<wednesday november 26, 2003 - 10:00 a.m.>

You'll watch with a sneer and a throb in your head.

You'll watch and you'll sit there and wish you were dead.

- Scott Weinberg, Efilmcritic.com

The good Dr. S is surely spinning in his grave.

Apparently corporate tie-ins will make Cat in the Hat one of the largest business-backed films in Hollywood history. Please please please keep all this stuff away from me. It's so wrong!

I saw Cat in the Hat cupcakes at Loblaws the other day. I don't want to buy cupcakes, or alarm clocks or hats or bath toys or cereal or chewing gum.

Article here.

<monday november 24, 2003 - 2:03 p.m.>

A have a small confession to make. I am slightly, mildly, just a teeny bit anxious about pumping gas.

I do not know why. It certainly doesn't make any sense. I am a grown woman. I have been driving since I was 16. I have done this plenty of times.

But, given the choice of pumping gas or getting out to scrub the bug carcasses off the windshield, well, I'd take the dead bugs.

I'm not afraid of the car exploding in a ball of flames. Nor am I afraid of my car being stolen, or someone crawling into the back seat while I'm paying for the gas. It's the actual act of using the hose and filling up the tank that makes me a little nervous.

I know this is irrational. I can't explain it, but I must clarify that the thought of pumping gas does not send me into a panic-stricken seizures, but I just feel a flicker in my gut that isn't normally there, that's all. :)

En route to my mom's this past weekend I had to gas up in Perth.

I parked, I took the nozzle off the hook, unscrewed the top of the tank and shoved the thing in. Press the handle... clunka. I press again... clunka. It's not working for me.

Ugh. Tummy flicker. I flipped the hook up an down again to see if this would give it what it needed to work. At this point I splashed gasoline down the side of the car. I also got some on my hands.

Why can't I just get this over with?

Otherwise the transaction was successful. But now there was the issue of my hands. They smelled strongly of gas. I was afraid the fumes would knock me out along the way. I pulled into Tim Horton's, went inside, and washed them thoroughly. Twice. With hot water and liquid pink soap and dried them under hot air. You'd think that the gas would wash away, but this was not the case.

I didn't discover this until I was back in the car drinking my coffee. The smell of coffee and gas do not go together. Thankgod for my little bottle of hand sanitizer. What would I do without it!

-

Otherwise I went to the Ottawa Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend. I am the proud owner of "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories" by Tim Burton. For some reason the link above indicates this book is worth $208.00. Although I don't think that's right. If it is, then I'm pleased to report that I only paid $20.00 for it.

You can read a bit here.

Ok, back to work.

a

<saturday november 22, 2003 - 10:47 p.m.>

I went to visit my mom today. Among about 20 other things, I bought some brie at the grocery store along the way. It cost $3.49... we're not talking about Top of the Line Cheese, but it was Brie nonetheless.

I unpacked the groceries, and realized it wasn't there. I double-checked to make sure it hadn't rolled out of the bag. I checked the trunk of the car. The cheese was gone. Perhaps the bag boy forgot to put it in the trunk. Worse, what if he had kept it in lieu of a tip? (I *never* know whether to tip these guys or not.)

She insisted I go back for it. Receipt in hand, they should reimburse my my cheese. Note: it's about a 10-15 minute drive down a narrow winding foresty/gravelly road from my mom's.

I didn't bother.

But I'm curious, how far would you go for a piece of cheese? And how much would that cheese have to cost to motivate you to go? Now I realize that how one reacts in this kind of situation is somewhat reflective of their personality. And if this is true, what does it say about me?

:)

a