Sunday, October 31, 2004
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Since I have no idea what happened two weeks ago I'll start with this past week. Tuesday we had the forensics club haunted house at our house. It was supposed to be over at Matt's place in homestead but that morning his toilet flooded the upstairs so it had to be moved to our place at the last minute. We managed to get everything set up and it was a fun night. We watched... a movie that I can't remember the name of and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the new version)it was pretty gross but entertaining.

Wednesday night I went with the forensics club downtown to the St George campus for a ghost tour of the area. We had this tour guide take us around the campus and tell us all the ghost stories about different buildings. It wasn't all that scary but it was pretty interesting and fun. There were a few stories that I'd like to find out if they are true... probably all made up though.

Friday I went London for the CAPA conference. I stayed at Lara house along with a few other people and Friday night we went out to Kelsey's for dinner and then to this huge haunted house they had at the London fair grounds. It wasn't really scary but it was put together extremely well and it only cost $4.00 to get in so it was definitely worth it... though we did have to wait in line for a while. After the haunted house we went back to Lara's house and watched The Last Samurai. It was really long but I think it was a pretty good movie.

Saturday morning was the conference. We just watched the forensics stuff which was somewhat interesting but I could barely keep my eyes open. I liked professor Rogers's presentation the most. This really surprised me because most of the time she puts me to sleep but I thought the computerized interactive presentation for juries was a really good idea because it actually woke me up. After the forensics stuff we headed home. I think we got back here around 2:30pm and I went straight to bed. I didn't wake up until 7 that night hehehe I love sleep.

Today I've been pretty much doing nothing... working on my assignment that's due on Tuesday a bit and checked out my rat (which is really nasty by the way). We didn't get any trick-or-treaters this year, which it really good because we ate all the candy mmm chocolate. Now I have to study a bit for my quiz tomorrow poo on entomology. We get our tests back tomorrow. I really don't want it back because I know I did bad. Oh I put up some more pictures in my yahoo pictures UTM file so go check them out if you want. Just some random things: one of the jungle kittens, pics of our row, haunted house night, and a pretty double rainbow we saw on campus.



Monday, October 18, 2004
TERRIBLE TWOS

This past Saturday was my cousin Jackie's second birthday. My family had a party for her at this party zone place Saturday night from 7-9. The place was actually really cool. They had video games, a gitoni table, air hockey and this huge play area with an inflatable jumping zone and this really long twisted slide. Of course only children under the age of 10 were allowed in but that didn't stop me hehehe. Jackie wanted to go down the big slide but obviously she couldn't go by herself so I used that as and excuse to go play. Hey I wasn't the only adult to go in. My brother obviously followed me in and my 32 year old cousin really wanted to go in as well so she brought baby Maximus in as an excuse to go down the slide. It was way too tempting to pass it up. Anyway, the rest of the night was fun, we had potato pizza and a bunch of junk food. Jackie really looked like she was enjoying herself. She's just sooo cute, but definitely has a bit of a mean streak in her. It may just be that she's coming into her terrible twos but I think she might just have her father's personality. She totally punched a little girl in the face at the wedding we all went to a little while ago...

Our house really stinks. These maggots that we're all raising only eat rotten meat so you can imagine how nice that smells. They're getting pretty big, I hope they pupate soon and turn into friggin flies so I can kill them... I don't know how much longer I can take this smell. And on that lovely note, I hate our toilet!!! It doesn't flush properly. Sometimes it may work in one shot but most of the time you have to flush it two or three times. Jeez what a pain in the arse!!

So we had our entomology midterm today and I think I can say with some degree of certainty that I totally failed it. Our stupid prof asks the most rediculously hard and insignificant questions. For last years test he repeated like 90% of the multiple choice from the year before but oh, not for us, noooo we got all new questions. Ugh I'm really starting to hate this course.

Anime time again...

Yakitate! Japan

 


I've been looking forward to this show ever since I heard it was about a guy who makes bread. I was quite happy with the first episode and I think this will definitely be one of the shows I'll be continuing. Basically, as a child this guy learns to make bread from a breadmaker in his town and becomes extremely good at it. At first his goal was to make a bread that his grandfather would like and could eat for breakfast instead of rice... now his goal is to make a bread that can truely be called Japanese bread (this was the goal of the man who first taught him to make bread). So now he's gone to Tokyo to try to make it into some sort of famous bread shop (I think). These magical things called "solar hands" have been mentioned by a few people and they are apparently warm hands which allow the yeast in the bread to ferment much faster, as it is kneaded, to make really good bread... take a look at the pictures... is there any doubt he has them...

I still haven't really decided what shows I'm going to continue watching. I will most definitely be continuing School Rumble, Uta~Kata and Yakitate! Japan but I'm not sure about Mai-HiME and Bleach yet. I haven't watched the second episode for either of these yet so maybe I'll be more positive after I've done that. I'm leaning toward dropping them though since I didn't immediately download them when they were released... makes me think that I done care for them that much.


Monday, October 11, 2004
TURKEY DAY

Yup it's Thanksgiving but it really doesn't feel like it. We didn't have a big family dinner or anything. My grandmother used to always have it at her house but she had to move when my grandfather got sick so now she's in a tiny little appartment. Obviously we couldn't have a big dinner there. Anyway, everyone just kinda did their own thing. We just had a little Turkey lunch this afternoon. My brother is going over to my aunt's house tonight for a big dinner... Oh course I wasn't even invited because I'm not loved... I guess it's because I'm a backstabbing Palermo... or so my grandmother seems to think. Jeez, I'm the only good one in my family. Why the heck does my brother get praised, he's a friggin criminal... ah but I digress... On to happier topics.

We started our rat project last Monday. We each got a big white rat to stick in a cage and watch it decompose. We're supposed to make some kind of additional insect collection from the stuff that comes to it... Nothing is coming to mine, though it is starting to smell pretty bad. I named her Penelope and if anyone wants to see what she looks like go take a look at my yahoo pictures. She's really cute (for a dead rat that is), or at least I think so. Hehehe...

Went down to the Coroner's office again this week. I got to see another autopsy. It was a lot more interesting than the last one. The guy apparently jumped out a 17th floor window... so you can imagine the condition he was in. The same cute pathologist's assistant guy was there... He looks even cuter in his regular clothes. He had me help him measure the body. His job seems pretty interesting, I might look into it. Eh but speaking of jobs, I think I've decided to try to get into teachers college. I'm not 100% sure that's what I want to do but I figure it can't hurt to try, plus it's better to have something to do next year than to be unemployed. We'll see how that goes...

Ok on to ANIME stuff... this is when everyone stops reading (yes yes I know you guys skip over this stuff so I might as well just let you know ahead of time when it's coming)...

RECENTLY FINISHED...

Aishiteru ze Baby

It seems that I'm displeased with the ending of every show that I watch, this was no exception. Granted, it was ok and most definitely not one of the worst I've seen but it just seemed like nothing was really resolved. It was a relatively happy ending but it didn't really feel like an ending. I haven't finished the manga yet so I'll see whether that's better but in all likelihood it will probably be the same since the anime followed the manga almost perfectly. Overall though it was a cute and fun show to watch so I don't have much to complain about.

Girls Bravo (season one)

Eleven episodes in and the season is already finished. Apparently the next season will start in January of next year. I don't really have much to say about this show. Same old storyline... guy has never had a girl friend, suddenly lots of hot girls want him. It gets a bit tiring... ah but it's a funny show so that makes up for it. The editing by the tv station it was playing on was really starting to get on my nerves. I'm not saying that I'm a fan of naked girls but my goodness at least make it realistic. Most of the time the steam would follow the girls around, only covering certain areas... now I don't know about the magical steam in Japan but our plain old Canadian steam can't do that. And last time I checked, mysterious pink gas/clouds don't pop up out of nowhere. Hopefully the next season won't be like that.

NEW STUFF...

Mai-HiME

 


I watched this a week ago so I really don't remember what happened... but... I did think it was a pretty good show. Short short version... girl can see a star that no one else can and learns that she has "powers". How's that for a synopsis eh? If you actually wanna know what happened go check out Matthew's Anime Blog (hint: the link is in the right side of this page). I think I'll probably watch at least another episode before I decide whether or not I'll drop it.

Bleach

Sorry no pictures of this one. I had sort of decided to not even bother watching this one but I was bored last Thursday and I had bandwidth to spare so why not? Anyway, I was quite surprised by this show. Although it is a shounen fight anime, it was quite amusing. Plus the storyline seems pretty interesting...sorry I don't know character names yet. This guy can see ghosts and, I'm assuming, frequently helps them. One day this big monster shows up and appears to be trying to get this ghost girl but in reality he's after the guy who can see ghosts (I think)... I believe it is because he has a lot of power... or something like that. Anyhoo, this shinigami girl shows up and gives the ghost seeing guy all her power so he can fight against the big monster. That's all that's happened so far... I'd like to watch more of this but I'll have to wait to see how the bandwidth situation goes.

School Rumble

 


This was a really funny show. The main girl (I'm assuming) likes this guy... who is totally oblivious not only to her but likely everything... why she likes him I do not know (he's the guy with the bad hair cut in the second picture). Of course she is too scared to confess to him in person so she writes him a letter which is so long that it is written on a scroll. She of course forgets to sign it so he doesn't know who likes him. But it did have the intended effect. She basically begged him to not leave the school (he was planning on transferring but changed his mind after reading the letter). On the flip side, a "bad" biker kinda guy, who coincidentally is almost identical to the main girl in his thinking, has a mad crush on her and tries to confess but can't because he had a scheduled fight with a guy at the same time he asked to meet her... It'd be kinda confusing if I tried to explain this episode (not really good at this stuff), so just go watch it. I'm sure I'll be continuing with this one.

Uta~Kata

 


I had no intention at all of watching this one for this simple fact that I really didn't enjoy Kiddy Grade and this one is by the same people. Plus if you look at the characters who do they remind you of... oh that's right... tiny versions of Eclair and Lumiere. They could have at least changed their hair colours. Anyway, I decided to check it out since I had time this weekend and once again I was very surprised. On top of being extremely cute (and having some hotties in it >> see the guys in the first picture >> the guy with the brown hair is the best) the story is quite interesting. Short short version (sorry I'm not in the mood to summarize this one)... girl with turquoise hair comes out of a mirror and asks the brown haired girl to write a summer journal for her (it's basically her summer homework and she doesn't want to do it). Brown haired girl is to use this medalian 12 times to transform and I guess use special powers (to do I know not what yet). So turquoise haired girl moves in with brown haired girl for the summer. I definitely want to continue with this one, it's probably my favourite so far. The OP was really nice too... this might change my opinion of those Kiddy Grade people.

CONTINUING...

InuYasha

 



I've been watching this show for months now and I'm only on episode 67. Of course, I was originally watching it on tv in English but the episodes started to get messed up so I had to start downloading them. Well... I really love this show. Inuyasha is just adorable but my favourite character is most definitely Sesshomaru (see the pictures). He's sooo cute and even though he's a bad guy I think he has a good heart. I really started warming up to him after he saved Rin (she's a cute little homeless girl that tags along with him). He gets way too little air time... I hope he gets more in the upcoming episodes. Won't say anything else about this show... I only really wanted to post pictures of Sesshomaru, hehehe...


Saturday, October 02, 2004
IT WAS A DARK DARK NIGHT...

Fall is officially here... it's friggin cold and the leaves are falling off the trees. This morning has a kind of eerie feel to it. Actually, it almost feels like it's Halloween (I absolutely love Halloween... probably my favourite day of the year next to Christmas). Anyhoo, Thursday was the first forensics club meeting of the year. Christie and I got up to talk a bit about the murder mystery committee, so hopefully we'll get more participation this year. After the meeting we had survivor night, yay! I'm not too sure about this survivor. For some reason I'm really not liking the characters all that much... though there is one cute guy. They just don't seem to have that something that really makes survivor good. Plus, it seems like the writers of the show can't think up any new games to play. It's basically just the same old ideas with slight modifications. Oh well... I made brownies for this weeks survivor night. We had them hot with ice cream, chocolate chips, chocolate sause and whipped cream... I love baking!! They were really yummy. There was no new episode of CSI or ER on this week so we just watched the Presidential debate instead. After that we downloaded "Talking with Americans" it was friggin hilarious.

Yesterday, Nicki and I went down to the Coroner's office for our mentorship. I got to see my first autopsy. It was pretty cool, it didn't last very long though. The Coroner's assistants did most of the dirty work... cut open the body and pulled out all the organs (it was kind violant... stuff was spashing all over the place and they didn't seem to care). All the coroner did was disect the organs to look for abnormalities. He was really nice though. He explained everything he did as he went along. One of the coroner's assistants was this kinda young guy who used to work in a funeral home. He was kinda cute and doesn't have a girlfriend hehehe (don't think I'd go for him though) but anyway, he really seemed to be enjoying himself. When he sawed open the skull he said, "this is my favourite part" then he pulled off the skull cap and there was this kinda egg cracking sound and a pop because of the suction. I have to admit, it was kinda cool though. We're gonna go down early again next week to watch some more.

Rachel and I went on a friggin journey yesterday after I got home. We walked all the way to dollarama which is up on a hill. I wanted to get something to cover the wall with, but I didn't wanna spend for than a buck. Since it was kinda warm we stopped half way to get a popsicle. I got a chocolate fudge one that was really good. Dollarama is fantastic. There was so much great stuff there and it all only cost a dollar. I ended up buying a low quality blue flower patterned shower curtain for the wall. It actually looks quite good, much better than the disguisting wall. After we got home we went over to Tim's house for a "healthy eating" night. He made us all this casserole that covered all the food groups and we watched "Super Size Me" on a big screen. It really made me wanna start making healthier food choices. I don't actually eat a lot of fast food but I eat enough, and over the summer in particular I had a lot of pizza so I think I really wanna cut back and try harder to make my own food... This'll be my new goal for the year... let's see how long it lasts.

We were given this liver project to work on for the week as preparation to our rat project that starts on Monday. Basically we just have to watch this liver decompose and looks at the insects that come to it. Well... Rachel and I forgot to go to the rat complex for 2 days in a row and remembered late last night. Sooo... we had the brilliant idea to walk through an unlit, uninhabited forest in the middle of the night. It was so friggin dark and I was so scared. You couldn't see 2 feet in front of you and we had to flash lights. I was having visions of being attacked and there would be no one around to help up. Anyway, we managed to check on the liver and get home in one piece, but if I ever say I'm gonna do something stupid like that again please, please knock me on the head.