At work today (yesterday) I saw Sim, who (as I recall) had promised me that there would be no more random encounters in Ottawa. Wait, no, I guess that promise was actually restricted to the bus station. Funnily enough, I saw him from my cash at the other end of the store, and thought it looked like Sim (I didn't think it was because of the previously mentioned promise.) I was enjoying coming up with ways in my head of telling Sim about the doppelgänger sighting:

• "Hey Sim, I saw this guy at work who looked like you, and no, I don't just mean that he was arabic, there was, you know, just... something more to it."
• "Hey Sim, I saw this guy at work who looked like you, and no, I don't just mean that he looked like he had a bomb under his jacket...*

Sim came by, and I didn't get to make any of my comments right away because I had a customer in front of me who had decided to pay her entire $38.94 grocery bill in nickels and dimes, until she realsied that she probably had enough pennies to cover it and started recounting. I exaggerate, but not by much. Sim, the good sport that he is, was waiting while she counted so that he could have a quick conversation with me afterwards, but as the customer got to about $38.52, more customers started lining up. Seeing a potential cycle here, Sim pointed at the girl he was with informed me that it was his girlfriend, and took off. Hi Sim's girlfriend!

I biked home after work today (yesterday) in the rain, and a few houses up from mine there was a tree in the road. The amazing thing is that the tree had fallen right in between two cars parked in adjacent spaces without damaging either car. I'm not talking about a branch; I'm talking about a (potentially) car-crushing tree! For the less credulous, I took a picture:

I touched it up in GIMP (just colour adjustments) since I took the picture at 8PM and didn't have a ton of light.

*Disclaimer: For those who don't know Sim and me: We are good friends. He makes inappropriate Jewish comments (I am a Jew by birth), and I make inappropriate Arabic comments. We love each other very much, and only make such inappropriate jokes because we actually have what's known as a sense of humour. If this sounds like something you might like to have, try watching some Monty Python.

I just finished writing a paper for my linguistics class. As a science student, I'm not usually writing papers - my homework is mostly mathematical problems that get worked out by hand, so it's been a while since I've used a computer for schoolwork. When I finished writing my paper, I hit save.... and it asked me for a file name! My heart rose about 3.5 ft, I quickly saved it, and then, the danger averted, I had a good laugh at my carelessness.

Well, I took a break from blogging over the summer, but now I'm back in Ottawa and ready to get back at school.

I spent my summer back in Peterborough for most of the time so I couldn't get out to Vertical Reality - le sad - but I did keep up with my climbing by heading out to Rock and Rope with my dad where we found enough to amuse us. In this next scene, my dad plays the role of cameraman:

Coffee...
Last night I had coffee with Laura, who I hadn't seen in the longest time except in passing on campus. It was good to sit down and catch up, though I ended up hearing some disquieting stories about her landlord, who it turns out is also the landlord of the place that Adam, Sarah and I just signed a lease for... thanks for telling me now Laura!

...and Worms
In taking a look at The Arrogant Worms' show dates I saw that they will be playing again in Peterborough, as I had hoped, at the Festival of Lights. Worms fans, mark Wednesday August 15^th on your calendar! For those of you who will be in Ottawa over the summer (my finger is pointing at you, Sim) never fear; they are also playing a few days later at the Ottawa Folk Festival on the weekend of August 18^th-19^th.

In the time since my last post, I've managed to finish off all of my exams, which feels absolutely great. I've been enjoying some free time without anything to do except for when I've arranged to get together with friends. I've also used this time to finally convince my brother to start watching 24. We've now made it through the first season, and he's now a fan. As great as free time, friends, and 24 are, the main reason I'm hanging around in Ottawa still because I need to wait until I can move into my new apartment on the 1^st. That way some of the bigger things like my bed, dresser and desk don't need to be carted back home, only to be brought back to Ottawa later. After moving in, I'll be heading back home to Peterborough.

On Wednesday I apparently have to go in to Trent to take an eye test before they let me use the new lasers that will be in the lab this summer: they have a higher power. I'm still not sure what the test hopes to achieve from a safety standpoint. I would have thought that a laser could destroy a good eye just as well as a bad one. I have two theories though:

1. They want to conduct a blink reflex test, as I do know that it is possible for a laser to do only reparable damage if it is in your eye for only a very short length of time.
2. They want to have the results of my test on file so that if I try to sue them for eye damage, they can tell me that no, my eyes were actually that cruddy to begin with.

Language Notes
I was recently talking with Myriam while out on foot patrol about slight differences in language based on region, and one of the things that we talked about was a lollipop vs. a sucker. Sometimes you see a regional difference in which is used. For me, I hear those and think of them as two different things. When speaking with Myriam I suggested that a sucker was cylindrical, while a lollipop was spherical. I realised afterwards that that wasn't completely true - it holds true only for small versions of the candy. The image on the left shows a cylindrical candy on a stick, but because of its size, I would call it a lollipop for sure.