Happy Leap day

I pity the Pirates of Penzance antics that await every child born today.

Let me try and remember some Dr. Zoidberg quotes:

Hermes: Baby needs a new pair of shoes!
Zoidberg: To hell with your spoiled baby, I need those shoes.

Woop woop woop woop woop.

I've been making fine jewelry for years, apparently.

Now open that mouth and let's have a look at that brain. No no no no no! Not that mouth!!
(This is funny because a doctor who's an expert on humans, or so we're told.)

In my experience boxes are usually empty. Or maybe with a little cheese stuck to the top, and one time pepperoni! What a day that was!
(This is funny because Dr. Zoidberg lives in crippling poverty.)

80's guy: There are sharks, and there's sheep. Sheep will be fired. Who's a sheep?
Zoidberg: Uh, which are the one's people like to hug?
80's guy: Gutsy question. You're a shark. Sharks are winners, and they don't look back, cuz they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep.

And a little video snippet, to really get the feel for our favourite crustacean.



Watch some Futurama, you'll thank me. I got hook ups if you need them.

Midnight train... well, bus

Heya. What to tell, what to tell. I went to Ottawa this weekend, which speaks against previous statements found in posts below about how boring and dull the capital is. But hey, I have family there, so my excuse is that I wanted to hang out with my cousins. Which I did, and I did. We even went to the canal on Sunday. I didn't skate, in fact only my one cousin was skating, but it was nice anyway. We had beaver tails, and I had the maple syrup one which is seriously an outside only snack. When I had finished the ice beneath me had a spotty coating of maple drip off and my hands were a little sticky, but its all part of the Canadian winter experience. Or something like that.

I had Smartfood while in Ontario as well, because, as I may have mentioned before (I'm not actually sure if I have) I cannot find Smartfood in Quebec. I was craving it, and am now satisfied. But who knows for how long.

I had a dual purpose for the trip, and I spent Monday at the U of O working on some stuff for a paper since my co-author remains in Ottawa. But it was pretty nice, there's something about the linguistics department there, I just feel like I can focus. That's something I'm not getting from the McGill linguistics building, so instead I just procrastinate all the time and never get anything done. I had lunch at the vegetarian restaurant that I used to frequent -- they have the BEST veggie burgers EVER. Seriously, the best. And I saw a friend from last year there, and we chatted and had some coffee after lunch. All very civil and victorian.

I went out for a pint with a friend after all the photocopying and paper discussing was finished. By the time I got to the bus station it was 9:45 so I caught the 10 o'clock bus and got home a bit before 1 am (that factors in the walking time from the Montreal station to my house).

So, I guess its just a life/weekend update. I'm not coming up with anything funny (or at least not anything I think is funny, and you might not find this blog amusing ever anyway) or intriguing. If you know where Quebecers get their name brand white cheddar popcorn, lemme know.

Picures

Finally, I've decided to show you some pictures taken with my *New* Digital *Camera*!

Here's the little man himself. The epitome of mini charmingness.

Here's my brother feeding my nephew a lemon. The face says no, but the asking for it again and again says yes.

I've been colouring. My little brother gave me pencil crayons for Christmas. I have another geometric design, but I haven't taken any professional quality photos of it yet. Look closely, you will see that the picture is sitting on a binder, carefully placed on my bed. I've got some awesome blue sheets.

On Friday night me and people I know (is it friends you call them?) went to this cultural night a U de M. There were these acrobat people who jumped over each other and did crazy balancing stuff.

This little treasure we nicknamed "The coke angel". As you can see he has a darling set of featherish wings strapped to his bare torso. Whenever he wasn't upside-down or catapulting off someone's shoulders, he was hopping with this crazy grin on his face. Coke angel.

The cultural night included a Balinese gamelan. This is some chick in a dude's costume doing the creepy Balinese dance. I maintain that its creepy because its all this small, sudden movements and the mask freaks me out.
Ok, that's it for now. I was just outside checking out the lunar eclipse. I took some pictures, but you can't really see anything. The moon looks red. I didn't stay outside to keep watching because its really amazingly cold.

Sacramende

I might have some pictures in future posts. I've been colouring with the pencil crayons my little brother gave me for Christmas.

So, there were two things I wanted to talk about. Only one I remember right now, let's start with that. I was on the treadmill in the gym the other day and the TV most central to my field of vision had pro wrestling on it. I've decided its ballet for men. Really, we all know its choreographed, but the guys seriously don't even touch each other. You can see the guy getting punched throwing himself backwards on his own volition. Its not even good fake. I can't handle it. Coincidentally, the most recent episode of project runway the designers had to make ring costumes for female WWE-ers. They had to buy their material from "Spandex House". Quality all round.

What was the second thing? Not a clue. Back to how a hate presenting, I have a presentation for the PF reading group tomorrow. I'm going to shine the light of my MA thesis on them such that they may bask in its insight and be at a lost for suggestion and criticism. Maybe not quite, but we'll see how it goes. I'm guessing my phonology prof from last semester is not going to be impressed with my feature geometry defined by c-command rather than dominance. Its something I have to look more into, but it might not be as bad as it sounds.

Right, Valentines is a fake holiday. It was only minimally acceptable when we were little kids and we were forced to give cards to everyone and eat cinnamon hearts in class. But now, its a waste of flowers. And I don't really like chocolates that much either, so I can't benefit from such things. Flowers on random days, or your birthday, are nice. But for Valentines its so cliché. Don't you just think of romance and love when you think of February?

Old Fort Cheese

Of all the cheeses in the world, I think old Canadian cheddar is my favourite. Sure, you can get a fancy brie, or a nice dry parmesan, even and nice melted provolone, but there's something about that unearthly orange glow that enhances the taste of the local cheese. In case you're wondering, Canada has pretty excellent cheese (we're not comparing with France or something here), in relation to certain parts of the world at least. India has pretty unimpressive cheese, and the UK is decent, but their good cheese is like the imported stuff, some of which is from Canada.

Exciting news, I get to go to Germany at the end of March. I got into the conference, which is pretty cool, so I get to go argue with the Europeans about my analysis and see if I can't convince them of some of crazy ideas. I'm also hoping to learn a little sum'n sum'n while I'm there. I've never been to for reals Europe before, only to Britland, so I'm pretty excited. I'm wondering if I might have a problem with people assuming that I speak German, though. My last name is Austrian and I look very germanic. I'm sure my North American attire will give me away somewhat, and perhaps the Canadian flag on my backpack.

I stole a vacuum from the hallway this morning. I've been planning on asking the superintendent if I could use the vacuum for a while now, but I haven't worked up the courage and haven't seen her at an opportune time to actually ask. This morning when I left for class, there's was a vacuum in the hallway. Very stealthily I moved it into my apartment and locked it there until this afternoon when I came home. I'm hoping someone wasn't worried about where it went, but now my floor is dust free and noticeably cleaner, and I figure it was worth the harsh reprimand known to follow vacuum theft.

I feel like knitting something. But I won't, because I'll work on it for like 3 days and get tired of the scarf. It would be a scarf because I can't make anything else. Also, I don't need more time wasters to draw me away from my work, I'm bad enough as is.

My Special Skill

I've been called a "pack mule". Yes, it sounds like a nasty insult, but all it really means is that I'm good at carrying crap. Its very useful on canoe trips, I'm good with a canoe on my head. Today I bought a pile of groceries, and I got to lug them all back to my apartment. Thus my pack mule skills. I'm hoping I won't need more for like two weeks, other than a few fresh vegetables and some milk. I bought Shreddies, which I think I haven't had since I was 5. But I remember liking them when I was 5. If I'm not mistaken, my mom stopped buying them for me and my brother because we would leave some stuck to the sides of the bowls.

I've been working on some abstracts for conferences. I think I have about... 5 papers on the go right now. There's IS, NI, Wh, Case... ok 4 but I have to write an Obv paper as well. But some exciting/terrifying news, I submitted my article, to a pretty high up journal. I submitted to that one because I was told to, and I'm getting an "experience", even if I get rejected.

I watched Hot Fuzz. It was actually pretty good. Sort of a cop action/thriller, which is a quasi-unique blend. And it was British, which is always a bonus. Its the same guys as Shaun of the Dead, so if you saw that you would also like his movie.

I feel like queen of the slackers. I've been wasting huge vats of time for no particular reason. There's somewhat of a lull in the semester, but I should really use the time because it will become crazy quickly and then I'll be mad at myself for not using the time I had.

Nothing interesting to say.