Signing your Names
What you are doing right now is confirming my worst suspicions: the vast majority of people viewing this blog are capable of reading. This appears to be a talent that I, at some point, have neglected to utilize. For those who do not have Victoria’s weather set as their homepage, the current temperature of my beloved city has been akin to that of Venus… in Venus’s August. Yesterday was a scorching 36 Celsius – the day before was 35 and today is supposed to be an equally face-melting 37 degrees. As such, after I staggered my way home from the final football match held in Victoria of the U20 World Cup, I went straight to bed. I quickly discarded my blankets, sheets and anything remotely resembling pyjamas, and threw the windows open in an attempt to catch some kind of a breeze. Apparently what I neglected to note was a small sign pasted by the door of my building that informed any resident with a standard education that today – that is, the day I was sleeping naked on top of my bed – was to be window cleaning day. Thus, you can likely imagine my shock at waking up to see the puzzled and rather shocked face of a mid-twenties man staring through my window at my prostrate form. Of all ways to wake up, I am fairly certain this is equivalent in enjoyment to finding yourself falling from a helicopter towards the ground at a high rate of speed, or possibly discovering 11 snakes eyeing you balefully from your chest, where they have decided to set up camp.
Apparently I’ve also decided to eschew reading directions for my Interweb connection. When I set up my wireless router and the modem from Shaw, it necessitated a 2 hour discussion with representatives from no fewer than Microsoft, Shaw, D-Link and Hastur (a Duke of Hell who handles Microsoft’s communications department). Apparently I had neglected – and this is a true story – to repeatedly stab my wireless hub with a pen. Again, I assure you I am not making this up. In order to make my Internet work I had to go medieval on my modem, rabid on my router, dangerous on my D-Link and so forth. In addition to this basic stabbing motion, I also was asked to plug in the various pieces in a certain order into the electrical outlet. If I messed this order up, Shaw/D-Link/Hastur et al. were not responsible for my technology not working, exploding, melting or flipping me off and leaving for Barbados with my microwave and beach towels. I did, though, eventually get it to work through trial and error and error and error and error and yelling and error and success. Now, though, I have a nice floor lamp that I’d LOVE to plug in… but the outlets are full. Not a problem, since I have a power bar. But to be able to insert the power bar, I would have to unplug the modem and router. This would lead to a possible cessation of my Interweb, which is the technological equivalent of signing a declaration outlawing hydrogen. The answers, I’ve been told, are in the 57 pages of English/Spanish/Cantonese instructions that are hidden in my room somewhere, and yet so far I’ve been unable to find the time to read it and come to any kind of intelligent solution.
Now, instead of wasting my time reading such unimportant things as notices in LARGE BLOCK LETTERS or directions that are so simple they could be followed by a truffle pig, I’ve been focusing my mental energies on names that have crossed my path so far at The Restaurant. Due to one of those humorous twists of life, a few days ago some of the kitchen lads and servers were discussing what their adult film name would be if they ever gave up on their current employment. (I will thank people here for not pointing out the similarities between my job and that of a lady-of-the-night… basically, selling my dignity for rent money and vacuum cleaners.) While many of the names were, of course, unpublishable in my generally PG13 memoirs, I got some awesome REAL names over the next couple of days. First, I had a French fellow who’s name on the credit card was “Pierre Gravel”. For those whose French is equivalent to my Norwegian, ‘pierre’ means ‘rock’ in French. Thus, his name was Rock Gravel. This was followed quickly the next day by the woman whose name-on-card was Summer N Sweet. Then, just because God wanted this entry to write itself, I learned that one of the dishwashers had recently been fired for theft. His name? James Bond. Aside from the fact that James Bond should NEVER be caught stealing – and that the thing he sold was half a bottle of Triple Sec (seriously? seriously?) – it was about as perfect a conclusion to the name game as possible.
Speaking of reading, the new Harry Potter book comes out in a week. I will be attending a Harry Potter party on a Friday night at a local bookstore. See what I mean about God wanting my updates to write itself?
Finally, just a quick update to wrap things up from here for a while. It turns out that among the fantastic grats, discounted food and alcohol, great people and free wine tastings at The Restaurant, I also get unlimited free whale watching trips from Prince of Whales, the most prominent local company. While I was disappointed to learn that they didn’t actually use ol’ Charlie as their mascot, I was much more satisfied with my whale watching experience. Along with my friend from work, Cailin (pictured below) I got to see a grey whale, porpoises, harbour seals and an entire pod of orcas. These orcas were also putting on a show, by jumping into the air and smacking themselves into the water. Of course, I also got a burn that made me so red one of Mars’s moons began orbitting my ears, but that was a small price to pay for 3 hours on the Pacific watching things that could turn me into a snack cracker acting like over-Kool-Aided 5 year olds on trampolines.
Next update Tuesday: wine tasting and my last U20 game! See you then;
Chris
