Keep the holiday spirit all year round.
Wonderful. Stress, tension, depression and frustration – 365 days a year. I’m already there! Yay Christmas!
Archive for November, 2007
Meow Meow Penitentiary
Sunday, November 25th, 2007Now that I’m done with overtime, I can finally show off my first “construction”. I’ve never really “built” anything before, and from a certain point of view I still haven’t. Nothing well built at any rate.
But the idea was to move the cat’s litter boxes into the basement and to keep them from having free run while they’re there. With that in mind I guess it was technically a success.
The main room in the basement has this one wall that isn’t at a 90 degree angle. It’s actually closer to something like 60 from the perpendicular sides. It’s also the wall separating the basement and it’s unfinished on the other side. Which is perfect for attaching things to.
I completely built it on the fly and I didn’t measure anything. (And it shows!)
It doesn’t look that bad when it’s closed. But you can really see how “not square” the parts are when the door is open.
But I am pretty happy with the way the hinges work on the door. The weight keeps it closed without latches or locks and it folds out of the way almost completely for when you need to clean the litter boxes.
The whole project took close to 100 screws (I used two screws per join.) and almost 700 staples. (For which I bought a staple gun!)
I’d like to say I’ve learned from the experience for next time, but there was nothing done worth learning from. 
End of Days
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007End of nine days. Nine days of overtime. Most of them 13 hour days. (Ok, the weekends were 8-12 or 1, but they’re weekends!)
I’ve spent more time at work this week then I have at home. And it’s starting to get to me. I’m so very tired. But tonight I got home before 9pm so that’s a start. And tomorrow I’m leaving work on time. Proper time.
We’ve got Citrix removed from the main building but we still have the off-site locations to do. At least the ones downtown.
People are practically dancing in the cubicles to have Citrix taken off. That’s kind of a good feeling.
X-mas marks the spot.
Saturday, November 10th, 2007At around 7:30pm, on November 1oth I was walking through Sears in the St. Laurent Shopping Centre when I heard it…..
the first Christmas song of the season!
Two days earlier then last year. 
(Post back dated to the proper time.)
Sometimes a Monster is just a Monster.
Thursday, November 8th, 2007So I finally finished Frankenstein. Trying to argue that it’s any better or worse then Dracula is not something that’ll be very rewarding. Once again you have that crazy Victorian language which grates on me. And everything is told in the first person in the form of a letter, tho thankfully not nearly as dedicated to the format.
But I am glad I read it. (I think.) Now I’ll just have to check out the movies to see how much they changed. I know that the “classic” movie monster version is already totally wrong. Frank was quite articulate with his speech. Not the “Fire, Bad!” we’ve all come to expect.
The book I’ve gotten out of the library has a bunch of essays included as well and I’ve just started reading them. I’m only about half way through the first one and so far it’s fine example of how to read too much into something. Apparently Frankenstein, the novel, mostly deals with men’s fear of women’s sexuality.
What?
I hope they get better. But I am reminded of something I heard in school (Junior High? High School?). We were reading “Shane“, the cowboy novel, and going on and on about all the different themes and symbolism and whatnot. What I had heard, at some point – I can’t remember, is that the author never actually put the stuff our teachers kept testing us on. He just wanted to write a cowboy novel.
I’ve never really trusted English teachers (and by extension anyone who would write critical essays about someone else’s writing…) when they start pretending how smart they are.
Maybe Frank is just suppose to be scary.
