Snuck in a break from studying to watch the Water of Mars Doctor Who special. ( Leaky with spoilers )

It's been painfully obvious what the four knocks would foretell. But Doctor Who gives me a reason to look forward to Christmas.

There's a hole in the muffler of my mom's car. It doesn't interfere with performance but I cannot cope with the noise. It is foreseeable that I will eventually buy my mom's Civic. That is if I don't get myself a Honda Prelude beforehand. They stopped manufacturing them in 2001 so if I want to get one second-hand, now would be the ideal time to get one with decent mileage and in good working order. Dream big. Or not so big since it's a coupe.

I finally went to go see BODIES: The Exhibition, the display of whole and partial body specimens that have been preserved through plastination. The dyed nerve and blood vessels displays were particularly awesome. I think I officially have a foot and hand fetish, what with the amount of time I spent analyzing tendons and muscles in the bodies' extremities.

Chris bought me a Brain Cell from the souvenir shop.

I have to write a paper on the right to have children and/or cloning for a philosophy course focusing on biomedical ethics. I'm tempted to just Google "stem cell research" and have it be done with but I actually have things to say. On a similar note, I just finished reading The Hunger Games which was insanely gripping right off the bat, with a fantastic protagonist who made an adamant point of not wanting to have children for fear of them being used as pawns in the government propaganda she was subjected to.

My Nonna is awaiting to watch more Twin Peaks. She sat through 28 DAYS LATER with me last week (blu-ray horror for the win!) and she is very fierce. This woman would survive an apocalypse. David Duchovny showed up on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to advocate being green, which made me smile. Unlike the revamped 2009 V series on ABC. FAIL. The 1983 mini-series was more innovative on a smaller budget.

I was disappointed to find Mad Hatter's had relocated into a neighboring building, with a terrible audio system. I miss their old terrace. They still have televisions for hockey games though and a fun game wherein everyone in the bar can randomly pick a Habs player's name out of a hat. Should that player score that night, you get a free drink. I drew Marc-Andre Bergeron. I thought I'd be set the moment we'd be on a power-play and he'd snipe one from the blue line. Unfortunately the Habs failed to generate anything tonight. A mild consolation prize is that Nashville's Pekka Rinne got a shutout which puts me way above par in Fantasy Hockey. Yay for Finnish goalies! And despite the loss for us, Carey Price gets honorable mention for stopping a franchise-record onslaught of 53 of 55 shots.

Free drinks were hardly needed seeing as how I consumed a pitcher and a bit of Long Island Iced Tea.

Bee-lined home on the last buses on a beautifully mild night with an ominous fog blanketing the dark.

We sell these plush toys made to replicate microbes at work, GIANTmicrobes®.

They're educational, kind of cute if you're oblivious to what it is you're holding. And then it dawns on you that you're holding a plush version of the Ebola virus. I had a customer who bought Chicken Pox and Mad Cow for her kids the other day. They're hoping to get Rabies for Christmas.

BSG on blu-ray has arrived. It amuses me that they placed the individual cases for each season counterclockwise within the boxset. Viewing is delayed only by my grandmother being hooked on Twin Peaks (we've concluded that my thumbs up was evidently inherited from Dale Cooper) and surprise visits from Chris with pie. Surprise phone calls from Mary have also made my week infinitely better.

I'm sick again, Tylenol Flu pills lulled me into a groggy state last night. Me being sick always equates to bizarre dreams, the highlights of last night's included Mulder and Scully roadtripping out west to avoid a zombie invasion. Sketchy motels, baseball bats, mountains... it was epic.

They're burning futures in the mountains

I read Douglas Coupland's City of Glass, a rather personal take on his hometown of Vancouver. Hardly a coincidence, I picked up Matthew Good's most recent album which happens to be called Vancouver and it's a concept album focusing on living on the east side, where drug-use is an unfortunate but predominant issue. I hate that people use that as an attack on Vancouver because drug-use is abundant in downtown Montreal too and things like crack-houses are hardly congregated in one ghetto pocket of the city, wake up. I know he's made passing references to Vancouver in his older material but it was brilliant to listen to an entire album from that perspective. Anyway both Coupland and Good hone from Vancouver and inspiration does not leave them oblivious to its flaws, especially in it being a young city. Good's at the Metropolis December 10th! I love his solo work but I grew up listening Matthew Good Band so I'll be ecstatic if he plays some Matthew Good Band era material. I conveniently, and in fact coincidentally, have the day booked off for my exam period. I bought my ticket. I am there.

The Habs need to find a way to stay consistent. The nights we manage to be heavy on the forecheck, our goalies flop and when our defense is solid our offense fails to generate anything. Luckily we marked a win last night. Much to Chris's content, Plekanec is phenomenal (3 assists last night!) and reminds me much of Koivu in his display of consistent effort and Metropolit has definitely won me over.

I need to spend more of my life at the Bell Centre. Saw one of the odd games the Hamiliton Bulldogs play in Montreal. I wore what has, over the years, been affectionately dubbed my chicken-chaser plaid shirts seeing as how Hamilton is our farm-team. I was going to wear my straw hat but that would have taken the pun too far.

Hamilton lost but gave us our money's worth in the first 5 minutes of the game and P.K. Subban was a wonder to witness in the dying minutes, scoring the Bulldogs' loan goal and being the excellent offensive defenceman he is.

In more lame fashion news, I found my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles socks that I haven't worn since childhood and made a surprise visit over to Chris's house to play the re-release of Turtles in Time on the 360. He already had an XBox Live playdate to slaughter zombies so I waited patiently with a rum and coke (and then a rye and coke) and started reading The Hunger Games. Love. Unfortunately said beverages impaired my gameplay.

Chris uttered 'frak' out of the blue. I glomped him. Infinite love.

Is 2009 going to be remembered as The Year Michael Jackson Died or The Year of the Swine Flu?

Discounting one or the other would be quite ignorant.

Tuukka Rask got his second NHL shutout in eight career starts.

Mary mentioned that Tesco is trying to shut down the Streatham Ice Rink in London where I saw the local team, the Redskins play earlier this fall while I was visiting. It would be a shame because the atmosphere there was brilliant. Support-the-home-team-or-risk-getting-axed kind of psychotic but brilliant nevertheless. As a Canadian and hockey fan I'm well aware of how much hockey plays a role in our culture here, and that taking away an arena takes away from the community. There's a petition to keep the Streatham rink open.

My grandmother went to visit my cousin in Fresno, California (jealous) and brought me back orange jersey knit bed sheets and a fantastically bright orange bra set. Her niece stocked me up with a monstrous box of tea as a thank you for letting them use my bed while they were in town, which confined me to our couch which is hardly comfortable anymore.

I bought my family a Wii for Christmas, which is kind of selfish on my part because I really want to try "World of Goo" as well as download vintage NES/SNES games but it's more for the wholesome family entertainment. AND! Price drop on Amazon.com prompted me to import BSG on bluray at long last. Even with the currency exchange and the duty fees, it's still considerably cheaper than any Canadian prices. That Cylon is mine.

Jaclyn and I carved a pumpkin for the first time in years. We named him Bowser because he reminds us of N64 generation!Bowser.



We kept him inside last night so he wouldn't get smashed. Now, he's sitting on our front porch.

Off to work now and there's a Montreal vs Toronto game and some Long Island iced tea tonight to distract me from the fact that I wish I were somewhere else.

Happy Halloween!

I just wasted a good hour of my time uploading album art to my iPod for close to 10 GB worth of music that was lacking album covers. I was perfectly fine with not having album art at all on the third generation iPod. It infuriates me that it's not always not automatically and the little blank album covers with the watermarked music note drive me nuts. Unfortunately, when I added the album covers manually a lot of them come out black on the flow-charts. headdesk. Apparently adding the art before adding the songs to the ipod would help but now I'm screwed as I've always added everything manually and cannot sync my pods with my computer because I have more music on the pods than I have diskspace on my comp. I don't know if this is an issue with iTunes or the iPod itself but I sure hope it's not the latter because that would be its first serious glitchy downfall for me.

But on the upside, last.fm told me that Florence + The Machine is in Montreal this weekend, and Imogen Heap is in town at the end of November. And so the dance to find people to take my shifts begins.

I find myself checking flights overseas on a near daily basis. It's beyond compulsion, it's become instinctive.

'FLAIL' was my security check word when Jaclyn and I set up a dummy Facebook account just to see what all the fuss is about Farmville. Fail would have been more appropriate. Now based on experience, I officially have no concept of that application, or any application for that matter. What a waste of the intermission. We did peer pressure my dad into getting a FB account which is quite the feat.

Class was canceled today so I went to see PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. I really doubt being less of a jackass to that demon would have helped that poor kid's situation. How does a young couple score such a spacious house?! Was pleased with the film though. And the way it ended left the whole audience (myself and three couples) just sitting there, wondering whether we should leave, maybe even wondering if it was safe to go home again. I was the first to get up, and I told everyone to sleep tight; one woman actually whimpered.

I love the simplicity of it, that all the events could have easily happened without neighbors ever knowing (filming pretty much slipped under everyone's radar), the minimal amounts of gore, the way 3 a.m. has never felt creepier, no wonder this thing got such a cult following. It's certainly not the epitome of perfection of the horror genre nor the most innovative in light of a number of other recovered-footage-style films, but there's a decent spook factor that hits closer to home than most horror flicks.

John and I were talking about ghost-hunting. We'd seriously pose no conflict of interest. No skeptic versus believer. It'd be more along the lines of one person who wants to believe versus another who wants to believe more.

And 9 games in, Toronto gets their first win of the season against Anaheim. Balls.

An entire week. I subjected myself to intense academic endeavors for an entire week without distraction (save for work because money is everything right? That is actually false but whatever). I was rewarded with my Amazon order of the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition, more Californication dvds, and Weeds on blu-ray because let's face it, Marie-Louise Parker is totally worth the high-def upgrade. Just finished season two and awaiting season numero trois.

I was also rewarded with three fantastic Habs wins-- albeit two of which were against two of the league's weakest teams, but they were wins nevertheless. Switched over to Hockey Night in Canada to hear Carbonneau doing the color-commentary on the Habs game, but as much as I love him, frak is the feed ever garbage on CBC compared to RDS. Mike Cammalleri. Hat trick. ZOMG. And we went out to the local bar to watch UFC 104 after the Habs victory and celebrate with beer and some of the spiciest chicken wings I've ever had in my life (dances around the fact that I shouldn't be eating spicy foods. Too good). Apart from the convenience of being a 10 minute walk from my house, and them airing pay-per-view television, this place just fails epically.

Carbo in the crowd at last Tuesday's game completely threw Jaclyn and I for a pleasant loop and had us flail!texting each other. We're easily distracted by the crowd, often looking for Youppi, which you'd think would be easy as frak considering he's huge and orange but the popcorn venders are also in orange shirts so it winds up being a game of Where's Waldo? kind of epic proportions.

Speaking of which, favorite customer at Chapters thus far is the woman who wanted to know if the Where's Waldo? book she was looking at was a trick because she couldn't find Waldo anywhere and she was convinced the book was defective. Even after explaining to her that there was actual innovation behind the design of each image, an optical illusion of sorts with the patterns/colors, she still had no concept of it. She is tied for the rank of favorite customer alongside the couple who fought about whether or not The Zombie Survival Guide was useful. I convinced the skeptical wife who had no concept of anything supernatural that she should let her husband read whatever zombie-fighting, vampire-slaying books he please because in the off chance that there will be an infection/invasion on planet Earth, at least he'll have the knowledge to protect her. They both appreciated the nod to chivalry.

I also managed to get a fair bit of tiling done in Chris's basement.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of fiction and escapism, my brain has now turned to mush and I am sick, physically. I can hardly speak coherently in anything above a whisper because of my throat (don't say it! Don't even think it). My throat doesn't hurt and my coughs aren't hoarse, my voice and breath just cut out every once and while. Hmm. Mom made me a chai tea adorned with more than just a pinch of cayenne pepper to consume as we re-watched the Pilot of Twin Peaks and Dale Cooper's enthusiasm for Douglas Firs has me pining for the west coast all over again. Especially the fog amongst the trees.

First thing I see upon turning on the television the other night: the episode of South Park in which they get rid of Finland. Oh no! Not Finland! Someone had better tell Norway. They were close.

On a mildly related note... I have no concept of Motorola. The layout and configuration of their phones is immensely unpractical. I have to press a billion keys to get where I want to go, there is little in the way of menu customization but there are like 4 different versions of speed-dial, which I've never made use of in the first place. And despite the grandeur of the screen, the icons that I would like to see, like the battery status, are minuscule.

Fido better have some more quad-band Nokias come April when I'm up for renewal.

But at least with a fresh sim card in the phone, I am finally able to contact Mary again. Every little bit helps because the distance? It sucks.

My grandmother and I are delving into Weeds together, recently acquired on Blu-ray. And Patrick Ness is doing a fantastic job at keeping me away from whatever academic reading I had every intention of doing. The Knife of Never Letting Go is fantastic and it tugs at my heart.

But oh how I never tire of seeing Nightwish live, even if I don't understand a word Marco is saying to the crowd seeing as how I was in their homeland of Finland. But words are not needed when we have the music. And the fire. I didn't think it possible to rig an arena with that many fireworks, to be honest. And the sound at Hartwall finally did Emppu's guitar justice! The crowd totally nailed it with the waves before the show started.

I still stand firmly by the fact that I don't like the new era versions of 'Dark Chest of Wonders' and 'Ghost Love Score'. 'Romanticide' was a very hardcore pleasant surprise though, as was having a violinist present for 'The Siren'. The glow of cellphones and lighters throughout Marco's 'Islander' and the ambience of 'Walking in the Air', complete with makeshift snow falling on the crowd was so serene, despite lacking Tarja's vocals. Exponential perfection by breaking into Last of the Wilds afterward. Instrumental magic!

Speaking of instrumental glory, Apocalyptica opened for Nightwish and they had a pretty good set, complete with a guest vocalist for 'I'm Not Jesus' and 'I Don't Care'. 'Grace' was phenomenal to hear live. These guys are still famous for their covers, namely of Metallica songs, but they've definitely set their own path and paved it with musical genius.

After the gig, we went out to this fun little bar called 'On the Rocks', where we heard Smells Like Teen Spirit yet again, lolarious since Mirella and I had spent a good chunk of Thursday night finding covers of the original-- Tori Amos, Paul Anka, and Patti Smith; most eclectic assortment of covers ever!I tried some distinctive Finnish liquor and beer, which I'd like to say was ridiculously overpriced but I suppose it can't be helped if my favorite places in Europe also happen to be the most expensive. I still think it's blasphemous that any DJ would cut Stairway to Heaven short to send a crowd the message that the bar is closing.

More pie and Stuart vs Cameron discussions and one hour of sleep later, I made my way from Helsinki to London.

Bianca and I managed to see 9 on September 9th, 2009 at 9pm. However, the theater fails for lopping the film into cinema number 8. Come on!

It was short, the plot was somewhat weak but the creativity and animation made it very entertaining. Details like the innovation and the sound effects, the scraping of copper fingers on a metal artifact, that clink of metal on metal was just bone-chillingly perfect. ( Spoilers and minor flail )

Happy things!

Computer science courses this semester to fuel the possibility of a degree in computational linguistics.

A random trip to Helsinki next week to see Mirella and Emma and rock out at Nightwish's final gig of their Dark Passion Play tour. Apocalyptica is opening for them. I have no idea what to expect of their setlist but it's bound to be epic. And my return flight will include a detour through London. The possibility of seeing a hockey match in London with Mary wins many many prizes.

An official companion guide to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy complete with anecdotes and old notes from Douglas Adams, written by Neil frakkin' Gaiman, is set to be released next week. And speaking of Neil Gaiman, outintherain linked to Neil Gaiman's bookshelves. I was just telling Chris that the layout for his new bedroom should have a reading nook by the window. That chair? In (faux?)leather. We need I need that. Maybe something with a higher back. But curves are a must.

Reasons I still tolerate my old job: the dawning realization that we are notorious for quoting South Park. And the other day Bianca (seemingly) randomly inquired whether I "have a good mental grasp of the layout of Tolkien's Middle Earth?" as she was deeply engrossed in her book, which happened to be an annotated edition of The Lord of the Rings. After which we established that we're due to watch a marathon of the extended editions of the films.

Hockey is starting again soon. Fantasy hockey teams are set. I will be dancing around the lack-of-Koivu-in-Montreal issue for a while because I AM IN DENIAL that he's now playing as far as geographically possible from Montreal in the NHL. It won't fully hit me until we won't hear his name being announced in the lineup at games. But I'm trying to be optimistic about our team overhaul. Trying. Trying. Mostly failing though.

But! Tuukka Rask is the number one contender to play backup to Tim Thomas in nets in Boston.

I miss the smell of the rink. School starts tomorrow meaning I can head back to the rink at the Loyola campus (where Chris will be studying) to watch the Stingers practice. It really is an environment perfectly conducive to studying. Minus having to dodge stray pucks.

After a prolonged discussion about musical films at work (we were trying to make a point that it's impossible for anyone who's ever watched a movie to never have seen a musical movie), and an extended period of re-watching some classics, I delved back into horror as I went to see Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN II. Rob Zombie is a freak. And his wife is hot. The rampage that can be etched by no motivation other than simple rage and pure evil leaves little to the imagination but Rob Zombie manages to make things entertaining on many levels, including the plethora of music references. Brad Dourif and his mannerisms are enjoyable as ever and I loved Annie's rant when her father, the sheriff, stations a deputy with a shotgun outside their house to protect her.

Been following the Jaycee Dugard case, the 29 year old woman in California who was abducted 18 years ago and was recently found to be living with her abductor who fathered her two children and who kept the three living in ragged tents and shacks in his backyard. Extreme Stockholm syndrome. The fact that police ignored neighbors' reports over the years about "the sex-addict next door who was keeping people in tents in his backyard" is somewhat alarming.

Two nights in a row at the movies. Queued in the wrong line while waiting to see DISTRICT 9 which is ironic because said queue would have led me straight into THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE but I thankfully stood corrected. Everything I disliked about The Time Traveler's Wife (the book), D-9 did right. ( District 9 spoilers )

Neill Blomkamp has my green-light to tackle that Halo movie.

Late the next night, I went to see Hayao Miyazaki's new film PONYO and while I don't think it was as strong as some of his earlier films, one thing this man always manages to ace are scenes in which his characters are running. Be it through ancient forests or across the waves of the ocean, it's always electrifying.

Roadtrip to Plattsburgh tomorrow in a few hours as mom, Jaclyn, her boyfriend and I all have a coinciding day off. I am only tagging along to buy some new trainers and for, weather permitting, a picnic. The picnic is our cover story for borderhopping for a day but I am seriously bringing my picnic basket.

I'm also coming along because my mom hates driving in the dark while I'll take any excuse to drive at night and give anyone who needs one a lift home, especially in crappy weather. This must all be subconsciously linked to the fact that I was scared of thunderstorms as a child and it's been engraved in my mind that during a storm the car is the safest place to be. The car will decidedly not save me from the tornadoes that have hit southern Ontario though.

I returned relatively unscathed, both physically and mentally, after spending a day in the sun without sunscreen yesterday. I lucked out; the one day I had tickets for the ATP Rogers Cup, the weather network was completely off its rocker when it called for rain and thunderstorms. The sun was beating down on us all day, save for a 30 minute span when the clouds overtook the courts and there was downpour. I blame Mirella for sending thunder-channeling text messages. The mini zamboni-like dryers they bring out to dry the courts are adorable and speedy as hell!

The two Canadians, Polansky and Niemeyer lossed to champs Djokovic and Federer respectively but they didn't go down without a fight and from what little I know about tennis, they played strong. Polansky kept his match pretty tight. Niemeyer, a Sherbrooke native, definitely won the crowd over when he came out wearing a Habs jersey. Andy Murray was also a huge hit.

As we were leaving center court, a bunch of us created a make-shift standing-room only area in the staircase leading to the upper bowl of the neighboring court where Nadal was playing a doubles match. To spare the volunteers running the event a massive headache, I didn't loiter long and spent whatever daylight hours remained in Jarry park by the fountain, reading. Eventually hunger led me back home as I refused to spend another $11 on a hot dog and I had to stop myself from buying one of those jumbo Penn tennis balls.

And I came home today to a package that made me a very very very happy panda. <3

Read I am Legend recently, I'm a sucker for stories of solitude, voluntary or enforced but I found the real enjoyable part of this book was Neville teaching himself the science and biology to understand the vampirus bacteria. His scientific reasoning for why a stake kills a vampire was awesome. That the bacteria lives inside a host, creating a symbiotic relationship to obtain oxygen, via the blood that the host consumes. In turn, it gives the host energy to hunt and causes the growth of the teeth. But when a stake is driven into the corpse, the air can flow freely to the bacteria and it becomes aerobic; it no longer requires the host and becomes parasitic. Logical really. Scully would approve. Mulder would be turned on.