The Main Dish: March 2006

Thursday, March 30, 2006

The Ultimate Showdown

This week's movie - Lone Wolf McQuade starring Chuck Norris. Where to begin? It had a great opener with one of the bad guys sending a torrent of bullets at Chuck and missing every time. Chuck sends one bullet back and kills the guy. Then, he stands on top of a cliff, sun at his back so all you can see is his silhouette. Classic!

Key moments to watch for include Chuck and his woman mud wrestling, Chuck's woman telling him she loves him, while he just sits there (we were waiting for the response "I know." but it never came), and the bad guy fighting martial arts style in an argyle sweater. Also, let's not forget car beer - don't leave home without it. You'd be surprised at what it can do.

One of my favorite parts: Chuck meets a woman one day and the next day when he comes home there she is cleaning his house. She has thrown out all his beer. There's a plastic bottle on top of the fridge. Chuck asks, "What's this?" She replies, "Vitamins." This causes Chuck to go into a fit of rage and fling everything that was on top of the fridge across the room.

This movie is everything you would expect from a Chuck Norris movie and has the 80s fashion to boot. (Side note: How on earth did people breathe with such tight pants pulled up around their chins?) The action is awesome and over dramatic, as is the bad acting.

I give this movie a definite 5 out of 5 cheese slices.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

The Main Dish = Small Business

Today I went to get my taxes done. A really nice guy named Steve, who has a small business out of his home on Flora, called PRD Tax Services, helped me out for the second year in a row. Thank you Caroline for referring me to him. I definitely recommend him to anyone else looking for some help in the tax department.

Anyway, in an attempt to declare all my income, I brought in the receipts I had for the freelance translation I've been doing. The result? I am now my own small business.

The down side? More income to declare could potentially result in more taxes to pay. Also, instead of having to pay $40 to get my taxes done, I had to pay $60. The up side? Well, I was able to write off my Internet bill for the last few months as a business expense. Also, I found out that if I keep the receipts, I can write off other purchases, such as new computer software, print cartridges, etc. If I do enough work, I can even count part of my apartment as my business locale and write off part of my rent! Intriguing! And, as long as I don't make over $30,000 (which I don't think is anything to worry about), I don't have to do anything crazy like get a GST number and charge people taxes.

Really, the whole concept of income tax puzzles me, but at least things are straightened out for this year. I don't have to pay anything and even have a cheque coming my way. Last year, when the tax man told me how much money I was getting back, I could not restrain myself from saying "Yay! Free Money!" This resulted in me getting a lecture about how it is just the government giving me part of my own money back.

I restrained myself this year and settled for a mere "whoo hoo!", although he still commented that every time he mentioned the amount I came back with "whoo hoo!" and how it was his turn to "whoo hoo" when I paid him. I think he thinks I'm a bit strange. Oh well, join the club I suppose. ;o)
It's not even that I am getting that huge of a cheque, it will just be nice to have some extra money that was not necessarily expected. All in all, I think things went rather well. Let's just hope I don't run into any problems like last year! Knock on wood, fingers crossed, etc.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Random Coincidences, Grosse Incompetence and Other Tales

Ok. So I've been a little slack about updating my blog. After a number of complaints, I am taking some initiative and doing something about it. Enough with the nasty emails already!

What's new with me? Well, as most of you know, my parents were in town last visiting last week from the fair isle of Prince Edward. My beloved Papa was nice enough to get me Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher's Guide, Volume 2, which he picked up at a used book sale at the library back home. What is really cool about the whole thing is that when he got it home, my mom was looking at it and inside is a bookmark - one of those ones with the person's name and the description of what the name means. The name on this bookmark - Patricia. It's like the book was meant to be mine! Too cool. By the way, apparently people named Patricia have beautiful eyes, soft like the moonlight of spring. I also have a special glamour and power all my own, so watch out!

Other bits of info...last week my shower head exploded in my hand. Got into the shower bright and early in the a.m. Joe was staying for the week since he was on course just around the corner. He is taller than me and so he tilts the showerhead up. So, when I get into the shower the water is shooting straight into my face. I reached up to tilt it back into position and what happens? The whole thing falls apart in my hand. This means a huge and violent jet of water is shooting at me with a force so hard I am surprised it didn't leave bruises. The shower head did not just come unscrewed, it was actually cracked and broken so even when I tried to put it back on, water started shooting in random directions all over the bathroom. Meanwhile, I had already called the superintendant multiple times about the fact that the bathtub not draining properly, so while all this is going on, I am shin-deep in water. I was none too impressed. Much crankiness ensued. However, now, after much annoyance and harassment, I am the proud owner of a shiny new showerhead with adjustable settings!

In other news, I did my first evening babysitting stint on Saturday night. My sister Johanna and her husband Steve were heading out to a party at one of Johanna's co-worker's place. Baby Samuel was still awake when I arrived so that he could see that I was there and not get too much of a shock if he woke up while they were gone. Johanna assured me that he has never really woken up before other times when she went out and the baby was home alone with Steve. Sounded like everything was going to be as easy as pie since Sam is usually very happy to see me anyway. I was not worried in the least. Perhaps I was overconfident. About 15 minutes after Johanna and Steve left, the baby woke up. He was quiet for a few minutes and then basically started to howl and cry and continued to do so off and on for the next two hours or so. He could not be comforted. He didn't want anything to eat. None of the usual cheer tactics worked. In the end, I accepted my failure and called my sister. The minute he heard her voice on the phone, he calmed down. Shortly after that, he fell asleep in my arms and was sound asleep in the crib when his parents arrived home. Normally, although he is the cutest baby alive, he is a bit of a trouble maker. I suspect he planned this whole thing to make me seem incompetent.

Another random occurrence - the party Johanna and Steve were going to was in Barrhaven. I only know two people who live in Barrhaven, well more than two people but two residences. Ferda and James and Joe's brother Ivo and his family. By random coincidence they live on the same street. By further random coincidence, Johanna's coworker also lives on the same street. This leads me to wonder, is there only one street in Barrhaven? It just seems totally bizzarre.

Anyway, hopefully this is enough to satisfy the complainers out there temporarily. Bedtime is approaching and I must rest my eyes, which did I mention are soft as the moonlight of spring, before another day of staring at the computer for exactly 7.5 well-documented hours. Bonne nuit!

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Kids These Days

So, last night, against my better judgement, I went to a St. Patrick's Day dance at church. I just can't understand it. All night they played this hip hop/house music. How can anyone who is not a gangsta dance to that stuff. I just can't do it. Please note that the average age of people in attendance was probably about 23. Later in the evening, at the request of one of my friends, they played Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard. These people actually either left the dance floor or just stood there not knowing what to do.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!!! Why don't they know how to rock???? It was so sad! Just as sad as when the teenagers weren't allowed to dance in Footloose (or should I say Foot-louis?). I would venture even to say that it was sadder than that.

I mean how many people can say that hip hop music changed their life in someway? I have it on good authority (Jack Black in School of Rock) that one great rock show can change the world!

All I can say is that I raise my goblet of rock in a toast to those who rock. And it an expression of ultimate cheese, I second AC/DC's sentiment and say "For those about to rock, we salute you." For those about to hip hop? No salutation, only a lot of pity and sadness.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Whoo hoo! I love love love St. Paddy's Day. I have never been sure why, since usually it centers around mass quantities of beer, which has never been my thing, but still the love is there. Besides, it's great to have an excuse to wear shamrock tattoos and dress in green. This year, I am ready. I have created my own t-shirt and I must say, I am quite proud of how well it turned out.

Picture this. White shirt. Green shamrock and the words "Kiss Me, I'm Trish." This little joke stems back from the days when Jennie and I took a cake decorating class together. My cake was covered with lips, shamrocks and gold coins and said "Kiss me, I'm Irish". Well, that is what it was supposed to say. Apparently, at that time (and also now) my cake decor skills were not exactly top notch. Jennie looked at it and thought it said, "Kiss me, I'm Trish." Thus, a great new St. Patrick's Day saying and t-shirt idea was born. (Also please note that Trish is short for Patricia, female form of Patrick. Coincidence? I think not!)

Thanks go out to Ryan for the helpful tips about the iron-on transfers. I did what you said and cut really close around them and it worked out fabulously. Now, it just remains to decide whether or not it is appropriate to wear this shirt to work! I wonder if the new co-workers are ready to see the real me, in all my quirkiness!

Song of the Moment: Wild Rover by the Irish Descendants (yes, it is a traditional song, but it is their version that is playing in the soundtrack of my mind).

Childhood Television

So, today at lunch we were talking about unwanted house guests. One of the girl’s I work with is expecting about 10 guests for the weekend, some of whom are apparently very picky eaters. This turned into a conversation about giving them PB&J and telling them to suck it up, which then led to the singing of that Sharon, Lois and Bram song "Peanut, peanut butter...jelly", which then led to Michelle and I to both bring up the the Fred Penner sandwich song. I LOVE that song, but nobody really knows it. Everyone looks at me funny when I sing it. I was so impressed to find someone who also knows and loves it! Yay! A work friend who might understand my quirkiness! Here are the lyrics for all to enjoy:

Sandwiches are beautiful
Sandwiches are fine
I like sandwiches
I eat them all the time
I eat the for my breakfast
And I eat them for my lunch
If I had a hundred sandwiches
I'd eat them all at once!

Classic! Anyway, this also led to further discussion of childhood television show favourites and how all kid’s shows are a bit strange. The following examples were discussed:

* Ok. So Mister Rogers had to change from his outdoor shoes to his indoor shoes, but why did he have to also change his sweater. And isn’t it a bit odd to have a trolley track running through your living room.

* Was Casey Mr. Dressup’s son? If so, why did he live in a tree house in the backyard. If not, why did he live in a tree house in the back yard?

* Also from Mr. Dressup, why was it that Finnegan could open his mouth, but never said anything audible and Casey was always talking, but his mouth was just painted on?

* Why was Fred Penner bringing kids to his secret fort in the woods and why did they always show him crawling through that log to get to it?

*What was with that whole Polkaroo scenario from the Polka Dot Door?

* Why did they have to make everyone able to see Snuffy on Sesame Street? It was so much better when only Big Bird could see him!

* What did those kids on Let’s Go really do besides where cool 70s t-shirts with their names on them in fuzzy letters?

* Why did Fran, from Romper Room, always see the same kids when she looked into her magic mirror?

So many mysteries! Feel free to add some more. That is if anyone still reads this thing, since, according to Matt, my popularity is dwindling. :o(

Saturday, March 11, 2006

A New Olympic Sport

Volkswagon Luge. The other day after all the freezing rain, I came home from work to discover that getting into my parking garage was going to be quite a feat. First, I must describe it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Instead of the garage, I actually prefer to refer to it as "a rapist's paradise." To get to the garage you have to enter by a very small, narrow alley between two buildings. You would barely even know that the driveway is there, actually. The alley is long and extremely narrow. I feel like my Jetta just barely fits through it. Then you go down into a dungeon of a parking garage. It is competely dark except for one or two bare lightbulbs that barely allow you to see anything, one of which is frequently burnt out. There is no door on the garage, so basically anyone could wander in there and be waiting for you when you get home. I am also pretty sure that the ceiling contains asbestos.

And all this for only $100 per month and a waiver that says you agree to park at your own risk.

Well, back to the orginal story at hand. The other day I came home to find that the entire alley was coated in a sheet of ice. Do you think that my $100 bought a little bit of sand or salt? Oh no, nuh na no! First, it was so slick, I could barely get off the road and into the alley. The tires were just spinning on the ice.

Once maneuvered into the alley, just narrowly avoiding crashing my car into the brick walls about 2 inches from my car on either side, I did not even have to use the gas pedal. My car slid down the alley with me frantically trying to keep it straight so as not to scrape the sides of my car off.

There was a huge sigh of relief on my part once safely in the garage and a decision that maybe I should start a new olympic sport of luging with my Jetta.

I mean really though. A little salt wouldn't kill you people! There has to be room for 13 cars (at least) that park in that garage. When you stop and do the math on that, that is 1300 per month in easy money. How much does a bag of salt cost? $10? That would still be a profit of $1290.

I am also starting to worry a bit about the fact that when it rains, water now cascades down from the ceiling. I had to put my wipers on in the garage the other day! I have visions of going down to get my car one day and having to dig it's poor little crushed body out from under the rubble that is the collapsed roof of my garage.

At your own risk sucks!

His Hangups are Hilarious

This week's movie nite featured Harold and Maude, my sister Stephanie's favorite movie. I resisted watching it for many a year, generally because she and I do not really have the same taste in movies, but I have to say, I was actually pleasantly surprised. First of all, the music is all done by Cat Stevens. Well, mostly they play "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out" over and over again, but it's a great song, so it's all good.

One funny moment is when Harold discovers that Maude is posing nude for an artist. She asks him if he disapproves. He waits 10 minutes before saying, "no."

Probably the best part was watching Matt's face. He kept waiting for some scandalous and disturbing sex scene, which never came. Every time music would come on, he had this expression of fear on his face.

This movie had some great scenes. Many of them to lengthy to explain. Watch for when Maude says to the police officer, "there is a family resemblance", when Harold sets himself on fire, when Uncle Victor does his salute. Really, there is just to much to tell about. You'll have to see it.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 cookies.

Friday, March 10, 2006

February List

Sorry for the delay. Without further ado, here is February's list.

Emergency Kit Requirements

$20.00 more in small bills or change - check! It's a miracle! Dish actually had cash and it was in small bills or change.

Axe - WHAT? Axe? What is Dish going to do with an axe? Is this emergency preparedness for zombie attacks? Or, perhaps, more realistically, Dish might need to chop firewood? Should arm muscles also be on the list? Dish could definitely use some of those. In any case, Dish decided to save the buying of an axe for later (if ever). Instead, this month she decided to go with the more practical First-Aid Kit option. Canadian Tire - $15.99

Paper towels - 6 rolls of Bounty (no one wants to have to use shoddy cheap paper towels in an emergency) - $5.99. Dish put one roll in the emergency kit and the rest with the regular food storage items.

Aluminum foil - 50' for $2.49

Trash Bags and twist ties - 24 Kitchen bags - $1.99

Total- $46.46 (including the $20 in cash)

Food Storage Requirements

Grains

Wheat - Apparently the recommended amount is 200 lbs of wheat per adult! Not bloody likely. Where is Dish going to put 200 lbs of wheat? None purchased. Instead, Dish bought flour - 10 kg for about $12 at Costco (thank you Aaron!)

Corn - Meh. There's a bag of frozen in the freezer.

Oats - 1 kg bag - $2.49 (Dish might need spider cookies in an emergency)

Rice - 2 x 2 kg of white rice (it supposedly keeps better than brown) - $4.99 each

Total - $24.27

Grand total for the month - 70.93

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Happy International Women's Day!

International Women's Day was officially designated in 1977 by the UN to celebrate the progress made in advancing equal rights for women and to find ways to address the remaining challenges. It also commemorates the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in which 146 women died because of unsafe working conditions. Some good did come out of the tragedy in that it advanced the causes of women's rights and labour laws.

On a total side note about working conditions, one of my co-workers told me today that her optometrist told her that translators have a high risk of losing their long range vision because they spend the entire day in front of a computer and looking things up in reference books, etc. Apparently, you over develop the eye muscles used for seeing things close up but lose your ability to see things at a distance. EEK! I mean, I already knew I would end up with carpal tunnel, but now I am going to lose my vision too? I suppose it doesn't help that I come home in the evening and catch up on email, write on my blog, watch tv or play Super Nintendo. All stuff that uses the short distance eye muscles. The optometrist's advice is to either go look out a window and focus on something in the distance or to close your eyes and pretend you are looking at the stars to prevent strain on your eyes. I tried this today and my eyes physically hurt. I guess I am in the process of going blind already. My eyes burn at the end of every day. The hazards of work...

Anyway, back to International Women's Day, I for one am quite happy to be a woman. I mean come on. Who wouldn't? As my friend David is fond of saying, "Men are like Kleenex - soft, strong and disposable." (Jen, please correct me if I don't have that quite right.) Really though, my top two favorite reasons for being a woman?

1) Feminist rants
2) Menions

I'll say no more on the topic. :o)

Vive la Journée internationale de la femme!

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Stronger Toilets Needed

I was listening to the radio on the way home from work this afternoon and heard an interesting bit of news. Apparently toilets in Australia need to be strengthened to account for rising obesity rates. Although, what is interesting is that according to current standards, toilets only have to be designed to hold 45 kg of weight. Isn't 45 kg only about equivalent to 100 lbs or so? I am not arguing with the fact that the obesity rates in Australia may be rising, but were the original toilet standards designed with pygmies or elves in mind? I mean come on. A large portion of the population has to be above 100 lbs even if they are not obese! sheesh. Just something to keep in mind if anyone is planning to go to Australia before they implement the new standards...sit very carefully!

In other strange toilet news, Rachel told me once that while she was working at the Toronto Public Library someone came in and stole their industrial toilet seat (the big black ones). No one who works there has any idea how someone managed to get out of the library past the front desk carrying the thing. I mean come on. Those things are pretty ginormous. A new restaurant opened nearby shortly after and they suspect the owners were just too cheap to buy their own toilet seat. Eww. I can't even imagine touching a public toilet enough to remove the seat. Nasty!

This talk of toilets actually reminds me of my traumatizing street bathroom experience the first time I was in Paris. Too bad my wrists and eyes are burning like mad (negative side effect of sitting and typing all day long with no breaks) or I would tell you all about it. If you really want to know, just ask me :o)

Monday, March 06, 2006

Brown Baggin It

Well, I have to say that this new work environment is taking some getting used to. Gone are the days when I never had to worry about bringing my lunch. Why bother being organized and bringing food when Place du Centre was a hop, skip and a jump away? No more deli fries for me. These days it is all about the "brown bag" lunch. I remember as a kid, once I had outgrown my Smurf lunchbox, or succumbed to the peer pressure that told me I had outgrown my Smurf lunchbox (where are you now my treasured Smurf lunchbox???), I brought my lunch to school in a brown paper bag. What started that phenomenon? Why brown paper? These days everyone has fancy lunch bags that keep their food insulated. Or, they do like me and I bring thier lunch in a Towers bag - plastic is less messy than paper for spills and whatnot. I tried a quick google search on this, but nothing. Is this a mystery not even trusty google can solve?!

Also gone are the days when my lunchtimes were filled with talk of iPods and Star Wars. With a group of all female co-workers these are not exactly the number one topics. These days the standard conversation includes discussion of what to name my pregnant co-worker's baby. Apparently, her husband is leaning toward Thor, but needless to say, she is not on board with that one.

There have been some interesting lunch time topics that I am not sure the gang at Phase IV ever touched on. One day last week everyone was trying to gross everyone out with tales of gory accidents that happened to them or to people they know, many of them involving the breaking of bones or cutting off of fingers and the like. I got to regale them all with the story of how I once hole-punched my finger with an industrial-sized hole punch and was lacking a fingerprint for a good year or more till it healed properly. This got some definite gasps and looks of horror. I was quite pleased with the effect.

There was also an interesting conversation where I learned that in Windsor they throw coins at the rippers (I know you are supposed to learn something new every day, but do you think information like this actually counts or is it supposed to be something quasi-useful or intelligent that you learn?). Sounds like a workplace health and safety issue to me. Is nothing safe any more? Sheesh. Ok. ok. I won't take that one any further. I'll let it go there. :o)

As a side note: Special thanks to Ryan and Véro for broadening my culinary horizens and feeding me moose meat this weekend. Dinner was great guys!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Joyeux Anniversaire

Today (a little late) I send out birthday wishes to two of my favorite people. Born this day in 1984, the baby and star of the Plamondon family, one of my four favorite sisters, Jeannine! Born this day in 1962 (eek! 44 years old!) was JonBon.

Did you know that JonBon's middle name is Francis? Very intriguing. Also interesting to note is that Jeannine was only two years old when JonBon's claim to fame "Slippery When Wet" album came out and was not even born when he released his first song in 1982. I bet he is feeling old!

Anyway, I am sending out birthday wishes. These two are both superstars to me!

Side note 1: Jeannie, we really need to look into getting you some glamour shots with clouds like that!

Side note 2: Glen Medeiros also does a cheesy cloud theme in his video "Nothing's gonna change my love for you". Watch it.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Rage Against Fastcard

So some of you may have noticed these handy things called fastcards located at the checkouts of many stores. They can get you magazines, phone time, music downloads, etc. Well, I got one of these supposedly fabulous cards for Christmas. Hurray! Free magazine subscription. In theory anyway.

I have been trying to redeem this thing, but to no avail. I enter my secret PIN number and then move on to a screen where I have to enter my mailing information. All is well and good until I enter my postal code and try to submit the form. No matter what I do, it will not accept my postal code. It keeps telling me that I am using the wrong format.

Maybe it is just a glitch in the system. I use the "contact us" email form to tell the company that I am having problems and ask them what to do. No response. I call their contact number. I get a recording telling me that the number has been disconnected. I email the magazine directly to ask about the situation. No response.

I WANT MY MAGAZINE!!!!! How am I supposed to know quickly and easily from my own home what there is to buy without my LouLou subscription?! It is Canada's shopping magazine and is great because everything shown can be purchased somewhere in Canada. Granted, many times they focus on Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, but if worse comes to worse, we are close enough for weekend trips to 2 of 3 of those locations.

Anyway, just had to do some venting. Why do these things always happen to me?! :o(

Song of the Moment: You Can't Always Get What You Want by the Stones

The Main Dish