Rediculousness

I've been hunting for a job for awhile now and it's tough work. I was starting to feel a little disheartened. After all, I earned a commerce degree, bought a couple suits, got some work experience and all those other great things that Corporate Canada is supposed to look for in a guy.

Lately I've been courting Corporate Canada pretty intensely. Calls, letters, emails, and all with no response. I was starting to think I had been left out on my own with just a degree and a couple service industry jobs. pondering where our relationship went wrong. Finally this week Corporate Canada noticed how cute I am. We'll be going on a date next week to see how we fit together. A little flirting and probing personal questions and hopefully at the end of it all things will work out for us. Fingers Crossed!

I've decided to make Monday a weekly review day. I'm not sure exactly what I will review. It'll be different every week but I just like reviewing things because you all know how important my opinion is. Movies, music, food, TV, the weather, hair cuts ... all is fair game. I'm a gerneralist so I figure I shouldn't confine myself to reviewing only certain things.

This week on review is a show that's been running for way too many hours in my house lately. My room mate introduced me to it since I had completely missed it last year. I heard that Sandra Oh was on a prime time show and I thought that was exciting. I always remember her from Don McKellar's "Last Night" because she really stuck out in the movie and it's good to see her get a little fame. Anyway, I hadn't seen any of it and in an attempt to catch up before September TV premiers Jill and Stacy and I started an intensive program to get through the entire second season before the premier. It was last week and we didn't make it. I didn't see it yet so no spoilers please.

In the past three weeks or so I've watch 27 episodes of the show. Judging by how hard it was to find the dvd's every time we tried to rent them, there are a few other people doing the same thing. I don't blame them though. After a couple episodes I wasn't that impressed. The show seemed to just rip off the good things from other great shows. The monologue and funny yet dramatic medical show from scrubs, the edgy topics and intro taken straight from Nip Tuck, fast back and forth writing from West Wing, obvious rip offs from ER but really how could they not, it is a medical drama.

After a couple episodes though the show really started to grow on me. The funny parts interspersed with serious drama are great and make the show more fun to watch than ER was/is. The real strength of the show is in the relationships and that's what the focus of the show is. The fact that they're all surgical interns just throws them in a high pressure and generally dramatic set but the focus is on the characters and relationships rather than the surgery.

Their portrayal of dating, marriage, love, friendship, sex, it's all so good, funny, sad and complicated. True it's corny sometimes and definitely overly dramatic but it is television. Seriously you can't help but get drawn into the characters and feel the tension between them. I actually found myself talking to the characters on the show a couple of times and I am not a crazy soap fan who does that when Passions is on too.

The show has some big story arcs so you have to give it a couple of episodes to figure out what's going and get involved with the characters but after that you'll be hooked. I love Izzy and Dr. Bailey currently. If you watched the show ever let's play the game of which character you're most like.

I'm collecting jobs these days. It's a fun hobby and a job in itself really. I apply all over mostly to jobs I want though lately I've been getting less picky and then I do follow up phone calls. Finally though I got my Edmonton in-term work sorted out. I was looking for jobs that would be fun, pay at least a little and provide just a little more stimulation than making muffins for 8 hours a day. As you read in my last post my most recent addition to the collection is Friends and Neighbors.

Well I just added another Whyte Ave institution to my collection of odd jobs. Starbucks. That's right I'm following in my friend Sando's foot steps and will be starting at Starbucks in about two weeks. I'm now a Whyte Ave institution in my own right. Between working at Friends and Neighbors and Starbucks it's pretty much impossible for anyone who comes to Whyte Ave not to see me and get to know me. I already have customers call me by name at Friends and Neighbors and I know it won't be long before most of the Ave just waves and says., "Hey Nicholas" when I walk by. Good for now I guess but thank god I'll be moving soon. Just as soon as I find that perfect job to finish my collection.

My time in Edmonton has been a little longer than I expected. Not a bad thing though. I had a great summer and now that fall is here I know I'll be moving on soon. As some of you read I was working at a bakery making muffins. Elf work really and while fun I did eventually go insane and start dreaming of muffins filling up my bedroom and suffocating me. I left that job about three weeks ago now. Luckily after applying to pretty much every restaurant on Whyte Ave I got a call from Friends and Neighbors. If you've visited me in Edmonton chances are you've been there. If not, it's a family run diner on Whyte with all day breakfast and if you go on Saturday or Sunday you will wait at least 10 minutes to get a table because every person who lives in the area is hung over and telling stories of the previous night over seemingly bottomless cups of coffee. I am now a happy member of the small but important Friends and Neighbours family.

Working there is a little like working in the circus I think though I've never been a carnie before. It's completely laid back, the owners and cook are Vietnamese and very hard to communicate with and the clientele is anything from drunks, pan handlers, students or the regulars who have been coming for 30 years and learned my name on my first day so they can shout it across the restaurant when they need more coffee. A day there consists of about 5 hours of slow chatty serving and 3 of running around like an idiot trying to keep people from getting to agitated at how slow our kitchen is, how long it takes me to get them their coffee, and how often I forget to make them their toast. Ooooppppps. Really though, I forgot how much I live serving and, modesty aside, how good I am at it. So stop by Friends and Neighbors Sat - Tues and grab a coffee with me although if you come between 11-2 I'll probably completely ignore you while I wear holes in the carpet delivering food, taking orders and refilling coffee. However I will still expect a tip.

Trying to do follow up phone calls to online job applications may be the most annoying and frusting thing in the world. Actually it comes right after doing a million impersonal online job applications.

The last week has been the gloomiest I can remember in a long time. I should mention that Canadians talk constantly about the weather and we are barely ever satisfied. A side effect of having to deal with the most unpredictable and extreme weather I guess or maybe we're all just very hard to please. In any case, seriously gloomy. It's been grey, freezing and rainy for a week now and doesn't look like it's getting better anytime soon.

Got me wondering if the weather effects my mood. Judging by the last week it does but the week also included a ton of work searching which is never fun so I'm not sure where the gloom comes from.

I'm not a big fan of in-between seasons like the one right before spring when the snow is all melting and it's cold but the winter wonder is gone. Or right after fall when the leaves are mostly gone and rain is not quite snow yet but the days are getting shorter and darker. At least we have seasons though. When I lived where there is less of a season it feels like you never get to have those transitions in life that are mirrored by your environment. We sure get that here. The weather has been a manifestation of my own head for the whole summer. Not that I can control it but just seems we get eachother.

My friend Kent and I share a love for food and cooking and in this spirit he has created the International Food Blog. Some members of the blog are traveling or live in various countries around the world while others of us are back at home and just have a passion for food and cooking. Posts are about food in general; from restaurants, seen on the street, stuff we've made... and posts can be recipes, reviews or any other style you like.

Check it out now and then. Here's the link http://worldfoodculture.blogspot.com and it is listed under My Friends on the left side of my blog.

If you are interested in joining send me an email (nhandcock@{don't-spam-me}gmail.com). Jeremy and Jodie I think you should get on this so we can have some input from the glutinous USA and the most put down foodies in the world, the Brits.

Happy Eating and Cooking!

I've been hitting my To Do List with a vengeance today and this is the result. First of all I wrote the list which was a good start I think. Some may say this is procrastination but making playlists and uploading movie clips for Chai Talk are an important part of my To Do List. Right below Find a Job but that seemed a bit ambitious to tackle today. So for the first time ever, Chai Talk on the Big Screen.

Chai Talk: Discovering A True Chai Stand Master
Kent Babin Teaches Chai 101
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naSUBW8zZz0)


Chai Talk: Interview with A Chai Stand Master
Kent Babin Talks India While the Chai Boils
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yawlHHwwVcA)

Location: Booster Juice, Edmonton International Airport
Rating: 0/5

It's been a long week prepping up for a goodbye that I've been trying to ignore all summer. After some busy days helping my Traveling Broad get organized to flee the country again it was time to say farewell. Luckily my room mate came through for me as she always does and lent me her car for a morning drop off at the airport. I've done far too many of those lately it feels like.

We threw the amazingly few pounds of luggage into the car and headed off. Luckily there was a cd of mine in the car and as we headed out of town on Highway 2 towards the airport The Gossip, "Standing in the Way of Control (Le Tigre Remix)" came on. It was a perfect mood lifter for both of us because we couldn't help but turn it up and pretend we could sing that high.

I missed the turn into the parking lot, maybe a subconscious slip but we had tons of time so circled around and found a parking spot. After checking in we headed for Tim Hortons to hang out for a few more precious moments but the lineup was ridiculous so we walked across to Booster Juice. I guess I should've known since there was no line and it took about 10 min. to get our chai but still I held out hope. All hope was dashed on the first sip. A sweet milky taste finished with a chemical bite so strong that I think they must have spiked my chai with bug spray.

I was saved from drinking my chai by a goodbye card that came all the way from the Tate Gallery in London. It had Rodin's sculpture "The Kiss" on it and needless to say I forgot all about my chai. I dropped the chemically mixture in the garbage as we said our last farewell at security. There was potential for it to be emotional but luckily the airport security saved us from that as Jodie was forced to empty out half her makeup into my pockets because she couldn't get on the plane with it.

So the chai sucked but it was probably the best airport farewell you can have so maybe it's worth trying the chai to see if it does the same for you even if it tastes awful.

Summer is coming to an end and it's sad for alot of reasons as friends move away, couples seperate and the cool chill of fall captures the air every morning and evening. Every fall feels like this because it's always a time of moving on and transition but this summer has been particularily special for me because it was a surprise in everyway. The last few days have been a desperate attempt to capture all of the life and love of the summer and I think it worked. A Bring Your Own fashion show with catwaling on Whyte slipped into a going away party with Jodie with her family which blurred into a going away party for my friend Mandy. The whole weekend was great and felt like a warm and nostelgic farewell to the last summer I'm likely to have in Edmonton. So, so long sweet summer. Thanks for the sun and the love. It's been fun and I can't wait to see you next year somewhere new.