PERS - It's alright, 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown.

For some reason I feel quite dizzy right now.

It's like feeling a little buzz after a couple rum and cokes - you're balance is a little disabled and your eyes wobble in your head a bit.

This could be the effect of a 24-hour headache, or possibly because I only ate carrots and drank a half-glass of green energy smoothie. Hell, it could even be these long-johns I'm wearing under these my jeans. They could be affecting my circulation. Who knows.

What I do know is that my Christmas passed without any major glitches. The 'rents got me a great printer (Thanks mom+dad!), which threw me into a 10-hour portfolio extravaganza. I had been waiting for weeks to print out my projects along with their descriptions, and I went a little overboard with developing the layout because the printer was doing a fantastic job of dishing out great-looking prints. Now my portfolio went from 5% to 90% completed and I couldn't be more excited.

The real question is: Will OCAD love it? I can't fathom who I'm up against, and my only window to see into the minds of my competition are current students' work on the website and also searching the blogs of people currently in the admission process, like moi. (Typing "getting into OCAD" in Google and "OCAD" in technorati brings up some interesting results.)

Ok, so you might be wondering what sort of stuff is in my portfolio, since I won't shut the hell up about it. Here's one of the pieces I will include, shown in ultra-low quality, paranoid-watermarking style.



I may lie down now, the dizziness continues...

POP TV - "It's not pink, it's coral."

My loyalty to the still-birth show The Apprentice: Martha Stewart was betrayed by a horrible finale last night.

If anyone still watched this show by its abysmal end, you'd have to agree with me that there was no excitement, no intensity, and no punch. After watching the Donald achieve an impressive end to Season 4 of his show, you would think the producers of Apprentice: Martha would go back to the drawing board and conjure up a fantastic finale.

They could have moved the production from the set of Martha (barf) to Radio City Music Hall. Replaced the work table where the judges sat with a glass box full of snakes. Add male strippers in cages to the background. Release a lion into the crowd. Duct tape Alexis's mouth. Or better yet, release Alexis into the crowd. So. Many. Options.

Other "highlights":

- Like a boy with turret's syndrome, Martha's man-bitch Charles blurts out "Hubba Hubba!" at the Liz ClaiBURN (thanks Amanda!) fashion show. As if the phallic cigar wasn't enough to prove his male chauvinism.

- Alexis arrives at the fashion show in a sloppy black dress, sloppy hair and sloppy posture. She then gets out of her SUV and slams the door violently while displaying her signature bored glare. What a scrapper!

- Bethanny snubs all of her teammates and quickly jumps into her car. Much like Martha probably snubbed all involved in the making of this show.

- When the last minutes of the show came, Martha skipped the back-and-forth between the two candidates, and just said "Bethanny, we don't need you, Dawna, I'd like to offer you a job!" When the show was over and the lights were off, Martha added, "I was kidding, Dawna, you're all FIRED! GET OFF MY SET! DON'T HIT YOUR ASS ON THE WAY OUT! AAAAAHHH!! I FEEL SO DIRTY!! ALEXIS, START A BATH, CHARLES, GET THE JAVEX! MUST GET CLEEEAAANN!"

Now that they ran the show into the ground, I officially no longer feel bad that it wasn't renewed.

What a train wreck.

PERS - Merry Ice-mass, crazies!

There's at least two issues I have with the City of Fredericton, and they both reared their ugly heads this morning.

The first being the state of the sidewalks on the streets I travel. If I weren't a spry 20-something with the strength to prevent a spill, I'd be long dead by now. Not even my winter boots will help me because the ice is terrible, and it's not going away any time soon with the cold weather we've been getting. It's only getting more slippery. The first sign of relief from having to watch every step was when I entered the cemetary downtown. The sidewalks were as dry and clear as can be. Thanks, dead people!

Did the city officials decide that the sidewalks can do without salt or sand this year? Did they think that the thin layer of snow they left behind would not turn into a safety hazard? Gah!

My second issue is with certain bus drivers employed by Fredericton's wonderfully dysfunctional transit system.

I walked onto the bus this morning, and when the driver punched my bus card, he said a loud and proud "Thanks!", which is certainly a welcome change of pace from the usual grunt - or dead silence - I get after I thank them for punching my card. Then I realized: this is the guy who talks to himself, and makes random comments loudly to whoever is on the bus.

About 10 minutes into the ride, I was happily listening to Madonna's "Get Together" when I leisurely glanced around the bus to find I was the only one left on it. Whenever this happens, I turn the volume down on my mp3 player in case the driver has something to say that I must know, such as "you have to switch buses", or "service ends at (inconvenient location)" or "I can't go under 50 or this tin box will EXPLODE!"

...You get the point.

To my dismay, the bus driver was talking to himself, blurting random things at a volume that couldn't possibly be heard from my position near the back of the bus. I tried to assume that he was talking over the radio system, but I heard no defining bleeps or bloops I usually hear when they are communicating with other bus drivers. Instead, he was mumbling angrily while frantically looking in the rear view mirror every 30 seconds.

A school bus stops in front of him? He starts mumbling angrily.
An SUV is parked on the side of the road? He starts mumbling angrily.
A child runs into the middle of the street? He runs them over and starts mumbling angrily.

Ok, so no child was harmed in the filming of my life this morning, but why should I have to endure such psychotic ramblings just so I can get safely to work?

All I ask is that my sidewalks are clear, and that my bus drivers aren't schizophrenic.