As you might have noticed I am in a total blogging rut.
So, here are a few issues I am having.

1. I am so so so so flighty these days. I cannot concentrate on anything. The only two things I want to do are (a) work on my garden (b) make my sims work on their garden. I'm serious. I'm obsessed and I have no idea why. I AM GOING TO RUN OUT OF PLACES TO PLANT PLANTS. The only other thing I like to do is watch my dog do funny things, but even that gets tiresome after awhile.

Sub-list: things I cannot concentrate on

• blogging
• wedding planning, or all the craft projects I planned to do for the wedding that I have not yet started (and it is in less than 3 weeks)
  
• work
• unpacking (yes, I am not done unpacking)
  
• all the library books i keep checking out and never reading
• not spending money (in case this is unclear: I keep buying things simply out of boredom)

Yes, I am playing The Sims 3. I bought it about a week after it came out and I have been finding a few hours here and there to play it. Last week I was in a meeting where we were discussing games (PC/console) with a narrative component, and I said that the Sims or Sim City should be on the list.

Woman in meeting: Ugh, The Sims. What a horrid little game.
Jocelyn: I will fight you. I just met you, but I will fight you.

Yep, I actually said that. It was kind of funny.

Anyway, it's not like The Sims 3 is revolutionary--it's similar to the Sims 2 but with a few improvements. The main reason I wanted to buy it is that they keep improving the architectural engine and the stuff you can get for the game, and in the new version everything is way more customizable. I basically just want to build things for my Sims. And, apparently, make them garden. I will build my Sims very beautiful houses!

2. I CANNOT STOP DRINKING THIS COFFEE EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT THAT GREAT

top of the morning to ya, teh Internets!!11.

I'm working on my contract project again, so I'm at the U of A (my home computer doesn't have Publisher installed, so I come here to work). Classes are over and there are, no exaggeration, NO OTHER PEOPLE HERE. There are hundreds of computers available. I chose one whose monitor seemed to be at the correct height already. I feel like I should do a dance, running around the room and singing. But... what would I sing?

Maybe a song like this:
I went to the Tim Horton's in CAB
It had the shortest Tim Horton's line I have ever seen
But no debit and no credit
So, disappointed, I put my coffee cup back in my baggggggggg

Sorry no postie. I just got back yesterday from the Alberta Library Conference in Jasper, which was a surreal blur of a weekend--some conference sessions, but also meeting various Canadian writers and journalists (no name-dropping, I'm not that crass), drinking more beverages in 1 weekend than possibly ever before (which is still not that many), and (I wish I was kidding about this) walking around downtown Jasper searching for a Gossip Girl novel. Which I did not find. Not surprisingly. Oh, and most of the beverages were paid for by database vendors, which I find hilarious. They call me at work and try to sell me their database products, which I don't purchase, but damn right I'll drink their free drinks. I'm not made of stone.

greetings and some news

Good morning, teh interwebs.

It has been a very eventful few days. How's that for an opening sentence? We got our keys on Friday, had a mammoth shopping day on Saturday, and yesterday got a good start on painting. The kitchen is now a bright green called "herbal garden." The living room is "poinsettia," which, I just learned today, is spelled with an "i" towards the end. Exciting times. There will be more details, and pictures, to come.

In the mornings, when I go to Tim Horton's (not every morning, despite what this blog may have you believing) I cross the street at the intersection with no pedestrian light, and then I hike across a little hill to the T-Ho's parking lot. It's not very far--maybe 20 feet--but it's still quite emotionally isolating for a pedestrian, as there's no sidewalk or anything, just a path beaten into the snow. And where this path meets the parking lot there's a steep, icy snow embankment, and inevitably there is a huge truck or SUV parked there, so one has to balance precariously so as not to fall on the vehicle. The whole ordeal is very trying, especially when you consider that at this point in the day I have been on the bus for an hour and, by definition, have not yet had coffee.

So. I'm always mad that people drive these huge trucks and park them so close to the edge so that I can't get through. But this morning--O morning of mornings!--there was a little smart car parked there, with feet to spare on either side, and I walked through easily, and it felt like a sign. And on the way out, with my coffee in hand, there was a Camry parked there--not quite as magnificent, but still. My luck is changing.

Pretending the desk is a boat

I've built a little fortress of book-carts and office furniture around myself, and I am not coming out until someone brings me some Starbucks.

wishful thinking

Please stand back and watch respectfully while I roll up the rim and win a boat.

I shall call you the patron saint of drinkable coffee, and I shall build a temple to you out of brown plastic stir-sticks, with sugar-cube columns

So, when it comes to eating things from the fridge, I have a pretty devil-may-care attitude. If it smells OK and has no visible mold, I will pretty much eat it. But at work, the stakes are a little higher: things could have literally been in there for YEARS, and sometimes they belong to other people. As soon as other people's responsibility starts to figure into calculations, it all goes to hell. So I am very appreciative of the person (whoever it was) who put the little packages of creamer in a styrofoam bowl, and wrote on the side of the bowl: "BEST BEFORE FEB 29 (08)." I like the (08) too. You can't be too specific.

Thank you, mysterious stranger.

I also like the fact that I am getting an email roughly every 5 minutes. Keep 'em coming, people. You don't want me to get bored.

Sometimes I have to ask myself, "what's the freaking point?"

and the answer is, THERE IS NO FREAKING POINT.

The coffee place in my neighbourhood--"my neighbourhood coffee place," if you will--is never open in the mornings when I got to school. What is the point of a coffee place that is not open in the mornings, ie., the most important time for coffee, and also, co-incidentally, the time that people are on their way to school/work? I will tell you. There is no point, to any of it. I am not trying to be a downer when I saw this, BUT LIFE DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE.

Further proof of my "The world does not make any sense" claim: Lorne Gunter. Not only does he constantly behave like an ignorant baby-animal-killing conservative idealogue, but he also never gets me coffee. He's Canada's answer to "jerk."