environmentally friendly
when i first moved into my building, i asked a few people (the management office, the superintendent, a random cleaner) how to recycle. each of them told me to just throw it down the garbage chute. this was a less than satisfying answer to me, and, to make a long story short, calling the city repeatedly managed to force my building to start a recycling program. note that this was 2 years ago, not 1991.
last week i attempted to take my recycling to the rear of my building and discovered this:

i can only assume that they added the chains to the new recycle bins to prevent non-recyclable materials from being added. oh, and also recyclable materials.
old school citizen journalism?
at my office, we control our infections
sleep is optional
i’m starting to feel as though i’m the subject of my own micro-version of the truman show. specifically: i suspect that everyone in my apartment complex are conspiring to conduct a psychological sleep deprivation experiment with me as the subject. it’s not exactly news that i’ve had sporadic issues with noise in my building since i moved in two years ago, but it’s the sheer variety of ways in which i’ve been kept awake/woken up that’s changed. for example:
- an omnipresent and as yet unidentifiable pulsing hum audible from my bedroom, suggesting that perhaps my building runs on an alternative power source from the future
- various parties in my courtyard, ranging from douchebag frat boys playing foosball and drinking games to skatekids practising their rail slides
- a live jazz/big band-era band playing in my courtyard on a thursday night
- my old upstairs neighbours who dragged furniture every night at midnight for some reason
- my new neighbours who enjoy listening to dance music, preferably between the hours of 11 and 2 on a weeknight
- another neighbour’s dog (named gucci) who barked last night from 10:30 until 1:30
- miscellaneous people outside my door at all hours who forget that people actually live behind the doors they are talking loudly in front of. that’s what i get for living near the elevator.
and that’s of course leaving out the random shootings that happened last year.
in summary, i’ve learned a lot about how poorly i adapt to not sleeping enough over the last few months.
anything to be unique
you know, there are a number of adjectives i’d like to be able to use to describe a driving school: safe, cautious, maybe thorough…but unique?:

i’m confident that i wouldn’t take being called a “unique” driver as a compliment.
as an aside, this is my latest in my series of unique things that probably shouldn’t be described unique:

(originally posted here)
and
some people need a dictionary and/or thesaurus.
am i in the right place…?
you know that dream you have when you show up for an exam on the wrong day? last night at the skydome felt something like that:

it was weird to be able to walk through the 500 level concourse without seeing another person. it reminded me of going to olympic stadium in montreal in the olden days and not seeing a single person outside. spooky.
ps. it was nice seeing the US get beaten at baseball, even though i it seemed like i was trying harder than any of the american players, and i was drinking beer and eating a hot dog.
violators will be prosecuted
should i be thankful for a backyard concert?
i woke up to this at 11:30 last night:
whodoesntlikeabandintheirbackyard - some band
they wrapped up around 12:30. i have no idea who they were, but that’s the first time my backyard has been used as a concert venue.
(apologies for the low quality - it was recorded with my blackberry’s voice note recorder).
something that was gloriously bad
you know, it struck me recently that when i first set up this crappy little website back in march of 2002, google only had 3 results in its index for the word chumptastic. now, almost 7 years later, there are apparently 2920 (not a huge number, but still, almost a 1000% increase) - including its own urban dictionary definition.
so, uh…you’re welcome?
chumptastic dot org







