trying to think of something to say...

...and not succeeding at it :) Maybe because it's the lull before a busy week-and-a-half here. Going to see Matrix 2 with friends Thursday night, going back home to Amherstburg Friday afternoon, down to Toledo on Saturday, back to T.O. Monday, company discount sale next Wednesday, then a weekend vacation split between Montreal and Ottawa. And only a few months until the Great American Roadtrip.

I'm one of those people (probably looked at as crazy by the likes of the National Post) who's happy to see a higher loonie, if only for a cheaper vacation this summer and better deals cross-border shopping. It's one of those habits people look puzzled about when I mentioned, like I'm some sort of nut. Having grown up close to the border, I'm used to crossing it to pick up things I can't get in the Great White North, like Pepsi One, Rice and Beans mixes, cocoa rice-krispie type cereals and decent baked beans. Back at the height of cross-border shopping in the late 80s-early 90s, my family never went for the products you could get over here (unless the price was too good to refuse), just the different variety.

Happier to be on this side of the border. Not that we're immune to electing dolts - just look at Toronto's city government. Wonder if there's a pool out there, like a hockey or death pool (a future link of the week) to predict what Mayor Mel's final blunder in office will be. It's hard to top mysterious kidnappings, calling in the army to shovel snow, wistfully thinking of the savages and their cooking pots in Africa, threatening tv reporters or looking like a fool on CNN (OK, maybe the last one's easy for anybody to do...). There's a fine line between colourful and pathetic.

So short rants on local politics are the way out of having nothing to say...

Sidenote: One thing I've noticed in the wake of the SARS scare - I've eaten more Chinese food than usual. Still finishing off the last bits of the shopping trip in the Pacific Mall area last week. Had several meals in eerily empty restaurants and noodle joints in Chinatown. I never succumbed to the fear - half the city would have dropped dead before I started feeling concerned.

The funniest sight was on the subway Easter weekend. My sister and I were headed downtown on the Yonge line, when we noticed a kid across from us (dressed in comically huge, floppy clothing he could have gotten lost in) was waving a rolled-up hankie back and forth from his mouth. We think his mommy made him take it into the big bad city.

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