The Magnificence of ME!

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Major Maker - Roller Coaster
Thumbs up or thumbs down? (the song, not the video)

Current Mood: hungry

Not dead yet...
I'm still alive here in Winnipeg, Canada...although I've been sick as a dog since last Tuesday. My body has become an over-productive snot and cough factory, and I'm hoping against hope that I will be all better by Satuday when I fly home to Salem. Getting on a plane when your head is stuffed up is just no fun, especially when they pressurize the cabin.

Now some random bits:

Watched "Birth" starring Nicole Kidman...it was...different. Not sure whether I liked the ending or not.

Dear Winnipeg, cooked fish is not sushi.

My coworker looks like he feels defeated...and this conversion is going very well. Weird.

Tim Horton's is all over the place in Canada, the way Starbucks/Dunkin' Donuts is all over the U.S.

I have a cyber-crush on a flickr friend. It won't go anywhere, I'm sure...but damn he's cute...and smart...and artistic.

My Doctor Who-sband (I just made that up because I am FUUUUUUNNNY) is leaving town with his husband when I go home, so I'm several episodes behind on Doctor Who and it looks like it will stay that way until I get back from Las Vegas with all the money I'll be winning from playing Craps. This depresses me (the not catching up on Doctor Who part, not the winning money at Craps part)

Current Mood: mellow

Get down with the sickness...
Today I'm in the "coughing so hard my lungs come up through my throat" stage of my cold. I'm hoping it pretty much goes away by tomorrow morning, but on the rare occasion that I get sick like this, the cough usually lingers.

At least I'm in a climate controlled hotel room today, and not on site with the client.

I took some pictures from my hotel room window yesterday while blowing my nose, because I'm a multi-tasker:

Today I will wander across the street to the grocery store/pharmacy in search of chicken soup, vitamin C, and something stronger than nyquil/dayquil.

Current Mood: Coughy-phlegmy

The amazing performances you miss if you don't have the opportunity to watch Canadian Idol...

Current Mood: sleepy

I hate getting sick, especially when traveling for work.

Sick, but still able to take self portraits...

I need a hug, some soup, and a cookie. Not necessarily in that order

Current Mood: sick

Assignment...don't make me beg
OK, humor me here. Please post a recent photo of yourself (or take one just for this post) in the comments section of this entry. No matter who you are, as long as you are seeing this entry...I'll even say "pretty please with sugar on top".

I'll even start you off with a picture of me:

P.S. and I'd like to thank

badrobot68 for participating in the last request for photos...and he was the ONLY one that did participate.

Current Mood: awake

waiting at the Toronto airport...
waiting for my connecting flight to Winnipeg. typing this from my dreaded Q phone. flight here from Boston was a little turbulent and reminded me that after all these years I am growing more and more anxious during each takeoff and landing. good god this entry is boring! please post a picture of youself as a comment to help liven things up.

grumblegrumblegrumble...another reason to hate PCs...grumblegrumblegrumble
since buying an iPod touch several months ago, I've been wanting to rip some of my DVDs to my computer and then copy them to a format that my iPod touch can play.

duncan02 was raving about the Handbrake software, and how he has been converting so many of his DVDs to a format that can be viewed on his iPod...so I took his advice and downloaded the software. Of course, I do not own a Mac like Duncan does, I own a PC (boooo). Handbrake won't work on any of my DVDs, since it is not really a dedicated ripper, and won't rip any DVDs that are copy protected (apparently every single DVD I own is copy protected). If Handbrake is used on a Mac, this problem doesn't seem to be much of a problem, or doesn't exist as a problem at all. Apparently, before I can use Handbrake, I have to rip my DVDs to my computer first.

Do any of you that use PCs know of any good DVD ripping software that you have had luck with? It doesn't have to be free software, but it does have to be good, and I would prefer to be able to download it online (no time for a trip to the store right now). Maybe even a combo software that will rip my DVD to my computer and save the file in a format that iPod Touch can use...that would be awesome (and really, there has to be some software out there that will do just that, doesn't there?)

Current Mood: hopeful

She's dead, Jim.
Yep, it's official...my laptop hard drive is dead. A new laptop is being sent out to me to arrive (hopefully) by Friday. I'm a little bummed that some photographs that were only downloaded onto my laptop will be lost (and if work tries to recover any data they may find all those topless photos of me that I never posted to flickr).

So what the hell am I supposed to do until Friday?

There is a Foxwoods casino just a few hours drive away from here...

Uh oh...my work laptop started making sounds like someone was screaming off in the distance, then I ended up restarting it, and now it's making knocking sounds and saying it can't find the hard drive.

Time for lunch.

one of my very favorite songs for when I want to be in a mellow mood:

The long and winding road...

I'm about to head out, driving home to Salem, MA from Montreal, Quebec. It's about a six hour drive, which will be nice, since it's so rare these days that I get a chance to drive my car for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time...and it's one of the few times I get to listen to my mp3s with no interruptions.

Salem, here I come!

Current Mood: happy

I just got back from the Montreal Casino, and boy is this winner tired =]
I decided to head to the Montreal Casino on my last night here, and took $200.00 with me to play on craps, and $40.00 to play on the slots.

I started off at the craps tables and after two hours, I walked away with my original $200.00 plus two $1.00 chips. Then I played a few different slot machines here and there, winning and losing little amounts over the next two hours, until I was able to buy myself dinner on the Casino's money. After dinner, it was one last trip to the slots, where I turned my $200.00 into $402.00 in about an hour. It was fun being at the end of the table with the old men that were putting down $500.00 on pass line bets while they complained half-heartedly about how the coffee cart hadn't been around in over an hour.

Very tired now, but I need to finish packing so I can be ready to drive back to Salem tomorrow afternoon.

I can't wait to go to Las Vegas now...my friend Todd and I planned a trip for the week of August 3. We will be staying at Treasure Island, where we got some suite deals on Petite Suites for less than $100.00 per night. I'm hoping Todd has as much fun as he did last time we went back in March, when he won $1,500.00 on a $5.00 slot pull on the last night of his first trip to Vegas:

Current Mood: excited and tired...
Current Music: No Doubt - Makin' Out

Today...
I am wearing socks made from soy, and underwear made from bamboo. The underwear is probably the most comfortable pair of underwear I have ever worn...must buy more. Sorry, no pictures of me wearing the underwear (I know some of you are breathing a sigh of relief, while most of you have begun to sob uncontrollably by now...maybe I'll post a picture later tonight for you =] )

_________________________________________________________________________________

And in case the message I sent didn't work...
In other, more exciting news, today is

new_improved's Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Christian

Current Mood: happy

Just can't get enough...
There is nothing quite like the feel of having an Aussie Bum wrapped around your package.

There's also nothing quite like taking $140.00 and turning it into $885.00 at the Craps tables of the Montreal Casino (it would have been $1,100.00 if I hadn't decided to play one more round while waiting for my friend/coworker Lanita to come find me...little did I know she'd been thrown out of the casino...but that is a story for another time):

I started with $140.00, and ended up with this...

Current Mood: chipper

One more week...and my uncanny ability to see the good in everything (HA!)
I was originally slated to leave Montreal this Friday, but now it looks like i will now be staying in Montreal for an extra several days. Now I will be leaving on July 3. This is good for several reasons:

Tuesday July 1 is a Canadian holiday...and since I will be in Canada, I will get the holiday off (SCORE!)

I'll be driving home on the 3rd, which pretty much means a nice long scenic drive where I get to listen to my mp3s while hoping not to hit any deerses or mooses

All that much more per diem (SCOOOOOORE!!)

Another weekend to roam the city and explore new areas of the city

Another weekend to shop...when Ted aka notofthisworld came for a visit this past weekend, he showed me a department store that I really liked, and I will be back there this weekend when I have more money to buy more work clothes (I'm diggin the cufflink look in dress shirts...and it only took me 25 years in the work force to catch the fever!)

I get to stay another several days in a real swanky hotel...for FREE (this is one of the few times when i don't have to pay for the hotel myself and get reimbursed for it later...SCORE!!)

The downside (come on, you knew there had to be at least one):

It feels like I haven't been home to see my friends in...forever

I miss my cats

I'll only be home for about a week before I have to head off to Winnipeg for two weeks (but after that I'm done traveling for about 7 weeks or so =])

Current Mood: busy

Long ago, in an electronics store far, far away...

Current Mood: amused

Ouchie
Saturday night, my friend Ted

notofthisworld (who came to visit me for the weekend here in Montreal), my friend/coworker Lanita and I were heading to the Montreal Casino for some gambling fun, when I took a step off of the curb and didn't look where I was stepping. I stepped into a dip in the pavement and promptly twisted my foot. I'm pretty proud of myself that I didn't fall down (which must mean I didn't really hurt myself, right?), and just winced a bit. But the damage has been done. I felt the pain shoot through my back and into my groin at the same time, and pretty much have felt like someone socked me in the nuts ever since. I did have a good time at the casino, considering. I didn't hit the Craps tables since I couldn't find a $5.00 table (and I'm disappointed that there were only two craps tables in the entire casino, even though there were tons of roulette tables and poker tables).

I lost $30.00 over the course of the night, which isn't bad for several hours of entertainment. Lanita won a nice chunk-o-change on the slots, and I think Ted won a few bucks at the roulette table (I was trying to follow all the bets he and the other gamblers were putting down and I got completely lost...maybe I'll try the roulette tables next time though).

Today was spent walking around my hotel room trying to work out the pain in my back (sitting still or lying down just made me more aware of it). I'm thinking I might need to splurge on a massage at the spa here in the hotel, although I've never had a professional massage before and I'm not sure what kind of massage to request (I'm sure the massage therapist would be able to tell me...right?)

Time for bed. More rambles later this week. Now here's a picture from the Park Lafontaine here in Montreal, which Ted and I visited on Saturday before going to the restaurant that serves poutine in so many different ways:

/end rambles

Current Mood: sleepy

Visitor of the now...
I have a visitor here with me...ten points if you can guess who it is and/or what hs lj user name is =]

Just minutes prior to this photo being taken, I had him stripped down to his underwear because we were playing a strip card game of some sort...Nobody can beat me at cards, evah!

Sleepy now, time for bed.

Current Mood: tired

A New York question...
This questions is for my lj friends

barkis and

steven,

umkinda, and anybody else that might be familiar with the Manhattan/Harlem area of New York city. Just out of curiosity, how safe is the area of 141ST ST and Malcom X Blvd in Manhattan (or is that Harlem)? If you are familiar with that specific area, is it near a grocery store, fun and frivolity, and public transportation (isn't everywhere in NYC near public transportation)?

Current Mood: contemplative