Saturday, February 23, 2013

eh? What's that whippersnapper?

I'm going to be a crazy old lady. I know it.
Already I love taking in the recycling, talking to the handicapped workers at Sarcan and taking my recycle money to the Salvation Army to wander through the store for bargains with my "free" recycle money. Yup, that was my swinging saturday afternoon before I did a few hours of work. I recall as a 13 year old wondering why my grandma's favourite thing to do was wander the sally ann store on saturday afternoon.
I totally get it now! :P
To be fair, I had a few boxes of stuff to drop off there and wasn't planning on going to go in, but there was a 50% off the whole place thing going on...sooooo I wandered in for a bit...and came out happily with a pair of cargo pants, pair of workout pants, pair of jeans that fit perfectly, some nice clunky dress shoes for work and a shirt I plan to harvest for bellydance stuff...all for $14.35.
Oh yes, you may mock me, but I'm styling for cheap :)

Honestly, I'm a sucker for buying used jeans...they're already preshrunk and generally about $10 or less a pair, so I can be my destructive self to them and not feel guilty. I have a pear shape with large hips and tiny waist and generally when actually I find a pair of jeans that fit right I'm scared to wash them, because usually they don't fit right afterwards...so lately, I've gotten all my fave jeans at charity shops.
Now I have a new pair...

I'm also thinking abotu learning to knit so I can make myself arm warmers.
yup...I'm doomed I tell you :)

Thursday, February 21, 2013

well whaddaya know

Just got feedback on my posters from my old MSc supervisor, and...(don't fall over now)...she liked them.
No really.
After getting a lot of negativity from her lately it was nice to have someone look at my hard work and just offer some constructive advice and be overall happy with it.
It felt good.
Just minimal changes before they go to printer on the weekend. Ideas for publication too.
A pleasant change form being told I'm simply not capable of writing up things to her certain level of quality. I appreciate her bluntness and know it's a croatian thing and she's not meaning to be insulting, but sometimes it can wear you down. In the end it made me push and work harder to say "oh yeah? What about THIS lady?".

What about this indeed.
:)


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

I know how to wait

Just ordered come bellydance practice gear online. It's the same stuff you can get here in Canada in the dance wear shops, only from the Chinese distributor directly instead of through a halfway local person. About half the price. Anything "dancewear" here in Canada is stupidly marked up, even when it's simple things...so I don't have a lot of dance gear I haven't made myself. Soon I will have new practice pants, a skirt, top, hip scarf and armlets. Not top quality, but not super cheap either...other people in my dance class have ordered from there so I know they're legit and the stuff they've recieved was decent, quality wise. And, since it was super cheap, I don't feel guilty spending a bit of my savings on it (I'm weird that way). Thing is, I was saving $$ for cool stuff at comicon, but since I'm not going to find cool things there, this is definitely a cool substitute for some of my $$...and I'll have something nice to wear to class and to the hafla in March. The tops will be nice in the summer sun too.
Neato.
Now I wait...

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy love day

In the hunt for a trekkie love day card to send to J I  came across this, which made me spit my coffee out laughing:

But no, you'll be happy I found something slightly classier too...
I have made red velvet cookies and have decided that today isn't so bad. J and I both work all day and all night so this is not a romantic day but it will be a good one.

Later taters :)

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

here we go again

My old supervisor (true to form) just let me know about a deadline next week that I didn't know existed that conflicts with work I already had to do...but means, if I can survive, I will have my MSc results presented as 3 posters  at the CAP conference in the US next month. She will take them as she is attending. And likely wants to cover them in red ink prior so I'm getting them to her with a weeks notice prior to their printing on the 25th... I just have to make them. In a week. Heh heh. I thought I had until May.
*whistle* ...apparently MA means MARCH not MAY.
Oy.
I have the first one nearly done...I just wasn't spending a lot of time on them since I figure I had a few months.
Vey.
I also have to complete the draft of my first paper for both of them to read over. Thankfully THAT is nearly done, and is my project of the evening, but with me having migraine headaches the last few days (due to weather I think) I am not done like I'd hoped to be at this point.
So...I am going into hiding and working on these. My "holiday weekend" this weekend will be one of work...but in the end, it means I will have lots of time in all of March to work on my poster for the conference I get to go to in April. And to spruce up my paper as well...
I'm calling on this little guy to get me through.

Just have to work hard like before for a few weeks. I can do that.

Talk amongst yourselves until the end of the month, K?

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Illegally park that steed of damnation

Just ran across this cooking site.

How can you go wrong with instructions like:
 "First, find Death. Punch him right in the face and take his bitchin' stallion because no car can handle the fine trip to the store you are gonna make. Illegally park that steed of damnation and dominate that f*cking store... "

Giggling...and inspired. :)

Also this science one...he hee... :)

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

sneaky squeaky cheese

"You're scared of mice and spiders, but oh-so-much greater is your fear that one day the two species will cross-breed to form an all-powerful race of mice-spiders, who will immobilize human beings in giant webs in order to steal cheese." ~Spaced Beginnings

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

meh

I was making my peace with the fact that I am likely not going to comic con this year since the buddies I normally go with have family obligations they can't get out of and I sudenly can't go with J because J goes there (lucky sod) with a  carful of Shaw guys to shoot segments so I can't take the car or ride along. It's just too expensive to justify to go on my own by bus and then stay in a hotel as just old me, so I just sucked it up and decided it was OK...and then today I stupidly I looked at the updated guest list of who will be there this year: actors from Game of Thrones (Peter Dinklage most notably- and my favourite actor from the show), John Carpenter (he who caused all my childhood zombie phobias), Briand Froud (Dark Crystal artist), Casper Van Dein (Starship Troopers), Linda Hamilton (Beauty & the Beast and Terminator 2- yes, she whose arms from T2 I try to sculpt for myself in the gym daily), Chris Sarandon (Fright Night and Princess Bride), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia!) and even Wierd Al Yankovic.
*sniff*

So much of the cheese of my youth in one place.
Yeah...I didn't want to go anyways.
So there.

*sniff*

Saturday, February 02, 2013

Soapbox rant of the hour

*sigh*
I ask this fervently to my friends out there:

So can there please be a polite debate between atheists and believers that doesn't just insult the intelligence of believers on one side, and blatantly disregard scientific facts on the other? Seriously - the "only stupid people have religion"  on one side and "science is evil, I'll pray for your soul"on the other side is inflammatory and does nothing to address issues and ask the questions that need to be asked. And it's getting old.  I have a few outspoken atheist friends and lately they seem to be going out of their ways to be dicks. Likewise with the religious ones...mostly in defensive response.

I get that never the twain shall meet, and I have my own opinions and I love to discuss things and look at them honestly. I simply do not like it when people feel the need to insult or verbally attack people to try and build their argument. If you have to do that, then you need to walk away, because either you *have* no argument or you've hit a wall and your arguments are not getting through to the other person - being mean at that point, in frustration or "righteous anger" is just being mean, period. And it's damn annoying to be around too...

And don't even get me started about the whole hippy happy medium side.
I have spent so much time debating and debunking crystal feel good chakra semi-hokey anti-science evils-of-vaccination stuff lately that I could scream. So to my hippy friends I ask you - If you're going to quote science, do the world a favour and research it first. No I'm not kidding -Look it up. No not just what some guru said on the internet...use (*gasp*) a book! A real, peer-reviewed journal maybe? Science is bloody complex...there are no Cliff's notes. Plus, if you feed me bullshit science to fuel your arguments, well, lets just say that it is my goal in life to logically and step-by-step debunk your BS and lay out whatever is known to be proven at the time for open discussion. I will not be told that facts are untrue by someone who hasn't even bothered to read them.
Consider yourself warned.
Take the time to question things. Because you can. Because you should. Your mind is an empty vessel and you choose what is put in it. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. You won't like it. But it doesn't make it any less true. And it doesn't make the world anything less than spectacular :)

Oddly enough? Wacky conspiracy theorists I can take lately. They're just fun, and will let you differ in opinion. Generally, they take some time to look up things. They just want to say their piece and sometimes the odd connections they make are intriguing, if not bizarre. And well, my good peeps - When the tin foil hat people look the most logical...well, lets just say we've got issues!!!

Cunning Plans

 Life is wierd ya know. It seems a lot of things have been hitting me hard lately. Been distant from people, including my partner who is dea...