To the zoo

When I was in grade 10 my lovely sister bought me a camera for my birthday. I still remember how excited she was to give it to me. It was awesome. It was this Fuji camera that had a slider to uncover the lens (totally one of a kind). It took decent pictures and came with, what I thought at the time, was an awesome case. I loved it. It broke in my last year of university though - right before I went to Hawaii for a month. And I have been camera-less ever since.

I've used the odd disposable camera here and there but for the most part I have kind of gotten out of the habit of taking pictures. For awhile now I've been planning to enter the world of digital but I'm nortoriously bad at following through with my decision to buy most things useful (i.e. just over one year to buy a laptop computer; 7 years to buy a knife that actually cuts bread decently; and I'm currently still without a coffee table). Well finally I chose a camera. And I have to say after a trip to the zoo this past Saturday, I am very happy with it.

Look how well it focuses on the item in question. It has this intelligent function so that it will guess (correctly) what I want the picture of and adjust the focus and shutter speed. Excellent for a non photographer like me.


The red winged blackbirds were out making their totally cool bird calls.


Look how fantastic the colouring is on the mallard.


A visiting exhibition. Two bengal tigers - so out of place at a prairie zoo. But kind of a treat I suppose.


This was taking from ridiculously far away. I couldn't believe how far the new camera zooms.


I'm sure now that I finally have one of these, there will be more pictures on here. Of course, that will depend on how long it takes me to get around to buying more batteries. Let's hope it's before the new coffee table.

Butter in my soup?

I just went to Tim Horton's and ordered some soup. They gave me butter. Weird.

green with blue stripes

I went to a home buying seminar tonight. I signed up for a couple months ago when I was doing some RSP stuff at the bank. The bank lady wasn't all that helpful for me since I've already been through all that, but the lawyer who spoke was so interesting. I think I'm pretty lucky that worse stuff didn't go wrong when I bought my house. My biggest surprise was that I had to pay an extra $1300 in property taxes up front that I so wasn't expecting. But with the market like it is, real estate agents are telling their clients to put offers on houses with no conditions and apparently that can be illegal in some instances (i.e. when you buy a condo without a schedule c - not sure what that is but apparently it's illegal). Anyway, at the end I was talking with the most adorable couple. They were probably my age. He was tall and skinny with a big full beard and wearing a green sweater with wide blue horizontal stripes. She was cute, tall and chubby with capri jeans and slightly messy hair. She clapped when they announced the winners of the door prizes just to make them feel good. It was totally sweet. I had this twinge of jealousy for her life and I only met her for 2 minutes and have no idea what she does. Anyway, I must go and clean my bathroom. Company coming this weekend and one thing I've learned about a white bathroom with dark brown hair is that they don't mix well. Or, that you just have to clean more often.

Finally.
The snow is gone from my yard. Bring on the rain - at least that's what my trusty weatherman tells me. And he's actually been right so far this year. Oh weather channel, how I love thee.

Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister Gina. She's the coolest cat in town.

Shannon's big adventure begins

I finally did it. I've been talking about it seriously for a couple months now but it's something I've wanted to do for years. A big trip somewhere far away. And today I actually put in a request for a month of holidays in January 2008. Pretty sure I want to go to New Zealand. Of course nothing is set in stone and I'm open to changing my mind. But I'm going to plan it like I'm going. I have even picked out one place that I must see while I'm there.

I am nervous and excited and it's so far away it doesn't even feel like it's going to happen, but I really think I'm going to do this. Lord willing anyway.

rating rant

i watched "stranger than fiction" for the first time today. i really liked it even though i'd heard lots about it.

but one thing i didn't like is that when it came on it was rated "g". now i don't know if that was the canadian or american or movie rental place rating, but i have no idea how that movie should be rated "g". first of all, the f-word was used once which automatically should move it up a rating. and second, in case i totally heard wrong and he didn't say the f-word like i thought, the 6 or 7 naked bums in a gym shower scene should have probably bumped it up from a "g" to a "pg". third, there was a let's-start-making-out-and-wake-up-in-bed-after-obviously-just-having-sex scene that, while it doesn't specifically show anything, is a suggestive scene. to me a "g" rated movie shouldn't have scenes that might require parental explanation for little ones.

i've been less than impressed with the current rating systems for a long time though. this just reminds me of my frustration.

seriously, 6 naked bums?

So I was tagged by the lovely Miss Ariann. I guess I'm supposed to write 6 weird things about me. Sadly, it shouldn't be too hard. I'm not going to tag anyone though because I'm too tired.

1. I like ketchup on my Kraft Dinner and on my tacos.

2. When I am sad, I sleep in the living room or the spare room. Anywhere but my own bed.

3. I used to keep my text books in the kitchen cupboards.

4. My favourite word (that I know) in the spanish language is "siete" - the word for "seven".

5. I like watching kids tv shows on the Family channel

6. I've slept on a coffee table by choice.