So guess where I spent a brief amount of time on Monday?
In a snowbank.
A snowbank in a ditch.
Facing the wrong way.

Go me!

It was really shitty out that day. Random whiteout conditions. Many SW Ontario highways and roads closed. I wouldn’t have been out, but I had to go pick up Josh from work. There was a day it was storming too bad for me to go get him last week, so we spent the $65 on the taxi that day, and we couldn’t afford it again. We were crawling along down the road (Bridge Street, about 2 minutes past where it joins Ebycrest, for you locals) at a max speed of 30kph. Everyone had their 4-ways on, and everyone was being good winter drivers and leaving loads of space between each car. There was a down-hill up ahead, so there was a slow chain-reaction brake. The car in front of me fishtailed a bit, and I fishtailed more wildly, and I knew I was losing it. No traction at all. My options were to either steer left (which would have been the best bet, if not for the two oncoming cars, despite no one being in the other lane for the last 10 minutes :P) or to steer right into the snowbank. So snowbank it was! I also got to spin 180 degrees on my way into the snowbank, so I ended up pointing the wrong way.
*scrunch*
I was fine. It was far too slow to cause any real damage, least of all to a belted passenger, and I wasn’t too close to either the car in front or the car behind to involve them at all. ^_^
I grabbed my Blackberry and sent a quick message to Josh’s Blackberry that I was FINE, but I was in a ditch and might be late getting him. I didn’t know if I could get myself out, of if I’d have to call CAA. If I had to call them, it would be at least a 2 hour wait, given the poor weather and amount of accidents in the region that day.
No point in just sitting there, so I tried to open the driver’s side door, which was against the snowbank. A couple kicks into the snow, and I had enough room to wiggle out the crack I could open the door. Opened the trunk to get my trusty shovel (and cat litter, if I needed it) to start to dig out. I motioned to the person behind me, who was still stopped, that they could indeed continue on because I wasn’t about to just pull out into traffic.

I wasn’t so much in the snowbank as pressed up against it. The edges of it had (obviously) been made by the plough a few hours earlier, and so it was all these football to soccer ball sized chunks of ice/snow. They were all under the side car, and in front and behind both driver’s side tires. So I wasn’t going anywhere without moving them first. Both of those tires were also in the shallow ditch that still showed at the edge of the snowbank.
By this time, a guy has pulled his car over and walked up. He helps move some of the iceballs, and then pushed my car backward, and then forward to get me out. Yay! ^_^ By this time, my pants were soaked up to my knees, and my shoes and socks were wet and frozen. Brrr.
He points out the damage to my front bumper (boo!) and I thank him and he goes on his way, and the person next in line on the road kindly lets me in. Actually, the guy who helped me turned his car around back the way he came, and abandoned staying on the highway. He had been going in the same direction as me.

I’m back on my way!
I then noticed that I was very lucky that I had spun out where I did, because not 50 feet up the road the ditch was far too deep for the snowbank, and I would have had a nice 6+ foot drop backwards into a ditch, instead of having a snowbank stop my spin. Eep.
Further up the road, there was another car in the ditch, with no person in it. I assumed they had gone to the nearby house to call CAA. Even further on, there was another car and a cop car in the ditch.

I made it to Josh’s parking lot. Early, even! So I called my dad because I had to call someone and freak out a bit because I had been backwards in a ditch.
On our way home, Bridge Street had been closed, and we had to find an alternate route. Boo-urns, because it was dark and icy and I like to know where I’m driving.

Scrunched up the right driver’s side bumper of my car a bit. Made a foot long crack in my non-metal side bumper, right at the front tire. I keep forgetting to take a photo in the daylight to post here, but I’ll eventually remember before the sun goes down one of these days. ^_^ It probably won’t be worth fixing until the spring, if at all. So now I have a broken car. I wasn’t even done paying for it yet. D’oh. >_< .

Oh my god, I think I’m going to hurl.

Lately, our house has been invaded by large black ants. Not in the kitchen, as one might expect, but mainly in the upstairs bedroom and computer room.
I hate ants. I have a phobia of bees and wasps, and ants are just freaking walking wasps that bite instead of sting. Creepy little bugs that seriously squick me out. Especially the ones big enough to be wasps themselves. The ones we currently have are mostly around a 1/2 inch long.
Josh gets most of them (the ants, and last fall, the bees) for me, though I can get the odd one with my slipper if I have to.

Anyway.

Today I was feeling crappy, and decided to treat myself to some delicious Arby’s. I got a roast beef sandwich, and a Dr. Pepper. This pleased me. This Dr. Pepper came in a normal fast-food cup with a lid and straw. I left the Dr. Pepper in my room for about an hour because I wandered off and forgot about it.

See where this is going yet?

I then remembered the pop, and brought it into the computer room where I was sitting, playing around online. I continued to drink the yummy Dr. Pepper goodness.
After a little while, I saw a little black shape moving on the inside of the lid. An ant!
An ANT!
An ant in my pop that I was still drinking! o_0 o_0
And I know it didn’t get there while it was sitting at the computer with me, so who knows how long it had been in there, but it was at least as long as I’ve been drinking it in here.

I freaked out, I admit it. I can barely deal with the things on the wall, I cannot deal with them in stuff I put in my mouth. I shrieked, and then had to try to not vomit all over my keyboard. Then I made Josh dump it out in the toilet, because I just couldn’t do it.
I still feel shaky and queasy.
Blargh.

IN MY DRINK!!!

I thought about making it a surprise, but I suck at keeping secrets and I’d much rather write up progress-reports in my blog and get input along the way since it’s probably going to be hard.

I finally got Burning Crusade last week, and so I’ve been running around in the new areas with a new character. I adore the character design of the Draenei, so I’m going to make a costume of my WoW character! Oh! So! Nerdy! Yay!

This bring my total of costumes for this year to 3. Seems a good number, since there’s really only 3 main days anyway, and one’s only a partial ^_~
1. Faun – partially complete (just need to redo the shitty parts, and make a more “forest creature” type top than the weird little toga I made for Hallowe’en because it had to be work-safe)
2. Smirnoff Fairy – some design work done. Learned I still suck at clothing design.
3. Draenei – plans in motion for legs involving post-knee-surgery leg braces

Got some good plans for digitigrade legs, since the faun ones I made can’t be used since a) the fur is attached directly to them, and b) I’ll have to make “actual” digitigrade legs instead of just “illusion” ones, since the Draenei are not furry so I can’t just use fur to hide the structure.

That’ll be the hardest part. The seriously hard, hard part. Beyond that, the hardest part will be figuring what armour to make for her to wear. I’m only level 16 right now, so my gear sucks and is mismatched. So far though, no one’s posted screenshots of any Draenei in any high-end armour sets (the expansion hasn’t been out long enough for people to get them and post images on top of that ^_~ ) so I’ll have to wait until those are available, but that’s something I need to get crackin’ on soon ’cause I’ve never made armour before and don’t know how to use WonderFlex (etc) so I think that’ll be a slooow process to actually craft the armour.

I’m so tired. I spent the week debunking people who don’t know how to follow directions and still expect things to work. I spent the weekend working too. The woman who comes up from the States for production had to switch back to coming up on weekends instead of weekdays (’cause, you know, she’d like to keep her real job as well, and they kinda frown on missing work to work another job for some reason).
Then yesterday the whole basement flooded. At work, not at home. The lab was fine, since it’s not connected to the same plumbing. But there was lots of icky backed-up water over lots of the rest of the basement, including my walk-in fridge. My boss had to spend the whole day cleaning and disinfecting, because the States lady and I had to actually make media because we’re on a deadline. The door were open to help dry things out, so it was freezing. I’m tired due to the whole lack-of-a-weekend thing, plus manufacturing days are long and super busy anyway. I get a couple days off later this week to make up for the time, but that doesn’t make me less tired now. There’s actually a lot more to this story, but it’s really not that interesting to people who are not me, and I want to get to the second half of my post. Let’s just leave it at “I’m really tired and run off my feet” for now.

I should just write a “Glossary” type post, so when I write about work without naming actual names, I won’t have to use long descriptions like “the woman who comes up from the States”). Plus, I can keep any made-up names or designations straight. ^_~

I’ve also determined that I’m lonely. I’ve been so busy lately (read: the last several months) I didn’t really realize it at first, but I’ve felt “off” for a while. I have a serious lack of female companionship.
I’ve never had loads of female friends. Now the few I have, have moved away, for various reasons, and I essentially have none close by.
I’ve got some great online friends. A couple close ones that I really appreciate, and several casual friends in various communities I’m part of. Some I’ve even been able to hang out with in person. ^_^ But as awesome as that is, it’s not the same as having someone nearby, to go to Ikea on the weekend, or watch some girlie movie that Josh doesn’t want to see, or go to the mall, or heck, even to sit around and chat or read or watch TV or play DDR or head-to-head DS Lites. Just a good friend to hang out with at any time.
You old Kincardine guys are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but unless you wanna go do girlie stuff with me I need to make new friends as well. ^_~

I kinda suck at making new friends, though. I know I’m shy, and overly resistant to trying many new things. I’m trying to work on that. The last time I made any new real friends was probably in first year college. Now I’m kinda starting from scratch, without even the common ground of “we all just left high school and now live in a new place” to help me.
The girls who work at the place where I work are either 40+, or aren’t really the sort of person I’d hang around with outside of work. Friendly and nice, but more office-friendly than buddy-friendly.
So I’m going to probably have to do some things outside my normal comfort zone. Or, at this point anything to get out of the house and meet people. Preferably, nice nerdy people like me. ^_~ Right now all my time is spent working, or driving to pick up Josh, or being too tired after doing those things to do anything else. I haven’t even made it to the gym since late October. At least my dues are super-cheap since I got one of those great pre-opening deals. But still, it’s a waste if I’m too beat to go. Hopefully he’ll be able to move to a new position shortly after his 6 month probation period is up. That would make both of us happy. Me especially, because then he can maybe get regular hours, which would hopefully mean more opportunities to get into a carpool for both ways, which would mean I’d get back 2 hours of my life every day and I’d stop being so cranky about it. ^_^

I’m going to look around for some clubs or something that I could maybe join. Much of the stuff around here seems to the centred around the university, though, and I’m not really looking to hang out with 17 year olds who have homework.
There’s a couple local meet-ups for some people with the same hobbies as me, but I’m not so awesome at going places where I don’t even remotely know one single person. Plus, those hobbies (sewing, cosplay and ball-jointed dolls) and general interests (sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, etc.) tend to attract the “creepy” kind of people as well as the regular kind of lovable nerds. I’m going to try to go to a couple, though. I’ll never make new friends if I don’t try to meet people. I’m lonely and it’s making me listless and depressed.
I wonder if Guelph has a community center, like with classes or something. I’m sure it does, somewhere. Not sure how to find it.

Anyway, now I’ve succeeded in making myself sound like a complete and utter loser. I’m tired and going to sleep now.

Anyone here use a PVR?

Do you use a service (eg TiVO, Rogers, etc) or did you just buy a PVR for your computer?

I was originally just going to buy a PVR for my old unused computer, and use it just like a good ol’ VCR, only with better image quality and no stupid VHS tapes to buy. Plus, there’s no monthly subscription fees. Unfortunately, my old computer is too Old and Busted. It doesn’t meet min spec for the PVR drive I found at Futureshop. So in order to even get a PVR drive, I’d need to buy a New Hotness. While I’m certainly not opposed to a New Hotness, it’s a rather large expense just to be able to record TV. Even if I got a stripped-down little nothing, and used it as the PVR system (instead of buying a while nice system to actually use in my office, and making my current 2-year old computer be the PVR bitch), it’s still more expensive than just buying a TiVO system and subscription. You can buy a TiVO box for $400 or less ($70USD from the TiVO site, but I’m not sure how those deals work for Canadian customers), plus $200/year for the serivice, which is still less than a new computer with a PVR drive would cost. At least as far as I can tell. If I’m wrong, please let me know, ’cause that would be great. I won’t even consider the Rogers one, because it’s way more expensive, plus it’s Rogers.
Now, obviously buying a computer with a PVR drive i cheaper in the long run. Subscription fees add up, and it’s one less monthly expense to worry about. It just seems like an awful lot of initial monetary output just to record the odd TV show.

It’s not like I need one to record every episode of the Simpson’s ever or something. I just liked the ease and freedom of being able to record shows at a whim, so I can do other things while they air if I want. I like my shows and want to watch them, but I like other things too.