Nerdy Thoughts

It’s been another busy two weeks, specifically this past weekend so dividing things up into sections.

DeGrassi Last Friday I attended DeGrassi on Da Rock at the LSPU hall for a screening of DeGrassi School’s Out and Q&A with Stacie Mistysyn & Pat Mastroianni aka Caitlyn & Joey from the original series AKA the one I watched growing up. During the latter end of 2020 and throughout 2021 I got into a podcast called Narbos & Broomheads that recaps & discusses DeGrassi, starting with the original series.

That naturally led me to re-watching the older show on YouTube and feeling very nostalgic. When Mastroianni & Mistysyn announced they were coming here I jumped on the impulse to attend. For the most part it was fun though I got stuck sitting next to someone who talked throughout the entire show. Normally I would just ask them to be quiet but my read on the situation was that the man next to me might have been neurodivergent and was just really excited to be at the show so I kept quiet. In retrospect I wish I had moved to the empty seat a few rows back since I’m highly sensitive to noise but these solutions always seem to occur in hindsight.


In-Laws We had some of John’s family visiting the island, specifically his sister in law, his oldest niece, the niece’s boyfriend. They came to visit the house after going out on a local boat tour on Saturday and we took them to our favourite local restaurant, Fork. It was delicious as usual and we were entertained by the chickens that the restaurant owners keep that wander around outside.

On Sunday, John’s family had their flower service and I went along with John, partially because I was curious and partially because he attended my family’s cemetery mass so I figured it was only fair. It was interesting and very different for the services I’ve attended since they don’t have a mass. John’s family is Chinese so they go to the cemetery with flowers & food and it’s a routine of placing the items & bowing. Much faster than a full catholic mass lol. ( More in-law stuff, cut for space )

Gaming I’ve taken a break from Sims and started playing two new games. Well, one is new, one is new to me: Stray aka the cat simulator and Monster Prom. I’ve been enjoying both but I find I can only play Stray for short intervals as I am not used to games that allow you to move the camera so much and I tend to get motion sick. So, not so far with that. Monster Prom is a dating sim/visual novel and I’m currently obsessed with how cute/hilarious it is.

Reading Currently reading Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab which has been useful & informative so far though I have been taking my time with it. I also have way too many graphic novels borrowed from the library but have been too busy to sit down & read.

Woke up to everything covered in ice this morning thanks to the freezing rain we had overnight. Dad always called freezing rain ‘glitter’, like he’d always say ‘There’s glitter on the trees this morning’ after freezing rain. The tree outside the office window is absolutely coated and made me think of that this morning.

Clearing the driveway was quite the chore this morning. We had some snow before the freezing rain so everything was icy & slushy. The snow blower was having none of that this morning so I had to shovel most of our long, hilly, driveway by hand. I wasn’t in such a great mood while doing so but I feel pretty good now, once again remembering that physical activity in the morning is a good mood lifter. Now, let’s see if I remember that tomorrow morning or if sleepy me will conveniently forget again.

Weekend rundown - Friday: I had to take a sick day due to an upset stomach and nausea. Spent most of the day on the couch with tea & soup, re-watching season one of Bridgerton. I am very much looking forward to season two so it was actually quite nice to get an unintended refresher and to delight in the pretty costumes, set, and people. Is it weird that the biggest drive for me is the aesthetic? Like I do enjoy the show’s storyline & characters but what drew me in last year when I saw the trailer was the design. I hadn't even read the books though I did make quick work of a lot of them after watching season one. I got as far as book 6 before I needed a break. They're fun but I found the books started to feel repetitive after a while.

Saturday: I felt a lot better but stuck close to home just in case. I suspect my stomach problems were more the result of eating something off or cumulative poor eating throughout the week but better safe than sorry. My partner & I made curry beef rice bowls and watched Turning Red which we enjoyed. I definitely related to the nostalgia tween/teen girl parts while the family & food parts hit home with my partner.

Sunday: Cleaning mostly, with some reading and playing Sims 4. I’m very close to completing plum generation for my playthrough of lilsimsie's Not so Berry legacy challenge.

( Cutting this for some nerdy ass Sims 4 talk. )

Ah, good old gifs. How else would I express my desire for murder and still have it be amusing & not taken seriously? Today has the potential to be a good day but my body and brain are having none of that. I went to go grab a coffee earlier, thinking it would help since coffee usually cheers me up, but the other customers in the coffee shop just brought out the hulk smash urge me. I was taken aback by how vicious I felt toward one person who got in my way but thankfully I would never ever EVER act on such a thought. It did make me realize that I need to avoid having too much face to face contact with people who annoy me today because I am just not in the right head space this morning. Thankfully my job allows for me to be quiet and keep to myself on days like this.

( The rest of the weekend a.k.a Sunday ) Hope everyone else is having a better Monday!

It's another list post because I did not get enough sleep last night and doubt my ability to write a coherent post.

Gym! - John and I hit the gym twice this weekend, once on Friday and once on Sunday. We’ve been going every second day so far although I think it won’t be long until we start going every day. It’s not nearly as busy as I thought it would be which is really nice as we have no trouble getting the equipment we want to use. Whether or not it will stay that way when the fall semester starts remains to be seen but I’m hopeful. I think a lot of students prefer to use field house or Goodlife over the Aquareana.

Sakura Sushi - Friday night John and I checked out a new local sushi spot called Sakura Sushi. The place is small, a little run down and painted like a Barbie doll box pink but the food was good, easily on par with our current favourite sushi place, Sun Sushi. Afterward we walked around Churchill Square and grabbed ice cream at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for desert.

Avalon Expo -We checked out the latest Con (Comic? Geek? It wasn’t really defined) and got to see a lot of cool costumes and geeky merchandise. It was hard to resist spending and ultimately I didn’t as I picked up three Lego minifigures for my collection but I didn’t spend very much and they were ones I wanted. We didn’t stick around for the panels because none of them really interested us and we had plans.

Agent 47 - Saw that Saturday night and I enjoyed it for the simple action movie that it was. Except for the strobe light scene at the beginning, that one was near headache educing and just poorly done as it made it hard to watch the action which, you know, is the whole point of an action movie. I mean, it’s great if the story is good but action movies are more about visuals and stunt work for me. Thankfully everything else was much better.

Texas Hold ‘Em - The lovely lady_green_bat had a Texas Hold ‘Em fundraiser for her upcoming art show and while I had fun, I also put my ignorance of poker on display. One, I thought we had to cover the monetary value of the chips used. We didn’t, this was covered by the entrance fee which was obvious in retrospect. Two, I accidentally won a couple of games. I literally thought I had nothing in my hand only to have other, more experienced, players point that I actually had winning hands. In my defense it was my first time at Texas Hold ‘Em event. I would certainly play again though.

I have quite a bit of post reading to catch up on it seems but I hope everyone had a good weekend!

So I updated last Monday and then sort of was wrapped up in work and other social sites throughout the week and didn’t get any posting in. Which isn’t too bad because everything interesting happened between Friday to Sunday anyway. Here it all is in glorious list format, because I like lists:

Friday: I got surprise holiday from work after higher concentrations of lead were found in the water at various buildings at MUN, the university campus I work on. In order to test the water in all the buildings and assure everyone it was safe the campus shut down and gave everyone a long weekend. Aside from the fear of having lead poisoning, it was a nice surprise. So far no one actually had lead poisoning; the higher concentrations were just discovered in a few buildings during routine tests. Most buildings had new filters put on the taps during the weekend so the campus is re-opened again and I’m back at work this morning. I spent most the Friday holiday reading in bed before hauling myself up to clean the apartment a bit.

Friday night: Headed to strangegoddess’s place for a Sharknado 3 party and to answer your question, yes my friends and I are dorks XD. We had previous parties for Sharknado 1 & 2. It was a good time and hilarious but I would have liked to have been able to hear more of the movie. I know, it’s not a movie one needs to hear but I’m sure we missed a lot of hilarious dialog.

Saturday: Slept in and went out for a late lunch/ early dinner at The Club, which is a good place to check out if you’re in St. John’s and you want higher end pub food that’s different from the usual stuff. We split the onion rings, I had a leek soup and John had chili before we split desert, caramel bread pudding with homemade ice cream. They also brought us out buns with molasses butter which is so freaking good I want to make it at home.

Saturday night: Went up to visit/stay the night lady_green_bat who is cat sitting for a woman who turned out to be my 3rd cousin I found out on Sunday from my parents. That’s what you get for living on an island, btw. Relations are everywhere. Anyway, we watched Wolf Cop because why the hell not and it’s as bad as you’d imagine from the title but still somewhat hilarious. Naturally it was filmed in Canada and it even had an actor from Ginger Snaps, my favourite Canadian werewolf movie, in it. So lady_green_bat and I spent most of time trying to figure out what kind of a parody crossover could happen between Ginger Snaps and Wolf Cop. Then we watch The Lost Boys for the 76th millionth time because that’s how we roll.

Sunday: Summer actually came to the island and a small crew of us went out on my dad’s boat for a trip to take part in the food fishery. The ride out was fun but then I stupidly got really sea sick because I took ginger gravol instead of hardcore actual gravol. Lesson fucking learned. I’m just glad I was the only one and that it was only a small crew who got to witness that. Everyone else had a good time though. Once again my dad kicked ass by catching the most fish. I’m hoping we’ll get a chance to go out again and that I’ll be properly drugged for it. Anyway, here’s a picture of Signal Hill that I took before I got sick.


( More pictures )