Month: October 2004

The following is an excerpt from the US Vice-Presidential debate which happened earlier in the week. Dick Cheney is attempting to convince people John Edwards is an absentee Senator.

“Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I’m up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they’re in session.

The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”

Regardless of Edwards’ record in the Senate (which isn’t any worse than Cheney’s), The Daily Show came up with an interesting picture.

I finally got around to cleaning my bathroom tonight. Yeah, it’s supposed to be clean when you move in, but UBC Housekeeping being the joke it is, my bathroom wasn’t exactly sparking clean.

It took me half an hour to clean everything, except the tub which will take some time. I even did the bathroom floor, which needed the most work. I feel good that I cleaned as thoroughly as I did. There’s something satisfying about knowing you cleaned your bathroom. From now on, any mess I make in there will be my own. You always feel more comfortable knowing you made something dirty rather than wondering where that came from.

Next on my list is the kitchen. It’s fairly clean already, but it still needs some work here and there. The big thing will be the kitchen floor. It’s not gross or anything, but it needs a good sweep and a Swiffering.

I get the feeling the person who lived here before me wasn’t especially big on having a clean apartment. Something tells me that I should be thankful I didn’t see the apartment when they moved out. I guess housekeeping did some work, but not enough in my mind.

I don’t think I’ll feel totally comfortable in here for another few weeks. I’m not sure why exactly. It was kinda different at SJC. Even though at first I wasn’t comfortable with the people, it didn’t take very long for me to feel that my room was my home. I felt settled very quickly. I don’t feel that here for some reason.

Anyways, I’m off to do some other things.

I am taking my first night class this term. The text book for this course is expensive. The prof has even apologized for the price. The price at UBC Bookstore is somewhere around $170. At Amazon.ca, it’s for sale for $150. If I were younger, in my first-year, I’d probably just bite the bullet and pay the $150 (plus shipping) on Amazon and get the book that way. I am, however, an old, ornery, and penny-pinching SOB.

In light of this, I went in search of a cheaper alternative. I found it on Ebay. There is an Ebay store that sells cheap text books. At first, I wasn’t too sure of the whole operation. It listed fifty copies of my text book for sale at $27 (plus $10 shipping) each. What a deal! The only difference between the Amazon copy and this one was that it’s a softcover edition. The dealer was listed in Chicago and his feedback was mainly positive, so I decided to go for it. I was expecting for it to take at least a week to get to me, with Canada Customs and all.

I ordered late Thursday night, so essentially the order was processed on Friday. On Monday night, I received the tracking number for my package. When I entered it in on the web site, I discovered my text book was being sent from India! Whoa! The good news is that on Sunday it went all the way from India to Montreal. By the time I had checked it had already been in Canada for almost a day. Today, Tuesday, I checked again and it had been delivered to the front desk of my residence.

After class, I picked up my text book. As I opened up the package, I saw that indeed it was the softcover edition. Across the top of the book was labeled “Pearson Education Low Price Edition”. More telling was the text near the bottom of the cover:

“This edition is manufactured in India and is authorized for sale only in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Circulation of this edition outside of these territories is UNAUTHORIZED.”

I’m not sure if the seller actually broke any laws, but I am sure glad he sold this book to me.

What’s between the covers is also revealing. The pages of the book have been printed on thin paper. It’s not quite as thin as what you’d find in a Bible, but it’s certainly not what you’d find at the UBC Bookstore. You can see the text on the other side of the page and the one after that as well. I highly doubt that the paper is acid-free. As for the ink on the paper, boy is it a doozy. The ink emits an odour on every single page. It’s not overwhelming, but I’m going to try to keep my head away from the book when I read it. I’m almost sure that the ink is carcinogenic, so I’ll attempt to decrease skin contact as much as possible.

Overall though, it was a hell of a deal. I saved over $100 on this text book and it should last me ten to twelve months before my fingers fall off.

I’ve just picked up my first load of laundry from one of the laundry rooms here at T-Bird. On my way to the laundry room, I noticed a young lady about 20 feet behind me. She had a laundry bag, so it was obvious she was just starting her wash.

I go in and take my clothes out of the dryer. On my way across the courtyard back to my apartment, I see a pair of purple cotton panties on the ground. Could that be hers? I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think it was there on my way to the laundry room. Did she drop it somehow? I wondered if I should pick up, go back to the laundry room, and ask if it belonged to her.

What if it didn’t belong to her though? Boy, would I feel stupid then. She’d probably think I’m some sorta underwear-picking-up freak. Also, it was lying in the middle of the courtyard. Everyone would be able to see me pick it up.

In the end, I left it where it was. Unclaimed. Lost. For completeness, this is what it looked like:

So I’m having dinner at SJC tonight. At my table is Shawn, Frank, Joel, and Malcolm. A resident that moved in at the beginning of September joins us. The resident is female. As with many SJC dinner conversations, the talk goes geeky… fast. Somehow the topic is changed to Star Wars. We talk about which of those movies might be shown during SJC Movie Night. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, someone mentions Alien vs. Predator. This is where it gets really bad. There’s a long discussion about the movie, what was wrong with it, etc.

It’s at this point the female resident hits the eject button and punches out of our table. She picks up her tray faster than you can say “chestburster” and high-tails it to the table next to us. Ha ha ha… I can laugh about it because this has happened to me so many times. Several minutes go by before I mention it to the group. Frank doesn’t bat an eye, he seems to be a veteran of the “table change” by now.

There’s been a lot of change at SJC, but some things will never change.

In between fighting off a cold, doing an assignment, and cleaning my apartment, it doesn’t leave a lot of time to write anything blog worthy. Once I get back into a groove though, you’ll be reading about what I had for lunch for months to come.

In the meantime, why don’t you read about my friend and his driving adventures in Japan? Nate just got a car and he’s documented his vehicular experiences. Click on the photo below.