doggy bounce

It's finally starting to feel actually summery here. Did I say "finally" cuz it's been a long time coming!! Don't think that I'm a huge fan of really hot steamy weather but I like it to be at least warm enough to be able to wear sandals to work. And not having to turn the office furnace, in mid-June, is also nice.

Convocation has been happening for the past couple of weeks and it's a lot of fun to watch the proud parents and happy grads taking photos. Unfortunately, some of the folks taking photos have almost been hit by vehicles, at least almost hit by us, the last couple of days. See, Convocation empties out onto University Avenue. Everyone sort of congregates outside of Grant Hall, trying to get photos of their grad with the Clock Tower, or the with the Chancellor, etc. I have, more than once this week, watched parents backing up, into traffic, with a camera clutched to their faces. It's scary. I think next year, they should consider closing the street because I worry that someone is going to get plowed over by a bus.

We got to the dog park last night (we hadn't been since the weekend) and it was pretty busy, which is nice for the dogs. Our dog park is not a dedicated strictly to dog park activities. The area we can use is inside a running track. Also inside the track are four baseball diamonds. We often walk the length of the park, between the ball diamonds because the dogs will run back and forth between us, trying to herd us. Anyway, last night, I had to laugh. There was a young girl sitting on the bleachers, wrapped around her boyfriend (I think they were in high school). They had a little mop top of a dog with them but she was paying more attention to the boy than to the dog. The dog was pretty friendly and Sam and Gracie were playing with it but I couldn't help but chuckle thinking, her parents probably asked her to walk the dog so she plunked it at the park while she was fooling around with this guy. She wasn't exactly following the rules of supervising and being in control of your dog at all times!

In any event, now that we're talking about dogs, why not do the doggy bounce?

bert and ernie

It's storming here as I type this. Snow. Lots of it. It's everywhere!!

I think we're supposed to get close to 20 cm before it's all done. It's on days like this that I'm particularly grateful for our fab-o, snow plowing neighbour Tommy. He's awesome and he takes very good care of our driveway so we literally only have to shovel steps and porches and small laneways. The dogs must be happy with all of this snow too. Sam is probably sprawled out in the middle of the yard, rolling in it and eating it up. It's very cute.

Have you seen any of the new Conchords episodes yet? We saw the first one and have the second one in the DVR. I was a little disappointed that the song at the end was recycled but it was one I really liked so I quickly got over it. Thought I'd share this with you, it's a little interview from CNN with the lads. I had no idea that much of their inspiration came from bert & ernie.

a little friday fun

So far, I'm having a great day. The heat is on, the sun is shining and I'm really accomplishing a lot. It feels really great. And it's Friday! Technically, it's now Friday afternoon so that means that I only have to wait a few more hours before I'll be home with my dogs (and Mark) for the whole weekend.

For over a year now, there has been a major construction project underway just north of our house. It's going to be one of those giant box malls which I'm not a massive fan of but, there is a really nice grocery store going into it. It's our favourite flavour of grocery store and it'll be way closer to our house than any other grocery store in town. They are opening up today so we're going to head over after work and do our weekly shop. Some folks in town are upset about the store opening because the owners are closing another store when this one opens. The old store is in a low income neighbourhood and most of the current customers can walk there. This new store is not easy to get to by walking and it's not easily accessible by public transit (such as it is right now). Hopefully, there will be a shuttle service, or the city buses will change their route to make it easier for folks to get to the store. I'm just really looking forward to shopping in the new store and not having to trek out to the west end of town for groceries anymore.

In honour of FoTC returning to TV on Sunday (I cannot wait!!), here's a little clip to make you smile:

astroturf

A couple of weeks ago, a new field officially opened here on campus. It is the first field on our campus which has an artificial surface and it looks pretty cool. There is still a fair bit of work to be done around the perimeter of the field (it's been place atop a new underground parking garage which hasn't opened up yet. Every day when we drive by it, I marvel at the green-ness of it and of how brightly the letters glow on it. It'll be a little strange to see it green in a few weeks when everything else around here is either brown or grey.

In honour of the "astroturf," I felt like sharing this little clip from the Conchords. It's a song that was in my head all of last weekend and I probably drove Mark bananas asking "do you want my jumper bowie?"

mutha uckers

I live in a small town.

On a normal day, it takes me about 5 minutes to get from my house to the office. If I stop off at the post office and the bank, you could add another 10 minutes to that time (if there is a line up at the post office). Tonight, this trip took almost 45 minutes.

Despite the fact that fellow who is responsible for the roads department here in our increasingly corrupt seeming town said that the plows were out all weekend, the first plow I saw was tonight. The roads in our town are absolute shit right now. They are frozen rutty messes. There is ice underneath packed snow. The snow removal on the sidewalks is a joke. I had to walk through knee deep slush to get from my vehicle to the shoppers tonight. bad bad bad.

It's going to be a really long winter if this is the level of service we can expect to receive from our illustrious road crews. I'm so happy to know that our taxes are shooting up next year. yay!! oh, btw, in case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.

At least, when all else fails, the Conchords can make me smile.

sweet sixteen not m16s

sexy lady bits and sexy man bits too...even you must be into you...if you're sick of me posting flight of the conchords...well, suck it!

good news

HBO was smart enough to pull their heads out of their asses and order up a second season of FotC!! I'm so happy that they didn't meet with the same fate as Lucky Louie!!




HBO renews cult favorite "Conchords"
By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - HBO has renewed its Sunday comedies, bringing the rookie "Flight of the Conchords" back for a second season and handing out a fifth-season pickup to "Entourage."

Both shows are slated to return with original episodes in 2008.

While the renewal of the Hollywood-centered "Entourage" -- one of HBO's most popular series -- was widely expected, things weren't that certain for "Conchords," a quirky half-hour about two New Zealand musicians struggling to make it in New York.

The show starring the music-comedy duo of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie quickly developed a cult following but came up short of the broader appeal of "Entourage."

The pickups follow HBO's recent decision to cancel David Milch's new drama "John From Cincinnati" after one season and renew "Big Love" for a third cycle.

Next for the premium cable channel is the return of critics' favorites "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (September 9) and "The Wire," the debuts of "In Treatment" and "12 Miles of Bad Road" and the controversial "Tell Me You Love Me."

"Entourage" will compete for four Emmys next month -- best comedy series, supporting actor for both last year's winner, Jeremy Piven, and Kevin Dillon, and guest actor for Martin Landau.

marmalade forest

It's getting dangerously close to being the weekend again.

My hope for the weekend is that we have sunshine and warm temperatures. It's been raining and gross here all day today. The rain broke long enough for us to get home tonight and then it started up again, with a weird kind of vengeance. What's up witha that oddly cruel rain?

For some reason that I am unable to put my finger on, I had this song in my head all day today at work. let me know if you get it into your head tomorrow:

team building exercise '99

Is it hot in your part of the world? I'm not talking about hot like attractive or sexy but hot like, the air quality is crappy and the sky is brown?

It's a little like that around here. It got quite bad last night. I think it actually got warmer as the evening progressed. Our house has central air but I couldn't get to sleep. We went to bed around 8:30 or so and I got up at 11 p.m. because I was afraid I'd wake Mark up with my tossing and turning. Eventually, I was able to fall asleep sometime around midnight. When you're up at 4:30 a.m. though, that's not really good.

Tonight we were able to get into the pool. It felt great. We hadn't been in the pool for almost 2 weeks. The weather while we were on holidays was cool and rainy. It wasn't like that this afternoon though. We stayed in for about 90 minutes so we were pretty shriveled when we got out.

Last week, while we were on vacation, we bumped into Flight of the Conchords. Have you seen this HBO show yet? The Movie Network is showing it here in Canada. It's brilliant. Well I think it's brilliant anyway. FOTC are a parody folk duo and HBO have given them a 30 minute comedy show. It's funny, we've seen 3 episodes plus their HBO special so far. The episodes usually feature a couple of songs. They are actually pretty good musicians and I like their voices. The best part is that it's hilarious. They write really funny lyrics and have a very laid back approach to things. It's very deadpan and dry and I am looking forward to seeing more of them over the summer. It doesn't quite make up for Lucky Louie getting canceled but it's close.