Snow Is Coming

According to the Weather Network, there's about 30 cm expected to hit most of Southern Ontario (including Kingston!) over Tuesday evening and Wednesday. This is very exciting! We haven't had a real snowstorm yet this season.

Snowstorms are always much more exciting when you don't have to drive anywhere. And when you're a student. Other than classes (which may get cancelled) there are basically no obligations. It's easy to just hole up inside with a good book and wait out the storm.

Okay, weather, don't let me down. Show me the snow!!!

Decisions, Decisions

Yesterday, I found out that I have the opportunity to go to the University of Bath on international exchange next year. I have to decide whether or not I'm going by Thursday. I've been told I should make a list of the pros and cons of going. I think that it's an amazing opportunity and I'd be making a big mistake if I turned it down, though.

I have a lot of thinking to do this weekend!

Childhood memories

I don't think anything makes me miss my childhood more than this video. It's the trailer for The Lion King that appeared at the beginning of the VHS Fox and the Hound. It takes me back.

Dogs

I always seem to be on a quest to find my perfect future dog. I don't plan on actually getting a dog until I've graduated and been working for a few years, but there's no harm in planning ahead, right?

I've posted about my dog, Lou, before, who is a standard poodle. He's my second dog, the first one was also a poodle. We've always had big dogs because my dad isn't a fan of little dogs, but I'm 90% sure that my first dog of my own will be a little dog.

For a while now, I've been thinking that my future dog will be an American Eskimo (if anyone's seen The Proposal, Ryan Reynolds's family has one of these dogs). This is an American Eskimo puppy:

Basically it's just a little white fluffy thing! Totally adorable though.

Since I was little though I've loved Scottie dogs...they're so funny! They look like they're trying to take themselves so seriously but at the same time they look ridiculous. Here's a picture of a Scottie and a Westie hugging:

Actually, I think they would be a bit of a handful.

Random Thoughts...

I don't have anything going on right now that is significant enough for its own post, so I'm doing a post of random thoughts. I might keep doing these if it goes well. Here goes...

Random Thoughts Part I.

Arrested Development is funny

My dog is silly and tired.

C is for Cookie. What else is there?

I want cheese.

Birthday Cake Batter Pancakes!

This is my apology for the last post. If I terrified anyone as much as I terrified myself, you are welcome to come to our house and I will make these pancakes for you. Goodnight everyone.

I don't know why I'm posting this...

Last night I had a very hard time sleeping. For some reason, we decided to watch very very scary short films. And of course, me being who I am, after everyone else lost interest, I proceeded to watch more and more until I freaked myself out beyond the point of sleep.

This isn't the scariest video ... this one is, true to its name, creepy. All the videos we watched were by Fewdio, and the absolute scariest is called Bedfellows. Seriously, don't watch it unless you don't want to sleep tonight.

Here is Creep, the second scariest video that I saw yesterday:

I'm sorry if I've ruined anyone's sleep. SERIOUSLY DON'T WATCH BEDFELLOWS!!!

And I promise I'll be back to posting happy things on my blog soon.

I Wish Isaac Mizrahi Was My BFF

We would have good times together.

Isaac's Website and Blog. A video of Isaac on the Martha Stewart show being cute and causing trouble.

This blog post actually has little purpose...but there isn't much interesting stuff going on in Kingston right now. I'm studying for a finance quiz tomorrow. Derivatives!! Call Options!! In-the-money!! Ya...that wouldn't make a very good blog post.

Oh and I'm reading James Franco's book. I just started yesterday, we'll see how it turns out.

That is all!

Fawlty Towers!

I know lots of people love Monty Python, but when I was a kid I found a tape we recorded of a few episodes of Fawlty Towers and I absolutely loved them. The video I posted is a mix of clips from one of the twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers, "Communication Problems". But my favourite episode will always be The Germans, where Basil has to hang up a moose head, conduct a fire drill, and host a party of German tourists for lunch. Hilarity ensues! Anyway, please enjoy the video!

From My Ethics Class...

Kingston is Snowy.

It was very snowy out yesterday! Housemates and I went out to run some errands and we had to take a cab back from downtown. This picture was taken when we were just starting out, and you can see down the street that the snow's so thick...well, you can't see down the street. And it got even more impressive! We were all glad to be home afterwards.

This Makes Me Happy

Last night on Dragon's Den, they did a special episode featuring returning pitchers to the den who had previously appeared on the show, but were not given money. One of the pitchers, Ralph, is an inventor who had been on the show twice before with no success. If you want to see his pitch, it's at this link in episode 11, in the third section (just click past the second white dot).

Ralph has one of the most positive outlooks I've ever seen. His invention, a vacuum hair-cutting device, unfortunately did not work, but the entire time he was smiling and hopeful that he might land a deal. When Kevin informed him that he had failed once again, his response was a sort of 'oh well, maybe next time!'.

In the end, Jim and Brett each gave him a thousand dollars just to keep doing what he's doing. Jim's reasoning was because Ralph had given him a good laugh three times, and Brett's was that he loved supporting an inventor. Ralph was unbelievably happy and surprised, and concluded by saying how amazing it was that he would finally be getting paid to do what he loves. By the end of his segment, I had a big smile on my face.

If you have time, check it out!

Canada, I Love You

I had recently commented to my friends that, throughout my life, I had never been (as far as I'm aware) near a loaded gun. That all changed about a week ago.

Please note that I am in no way trying to disrepute Mexico. I'm just retelling this life experience.

When we first arrived in Puerto Vallarta, we needed to drive for about half an hour through the downtown part of the city to get to our resort.

About 5 or 10 minutes into the drive, we realized that we were 2 cars behind a military vehicle that had 6 men with rifles slung over their shoulders sitting out on the back. Within a few minutes of seeing this, we were stopped at a light. I was a little wary but figured everything would be okay.

All of a sudden, every person (including the driver) jumps out of the military vehicle and swarms the truck next to us, holding the people inside at gunpoint. We had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. The road was only two lanes wide, so there was no way to go around them.

I don't know how long this lasted for (seemed like a minute, was probably not that long. 10 seconds maybe?) but finally some of the military men started laughing and they all got back into their vehicle, letting the truck driver go. We, however, had to continue driving right behind the military men, and I noticed them pointing at us, the tourists.

We finally got away from following their vehicle and made it to the resort unscathed.

After I recovered from the trauma this incident brought me (feel free to note how sheltered my life has been), I took a moment to reflect on how this sort of thing would obviously never happen in Canada. I don't think I've ever been so grateful for the stability and safety that Canada offers us. So, Canada, I love you.

Puerto Vallarta

Hey! Last night we came back from our trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I'd forgotten how cold Canada is. We had amazing weather (sunny every day!) and saw some amazing things.

Here are some of my highlights of the trip:

• Fresh Mexican tortillas!! I don't know if I can go back to eating store-bought tortillas now.
• New Year's fireworks!! Our resort set off some fantastic fireworks. But we also got to see all the fireworks around the bay going off, so it was a fantastic show
• Whales and dolphins!! We went to John Huston's island, Las Caletas, and on the way saw an amazing show. Humpback whales spend the winter in Mexico, and we saw several on the way to the island. We also saw soooo many dolphins, and some spotted dolphins were so close, you could actually see their spots every time they jumped out of the water. Sometimes, they would be swimming in a sunny patch of water, and you could follow them underwater! And when we were almost at Caletas, there was a mother humpback whale just off the shore teaching her baby how to slap its tail on the water, so we must have seen at least a dozen tail slaps, and a couple of times the whale jumped out of the water! It was amazing
• Hummingbirds!! There was some kind of plant at our resort that the hummingbirds loved, so we would be eating lunch and hummingbirds would just fly by checking out the flowers. So pretty!

So here are a few photos from the trip...

The poinsettias in the resort lobby left over from Christmas

The view from our balcony

A horrible picture of me with my parrot friend at Las Caletas