Je suis dans la Paris!

I leave today! I can't wait!!

I have spent sooooo much money this month. Between my trip, gifts for people (mainly my mom) and other stuff I need I've really eaten into the money I was accumulating. Not that I mind. I mean, I still save for retirement and stuff, so I might as well enjoy the rest.

Last night I bought a new jacket and also a new pair of jeans. The jacket was very necessary, the jeans...only a little but necessary, but they were nice and on sale. My old jacket I've had since high school and so that means it's way too big and not so nice anymore. The new one cost a bit more than I would have liked, but I had a really hard time finding it and I figure if it lasts even half as long as the last one then it will still be worth the price.

It seems that I have a bit of extra time that I didn't expect to have on my trip to France so I'm adding an extra city to my travels. I haven't entirely decided which one yet, but it has to be on the Mediterranean, so I'm thinking of Nice. It looks pretty sweet. But for me, it's really all about seeing that blue water and feeling the warm sun (much closer to the equator there) on my skin. The train ride from Paris will also be nice, getting to see the countryside of a foreign land.

Tonight was a small climbing night, only myself and one other guy. Normally a bunch of people from work come out but they've all been slackers lately. Anyway, I climbed not one, not two, but three 5.11- climbs, which I think is pretty good. Of course the rating is meaningless since difficulty changes from gym to gym and even within my gym there is a huge range within a grade. Furthermore, difficulty is very personal, some climbs are easier for some people. I did, however, climb one of them (the second) completely clean on my first try. It was a good night; I will be sore in the morning.

Just a small thing, but the image in the nav bar is now chosen randomly from a set of size 3. See if you can get them all by refreshing! I intend to add more images to the set as time progresses.

I'm in London this weekend visiting my mom for Mother's day and her birthday so we went out just now to rent a movie for tonight. We weren't going to be out for long so I just threw on my shoes and got in the car. I didn't grab my keys, wallet, cell phone or anything. It's been a very long time since I've left the house carrying nothing at all. It was a bit liberating to be unencumbered by the shackles of society. Although it did mean I had to pass up a 2 for $20 sale on DVDs and a 2 for $30 sale on Playstation 2 games. I've been thinking about getting some PS2 games lately, like classic ones that people think are good. I've always been a bit slow on video games but I don't mind. If they are good then they will still be good whenever I get around to them. Anyway, the two games I saw today were the original "God of War" and "Shadows of the Colossus."

I'm on the train right now, using wireless Internet on my laptop! It's super cool, because, well, having the Internet is awesome! No I'm not addicted to the Internet at all. Hahahaha.

Anyway, normally VIA charges for this, but they're having difficulties today (it's pretty slow), so it's free! I just turned on my laptop, connected to the network, and boom! Free Internet! I'm still super happy about that!

More importantly though, this free Internet is making me more likely to pay for Internet on future trips. Perhaps this is just a free taste to get me hooked. The next hit is gonna cost me!

Why do you type things up, but write things down? Our language is weird.

I have started choosing my selections for Annecy International Animated Film Festival that I'll be attending in France in LESS THAN A MONTH (awesome!). There are some really awesome looking collections of short films, and in particular there is one containing a production by the National Film Board of Canada. It sounds pretty cool and sorta in the same style as "Ryan" another film by the NFB that won an Oscar a couple years back. One of the other collections has a cool sounding short by Aardman, one that sounds fairly mature. I love seeing animated work targeted at adults so I can't wait to go to this.

There are also going to be a bunch of feature films competing, plus they are showing "sneak peeks" of "Shrek 3" and "Meet the Robinsons." These movies will have been out for a while here by then, but I guess they might have a delayed release schedule in Europe. Anyway, I'll probably at least see Shrek 3 there. I still need to spend some time to pick out a feature film to see that is a bit less mainstream.

The cool thing about film festivals is the chance to see stuff that may never be shown or distributed again. In many cases the reason is that the stuff isn't very good, but you never know. Mass market decisions are based on ideas of profitability, and not all good movies are suited to making lots of money. So sometimes they get lost and end up not being released to wider audiences. So it's important to try out some lesser known stuff and also just completely random stuff because you'll never know what you'll find.

This is going to be awesome!

Today I went to Canada Computers to get new memory cards for my camera to take on my trip to France. I got 2 2GB cards so I'll have about 4GB of space (Update: With my existing 256MB card, I will have space for 2121 photos). Hopefully that's enough. On the way back I walked through Kensington market and because it's nice out it was absolutely buzzing. All the stores had stuff outside and one was selling vintage clothes for really cheap. I picked up a corduroy blazer that is sorta Starsky and Hutch style for $3!! There wasn't any way I could not buy it. Here's a picture of me wearing it in our living room.

Me in my new (old) blazer

I also went to a fun Japanese store near Canada Computers and picked up a print of Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," which I hope to get a frame for and hang in my bedroom. I like the piece because it was used as an internal splash screen for Maya when I worked on it in my first co-op term at Alias. Here's a picture of it.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa