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Winnipeg Adventures Day 05

2026-10-04T04:18:16Z

Today was pretty simple. I went out for a nice breakfast, went shopping for work clothes, and then went down to the Forks and hung out people-watching for a bit.

There are some things that I would have liked to do if I'd had more time/energy. I didn't do any geocaching while I was here. I also didn't get to explore the riverside parks and so on. And obviously my trip didn't line up with any Royal Winnipeg Ballet performances.

It's entirely possible that I will come back to Winnipeg at some point! Who knows what the future will hold. :V

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Winnipeg Adventures 04.5 - Sabaton @ Burton Cummings Theatre

2026-10-03T06:16:29Z

So!! And now an entry about the entire reason I'm here in Winnipeg - Sabaton's concert!

There were two opening acts - Wings of Steel first, then Pop Evil. Never heard of either of those. Wings of Steel has a very classic sound, very Iron Maiden-ish in style. It's one of the flavours that originally drew me to the genre back in the day. They did a great job.

Pop Evil are a Canadian nu metal band. Think like... Linkin Park circa Meteora, maybe. If this had come out two decades ago I would have been all over it. ...Actually I still really liked it, going to have to look them up again later.

Anyway. Sabaton!!!

The venue is a beautiful old theatre. It's kind of small, and I suspect that's why they did 2 nights in Winnipeg back to back. I went on the second night. Apparently there were several people who came to both shows! Joakim said that on this particular tour they were trying to hit some cities that they don't always have a chance to get to - hence, the Winnipeg shows, and Halifax, etc.

They opened with "Ghost Division", and from there it was banger after banger. They put on a great show! Joakim sounded great, there was a lot of positive energy, it was all awesome. They did have pyrotechnics and some props but for the most part the visuals were scaled down to fit into the small theatre, and the overall effect was close and intimate. I think it worked prety well.

This tour is partly to promote their new album, Legends, but they actually didn't play many songs from that album! They played "I, Emperor", "Crossing the Rubicon", and "Hordes of Khan". The rest was a mix of older but recent-ish stuff. I was super excited to hear "The Last Stand", as I really love that one. Also, when they played "Attack of the Dead Men", Joakim came out in a WWI-esque outfit with greatcoat and gas mask and a tank of "gas", spraying fog everywhere, haha. It was fucking wicked. I have no idea how he managed to sing in that getup, but he did an awesome job of it.

I was not expecting them to play "Carolus Rex", but they sure did, and in Swedish too!! AHH

A lot of my favourites unfortunately weren't played, but many of them are either kind of old or kind of niche, so I wasn't expecting it. Like, they usually only play "Blood of Bannockburn" when they're in Scotland, and "Coat of Arms" when they're in Greece. I am kind of surprised that they didn't play "Ghost in the Trenches", though. It's the only song they have about a specific person from Canada. (And while there are definitely arguments to be made about that one re: representing Canada, I am skeptical that it would be a consideration). WELL... okay, clearly this means that they should write more songs about people from Canada, and then they should come back to Canada to sing them. :P I kind of wish they'd write one about William Stephenson, AKA codename Intrepid. But like, who knows what the future will hold.

Anyway. Great show! I had an awesome time! Definitely would see them again. And I'm glad that I came to see them at a small venue. It was a much different experience than the metal shows I've attended at arenas (Iron Maiden in Edmonton, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Saskatoon).

Anyway, here's the setlist:
( Setlist )

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Winnipeg Adventures Day 04

2026-10-03T04:21:14Z

Today I went to the Museum of Human Rights. I wasn't sure what to expect, because it's a pretty abstract concept and most of the museums I've visited in the past have been mostly centred on more material subjects.

I think it was very well-executed. It focuses a lot on video, audio, and photographs, and it covers a wide variety of subjects, both globally and in Canada. A few examples of the Canadian subjects discussed: Women's suffrage, the anti-gay purges, Chinese head tax, Japanese-Canadian internment, and the issues faced by current-day migrant workers.

Also, this is a really beautiful building. It looks a little weird on the outside (there is a photo of the outside on Wikipedia here) but on the inside it's gorgeous. It has a spiral-shaped, slightly abstract layout, and each floor is connected through a series of long ramps. It has a very open design, and one would think that the acoustics would be terrible, but it isn't - somehow they nailed it pretty well.

I spent about 3 hours there, and could have spent more - there were a few things I skipped because the videos were very long and/or because I needed a break. But it was very interesting and well worth a visit. Definitely worth coming to see it if you happen to be in Winnipeg.

After that, I went to the Forks Market to try to do some Christmas shopping. I found some handmade moccasins for my mother, who enjoys wearing them, but... I might keep them for myself, tbh. :P I really enjoyed the Forks Market; the vibe reminded me kind of some of the places I've been to in Halifax that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately by that time I was pretty exhausted, so I wasn't able to fit in the geocaching in the nearby park that I'd been planning. Maybe another time.

And then in the evening was the Sabaton concert, which will be its own entry. In all, it was a pretty good day!

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Winnipeg Adventures Day 03

2026-10-02T05:35:42Z

Today I went to the Manitoba Museum. The highlight of the exhibit was the replica of the Nonsuch merchant ship. Basically, it's a full-sized and fully functional replica of a 17th-century ketch! It was built in England and sailed to North America in the 1970s, and now it's in the museum. You can actually go on the deck of it, too. Very awesome.

Then in the afternoon, I went to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. They have a very large collection of Inuit sculpture, so that was cool. Also a lot of other indigenous art. The contemporary exhibits also had some interesting things; there was this one enormous black canvas with the designs picked out in staples (like, the kind that go in a stapler). It was really hard to photograph because the staples play against the light in a very weird way.

I was very tired at the end of the day, but that's okay! In the evening, I just hung out and wrote some postcards for Postcrossing.

The Sabaton concert is tomorrow night; I'm really looking forward to it.

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Winnipeg Adventures Day 02

2026-10-01T04:46:33Z

Day 2 in Winnipeg. The weather was pretty good, so I decided to go to the zoo! :V

I rarely get the chance to do something like this, so I was very excited. It was really fun! They had a lot of Canadian animals, including some I expected to see (polar bear, caribou, bighorn sheep) and some that I hadn't expected at all (musk ox, lynx, pronghorn antelope). I was able to get a really good look at the lynx; they're so small! Huge feet, but small cat.

There were also a lot of very-not-Canadian animals. They have red pandas! Both adults and a baby! They were so cute, oh my god. And also some very cool monkeys, including some Goeldi's monkeys, which were very active and adorable.

I think my favourite of the animals were the seals, though. The viewing area for their enclosure is partially underneath them, so they can swim around and also over you. Very cool to stand and watch them for a bit.

My only regret is that I didn't bring a sketchbook. It would have been nice to take my time and draw some animals. If I ever come back to Winnipeg, I'll make sure to do that.

After that, I went to The Leaf botanical garden. I sure do enjoy an indoor garden; this one is huge. One of its sections is a butterfly garden, which I hadn't expected. It was nice to find a place to sit and watch the butterflies and zone out a bit.

I was very tired at the end of it. I had a great time, but doing both in one day took a lot out of me. :V Both the zoo and the Leaf are in an enormous park, and going to that and enjoying it would probably be an outing in itself (sketchbook supplies required!). Some other time.

Also I had walleye/pickerel for supper. :V It's very uncommon to see it in restaurants where I come from, and you need a special license to fish for it in Alberta, though I'm not sure about Manitoba (it's not expensive to get that license, but my dad doesn't always think to get it before the deadline passes.) Anyway I wanted to eat as much of it while I'm here as I can, haa. Though a part of me finds it shocking that it's usually done up like fish and chips! Just because of the thought of putting breading on such a special ingredient. ...It was delicious, though, I will admit.

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Winnipeg Adventures Day 01

2026-09-30T03:46:31Z

ALL RIGHT. So I arrived safely in Winnipeg. Hooray.

Got up at 5 AM, arrived at my hotel around 4:30 PM. Pretty standard.

Since it was somewhat late in the day, there wasn't much time to do anything particular. I'd considered going to the Exchange district, but a lot of stuff I was interested in was closed by the time I'd finished checking in and getting settled. So far the weather is good, though!

Made a miscalculation when getting my bus pass, so I'm going to need to pick up an additional pass for my final day. Not the end of the world, but I should have checked more carefully.

Discoveries so far:

- There is a cafe near my hotel that is open relatively late and has lots of space to sit down and read, or work on fic, or whatever. Nice!! Seems like it might cater to the university crowd. It's the kind of place that I miss; Fort Mac doesn't have anything like that.

- The transit system is so far relatively easy to navigate. Much like Edmonton, there is a notification at the front of the bus showing the next stop. (As comparison, Fort Mac's buses have no stop announcements whatsoever.) The online route lookup system is both helpful and convoluted. You can input your start location, destination, and what time you want to leave, and receive several route options - but there does not seem to be a way to look up a table of the stops for specific routes. It makes me appreciate Edmonton and Victoria's downloadable route PDFs.

- I didn't want to hang around my hotel all evening, so I took the bus to the mall. Figured out where the bus transfer station is, got some nice basics for work, and a few frivolous things that I didn't need (Lush shower gels, how I enjoy you).

- Had a funny discussion with a bus driver when trying to figure out which route I needed to take. I was trying to get to somewhere on Portage Ave, and he didn't recognize which street I meant. I was confused because it's a very big street and a bus driver would definitely know it. Turns out I was pronouncing it the French way, and apparently locals pronounce it in a way that rhymes with 'garbage'. (Example on Forvo). "You're not from around here, eh?" Definitely not.

The weather's supposed to be nice tomorrow, so I'm hoping to do some of the Outside Things on my to-do list.

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yuuago @ 2026-09-27T23:26:00

2026-09-28T05:40:43Z

- Didn't do much this weekend. Went for a walk. Finished a fic (which will be posted on my assigned IIBB date). Read some stuff. Etc.

- Working my way through one of the local library's subgenre challenges. This one is "Exploring mystery subgenres". One book left to go; will hopefully make an entry about that when finished, similar to the one I did with the romance subgenres challenge.

- Trip is coming up soon. Looking forward to it. I've been eyeballing the forecast, trying to decide the best day for the outdoor things. We'll see how it shakes out.

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Well. Allrighty then.

2026-09-16T03:45:45Z

WELL today was kind of a mess.

We got a last-minute complex request toward the end of the day that we scrambled to work on and will finish in the morning. It also has a very good chance of being cancelled. I did just enough OT for me to miss my bus and then I had to stand in the rain waiting for the next one.

Also had a tricky situation in which a client called us with a complaint, I contacted the vendor to check, and the conclusion we all came to was "the client is lying". So I had to find a tactful way to tell that to the person handling that client. (Fortunately, they saw where I was coming from). We don't get a lot of issues like this, but when they do happen it's always kind of stressful.

AND ALSO. I received a notice of a questionable charge to my credit card (personal, not work). SO, I had to call the company to deal with all that, and now it's locked and they're going to send me a new card. Did I mention that I'll be traveling out of province in two weeks? Fortunately, I have a debit card that I can use if it doesn't arrive in time, but uh... this was not as planned.

Also, the contract for the paid instructor at our judo club has ended, and he's going back to Japan. The club is going back to volunteer-only instruction now. Found out yesterday. I'm not entirely surprised - it's very expensive to maintain both the club space and a paid instructor - but the short notice is unexpected. Though probably it was a subject of board discussions for a while. Anyway, I did appreciate that he focused so much on technique, but overall this probably won't affect me much, though I expect there will be times when classes are cancelled due to lack of instructor availability. But we'll see.

...Can we like, rewind things to last week, maybe? I just ain't feelin' it, yo.

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yuuago @ 2026-09-13T21:47:00

2026-09-14T04:39:53Z

So, my vacation is officially Done; going back to work tomorrow. I wish I didn't have to! It was nice to have time off. Aside from my upcoming trip to Winnipeg, this is it for the rest of the year.

While it's not quite what I had in mind for my original plans back in August, it was still pretty nice to have some time off. Did some reading, did some writing, spent some time outside, and actually managed to find some time to get through a few of the fics on my to-read list (that hardly ever happens). Feels good.

I really liked being able to go to the library and work on fic in the middle of the day. They renovated it recently and the new arrangement for the desks is somehow an Optimal Layout for my brain. Just the right amount of ambient noise and stimulating/nonstimulating surroundings.

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[Recipe] Madeira Cake

2026-09-11T20:55:15Z

Ahh, I just remembered that I had intended to post the recipe for the lemon cake that I made the other day. So, here it is. As I mentioned previously, I thought this one was nice but not impressive; my family loved it, though.

( Madeira Cake )

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yuuago @ 2026-09-10T10:29:00

2026-09-10T16:34:00Z

I just went for a walk outside, and it was so refreshing and nice.

Going for a walk in the morning is something I hardly ever get to do. Even on weekends, my schedule doesn't really allow for it. Well, maybe if I got up at 6 AM... but I am not willing to get up at 6 any more, usually. So here we are.

Even got a fic idea, too. Not sure if I will actually write it; going to let it percolate and maybe do some research later. (It'll be some cozy Hetalia LT/EE). So, that was nice.

The big problem with vacations is that I don't want to end. It feels great to just... do things. Ah, well.

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yuuago @ 2026-09-07T18:02:00

2026-09-08T00:10:47Z

My coworker came back from his medical leave in the middle of last week. So, after discussing with him, I decided to take the whole of this week off, to make up for my cancelled vacation.

It's not quite the same as what I had originally planned. Different vibe, and different stuff going on. But that's okay. I'm going to try to focus on fun things, at the very least (rather than focus on doing extra chores or other things that I "should" do. Though there will be some of that).

I spent most of today trying out a new recipe for a fancy lemon cake. Two layers, decorated with glaze and candied lemons; the remaining lemon-flavoured syrup from making the candied lemons is also used to soak the cake layers before adding the glaze. My parents thought it was great, but I'm unsure - I didn't think the taste was proportional to the amount of work/time/cleanup that went into it. If I'm going to spend all day on a cake, it had better damn well be a fucking awesome cake. Could be that I was just tired from making it and having a hard time being objective, though. (Will share the recipe later, anyway.)

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yuuago @ 2026-08-29T23:28:00

2026-08-30T06:24:32Z

Today I attended an Educational Nature Walk event. We went through the forest walking trails with a Cree elder and she told us about the various plants native to the area and what they can be used for. Even though we're heading toward the end of the season, there were still a lot of plants available to look through.

It was very interesting! I was aware that some local plants are edible, but I wasn't aware of the scope of uses. Obviously I'm not about to go making teas out of spruce needles, but it was still very interesting to learn about.

From what I remember, she mentioned that they do these walks at other times of year as well, so I might see if there are some next year that happen earlier in the season.

I'm very glad I went! Though it was a three-hour walk, so I ended up quite tired, haa.

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yuuago @ 2026-08-26T06:59:00

2026-08-26T13:05:44Z

Spent yesterday afternoon crying over Dolly Parton. I wasn't a super huge fan, though she sure did have some great tunes, but she did so much philanthropic stuff and genuinely tried to do her best to improve people's lives, so it sucks that the world has lost someone like that.

I think the stress in my life was trying to find an outlet, and maybe it was that. To be honest, I ain't doing so hot, and it's not because work has been busy.

On an unrelated (?) note, I keep feeling the urge to try new hobbies. Which I don't really have the time for of course. Internally I've been joking that it's a midlife crisis, but then again, maybe it is. Who knows. If I do decide to take up the ukulele, watch out.

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yuuago @ 2026-08-16T22:56:00

2026-08-17T05:05:47Z

- Finished typing up draft of FTH fic. Very glad for that. Now the editing can begin. I'm unsure what to think of this fic; it was an interesting challenge due to being characters I don't usually write, and I don't hate it, but that's my only thought at the moment. Fortunately I will be able to get a second opinion.

- Did some watercolours. One turned out the way I wanted; one didn't. Need to experiment more. Do very much enjoy the CMYK colours I picked up though. Unsure about B&W monochrome; tried something today and it didn't turn out as I hoped. The black is very granulating. Plus, well... watercolours don't behave like acrylics, enough said.

- Still very, very, very tired from exercising. I wish I had another day off. Or a week. (I don't want to grumble, but. I am grumbling.)

- I used up all my postcrossing slots, boo. :c And now, waiting. Again. Ahh, what a surprise, a snail mail hobby is slow. ;)

- I had a talk with my parents about getting their identification renewed. Mom's provincial ID is expired, and my dad's passport is also expired. So, we're going to need to get them renewed. I'm glad that I asked them about it, because who the hell knows when they would've noticed it otherwise. Unfortunately the province has put in additional documentation requirements to renew drivers license and provincial ID, so it might be a bit more challenging than usual for them to get that renewed. We'll see.

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yuuago @ 2026-08-14T23:09:00

2026-08-15T05:29:21Z

I was having a rough day recently, so I did what any reasonable person would do (cough) and ordered myself some more watercolour paints.

The Beam paints I already had are great, but the colours were kind of limited, so I decided to add to the set. Previously had two greens, two yellows, one red and one blue; I now have a full split primary palette plus a few extras (white, black, and purple - I have such a hard time making a good purple, it made sense at the time to pick up a convenience colour).

Eventually I'd like to add a few browns and maybe an orange and pink, but so far I've been able to make do by mixing what I have together. So. Not going to lie, I do like working with limited colours, and in a way I was kind of unsure about adding more, but I reaaaally needed a warm red and a cold blue, so. Here we are.

I'm so looking forward to using these. I've taped down some small square papers and sketched out a few things with watercolour pencils; will hopefully get around to working with the new paints some time this weekend if I manage my time right. These sheets are very small, only 3.5x3.5 inches, so I'll be able to work through them quickly.

I also bought the teeniest tiniest travel brush. #2 size. IT'S SO SMALL. When it's collapsed for travel, it fits inside a mint tin. So cute. So tiny. Not sure how often I'll use it, but it'll probably be great for doing details on the tiny sheets.

Kind of second-guessing my decision to buy the black and white; normally I avoid those. But I have been very curious about doing some monochromatic b&w studies, so they ended up in the order. I guess I'll just have to try them out and see how they behave. Could be interesting.

That's enough paints for now, probably. I've also been kind of curious about Rosa watercolours, but if I ever reach for those it will likely be an actual palette, and I don't see any call for that at the moment. I do find that I prefer stuff in pans. Tubes do perform pretty great, but they feel so... messy in comparison.

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yuuago @ 2026-08-08T08:12:00

2026-08-08T14:16:49Z

My coworker is very sick. I received notice that he's going to be out on medical leave for a couple of weeks.

We're a two-person department, so it's just going to be me handling things for a while.

I had originally planned to take the whole of next week off to just hang out at home and relax. But I cancelled that, because with the short notice, there is no way to train someone else to handle everything while we're both out (and I would absolutely not be able to relax while knowing the absolute mess going on at work, anyway).

Ugh, this sucks.

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yuuago @ 2026-08-05T22:30:00

2026-08-06T04:36:31Z

On a recommendation from r/fountainpens, I ordered Sull's The Art of Cursive Penmanship and received it today.

It's much bigger and heavier than I expected! It's a very big hardcover book with an inner coil so that it lays flat. From glancing through it, the lessons are very thorough, which I did expect.

I have another cursive workbook, much cheaper and flimsier, which I've been writing on directly. This one, I'm not so sure. I'm wondering if maybe I should do the exercises on plain paper and then give the book away when I'm finished with it, rather than writing directly into the workbook.

My cursive handwriting is terrible, which is why I never use it. I also hate writing in cursive, which is another reason why I never use it. It's ugly and more importantly, it hurts to write in cursive for extended periods of time. This is probably partially because I'm left handed and cursive was not invented for left handed people; pushing the pen across the page is a different kind of movement than pulling it.

It's been a long time since I used cursive in school, and that was only for a few years; after a while my teachers gave me an informal exemption for it and I could write in printing instead. But I figured, ehhhh it's been a long time, maybe I should try again. Hence, the two cursive workbooks.

At least working through it now, at my own pace, with nobody forcing me to do it, I will be able to look at my dislike of it in an objective way. And if I still dislike it by the time I'm done, I will never have to use it again.

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yuuago @ 2026-08-02T23:11:00

2026-08-03T05:19:40Z

Had plans today, but they got derailed a bit when I decided to try to unclog my sink drain.

All the youtube instructions seemed so simple! Unscrew and remove the plug, and if it's still clogged, remove the p-trap. Okay.

I made an attempt at removing the p-trap! I could not! "It should just be finger-tight, you can just unscrew it." Yeah, no.

...Anyway I ended up calling dad over to borrow his drain snake, so it's fixed, and I'll be buying one of my own eventually because my drains get clogged often (on account of the hair). He explained that on my sink, you need certain kinds of pliers to remove the p-trap, and that using the snake is better. Fair enough. But... I really wish I'd been able to do it without help.

Ah, well, at least it's done. Totally derailed the rest of the day, though!

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Various

2026-07-27T01:54:28Z

- There are two weeks until my vacation and I don't know how I will manage to Survive until then. (But I must. Of course.)

- Spent some time working on my FTH fic, yay. I'm a little nervous about whether the recipient will like it or not, but... ah well, all I can do is my best, I guess!!

- I signed up for IIBB too. Of course. Looking forward to that. I do enjoy a deadline, and more than that, I really appreciate fests where you can do whatever the hell you want.

- Did some watercolours this evening. Man, the difference between my absolutely-cheapass tubes vs my slightly-less-cheapass pan palette is very noticeable. Maybe some day I'll get some actually-somewhat-nice stuff, probably in pans again, but that will be quite a while. For the time being I'm basically Project Panning my watercolours (in other words, using them all up before I look at adding something new). On the upside, the cheap gouache is maybe 1/3rd gone already.

- Check out this beautiful photo of a Hunt's Bumblebee that I came across on iNaturalist. That really is one exquisite bumblebee. So fuzzy!

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yuuago @ 2026-07-20T07:08:00

2026-07-20T13:11:40Z

I went to a special meeting last night. Wood Buffalo Pride is in the process of becoming a registered charity, and they needed a vote to do that.

Once the process is finished and the CRA approves everything, donations will be tax-deductible and they will be eligible for more grants.

Obviously, the vote went through. Meeting only took five minutes, though! I probably could have zoomed it. Oh, well. :V

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Recent Reads

2026-07-19T15:44:16Z

Various things I've read recently:

* The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. Set in Madrid during the time of the Spanish inquisition. A scullery maid uses small magic to get through the day; her employer discovers this and uses these "miracles" to better the house's social position. I really really enjoyed this one; it was very absorbing. I had it in audio, and I kept looking around for more reasons to listen to it. This is a novel where the time period and setting are not just set dressing; they're fully integrated and important to the story, and I like that.

* Moby Dick by Herman Melville. The famous search for the White Whale (and Ishmael's slashy vibes with Queequeg). I thought I was prepared for Ishmael's whale digressions, but I was not. This is such an odd book. If it were only the plot, it'd be half the length, if that. I'm glad that I read it, but I don't think I will read it again.

* The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. More like a collection of vignettes than a novel, following the activities of a small family staying on an island during the summer. A few friends have recommended this to me, partially because I like this author's other work and partly because it "seems like something you would enjoy". Unfortunately, I didn't like it overmuch. I did enjoy the grandmother, and all the quiet little moments, but I have very little patience for small children, and I found Sophia grating because of it. I've seen the recent film adaptation (released in 2024) and enjoyed that quite a bit; Sophia is much more mellow there. So I was looking forward to the novel, but... No. Quite a bummer, because it has so many ingredients that I like, but alas one of the main characters is like tomatoes in a quiche: Not For Me.

* Currently reading: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Set in Canada during a fictional pandemic. I've only just started it, so I can't say much about it except that so far the writing is pretty good. But the phone call about the Georgian Flu sure is a thing. I can't help but find myself wondering how I would have received this book had I read it prior to 2020, preferably at the height of SSSS fandom. I bet I would have loved it then.

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yuuago @ 2026-07-14T20:20:00

2026-07-15T02:34:58Z

I asked the iddyiddybangbang mod if it's running again this year, as signups are usually open by now. The answer is yes, but on a delayed schedule! Signups start July 25 and the schedule is up.

I'm very excited about it. Will probably start working on my fic before the signups even open, just because I can.

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yuuago @ 2026-07-12T19:27:00

2026-07-13T02:39:57Z

I have two days off scheduled in the upcoming week, and also a whole week in August set aside. ...Admittedly I plan to spend most of this upcoming Friday geocaching, but I am definitely going to try to get some rest in somewhere too. Looking forward to it!

(I'm really tired and sore today though, MIND YOU having given it some thought I think it might be because of the intense yoga class I went to yesterday. Well okay then.)

Started working on a new fic today. Some NO/DE, just a thing I've been kicking around for a bit that will slot into the 'Matters Of' storyline. Should be fun. I've been writing it with my fountain pen; turns out some of the Nota notebooks I picked up from the local Coles have paper that works pretty good with those pens, which is convenient. And gives a good way to work through that, uh, 50ml bottle of ink that I bought a while back. I think I'll be good for quite a while.

This pairing is always such a comfort to write. Which is kind of surprising, I guess. But it somehow comes out exactly how I want it, every time.

Very much in a "No edit, only write" sort of mood, though. I need to edit my FTH fic but I really, really don't want to. (I'll do it, I swear, but ugh, man...)

I've been kind of half-assedly paying attention to the World Cup. Was surprised that Canada made it as far as we did. Was also surprised that Norway made it as far as they did. Not sure if I will watch the final (maybe?). But mostly it made me miss the people that I watched the last World Cup with. They all dropped off the face of the internet, and it's quite a bummer.

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Fort Mac Adventures - Canada Day

2026-07-02T05:17:17Z

Sooo today was Canada Day! And I had the day off.

I took the bus downtown. The Multicultural Society was hosting a free pancake breakfast, so of course I was up for that. By the time I got there, they were winding down but still with plenty left over and were giving out extra packages. So, I was able to bring some home to freeze for later.

The weather was not too bad. Not super hot, anyway. No rain. A little smokey, but that's business as usual.

The parade was all right! I mean, you have to calibrate your expectations, considering it's Fort Mac, but it was still a good time. The Filipino-Canadian Association went all out, with multiple floats and some really impressive dancers in traditional clothing. Alberta Wildfire made an appearance with a really nice float. The local McDonalds did a surprisingly really good, high-effort entry, with floats and costumes and ribbon dancers. ?! (On the one hand, ew, big corporation etc. On the other hand, like, it's all local staff putting in the effort to do a nice parade entry. So there is that. ...I hope they got paid though.) And also the military museum had a whole-ass TANK on the flatbed of a truck, that was pretty cool.

The only downer was an evangelical coming up to me to proselytize. I removed myself from the situation and went to stand somewhere else, but I'm honestly still kind of mad about it. Not cool, yo.

My parents invited themselves over this evening. I wasn't thrilled about that. However, they brought Chinese takeout with them, so overall I'm going to consider it a net win.

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