somsing stinky

Not much is going on...just the usual stuff. jesus people preaching with paper slide presentations on the sidewalk (yes, they are much more organized and persuasive here in montreal), guys banging on buckets to make cool tunes...same 'ol.

School is busy. ever see the ren and stimpy episode 'space madness'...yeah, that's me. hahaha, not really. slight exaggeration. that was one of my favourite episodes though. it's up there with the MEAT!

so i came home from school the other day and as soon as i entered my room, i smelt a familiar smell. it smelt sort of like burned electronics mixed with.....ah crap not again. yeah, i left the amp on for the whole time i was out of the house (about 7 or 8 hours). well, at least i found out which component in my power supply was being overworked. luckily diodes don't blow up...they just smoke and stink. the thing got mutilated. ah well, no one died and i'll just get a beefier rectifier (hehehe..rectifier)

semi-nice

Today started off pretty good. The weather was pleasant as were my encounters with people. Perhaps because it is the weekend and my interactions with people did not include McGill Administration. I almost got smoked by a car rollerblading to the IGA today...man, these quebec drivers are loko!

The family came up to visit for today which was pretty cool. I do miss them as much as they miss me. We spent the day just doing a bit of shopping and dinner and then they went back home. My sister seemed like her days are getting more and more stressful and somewhat depressing...I can tell...she won't say. She's done so much for me, we've been pretty tight but I feel like I can't do anything about it. She's too tough for her own good...How the hell do you hand someone happiness when you know they deserve it and you're in another city? I have faith things work out as long as you don't stop trying, I just hope she doesn't forget that. So many things I want to do but can't or just don't know how. And then I have to tell myself to stop and get back to studying.

...time to get back to studying.

rock on brotha

I went to the IGA last night on my rollerblades. It's pretty sweet how much faster I get there and back but man, I didn't realize how tough it is to keep balanced with a bunch of bags in each hand and rollerblading. It was nice and cool out though, and the IGA doesn't care if you blade around their store (so long as you don't start getting flash-backs of your professional hockey season days and hip check some old lady into a pile of cans). I got back home and slowly but surely made a super filling dinner and talked to the family.

I'm just having my coffee and doing the internet routine. Why is it that we as humans depend on routines so much? We feel lost without them...or maybe it's just me? anyways...I was looking for the tabs to a couple of songs and came across tabs that were ***.ptb which turned out to be "power tab" format. So I went and downloaded the power tab program (very slowly) and when I got it....holy nut sac this is the best thing ever! It shows the notes, tabs, and has that thing that ticks to let you know the beat (what the crap is it called again?). and you can play it to hear what it sounds like!! wow! I am truly impressed with the perfect simplicity (make-a-sense?). I feel so stupid for not coming across this after playing downloaded tabs all these years. Power tab...I want to touch you and spank yo mama. I think that's the morning coffee kicking in...gigiti!

when you sleep...where do your fingers go?

I woke up this morning and the ground near my balcony door/window was soaked. I found out at that point that there are two layers of window that I must close when it's pouring out. Kinda like the buffer zone when entering a ship in space.

Today is a pretty good day. It's been awhile since I've been in good spirits...I never realized how much of an impact moving can have. During the move I felt like nothing had changed...la la la la just doing my thing. Then I felt like this sudden sadness came over me in the past couple of days. I guess it just took awhile for it to hit home. And it's amazing what some sunshine and a Friday can do!

Anyways...enough about my girly crap. It's time to get down to business. This city is WAY too full of stuff! So many things I wanna see and do and it's so overwhelming that I don't know where to start and so.....i do nothing. I think I need to just pick a couple of things to check out each week and I'll get somewhere. I think I'll start with the cheap/free activities for now ;)

I just met with my supervisor and it gave me an idea of the death ahead of me. bring it biatch! I can't wait till next term though. This term is full of math and more math...definately LOTS of math. Cool math though since it's communications/signalling math...but still...it's lots of math. Next term I get to do a circuit design class and will be a TA for the first time ever! The fate of those weak little undergrads will be in my hands. muhahaha! I'm gonna learn them good. "Sally, for being incorrect by 0.01 for the voltage you must suffer in the hole for 10 weeks". "Bob, you just plain suck. you do my laundry for the next year" (sweeeeet). Hahahahaha...the TA from hell.

Ah well...it's time to take the 10000 mile trek uphill to the gym.

an ode to coffee

dear caffiene, you have made my day,
because of you, I am feeling so gay,
no, I have not turned queer,
it just means that I want to sing and cheer,
HORRAY for coffee, you kept me awake today,
while my boring ass professors taught in the most confusing way.

when i was your age...

you know the stereotypical elderly childhood story of "when i was your age, i walked 10 miles through snow up to my chin to get to school uphill, blah blah blah." well, here's my story. I found out where they conveniently placed the McGill gym yesterday. man, i had to walk for like 15 minutes on a constant 15 degree incline with the occasional 30 degree stretch for shits and giggles. in a few months, the story will include snow. this is like an extra step for motivating people to get their asses to the gym. ahh well...takes care of the warm up for me...lazy fat people are doomed.

I bought 2 books as well and now my wallet is 270 bucks lighter...for that price they had better wipe my butt on demand too. i hope they learn me good.

people are outside playing frisbee/soccer/football and stuff all the time on campus. lots of others just sit in the shade or anywhere else for that matter and read. the campus is friendly and alive. there's a bbq setup in front of the library for people to eat something on the go, and coffee located in convenient places. pretty cool school.

went home for dinner and continued cleaning up the apartment. a couple of more days and everything should be cool. i took a look at my amp and got it working as good as new. everything is nice and neat (and safe) in the wooden box with the wires fairly secure. something else is going to happen though...i can feel it...when i least suspect it...

moving..

Well..i've moved. The transformer on my amp blew a fuse the other day so I took it to the balcony and sawed the biatch open and just soldered in a wire...takes care of that. The next day I loose signal on the left channel so I spent the day testing and resoldering...done and done. But then yesterday, all of a sudden I smelt an oh so familiar smell in the air. It was definately burning electronics. I look over at my stupid amp and the power supply I made for it is up in smoke! OH SHIT!! I immediately flip the switch seperating the amp from the supply (but the smoking supply is still connected to the wall jack) and then dive under the computer table to disconnect the thing. Why did I first flip the switch you ask? Must...save...AMP! It was working reliably before the move to Montreal. I guess the handling was kinda rough in the process of moving.

I bought groceries which included some icecream from the IGA the other day (around the first couple o days) and then got lost on the way home. After a half hour of wandering, I hit a street I knew and realized it'd take 45 minutes to get back home. thankfully, the icecream survived.

I wish I went to Tremblent...I couldn't think of a better way to start the school year than with my friends at a cottage. Instead I had to spend the weekend with my family. The good part though is that I had a chance to drag them to wal-mart and ikea to buy big heavy crap that would be impossible to lug onto the metro. And they brought the rest of my cool junk from home! Man, some people are crazy. Today at the metro, this one guy was standing near the edge of the platform at the tracks with his arms in the air screaming some latin shit. And then he just started flirting with random girls in french. It was quite entertaining.

man, this is tiring. I can't remember half the stuff that has happened to me in the past while. can't even remember the colour of my underwear right now...ahh, grey...what are you looking at biatch? Anyways, I'm getting the hell out of this computer lab.