My new toy! [30 Sept 2003] [ time started | 7:14 p.m. ] [ song playing | It's All Coming Back to Me Now - Céline Dion ] Well, I think the website transfer is pretty much finished! I'm sure there are a few little glitches here and there that I will have to sort out, but overall I'm very happy with how smoothly it went! And the new service is *great* so far - if you're looking for a web hoster, I would recommend them - ICDSoft.com. And, because apparently I am an incredibly bad impulsive shopper, I went out and bought myself an early birthday gift today! It is a new mini-disc recorder!! Fun! :-) It is pretty much this model - the one I got is not new, it was used as a store display, but as long as it works properly, I don't care! I am going to go through the manual tonight and try to figure out exactly how it works. :-) I picked up the skirt for my dress on the weekend, but the top was not in yet - I hope it gets in soon, since I was planning to wear it to this work function on Friday night. It is a big dinner and dance being put on by one of the law firms our company uses, and is being held at a very fancy ballroom, with free food and drinks and all that. We're planning to look all sophisticated and stuff when we get there, but it remains to be seen how long into the night that illusion will last. ;-) I also saw 2 Pianos, 4 Hands on Saturday, which was really good. I'd seen it once before, but it was really great to see it with the original creators of the show. I also got a ticket for another play in November, as well as tickets for a few of the CanStage shows this year (including The Last Five Years - yay!), so I should be set for my theatre-going season! Okay, I'm off now to try to figure out where I need to go to vote in the provincial election on Thursday! Only 8 more days till Europe!! [ time finished | 7:25 p.m. ] [ song playing | Vincent - Stig Rossen ]

A quick update [28 Sept 2003] [ time started | 10:14 p.m. ] [ song playing | Wenn Ich Tanzen Will - Elisabeth ] I'm still working on the website transfer - it's going pretty smoothly so far, and I'm pretty happy with the new web hosting service, so keep your fingers crossed that it all works out! In lieu of any other updates, I have put my photo album from my summer trip online! Check it out here! I "borrowed" the concept from Marloes' photo album, 'cause I liked that layout so well. I hope you enjoy them! I also got my fix of Alias tonight with the season premiere - that show is so great! It was totally worth the wait, and I can't wait to see what's going to happen next! Alright, back to work...if you run into any site errors, please let me know! [ time finished | 10:18 p.m. ] [ song playing | Mama, wo bist du? - Elisabeth ]

Website woes and spending money [23 Sept 2003] [ time started | 7:43 p.m. ] [ song playing | Viva - Ein herrliches Spiel - The Beautiful Game ] Well, it's been about a month since my website stopped loading on my computer, and since Yahoo has not done anything to fix the problem, I've decided that I'll be changing my service provider at the end of the month. This is going to be a HUGE pain to move all of the sites to the new server, and everything will probably be down for a few days, but it will be better in the long run. Not to mention that myhosting.com (who I am probably going to sign up with) gives you more disk space for the same amount I am already paying with Yahoo. So if you visit my site over the weekend and it's not functioning properly, please be patient! Today we were in training all day for the new automobile legislation that's coming into effect in Ontario starting October 1. There is a LOT of new stuff to learn, and it should make life around the office pretty interesting for a while! Not to mention that there is talk of us acquiring another company as well. Anyway, I'm not really too worried about that right now, since I'm much more focused on my upcoming trip. :-) I received my plane ticket and my Eurail pass in the mail today, and I've also purchased the flight from Munich to Berlin. Roger has been sending me lots of ideas for things to do in Vienna (only 70 museums to choose from you know ;-), and Kata is making me an itinerary for Budapest! Susan and I also booked our flights to New York for November, which is going to be so much fun! It is so rare that I get to fly with anybody, that will be a novelty all on its own. :-) I have *so* many theatre outings coming up, it's fabulous! Just take a look at all the shows I have tickets for on my theatre list! That's about it - I went out to a club on Saturday, but other than the air hockey, it wasn't too thrilling. :-) Susan is coming over Thursday for the Friends season premiere, and Sunday is Alias, which I'm so excited about! Except I read the synopsis in TV Guide, and it says "Sydney confronts Vaughan about his marriage"! I was hoping he wasn't really married! :-( Oh, and speaking of Alias, there was a guy at Staples on the weekend who looked *so* much like Victor Garber! It was cool. :-) [ time finished | 7:53 p.m. ] [ song playing | Prayer to Ba'al-Zebub - Atlantis ]

Hurricanes and travel plans [18 Sept 2003] [ time started | 7:05 p.m. ] [ song playing | Angels Arise - Dance of the Vampires ] It's been a beautiful fall week here...of course, they had snow in Calgary though. And tomorrow we're supposed to get 5-7 cm of rain and winds. I'm just glad I won't have to be outside for more than a few minutes! I feel bad for the people in the States who got the bad part of the hurricane, but as long as I'm home in my apartment, it should be kind of cool to watch our storm. It finally just hit me earlier this week that my Europe trip is in 3 weeks. How on earth did that happen?? :-) So I booked my flight today - I'll be flying from Toronto to Munich, and then taking another flight from Munich to Berlin. Then I'll use my rail pass for traveling around and back to Munich so I can fly back home. I've also finally finished choosing all the hostels I'll be staying at - details are on the Europe trip page! I've also just been given a tip (thanks Elisabeth!) that Kiss of the Spider Woman will be playing in Budapest while I'm there, so perhaps I can see that as well. We're starting to get some more men in our office, finally! Maybe the next one to come will be a nice, young, straight guy who's into theatre...is that too much to ask for?! :-) Thank you to Susan's mom for the homemade soup! :-) I watched the final two episodes of Canadian Idol, but I have to admit I didn't find it terribly exciting. I'm glad Ryan won, as I felt he was the better of the two. I can't wait until good new TV starts again though - just one more week until The West Wing and Alias premieres!! [ time finished | 7:15 p.m. ] [ song playing | I Don't Know His Name - She Loves Me ]

How can you know what you want til you get what you want and you see if you like it? [12 Sept 2003] [ time started | 8:59 p.m. ] [ song playing | Als Jij - Elisabeth ] Well, another week is done! It actually went kind of quickly - probably because I am worried about my budget for this Europe trip, so it's flying by to make me feel like I have less time than I do to figure out what I'm going to do. :-) Anyway, I now have tickets for Cats and Les Mis in Berlin, as well as for Mozart! in Budapest, and I think that will probably be it. I also found a dress I want to get to wear to the Atlantis concert in Copenhagen - here's the picture from the catalogue: Of course, it won't look quite that nice on me. :-) But, because it is two pieces, I think it's pretty practical, since I can wear the top with other things. I have decided I am the world's worst email correspondent. I love getting email and everything, but it is like pulling teeth to get me to respond, and I'm not sure why. It's not like I don't want to talk to the people. It just takes a huge amount of effort for some reason. I started replying to some letters last night, and I got through three of them and took a break, and by the time I came back, all three people had written me back already. At which point I gave up. :-) It looks like this weekend is mostly going to be spent in cleaning my apartment and making skating tapes for a few people. If anybody reading this is interested in buying or trading for some of my coverage, here's the list. I have actually been enjoying making the tapes, because it gives me a chance to watch a lot of performances that I haven't seen for years. Tomorrow I am doing a Bourne & Kraatz compilation, which should be very fun! And for now, there's a few things I want to do on my musical site, and then I'm going to call it an early night, as I've been really tired all day. Have a good weekend everyone! [ time finished | 9:10 p.m. ] [ song playing | Come What May - Moulin Rouge ]

It's been updated... [6 Sept 2003] [ time started | 6:44 p.m. ] As promised, the Europe trip page is updated!

110 days until Christmas! [6 Sept 2003] [ time started | 2:10 p.m. ] [ song playing | Power of the Night - Terrence Mann ] It has gotten a lot colder this week, especially in the mornings. There's a bit of a chill in the air that is making me excited for winter! I know that summer's not even really over yet (it will surely warm up again before it gets cold for good), but still, it's not that far away! I am applying to be a "learn to skate" instructor with the city. I hope it works out - I think it would be fun! I will (finally!) have some updates on the Europe trip site very soon - I'll post a quick note in here when I've got them finished. I've also got a few more pictures back from our summer trip - once again, I will post a full album once they're all back, but I have to share this one - it's a picture of my mom with the microphone that Elvis Presley used to record with at Sun Studio - she looks so happy! :-) From one of the reviews of Anthony's concert in Brisbane: "Channel 10 should desist immediately from its time-wasting search for an Australian Idol. When we spent the evening with Anthony Warlow…we discovered that we already had one." :-) [ time finished | 2:28 p.m. ] [ song playing | The Sadder But Wiser Girl - William Michals ]

Some theatre reviews [1 Sept 2003] [ time started | 2:48 p.m. ] [ song playing | Gladiator soundtrack (Alexei is skating on TV :-) ] I don't have a lot to say about the past week, but I will share a few thoughts on the different theatrical performances that I saw. First up was Evita, which I was really looking forward to, as I've only seen it once before, and that was nearly 10 years ago. Sadly, the quality of the production left a lot to be desired. The best part of the evening was David Nevin as Che, but the direction, sets, costumes, and lighting were so amateurish that I couldn't help but feel I'd been a little ripped off. Luckily, Twelfth Night was much better. Well, to begin with, I didn't pay nearly as much, so I wasn't expecting as much. :-) But even so, it was very good. Not quite on par with the production I saw at the Globe last year, but still very enjoyable. Particularly the actors playing Malvolio and Sir Toby (I'm too lazy to get my playbill to see who they are :-). The guy playing Fabian spoke all his lines with a California surfer accent - the first time I've ever seen Shakespeare played that way! It was funny though. We were sitting quite far back, and to the side, and a few times the dialogue got a little lost, but overall they did a good job, and we had a good time! Anders Teigen signed the guestbook on my musical site! I want to see Little Shop of Horrors on Broadway now!! [ time finished | 2:58 p.m. ] [ song playing | She Ain't Pretty (Brasseur & Eisler are skating now :-) ]