Next shift: April 22. No one wastes human resources like Human Resources.

Urge to kill rising... Rising...

Four words, Winnipeg: "flashing yellow / flashing red."

Here's the thing: if you haven't lived in Pakistan, I'll take Imran Khan's opinion of Pakistan over yours any day. Conversely if you haven't lived in Canada (e.g. you're Imran Khan), I'll take my opinion of Canada over yours any day. If it's that necessary to you to give me your opinion, try giving me an opinion where you're an expert.

Also if you're Imran Khan and you're reading this, inbox me. I gots opinions for you.

Hectohistory.

If everyone's done pissing me off, I'm gonna go to bed. Pakistan zindabad!

Me: Six blind men.

Google: And the elephant.

Oh, thank you for not coming up with something completely nonsensical for once. I'm not in the mood for nonsense right now.

My employer is one of Canada's 100 Best Employers for diversity and inclusion. We also have a dress code. Would it be worth asking if the dress code allows hijabs, or can I just assume it?

People who don't give a fuck if they offend me shouldn't bother mentioning when I offend them.

Got home from work. Walked dog. Sat down. Looked at time. Have to be at concert in 90 minutes. Have to shower first so I don't have to do it between concert and work tomorrow. Too lazy to take bus. Truthfully, don't want to go anywhere, but I put so much work into getting this ticket. If at least I could take my dog so I wouldn't have to be away from her again. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh...

I'm strongly inclined not to go to the concert. :(

When I had my third interview, the manager said HR would schedule me for online training between then (March 6) and my orientation (April 6). But then I talked to HR and she said no, you just come in April 6. So I come in and the manager doing the orientation asks "have you been doing any online training?" and I'm thinking "uhoh." And then everyone else shows up and the manager asks who's there for the first time and hasn't done any online training... everyone puts their hands up. And at least three of us were at the same job fair on February 13. Hmmmmmmm... I think HR might be getting a comment about that. Maybe.

Mardrey: No kidding! So how did the manager manage you three?

Me: "Oh. Ok then." I guess she'll take it up with HR later. At least I feel better that I'm not the only one who's been left sitting on my hands at home all this time.

Freedom!!! I've been missing my dog since about 0815.

VP Finance's name is... Mike Rowe. Nooooooooooooooo!!!!

Off to work I go after 10 weeks off.

Not only I have to cancel all my plans for the weekend, I also lose my 10% shift differential. F'ing day shift. >8(

Good morning, 5:30. I hadn't seen you in a long time.

Wake up hungry in the night, go eat something, discover it's actually stomach cramps and not hunger. Scumbag Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!!!! I'll get you for this you mofo!

Wow. Look at all that white residue on everything outside. I'm gonna have to guess there's a volcano nearby, cause it's hardly plausible that it would be snow.

Snow blowing onto my bed through open window. I like.

On my Twitter feed: "Canadian special forces come third in international anti-terrorism competition (behind a Chinese police academy)". So a) I didn't know anti-terrorism was now a competitive sport and b) the Chinese are winning at it???

Facebook is so boring today.

I thought I heard a white-headed gull. . . . I did! I did heard a white-headed gull! Yay, spring!

More historiographical problems: "hippopotami" or "hippopotamuses"?

Ok, with actual keyboard instead of phone: "IKEA is what the Nazis would have done if Hitler had been a nice quiet guy who liked people. And interior design."

Je viens d'entendre une chanson de Carla Bruni à la radio. Putain mais c'est MAUVAIS!!!!!! Incroyable! Oh la la, c'est navrant ça...

Library, via email: We'd like our book back soon. Please?

Me: If it's your book, how come I have it?

Library: Because we lent it to you. We thought you'd give it back.

Me: NEVER! You can't make me!

Library: Ok. :(

I'd like to know how LinkedIn (which I don't actually use) figured out who my roommate is. Presumably through the landlady's email contacts. Am I pissed off? Yes I am. I don't need some dumbass robot connecting me with people I don't want in my life. You suck, social media.

Upstairs Roommates' dirty dishes have been soaking in the sink for three days. Fuuuuuuuuhh... I'd like to meet their mothers some day and see how such filthy people get on in life.

Sometimes I write something totally hilarious in my status or a comment, then I laugh like a monkey, and then I erase it instead of posting it because not everyone enjoys my sense of humour.

I think I have to get up at 5:30 on Saturday. Like, 5:30 in the MORNING. Like cab driving all over again. Woe is me!!!!!!!!

Mardrey: Sorry! that would be tough for me as well. Is this for training?

Me: Yeah. It's annoying because I applied for the night shift specifically so it wouldn't interfere with my busy life of music, dance and religion, and I specifically said my only unavailable time is Sunday morning for church, and they schedule me for training... Saturday and Sunday day shifts. Because their trainers don't work night. So I'm missing: rehearsal and costumes for church musical, Dancing with the Pastors fundraiser and social, church, baby shower for someone from my church family, and perhaps even the long-awaited Monteverdi concert. I managed to exchange my Sunday matinee ticket for a Saturday night ticket but I don't know if I'll have the energy to go. And the dog had her Lyme disease booster today, they gave her an anti-inflammatory with it because she had a reaction to her last vaccine, but I still wouldn't put it past her to get sick on me on the busiest weekend of the year.

Why am I stuck in the seventh millennium after I put so much work into getting out of the fourth? Aaaaaaaaagh! I'm moving backwards in time!

Sometimes I sign out a library book because I need to know what's in it. Other times I sign out a library book just because I can.

Getting me fat arse anywhere in town and back: a bus and a bit of walking. Getting a 10-kg dog eight blocks to the V-E-T: have to break out the $18,000, 2100-kg internal-combustion machine. Er... That makes no sense.

o/~ Let's all go to the V-E-T, let's all go to the V-E-T, let's all go to the V-E-T and get ourselves some vaccines. o/~

MS Word should learn to detect verb tenses. I'm not looking forward to hunting down and fixing every time I changed tense in a 61,000-word document. :(

Go-go-gadget Open Window!!!!!!

Morning news from Pakistan all over my feeds. Must be time to go to bed.

For over a week I've been getting dizzy and headachy in the afternoons as if my medication was running out, and I've been at a loss why, but it's very uncomfortable. Now I've finally figured out: it's the Female Roommate's incense. That explains why it's only in the afternoons since she doesn't get up in the mornings. I really need to get her evicted and my window opened.

Today I answered the door five times and none of it was for me. Also I had to pick up a picture that fell off the wall when Female Roommate slammed her door like a maniac for the third time. And tomorrow I will have to mop and pick up the garbage that blew onto the property this morning during the windstorm.

Somebody should be paying me to do all this babysitting.

You ever notice when you're working on the computer you keep hearing that chime Facebook makes when you have a new notification... but you don't actually have Facebook open?

Me, typing all wrong: y... i... u...

Google: Imran Khan.

Me: What in the world is that about? I need information about long-term north-south motion of the NAO.

Google: My bad.


Apparently, Google is stalking Imran Khan.

I'm hungry, but if I open the fridge I'll eat the sushi and then there will be no sushi left. First World Problems.

I return from my weekly grocery trip, meaning I have sushi. SUSHI! YAY! Female Roommate is in the kitchen when I walk in. Hmmmmmm... So I'm like "yo Female Roommate, would you like some sushi?" She declined, quite politely actually, saying she doesn't care for sushi. So a) I feel righteous because I offered to share my favourite food with someone I don't like and b) I still get to eat all the sushi myself. TOTAL WIN-WIN.

Radio Pakistan: "Secretary ECP says a separate box will be created in ballot paper in which a voter can express his dissatisfaction with all the candidates."

Tell me again how you think we white people can teach the world about democracy? (And bear in mind they have 136 parties to choose from.)

In other news, Firefox sucks. Next suggestion?

Someone touched my grated cheese. Now not only I have less cheese, but I don't want to eat it because that vicious animal touched it with her foul unwashed paws. :(

Me: Google?

Google: Yes, Dave?

Me: Find me photos of this handsome dude.

Google: Ok. Related searches: handsome dude's wife.


Scumbag Google.

Continuing my brilliant idea of the pre-dawn Easter worship, and bearing in mind that Lutherans are musically gifted, I was thinking everyone could gather in silence and with candles or dim light in the sanctuary, and then right at 4:44 (time of fajr for Easter next year), the organ can break into the Hallelujah from Messiah. If we can get a few trained singers to commit to it, they can lead the four parts and the congregation will follow. Right? Right.

Sunday night: dreamed about Slimey and The Handsome One. They were really nice. Woke up depressed and wondering whether these dreams are a) my subconscious expressing how I feel or b) some kind of supernatural perception of how THEY fell (which would be much cooler).

Monday night: dreamed about Imran Khan. He was quite nice, too. Woke up in a much better mood. I guess he's good luck!

Email from my pastor regarding pre-dawn Easter service: "what have I unleashed?"

Hehehehehehehehe....

Also in Pakistan there are 136 parties running in the upcoming election. Because apparently they understand "democracy" a lot better than Canada.

Radio Pakistan and Al Jazeera care more about autism than all my European and North-American news sources put together. You know what, maybe I SHOULD move to Pakistan. Or Qatar. In Qatar there are 300 men per 100 women. But Pakistan sounds way more fun.

Srsly you can't breathe with your stomach, much less with your intestines. And your stomach doesn't go into your pelvis, just barely past your ribs. Maybe they should put some anatomy classes into those music degrees. The only thing you can use for breathing is your lungs. TRUE STORY.

"Accuracy is a duty, not a virtue."

Not even any water on the ice.

Things that were discussed at Easter dinner with Lutheran friends:

- the new pope
- the Berlin wall
- why pre-dawn Easter service is a great idea
- mice infestations
- rat infestations
- squirrel infestations
- raccoon infestations
- things to buy for your estate sale
- difference between yard sale and estate sale
- brain aneurysms
- CP hotels
- the mystery of the non-robotic garbage trucks
- how excellent municipal services are
- more mice infestations
- the difference between house mice, deer mice and field mice
- voles
- Mennonites
- the difficulty of scheduling all the things you have to go to (it's not just me)
- food safety
- l'Académie française
- appropriate attire for dancing salsa
- also, mice

Like I said, we Lutherans are so fun-loving.

Sitting in church with my sister Melanie who is a voice teacher and apparently found out I sing by listening to me during the service. An announcement is made regarding the spring social and talent show. Melanie looks at me pointedly. Me: "don't look at me pointedly." Melanie: "are you gonna?" Me: "let's do a duet." Melanie: "Ok."

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

Good news: my church is on Twitter!

Bad news: my church is following me on Twitter. Now I have to watch what I say.

Pastor, during the sermon: This happens before dawn, see? So the time to have Easter service is not at sunrise like some churches do (and thank God we don't), it's in the dark.

Me, after service: Good point. Let's have a pre-dawn service then. At the time of fajr.

Pastor: . . . No.


No fun. :(

I wonder if there has been any documented cases of "Phone Rage" yet. When some idiot's phone goes off in an amazing concert FOR THE SECOND TIME and someone leaps over eight rows of spectators to beat him to death with his worthless machine.

Also, Imran Khan wished me a Happy Easter! (Technically it wasn't to me personally, but I tend to take everything personally.)

OMG!!!!!! Grumpy Cat is in The Economist! My two icons!

Now I have to go to bed. Shortly thereafter, get up again. Walk two dogs (not together, they're not a good pair). Go to church. Go home. Walk two dogs. Sit. Walk two dogs. Go to Easter dinner with family from church. Go home. Walk two dogs. Go to bed. Get up. Walk... one dog. Why is my life such a rapid succession of getting up and going to bed with all this dog-walking in between? Why is there no rest? Why is the sea boiling hot? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

Mozart must have been a closet Catholic. That did not sound like a guy who is saved by grace through faith.

K, make with the Requiem already. I wanna go home to my dog.

Thank God it was a short symphony. If I hear one more major third I think I'd have a seizure.

Ah, fuck. Requiem is after intermission. At least if they'd told me i could have brought a book and read in the lobby.

Wow. This concert hall has a nice view 29 rows back.

Mozart's Requiem and Symphony no.29 in A Major tonight and I feel sick and have to get up for church tomorrow. Hmmmmm... Hopefully they do the Requiem first so I can bail at intermission.

Also you may be a Lutheran if you refuse to sing "Alleluia" at singing lessons during Lent... and then you realise that the other singers in your congregation are doing the same at THEIR lessons and you don't feel like a fanatic weirdo anymore.

You may be a Lutheran if... you suddenly realise you don't have any outfit in the proper liturgical colour for Easter and rush to the thrift store to buy one.

Upstairs Roommate's dog pees in the kitchen to impress the landlady's bitch. (Though judging by how much he pissed, he also really needed to go.) Upstairs Roommate wipes it up with a paper towel, then goes straight out grocery shopping without washing her hands. Disturbing.

Good news: I found the dog's food. In a tiny bag way under a giant pile of poop bags. Bad news: I nearly gave her a heart attack by making her walk two blocks slowly. WTF? If your dog is geriatric and can't walk you have to tell me ahead of time.

Signs you shouldn't have a dog:
1) you don't want to go for a walk four times a day
2) you don't want to pick up dog feces
3) you don't know how to deal with dog aggression.

Signs your dog is too big for you:
1) it can walk further than you can
2) you're unable to overpower it.

Landlady drops off her gigantic monster dog and leave. Later I look in the dog's overnight bag and... no food. WTF? You think I'm gonna feed this creature from my own pocket? Man, I hate people. Not that this dog ought to be eating a whole lot, given how overweight she is.

Like a BOSS.

Alright, I'm going to bed. Ain't nobody got time for this boring Friday night.

Wow. Social media are ever slow today.

Landlady (via email): Can you look after my dog this weekend?

Me: Sure.

Landlady (via email): Thanks, I'll drop her off Friday evening.

Me (to roommates): Yo roommates, landlady's dog is gonna stay here on the weekend.

Male Roommate: Who said yes to that?

Downstairs Roommate: Are YOU looking after her?


Hmmmmm... Did I get myself into something?

I want to read history and watch YouTube but I can't focus on both at the same time. Sigh... First World problems.

Good Friday service. Church draped in black. Long sermon about Julian of Norwich and the plague. Acolyte faints during reading of the passion. Wow... that's pretty medieval, for a Lutheran service.

Brain: Yo, open your eyes.

Me: Ok. Aaaaaaaaaaaagh! My face is covered in soap, you jackass!

Brain: Hahaha! Sucker!

Scumbag Brain: 18, Me: 0.

Roommate ties dog outside. I go walk my dog. I come back; other dog follows us in. Roommate swears at him and puts him back outside. I change into my bathrobe and go to have a shower; bathroom door refuses to open. ? Light is off... bathroom door should open. Try again? No. But why is the door locked from inside and the light off? I turn light on. Male Roommate's dejected voice from inside: "thank you." WTF? Bitch turned the light off on him while he's taking a dump? I go back to my room. Male Roommate exits bathroom. I go have a shower. On my way to bathroom I hear the dog crying outside. Me: "Female Roommate, your dog is crying to come in." Her: "I know." I shower. I turn shower off. The dog is STILL crying outside. Lucky for her the girl went to let him in before I was done putting on my robe to go give her what for. I tells ya, my bitch-slapping hand itches every time I see her.

Accompanist unable to play at service; congregation sings four-part harmony anyway. Cause Lutherans do it with grace. :)

Canada geese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: Yo Amazon, where's my parcel?

Amazon: It's been delivered.

Me: No it hasn't.

Amazon: Yes it has. 28 minutes ago at your front door.

Me: NO IT HASN'T.

I open the front door... And there's my parcel, between the two doors! What service!

Me at the food store: $9????? What a rip-off. As if I had that kind of money to spend.

Me at the music store: $9????? Awesome! I can totally squeeze that into my budget.

Considering how paranoid I am about the possibility of a poop bag breaking and allowing my hand to touch the feces, it's amazing that this is the first time it's actually happened. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Books of the Bible that contain mentions of bronze but not iron: Exodus, Ezra, Zechariah, 1 Macchabees, 1 and 2 Esdras, and Mark. Given how long Exodus is, does this suggest it was written during the Bronze Age?

Good morning, Amazon, where is my parcel today? Amazon: "In Winnipeg." Receiving your internet purchases in two days, working or non: another reason I love Winnipeg.

I dreamed about The Handsome One, then I dreamed about lizards and millipedes. Freudian, or coincidence?

Sitting in bed quietly studying. Computer turned off. Just gonna study for a while and then get a good night sleep so I can study tomorrow.

Brain: "You know how in your music book, the words for Voices of Spring are in English and Italian? And your voice teacher doesn't like your pronunciation in English OR Italian?"

Me: "And?"

Brain: "Everything else Strauss wrote is in German. It must have German words."

Me: "Brain, you're a genius. I'll look for the German version first thing tomorrow."

Brain: "You'll have forgotten by first thing tomorrow. You're getting very forgetful."

Me: "You're right. I'd better do it right away. Won't take but two minutes and then back to studying."

Brain: "Exactly."

Me: "It's so nice when we co-operate."


An hour of reading memes later... Brain: "Sucker!"

Scumbag Brain...

Amazing things that happen in Winnipeg: saw a young man with swag on the bus... and then he pulled his pants up. I tell you, this place is AMAZING.

Green grass!!!!

Wake up. Look at phone. March 27. "Hey, it's Mozart's birthday!" Mozart's birthday is JANUARY 27. Gonna be a long day again...

CIBC card: 16 digits, changes every time you get a new card, I always know my number by heart. RBC card: 16 digits, never changes, I've had it ten years and still don't know my card number. WTF?

Hay River: flood prediction is done by an old guy and anyone on Town Council who answers the phone when the paper calls them. Winnipeg: flood prediction is done by Actual Scientists using Actual Data and Actual Math. What a wonderful world.

Tiffany: University of Alberta actually does the predictions here in HR

Me: I hesitate to contradict the SAO's wife on this topic but last time I talked to the UofA team they had no ability to make meaningful predictions due to the stochastic nature of the problem. Most of the predictions came from the late Red McBryan and big-mouthed councilors such as Kevin Wallington.

Tiffany: ...lol Ya, inter office used UofA data to 'try' to predict it.

Me: I think part of the problem is that not enough people know what "stochastic" means.

I receive a springbok hide that I bought for the dog, so she could pretend she killed it herself. Me: "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy the springbok hide is here!!!!!" My allergies: "Yaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy new allergens!" Dog: "Keep it down. I'm napping."

Sigh.

And this is I Know that my Redeemer Liveth which my teacher is letting me do because I rejected a horrible love song she had picked. But here it's sung by an eleven-year-old boy.