Thanks for the protection, Firefox. The only problem is, 71 of those popup blocks were from me clicking frantically on the link, hoping against hope that you’d get the point and let the popup through after you so nicely blocked it the first time.

I could swear there used to be a way to allow a popup window for one time only, based on using a modifier key when clicking. I’m just not comfortable enough with the website to add it to the whitelist. Who knows what other crap there might be on there. Maybe I don’t even know if I want this crap let through on future visits but just want to see it once to be sure. The whole process of adding to the whitelist, clicking, then figuring out how to remove it again is not exactly the picture of efficiency.

Ironically, after hunting down a Firefox extension that allows one time only popups, in order to install it I had to add the site to the whitelist for allowing pages to install software, install the bloody software, and then remove the site from the whitelist again (because who knows what other crap is on that site).

The extension didn’t work anyway, and Firefox continued happily blocking my precious popup. Oh god, I just realised—could it have been Internet Explorer that had that feature built in? Could it be that IE actually turned out to be better than Firefox at something? I can’t bear to think of it. I’m going back to my blissful Youtubing.

Summer must be nearing its end. The Irish are gone.

My supervisor actually used the phrase “ready to submit” today in regards to the paper we’re writing. It was preceded by “getting close to being almost”, but I still see that as a significant step. My official work term ends on Friday, but I suspect there’ll be at least a few days more next week. The disadvantage of not flying out of town right away, but worth it if it means a published paper.

Meanwhile the less official parts of Vancouver are beckoning. Mountains to be climbed, people to see, that sort of thing. Months worth of pictures are backed up on my hard drive just waiting to see the light of day (by which I mean the internet). Those of you on facebook may have had a sneak peak, since facebook’s shiny and smooth method of making photo albums is much easier to deal with at 2 am. The method to get them onto Booberfish requires a ‘cp’ here and a ‘mogrify’ there, which needs a bit more thinking since I can never remember the right arguments.

Once school starts and grad school applications need to be done, I’ll probably be much more willing to scan through the mogrify man page again during my free time. With only 10 days left in Vancouver, I have more important things to deal with.

I’m going away for a few days and will be without my computer, thus no blog updates for you for a few days (as if I had been updating this thing more than every few days lately anyway). In the meantime, there’s a place I’ve found that I’m sure you can spend a good chunk of your time on. It’s called Jyte. You vote on claims made by anybody about anything, maybe make some claims of your own, make comments on claims, and earn mysterious “cred” from other Jyters. Some example claims of mine:

It’s a colossal waste of time, more so lately than even Facebook has been, and anybody on Facebook knows that that’s saying a lot. Enjoy.

The summer, it feels, is reaching its home stretch. There are but three weeks for me left in Vancouver and its time to start wrapping things up. My research is coming together, and as some bit of proof I typeset the paper my supervisor and I are writing in the format for submission to the journal. The text and figures aren’t finished, but the idea is there. It makes it feel like the end is near.

I feel like progress has been made in other areas as well. For the first time working out on the erg at the gym I saw my time go down to 1:41/500m. I was doing 1 minute on, going hard core, and 2 minutes off to recover. Maybe it was because I had the resistance down to 5 (which is where it’s supposed to be, say those who know), but I choose to believe it’s because I’m awesome.

I’ve also gained weight. 76.5 kilos, now, something I haven’t seen in a couple years. It might be because I’ve only been to the gym three times in as many weeks and been eating out far too much, but it also might be that I’ve been building up and putting on muscle. Yeah, in this stage of finishing projects and making progress, that’s what I’m going to go with. It’s all about perception.

Remember when I used to blog almost every day? Ah, those were the days. Days when I had something to say. Days, maybe, when I had nobody to say them to, but that sounds a little sad so let’s just gloss over that. Days when I have cool experiences I want to document for myself and share with others. That’s a nice one. Now I just feel disorganized, without any rhythm or routine. There’s something to be said for knowing what you’re doing a few days down the road. I’m keeping busy and doing interesting things, but my schedule is erratic and unpredictable. Usually I just take it in stride, adjusting my plans as things come up, tending not to stress about anything too much, but at this point I feel like I’m not getting anything done, waking up at random hours each day, never managing to make a lunch for work, and I still haven’t managed to get groceries. At the very least I made a nice big dinner tonight—chicken baked with cheese and tomato sauce, mashed potatos, caesar salad with grilled spicy shrimp, and a nice helping of strawberries for desset. That’s worth blogging about.

The time is 4:53. I have to catch a bus in 11 minutes at a bus stop that’s a 10 minute walk away. Shit—it just hit me. August is not July. It’s a tricky distinction but bus drivers tend to notice that sort of thing, especially when August has not been July for nigh on three days now. It’ll have to wait. The extra two twenty-five won’t bust my budget. That happened a few days ago, at one of the five times I bought lunch at work instead of making a sandwich.

A new rowing program starts today and its best to be on time, I thought. New coaches, new people, and a new boat as it turns out. A double. Twice as wobbly and twice as easy to make a mistake as the quad I’ve been rowing, but half as many people to make those mistakes so I guess it works out. We’re still dry by the end of it at least, despite some rather high waves at one point. It was a nice day on the water. At one point I was reminded, for the second time this week, of “Hazel! We’ve got lesbians!” and I’m now separated by two degrees from a McGill novice rowing coach. Too bad that doesn’t mean I’m any closer to making the team.

I need to buy a whistle.

On the way home I feel rather Japanese, so I put HY and Ketsumeishi on my mp3 player and stop into a little Japanese market. Tonkatsu sauce, $5 a bottle. Thirsty from being on the water in the sun I buy some Calpis Soda, not remembering at the time that Calpis Soda is not the same as Calpis. I should have bought the concentrate.

I continue my walk, up Denman and then Davie, which has even more rainbows than usual. All gay-ed up for a big gay weekend of big gay Pride. I always smirk when I see the city’s big gay newspaper being sold next to the regular weekly called STRAIGHT. It may actually be called “The Georgia Straight”, but the first two words are a tiny fraction of the size of the last, as if the paper feels the need to assert its masculinity in this very gay city.

There are many people on the street. Ahead is a perfectly average looking guy wearing a white t-shirt with a red person on it. I try to figure out who it is but give up quickly. We make eye contact and I look away, but I look back again and suddenly he gives me this big cute smile. Suddenly perfectly average guy is the cutest thing on the street, only because he smiled.

Have I mentioned that it always makes me happy when I see a stranger smiling? It’s like that time I thanked a girl for holding the door open for me and she said “You’re welcome!” I totally had a crush on her for the whole afternoon, even though I didn’t even see who she was.

On the bus back home, the ending credits music from Super Mario World came up in the shuffle, as if Mario and I are travelling back home together, him riding Yoshi and me riding a bus. Yoshi would be cooler, but I don’t mind the bus.