Month: May 2003

The other night when I was in Medicine Hat with Anna, I spent about 15 or 20 minutes playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System with her brother Josh. It brought back a flood of memories about stomping on the evil mushroom kingdom turtles, and searching for the Triforce or even for Zelda herself not to mention the endless possibilites of Excitebike where you could design your own levels! Anyway it just so turns out that today I discovered a webpage dedicated to the 1st issue of Nintendo power. I really had to laugh about this:

From the page:

“Ah, the famous ‘1-Up Trick’ from Super Mario Brothers, something with which I had a success rate of .0007% in accomplishing. It’s not that I didn’t know how to do it – the information was right there in front of me. Still, for whatever reason, I could never seem to pull it off. I’d get that first Koopa turtle out of the way, and when the fabled second Koopa made his trek down the brick mountain, I’d always [screw] up and somehow kill Mario. You know the music that played whenever Mario lost one of his lives? Well, and I swear this is true – it got to the point where that music would play as soon as I got up to that second turtle. The game became so confident that I was gonna die again that it’d roll out with the theme prematurely just to spite and shame me.

I really hated that stupid Koopa turtle. The second one, I mean. The first one was just doing his job. The second one was mean to me.”

I came home from Medicine Hat this afternoon and the house seemed to be in good shape, nothing broken – the oven wasn’t left on, and the lights were all out. Nobody was home and things seemed good. I went to teach swimming lessons and when I got back I noticed a strong scent of my cologne in my room. I hadn’t used any of it for a while now so I was suspicious. It seems that someone had spilt it sometime after I left and before I got back. I decided then that maybe it’s time for Jason to move out. Not only was he stealing from me but he was in my room stealing from me – and he knows that he is NEVER allowed to go in my room. I’ll give him until the end of the month. Now in the mean time I’ve got to find more roommates.

When I went out to mow this evening I decided to mow my front lawn first because it was looking like such a jungle compared to all the neighbours that had just mowed yesterday and today. It was lucky that I did because when I got to the back and finished about one quarter of the lawn back there the lawnmower made a bad sound. It was one of those bad sounds that are accompanied by a very bad vibration and the sinking feeling that this particular lawn won’t be mowed tonight. As well the feeling that – “Oh no I’ve just wrecked Anna’s lawnmower!” I guess it’s not such a big deal, she said she was going to give it to me anyway when she moves, but I still felt bad for wrecking it. I shouldn’t feel bad though, because it’s not like it was something that I did, it was just the lawnmower Gods calling their sweet beater of a 3.5 horsepower mower back to whence it came. Now I can go out and get something with a little power, a nice 6 horsepower lawn-devouring machine. I bet you with one of those I could mow my whole lawn a hell of a lot faster than six horses could eat it.

I have a little ant problem. Actually the ants are little and the problem is big. There are about three anthills in my front lawn (four if you can’t the little one) and they are peeking up so high that if I mow over them the blades rub down on them sending sand and dirt flying everywhere – not to mention ants. It has gotten so bad that I actually mowed around the anthills. I also applied some diametrious earth, which is supposed to be the best way to get rid of ants and other insects and so far so good. They don’t seem very lively now, in fact there isn’t a single ant to be seen.

Aron Ralston is described as “an avid outdoorsman in exceptional physical condition” who has climbed 49 of Colorado’s highest mountains. And yesterday, he amputated his own arm just below the elbow (CNN.com Story / DenverPost story) when it was pinned under a boulder. Then he rappelled down a canyon and hiked until rescuers found him.

It is reported in a Canada.com story, that comments were made in an annual report on International Terrorism criticizing the Canadian Government for not “spend[ing] enough on policing” and “plac[ing] too much emphasis on civil liberties.” I guess they would prefer us to get rid of the very few laws we have protecting our citizens just as they have destroyed some of the laws that I thought were so dear to the heart of every American with the creation of the Patriot Act. (The Critical Voice Article) I guess my Social 30 teacher was at least partially right stating that Canada’s government could be turned into a dictatorship under the right circumstances, but it turns out that it’s the United States Government that has turned authoritarian.

Update: The links have been taken down. It’s funny how I can keep posts on my blog for a few years, but news agencies feel they need to get rid of old content. Funny strange, not funny – haha.

Dad, Mom, and I went to a barbeque tonight held in honour of all the volunteers in town. Dad and Mom of course were invited for playing the violin and piano over at the old folks home. The BBQ was being held in the parking lot of Redi Enterprises and as we approached there was an older man walking toward his car – he appeared to be in his 70’s and looked normal in every way. Dad said hello to the man, but he didn’t respond in a way that I thought he was just ignoring us. Dad then asked the man if he worked here. The elderly man looked a little confused, said no, and then walked away. Mom and I were laughing to ourselves when Dad says, give him a few minutes; he’ll get it.