I just had one for lunch. It's three greasy patties with three slices of processed cheese.

Now I feel disgusting.

There was a one-sentence footnote on the front page of the NYTimes, and a 1/3 page article on page A6. Even the upcoming election in Chechnya beat out news about Canada's first minority government in 25 years.

Of course, as usual, news about Iraq took up half of the A section.

It was someone's 5 years at work. And for it, they can choose between a gift of a clock or a pen. I think that many people choose the clock.

But it's important to note that you should never give a clock as a gift to a Chinese person. In Chinese, "clock" is a homophone for "end", so giving the gift of a clock is like saying that you're giving them the end, or death, which is bad.

So no gifts of clocks.

Maybe a coffee addiction. First I'll start with a cup every morning. Then I need to move on to also having a cup in the afternoon. That way I can stay awake for the dreadful 2pm meetings. After a month or so, I won't be able to live without it.

Everyone can use an addiction, and coffee is the least harmful one I can think of. However, I will have to get some teeth whitening agent, and maybe a box of those after-coffee mints. But just imagine, once I get my addiction going, instead of waking up every morning and asking "who am I", I won't even be able to think without that first cup.

And really, what better place than Seattle to start an addiction like coffee, where there's a little coffee shop on literally every street corner. There's probably 4 or 5 within a 2 block radius of my apartment. And on the weekends I can go to the ones with wireless networking and satisfy both my coffee buzz and internet withdrawl all at once.

This sounds like a good idea.

First I'm 3 months late in sending in documents, then I find out my new lamp from IKEA is a dud, and I stupidly deleted 2 partitions on my harddisk, and now I just destroyed my crank trying to take out my pedals.

Now I just need to fork out $300 for a new crankset. Maybe my parents will give me money for my birthday.

In other news, I saw a guy reading the manual to StarCraft on the bus to work today. Yes, I work with nerds.

This one is for you:

The DVDRewinder.

This is how you rewind a DVD.

Hundreds of students single file into the gymnasium, flanked by parents, grandparents, siblings, and significant others in the grandstand benches snapping pictures, holding up video cameras, flashes ablazing. The university elders follow, with speeches, honorary degrees, more energetic speeches, and the procession of us three at a time, kneeling in front of the president, chancellor and provost to be hooded.

We're supposed to be grown up, wiser, more mature, ready to enter the real world. But there's still so much uncertainty for so many of us. The words of wisdom offered by the speakers seem alien to me. It's time for a new beginning, but are we prepared for it? No more school to fall back on after we get tired of work. No more skipping morning classes just because we could. No more seeing everyone you knew at one place every Wednesday night. Friends will be lost, emails will fade, blogs will die. People will be spread across the continent, and some off it.

There's an old Chinese proverb, roughly translated as "there's no party that doesn't end". Another period of our lives is over, just like the transition from elementary school to high school, and from high school onto university. We should be used to change, we should realize that new friends will be made, and old friends worth keeping will be kept. We should look forward to what's coming up in our lives, and not dwell on memories past, although they will always be with us, whether good or bad.

And graduate too.

I've got a few kicking around.

Just to show you anything is possible, someone is offering up a free bee's nest.

I have a HUGE tree in my backyard that has recently been home to a swarm or a colony? of bee's. They could be wasps but I don't know. They have manifested their HUGE nest about 35 feet up my tree. I have contacted the bee people but they want way too much $$$ to clear the nest.

I am thinking a U-Dub science student or a person with the tolerance for pain like Johnny Knoxville in Jackass can come over and take it down for free. Defintely a good science project if you're in school.

Please let know,

gertrude

Other free notables:

Railroad ties, delivered
Orlando Bloom posters
Post-it pads
Chicken coop

Outlook 2003 has this great feature where you can arrange emails by conversation (users of gmail will be familiar with this). What would make it even better is if everytime I move a thread into a folder, it automatically creates a rule so that all future emails in this thread goes into that folder.

My subscription to the New York Times finally came this past Sunday. Apparently it's only $5.75 a week for 7 day home delivery, which I find fairly cheap, considering the physical amount of paper I get. I spent a good three hours yesterday combing through the 2-inch thick Sunday edition. I think reading the paper will become a nightly ritual since I have no TV and no internet.

I'm also continuing my Palaniuk kick right now. I just finished Choke, and am now on to Lullaby. I think I'll take a break after this one. Too much Chuck can mess with your mind. Anyone with good books to recommend? I'm thinking about the Davinci Code next.

On a side note, I think all the Culkin brothers look too much alike.

Read the reviews.

Ladybugs
Wasp Eggs
Fly Parasites
Praying Mantis

I have no couch at my apartment. No coffee table, no bedframe, no night table, no TV, and no internet. I don't even have a newspaper subscription. The only thing I can do when I get home is play some bad guitar, although I have no internet, so I can't find new songs, and read. That's why I don't want to go home too early from work everyday. But Matt always insists on leaving at 5, and I'm so easily pushed around by peer pressure.

My parents are here, until tomorrow. I wanted them to buy me a couch, but they apparently have no US dollars, so they can't do anything for me. There's a furniture store just around the corner from me, but they are too expensive, and I have no money, and I need my first pay cheque.

Orr, I'm not going to sell you my iPod because I can't afford another one. But you can buy my phone if you still want.

Anyone need some official Microsoft software for cheap?

Trying to furnish my apartment. I went to the Bon, Target, and IKEA. Now I can actually eat at home, and pretty soon I'll have something other than an air mattress to sleep on.

Today was the first real day of my internship, after being placed in the wrong group and all. Now I am back on the basket team.

I spent some time looking at the intern mailing list for lunch/activities, and am now convinced that these people have absolutely nothing better to do than spam the list all day. It's a full time job just to keep up with the emails. Good thing Outlook has grouping by conversation, and I can at least mark as read by whole conversations. Now I just need to find a way to set up a rule so that conversations I'm not interested in will automatically get marked as read.

I moved into the new apartment yesterday. I'll put some pictures up when I bring my laptop to Matt's since I have no internet at home.

We arrive Friday morning at 9, and leave Sunday night at 7:30.

Insomnia sets in, and with the lack of a working TV (media centre really does suck), I am left only with my laptop as I lay on the midnight sofa with my back stuck to the leather.

There are a lot of things I need to do in the very near future. Priority number one is looking for a place to live. I haven't decided whether to find a sublet, or sign a lease. I guess I'll just have to take whatever pops up.

It's nearing 4 am, I'm going to try and get some sleep.