so often we using the aforementioned expression simply as hyperbole. this evening, i was caught in a true one. it was raining so hard it looked like snow as Timothy Patrick so nicely put it. he then offered to run out of the coffee shop first and open the car…and proceeded to stay in the vestibule and watch me, in a summer dress and chinese sandals, run through a puddle that came up three inches up my calf into the car. i was ringing water out of the skirt of the dress. i imagine it was very funny to watch me try and not leave a slipper, dying to float, behind.

i visited my old high school for the first time in five years today. it was quite an intense experience. gave a speech for a class of my old math teacher’s. got a history teacher’s phone number and email address - i am supposed to go over for dinner in July and meet his research assistant and see his collection of rare books. he had prof. krantz too if you can believe it.

my knee aches again. generally this means there will be another thunderstorm. apparently i have a lot of pizzazz. nightie night.

As promised, i will finally engage in my rather foul-mouthed rant against the folks at DB Multimedia, the previous hosts for the void magazine.

DB Multimedia did not provide enough bandwidth to keep our site up and running until the end of the month. This was problematic and could not be overcome without upping the cost of our package considerably, thus, we shopped around and found a new hosting service, not based in Canada, in Mochahost. We were rather attached to our domain name though, and were thinking about renewing the domain name with DB Multimedia instead of using one of the two free domains offered by Mochahost. This began a long, arduous and painful process.

You need an EPP Authorization Key to transfer domain names. The only way to get this "key" is by contacting the original registrar. Would ya know that DB Multimedia doesn't have an email address, phone number or fax number on their site? (which is filled with an insane amount of advertising even for a hosting service by the way). I managed to get an email and phone number by running a "Who is?" search on the domain name. I left three messages on their voicemail and got no response. I sent two emails before being told i had to fill out a "trouble ticket." My trouble ticket, three weeks later, has yet to be dealt with, despite my sending a third email a week ago.

My new hosts have been very helpful - even when i didn't really understand the problem, they have been patient and explained things in the simplest terms possible. They respond to my emails within ten minutes to 14 hours - a fantastic span. They provided me with the parent domain registering company's email address and i sent an email there. DB Multimedia finally got back to me after that step asking for more info: like the address and original receipt for the transaction. This was forwarded to them a week ago, and i still have no response.

Hence, the void's website is in the slow process of relocating to a new domain: thevoidmagazine.ca where you can find volume 4 up and running right now.

I am busy trying to get textpattern to work the way i would like it to. It requires a bit more understanding of code than wordpress, so it is a challenge. I hope you will all appreciate the results and add buttons linking to us in your blogrolls if you have a site to host it from. Nothing like a shameless plug now and then, n'est pas?

i gave the address of this blog to a young man who graciously tried to help me with the domain name problems i had been having. his comment was that they are very sad my entries. i think this might reflect my tendency to write when already succumbing to a state of melancholia. sorry to be depressing if it's the case.

and on that melancholic theme, i hereby provide you with a poem by a Chinese writer that reminded me a lot of how i felt last night.

HEAVENLY BODIES

perhaps the palm of the hand

has to turn into the back of the handperhaps lifehas to be taken apart and then put back together again

to see what life really looked like

I once climbed up onto the roof, but it was no good

the scenery beneath me was like a fine trickle of water

overhead, the Dipper turned, stars shifted

in a flash Beauty whizzed by me

too quick to leave me longing

DUO YU© Translation: 2006, Simon Patton

i was going to drive by his house. and call him if he was home. to see if he would admit it…if there was someone else there. i wanted to know if there was a reason he wasn’t calling me. i thought maybe i deserved more than to be told he wanted us to stay in contact and then dropping off the face of the planet. a girl worries.

God intervened. he created one of the worst traffic jams i have ever seen. i called him from in it to ask if everything was alright. he was at the drive-in, so it would have been pointless to drive there. God saved me the embarrassment. and here i thought he was just out to punish me. i guess i haven’t been forgotten.

moving lisa went less painfully than expected. hanging out at Merav’s was nice. Lots of LAC folks and two professors as well as a lot of peeps i didn’t know.

Vanessa’s party rocked. Wish i could have drank more sangria. it was awesome. as was her cooking.

i am going to read some short stories. tomorrow i must get back on the bandwagon of getting stuff knocked off the to-do list. i finished the season of dead like me so there are no more excuses.

i am worrying three rings to remind me that i am on a diet. i am tired of feeling bloated as a puff fish.

Sarah and i went to both Cheap Thrills and Paragraph yesterday. I had never before been to either. I did not buy anything at the latter, but she did. I got used: Ulysses, Decameron and Chretien de Troyes. At five dollars each - an incredible bargain. We also went out for breakfast - i ordered waffles with fruit and English cream but rec'd french toast. I didn't complain because the girl was obviously working her first shift (explaining of table lay-out gave it away). I am not always a bitch.

My Mum and i went to the Brasserie La Blainvilloise for dinner. Spaghetti, Caesar Salad and Garlic Bread for $2.49. Yum. Ran into a girl who used to work at Subway - weird. Watched four episodes of Dead Like Me. I am horribly torn between Nabokov and this series. How to choose?

The last episode ended on a sad note. I tried to fall asleep craddling my cat like a baby. It was too hot. So i ended crunched around my body pillow (and some sobbing). I miss being held and listened to and pampered and under-appreciated and lied to and all the stuff that was integral to our relationship. I am not going to call him. If he calls me, fine and good, but after the text message i sent him, i think his not calling is indicative of whether or not we can even be friends.

as a continuation of my last post…

i asserted yesterday yet again that i COULD live the life of a hobo wandering around Europe. I was going to say gypsy, but then i remembered how meanly they were treated in Italy and take it back. I decided to spend a good part of my afternoon outside. Of course, i work in an industrial area, so i was hard pressed to find a nice patch of grass. Enter street person mentality — i commandeered a huge cement block under the hydro tower (yes, a metal one, i know…cancer) and proceeded to fall asleep by curving myself AROUND the metal bar that protrudes out of the middle. I woke up and hour and a half later with a bit of a suntan and cement marks all over my arms and legs. It was refreshing nonetheless.

I also finished the media kit last night. Went to bed at an ungodly hour of 1 something and am eating breakfast before going off to meet Sarah. CIRA has not updated the contact information yet, so i am still unable to get the website moved. Alas, the trials and tribulations of a web editor.

I hate internet explorer. i have now typed this entry three times and am fed up. must work.

ok. round five of writing this post… for those of you who felt the need to tell me to get firefox…i use a powerbook and LOVE Safari. At the office, however, i do not have administrative privileges on my computer and can't install any software. I am stuck with shitty microsoft. ah well.

i meant to do laundry and engage in a stream of phone calls upon arriving home last night, but rather ended up watching the Season Finale of HOUSE. I love HOUSE, but i hate that post-modern hallucination sequence bullshit. Damn you for ruining what could have been a good thing. Right now i am very tired of planning stuff and running around. If you want to do something, i suggest you email or call me. otherwise, i am hiding in my room with Nabokov's short stories and the many items on my to-do list: make media kit, upload website, start new website, study for the GREs, write letter of intent draft for grad apps.

The train ride home seemed long but it wasn't. It was an express. The Zoo was very fun. Great even. I would go again…not in the very near future, but one day. I have some retroactive posts at home to be uploaded. I will set the dates to when they were written - i like that feature muchly.

I'm on a diet again. Too much drinking this week-end. An overwhelming, extraordinary and mind-boggling consumption of wine and vodka. My cat missed me. I sent a text message to steve from inside a bar (andy poolhall for the curious) because VERONICA didn't stop me… it said "pourquoi il a fallu que je laisse celui qui me complete?" [translation for ilya and any other non-french speakers: why did i have to leave him who completed me?] i was dwelling on that during the ride home. I want to go to Europe and just disappear. Work random shitty jobs and live the life of a hobo. If only i could draw, then there would be something to do sitting on a bench in the sun or inside a cafe in the rain. People watching is weird from behind a book. Maybe i won't get back on the Cruise ship in St. Petersburg.

And a tidbit: How did the CN Tower become Canada's Wonder of the World? Is Niagara not infinitely more impressive, worthwhile and inspiring? I haven't been, but let's remember what the CN Tower is - a glorified radio antenna. I want to see the Sears Tower in Chicago. That it's actually that tall…and used all the way up. Impressive. I wonder if it's as ugly as the World Trade Centre was. Anyone know?

Ok. I am going outside to read and nap. I would like to write the media kit today, but am not entirely optimistic. i also need to study more for the GREs but i was too lazy to take the book out of my suitcase. Oh, and that pesky laundry. Damn it.

So, where i am now…the people would be evicted if they lived in this town…

and, i must ask, how is it that if you are an unmarried couple and you have only one kid, it's ok to live together, but not if you have two?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060517/ap_on_re_us/unmarried_couples

The Royal Ontario Musuem is pretty shitty. We did not follow Justin’s suggestion in the end and head out around 1pm to the ROM as they call it. It is under construction. There is a very nice Asian wing with murals, a collection of buddhas and other archaelogical finds. There is also a pretty nice Egypt and Greek section. It is understandable that all the artificats are pottery and other remnants in these areas.

The 2nd floor is dominated by an animal exhibit. They are all stuffed and Toronto has a supposedly (because I haven’t been yet) top-notch zoo. Why waste valuable space on something Toronto already has covered? The European floor was a huge let-down. There were two cases on the Renaissance and I thought I have walked out of an eight-year old history book, with pictures, when looking at the displays. Rooms from different “periods” were reconstructed for your perusal. It was essentially a furniture exhibit with the worst audio presentations I have yet to hear. It was as if someone was trying to recreate the Met but with only one-hundredth the budget. And they doubled up on certain exhibits too – if I saw one more Victorian English parlour, I would scream. The MMFA does a much better job in my humble opinion – mainly because there is art and the museum chose to specialize.

Veronica and I then walked down Bloor street to the Indigo where I was reminded why I hate Starbucks – because they are too good there to serve Orange Pekoe tea. You get a choice of Earl Grey or Chai – too snobby teas and not the ones most serious tea drinkers (i.e. the people who would actually pay three dollars for a tea) consume on a regular basis. We snooped the shelves, found lots of great stuff, and put a lot back again. I ended up with only one purchase – Nabokov’s short stories.

We returned back to the house with wine, books and an appetite to a gourmet meal of hotdogs, French fries and corn on the cob. We then rushed out to YukYuk’s where I laughed myself senseless. Yeah YukYuk’s! I can’t remember the names of the comics who were playing last night. One’s website is House of Pete. We returned home at the ever so nice hour of 1:30am. I only woke up at quarter to ten. Well rested and contented with yesterday, we will be heading to Casa Loma.

Ashleigh and Justin are very nice. As my previous blog entry might indicate, she and I spent the evening discussing relationships and drives for success. I managed to feel kind of validated in the whole breaking up with Steve thing, but then again, as I look at them, content in a nice area of Toronto, planning their marriage and purchase of a house, I get sad again. I went to sleep at 2am, and, as usual, was up before 8. I would love to be able to sleep like a normal person after drinking like a fish the night before.

Justin suggested a trip to St. Lawrence Market, the Harbour and then the CN Tower today. Not a bad plan. The academic portion of the trip was completed yesterday with the tour of U of T. I know all Universities like present themselves in this pretentious manner, but I spent the entire time trying to poke holes in the tour guides narrative. The fifteen minute film on the great people who attended U of T was just vomit worthy. The campus is beautiful however, and I am sure I would be happy here. I just don’t like the idea of a university that doesn’t have a “let no student starve” iniative. The tour guide couldn’t even imagine what I was talking about. I guess the activism at Concordia has spoiled me rotten.