Articles from: 2003

I had a blueberry smoothie today while walking around this mall today. It was pretty bad and tasted all grainy like. I don’t get it: blueberries taste so good! How could a blueberry smoothie not taste good? Maybe it was the protein powder I got with it. That was a bad decision. Ahh, the regrets in my life . . .

I visited my old elementary school on Tuesday. It seemed so familiar, not much changed except the prices at the student store and at the cafeteria. I didn’t see any teachers on the roster that I recognized. I remember playing two on two floor hockey in the gym in fifth grade. Those were fun days. I’ve been back in Portland for almost two weeks now but my stuff is still in boxes and bags. I’m hoping to hear back from this one company, but other than that haven’t had much success landing a job. I still feel I’m in the process of adjusting to not feeling guilty when I jaywalk. That and biking in Portland. It’s weird, living here all these years, I never really biked the roads. It’s refreshingly new. It rains a lot though. My mom just came back from the hospital and she’s recovering from some minor surgery.

One thing I’m really bad at is cleaning out my coat pocket. Well, I guess pockets in general. Today I have . . . letsee here . . . a fork, some receipts, a few cds, Frisk, a starburst wrapper, a bus pass, a pencil, a pencil holder, an old movie stub. Hmm. No old soy sauce packets. That’s odd. The fork was there because I wanted to eat a salad on the run.

I went to a small comic book convention today. It was small. But I got two of my dvds signed by Michel Gagné.   It was the first time I ever asked anyone to sign anything. I felt pretty silly, especially since the dvds I pulled out were soaked from my umbrella. My dvds seemed very used and not something I ever really kept as a collector’s item. A year or so ago I had the chance to get Don Bluth’s signature. But I chickened out at the end. It could have come in handy for the scavenger hunt at Emmanuel. If it wasn’t for Kev’s sombrero, we would have come in last place.

This morning at this trendy breakfast place I went to, there were people handing out these free samples of Frisk Breath Mints. As I was about to pay for my veggie burger, the cashier turned to me and said they already paid for it . . . the Frisk guys actually paid for my meal (and my friend’s meal too)! It turns out they were paying for some customers randomly as part of their Frisk breath mints promotion! A free meal! And minty fresh breath . . . ahh. I don’t know how much this is going to persuade me to buy Frisk, since I don’t really buy breath mints in the first place. But the veggie burger was pretty good. I’d go back.

I’m starting to pack some of my stuff a way and finding it hard to keep only the essentials. Like I’m finding myself saying, “what if I actually need 10 big envelopes,” or “what if I actually need three screwdrivers all at the same time,” or “perhaps I could store stuff in this tall empty can that once contained coconut cream flavored peanuts.” There are some things, though, I probably won’t give up for sentimental reasons: like my Body Shop eye mask, and my Dave n’ Buster’s mini toolkit. Besides, you never really know when you’ll need that forth screwdriver.

I headed up to North Vancouver last weekend and saw this haircut place for kids. It had these airplane, boat, and car chairs they could sit in and these TVs in front of them for playing N64 . . . while they get a haircut! I wanted to sit in the airplane one.

I think I get mistaken for a Kinko’s employee a lot. I get asked a lot of questions whenever I’m standing around waiting for my printouts, like “how much do you charge for copies?” and “could I use your fax machine?” I like helping people out but it seems a bit odd considering I’m not wearing one of those blue aprons. But then again, it’s not like we’re rolling ink on copper plates to print stuff out these days. Those aprons are a wee bit outdated. I guess I should be flattered that I look like I know what I’m doing. Well, at Kinko’s at least.

I’m sorta in awe at how long I’ve kept these yellow sunglasses that I have. My track record of losing things, especially sunglasses, is pretty high and I’ve been recently leaving them behind in restaurants, by computers, and at this animation studio after I dropped off my portfolio (reeeal smoooth*). Of course I always seem to leave them under some papers and, to my relief, eventually find them. I guess I value them a lot more since I haven’t been able to lose them as easily. I remember I left this watch behind at a hotel after heading to the airport and took a taxi all the way back to get it simply because I had managed not to lose it for a few years. * I remember I used to say “reeeal smoooth, exlax” when I was a kid. I wonder if kids still say that now.

Ug, I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the heat . . . I’m this close to sleeping in the air conditioned school. I remember sleeping at my old job back when it was really hot and even though it was on a hard desk I remember how happy I was that it was cool. Daikichi Sushi is using a window air conditioner now but instead of installing the unit in a window, it’s just on a table against a wall. Against a wall! So it blows cold air out towards the customers but also blows hot air out from behind. Tell me if I’m wrong but from what I remember in physics class, this setup just isn’t going to work.