Is there a mechanic in the house? My car broke down tonight, I’m pretty sure it’s the starter. Anyone know if I can get a rebuilt starter at a dealer’s? Anyone know how much I should expect to pay? Anyone know a nice mechanic?

The site was down due to the major outage that occurred yesterday. Too bad, because I actually had a few things to say today. Now we’re back, but it’s past five on a Friday. 5 à 7 time…

Have a good weekend.

You can now update your bookmarks. This blog has permanently moved to www.lightspeedchick.com.

I know, I know, no more good ol’ www.lightspeedchick.com/blog/main.html. Is nothing sacred anymore?

(Thanks Steph)

Yesterday was my wedding day, again. And again, something was terribly wrong.

I’ve had this recurring dream since high school. I realize that I’m getting married today, and haven’t had time to prepare properly. Something’s always missing. A few months ago it was my wedding day but I’d forgotten to send out the invitations, so I was on the phone trying to scrounge up whatever guests I could. Once it was my wedding day and I didn’t have a dress. Once I couldn’t find my way to the church.

In Cegep it was once my wedding day and my husband was some stranger who spoke an unintelligible language, while the priest, a young blond girl, badgered me about not being ready for this. Once, I was getting married to someone I didn’t know, but it was too late to back out.

Yesterday I realized at 4:15 pm that I was getting married at 3. Everyone was waiting for me. I quickly put on my dress, and then realized it was a horrible, ripped and dirty dress, with many many discount tags on it.

I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “this isn’t happening. It’s one of those stupid wedding day dreams”. But then I got distracted by the fact that I didn’t know how to put on makeup, and had to call Bill to rush over and help me.

I don’t really think this dream is about my wedding day. For one, I don’t really think about marriage. For the other, I’ve had this dream throughout my life, whether I was in a relationship or not. I never see or know who the groom is. I think it’s about something having to be perfect, but failing to be so. Well, who knows.

via Typo Negative.

You know those posts where bloggers list goofy search engine queries that have landed people on their site? For example, Patrick was recently saying that someone ended up on his site after searching for “power genitalia”. Bill was boasting for a while that she was the top hit for “montreal blow job”. Such listings often have you wondering in what situation such searches would ever arise (my own favorites remain “Armadillo penis” and “Pee bladder embarrassed desperate”).

Well, this is a variation on the theme. See, whenever I enter a search string in Google, my PC tries to fill out the words for me, with things I’ve entered before. So a drop-down list of things I’ve already searched appears.

The result is a fun trip down memory lane, a return to whatever random thoughts I’ve had in my most bored moments this year, that is, when I was surfing at work. Some I absolutely don’t know what I was thinking about. Try it, it’s fun.

all your base are belong to us t-shirts
barry pepper broke ed norton’s nose
billy boyd
caloric expenditure of push-ups
captain nemo
cell padding
desire for amputation
extra vertebra
furry friends of fine
hate wil wheaton
joe dassin
l33t
morten harket
nevada power
origami arktika
rubber duckie study
turbo negro
us post office slogan through rain
velcro virgin
what happens when you’re struck by lightning
what sucked about episode 2
what’s on the dead sea scrolls
yoko tsuno

I’m bored to tears at work these days. But it’s like that every summer, companies just don’t book training during vacation time. So every summer I sit in a cubicle, gazing outside, wondering what else I could do with my life. Luckily, when I have the “if I could go back” discussion in my head, I find I wouldn’t change all that much.

Sometimes I think I should have stuck with film making. But then I remember getting out of film school at 20, and feeling very strongly that I needed some more formal education in something, anything. I chose psychology because I felt it would apply to anything I might want to do.

Then I wonder whether I should have stuck with Psych, although the idea was never really to become a shrink. And when I wonder about that, I remember the time I spent counselling “at risk” youths, and how many tears I shed that summer, which was my first contact with real suffering. How I didn’t really want to grow a shell and become able to “deal with it”. I truly have an enormous amount of respect for those who dedicate their lives to alleviating the suffering of others.

The biology degree I did afterwards is probably the hardest thing to justify to myself. Would I be happier had I spent those years doing something else? By then I knew I wanted to teach, and I felt I needed to be an expert at something - anything - if I was to teach it. Biotechnology was fascinating, and in my world view it was highly employable. If nothing else, doing that degree allowed me to work and study in Sweden for a while.

Sometimes I think being an artist would have been the happiest life, but then I know I crave the security of a steady job. Sometimes I think if I could go back I’d spend more time practising music and drawing, so that I’d eventually be talented enough to earn a living from it.

It used to bother me that my CV was a real mosaic, that my interests had been all over the place. I envied those who right from square one, had a clear idea of where they were going. But those are rare individuals. I try to forgive myself past choices by remembering where I was when I made them. I try to remember that my mosaic life simply means I could be happy doing many different things. And I actually succeed in believing that.

[with respect to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announcement Wednesday that he would run for governor]

Uh huh. How in the seven hells is Ah-nold qualified? He has enormous popularity and he’s tall, so we’re good to go, right?

What if Canada went the way of California? What Canadian celebrities would
make good PM’s?

What I want to know is, how would Wayne Gretzky’s pro-Bush stance affect his chances of being elected?

I have been watching all of the major HBO series on DVD. Renting them is much better than seeing them on TV; you don’t have to worry about missing an episode, you can see as many as you want in a row, and - this is especially nice - you don’t have to waste time at the video store wondering what to rent next. So far I’ve seen all the Sex and the City, some of Band of Brothers, all of The Sopranos, and are currently watching Six Feet Under. They are all excellent.

But Six Feet Under is that “something amazing” I’ve just discovered. I’m very hooked. It’s about two undertaker brothers, which may sound bizarre, but it’s an extremely entertaining series. I highly recommend it. It’s not only intelligent, but witty and often surreal (intelligently surreal, not Ally McBeal surreal), beautifully shot (you’ll know what I mean when you see the gorgeous opening credits). It’s hilarious, yet touching, the characters have depth and are wonderfully cast and acted.

As to how it compares with the other major HBO series, it’s more consistently entertaining and far less predictable than Sex and the City (but in fairness I’ve only seen eight episodes of SFU so far), it’s easier to watch than (the truly excellent and also beautifully shot) Band of Brothers, and it’s also more sustained, easier to watch and easier to follow than the Sopranos.

I hope you soon discover it too. Rent the first DVD (three episodes) and give it a try.

Tonight.