I made a Best of 2009 Blog Challenge page, but you can do it anyway you want to.

I’m not tagging anyone to participate but I hope you all will so I can see what your Best of 2009 list is. What can I say, I’m nosy.

As a recap, Ms. Knight is miffed that TransLink did not run transit later than usual on Halloween night while she and her “posse” were out “getting their drink on”. Apparently sobering up in the wee hours of a cold November morning while dressed in a slutty, cold-weather-inappropriate costume kind of sucks.

Ms. Knight also complains that TransLink is more concerned with impressing visitors for the Olympics than its own citizens (and unfortunately, that’s probably true) and that McDonald’s has more sense because they stay open late to take advantage of all the drunk people with the munchies.

I don’t disagree with the assertion that public transit should be available late at night for people too inebriated to drive – that’s one of the great things about public transit – but how late is late enough?

Vancouver, a city that tags itself as “world class” (and don’t get me started on that misnomer), has transit that stops running pretty early considering how late the night life in downtown Vancouver runs. Any city that is truly “world class” (I’m looking at you Berlin) has a 24-hour transit system in place – or at least one that runs until 2 or 3 a.m.

And let’s face it; a cab ride from downtown Vancouver to say Burnaby, Surrey or Port Coquitlam etc. can get pretty expensive – and that assumes you can find a cab driver who will take you anywhere if you’re drunk. Most cabbies, quite reasonably, don’t want drunk people in their car.

That being said, TransLink’s operating hours are not exactly a secret. TransLink didn’t just spring this on an unsuspecting public for Halloween – the hours are clearly posted on their website along with maps of every route and time tables for every single stop. Their website isn’t easy to navigate (the maps are hard to get to), but the information is there.

Perhaps the reason TransLink doesn’t run later isn’t just that they don’t care about the citizens of Vancouver, or that they are financially constrained but, perhaps they don’t wish to be perceived as supporting “getting your drink on” at clubs. I bet they also don’t want to clean up the resulting mess of a bunch of drunks with food from those captains of industry at McDonald’s off the bus seats and floors.

Another good reason for transit not to run late: TransLink performs maintenance on buses and train lines at night to ensure that everyone gets a safe ride during their hours of operation. It seems TransLink is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Terminate service at 1 a.m. – people complain. Run transit 24-hours and do the bare minimum for maintenance and repairs – people would complain.

Knowing that Ms. Knight, perhaps you should have planned your night out a little better. And that goes for the “other 200 people” you mentioned and the “hundreds of people trapped downtown” every Friday and Saturday night. You could have done any of the following before headed out dressed as a “slutty version” of anything:

• Rent a hotel room together.
• Share a cab to the closest house and crash.
• Plan your time accordingly and make sure you’re on the last bus home.

These ideas are not beyond your intelligence.

Just for the record, I find it very hard to believe that the same people get “trapped” downtown every weekend. Is their ability to remember when the buses stop running hampered by the amount of alcohol they consume? I could see that happening once or twice, but every weekend? Give me a break – if that’s really the case, then those hundreds of people are morons who drink too much.

I suppose your next argument would be cash flow – but, if you can afford to pay cover charges at clubs and pay more to get drunk at said clubs; you can afford to share the cost of a hotel room or a cab.

Your “bleary eyed $2.50” is hardly an inducement for incurring the extra expense of running transit an hour later.

I’ve seen drunken people on transit here – it’s not pretty: loud, obnoxious, reeking of booze (and, in one case, urine) and a river of vomit under the seats. I sure didn’t envy the poor driver who had to hose down and disinfect the bus that night. I wonder if he appreciated those party-goers $2.50?

Your right to pass out on the bus, be a drunken nuisance, or throw up on yourself does not trump TransLink’s policy of providing their employees with a safe and puke-free environment in which to work.

Ms. Knight, as the Events and Student Life Director for the Kwantlen Student Association, couldn’t you find something more important and pressing to write about? This article – written in association with your position at Kwantlen, gives the impression that being inebriated and unable to get home is part of the routine for Kwantlen students. Also, as someone who is in charge of events and student life, you do a poor job of planning your own events and life if you can’t manage to catch a bus out of downtown by 1 a.m.

I’m even more surprised that the Chair and Director of Academic Affairs thinks this is an appropriate story to have associated with Kwantlen.

How would you feel about a $2.50 donation towards finding something resembling journalism at Kwantlen?

Don’t worry, I’m not typing this as I take my vows – I’m not that wired in.

I can just imagine what our wedding Tweets would look like:

Rambleicious: OMG!! I’m married!!1!

Joe: OMG – I’m having her committed!

I am writing this in the past to post in the future so you can read it in what is now your present.

Yes – I am a time travelling bride.

And…

OMG!! I’m married! Woo!!

Spastic Things I Did This Weekend:

1. Burned my finger on the side of the slow cooker.

The Universe was warning me, but I very foolishly ignored it – a few hours later, I did the following:

2. Spilled the contents of a fresh and full glass of iced tea directly into the vent of my new PC.

This is what happens when you play World of Warcraft on your weeks old PC and get too excited. I gestured wildly at another player, who cannot see or hear the real me, because he had the effrontery to ride his gargantuan dinosaur into Undercity and cut off my view such that I fell off a staircase. This gesture connected solidly with a full glass of iced tea and sent it pouring directly into the air vent of my new PC.

I pushed my chair back, swore impressively, and threw myself at the PC (smartly tipping it to the side to avoid more iced tea getting in) while madly unplugging it.

Joe and I blotted the video card dry, dried the inside of the casing and the fans and decided to let it take some air for awhile.

3. Covered my feet in shattered glass.

After we’d mopped up most of the iced tea we remembered that the table I use as a desk has a leaf that would extend directly over the PC; thus protecting it from future acts of stupidity. In order to extend the leaf we needed an inch more of space to move it forward and then up and back into place.

The bookcase next to the table was blocking us a bit, so I decided to wiggle it forward by degrees. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to check for objects that might fall on my head.

A small glass candle holder that we kept our Bic lighters in (the cool ones with long stem thingies so you don’t set your hands on fire lighting tea lights) fell from the shelf mid-wiggle, bounced off my shoulder, and smashed rather spectacularly all over the tile floor.

At this point, I am standing directly in a puddle of shattered glass and iced tea that we missed in the initial cleanup; plus completely soaked pants, shirt and sweater (from the iced tea mishap).

I decided pretty quickly that whole situation was actually pretty funny and laughed my fool head off while Joe rolled his eyes and got the broom.

I have never, ever, spilled anything on any computer ever. What better way to remedy that than to spill an entire glass of iced tea into my first ever new PC.

Lucky for me, the PC dried OK and everything still works fine.

I found the last of the glass slivers this evening several feet away from the crash site and got to it before I stepped on it. I also had a very good day at work.

I might be the Universe’s bitch, but sometimes, she throws some good luck my way.

Ten Things I Have Learned (Fairly Recently)

1. New Job (which I started five weeks ago) does not mean I must go to work, kill myself actually working for 8 hours of the day and then come home and slump around the house all brain-dead. Joe tells me I am the only person he knows who actually works an entire eight hours and that most people only work six. What I want to know is how do you account for those other two hours on your time sheet? Does your company have a TUA code?
2. I despise heat waves. It hasn’t been going on for five weeks, but it sure feels like it. I want my nice cool Vancouver weather back!
3. I have a seriously skewed view of Other People. I mean, my brain is like a fun house mirror where everyone but me looks glamorous and pretty and does Wonderfully Interesting things. Why do I think like this? I have no idea, but now I know how entirely retarded I am.
4. I need to read more books. Yes, I said it – I need to read more books. This is what comes of sharing a picnic lunch with people who work at a library. I feel so illiterate!
5. I need to spend more time on professional development – perhaps I can use those two hours I’m not supposed to be working for this. I want to learn to use Illustrator and have more time to think about writing and career/job related things so I can get better at what I do.
6. I must stop yelling at my DSi while playing Chrono Trigger. It’s not the DSi’s fault that the people who made this game give you absolutely no idea of what the hell you should be doing at any given time. Of COURSE I was supposed to go back to the room with the spinning wheel – no, no, the other room with the spinning wheel – and listen to the flighty princess in disguise whine. Duh!
7. Trying to plan an uncomplicated wedding is complicated. Come on City of Vancouver – own up to it. This marriage licence + park licence + insurance + marriage commissioner fee for a 10 minute wedding = total scam. You know I’m right. Joe and I will get “married” in the backyard by a hobo at this rate.
8. I enjoy doing nothing. I never thought I did – I used to be Very Productive, now I can do nothing at all with the best of them. Just because I am awake, it does not follow that I must be doing something productive to benefit all of mankind (or my laundry basket).
9. Sleeping in is good.
10. I eat too much popcorn.

So there it is, my list, my apology, my…whatever. It’s good to be getting back to the rest of my life again!

My friend Amanda on the other hand is some sort of genius copywriter or grammar guru – her MSN messages are nearly 100% error free and entirely readable.

So, Amanda and I were chatting online one day when she noticed a typo – I had written “It was very entertainting.”

Her immediate response was that a typo that good needed a definition. I have provided one with an illustration:

Now that’s entertaintment!

(And thanks to Amanda and her eye for amusing, erroneous detail!)

I mention him from time to time: he’s the guy who brings me bananas, who never touches my bum crack in public, who is totally cool with me going away for a weekend by myself and for some reason has not smothered me in my sleep – and he could totally get away with it for these reasons (and many others too numerous to list here):

• I often stand around and read in the bathroom – even though I have absolutely no need to be in there and he’d like to use it.
• I leave water glasses all over the house.
• I leave books everywhere – even on his nightstand.
• I have woken him up yelling in my sleep (what can I say, hanging around on Angelina Jolie’s speedboat was exciting).
• I poke him awake when I am feeling hyper at 4:30 a.m.
• I tease him for being the slowest dish-washer ever.
• I bring home more books than we actually have space for.
• I can be as charming as a recalcitrant two year old when it comes to dinner some days.
• I’m a little too enthusiastic about throwing things out or donating them.
• I say evil things like, “But, sweetie – don’t you want me to be happy?” when justifying the purchase of yet another MEC bag (I only have three now – I’ve been good for a long time).
• I dedicate blog posts to him with  Backstreet Boys lyrics in the title (this all by itself would have the murder charges dropped).

Yet, he sticks around, does all the ironing, eats my cooking without complaint, brings me pretty rocks and video games, watches cartoons with me because he likes them too and is funny, cute, supportive, really smart, geeky, fun, and all round awesome.

So, just for the record Joe:

Thanks for being my best-friend.

I was all excited to see an amazing exhibition and – this makes me a cretin, I know – I wasn’t all that impressed. I was expecting to see Girl with a Pearl Earring and some self portraits of Rembrandt, but those were not on offer. Worse, the upstairs portion of the gallery was all cordoned off, so for $20 I got to see a lot of grazing cows and fancy clothes.

Later, we headed to the Kingston Taphouse and had burgers and beers like the uncultured mouth-breathers we are and talk turned to my stick people cards. After two pints of Guinness I doodled the following:

Something tells me that Hallmark is not looking to sell cards in bars and pubs. If I’m wrong, please email me – there’s more smart-assery where this came from.

The Eat-More bar is supposedly a “chewy dark toffee, peanut and chocolate” bar. But what you never hear about is how these bars are made – well, I am spilling my guts to the world now. No more secrets! This is how Eat-More is manufactured:

1. Go to work at candy bar factory.
2. Pick up random bits of toffee, peanuts and chocolate on the bottom of your boots.
3. Scrape boots off into the Eat-More bucket at the end of your shift.
4. Grave-yard shift workers press it into bars and sell it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an economical and environmentally friendly method for making candy, but even if their boots are clean; do you really want to eat candy that was on the floor? This defies the five second rule and is, quite frankly, unhygienic.

I did try to get a picture of it, but it sensed my great dislike for it and would not allow me to take its photo. All the photos were blurred and in one, I’m fairly certain I saw a cluster of peanut bits shaped like Satan. But, I am not one to disappoint my readers and I discovered the Candy Blog has a very nice and in-focus photo of it.

Besides which, the candy looks rather like a shiny turd with peanut bits embedded in it and this is a G rated blog. Someone has to think of the children.

My father would tell me I am a cretin for not loving these bars. He claims they are tasty, they keep the mail moving (though how that much sugar translates into fibre I will never know) and the number one reason to love Eat-More bars (according to dear old Dad) is folding the wrapper like so:

I tried eating a little piece of the bar – after all I have broadened my horizons somewhat since I was 7 years old – but, my refined adult palate wholeheartedly rejected the candy and went running straight into the arms of a 3 Musketeers bar.

Dad, if you’re reading this, I’m sure it’s Mum’s faulty genes that dictate my hatred for this candy. I still like beer if that helps.

A fellow Gamers With Jobs junkie pointed out that if Buffy were to dust Edward Cullen in the film, he’d go see it. My only response was “Would Edward explode in a shower of sparkles?”

I think he would:

And I mean no offense with this – I actually quite enjoyed the Twilight series.