There’s definitely something to be said for changing one’s training pattern. If you keep doing what you like, your body adapts remarkably well and finds physiological shortcuts to carry you through your routine with minimal effort (and therefore, results). BAD body!

On the other hand, I am a creature of habit, and mixing it up is just not my thing. Making my four salad lunches every Sunday is the only way to ensure I won’t eat expensive, fatty shish taouk all week. Running my 45 treadmill minutes every two days is the only way to ensure I get any exercise.

In order to mix things up in the simplest way possible, I’ve been flirting for the past month with the idea of hiring a personal trainer. Someone who does the thinking for me when I’m out of ideas, someone who knows how to make the most out of every painful expended calorie, every bead of sweat. Yesterday, I finally decided it was time. Tonight, I signed him up. Tomorrow morning at 7 am, we start. Hopefully, six months from now, I finish the half-marathon, having doubled my endurance.

This won’t hurt a bit… I’m counting on it to hurt a lot.

I’ll keep you posted.

Glmph. The sound my brain makes as it tries to vote in the Game Developer’s Choice awards for this year. I complained that 2005 was the year where lots of good franchises jumped the shark, but as it turns out I’m at a loss to pick the best games of the year. Unlike voting in a Canadian election, it’s hard to find the worthiest of all worthy options.

I mean, is the best game God of War or Guitar Hero? Gah, that’s like making me pick whether I like my mom or dad more!

Glmph!!!!

…or should I say “paminnelsegate“?

While I lived in Lund, I took lots of lovely pictures of the beautiful Swedish town, and then my camera was stolen, my memories with it. A Flickr tag search has allowed me to revisit it for the first time in years. Happy, happy times. The web rocks.

The library of the university I attended.

We’d travel everywhere by bike.

Used to go for coffee on this street with my Finnish pal Janne. He looked like Elijah Wood. I wonder what became of him.

She-mail from the irreplaceable Martine:

I bet you [the following is how] you’ll end up being in a long term relationship … You won’t get butterflies, you’ll just hang out for a while, you’ll fuck, you’ll fuck again, you’ll spend a couple of Saturday nights at home playing Pride and Prejudice (the videogame version) and the first thing I’ll learn is that you are pregnant and ecstatic.

Well that kinda sucks… But hey, at least there will be a Pride and Prejudice videogame!

I just had a Jack Bauer day. The kind of day where you see people leave for the day at two o’clock, then you realize it’s half past five.

A day where someone announces that your appointment is here, and you bitch that they weren’t due for another three minutes.

Where five minutes is an eternity in which a hundred conversations, events, changes and decisions occur, and yet a day which goes by in a flash.

A day I couldn’t handle more than once in a while, and yet, my favorite type of day.

Innocently flipping through the channels this morning, I happened upon an Olympic hockey game. Oh, it’s men’s hockey and Canada’s playing. Oh, we’re WHAT? Losing to Switzerland in third period!!! Surely this is bad fiction, or archive footage from some moments-to-forget reel… But no, this abomination is happening right as I write.

The Canadians, all of them professionals, are getting their millionnaire asses handed to them by Switzerland. Not Sweden (which would be bad enough), not Belarus.

Switzerland.

And now Vincent Lecavalier just got TWELVE penalty minutes. Thanks, asshat. Couldn’t you have played like this in your last playoffs against Montreal?

My Hockey Tourette’s is in full form this morning.

UPDATE: Paul DiPietro, who scored both goals for Switzerland, was born in Sault Ste-Marie, uh… CANADA. Somebody needs to go Jack Bauer on his ass.

I’ve always said I hated L.A., but I’m starting to come around. It probably helps that I’ve managed to avoid going to Hollywood on my last three trips, but also, I started yesterday by having my morning coffee on a lovely terrasse…

…and ended it sitting in a tiny can being blown all over the tarmac in a bumpy attempt to land, five hours late, in icy Montreal.

How are the Kings doing this season? Just asking…

Else they’ll go to a shelter.

Enquire within.

Phew! Today I complete another happy lap around the zodiac. Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes and all the friends, old and new, who helped me celebrate on the weekend

The trip to Australia is cancelled. This is a good thing (TM).

Everyone should have an adequate web presence. For nosy people who want to find out stuff about you. Come on, what have you got to hide?

My lead designer said today, it’s exhausting trying to make everyone happy. Hear hear. Sometimes I feel like I’m playing the Sims in real life.

I’m trying to figure out what to do for my birthday party. My friends are such a motley assemblage, I don’t know what we could do that they’d all enjoy.

I kicked complete ass at Jeopardy! today.

Have you ever had a dream that made no sense, but felt so profound you knew it was meaningful?

I don’t have to always make sense, do I?