8:30 pm – Saturday 16th August 2003

I can't even save myself…

Good heavens what a day, I woke up about 10 am, and spent the morning doing very little other than have a shower and check email. About 11 am I cycled down to the supermarket to get some groceries and after I dropped those off, I cycled into town to enjoy what might be one of the last warm summer days. About midday I cycled over to the big box stores and dropped into *.Mart where I found a MP3 player which I had been wanting for some time. Given that I'd just bought an airline ticket, I didn't really want to splurge out on something like this, but alas my need to boost the US economy prevailed and I bought it. I'd been out cycling for about an hour by the time I finally got home and out of the heat. I was fairly tired and so I crashed out for an hour with some odd dreams.
About 2 pm I woke up again and I just lay around the house trying to wake up properly. I talked to Ally for a little bit, but things were a little strained as her friends had cancelled on her again. About 6 pm I decided it might be a good time to try out the MP3 player when I went for my jog since that was the main reason why I bought it. I loaded it up with AFI's album “Sing the Sorrow” and a miscellany of “heavy” songs such as the very cool “Bodies” by Drowning Pool.
About 1 third of the way through my jog I wondered why I was feeling so tired, when I realized that usually I jog after work when I haven't already been cycling for an hour. Further on I got a nasty stich and then the MP# player stopped playing momentarily… Good Heavens, what else could go wrong?! Well, I shouldn't have asked, because one of the downsides of jogging outside is the distance you are from toilet facilities. It's hard to run when you desperately have a lot of fibre to dispose of. The run home was not very much fun, and I doubted that I'd beat my time, but as I raced inside on the way to the bathroom, imagine my surprise when I'd done the 4-5 mile run in about 40 minutes, hills and all! My mind however switched quickly back to more immediate issues of waste disposal. I think I can thank the MP3 player for distracting me and causing me to slow down out of boredom.

Friday was a rather dull day all up. Although I briefly talked to my boss, no one was in the lab to talk to, and the weather was up around 100 again. I came home about 4 pm and the University was completely dead, not a soul in sight anywhere. I guess everyone is taking time off during the last intersession break before school starts to enjoy the short Summer before the snows come back again. I had other minor things to keep me occupied as my bike had a flat tire, the first one since I bought it in November 2001. I didn't have a patch kit, but I decided the little moped could do with going for a spin and so first I went to put a gallon of fuel in the tank. Amusingly, this is the first time I'd filled it up since late May, so I didn't mind spending $1.80 on a gallon of “Premium fuel”. The I went to the supermarket where I found food but no patch kit, thankfully it wasn't too late and I was able to make it to a bike shop downtown.
I was just bumming around patching the tire when Mum called, and so I talked to her for a while. I mentioned how I'd read that Mel Gibson was a member of a Catholic sect that doesn't believe in the Vatican II reforms. Mum was a teenager when these radical changes went through the Church, and so I asked her about that. She summed it up fairly well by saying “A lot of people were attracted to the Catholic Church by the pomp and ceremony. But if you're not a good person in your heart, then what's the point?” Now, that's my kind of attitude. :)

Well, for tonight I'm cooking dinner and doing laundry, there's a showing of “Pirates of the Caribbean” in about an hour, so I might go over and see that.

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