Posted by Skrud at Saturday, May 10th 2008 at 2:35pm
Finding an apartment in Ottawa this week, more than anything, made the fact that I’m leaving feel undeniably real. Until now I had been in limbo between disbelief and hard reality. I’m actually kind of excited for the move, but I’m definitely feeling anxious about moving out on my own and having to deal with all kinds of things like insurance, RRSP’s, getting Ontario ID’s, a new cell phone number, and changing my address in virtually every database on the planet.
I really like the area I’ll be living in, and the job promises to be fun and exactly what I want to do. Encouraging me is the fact that virtually everyone I’ve run into has told me that “IBM is a good company”. This goes both for IBMers, ex-IBMers, and people who “had a brother/uncle/nephew/father who worked for IBM”. Ottawa also seems to have an endless sea of pubs, kind of like the way Montreal has an endless sea of strip clubs. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding a nice pub near my apartment, and then there’s always Zaphod’s. Because the pubs are so numerous and so close together, I think a pub crawl (or several) is in order.
Also encouraging me is the good base of friends I already have in Ottawa, and new friends that I’m just making. I’ve been hanging out with some of the current IBM interns on IRC and they’re pretty cool people and good company to bend elbows with. I’m also looking forward to Montreal friends coming up and visiting me. You will come visit me, right? I’ll make sure to have a couch for crashing on. (And my place is right down the street from the bus station). Just bring me some Québec microbrew beer. And bagels.
On the other hand, I still feel like I’m being uprooted. Montreal is where I’ve lived for my entire life. I’ve grown into this city, and I love being surrounded by the tall buildings, the mountain towering over them, the waterfront, the plateau, the bars and pubs, and most of all the people. Montreal is an intensely friendly city and I’ve made an incredible amount of really close friends here. I also have a dream of living in downtown Montreal loft, while I’m still young enough to thrive in the big city. I’m really going to miss running into people almost every time I go out. I’m especially going to miss Brutopia, which I’ve been frequenting for seven years.
Ottawa isn’t so bad, though. It’s so close to Montreal that coming back for the weekends is more than plausible. (My friends chipped in and got me a Greyhound flexpass for my birthday, so I know I’ll be coming back a lot.) It could be worse, and had I been offered a job further away, I probably would have declined. I don’t really want to make new friends in new, faraway places. I’m a huge fan of the friends I’ve currently got and I’d much rather be closer to them than have a job far away.
So Ottawa is a decent compromise. It’s close, and the job is awesome. Although Ottawa does seem to think that a bunch of tulips surrounding a Beaver Tails tent constitutes a “festival”. They have no idea what they’re missing. In Montreal we would call it “landscaping”. I’m more than a little disappointed that I won’t be in Montreal for the entire summer. I’m moving at the beginning of July. At least I’ll still be here for the Fringe festival, but I’ll have to make frequent trips to catch Fantasia movies, the Jazz festival, Just for Laughs, and pretty much everything else.
Reasons to come visit me in Ottawa
- You can go to Red Lobster
- You can pick up some Fireball whiskey (and other non-SAQ beverages) at the LCBO
- You can get a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster at Zaphod’s (they’re gooood!)
- You can meet my new friends and make sure I’m in good hands.
- We can complain together when the bars kick us out an hour early
Tags: anxiety, Friends, montreal, moving, ottawa, team | 2 comments
Posted by Skrud at Tuesday, October 9th 2007 at 12:53am
I finally, successfully, made some food!
When asked what she wanted for her birthday, Bridget said, “Bake me a cake.” She bought me a beginner’s cookbook as part of my birthday present, so it seems only fitting that I should cook something from it. I ambitiously chose the Sunken Chocolate Cake, if only because the description in the cookbook read “ridiculously easy to make”. Also, because it had very few, simple ingredients: chocolate, butter, eggs, and sugar. No flour or anything fancy like that.
Luckily I had two good friends (Josh and Morgan) supervise me. They helped improvise a Double Boiler to melt the chocolate and butter in, and with beating the eggs. I was a little intimated by the egg beating, since I’m still traumatized by the last experience. No less than 40 minutes later, the cake emerged, and it actually looked like a cake!
Here’s a picture of it with icing sugar on top:
Lessons learned:
- Icing sugar and “confectioner’s sugar” are interchangeable terms.
- “Whipped Cream” and “Whipping Cream” are not. (Many thanks to Morgan for trying to help me improvise an icing).
- If you give Bridget a cake that tastes delicious, she’ll raise the bar and expect more next time.
Tags: baking, cooking, events, food, Friends, party, thanksgiving | 3 comments
Posted by Skrud at Friday, March 2nd 2007 at 12:58pm
To hops
To malt
To yeast
To barley
To the Mesopotamians who invented it,
To the Egyptians who continued it,
To the Germans who perfected it
To us who love it
To beer!
Written at Brutopia, at approximately 12am on March 2, 2007 by Harley Cooper, Chris Beebe, and yours truly.
You can change the fourth line to whatever characteristic of your beer that you want to point out. So if you’re drinking a wheat beer, you’d say “to wheat” instead of “to barley”, or “to raspberry” or whatever.
You can also change the 7th line, in case you’re not drinking German beer or beer brewed in the German style. So if you’re drinking Belgian-style beer you’d say “to the Belgians who perfected it” … or substitute for Czechs (especially if you’re drinking Pilsner).
We also added a line before “To us who love it” to pay homage to our fabulous bartender:
To Kimberly who serves it
I love beer.
Tags: beer, Friends, life, poetry | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Monday, August 7th 2006 at 7:29pm
First I saw Angelo do it, then Heather, now Guillaume … so I’m giving in and copying their big list of things to do, bolding the ones that I’ve done. I’m only copying one list, though, so that’s going to be the one I saw from Angelo and Heather because I saw those first (and Guillaume’s is too long).
- Bought everyone in the bar a drink (but it wasn’t my money … :P)
- Swam with wild dolphins
- Climbed a mountain
- Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
- Been inside the Great Pyramid
- Held a tarantula
- Taken a candlelit bath with someone
- Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
- Hugged a tree
- Bungee jumped
- Visited Paris
- Watched a lightning storm at sea
- Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
- Seen the Northern Lights
- Gone to a huge sports game
- Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
- Grown and eaten your own vegetables
- Touched an iceberg
- Slept under the stars
- Changed a baby’s diaper
- Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
- Watched a meteor shower
- Gotten drunk on champagne
- Given more than you can afford to charity
- Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
- Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
- Had a food fight
- Bet on a winning horse
- Asked out a stranger
- Had a snowball fight
- Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
- Held a lamb
- Seen a total eclipse
- Ridden a roller coaster
- Hit a home run
- Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking (only while plastered)
- Adopted an accent for an entire day
- Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
- Had two hard drives for your computer (and installed a 3rd yesterday)
- Visited all 10 provinces and 3 territories
- Taken care of someone who was shit faced
- Had amazing friends (still do)
- Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
- Watched wild whales
Stolen a sign Set a sign on fire- Backpacked in Europe
- Taken a road-trip
- Gone rock climbing
- Midnight walk on the beach
- Gone sky diving
- Visited Ireland
- Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
- In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
- Visited Japan
- Milked a cow
- Alphabetized your cds
- Pretended to be a superhero
- Sung karaoke
- Lounged around in bed all day
- Posed nude in front of strangers
- Gone scuba diving
- Kissed in the rain
- Played in the mud
- Played in the rain
- Gone to a drive-in theater
- Visited the Great Wall of China
- Started a business
- Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
- Toured ancient sites
- Taken a martial arts class
- Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
- Gotten married
- Been in a movie
- Crashed a party
- Gotten divorced
- Gone without food for 5 days
- Made cookies from scratch
- Won first prize in a costume contest
- Ridden a gondola in Venice
- Gotten a tattoo
- Rafted the Snake River
- Been on television news programs as an “expert”
- Got flowers for no reason
- Performed on stage (I rocked out.)
- Been to Las Vegas
- Recorded music (… on GarageBand…)
- Eaten shark
- Had a one-night stand
- Gone to Thailand
- Bought a house
- Been in a combat zone
- Buried one/both of your parents
- Been on a cruise ship
- Spoken more than one language fluently
- Performed in Rocky Horror
- Raised children
- Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
- Created and named your own constellation of stars
- Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
- Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
- Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
- Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
- Had plastic surgery (plastic yes, but not cosmetic surgery)
- Survived an accident you shouldn’t have
- Wrote articles for a large publication (Assuming e-Zines count… :P)
- Lost over 100 pounds
- Held someone while they were having a flashback
- Piloted an airplane
- Petted a stingray
- Broken someone’s heart
- Helped an animal give birth
- Won money on a T.V. game show
- Broken a bone
- Gone on an African photo safari
- Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
- Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
- Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
- Ridden a horse
- Had major surgery
- Had a snake as a pet
- Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
- Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
- Visited more foreign countries than the Canadian provinces and territories - 13
- Visited all 7 continents
- Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
- Eaten kangaroo meat
- Eaten sushi
- Had your picture in the newspaper
- Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
- Gone back to school
- Parasailed
- Petted a cockroach
- Eaten fried green tomatoes
- Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
- Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
- Killed and prepared an animal for eating
- Skipped all your school reunions
- Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
- Been elected to public office
- Written your own computer language
- Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
- Had to put someone you love into hospice care
- Built your own PC from parts
- Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
- Had a booth at a street fair
- Dyed your hair
- Been a DJ
- Shaved your head
- Caused a car accident
- Saved someone’s life
Tags: Friends, life, meme, metablogging | 3 comments
Posted by Skrud at Sunday, July 30th 2006 at 2:25am
I went to the beach today. To anyone that knows me well, this statement will seem odd. Skrud? At the beach? Skrud doesn’t go outside, in the sun, with water…
Granted I wouldn’t normally go to the beach, or the pool, or any other place that where I would be expected to roam without a shirt on. Below is an actual picture of me with my shirt off. Clearly, you can see why I would be timid.
The fact that there were literally hundreds of gorgeous girls in bikinis on the beach only made me more self-conscious.
Anyways, I figured it’s been far too long that I’ve cowered behind the fear of my Wookie-like appearance and braved the open seas … err, lake. We went up to Oka National Park for a day of beaching. I would’ve been difficult to recognize, though proudly sporting my Geek colours with a white (!) t-shirt that said CODE HERO in large letters on the back. I also had a red (!!) baseball cap promoting the Concordia Stingers which I got as a door prize registering for my first year of university.
I ventured into the water pretty quickly, and eventually we got into a competitive game of free-for-all frisbee, or something, in the water, and it was fun.
I also got to reading some of my book (Microserfs by Douglas Copeland, which I’m re-reading, which is a telltale Nerd book.) I didn’t play volleyball, because when my friends went to play volleyball they were joined by a couple of people that I didn’t know. I’m really shy with strangers – ever since I was a kid when I’d adamantly and absolutely refuse to use a swing if there was someone I didn’t know on the swing next to it. So yeah, I didn’t play volleyball, I read my book. I still had a lot of fun at the beach. :D
After the beach we went for a barbecue … at _my_ house. Nobody ever comes to my house. It was a very strange day. Needless to say we ran out of barbecueing gas and so we had to make our burgers and hot dogs (with beer) on the frying pan. Rather, Harley did all the cooking, because I can’t.
The girls (Roxanne aka Lime, Linda aka Kiwi and Leilani aka IronArms) made a dessert consisting of 20% sponge cake, 30% fruit, and 50% Cool Whip. It was … interesting.
Then we started a game of Taboo that lasted until 2am. Taboo is a game in which you are given a word, and a list of words that you are not allowed to say (they are taboo). You need to give clues to have your teammate guess the word without using any of the illegal words.
It’s interesting how personal references and shared experiences factor into how you get people to think of words. For example, Leilani said “I went through one of these yesterday” so I knew the answer was “stop sign”. Or “At dinner we thought Kiwi said that Orlando Bloom was doing…” and I said “Elizabeth Taylor”. You see? Random. But you had to be there. :P
I hadn’t played Taboo since I was a kid. Games take on a whole new level (of perversion, most likely) when you’re older. I’d definitely be up for another uncharacterstic day of fun.
Tags: 2006, bbq, beach, Friends, fun, games, life, summer | no comments
