playing catch-up

I've slacked in blogging. Not that anyone is really keeping track but there it is.

In the time since I last wrote, I have seen Run Fatboy Run, which is funny but not Simon Pegg's best work. I still enjoyed it. I also went to see 21 on a date - but the dude never showed because he thought it was too windy outside to risk taking the TTC. Idiot. At least the movie was good.

In the literary world - if it can really be called that - I indulged in another Star Wars novel, this one titled Death Star. As one might guess this is about the massive space station itself, joining the tale of its construction sometime after its superstructure was seen being pieced together at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Grand Moff Tarkin is overseeing the project, Darth Vader shows up on an inspection tour, and the occupants of the station slowly come together believing that they are building not an ultimate weapon, but the ultimate deterrant with which Emperor Palpatine will ensure everlasting peace in the galaxy. We all know that's not true, though, and in the aftermath of the destruction of the prison planet Despayre (because the Death Star was built with slave labour; and the planet has some strikingly similar traits to Desperus, a prison planet from Doctor Who back in 1966) and then the obliteration of Alderaan, the cast of characters begin to doubt what they are working on. Two of them are Force-sensitive, which gives Vader a little something extra to think about here and there. And then comes the bit like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, where the plot of the novel starts to overlap with the events from the very first Star Wars movie, A New Hope. Nobody actually meets and talks to Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, nor are they named in the narrative, but they are there during their rescue of Princess Leia Organa. The sad thing is once you start getting attached to the characters you realize that as inhabitants of the Death Star, unless they get off that thing they, and several thousand others, are going to die. I suppose the whole point to this story is to show that on both sides of the conflict there are heros, and not everyone suddenly abandoned their morals and blindly followed Palpatine down the power-crazed path. True, our band of eventual dissenters on board the Death Star are not card-carrying members of the Rebel Alliance, but they're certainly not Imperial lackeys either. I enjoyed this little trip down retro lane, and chanced upon A New Hope being broadcast on the weekend, and found myself thinking back to what was shown as going on behind the scenes, adding a new dimension to my enjoyment of the film.

I read Fables of Brunswick Avenue as well. Back in 1995 I lived on Howland Avenue in Toronto, which is one street over from Brunswick Avenue in the area known as The Annex. I was hoping that Fables might have some kind of nostalgic echoes for me from my time there, but alas the novel is something like 20 years old and the neighbourhood described in its pages is not the same one I was part of. Things had changed, there was less sense of community aside from the whining in The Annex Gleaner about how student life, the Brunswick House and Sabor Latino were dragging the neighbourhood down. I enjoyed the book to an extent, but it's an anthology and I never did like reading those right through, even if some of the regular characters do return over a few stories, sometimes with Brunswick Avenue long behind them in the past.

My professional development has been chugging along. Last week I was in training at the Gateway Postal Facility in Mississauga, learning how to be a more effective team leader. I admit freely that I thought I was going to pass out at times; classroom environments do that to me. I was lucky enough to be in class with some fellow supervisors I met when I came on board last year, and we all had tales to share and some catching up to do. Of course, every classroom has its clowns and there were several in ours. Loud and obnoxious they were not fun to be in there with and are most likely not the best people to work for. By the end of the week I and several of my classmates (we all gravitated back to each other eventually) were fed up. I wanted to complain about it but one of my current co-workers thinks thats a bad idea because I will only draw attention to myself as a troublemaker. I don't get it. And he has always been supportive, I wonder what the hell happened to him while I was away.

So here I am a few hours away from going back to work. The TTC is threatening to go on strike if their negotiations for better benefits are not met (where they expect the money to come from I have no idea). I'm already tired because I couldn't get any sleep this afternoon; the switchover from shifts is tough and I have not had a stable work week for a while now. I have, however, lost 5 pounds. I don't know exactly how I did it, but it's gone. So now I've removed donuts from my menu, I've cut back on things that only had marginal amounts of fat in them because it appeared I was eatign a lot of them, and tonight I had tuna with onions and black pepper wrapped in lettuve leaves instead of bread. Yes, I ate properly and will no doubt be starving in a few hours. But I will survive. I have fruit to take to work with me and when I come home, I'll have a light breakfast and get some proper sleep. The plan starts to fizz out around there; I haven't thought about dinner tomorrow. But here's hoping I make another good choice.

That is all.