November 2006

November 16, 2006

    It's early in the day and I'm struggling to get my mind in gear. I still haven't found my drive although desperation and stress are replacing it nicely. I'm fully motivated right now at this moment to have a weekend of hard work and get everything done. I had to pull out on Dave and Will because I didn't get anything done while I was sick, in fact I missed a couple of things that I now have to catch up on. Good times, adding things to a full plate. I'm starting to see the light and realize that only a few weeks of hard work and I'll be clear of this mind fogging tunnel. I got a taste of freedom last night and yesterday afternoon. I was slated to go to a potluck dinner with some friends who decided it would be a hippie (or is it hippy? I don't know or care.) theme. That really idea prompted them to really put the pot in potluck. While I knew which baking to avoid, it seemed to matter little. Joanne's boyfriend, Charlie was there and he is a wealthy Brit. When the beer ran out he wanted to keep things going so he dialed a bottle and ordered 100 Shlitz. It was a huge splash. I got out of there before and pot was consumed or otherwise taken in. I did enjoy the food and the company. Poor Gordo wore his suit as we had planned to do that together in order to show that we weren't the free spirits that some were. I didn't feel up to it due to my sickness so poor Gordo showed up dressed to the nines while I wore only jeans and casual shirt. He stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a good time though. I had to walk partially home in the rain which was less fun but eventually I did get the bus. I managed to beat Brown and Laura here which was impressive I felt. I've got a full day of school to get to so I'll move along and let the rest of you do the same, stay tuned for more. Phillips out.

November 13, 2006

    The whirlwind surrounding the Social Mixer that was D is starting to die down. I would say that the D could stand for dumb or maybe delight. I think in this case it should stand for both. The party was a delight in the respect that we all had a really good time until the dumbness started. The whole story is laid out and I have to go back to my previous point that drunk people are stupid. One other malady was born that night also. It was the beginnings of a cold in the surly chests of Rich, Tal and I. We all spent today just laid right out on the furniture in the living room. None of us moved all day. It was a pathetic and necessary. We ended up watching the Rocket and Brick. It was rather entertaining, if not useless. The cold did not subside. Rich and I traveled to Shoppers to get drugs to chemically assault the illness, we'll find out tomorrow if it worked. Sunday was spent doing work and watching football, mostly football but I did get a huge start done on my Fruit Crop Poster assignment. I found 26 articles on my topic that I also chose. Hopefully I find some time to get into that in the remainder of the week. My drive for academic success is waning slightly right now. This undergrad is sucking the vitality from my bones and the spirit from my soul. I can only take solace in the fact that it can only torment me directly for a few more short weeks. I haven't done much in the last few days so I don't have much to mention. I hope things pick up and I find my drive to destroy school again, my school mojo as it were. Here's hoping. Phillips out.

November 11, 2006

    Today was Remembrance Day. I celebrated it by having a moment of silence in my room for over a minute then listening to Amazing Grace in silence. This was the same thing I did last year with Dave but no one else was awake in the house to participate this year. I'll work backwards this time in recounting my adventures. I just got back from having dinner with the Mayor and his wife. Phil accompanied, being their son and all. We dined at Casey's after Phil had gotten his fill of supplies from the grocer. It was a good solid feed, I had the usual from there, the Clubhouse. It's good, try it some time like right now! Anyways before that I had sat for an hour dejected in my garage waiting for a bunch of guys to come and play sports just like they had all raved about the night before. Guess they're pretty unreliable at best. That was the third death of Sports Saturday and I think that one finally killed it to death. I'm washing my hands of it in the future. While sitting, enraged in the garage, I began to lift the weights. I pumped iron somehow and my arms are now sore. Random work-outs while soothing at the time can later be painful. The morning was spent tip-toeing around the house in a sleep-deprived state. I did manage to create my first Facebook group. It was in celebration of the previous night. I stopped my movement around noon to watch the movie Brick, good movie. You have no idea what is going on until the very end. I like it when that happens, when I can't solve it like I do to those five minute mysteries in the back of Reader's Digest. The previous night was the reason for my lack of sleep. The real reason is Social Mixer D. It was a festival of laughs, witty banter, and of course, drunkenness. A select few unwelcome guests caused some ruckus that put a bad taste in the mouths of many at the end of the night. I was in bed by the time that happened. I learned some things at that party. One thing is that I know some really funny people. You can have a really fun time sober when you know a lot of people at the venue. Drunk people are stupid and can't understand simple concepts. The police are liars and fines eat profits. Other than that I would say it was a good time had by most. The whole of the day Friday was spent in the living room with Tal and Rich, just laughing it up and watching Rich play video games. It was a good weekend so far. I have to start my major poster and genetics manuscript tomorrow. I hope to have a lot of work done by the end of the week so that I can go and see Dave next weekend in London with Will. It's all hypothetical right now but discussions will be had on Skype to move things along. If you don't have it, get it and add me. It's so much better than MSN Messenger. Phillips out.

November 8, 2006

    What a day I had yesterday. It was wild, fun, sad, frustrating, scary, and revealing. I'll attempt to address all of the adjectives as they come up in my tale of adventure and misadventure. I started the day off with Brown coming into my room. It was the first day off he'd had in a long time. He was going to his one class and then coming to pick me up for a day of good times and errands. He got back as scheduled. We headed up to an express oil change place to get his car done. That went well, couldn't have gone better in fact. While sitting there waiting we saw a guy go by in a wheelchair but he was using his legs as well as his arms to propel himself, I thought that was slightly curious. We stopped at Value Village near by to get some good gifts for Phil's roomies who were having a birthday this week. The gifts were awesome and wild and fun could be used to describe the shopping experience. Next we went for lunch at A&W. It was very good. This was about the time when things began to unravel. While driving to our next stop we struck a car. This lead to a stupidly long wait and investigation by the police. It was very incontinent more than anything. No one was hurt and minor damage was done to both vehicles, while most of it was cosmetic the other party insisted on being stupid about everything. Charges were laid on Brown and we went on our way. I don't want to get into it, that is where sad and frustrating came in. Scary was how the other party acted for the whole thing. It frightens me that humans can act in such a manner. Again though, no desire to discuss that in detail. We completed our errands at CIBC bank, Staples business Depot, Blockbuster and finally Zehr's. Arriving home I ate my meager supper and settled in to watch television and movies. I like to watch Friday Night Lights on NBC as mentioned last week and then the House on FOX, as mentioned also. I did these things. Just as the House was wrapping things up I got a call from my landlord, the Burton, Scott Burton. He informed me that I had an unhappy camper on my hands. This was news to me but not totally unexpected. Maggie had been requesting a copy of the lease for a while now. I figured she wanted to confirm that she couldn't have pets (such as cats or dogs). I was wrong, she wanted to find a way out of the lease. That was revealing. Apparently she is stressed too much by living here, she didn't explain much and I'll respect that her reasons are her own. When I had found out I intercommed Brown and set up a secret meeting. Rich came home just in time and we three conspirators headed to the basement (luring Rich with false hopes of going to Shopper's afterwards). We talked to Lara then heard Maggie in the kitchen so we beckoned her down and discussed the whole thing. I called Scott back to let him know what was going on no more than 15 minutes later. As always he was impressed with our efficiency. I pride myself on it, being the speaker of the house (representative). Either way she is going to pay whether she lives here or finds someone else so everyone's behind is covered. That was an exciting day, today was less so, homework and school dominated. That is where we are. Phillips out.

November 5, 2006

    I would have had an entry for yesterday except that I didn't have the internet in the middle of a field in Essex county. I tasted the underbelly of the earth that day. It tasted desolate. I saw the biggest fool I've ever seen. The land that the farmer grew the plot we were harvesting on was over ten feet of pure black muck. It was re-claimed land from lake St Clair. Black as witch's heart. You would think that it would be weedy. It was weedy, lamb's quarter (Chenopodium album) that was over 12 feet high, a good two feet higher than the corn. Why? The farmer felt that spraying would be too expensive and wouldn't be worth the cost. His average yield from the year before on the same land (different part of the field) was around 230 bu/ac. This year he'll be lucky to hit 200 bu/ac. Current price of corn in that region is $3.30/bu. That would make a rough difference of around $100/ac. The spray program suggested to him was $30/ac. Huh, well I guess he should have sprayed. That just blew my mind. We spent 7 hours doing a 2 hour job because of break downs. I don't care, I get paid either way, and by the hour to boot. It was a long day for sure, started at 7 am and continued until I got home at 9 pm. When I got up I tried not to wake Nicole who had to unexpected spend the night due to a car failure on her way to go see Dave. I didn't get to talk to her but I hope it all works out. She was gone by the time I got back, to London no doubt. Either way, I had a long day yesterday, aced my quiz and cleaned the house on Friday and generally just lived life on Thursday. Hopefully everyone else is having a wicked awesome weekend. Phillips out.

November 2, 2006

    Alright, two days in a row, gotta streak going here. If I do it again tomorrow that is called a winning streak, it has happened before. That is Lou from Major League II, one of the classics from my generation. So I'm home today, well in Guelph at home I guess would be more clear. I've decided that today I can take a break from school. Mainly cause I have all the notes for the classes and don't like guest lectures that much so I'm home. I'm actually getting some things done that I've wanted to do for a long time. I've done some cleaning and whatnot in my room and I've had an unhealthy breakfast, far worse than McDonald's. I'll leave that to your imaginations. So what have I done with my life these past couple of hours. Well after I left off yesterday I made bold move into the living room and sat down and watched Rich play Star Wars. We went to Shopper's after a while and bought some crappy food and then returned. When the smoke cleared it was after ten pm and he'd logged more than nine hours at the helm. It was magic, like watching a movie where you choose everything but the overall story arc. It's beautiful. We love it. Brown finally came home last night too. He was MIA for a time yesterday when his work called and asked me where he was and I asked them right back. I made the mistake of asking Laura, his girlfriend, where he was. She got really worried, and we were worried. She called his work and he was there by then, I guess he got caught in traffic or something but there was a lot of worrying going on. So moving on then, today something pretty huge happened. Megan, you know it.....Guelph is number one again. Every year Maclean's magazine puts out this huge survey of all the university's in Canada, my first two years we were number one, then Waterloo, my sister Megan's school, took the title for two years. Now we're back on top. You know it. There is a small rivalry between us that results in some good natured chiding and some clothing purchases for our family. So far she's won that battle as my parents seem to purposely put on the Waterloo clothes when we're home. I guess the Guelph stuff is just too classy to be worn for everyday occurrences. It's more for special occasions I suppose. I hope to see some Guelph stuff come Christmas, that means you parents. I didn't drop $250 in that gift shop for nothing. So my school is the best and as I said yesterday, I'm a champ. Drink milk, love life baby. Mike watch out for your corn-hole good buddy and enjoy Costa Rica. Phillips out.

November 1, 2006

    New month started today, how exciting. Now I can look forward to starting to write October at the top of all my pages and then realize that it is now November. This syndrome generally lasts several days until my idiot brain realizes that the month has changed for real. I guess the months are too short, as soon as I get used to what month we're in it goes and changes on me. Huh, I wonder how the month we deciphered. This has been a question that I've pondered for a long time. Not the months themselves. I used to know how they were established. I do know the names of the days of the week are based off Celtic gods. Thursday = Thor's Day, Friday = Freyja's Day, etc. Sunday is named after the sun I suspect, not much of a stretch on that one though. Moving back to the question at hand though, I know how we chose these things but why is a different question. I'm something of an amateur history reader guy so I know that many early civilizations had their own ways of measuring time. Why have we conformed to just one. I know the Chinese do their own thing to an extent but globally the calendar is pretty much set. I guess it makes things run more smoothly but it also shows that globalization started a long time ago. This type of question always stirs my imagination and curiosity. Why do we measure time the way we do, how different would the world be if we did it some other way. The same can be said for religion. I often wonder what it would be like if Christianity had been destroyed before Jesus was up on the old cross. That would be something, probably a whole different world for better or worse. It's these questions that provoke me to buy books on subjects of this nature. Conspiracy stuff and the like also falls under this realm of my wild imagination. That is why I asked for and received the Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History (eventually) for my birthday. Brown finally delivered on that one. I look forward to this read, maybe after exams. Well, whatever month it is and why ever we chose to do it this way, I'm still here and I finally got what I wanted. Just goes to show that I'm a champ or something. Phillips out.