A few weeks ago I was buying some books at Chapters, using my WaMu MasterCard card. My wallet was open, on the counter, and the bookseller could see my driver's license. He noticed I was from the states. Usually, when retailers notice this, they ask me if I am visiting. When I tell them I live here now, they ask me how I like it, etc. This guy asked me something completely different, and it rendered me speechless for a moment.

"So, do you like it better up here?"

Uhh... how to answer that politely. Because, let's face, I am Canada's house guest, and I don't want to offend. And the truth is, no, I don't.

To be fair, this is not a US vs. Canada issue. Or a Seattle vs. Vancouver issues. This is a Seattle vs. everywhere else on the planet issue. And no one has got a chance of beating it. Of all the places in the world, I love none so much as I love Seattle. I have never found another place that makes me feel like I am "home," like Seattle. It fits me.

It just so happens I found someone I love more than I love Seattle. And so here I am. And it's great. I do like it up here.

First of all, Seattle and Vancouver? Not that different. Or at least similar enough to suit me.

And living in a country that truly does consider all men created equal, allowing anyone to get married, not just the heterosexuals? AWESOME. Even though I am not looking to marry a woman anytime soon, I can't help but feel that Canada is the enlightened one on this continent. (Really, U.S., it's embarrassing, we have to start taking those "self evident" truths more seriously. In all manners of speaking.)

Thirdly, wheat thins taste better here*. They do, I don't know why. They are crispier. Taste more baked than fried. Bring me a box of US Wheat Thins and we'll have a taste test at my house. I will make you some cream cheese and Pickapeppa sauce dip, but you have to bring the Pickapeppa sauce, because I can't find it here.

One of my favorite things? Skytrain. I WISH Seattle had something like the Skytrain.

I hear the beer is better here, which really does not matter to me, but I have to give it props for that. However, don't get me started on the price of gas. No, don't. Because I was listing off things I like about Canada.

So like it better? No. But I like it just fine.

*things really do taste different. Conversely, Double Stuff Oreos do not taste good. I'm sorry, the "stuff" is weird up here.

Posted by jodi at 22h30 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by jodi at 13h51 | Permalink | Comments (1)

There is a spider that has been living in or around my desk for the last week. He's very tiny. I do not think he could make the leap from my desk top, to my neck, which is why he still lives. When he's on the curtain, I scoot away to the right, however. Just in case.

I have tried, numerous times, to scoop him up and take him outside. He has evaded me, thus far.

His name is Boris. Duh. All spiders are named Boris or Natasha. Thems the rules. I don't makes them and I don't breaks them.

Posted by jodi at 9h50 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, there we were last night, with a surprising number of people. 98% of them male. I saw one GF type person leave with her BF, he was carrying a special edition box of GTA 4. She had the look of "chauffeur" about her. I imagine this was tat for some mall shopping companionship tit from the recent past. And I saw a mom type lady from far back towards the end of the line.

We pulled in at 11, and then walked over to the Timothy Horton's for coffee. When we pulled in, there were two people sitting by the door. By 11:15, there were about 14, so Wil got in line. I stayed in the car until about 11:45. It's a good thing he got in line, because by the time I joined him, it went around the building. It's not that we wouldn't get a copy. We were guaranteed a copy since I pre-ordered a special edition copy for his birthday weeks ago. (It was from the kittens) It was just a matter of how long we had to wait once the store opened. They were only letting 10 people in at a time. It's a rather small store, that EB games.

Like I said, it was mostly guys in line. Boys... guys... men.... all shapes and sizes and ages, and all obsessed. I had no doubt the second Wil joined the line he would have someone to talk to. They were all buzzing with excitement. There was a dad type fellow who was there with a kid, no older than 8. (Didn't that kid have to go to school this morning? That's all I want to know. ) The kid apparently knew a couple of guys in line behind us, and spent most of the time back there, filling their heads with random facts.

"Did you know that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, but Madonna's kids are worth more."

He also implied that he'd seen both American History X and Porky's, to which both gentlemen professed some degree of distress. I have to admit, when he started talking about Porky's, I might have gasped a little. This kid was young.

Apparently it was all too much for the boys in line, that last ten minutes. The Dad started utilizing the Kid to trick the EB lady in opening the door early. The kid was all over this task. He was begging, pleading, professing a wicked need to pee. But to no avail. Finally the kid slapped the door and shouted "You're mean!" A collected gasp was heard through out the line. The dad sent him back to the two guys behind us, while everyone said "Whoa, dude... you took it too far."

This is Canada after all.

Posted by jodi at 15h57 | Permalink | Comments (2)

iPhone coming to Canada later this year.

Woot! Maybe in time for my birthday?

Posted by jodi at 15h30 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oh, you KNOW I'm going to be needing these for my collection.

They are almost too wonderful to be true.

Posted by jodi at 10h23 | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Dude, it's totally going to be 420 in twoOOOoooOOoo days."
"Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh."

Dude, we totally should have gotten married in April instead of July. Cuz then we'd be married on 420! Heh-heh-heh-heh. (distinctive pot smoker laugh) And like, for our first anniversary, we could have gotten each other rolling papers, right? Cuz the traditional first anniversary present is supposed to be paper or something. I think. I used to work at Hallmark, I should know this shit.

But we didn't. So today we are only at the 9 month mark. Which means Wil has finally figured out we didn't HAVE to get married. Sure pulled a fast on him, eh?

Since there is no such thing as a 9 month anniversary, I bought myself a present, a flash drive, which I had been wanting for a while. Had to have it. Had to.

Posted by jodi at 10h12 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Somehow it seems fitting.

I've seen this on a couple of different blogs. Most recently Us and Themand A Million Monkeys Typing.

Posted by jodi at 8h59 | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know what I miss? Fridays. The way Fridays feel. The TGIF of them. I realize you have to work or go to school to get that feeling. Maybe it's not worth it, if you can swing not doing either. But still, Fridays always felt great.

Today is Wil's birthday. Yay! For his birthday I got him an iPod Nano, black. He wants to start running and it has some sort of jogging kit you can get. You put something in your Nike shoe... I'm not sure how it works, but he's already got the Nikes. Plus, he wanted a small mp3 player for said running. I can't think of a single reason why you'd want anything but one of the many flavors of iPod, especially as a mac user.

My mom and Bob bought him a Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff of Aspen CO 1970 poster. AKA: The coolest poster in the world, according to
Wil. My goodness my mom knows him well.

The kittens pre-ordered the special edition of Grand Theft Auto 4 for him. He's only been waiting like a year and half for it. I swear to god his head is going to explode, now that we are at the 10 days and counting point. In fact, while pre-ordering it, I found out that the EB Games is having a midnight release party. So we can actually pick it up on Monday night. Technically, it will be the 29th, but physically, we'll still be feeling the 28th.

So yes, we will be sitting in the parking lot late Monday night, waiting to pick up his copy. Looking like a couple of huge gamer geeks. Actually, looking like one gamer geek and his wife who drove him there. Because she is so sweet. And intelligent. And kinda hot, too.

We are off to Pinky's for a birthday steak dinner. Hooray for meat!

Posted by jodi at 16h11 | Permalink | Comments (4)

I have been playing the sims the last few days. Before that, I was cleaning like crazy. It was weird. Anyway, the sims... last night when I went to bed, my eyes were a bit stingy and I think I've suffered permanent nerve damage in my tailbone. But that's what it's like with the sims, I don't play for a long time, but when I do I play a lot and for several days.

Anyway, I have a question that's long been on my mind. It's about blog comments. It's two questions I want to ask you really.
1. If you are a blogger, how do you handle your comments? Do you reply directly to people by email? Do you respond in the comments section of your own blog? Do you even reply at all?

2. If you are a commenter on many blogs, how do you like your comments handled? Do you like them to be acknowledged in the comments section? Do you go back and check for responses? Do like to get emails if you comment warrants a response?

I ask because I go back and forth. As a commenter, I don't always go back to a post to see if my comments are acknowledged, I read too many blogs. Many blogs have "Subscribe to this post" features and I really like that. It allows me to get email follow up comments on any posts on which I comment, if I so choose. Some people get soooo many comments, I don't really want an email follow up for each one. I like the conversational tone of acknowledging comments in the comments section, and I like the idea that other people can see your response. In the past, this is how I handled all comments.

On the other hand, there are blogs that acknowledge my comments with emails and I really like that too. I've gotten to know certain bloggers better, simply because of an established email relationship. I tend to do that a bit more now, email responses to commenters. I always try to send an email response to a new commenter no matter what, just to say "hi!" But I miss the conversational tone my comments used to have back in the day.

So its a quandary to me, how to handle comments. I was curious what you guys thought, what you prefer.

Posted by jodi at 12h11 | Permalink | Comments (11)