A Few Quick Notes 116

-Aside from a brief period of showers today was a pretty nice day. One possible flaw might be that even though the sun has set the temperature has not really dropped all that much. This trend is somewhat problematic when it comes to sleeping, or attempting to sleep.

-For the past two nights I have worked until close. While neither of the nights was problematic it certainly was tiresome. These long shifts were not made any easier by the fact that I have been suffering from a cold for the past number of days. Hopefully my Sunday afternoon shift will involve fewer keg changes than the last two.

Actually, that is the other thing that has been impressive my last two shifts. I am not sure if I have ever changed as many kegs. At one point on Thursday four went almost simultaneously. On top of that two sets of lines were not working properly and required continued attention.

-The mouse problem seems to be expanding, or at the very least continuing. While in bed after work on Thursday movement caught my eye. It turned out that one of the mice was on my bedroom floor near my closet. Shortly after its movement caught my eye it ran back into the closet.

Though I didn’t really want to do much about the mouse at 3:30 AM it seemed a pretty opportune moment, mainly as I knew exactly where the mouse was. Within a few moments I had re-arranged the contents of the closet to form a barrier, inside of which I hoped to trap the mouse. Though once the barrier was constructed I could not find the mouse. I quickly realized that the only place it could be hiding was the poison box in the closet.

With a curtain rod I tapped the box to limited effect. Confident that the mouse had to be inside I tapped again, this time more vigorously. After the second round of tapping I managed to get the mouse to leave the box and enter the open space of the enclosure. The mouse went from the box to the bedroom door, which it then managed to scurry under, meaning that to continue my hunt I would have to rummage around Nithum’s bedroom with him asleep at 3:30 in the morning. At that point I decided that the hunt was up for the night, I had failed.

Since then all that has happened on the mouse front is that I have been unable to get the motivation to go to the store and buy some wire traps for the creation of my trap line. Maybe I will get around to this on Monday (as the store where I was planning on making my purchase is closed on Sundays).

-While at Lobos yesterday I bought a few hard peaches as well as a pair of hard plums. As far as I am aware, these, aside from lemons, are my first fruit purchases of the academic year.

Actually, that is not the case. I just realized that I have purchased (during a sale) several bags of frozen raspberries.

-While listening to Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap tonight I was again reminded of a question that has been bothering me for some time. The question is whether or not Canadian Content rules apply to Mr. Bachman, and if not why? It seems that other shows could not play almost exclusively foreign music, particularly American music, and get away with it. Does his playlist mean that the rest of CBC Radio One’s content has to balance his high level of foreign content?

-For the first time today I saw an entire football game in person. The infamous McGill Redmen played the Acadia Axemen. In the final minute of play McGill managed to score to take the lead and then allow Acadia to score a field goal for the win.

The final score of 45-44 is somewhat indicative of the quality of defense. It seemed that both teams were more interested in offense.

Something else that was striking was the size of the players. Some of them were tiny and none of them were huge. I feel that if I stood next to the McGill football team I wouldn’t look particularly less athletic than most of the members of the team (though this may be a slight exaggeration).

A Few Quick Notes 115

-Today is another beautiful day in Montreal. For a while I was going to say that it is too warm, but upon further thought I have realized that that is not the case.

-It seems that the Globe must be reading this blog. One of the comments I posted yesterday about not seeing an increase in purchasing power was the subject of their headline story. I guess now that I have their ear I should push the big issues that are close to my heart.

-For lunch today I met up with a few friends from St. John’s. They are currently on their way across the country and back. While in Halifax several days ago they met up with Neil and Rebecca. In total their trip will last about nine months.

-Shortly I will be starting another weekend of work. In addition to my regular Thursday and Friday shifts I am also to be working a function on Sunday.

-On Saturday I am hoping to see my first college football game. The imfamous McGill Redmen will be playing a team from Acadia. As exciting as this may or may not be, I am sure it will be nothing compared to the Big Ten games many members of my family have attended in the past. College football isn’t quite the same up here.

In a strange way this timing is somewhat relevant as just a few days ago I started reading Paper Lion by George Plimption. Though this is by no means a rule or strategy book, it is helping me to understand a little more about the game.

-For the past few days I have been a little under the weather. Hopefully things start to turn around in the very near future. The strange thing is that I don’t seem to be alone. I get the sense that all kinds of people in Montreal have been or are sick.