How not to be bored?

Have fun with people.

Piss somebody off.
Commit a random act of kindness.
Compliment total strangers.
Insult a total stranger.
Engage a new person in conversation.
The list is endless.

I would remind you, GS, that I am stuck in an apartment alone with two cats. Spazmo is semi-conscious, if that. There are no strangers to commit random acts of kindness or insult, etc.

That is what the title refers to. So I am bored. I have seen all of the Internet, I am pretty sure. I have rewritten an old novel and started writing a new one. I have read 7 novel start-ups of a friend and am commenced writing comments for all of them. I am also up-to-date on almost every reality show in existence in the U.S. (currently airing). I made cake, artichoke dip, onion dip, beer bread. I have thrown a successful bird party.

I am bored.

I am also mean. Sorry if I am mean, I just ... cabin fever is a disease, you know.

There’s only one thing that can save you: Scrapbooking!

Snowapalooza 2: Electric Bugaloo

We have no snow for the winter Olympics

There is this hilarious new (for the Olympics) message broadcast in the underground subway stations that I heard for the first time as I was going over to the court house this morning.  Something to the effect of “responsible transit passengers will report suspicious activity and suspicious or unattended packages” Very odd Orwellian language.  I’m going to record it and upload it.  It is truly bizarre.  The entire city is transforming into this insane police state I think I was the only person walking around without credentials hanging from a lanyard around my neck.  Yaletown, where my office and home are (1 blk apart) is the absolute epicenter of Olympic activity in Vancouver (eventys split between here and all the snow stuff up at Whistler of course). No normal business will get done in this city over the next three weeks. I have sister and her family and then friends from CA and NY in.  I have so many people staying at my place over the next three weeks I’m thinking about sleeping at my office just to get some peace.

LP for this afternoon you can hang out on CNN with Rick Sanchez, graduate of the William Shatner School of Broadcast Journalism, (it’s fully interactive) and then there’s the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and the best team in news on three-lettered acronym named stations starting with ‘C’

Tap, going to any games? Any really bizarre games?

I’ve been offered tickets by client and business associates but I’m not that into it.  I will go to a couple hockey games and maybe some figure skating with visiting friends which are at the NHL area, ahem *GM Place*, nearby. I’m not paying the ticket prices for that stuff myself though, not into it. I’ll go if invited. I’m not going up to Whistler or Cypress for anything.  The speed skating oval is in another part of greater Vancouver.

That time lapse video you posted I know the guys who did the production.  You can see where my office and home are when it scans over the marinaside.  Yaletown will be party central.  Something you’d like is all the visitng countries set up extravagant hospitality houses to host dignitaries, people from their home countries have parties but also do marketing for their home products.  Right beside my office is Casa Italia.  They have built five professional kitchems in the facilities we leased to them and will have the place filled with designer furniture (which we are really hoping they will leave when they go).. So lots of food tasting.  Irish House is more of a beer hall environment but all the larger countries have them, leasing enormous spaces and transforming them into showcases for their countries.  Russia, USA, Italy, Holland , Sweden Spain are all within walking distance from my place.

Also lots of free concerts and artistic fare running the spectrum Bolshoi Ballet to alt rock. The main free outdoor live site is in the waterfront park 1 blk from me.  It will be fun when my friends are here. Very frustrating to get any work done though.

Wow! Thanks for the insider’s guide.

Have a great time with it, Tap. Post reports as you can, or afterward if need be (that is, if you don’t mind).

I would remind you, GS, that I am stuck in an apartment alone with two cats.

Unless you are like the man in Florida who has an apartment in an otherwise empty high-rise, go walk the hallways, knock on doors, introduce yourself to people, bring a jug of coffee or tea. Risky? Maybe slightly, but I’m sure 95% of the people you encounter would be happy to converse, share a cup.

The results might surprise you.

Nah. People that do that are called Jehovah’s Witnesses. People don’t like that kind of behavior.

Befriending the birds instead.

Which reminds me of a limo driver I had once. I used to take cars (town car livery cabs, not stretch limos) home every night when i worked late at a job in Manhattan. I was living in Brooklyn then, so it was a bit of a trip.

My favorite driver was a Russian we’ll call Dmitry. He was smart and relatively normal but complained sometimes about missing his home country. The thing that got him the most was that “here you have to make an appointment to see your mother.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well,” he explained, “I can’t just go over, I have to call first. To my friends. There’s no just go-over. It’s always call first. I went over and they were like, what are you doing here. I’m like, i’m your friend. I’m HERE.”

I just imagined Dmitry at some guy’s house, waiting for lunch, wondering why everyone was surprised to see him.

It’s definitely a cultural thing. My hillbilly grandparents were quite fond of the drop in. Home, workplace, wherever whenever. There was quite a row when they caught my stepmother, who came from a family with serious boundary issues, on the wrong day and she lost her shit on them.

It kind of makes me wonder if in ye olden days people didn’t ever masturbate or if they just made sure they did it late enough so that Aunt Whatsername was unlikely to poke her head in the door and call “yoo-hoo.”