last bike ride

Went biking this morning with David. We both agreed it was going to be the last ride of the season (Dave had to convince me to go on THIS one; I tried wimping out on him last night on the phone :)). Both of us bundled up...I wore a turtleneck, sweatshirt, fleece vest, windbreaker, track pants, fleece pants, fleece gloves. Even so, the wind was bitterly cold, and I ended up tying a scarf around my head, under my helmet, to keep my ears from freezing. I should have worn warmer socks, but then I'd have to wear other shoes, which would mean I wouldn't be able to fit my feet into the pedal straps.

One advantage of biking this late in the season...hardly anyone on the trails! :-) On our break, I broke out my supply of granola bars. Within a few minutes, a couple of grey squirrels started circling around us. They looked pretty hungry and pitiful...or at least -I- thought so. I started giving them bits of granola bar while David mocked me (he scarfed his within a few minutes without sharing ANY OF HIS GRANOLA BAR WITH THE SQUIRRELS, the unfeeling cad).

In spite of my whining about the weather, I will miss our bike rides. :-( Hope the winter's short...

Did some babysitting yesterday. Annie is still calling me BeeBee and was following me around a lot, talking at me in her baby language while I tried to pretend to understand. Ruth said I'm allowed to stick the kids in front of the tv if I needed a break...I'm finding, tho, that both Sara and Annie would rather play with me than watch television. I guess I should be flattered. :-) Sara always asks me to play Castle In The Sky with her when I come over. She's the princess in the castle, I'm the little boy who befriends her, and Annie is the servant. Annie doesn't know she's supposed to be the servant; she thinks she's the princess, too, and mimics everything Sara does.

Fun practice last night. VERY typical UT practice...dinner at The Pickle Barrel at Centerpoint Mall (lingering over coffee and yummy desserts after). Split up to do shopping for half an hour (I picked up some more Fimo at Lewiscraft). Went back to Allison's to gab some more, practised some of our newer stuff.

Looking forward to Allison's housefilk next weekend! For info, on the filk, ask Allison.

I'm drinking a lot of Good Earth cinnamon tea these days (a gift from Alisa...thanks, Alisa!!). Perfect drink for the kind of bone-chilling weather we've been having lately (it HAILED yesterday).

Officemusic: Beck! Odelay.

titanic

No Titanic yet. I saw a "Making of Titanic" at Allison's recently and of course I'm even MORE keen on seeing this movie. In contrast, I'm definitely not keen on seeing The Postman. At first I was curious, because I enjoyed the novel. Then I found out Kevin Costner was in it (sorry, I'm just not a Kevin Costner fan, though I did like The Bodyguard and Bull Durham). Has anyone seen this? It's been getting heavy promotion in Toronto. Last week in the subway, I noticed that an entire car had been inundated with scenes of The Postman (in place of the regular ads). Interesting idea, but I wonder if it works? NEW YEAR'S: So what did everyone do for New Year's? We were supposed to a friend's party, but we got a frantic phonecall in the morning say the party was off because of household illness. The party ended up being moved to our place at the last minute (Jeff insists it wasn't a party, just a get-together). Anyway, one of the traditions we have each year is to ask people to write down their predictions for the New Year in our Guest Graffiti Book. So I'm asking all of YOU lot to make predictions for 1998! I'm going to squirrel all predictions away somewhere, and bring them out again at the end of the year to see how many of you were truly psychic. Post your predictions in the blatherchat.

jeff bdy

Celebrated Jeff's birthday at Ruth & Kaarel's place last night. Sara had picked and helped make the cake (chocolate cake with chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles). Earlier on, Ruth had taken her to a store and told her to pick out a present she could give to Uncle Jeff...Sara reportedly ignored all suggestions re: stationery, pens, etc. and chose a small Ariel doll as a gift (she's VERY into the Little Mermaid these days, as I mentioned before). Uncle Jeff exclaimed with the appropriate delight after opening his present, of course, while Annie sat under the table trying to eat the gold bow from the package. After dinner, Jeff & Sara & I acted out one of her current favourite picture books. I can't recall the name of the book, sorry, but it had to do with a rooster trying to prove to the barnyard that the sun wouldn't rise without him. Sara was the rooster, Jeff was the narrator, and I was Gunther, the crabby goose. After we finished the book, I pounded out some nursery songs on the piano. After a few minutes, Annie did her noisy spastic starfish imitation until I picked her up and put her in my lap so she could help me play the piano. The key of each song modulated wildly after that, but I still think we made a good musical team.

webcam

Went to see Practical Magic with Jeff last night. Fun movie (I like it more than Jeff did). Some plot problems, but I could never resist the combination of romance and magic. :-)

Working today, going to see Joe Black with Jeff and some his work buddies in the evening.

Jeff brought home a Connectix videocam thingy for me last night! Still have to install the software for it. It basically records low-quality video, and I can select stills. Hopefully I'll be able to get slightly better quality by fiddling around with it, and not having the backlighting problem that Jeff did.

Update on quickcam: Jeff got it working, and you can see the results in today's picture (which will likely change throughout the day as I do some experimenting).

Today's Site:
The Mother Of All Today In History Sites

joe black

Dinner at Golden Thai and then went to see Meet Joe Black last night with Jeff & people from his office. Supposedly MJB got bad reviews, but I quite enjoyed it, though I did find it a bit long. Also, I didn't find Brad Pitt's character entirely believeable; found him a tad too young/fresh-faced for the part.

Worked yesterday, working today. Workworkwork.

Today's site is for technonerdtypes:
A Standard For Site Organization. An intriguing suggestion for a website standard of site organization.