Notes on Memorial Day Weekend

• It's really hot and humid here this weekend. It's so sticky right now....I wish it was winter.
• My nemesis since I moved into the place I live now has been the "Level 9" speed test on the treadmill. Essentially it is a 30 minute program where you alternate between running 4.8mph on a 12% grade for 3 minutes, and then running 6.2mph on a 12% grade for 2 minutes. It is harder than it sounds. On Friday I completed it for the first time and I've been strutting around like a peacock ever since. When the last second ticked down, trumpets sounded in the exercise room and a little treadmill gnome popped out from the bottom of the machine. He clicked his heels together, did a pirouette, bowed politely, handed me a certificate of achievement, coughed once, then promptly keeled over and died. I guess he'd been waiting for me to complete level 9 for a long time. Anyway, I swept his little gnome corpse up and dumped it into the garbage chute before anyone could see me and start asking uncomfortable questions.
• Speaking of running, mother Apple ran her 5k road race in Ottawa yesterday. From what I hear, she completed the race in well under 30 minutes and finished 2nd in her age category!!!! Congrats to mom on a tremendous accomplishment.
  
• Yesterday I was walking to Central square to catch the subway and I saw the funniest thing ever. There was this young couple pushing a kid in a stroller....but both the parents were giants, and their kid was enormous. They weren't fat, they were just normally proportioned people except multiply the average person by 1.7 to get their size. I just started laughing my ass off because it seemed so funny to me that they were pushing this "kid" in a stroller when the kid could probably strap me on his back and lumber down Mass. Ave. knocking over cars and lampposts as he went.
• Online poker is for weak people with pipe dreams and no grip on reality. Anyone who plays online poker should be sent to a labour camp to learn how to be productive again.
• Does anyone have any tips on getting into (and staying in) an early morning schedule? I can do it for a while, but then I gradually drift back to late nights. I feel like to be a morning person you can't ever go out, because one late night screws you up.
• Can you believe the Edmonton Oilers are going to the Stanley Cup Final? They are the city of Champions and I hope they win.
  
• Why do people keep their money in banks? It seems to me that now I have to a pay a bank for the privilege of having them use my money. I get a pittance in interest and always have to pay these B.S. fees for ATMs etc... What a scam! They fire half their tellers and replace them with ATMs, and then claim that they need to charge you service fees for using those ATMs.....you know, to pay for all that infrastructure. Huh? What about the money you saved firing all those employees? Some online gambling sites actually pay a small amount of interest and don't charge you for transferring money in and out for godsakes! Maybe internet-based money transfer mechanisms will force banks to be more competitive.
  
• I hate myself and everything I stand for