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2024.03.19 06.39

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three songs

100920
small towns

100919
best dollar stores

100918
KW day two

100917
Waterloo via Galt

100914
Facebook Humbug

100908a
Portraits at Forest Hill

100908
new family member

100907
bears raccoons

100906
frightened, bikes gone

100812
tug of war

100803
monday at centrepoint mall

100802
sunday with my folks


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100803 monday at centrepoint mall

1200Getting up at noon isn't so bad, really. Not for me. Except when I go back to bed for some reason, such as to warm up after getting up. Oh well.

If you don't already know, at this point in my life I seem to be getting up from bed every 2-4h, to pee, usually. It's not good. I've spoken to my doctor about this, and he's checked my prostrate gland for me. It's not swollen at all, so he believes the problem is something else. I have to go get tests. I would have done this today, but everything important was closed. Oddly, the Centrepoint Mall formerly Town and Country Square was open, as was Food Basics nearby. So much for legal holiday.

1400I got up again. I think I stayed awake. I do remember preparing food. What was I craving today? Lightly fried eggs on multigrain bagels? I should prepare my blog entries closer to the time the events happened. My short term memory sucks so much right now.

Jeff wrote back to cancel his plans for Niagara Falls and Marineland. Gawd! $40 per person is insane. Who can afford that? But later he SMSed me saying he was tired of sleeping. He's been in much pain, as his new teeth hurt him so very much.

1500Jeff's here! I've not seen him for a long time. His new teeth look amazing. I didn't take any pictures. He hurts a lot, and he's worried the smile won't look right.

We went to Centrepoint Mall. It's been part of my North York for a long time, perhaps from the very beginning. It hasn't changed much structurally. It has four large stores on each of four spikes. There is a Canadian Tire, a No Frills, The Bay and a Zellers (which is owned by The Bay). On the inside of the mall are the smaller stores, such as EB Games, Mac Sushi, and maybe 100 other small places.

Jeff was surprised by how many cellular companies were there. Bell, Rogers, Virgin, Koodo, Mobilicity, Fido; not Telus, Public, Wind, Solo. There were some companies which represent more than one provider, or sell primarily cases. Centrepoint is a good mall for purchasing a cell phone.

1630We spent some time evaluating the Mobilicity deal. It's 65.00 a month for "everything". That means data, local voice, local text, Canadian voice, Canadian text, American voice, American text, Global text. Now that I'm getting data, I want a cell phone that will let me tether to the netbook. We'll see if it works okay. If it does, then it will have earned it's 65/mo fee.

We went to the Bell booth to try the Blackberry hands on. Jeff seems to dislike them, but I didn't mind the scroll button. It's smooth and responsive enough. He didn't remember Blackberry ever using a mouselike interface; it's an improvement over what he remembers. The phone I'm looking at is 500.00 this company doesn't do special plans to reduce the cost of their phones. In fact, they don't do accounts either. You just need to have the money they require in your account before the moment they need it. No credit, and no credit check required. See? I really like this company.

If someone were to find my current phone, they could use it to call long distance until I noticed it missing, and I could be liable for thousands of dollars of long distance charges. Mobilicity is only prepaid. Whatever you have in your "wallet" is all any thief can take from you and your phone. Oh, and they can take the phone itself, which is paid full up front; that would really suck.

1800Poor Jeff. We had McD drinks, and it caused him serious pain. So he took me back home, and went back to feel better. He SMSed me later to say that he adjusted his teeth, and they improved at home.

I normally don't go to bed until 4am, so I made some food at home, and got ready to go out again. This time I would take my bike somewhere downtown, and just check out windows.

1900I brought two cameras with me. I love taking pictures of Toronto at sunset. So why has it been so very long that I've done just that? On this trip I saw exactly one kind of red brick I like to record, and took the picture, but only one. The curious emotion I would like to share with you is I have to resist buying yet more digital cameras as they go on sale.

I took the subway south to Davisville. There are lots of interesting stores along this stretch of Yonge street, between Davisville and Eglinton Station. I don't require anything, so I didn't buy anything. I saw lots of green grocers and I could have picked up some nice berries, or anything, but I wanted to bicycle, rather than to shop.

2030As I pass the TD Bank and the Rogers store, I get a phone call from my Stx. As always, the act of pulling the phone out of my pocket touches the screen so that the call is ignored. Jeff was surprised when we talked about this at the mall. I explained that it used to answer the call, and whoever called would listen to me walking, hoping I'd hear them calling out from my pocket. Now it has to get my password right, and it just doesn't do that often.

I called the store back. It was Julia. She had been trying to switch shifts with people so she could do something with another barista. I told her it would be hard for me, but I would do it. My new shift would be from 730am to 400pm. I'd be waking up around 5ish and so I had to catch a bus and return home right away.

I caught that bus, and the driver was cool. While I'm on the bus, Julia called back to advise me she made other arrangements, so I wouldn't have to come early; I could just come at my normal time. The weather today was amazing and perfect so I got off the bus, just so I could return to riding.

2100It stayed light out for a long time. So I found my way to a smell. There was a Mexican restaurant. I locked my bike and went inside. Everything looked right, but the prices. I wasn't ready to spend 15.00 for some of the good smells coming from there. I might do that when Abie returns, and we could go together. But two doors south of there was a new place that sold Gelato. It was costly too, but for some reason 6.00 didn't feel like 15.00, so I tried the lemon, tiramisu, vanilla and yogurt with berries. All of them perfect. They make the gelato there in the morning, and sell it all afternoon and night. The owner himself was taking orders and serving the ice cream. And the neighbours from all around were coming in and expressing how happy the store was finally open today.
2130I needed the bathroom, so I rushed home; I prefer my own toilet. And I've been avoiding doing laundry. We don't have ensuite equipment for that here, so I have to usually get a ride to carry all of it. The laundromat I go to is near the store I work at, but I'd have to do it four hours prior to work, as a minimum. I love the laundry place because I can start perhaps ten loads of laundry, and dry them all too, nearly at the same time. I like their high efficiency washers, and don't use as much soap, but this requires my vigilance as how much is that? It's not just enough to follow the instructions on the bottle. I add soap and water until it makes a light suds on top, and keeps the suds.

Eeep, I've digressed. I have a favourite pair of pants for work. They've needed washing for a while, so I hand washed them in the shower along with me. I'm writing this at 423am and they're drying well.

2300I normally would stay up late, but I'm fading. And this is odd; there are people coming in upstairs! It is 11pm, and something is happening here. I don't worry about anything, so I just lie down for a while. It turned out to be a long while. I woke up at 4am, so here I am finishing this, so I can post it for you.

tell Dave to do this more often