions for the Game of Life)". It has "IF" questions in it to make you ponder what you would do if certain situations were possible or had to happen what would you do. Here are a couple of example questions from the book, "If you could spend one whole night alone with anyone in history, whom would you chose? If you could suddenly possess an extraordinary talent in one of the arts, which would you like it to be? If you could commit one crime without being caught, what crime would you commit? If your plane were about to crash and you had time to write one quick note, to whom would you write, and what would you say? If you could run any single company, institution, or organization in the world, which would you choose?
My reading week vacation starts today. I'll have lots of time to play around on Plastic.com and Fark. I think perhaps we should have a photoshop contest on our own blog. What do you other bloggers think?
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/14/2003 11:09:49 AM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Adventures in Photoshop and Shopping at Cosco
Yesterday I took some digital pictures of Anna-Maria for her application to the National Theatre School in Montreal. The best ones were taken outside and then I photoshoped them so that they had a completely white background. She had some taken in one of those two dollar photo machines at the mall, but they were way overexposed and basically useless. Anyway when I got to Cosco to have them developed - well I had saved a bunch of them on CD but there was only one that I really wanted and it was the only one that I saved in .tif format. As you might be guessing Cosco doesn't develop tifs, jpegs only. I was somewhat frustrated but what can you do? Anna went out this morning and had them developed; they look great.
I took Anna's roommate Zee along with me in case they asked why the name on the Cosco Club Card said Anna-Maria so that she could say, "Oh that's me". And when it came time to pay she did in fact pull through and say, "yep, I'm Anna". Even though the picture of Anna on the back of the card is half worn out, Zee still looks nothing like her. Almost immediately after claiming to be Anna, Zee started talking with me about Anna's play and if we should go see that movie The Ring, "Anna and her sisters really liked it!" I couldn't believe her and I'm sure the guy thought we were quite the imposters / losers but he didn't say anything.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/13/2003 07:20:51 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Anna's Play and Roommate News
I went and saw Anna's play last night. There were some really strange parts and some really cool parts. The pig-troll orgy scene wasn't as bad as I had imagined from Anna's description but it's not exactly a Disney show either.
Jackie emailed me a picture of the house she is staying at. I'll shrink it down tonight and post it.
I have no milk. It's not what you think. No, my roommate didn't drink it all without asking. Instead he just took some of it (without asking) and left the rest out to go bad. I have to say that although leaving my milk out to go bad is rude, it's probably my own fault for allowing a 17 year old to move in to my house. What was I thinking?
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/12/2003 01:38:09 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Peer Gynt
Anna's play opens tonight. Read about the details. Although that's obviously not Anna-Maria in the picture, she will be playing a pig troll (among other characters), which means that one of her costumes will look like that one in the picture.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/11/2003 01:59:02 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Water Safety Can Be Boring
Well I am in the middle of my WSI program and I'm quite bored with it. WSI stands for Water Safety Instructor. When I'm done I'll be able to teach people (mostly kids) how to swim. I may be able to get a job out of the deal though. One of the other students in the class works at the Ramada and said they might need another lifeguard. He told me that he will take my resume down there for me tomorrow. I'll be happy if I get the job.
Anna's play opens on Tuesday. They are practicing like MAD!
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/9/2003 02:18:52 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Optical Camouflage
I just read this really cool news article on CNN about Optical Camouflage technology. But what's really neat is this video footage I found of it.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/9/2003 11:46:18 AM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Xbox Party Summary
The Xbox party is over. It was the first time we hooked up 4 Xbox's but although we had the equipment we only had enough players to fill 12 spots. That means that next time I'll have to invite more people to play. Xbox is great.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/8/2003 11:13:31 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
XBox Party and Roommate Woes
Tonight my post to the blog is going to be short and simple. I'm getting ready for an Xbox party and it's going to be sweet. I just talked to Geoff Vaz and they are going to be here soon.
One other thing, my roommate has been eating my food. That pisses me off. For one thing - if you are going to steal some bread from someone at least have the courtesy to close the bag afterwards so as to not dry out all the bread. When I confronted him about some missing dried fruit snacks (like fruit roll-ups but real fruit) he just said that, "Yeah I ate a few of them" (I only had 6), "I just saw them there and was hungry so I ate them." (He just saw them in the cupboard where I keep my food and where he does NOT keep his food). He said he's going shopping soon and that he'd buy me some more, that doesn't seem to make up for the fact that I'd like to go eat a sandwich right now but I'm out of bread. He also drinks my milk but I guess I'm supposed to be thankful that at least he asked before taking a box of my macaroni the other day. Don't even get me started on the pile of dishes in the sink.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/8/2003 06:27:37 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Friday, February 07, 2003
Anna-Maria's Vicarious Post
Anna-Maria writes:
Hello all! Boy, have I ever been busy lately. I am registered in six classes and I am in two plays- both of which go up on Tuesday. However don't feel too bad for me, there is one class I don't even go. I just show up for the tests. Hey! Like the one I had today! I should probably feel ashamed or something for not going to class, but I don't. I feel proud. I've never felt so proud of myself. There's not much that compares to the feeling of doing well on a test, for a class that you only went to twice all year. On quite a different note, do you all remember my weight issues? (What can I do? I'm socially conditioned to believe that I could always use to lose an extra ten pounds. I learned about that from the textbook for the class I never go to.) Well in the play I'm in called Peer Gynt, I have to wear a boustier- a belly shirt boustier! That's right ladies and gents, it's also sleeveless. On top of that I have to wear tiny (very tiny) white spandex shorts with a see through skirt over top. I'm freakin out. You have to admit that that would make anyone feel a little self-conscious. Anyway, I've gotta get going. I will write again soon. Let me know what you think about the outfit. Jeff will fill you in on what I did for the role on top of skimpy clothes.
I haven't seen Anna's play so I don't know exactly what she is going to be doing except that it is somewhat sexual in nature. (I believe something to do with a pig troll rutting on stage). All I can say is you wouldn't catch me in such a compromising roll. On a side note, Anna had her eyebrows waxed in preparation for the show.
I just saw one of my professors walking down the hall and thought that now would be a good time to comment on his strange choice of names: Anonymous William Smith. I just call him Wil. I guess one day he decided that he would "spice things up" by changing or eliminating his middle name and then adding Anonymous as his first name. That's the name he uses for all his art and whatnot. I thought I would have more to say about that, but I guess I don't. I'll just let you think about it.
In other news I qualified for Junior Nationals for swimming. The times are faster than Canada West but slower than the CI's. I don't think I'm going to go though, because none of the other teammates that qualified are going - and it is $250, not to mention it's over reading week - which I'll need to use to catch up on my homework.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/7/2003 02:13:34 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Thursday, February 06, 2003
What?! Maybe I Slur My Words a Little But....
Yesterday I was telling Anna-Maria that I talked to a guy on the phone about coming to see the room. I said I thought he seemed very slightly gay sounding on the phone and then she said that I might - to some people, sound a little gay. WHAT? She explained that I had an ever so slight bit of a lisp. Needless to say I'm confused about this - if I have a lisp how come nobody ever pointed it out to me before. So I'm forced to ask myself, do I really have a slight lisp?
Last night I visited with Anna and some of her friends while they had breaks in between ques for rehearsal. There are some strange characters in that play and when I say characters I mean actors. Anyway afterwards Anna-Maria and I drove one of the girls home and I asked her if she thought I had a lisp. My worst fears were confirmed when she hesitated. Damn-it I knew it. I have a lisp. Although she said that as far as speech anomalies are concerned mine wouldn't even make a blip on the radar for speech anomalies.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/6/2003 01:37:07 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Jeff Milner Movie Review - The Borne Identity
Anna-Maria and I rented the Borne Identity last week. Anna was fairly critical of it, but I thought it was a great show. Ironically I thought it looked dumb to begin with meanwhile it was Anna-Maria who wanted to rent it. Anyway The Borne Identity DVD is now a week over due at Video Update and I'm thinking maybe tonight would be a good day to return it.
I've now uploading the short clip I blogged about last time where you can clearly see my basketball dunking skills.
Update: I've moved hosts and haven't uploaded my video to the new server.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/5/2003 06:25:49 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
My First New Media Faculty Meeting
Today I went to my first New Media Faculty meeting. It was pretty long but nevertheless I think I'm glad I get to go. They did spend an overly long time discussing really boring things like what to do about the situation of how to hand students back their papers at the end of the year because the teachers don’t have much time at the end of the year and the faculty secretary is too busy. Actually I was stumped too, because if the teachers were refusing to let students pick them up at their offices and the students couldn't just pick them up from a pile somewhere because someone needed to be there to verify identity for F.O.I.P reasons, then what really could they do? The Faculty is also thinking about bringing some keynote speaker from Ontario. I can’t remember his name but he's the guy that wears a camera on his glasses and is convinced of the future of remote conferencing / technology to solve all our problems. Anyway they are going to pay to have him speak at the University - but here's the catch, he's going to web cast it. Yep - they are paying him to do the speech at the University but from wherever it is he works / lives in Ontario. All in all, I'm sure it will be interesting and at least the guy practices what he preaches.
I read Dad's email tonight. It definitely was from Dad. Here it is:
Be sure to check the attachment photo to see a picture of the latest
pie I made. It had mackintosh apples in it and it was sure good. The
feeling it gave when you were eating it was what I imagine would be
similar to the feeling you get when you snort cocaine. If the food and
drug administration knew about it they would have come and tried to
confiscate it. They would have had to be right there though because we ate
it pretty much at one sitting.
Oh one other thing. I asked a complete stranger to use the video camera I borrowed from the library to tape me dunking the basketball. I'll download the video footage tomorrow and get a semi-permanent link to it.
posted by Jeff Milner at 2/4/2003 09:09:10 PM
Comments (0) (Permalink)
