'cuz he's a guy

So I've been ordering groceries online on a regular basis now for several months. I still get some fresh produce from St. Lawrence Market and other local groceries, but I find it simplifies my life to be able to order core (and often heavy) items online for delivery.

The Grocery Gateway guys continue to be astonishingly friendly (and not bad-looking at all). And the guy who delivered my groceries this past week looked exactly the same as the Grocery Gateway Guy on all the GG trucks and the Web site. And he talked exactly as I imagined the GGG would talk as well. It was all I could do to restrain myself from offering him a homemade cookie and a cup of coffee; the only thing that prevented me was the fact that I didn't have any homemade cookies, and I suck at making coffee.

Pleasant/good customer service is so rare these days that when I do come across it, I am fascinated and curious. What is it about these Grocery Gateway delivery guys? Do they all have to take some kind of GGG course? Even the ex-drug addict Grocery Gateway guy was remarkably courteous and friendly.

I almost asked this week's GGG this very question, but decided not to because he might take it as an insult. I'm not sure how I'd react if someone asked me out of the blue, "So tell me, why are you so friendly all the time?"



Jeff and I went to Parki's last night. Jeff went to use Parki's basement workshop for a project, and I went to sit in Parki's living room chair (which, as I've mentioned before, is the most comfortable chair in the entire world) to read a book. I only got through two pages of Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin before I felt compelled to move to Parki's living room couch with a blanket and pillow, and then I fell asleep for a few hours.

Apparently I slept through Jeff and Parki sawing a hole in the kitchen ceiling, which explains the odd nature of my dreams during my nap.

Speaking of guys and guystuff, Urban Tapestry plans to perform "'Cuz He's A Guy" at Relay For Life (running event to raise funds for cancer research) on June 7th as part of our 45-minute set. We'd like to update the "guy" lyrics, and invite suggestions. We're going to change the Jays reference to a Leafs reference, for example.

If you're familiar with the song (or even if you're not), feel free to check out the lyrics and suggest new "guy" lines, which are the ones in parentheses. They'll be spoken, not sung, so exact scansion's not important; the phrase just has to be short enough to fit into that space of music. We can't guarantee we'll use all suggestions at the June 7th gig, but I'll be compiling all of them for future possible use whenever we perform the song.

Thanks in advance for your help!

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	The Grocery Gateway guy.
	Jeff and Parki working in Parki's basement workshop.

no clones yet

So I haven't seen the new Star Wars movie yet.

Jeff and I didn't hesitate to wait about six hours in line for the opening of The Phantom Menace in the rain. I would do the same for The Two Towers. Somehow, though, Attack of the Clones just doesn't hold the same appeal for me.

This is partly because I didn't like The Phantom Menace that much; I found it too heavily focussed on special effects and spectacular settings rather than character development or emotional honesty. Yeah, yeah, I know; it's just a Star Wars movie. But Lucas has all raw materials in his hands already, and has proven he can produce a Star Wars movie with more emotional depth. So why doesn't he?

I didn't find the trailers for Attack of the Clones all that inspiring, which is another reason for my lack of enthusiasm. Reviews from the media and friends who have seen the movie have ranged from "it sucks" to "it was entertaining but that's about it".

Anyway, though I'm not motivated enough to see the movie to battle opening week crowds, I'll likely see it next week. I'm going in with pretty low expectations, so chances are good that I won't be too appalled. Unlike my now astronomically huge anticipation of my first Krispy Kreme experience. :-)





Version 2.11 of Movable Type is now available, by the way. I love MT. My entire archive has been converted over, and I want to convert my other Web projects to Movable Type as well.

I'm also gradually in the process of categorizing my entries. This change will be transparent to users, except eventually you should be able to view Blathering entries by categories like "filk" and "writing", etc.

And for those of you who read online journals on a regular basis, you may want to consider voting in the The 2002 Diarist Awards. You have to have your own online journal or blog to be able to nominate and to vote. You can see the list of nominees for this quarter here (no, I'm not a nominee :-)).

Speaking of awards, don't forget to send in your nominations for the Pegasus Awards! The deadline has been extended to May 31st. You can find the online nomination ballot here.





Went running through a different route yesterday, just for variety. Checked out a golf course area that I've always been curious about. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any interesting running trails in the area, just the road leading into the parking lot. And no, I felt absolutely no incentive to try golf despite the fact that the golf place offers free weekly clinics. :-)





As I mentioned in my Tuesday entry, I was paired up with someone in my WordGoddess group for a collab; each of us was supposed to come up with a list of questions for the other person to answer. I answered mine on Tuesday. Here is Sasha's entry answering the questions I gave to her.

To any German speakers out there: Parki recently introduced me to some instrumental German music I quite like, but I was hoping to get some help translating the album and track titles. Album/group: Einsjager und Siebenjager, Popol Vuh. Tracks: Kleiner Krieger, King Minos, Morgengruss, Wurfelspiel, Gutes Land, Einsjager und Siebenjager. Thanks kindly!

---

Today's Blatherpics:

I took these photos during my run yesterday.

	Percussion group performing just outside the Skydome. I ended up leaving the Skydome area because it was unbelieveably windy; my cap kept getting yanked off my head!
	Golf ball at the CityCore golf course just west of Spadina.
	Golf practice. The artificial turf was littered with golf balls.
	A GO train that passed under a bridge I ran over. Headed home after I took this picture.

more Krispy Kreme

Egads, I can't believe it's raining again. What's with this weather? If I was a parent, and a child was complaining about the rain, I'd give them the usual spiel about how the rain's good for all the growing green things bla bla bla. Sadly, however, the only growing green things around here are the feeble-looking office plants you can sometimes see in the windows of corporate high rises around here.

I faxed and e-mailed the latest round of documents for the CCRA yesterday. I've gotten tired of crossing my fingers that this audit process will end soon, so have started crossing my toes as well. People stare when I pass them on the street but hey, but I'll do anything to end this ongoing hassle.

But now to more important topics...

A breakthrough in my Krispy Kreme fantasy: Jeff says he's going to take me to a Krispy Kreme this weekend! Apparently there's an outlet somewhere in Mississauga. When it first opened, the store reportedly did $70,000 worth of sales in the first day of business. Holy cow. What exactly are IN these doughnuts to make them so popular? If I don't end up making it to the Mississauga outlet (or even if I do), Scott and Amanda have promised to take me to one when I visit them in August, yay!

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out the fat content of Krispy Kreme doughnuts since I'd like to go into this virgin KK experience prepared. Glazed Sour Cream is my favourite doughnut, so I checked its stats.

According to the nutritional information chart provided by Krispy Kreme (the term "nutritional information" is pretty funny, don't you think?), a glazed sour cream doughnut has 280 calories, 15 grams of fat, 23 grams of sugar, and 2.2 grams of protein (Ha! Protein! Like anyone cares!!) Odd. No addictive substances listed.

In comparison, the Tim Hortons Glazed Sour Cream Glazed has 318 calories, 19 grams of fat. That surprised me; I had half-figured that Krispy Kreme products must be loaded with more fat and sugar to have such incredible appeal. Not that either is a candidate for a health-conscious award, mind you.

What I find bizarre is that Krispy Kreme (American) uses the "doughnut" spelling, while Tim Horton (Canadian) uses the "donut" spelling. What gives? I've corrected my spelling to the proper English version.

Calories or no, I must try a Krispy Kreme doughnut sometime soon. I'm sure all of you are hoping I do as well, just so I shut up about doughnuts already. :-)

Online tidbits:

The teaser trailer for Matrix Reloaded is online.

Yay, the courts have ordered ordered VeriSign to stop its deceptive advertising campaign. I got one of Verisign's "renewal notices" recently, which confused then ticked me off. If innocents DO send back the form with payment (thinking they're just renewing their domains), Verisign transfers the domains to their own service.

Today's Blatherpic:

My iBook and a cup of lemon tea at the cottage.

spam assassin

So my sister was telling me about a scene at their dinner table last night. Apparently 5-year-old Annie was pumping her arms in the air yelling, "GO LEAFS GO! GO LEAFS GO!" then added, after a pause, that her favourite player was Cujo. Funny thing is, my niece has never seen a hockey game before. :-)

I thought this was pretty amusing, but then realized that Annie's not much different from her uncle and aunt.

Jeff and I, the bandwagon-jumpers that we are, only watched the last ten minutes of the Toronto vs Ottawa hockey game last night. Within a few seconds of the Leafs winning, we muted the sound and opened the windows; sure enough, the car honking and cheering had begun, quadrupling in volume as hockey fans began emerging (like ants from so many anthills) from the many sports bars in our area.

Neither Jeff nor I are big sports fans, at least in terms of watching it on a regular basis. Jeff did used to watch some golf on television, which baffled me. Golf looks like such a dull sport already (and this is my cue to duck as all the lurking golf fanatics out there go berserk with rage); the idea of watching it on a tv screen has about as much appeal to me as having my teeth drilled without anaesthetic or being forced to watch re-runs of Temptation Island (which would be worse).

On the other hand, it's hard to ignore the overwhelming enthusiasm of the Toronto fans. They poured into Yonge Street last night, celebrating the Leafs' win. According to Canoe, the crowd's size was similar to that when the Jays won the World Series in the early 1990s. About 70 extra police officers were called in to barricade connecting streets to allow fans to walk safely along Yonge.





Many, many thanks to Bryan Fullerton for installing Spam Assassin on his server. Since I began filtering using Spam Assassin's flags, I've hardly had any spam in my in-box. Here's a sample excerpt of Spam Assassin's header output while scoring an incoming e-mail for spam content/format:


X-Spam-Status: Yes, hits=19.8 required=5.0 tests=TO_EMPTY,FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS,
NO_REAL_NAME,PLING,TO_MALFORMED,
EARN_PER_WEEK,NO_EXPERIENCE,EXCUSE_3,
REMOVE_SUBJ,EXCUSE_1,EXCUSE_7,
LINES_OF_YELLING, LINES_OF_YELLING_2,
RCVD_IN_ORBS,RCVD_IN_RFCI
version=2.20 X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Level: *******************
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.20
(devel $Id: SpamAssassin.pm,v 1.77
2002/04/06 1
9:28:30 hughescr Exp $)
X-Spam-Report: 19.8 hits, 5 required;
* 2.5 -- To: is empty
* 1.0 -- From: ends in numbers
* 0.6 -- From: does not include a real name
* 0.5 -- Subject has an exclamation mark
* 0.3 -- To: has a malformed address
* 4.7 -- BODY: Contains 'earn $something per week'
* -1.1 -- BODY: No experience needed!
* 2.7 -- BODY: Claims you can be removed from the list
* 2.3 -- BODY: List removal information
* 2.3 -- BODY: Gives a lame excuse about why
you were sent this SPAM
* 1.4 -- BODY: Claims you can be removed from the list
* 0.5 -- BODY: A WHOLE LINE OF YELLING DETECTED
* 0.6 -- BODY: 2 WHOLE LINES OF YELLING DETECTED


I filter anything with the spam=YES code into a separate mailbox, and check this once a day to see if any "real" mail accidentally got filtered. So far, only a few mailing lists have gotten filtered, but no personal mail.

Woohoo! As most of you know already, I despise spam with a hatred that gnaws at my soul. It wastes time and resources. It's obnoxious. It's insulting. I've alternated between investing way too much energy into trying to rid it from my mailbox, and steadfastly ignoring it. This Spam Assassin software is the first solution that actually seems to work.

At least it works for now, until spammers figure out how to work around the "spam scoring rules" built into the software. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be a long, long time.





Here's a fun review of the recent "Spider-man" movie by James Lileks, for those interested.

Today's Blatherpics:

	Our friend Helen.
	Helen, Jeff and Craig in Serra restaurant last night.
	Craig.

Krispy Kreme fantasy

Today's entry is a WordGoddess collab. My assigned collab partner was Sasha of I'd Rather Eat Glass, who made up the following questions for me to answer (and here are Sasha's answers to my questions):

1. If you weren't performing in a filk musical group, what kind of music would you be performing?

I wouldn't be performing on a regular basis by myself, since I'm not interested in doing a solo act. I'm part of Urban Tapestry more for the fun and friendship value than the need to perform. However, I could probably see myself doing the occasional harp gig for a lark, or collaborating with other musicians.

2. What kind of music do you listen to?

WAY too hard a question to answer, since my tastes vary widely. Currently on my frequent listening roster (usually when running): Hawksley Workman, soundtrack to Mamma Mia, Celtic harp instrumental music, Aimee Mann, Erasure, Ron Hawkins, Italian progressive rock, Ookla The Mok, Kate Rusby, Cara Dillon, instrumental German progressive rock.

When I'm doing any creative writing, I can't listen to any music with lyrics.

3. If you're sitting in the theatre watching a movie that you've been dying to see and someone in the row in front of you answers their cell phone and begins to carry on a loud conversation, what do you do?

Tap them on the shoulder, ask them to be quiet.

What I'd secretly like to do: Rip the cellphone out of their hands, jump on it until it breaks into little pieces. And maybe jump on their heads, too. But that would probably disturb the other theatre patrons.





4. What's up with you and that doll?

On our ice-out visit to the cottage, Jeff and I stopped by a McDonald's for a nutritious lunch. I bought the Happy Meal and got the lamest Happy Meal Toy I've ever seen. I christened her Cora.

Apparently the Cora dolls cost McDonald's MORE than their usual Happy Meal Toys, I found out later, and are part of a "classic" Madame Alexander doll line. According to the promotional page, my doll is "destined to become a sought-after collectible".

:-D

5. Using food ingredients/dishes or terminology, describe your personality and character.

Oh, what a wonderful question! I want to spend some time thinking on this, so I am going to postpone my answer for its own separate Blathering in the near future.

6. What is your least favourite part of keeping an online journal. Why?

Dealing with reader mail from people who think that my Blatherings is a community public project.

I guess it depends on the attitude of the person e-mailing me. If it's a friend warning me that writing about xxx is likely going to get me in trouble because they're worried about me, that's one thing. But if it's someone telling me that I shouldn't be writing about keeping clean because it will offend people who can't afford to keep clean, or saying that I shouldn't be posting my opinions because they might influence people too much, then that's another.

(And yes, these have all happened.)

7. Money is no object when it comes to my (complete the sentence).

My sanity and loved ones.





8. Which is your favourite subject for photo taking? Objects or people? And why?

People. They're much more difficult to photograph, mainly because (in the case of my friends and family) they tend to run and hide, or put on goofy faces when they see my camera. But that just makes it more of a challenge. :-)

9. What one thing in your life are you most grateful for?

That I never did hook up with Norm Brown, my childhood crush. Because I'm sure he couldn't have lived up to my now astonishingly over-inflated fantasies and I would have lived my life in eternal disappointment and soul-wrenching angst.

10. The end is near! What do you regret -not- doing in your life thus far?

Trying a Krispy Kreme doughnut. I've heard way too much about Krispy Kreme doughnut stores, and am dying of anticipation. In fact, when I finally do get to try a Krispy Kreme doughnut, there is no possible way that reality could ever live up to my now astonishingly over-inflated fantasies about Krispy Kreme products.

11. If the sky weren't blue, what colour would you like it to be?

Heck, I don't know. Plaid. Transparent.

12. Though you've said you write whatever you feel like writing in your journal, are there any subjects you will not, under any circumstances, write about?

Anything I'd like to keep private.

I always assume that anyone I write about will eventually read what I wrote about them.





Today's Blatherpics:

	Would -you- buy web design services from these people?!
	Cora in a somewhat painful-looking pose at the cottage.
	Me mugging for the camera. Photo by my 5-year-old niece, Annie.
	Luisa's and Reid's son, Ronnie.