Random Ramblings

Had a great time at Kyn's party last night, despite staying only 2.5 hours.

For me, the best part of it was connecting with members of my social network I'd let slide. After nearly a year of complaining that my social circle had shrunk to three people (Ian, Marc, and Eric), I suddenly find myself with semi-firm commitments to four different meet-ups with four different people and an invitation to join a game. Yay for socializing!

So in the last two days, I found out that two of my friends are pregnant. (Not "two" as in a couple, but "two" as in two different female friends.)

Whoa. Congrats to both of you, you know who you are. And if there are more people out there on my friends list who are pregnant that I DON'T know about, drop me a line, would'ya? I wanna congratulate you.

After a lazy morning spent doing not very much at all, I went over to Warren, Blue, and JBash's (and Kaia's) for brunch. As is pretty typical with me, I was one of the first people there. But all that meant, really, is I got more time to play with Kaia, so I see nothing wrong at all. In fact there were four children under the age of four, which put me in "little kids heaven" for a while, though I mostly played with Kaia. Brunch was plentiful and very nummy. Warren made omelettes and I brought over Farmer's Market scones, which are super-awesome.

After most of the people had left and there were just 10 or so of us left, we moved out onto the balcony to play Lunch Money. The game was raucous good fun, involving radioactive nuts, a horde of neighbourhood watch moms, and an industrial dishwasher. It was a "had to be there" thing, I think. I won in the end, but only at the expense of my lungs, since we had relocated to Warren's room midway through the game, and Warren's room is where the wild things cats live. Sorry, lungs. I promise I'll make it up to you, but not tomorrow, since I'm going to be at Ian's tomorrow.

Anyway. Left Warren's to have dinner with my dad, my step-mom, Marc, and my aunt from Edmonton who's in town on business. We went to Etoile des Indes, which was surprisingly tasty. The waiter decided to stay at our table as we were passing all the dishes around, reminding us what they all were and offering such helpful advice as "have the butter chicken with the naan, not the rice." It was kind of weird, but I suppose it was appreciated. He did leave when we all seemed to be ready to eat, I suppose. Dinner was fun and involved lots of good conversation.

After dinner, I went back with my aunt to her hotel room to chat. I showed her how to make MOO cards and tried and failed to show her how to use SendOutCards (there was a problem with her computer). She showed me her pictures from India, I showed her my pictures from Europe. It was lots of fun, and if I'm going to be sleep-deprived tomorrow, at least it was worth it. Speaking of sleep... time to get to it. G'night all.

Okay, so the file from hell was, well, hellish. It actually took me into overtime, and this was a file that really shouldn't have taken me more than 4 hours. Oh, well. Such things happen.

There also was a scare around the office this morning: a bunch of people have had their debit cards cancelled in the last few days. Apparently one of the merchants near our office was cloning cards. I called my bank and everything seems in order with my particular card, which is a relief. I did, at least, manage to calm a few people down by telling them that a bank will cancel their card if it was used at that merchant around the time the card-cloning was happening, even if their card wasn't specifically targeted. It's a security measure. I know, because this has happened to me in the past.

Anyway. Met up with Ian at Cafe l'Etranger for dinner, and we ran into both Maery and Warren. Yay for serendipity! Warren and I had dinner together while Ian flitted back and forth between our table and all his coworkers at the next table. It was very nice to get some Warren-time. Even better is cheesecake-eating-time with Warren. Yay cheesecake!

After Warren left, Ian and I watched an episode of Heroes, which now places us only two episodes behind current. I'm not particularly impressed with third season, but on the other hand, I'm too stubborn to stop watching.

Came home to find two cards waiting for me. One was a thank-you card for a wedding card I'd sent some friends of mine in Florida, and one was a card from the head of SendOutCards thanking me for coming to the conference a few weeks ago (obviously sent to everyone who attended, but nice nonetheless).

Tomorrow I'm hoping to go fabric-and-pattern shopping with my mom, who has very graciously agreed to sew me new garb if I buy the pattern and fabric. It's nice to have a mom who's an excellent seamstress and also retired. *grin* After that I'll be heading to Eric's for more B5 watching and Civ playing, maybe to be joined in the evening by Ian. And that, as they say, is that. Time for bedtime. G'night all.

Today was a perfect example of my relationship with Marc and Ian.

I spent a bit of the afternoon with Marc. We went for a walk, talked about stuff that's happening in our lives, and then snuggled a bit. I ate baked goods that his mom made for us.

I spent the evening eating sushi with Ian and talking about the world economic situation.

It was a good day.

2008 has been a momentous year for me, in more ways than one. Now that it's winding down, I thought I'd take a few minutes to write a "State of the Julie" report, to detail some of the new and important things in my life over the past year, and just generally to take stock of where I am now compared to 12 months ago. (Warning: about 1200 words.)

( 2008 State of the Julie )

Just a quick update on what I've been doing.

Yesterday was Sarah's birthday party at Hurley's, featuring music by the Squid Jiggers. Fun band, great music, featuring a mandolin that looked like a baby guitar. Had a great time, so thanks to Ian for letting me know about the shin-dig.

Today I went shopping with my mom. Bought myself an 8-gig USB key, 3/4 paid for by a gift certificate from work. Then mom bought me a pair of nice grey pants, because I realized that my entire pants collection consists of black work pants and jeans. Thanks, mom! Incidentally, it thrills me every single time I realize I'm still a size 6.

Thence, off to Eric's for a small amount of Civ playing, some conversation, and watching Eric create a character for Ian's Hollow Earth campaign.

Finally, got to see Marc for the first time in a few days, which was lovely. I miss my Marc. I'm hoping we get to do something for his birthday -- he's got three presentations that day. (Wednesday.)

Anyway, time for bed. It's a work night.

1. Investing in education -- should schools (or us, as individuals) chose education that has short-term benefits (like a computer certificate) or long-term ones (like a liberal arts degree)? Some interesting, though short, discussion at this link. (@ Productivity 501)

2. Build your own muppets! -- courtesy of F.A.O. Schwarz, you can build your very own, customized muppet! They'll even build it and ship it to you, if you have a spare $90.

3. Muppets invade the TODAY show (videos) -- click on the "launch" button to see all sorts of videos from the day the muppets took over network TV.

4. A do-it-yourself Christmas: 34 great gifts you can make yourself -- for the more creative, hands-on of my friends who celebrate holiday gift-giving. (@ Get rich slowly)

5. Keeping in touch: how to create your circle journey -- interesting idea about how to keep in touch with friends and family: a circulating, multi-person album. (@ Carrie and Danielle)

6. Montreal English grows ever more distinct -- for my Montreal readers, do you know how your English differs from the rest of North America? Check it out here, at this article from The Gazette.

7. Tidying up art (TED talk video by Ursus Wehrli) -- have you ever noticed that modern art is really messy? Ursus Wehrli tidies it up. Really funny TED talk.

It looks like there will be people from a number of my different social circles who don't necessarily mix with each other frequently (or at all). Should be fun, though. Really, it's hard to go wrong with chocolate and board games. (Except, of course, when you spill chocolate *on* the board game.)

Yesterday, some friends and I finished our conquest of the world by capturing all the cities of Japan and America. It only took us about 14 hours, too, split up over a few evenings. Washington put up a fight, but everything else fell pretty handily. And, in the end, even Washington couldn't stand up before our assembled forces.

The question is, what do we do now that the Civilization game is over? Yes, we conquered the world more subtly with secret shadow organizations (otherwise known as the Illuminati), but there's only so many times you can conquer the world before it gets old.