Kalev won free tickets1 to a sneak preview of The Unborn tonight and he took lil’ ole’ me.
Kalev’s review of the movie:
“The best horror movie I’ve seen this year!”
-Kalev, Jan 8, 2009
1Then I won free tickets and then he won more free tickets. So, clearly we were destined to see this movie.
Three of the last five Diet Dr. Peppers that I have bought have won me another Diet Dr. Pepper:
This seems like an abnormally high winning percentage, no? I keep buying them from the vending machine at work – for some reason, whenever I’m in a store where I can actually cash in one of these bad boys, I’m not craving one. And, of course, you can’t spend a pop bottle cap in a vending machine! I suppose if I economy keeps tanking, at least I’ll still be able to afford my next few Diet Dr. Peppers.
Then go here to win some memory!
Over on Tyler Ingram’s blog, you can win a 4GB SDHC memory card from Kingston. And all you have to do is comment on that blog posting. And if you blog about it (as I am doing here), you get a second entry in his contest.
But you shouldn’t enter, ‘cuz I want to win it!
While everyone else was waiting in line at a Fido or Rogers store trying to get a 3G iPhone, I had my sights set on the other thing that made July 11 significant.
July 11.
7/11.
Free Slurpees1!
Now the Slurpees that they give out for free on 7/11 are small – just 7.11 oz to be exact:
But since there are 7-11s on every other street corner, Kalev and I decided to spend our afternoon chasing down as many free Slurpees as we could stomach.
After a big ass breakfast2 at the Templeton, we went off on our quest. Stop #1 – the 7/11 on Granville and Drake. We both decided to start with a fairly standard flavour: Pepsi Slurpee.
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Wanting to minimize our plastic usage, we decided to keep our giant Slurpee straws for the duration.
Next stop: the 7/11 at Homer & Helmcken.
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Here, Kalev decided to try the new “G-force” Slurpee – which is a Slurpee made with orange Gatorade, while I went for Banana. Which lead to a discussion of “why the heck doesn’t “banana flavour” even remotely taste like bananas?” as we made our way Stop #3: Seymour & Dunsmuir.
And this is where our story takes a turn. Thus far, our intrepid heroes have valiantly acquired not one, but TWO free Slurpees. And the day is still young, what with it being only 12:48 p.m. They enter the 7/11 at Seymour & Dunsmuir. But they do not see the bright pink and turquoise mini-cups that have come to represent free Slurpee goodness. What they do see is a hand written sign that says “No more free Slurpees after 12 noon.” Um, hello? Free Slurpee DAY? What part of D-A-Y do you not understand.
But fear not, gentle blog reader, for Kalev and Beth, they did solider on. The trusted that the universe would not let Free Slurpee Day end at noon! Especially since the first two Slurpees they had each consumed thus far were acquired after 12. And so they made their way to Stop #4 (Slurpee #3): Robson & Cardero.
At this store, we grabbed the last two mini-cups on the shelf – and then when this other dude who had just poured himself a regular Slurpee asked what the deal was, we were all “Slurpees in this size of cup are free today!” and he actually went to the counter, asked for a small cup, and dumped as much of his big cup o’Slurpee as he could into his little cup and said, “I’m not paying for this! I like free!” That’s right, Kalev and Beth bring Free Slurpee Awareness to randoms.
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For the record, I decided to try the G-force (tasty!), while Kalev opted for the Pink Grapefruit… which I thought sounded nasty, but which Kalev liked.
Next up was Stop #5 (Slurpee #4): Denman & Comox, for a Cream Soda Slurpee for me, a Coca Cola Slurpee for Kalev.
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I have to admit that at this point, I was starting to get a bit Slurpeed-out. But I had it in my to get one last Slurpee!
So we went to Stop#6 (Slurpee #5):the 7/11 at Davie & Hornby, where we learned that if there is a little flashing orange light on a Slurpee machine, it means that the Slurpee is not yet really frozen, so we ended up with a pair of fairly liquidy, yet still tasty, Lime Slurpees.
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The thus ended the Great Slurpee Adventure for 2008.
2Also, my half birthday. Happy 31.5th birthday to me!
2I’m not even joking. On the menu it’s actually called the “big ass breakfast.”
On Tuesday, I leave the cherry blossomed bosom of Vancouver to spend two days in Yellowknife. I’m going up there to do to some work, so it’s an all expense paid trip.
For my non-Canadian readers1, Yellowknife is the capital of the Northwest Territories. A territory is sort of like a province, but not exactly. To be honest, I don’ t actually know the difference between a province and a territory (*hanging head in shame*). But I digress… take a look at this map of Canada and look up, waaaaay up:
Yup, up there near the Arctic Circle. I checked the weather in Yellowknife the other day and this is what I saw:
Apparently their thermometers have negative numbers on them. Interesting. We don’t have that here in Vancouver, because temperature, as far as we know, only exists in positive numbers.
OK, now I’m ticked off that I don’t know the difference between a territory & a province. So I’ve looked it up. According to Wikipedia,
The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that a province receives its power and authority directly from the Crown, via the Constitution Act, 1867, whereas territories derive their mandates from the federal government.
And since I cannot easily find the answer to this question on the Government of Canada website, I’m going to assume that Wikipedia is not steering me wrong on this one.
Anyhoo, I’m very much looking forward to my trip. I’ve never been to any of the Territories before and seeing as one of my goals in life is to visit all the provinces and territories in Canada, a free trip to Yellowknife is a great way to get closer to that goal! Also, the furthest north I’ve ever been is, I believe2, Beaversmouth, BC, a town on the Trans Canada Highway between Golden & Revelstoke whatever the northernmost point on the Trans Canada between Toronto & Vancouver (ok, not Toronto exactly, but wherever the hell I got onto the Trans Canada after I left Toronto). Which means that even my stopover in Edmonton en route to the Northwest Territories will beat my record for northerly-ness.
My itinerary says that my hotel has wi-fi, so hopefully I’ll be able to post some photos while I’m there. Provided I can see over the snow to take photos.
1Now, I’m making the assumption that non-Canadian readers won’t know where Yellowknife is. Please feel free to tell me that I’m an idiot if this is incorrect.
2I don’t exactly remember going through Beaversmouth, but my map tells me that it’s the northernmost point on the stretch of the Trans Canada that I drove when moving from Toronto to Vancouver.My map is a liar.
Typing this out on my Palm Pilot on the bus on the way to a free screening of Cloverfield. Won’t have time to write blog posting when I get home as I have to finish my lecture for tomorrow. My wicked cool lecture about the BC Nutrition Survey, about measurement and about dietary assessment. But I’m so very, very tired…
So, some random thoughts. A recent study found that 75% of people in the study who called themselves vegetarians ate animal flesh sometimes. wtf? They put new floors in the hallway to the caf at my work. The new floors muffle the sound significantly compared to the old floors. I’m thinking they put the new flooring in because my new boots are like the loudest things ever when I walk down the hall in them. My ski buddy busted her knee & is out for the season; now looking for people with whom to ski. Is it wrong that I’m not done my lecture, but I decided what I’m going to wear to my class tomorrow 5 days ago?
As you know, I experience great difficulty in coming up with good names for things. But when I got this smoking hot new iPod for my birthday1,2, I came up with a name rather quickly. In honour of my third annual 29th birthday, I watched Fight Club, one of my most favourite movies ever, and it became clear that my iPod could have only one name. Allow me to introduce you to Marla:
Since I now have about sixty trillion terabytes of space on my fancy new iPod, I added a whole bunch o’podcasts:
But I still have fifty-nine trillion, nine hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and nintey-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine terabytes (give or take), so if you have a favourite podcast that you think I should check out, let me know.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go print up a label with my name and phone number on it to stick onto Marla, in case she goes missing, so that whoever finds her can return her to me. And I will be printing said label on my fancy schmancy printer. Which I need to review here in blogland soon. I don’t want to spoil this upcoming printer review, but suffice it to say, I’m disappointed that the printer doesn’t attach to my vibrator.
1Along with one of those adapter thingys3 that you plug into your iPod and then you can play your iPod over the car radio, which is wicked awesome for when I’m driving to hockey games.
2Thanks again, Giver of Birthday Gifts.
3Not one of these iPod adaptor thingys.
I can’t resist a contest1. But a contest with Vancouver Giants tickets and two day passes to Mount Seymour for prizes and a chance to promote donations to the Vancouver Food Bank? No way I’m missing out on this
The contest is being run by Miss604 in honour of her blogiversary2. You may remember Miss604 from such blog postings as: she beat me in the race to post a picture of oneself in a printer box and these overpriced Canucks earrings are cool!
You may remember the Vancouver Giants from such achievements as winning the 2007 Memorial Cup, getting into 5 simultaneously on-ice fights with Kamloops Blazer players and playing a team whose goalie smiled at me.
I’ve been skiing at Mount Seymour one time, last season, when they had free ski passes for women on Monday nights. My friends were all “meh, it’s just a mountain” but I thought it was pretty awesome. Of course, I grew up and learned to ski in a mountainless place where they are called “ski areas” as opposed to Mount Such-and-Such.
And last, but certainly not least, a shout out goes to the Vancouver Food Bank. The Food Bank helps tens of thousands of individuals every week – you can click on this link to donate to them.
1Procrastinate on getting around to writing my entry for a contest, yes. Resist, no.
2I would like to point out that I have fulfilled my contractual obligations3 for this contest at a mere 51 words into this blog posting. Yet I will continue to ramble because that’s just how I roll.
3OK, technically, there is no “contract”, but it just sounds cool, no?
When someone has a giant box in their house, it’s only natural that they will try to see if they fit in that box. The answer, my friends, is yes:
In fact, there’s plenty of room inside that box – you could have a tea party in there!
So, I took this photo, but before I got a chance to post it I saw over on Darren’s blog that Rebecca beat me to the punch. Not only did she have a picture of her inside her printer box, but she did it with comic strip complete with Dick in a Box reference. Clearly, I have much to learn in the ways of blogging.
In my own defence, I only just set up my printer last night, despite receiving it last week because, well, I was kind of intimidated by the fact that the “Quick Setup Guide” was 70 pages long1. I was really busy last week and this past weekend2 with work and it was much easier to leave it until a computer-y friend of mine came over and set it up for me. I chose the wifi printer because I didn’t want to be hassled with such things as plugging the printer in and setting it up for wifi required knowing things like WLAN and WEP and WPA and other such acronyms. I’m sure I actually could have figured it out3 if I wanted to, but having someone else do it for me was much easier. I work smarter, not harder. Plus, it gave me more time to do things like play inside my new fort4.
On the plus side, it’s all set up now and prints all nice and suchlike. At least, the few test pages that I’ve printed so far. I’m going to play around with it more this weekend/next week once my stupid big report at work is done. I’m very excited that it prints in colour and duplexes stuff. I heart duplexing.
1Wait a sec, that’s not really in my own defence. Unless my defence is that I’m a big baby.
2Ya, I was working on the weekend. Big report due. Boo to big reports!
3There are illustrated step-by-step directions. I’m sure I could have followed along if I actually tried.
4I have to keep the box to ship the printer back to them when my trial run is over. So I suppose I should keep my playing to a minimum to keep it intact.
I arrived home today to discover that my new printer had been delivered! Well, it’s not actually *my* printer – it’s only mine to test drive for a couple of months.
A little while ago, Darren emailed me an amusing comic strip, asking if I wanted to try out a colour laser printer for two months. And, well, you know how I feel about free stuff, even if it’s only free for a little while!
As you can see from the photo, it’s a Brother printer and comes in an exceptionally large box. I swear, that box is bigger than me! What you can’t see from the photo, it’s the HL-4070CDW (Wi-Fi certified wireless network-ready colour laser printer with built-in automatic two-sided printing). I’m a big fan of printing on both sides of any given paper and I’m eager to check out the Wi-Fi’edness. I should point out that my current printer was purchased in 1995 when I bought my first computer and requires that you hand feed each paper individually (and even then it sometimes has a hissy fit and requires repeated shutting off and restarting of my computers before it will stop printing in tongues, and so if this thing actually feeds paper on its own, I’ll be stoked.
I worked late tonight and then had to do some grocery shopping as I had no food in my place, so I was too exhausted to unpack my new printer and figure out where I’m actually going to put it, being that it’s so huge and all. But Thursday is my Friday, so I will have the weekend to unpack it, hook it up and play with it! I’ll keep ya posted
Ever wonder what 3 months worth of recycling looks like? Well, wonder no longer:
This is the recycling that has been piling up in my kitchen since the city workers’s strike started back in July. They are *finally* going to pick up recycling this week and I can’t wait to put this stuff outside and get my kitchen back!!
In other cleaning-up-my-place news, I was struck with my biennial “I feel like cleaning” mood on Friday and did some tidying up and organizing. Apparently there is this new invention that’s like a sponge on a stick and you put the sponge part in soapy water and run it across your floor. I believe they call it a “mop.” So I tried that out and now have shiny kitchen and bathroom floors1
Some other features of my newly semi-organized place include taking my shoe collection from looking like this:
To looking like this:
Although I do have to admit that even with a five-story shoe rack, I don’t have enough room for all my shoes2
Also, I hung up a whole bunch of stuff on the walls, as seen here:
Of course, there are still piles of paper on various tables, chairs, filing cabinets and other available surfaces (photos not available3), but I’m sure I’ll get around to cleaning them up in 2009, when the mood to clean hits me again.
1Although the tile in my kitchen, like the paint on the walls and all the furniture, is older than me, so it still kinda looks like crap.
2Plus, there are four more pairs in my bedroom that I forgot to take a photo of and I’m too lazy to take a photo and upload it now that I’ve realized that I didn’t take a photo of them.
3Because I don’t want to document what a slob I am. Despite my claims to the contrary, I’m really not at all about fair and balanced reporting .
So last night I took my first trip in a Car Co-op Car to my first hockey game on my new team. Oh yes, did I mention that I joined the Car Co-op? And that I joined a new hockey team? Perhaps I should back up a few steps.
A few weeks ago, I joined the Car Co-op. It’s actually called the Co-operative Auto Network (or CAN), but I just call it the Car Co-op because, well, it’s a car co-op1. The deal with the co-op is that you put down a $500 (refundable) deposit to become a member and then you co-operatively own the cars, along with all the other members. The cars are spread out over the city and you book them online when you want to use them – first come, first served. You pay depending on how much time you have the car and how many kilometers you drive. It’s much cheaper than buying a car and since I discovered that I can’t afford even a measly $21,000 (after all the fees & taxes), plus insurance, for my beloved Smart Car2, this is the only way for me to get my hands on some wheels.
And I need wheels because I just joined a new hockey team, but they play out in Coquitlam. Coq, for those of you who aren’t from around these parts, is a 45 minute drive3 from my house. And it appears that I’m the only person on the team who isn’t from Coq, so there is no chance to car pool. So I needed some wheels. Hence the Car Co-op.
Plus, having access to wheels makes the idea of getting a ski pass this winter feasible. I’ve lived in this city far too long without having a ski pass!
But back to the hockey. My new team is awesome! Everyone is so nice and so friendly! And with lots of team spirit! They’ve been playing together for awhile (only me and one other person are new to the team this year) and there is just an overall positive vibe to the team. I was worried before the game, since I hadn’t played in sooooo long, but it all comes back to you, just like riding a bike. Take short shifts, skate hard, stand in front of the net, wait for good player to pass to you & shovel the puck in the net3… or tie up the defenceman in front of the net to give one of the good players a clear shot. I was playing right wing last night (on my former team, I was a centre) and I quite liked it. I still have to get used to the position and where I’m supposed to be under different circumstances, but positioning has always been my strong point, so I’m sure I’ll pick it up quickly. [OK, so this is weird. I just looked on the Canucks website to see who is a right winger (and thus, who I should be watching now that pre-season is under way) and, apparently all of our forwards are either centres or left wingers, other than new kid Ryan Shannon. What the f is up with that? Also, Ryan Shannon – get a haircut, you hippie!]
So, yeah, Car Coop – great. New hockey team – great. If you want to join the Co-op, tell them that I referred you and I’ll get $20. And you know how much I like getting stuff for free!
1I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but it was only a few years ago when I actually learned what a co-op is. Before that, I just knew the Co-op as the place where my dad bought feed for his chickens.
2thanks $850 a month in student loan payments!
3Or a 372 hour bus ride. Give or take.
4One of these days, I really do need to learn how to actually shoot the puck.
I’ve been meaning to get some Tupperware for some time now. But it turns out that my laziness has paid off as, when I went upstairs to do my laundry yesterday, my landlady informed me that they had some Tupperware that they never use and so were getting rid of and would I like it?
It’s like having a grey box in my own house!
Just saw this ad in the “free” section of Craig’s List:
Hey everybody,
I am the unlucky owner of a brand new red trampoline which I now believe to be cursed. Due to a recent injury concerning the trampoline I will be giving it away for no charge. Warning : the trampoline is cursed.
Please contact me as soon as possible,
If only I wasn’t so superstitious, I would totally take that trampoline. But my experience with cursed chocolate bars taught me that you just don’t mess with curses. Also, my apartment has very low ceilings.
Beth is a freelance scientist, educator, artist, model and social engineer. You've been warned. |
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