It's raining, it's pouring...

[deathpixie]

It's rather icky out there at the moment and has been all day. Rain, cold wind, and patches of slushy ice on the pavement footpath where the rain has frozen. Yeah, not snow weather but apparently it's perfectly good slush weather. Bleah. I wouldn't have gone out in it at all, only I needed Advil (Yay ibuprophen! Take that cramps!) and the roomie and I needed dinner - frozen veggie lasagne, salad and more juice since we were out-ish. And the sacred Coke. I even brought bread home today, which means toast for me tomorrow. Whee!

I worked today, 9-4, in what seems to be the regular shift for me now - Tues 9-4, Wed-Fri 9-3, Sat 10-3. Sunday and Monday off. No responses to any of the ten applications I sent out on Sunday, so I'll have another look at Workopolis.com and see if there's anything new to apply for. Think I may have to widen the scope a bit and perhaps re-draft the letter I attach to these things. Still, early days. And if I get an interview, I'm pretty sure I can talk my way into the job. Just need the interview. At least I get paid tomorrow.

Didn't do a huge amount on my 'weekend'. Sat around reading, mostly - George R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series, which is damned good. For big heavy doorstop books, I'm not even noticing the time spent reading. And that includes in the bath today - spent an hour soaking my back (PMT, yay :P) and reading A Storm of Swords until the water got cold and I wanted to shake Sansa for being a selfish little bitch. Tyrion is technically a bad guy, yeah, but considering he's the only Lannister to show her any kindness? She should be a little less picky and suck it up, as [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] would say.

Shall stop babbling now. ;)

Oh, and since I've been meaning to do this for the folks back home...

10 Things That Are Different In Canada to Australia.

1) Beanies are called toques. Pronounced "tooks". [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] gave me a traditional Canadian one, with the ear flappy bits, for Christmas. It's very cute and so warm.

2) "Regular" coffee is a coffee with one cream and one sugar. "Double double" is two creams and two sugars. And so on. Yes, actual cream. Oh, and there's one called a "Gretzky" after Canada's greatest hockey player with nine and nine, since he wore a number 99 jersey.

3) Oh yeah, 'hockey' means ice hockey. They look at you funny if you call it ice hockey.

4) Most of the taps are those single ones, where you turn one way for hot and one way for cold. The hot water's much hotter than Aussie standards.

5) "Take away" is called "take out". Hand gestures are my friend, since I keep forgetting this one.

6) People eat soup with crackers, like Saladas. Again, I keep forgetting this one.

7) Ten dollar notes here are pink, whilst fives are blue. Most confusing since it's the other way 'round back home. And the coins are 1 cent, 5 cents (called a nickel and about the size of an Aussie ten cent coin), 10 cents (called a dime and the size of an Aussie five), twenty-five cents (called a quarter), one dollar (called a loonie, since it has a picture of a loon on it) and two dollars (called twonies, since they're two loonies).

8) Around Bloor especially, there's a heavy Eastern European influence to the food. Perogies (pear-ro-gis) are potato dumpling sort of things like giant gnocchi that are served hot with sour cream and they're very popular here. You can also get poutine, which is chips with gravy and melted cheese on top. Really good but very fattening. ;)

9) Bottle shops are called liquor stores and are run by the government, rather than private operator-owned. They're called LCBOs, which is short for Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

10) Every store you go into where you end up sitting for a while has a coat rack for those winter layers. Beats Melbourne's lack of free cloakrooms.

The Canucks on my list will probably be laughing at me now, but hey. It's the little things you notice.

Comments

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yes. Especially since Gretzky wore 99. His number is retired, not just for the teams he played on, throughout the entire National Hockey League. :)

[ion-duck.livejournal.com]

7) Ten dollar notes here are pink, whilst fives are blue. Most confusing since it's the other way 'round back home. And the coins are 1 cent, 2 cents, 5 cents (called a nickel and about the size of an Aussie ten cent coin), 10 cents (called a dime and the size of an Aussie five), twenty-five cents (called a quarter), one dollar (called a loonie, since it has a picture of a loon on it) and two dollars (called twonies, since they're two loonies).

You know.... you still have it lucky. You can just memorize numbers and colors. Where I come from all the bills are green. To think, if I lived in Canada or Austrailia, I wouldn't have had to learn to count. And that's one less thing.

[kitchendinah.livejournal.com]

It IS the little things. Dude, you don't eat soup with crackers? But, but, chicken noodle just isn't chicken noodle without saltines!

;)

Also, I have socks to send you to help you defend against the snow and slush.

[ex-thissuga.livejournal.com]

#2 is I think a toronto thing; at least it is emphatically NOT a BC thing, where regular coffee is black as night and actually Starbucks. but other than that. ;)

[philf.livejournal.com]

Re: #9 - they also have the advantage that the people who work in them actually know their stuff. I vaguely remember having a detailed chat about obscure English ales with a bloke in the liquor store opposite Dex's place last time I was there.

Re: #6. How do you eat soup with crackers? Dunk them in and soak it up?

[medievaloracle.livejournal.com]

My inner polack is very pleased that you've been introduced to perogies. I imagine my grandmother would have made damn good perogies if she hadn't been crazy. Ah well. :)

[ferox.livejournal.com]

...we have a two cent coin?

Oh! Ohohoh! Have you had golabki yet? Er... cabbage rolls, I think they are in English? Also very EE in nature, and very good.

Okay. So, Rossi needs... socks and. More socks?

[icewing.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm going to be the only one to comment on Song of Ice and Fire.

Loved the series. The new book came out a few months ago, and I have it, but I've not read it yet. I read the originals all as they came out. It's been so long though that I can't remember what all is happening to the characters, where they are and what's happened to them. And since it's been so long I'm leery of jumping into the new book. There was about 4 years inbetween these last books. If the others weren't so long I would go back and reread them, but for some reason I'm not prepared to do that right now. I figured there would be some summaries on the net, but I couldn't find any. Oh well. Anyway, they are all good books and I'm glad you've found them.

[bittertwist.livejournal.com]

I HAVE laughed now, and can say...it's nice to see you're becoming so accustomed to Canada, and can point these things out. :) Sometimes we Canucks can't see what is so very different in all those little ways...

Shaiyela

[misscora.livejournal.com]

I'm interested cause it shows the diff. between Canada and the States, OZ and the States -and- Oz and Canada. Very cool.

And, of course, now that I'm dating a South African we keep doing this 'You call it what?' thing. Very amusing. :D

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

Hey, did that Lamb CD ever arrive?

[moobie.livejournal.com]

Hey, I just learned some stuff that's different for the US vs. Canada cs. Australia! :)

[pollymel.livejournal.com]

Light switches!!! They go the other way. That threw me.