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Last night I went to Anna’s roommates birthday party. I was watching the news when the first guests arrived and we learned about a marine (an engineer actually) stationed in Kuwait who through a live grenade into a tent filled with other Marines. The blast injured about 13 people and killed at least one. Apparently the Marines had had some problems with this guy and were planning on leaving him in Kuwait when it was time to move into Iraq. What a crazy world we live in.

Another interesting article I read this morning explains that many Iraqies would rather kill their own officers than fight the US.

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It looks like my trip to Calgary has been cancelled because Anna is not going down to the States with her parents after all. I’m going to work on my animation instead.

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It’s Oscar night and I’m sure Anna-Maria and I will be tuning in. Steve Martin is hosting and I read an article about where he’s getting his jokes from, which I thought was interesting.

So with the nominees list open in my other window here are my predictions:

BEST PICTURE – The Hours
MUSIC (SONG) – Chicago
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE – Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt)
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE – Ed Harris (The Hours)
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE РRen̩e Zellweger (Chicago)
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE – Julianne Moore (The Hours)
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM – Ice Age
COSTUME DESIGN – Chicago
DIRECTING – Chicago
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – Bowling for Columbine
FILM EDITING – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
VISUAL EFFECTS – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY) – The Hours
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY) – Gangs of New York

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.

I’m currently thinking about going to Calgary on Sunday to get a passport for Anna-Maria on Monday. I might even be able to make it back in time for my class at 3:00. Not making it back on time will be the only reason that I don’t go, or if Anna-Maria decides not to go this weekend.

She is getting her passport so that she can fly down to the states with her parents on the 14th of April.

CNN is running a story about air restrictions over Disneyland and Disney world not because there is any indication that they are in danger, but just because they might be good targets for terrorists.

Speaking of terrorists – I’ve heard that a single, 30 year old, post-secondary educated woman who has never been married has more chance of getting killed by terrorists than ever getting married? For all you unmarried ladies out there, maybe you’d better drop out to increase you odds of getting hitched. It’s just a suggestion.

It is raining now. The snow is melting. I’m so happy and the birds are happy too. The birds around here really seem to like my yard and there were about 1000 birds in my yard this morning. Ok maybe 24 or 32, but I didn’t count. I can’t wait for spring to arrive.

I tried to have a little get together with some friends to play xbox last night, but things didn’t work out too well. Geoff Vaz and Devin Wallace were the only ones to make it over here. I suppose I should explain that it was last minute, however Geoff Vaz is usually able to convince many people to come even with no notice. So we had a good time anyway just the three of us playing Halo.

Dad bought me an extra medium pizza to take home after eating out yesterday, after all Pizza Hut has the “regular price five bucks five bucks five bucks deal”. Being that this post is written under the “Roommate Update” heading, I think some of the astute readers may see where this is going.

I went upstairs to grab a slice of pizza and discovered that all but two of the slices of pizza were gone! I could hardly believe my eyes. Nobody was here and it’s a good thing too because my sister-inlaw’s swearing fit to the magazine subscription people would have paled in comparison to the obscenities that I was spewing. Oh I was so mad, and hungry! I don’t really have any other food to eat right now. I am still in shock that he could be so rude.

Zone finals for the Southern Alberta 4A high school basketball teams are on now and Dad is visiting from Medicine Hat to watch the games. George Hamilton called him up and invited him to come. Dad isn’t the biggest fan of watching* basketball so he skipped out of watching a couple of games to eat supper with Anna-Maria and I. We had some really good pizza (pi) from Pizza Hut, and had a good time listening to Dad’s war stories**.

Another of Dad’s stories was that as a University Student he performed in a play that his roommate was directing. This was something that I had never known about him***. Apparently his roommate had to beg him to be in the play and reluctantly he agreed. Well what he didn’t know was that he had to practice the play everyday for 4 weeks! He wasn’t too happy about all the rehearsing everyday. But when the night of their single performance arrived approximately 800 people showed up to watch. Dad said that with all the rehearsing they actually did a really good job and that now looking back on the event it gives him a great feeling of accomplishment. He even sang in this play and in those days that was quite out of the ordinary for Dad****.

* Dad was a very good basketball player in high school and university.

** It is a running joke with him that he fought in the Vietnam War.

*** The last time we were at Pizza Hut I also learned something about Dad that I didn’t know before but will refrain from sharing at this time.

**** Dad has become quite the musician these days playing many instruments and not feeling too shy about adding vocals to his music.

Today’s date is: 03/14 which just happens to be Pi day. The celebration started at 1:59, Why? The first six digits in pi of course! (3.14159) I think Anna and I should celebrate by having a contest of who can recite the most approximate value of pi. The winner gets what else, but a pie! What will you do for Pi Day?