My Commentary on the War

According to CNN.com 21 deaths have been confirmed among coalition troops — 14 Britons and 7 Americans. Pretty good considering half of them were killed in a helicopter crash which was an accident. The war (according to the media) is going according to plan so far, but I still think their will be more trouble and more deaths as the ground forces get closer to Baghdad.

In other news…

I talked to Mom on the phone this morning. She wanted some help with the settings in Eudora. I don’t think she ever did get everything fixed, but hopefully she is happy now that she got that Austin Powers sound changed back to the default Eudora sound. I guess, “You got mail! Yeah baby” would get irritating after the first time you heard it.

WSI / Swim Related Update

I applied for a job at the Max Bell pool. I’d rather work there than the other places that I’ve been applying because they pay much more money! I have completed about half of the 10 hours I need co-teaching to complete the course and yesterday Pat, the guy that does the hiring, came up to me and asked me to be a timer for a life guarding competition that the Max Bell is hosting. I think the fact that he knows my name and asked me is a good sign. So that’s what I’ll be doing next weekend.

Nasty Water

The water in Lethbridge tastes bad. It has tasted bad for about a week now. I think it is from all the spring run off, but the river seems really low. More updates as they come. Have a good Saturday.

Roommate Update

I’ve come to the conclusion that my roommate isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Don’t get me wrong he seems like a smart enough guy, but he definitely doesn’t think long term. When I say long term, I actually mean a couple weeks. For example, last night I came home to find my roommate in the kitchen sporting a brand new piercing in his bottom lip. Some of you reading this may think — “Man! Jeff’s roommate is so cool!” He probably thinks he’s pretty cool too, but he won’t think he’s so cool when: #1. the money spent on a piercing would have come in real handy for food, and #2 when he can’t get a job because no one wants to hire someone with a piercing on his face.

Vacation Update

I am back from my trip to Calgary. I was supposed to go to Medicine Hat, but I’m putting it off until tomorrow. I went and saw About Schmidt (trailer) with Anna and her sisters. It is definitely a movie made for the pre-MTV generation. Possibly the worst part was seeing Kathy Bates’ naked body — what a shock.

Gary and Tracie gave me a couple of vhs tapes that I’ll have to watch sooner or later. Raising Arizona and Born in East LA.

I didn’t go to Medicine Hat on Wednesday like I had originally planned. I didn’t feel like it today either, so because Anna-Maria and my parents are all sad that I didn’t come to Medicine Hat yesterday or today, I’d better get some sleep so I can get there in the morning.

Peer Gynt Cast Party and WSI Course Completed

Last night Anna-Maria persuaded me to reluctantly come with her to her cast party for Peer Gynt. Although I was really tired when we finally left at 2:30am I am glad we went. It was a fun time, and I’m beginning to know a lot of the Drama students now.

I haven’t officially passed the class yet. I still have to do ten hours of co-teaching lessons and then I pass. I must say that I’m pretty happy to be done with it though, today was my last day of classes at the pool.

Happy Valentines Day! (No School Today)

For Valentines Day Anna-Maria bought me a book called, “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”. It has “IF” questions in it to make you ponder what you would do if certain situations were possible or had to happen what would you do. Here are a couple of example questions from the book, “If you could spend one whole night alone with anyone in history, whom would you chose? If you could suddenly possess an extraordinary talent in one of the arts, which would you like it to be? If you could commit one crime without being caught, what crime would you commit? If your plane were about to crash and you had time to write one quick note, to whom would you write, and what would you say? If you could run any single company, institution, or organization in the world, which would you choose?

My reading week vacation starts today. I’ll have lots of time to play around on Plastic.com and Fark. I think perhaps we should have a photoshop contest on our own blog. What do you other bloggers think?

Adventures in Photoshop and Shopping at Cosco

Anna-Maria LemaistreYesterday I took some digital pictures of Anna-Maria for her application to the National Theatre School in Montreal. The best ones were taken outside and then I photoshoped them so that they had a completely white background. She had some taken in one of those two dollar photo machines at the mall, but they were way overexposed and basically useless. Anyway when I got to Cosco to have them developed — well I had saved a bunch of them on CD but there was only one that I really wanted and it was the only one that I saved in .tif format. As you might be guessing Cosco doesn’t develop tifs, jpegs only. I was somewhat frustrated but what can you do? Anna went out this morning and had them developed; they look great.

I took Anna’s roommate Zee along with me in case they asked why the name on the Cosco Club Card said Anna-Maria so that she could say, “Oh that’s me”. And when it came time to pay she did in fact pull through and say, “yep, I’m Anna”. Even though the picture of Anna on the back of the card is half worn out, Zee still looks nothing like her. Almost immediately after claiming to be Anna, Zee started talking with me about Anna’s play and if we should go see that movie The Ring, “Anna and her sisters really liked it!” I couldn’t believe her and I’m sure the guy thought we were quite the imposters / losers but he didn’t say anything.

Peer Gynt

Anna’s play opens tonight. Read about the details. Although that’s obviously not Anna-Maria in the picture, she will be playing a pig troll (among other characters), which means that one of her costumes will look like that one in the picture.

Water Safety Can Be Boring

Well I am in the middle of my WSI program and I’m quite bored with it. WSI stands for Water Safety Instructor. When I’m done I’ll be able to teach people (mostly kids) how to swim. I may be able to get a job out of the deal though. One of the other students in the class works at the Ramada and said they might need another lifeguard. He told me that he will take my resume down there for me tomorrow. I’ll be happy if I get the job.

Anna’s play opens on Tuesday. They are practicing like MAD!

XBox Party and Roommate Woes

Tonight my post to the blog is going to be short and simple. I’m getting ready for an Xbox party and it’s going to be sweet. I just talked to Geoff Vaz and they are going to be here soon.

One other thing, my roommate has been eating my food. That pisses me off. For one thing — if you are going to steal some bread from someone at least have the courtesy to close the bag afterwards so as to not dry out all the bread. When I confronted him about some missing dried fruit snacks (like fruit roll-ups but real fruit) he just said that, “Yeah I ate a few of them” (I only had 6), “I just saw them there and was hungry so I ate them.” (He just saw them in the cupboard where I keep my food and where he does NOT keep his food). He said he’s going shopping soon and that he’d buy me some more, that doesn’t seem to make up for the fact that I’d like to go eat a sandwich right now but I’m out of bread. He also drinks my milk but I guess I’m supposed to be thankful that at least he asked before taking a box of my macaroni the other day. Don’t even get me started on the pile of dishes in the sink.

Anna-Maria’s Vicarious Post

Anna-Maria writes:

Hello all! Boy, have I ever been busy lately. I am registered in six classes and I am in two plays- both of which go up on Tuesday. However don’t feel too bad for me, there is one class I don’t even go. I just show up for the tests. Hey! Like the one I had today! I should probably feel ashamed or something for not going to class, but I don’t. I feel proud. I’ve never felt so proud of myself. There’s not much that compares to the feeling of doing well on a test, for a class that you only went to twice all year. On quite a different note, do you all remember my weight issues? (What can I do? I’m socially conditioned to believe that I could always use to lose an extra ten pounds. I learned about that from the textbook for the class I never go to.) Well in the play I’m in called Peer Gynt, I have to wear a boustier- a belly shirt boustier! That’s right ladies and gents, it’s also sleeveless. On top of that I have to wear tiny (very tiny) white spandex shorts with a see through skirt over top. I’m freakin out. You have to admit that that would make anyone feel a little self-conscious. Anyway, I’ve gotta get going. I will write again soon. Let me know what you think about the outfit. Jeff will fill you in on what I did for the role on top of skimpy clothes.

I haven’t seen Anna’s play so I don’t know exactly what she is going to be doing except that it is somewhat sexual in nature. (I believe something to do with a pig troll rutting on stage). All I can say is you wouldn’t catch me in such a compromising roll. On a side note, Anna had her eyebrows waxed in preparation for the show.

I just saw one of my professors walking down the hall and thought that now would be a good time to comment on his strange choice of names: Anonymous William Smith. I just call him Wil. I guess one day he decided that he would “spice things up” by changing or eliminating his middle name and then adding Anonymous as his first name. That’s the name he uses for all his art and whatnot. I thought I would have more to say about that, but I guess I don’t. I’ll just let you think about it.

In other news I qualified for Junior Nationals for swimming. The times are faster than Canada West but slower than the CI’s. I don’t think I’m going to go though, because none of the other teammates that qualified are going – and it is $250, not to mention it’s over reading week – which I’ll need to use to catch up on my homework.