first day in the bay city

i love this place! and to save time writing and instead do important things like sleep so that i am rested up for another busy day tomorrow, here you have a bulleted list:

• i've only walked through one cloud of marijuana smoke since arriving
• the BART transit system is rather easy to navigate and the trip from the airport to my hotel was effortless, which is always a relief (but who puts carpet in public transit?!)
• there are a lot of good looking dudes in san fran and most times, i have no idea whose team they play on
• i had a delectable cupcake from kara's cupcakes in ghiradelli square, where i also got to sample some of the famous ghiradelli chocolate
• dinner was lovely (wild salmon, asparagus, mushroom, tomato, and artichoke heart pasta) and gave me another dairy stomach ache (this dairy thing is really getting out of hand)
• there are A LOT of hills in this city
• the twirly whirly road is really cool
• when i needed a caffeine injection to get me up and down those hills, i stopped at boulange de polk for a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino, it was magnificent
• there are some really cute little boutiques in the russian hill/nob hill area of the city and i know i would be a frequent visitor if i lived here
• because the flight this morning was westjet's inaugural flight to sfo, i got a lot of free stuff. who knew that westjet has their own lip chap?
• i forgot that american beer sort of tastes like water until i ordered a pint. i could probably drink 10 of those to match my 5 at home!
• my bird's nest of hair compared to many of the people on the streets of san francisco
• there is an anthropologie within 3 minutes walking distance from my hotel (which is also great!), which could be potentially dangerous

corn for food

(september 18, 2007)

happy birthday tay!

holy shite, my little brother is 15. and way taller than me.

i am catching up on my cbc podcasts and am listening to a fascinating piece on ethanol and the growth and use of corn. as much as husky would like canadians to believe that it is better for our environment if we use biofuels like ethanol, i really do not think that growing corn to be used as en energy source is a good idea and perhaps because i tend to look at these things from a global perspective. but as the difference in climate change and energy use is negligible it does not seem to be a fair trade off to drive up corn prices, effectively cutting out many buyers in the market who use corn to keep people alive, like the united nations world food programme (WFP) that cannot afford to buy corn to feed people in emergencies or refugee camps.

but that is just my simplified and off-the-cuff opinion on that.

i finally watched Garden State tonight and i give it a big Medium. an exboyfriend of mine once told me that i was like Natalie Portman’s character in the movie and i think that just goes to show you not how quirky i may be but how devastatingly normal he is. i like Zach Braff but was not as impressed as i felt i would be with this attempt at dark humour that he is normally great at. fabulous music and soundtrack though. have you seen The Last Kiss? a recommendation for sure.

now my podcast is telling me that canadian pot is 10 times as potent and half the price of american weed. and that canada has 4 times more marijuana users than any other western developed country. can you imagine what that dude from the Molson I Am Canadian commercials would say about that? it would be a funny advertisement. good podcast though. gotta love the cbc for covering a story from all angles.

i am working on my budget and it is almost complete and since this is the beginning of the year, as i see it, it is just in time to sort out my finances for the coming year. i love a budget. and i love excel. although it took me awhile to really fall madly and deeply in love with excel. it does so many neat things. and yes, calculations, sums, averages, exchange rates are all ‘neat.’

i can hear the imams at the mosques nearby as i type from my bed. it is a soothing sound.

mubarak ramadan.