For the true purist, it's probably offensive what Paramount has done to spruce up the episodes, but in all honesty I think it's so COOL!!!!!!!! It's very pretty, the sound is amazing, the pictures are nice and crisp and clear again - it's like being a kid again and watching them all for the first time. That's saying something too, because I've been watching this show since I was six and I can't even imagine how many times I've seen each episode.

H'okay, so...

Has been rather a while since my last blog, mainly because I felt I really haven't had much to contribute to this site (or any other - I love to lurk, mostly ). That's changed a little recently, as I've rediscovered an older show that I really enjoyed, and so have been pecking away at the guide. I've managed to update the first season, recaps are still an option, and am starting with the second. It's a good time for this since we're coming up to summer, and considering I prefer sci-fi shows and the CSI franchises, I pretty much wind up with nothing to watch for three months. Luckily to fill at least some of the void are the summer blockbusters - if it blows up, you can usually find me there - and I've seen two of the three in line so far.

Star Trek - once I got over the screaming (not really, but I did get told to "shhhh!") I really liked it. I have to go see it again, as I was rather distracted during the first go round, but hey, it's Star Trek - I'm there! A friend of mine went to see it and was also told to "shhhh!" so we've decided we should go together, because we each understand where the other is coming from. We've also decided we should ALWAYS see ST movies together first, before we go with anybody else, just so we don't get told to "shhh!"

I've also finally seen X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That took a little while because my guy didn't want to see it - said the first X-Men movies left him rather cold - and I was trying to arrange with another friend to go see it but our schedules just weren't meshing. So, yesterday I gave up and went solo. I was one of a whole three people in the theatre - lol! I thought it was lots of fun, and filled in the backstory quite nicely. I have no idea how close to canon it is, I haven't picked up a comic since I was about nine and then it was usually Superman or Justice League, that's it.

With the possibility of being dragged to see Angels & Demons, I finally saw The DaVinci Code last weekend - may I just say "Meh..." It was okay, but as there was a fair amount of explanation required - aka talking - I found there were a number of parts that dragged a lot, and it's a long movie to have it drag. Luckily I had my laptop set up by my seat on the couch, so I was able to surf and snoop things out while watching to keep myself more entertained. Probably a good thing I hadn't found Vampire Wars on Facebook yet, or I wouldn't have watched any of the movie.

We also watched Passchendaele, a Canadian movie (*gasp* No, say it isn't so!!!) that's actually pretty good. I was more interested in that than DaVinci (more things went boom?) even though it, too, is not quite my usual type of movie. However, it was writted, directed by and starring Paul Gross whom I've enjoyed ever since Due South, and he's not looking pudgy like Tom Hanks is, so from the word "go" it had the advantage

Work goes, home is more fun I just got a new kitty, finally, after having to put my cats down in the past year. My one cat went last July, and the other went in February. I missed them both, though the second one hit me really hard, because she was just so sweet and quiet and tired at the end. She was so snuggly, and that just wasn't like her usually - she was a kitty who perched on you, she never relaxed and lay down until the end there, when all I could do was try to say goodbye. I bawled like a baby on the way home, and even called in to work and asked for the afternoon off because I needed a little time to just be miserable and miss her. It still makes me sad to think of it. I have Jak-jak now, though - it took me a while to work around to having another cat, and I was always determined not to have a boy-anything, so of course here he is, thumbing his little kitty nose at me. A former driver at work was adopting out her three young cats - George, Trouble and Thunder - so I went to have a look. From the pics and descriptions I was thinking of taking George (really cute tabby stripe) but I didn't pass the interview with him - he kept taking off whenever I got near. Then Trouble, well, he could take me or leave me, but Thunder was just smitten - and so was I. So, I brought him home and renamed him Jak-jak, in part because Thunder was just too big and serious a name for this slinky little black and white kitty. He also knocked over my aloe plant and dug out some of the dirt the first or second night he was there, so he's a mischevious little sneak, too. He hid for the first couple of days, as to be expected, and I didn't drag him out to be mean, but merely because I wasn't happy with where he was hiding. I put him in the linen cabinet instead of one place he'd found, and then under the couch to substitute for the other place that was really not suitable. I made sure he didn't feel trapped or penned in, and tried my best to make sure Honey didn't bug him excessively. As a result, after a couple of weeks now he's happy enough that he's out to greet me when I come home from work, and confident enough around Honey that he'll even go walk right by her and smack his tail in her face to get her to play. I'm so glad he's happy. He's a sucky cat, too - loves nothing more than to start by sitting on my lap to be petted, then turning himself into a pretzel, twisting around so that I get all the good spots as I pet him.

The other exciting thing for me is that my upstairs neighbours are moving out! Now I just REALLY hope that whoever ends up moving in isn't worse... I had hopes when I moved in last November that we could at least be cordial neighbours, but there's something off-putting about being called a moron, even indirectly. There were also the notes, each with its own little dig, and the random moving of a bucket I kept outside the door. If they'd asked at the start, I would have moved it myself, but they didn't. There was also the matter of having the town paper delivered - I wanted it, he didn't, I'd call to start delivery, when the paper showed up he'd call to cancel it. Finally I asked if he wanted the paper too, since he'd taken the one that had been delivered for me, and he said no, he'd been trying to get delivery stopped for four months - the length of time I'd been there. I asked him to please stop cancelling it, and pointed out he was not the only tenant in the house. This guy (and his wife) are in their early fifties, at a guess, and he especially acts like he's about six years old. It's really annoying, and I'll be very glad when they're gone. Rod suggested we get a couple lawn chairs and sit wiith drinks in our hands and watch while they move out next weekend, which would probably be very entertaining. Yes, I can be petty and evil at times - I'm sorry, I'm human.

Anyway, that's about all that's going on right now Thanks for reading, you three - you know who you are

I've been working on a baby blanket for a while, not because I haven't told anyone anything important and not because I know anyone who's having a bundle of (*cough*) joy, but just because I found the yarn when I was packing stuff up and I wanted to have a project that was portable. I finally finished it last Thursday, and Rod mentioned a friend of his was expecting a baby with his wife very shortly - this week, in fact. So, my blankie has a home, but I just thought I'd show it off a little first. I do hope they like it.

I also ordered myself some new toys back in October when I read about them in my little email newsletter from my local knitting shop. They're circular needles with interchangeable tips, which is really cool. It means, if nothing else, that I don't have to spend half an hour in my storage unit trying to find all my needles.

That's all my excitement. We stayed in and had a lovely dinner of Chinese food for New Year's - had two small and one large bottle of sparkling wine and didn't touch a drop. I went to bed about eleven (I'd been up at three am, was very tired) and was woken up and told "Happy New Year" just after midnight. We spent New Year's Day watching the first half of the first season of 24. Ah, Jack Bauer, how I've missed you.

Hope everyone had a lovely New Year. Later.

I hope everyone has had a lovely couple of days off, assuming you don't work retail that is. I did that for far too long, and I know exactly how stressful that can be.

Rod got the perfect prezzie for me, to go along with my new tv and surround system -

a Sony blu-ray player! Along with that came a copy of one of my favourite movies -

to start my collection of movies in that format. I have to keep reminding myself that I can't go replacing all my dvds with blu-ray editions, because it's going to cost me way too much money if I do. I do, however, have an unopened copy of Wall-E to exchange for the blu-ray edition, and I still have to pick up a copy of The Dark Knight.

This year I gave Rod the gift of adoption - I adopted a red panda in his name at the Toronto Zoo. He got a certificate of adoption along with a photo of "his" panda, and a little polar bear stuffy that my darling dog Honey is seriously hot to play with. Her present to him was two packages of boxer briefs, as she has a distressing habit of chewing holes in his undies - so embarrassing. I also got him this -

(the bottom one is the men's fragrances) and some other little stuff that hopefully he'll enjoy.

Anyway, enjoy your weekend everyone, and have fun playing with all your new things. *hugs*

It's been a couple months since my last blog - I've been more than a little busy in that time. My house finally sold back at the end of August, and we set a closing date of 14 November thinking that would give us a nice stretch of time to finish getting our stuff together and time to find somewhere to go. My ex already had an apartment lined up down in Richmond Hill, about 20 min south of me, but I still had to find a place to live. I'd been looking at houses for a while, but came to think that perhaps it would be better to rent for a while if I could find a place that suited Honey and I. If I had bought, I would be moving at least half an hour away from work, if not further, and I have to admit I've been very spoiled for the last nine years, living seven minutes from work - with the red lights - five or six if I hit all greens. I did find a place even closer to work - now it takes me maybe a minute to get to work, and no lights - not even a stop sign. It was a rather fortuitious find, as I was looking at another place that was about two blocks from my old house when the real estate agent mentioned that he had a place just come available that day that was even closer to my work. I was happy to go have a look at it - the first place wasn't bad, but the kitchen was abysmal, so I thought if it's the same owner/property manager it would at least be well maintained, and I could always take the first place I'd looked at and make it work somehow. That kitchen, though, my god - was a little room maybe 7'x7', had maybe 4 sq. ft. of counter space in total - ugh. Well, then we got to the other place, and what does it have? An eat in kitchen in a basement apartment. I was sold - right then and there. The rest of the place was good too, I did look around and ask questions - pets allowed, there's AC in the summer (thank god!), one parking space, etc - but it was the kitchen that got me.

I signed the lease for the place at the end of September to have it for October 1, though there was an agreement to let the previous tenants have til the 4th to be out, but then I didn't end up getting keys for the place for another week after that. I wasn't happy, because I'd signed a month early so I'd have time to paint and fix up the dings in the walls and so on, and then I lost a week because they didn't give me the keys when they were supposed to. Anyway, I finally did get the keys, and managed to get all the painting, fixing and some decorating done before I had to move all my stuff. Rod helped me move a whole ton of boxes and stuff from storage to the apartment one weekend, and I spent a week trying to unpack those and rearrange so that the next weekend when we moved the rest of my stuff from the house there'd be room to put it all somewhere. That was three weeks ago now, and amazingly enough there's been actual progress in the unpacking though I definitely have too much stuff. One of the hazards of going from a house to one bedroom basement apartment, I suppose.

In the meantime, at work my union rep asked me if I'd be willing to run for the shop steward position that was open. A couple of the other (way junior) drivers were all upset that there was no steward and had been going behind Wendy's back to the union to have them appoint a steward, or at least have elections for one. Fine, no problem for me, I'll run - I really respect what she's done for us through the union, and I could work with her quite easily. I also have no desire to see either of these other two drivers get the position, because neither of them is in it for the good of everyone - they only have their own agendas and cliques that they're worried about. Then just a couple weeks ago we find out that the Worker's Compensation Board has determined that her injury (long story, not really relevant) is permanent and she can no longer drive a bus. Well, there were no other positions available for her at the company, either, so she's being let go and will get retraining for a job that will suit her better with regards to her physical needs. All of a sudden this means that whoever wins the election for shop steward will instead be filling in as union rep until the election is held for that position, which isn't until early summer next year. I know I have quite the support base among the drivers, and so now I have to deal with the very real prospect of being the union rep for the next six months - this wasn't what I signed up for, and it scares me - don't want to screw things up. However, Wendy has said she'll help me all the way if I get in, but if anyone else does they're on their own.

So, been pretty much too busy to do anything other than breathe and sleep, and sometimes too busy for even that. Coming out to Rod's on the weekends has been my only time to relax, really, and I'm so glad I've had that chance to unwind. I've even been too busy to go to the gym until the last couple of weeks, and oh, boy, did I ever feel it after I finally did go back to BodyPump cla$$! Walking for the next couple of days was more than a bit of a challenge. (ow, ow, ow...)

Anyway, time to wander off and see what he's up to - maybe go do some shopping Like I really need to spend more money - I've bought all new fixtures for the bathroom (towel bar, toilet roll holder, robe hooks, etc), a new tv - big HD one, looks like a movie screen in my little living room, it's great! - and surround to go with it, though that still needs to be set up, and a closet system that I still have to put in too - need to clear out the closet first as it's serving as temporary storage for the last of the boxes in the apartment right now. Should have that up this week, I hope. Not to mention all the paint I bought for the place, though I have to email the receipts to my landlord and he's supposed to reimburse me for the cost of that - hope so, that's worth about $300 all by itself.

If you've made it this far, I'm proud of you - enjoy your weekend.