Ducks on a lake in winter... have to love that! A total lack of snow!
Feb 23 - Wurdz
This week's favourite invented phrase: Doom Loop... which was not to be found in the Urban Dictionary.
Everyone has words they've invented, private things and names they use for places, friends, things in general. Pet names, nicknames, joke names... the list goes on and on, the results of silliness, odd events or deeds or just boredom. Some sites celebrate the inevitable evolution of the English language, while others lament the loss of 'The King's English' over time. Myself, knowing that English is an ever-evolving language, wonder at how different today's version will be in a century, when words like l33t and lifequake have been part of the lexicon for a few decades. Will it rawk? We'll see.
Not much going on this week for me, outside of work... things are very busy, and I am out of the house for about 10 hours a day. While this means I do get to sleep in past 8am, the end of the day tends to see me dragging from lack of energy and the demands of the job. So if I want to get anything accomplished, it has to be in the mornings, or wait until one of my rare days off... like Sundays, which so far have all vanished all too quickly, even without any recent road trips.
Feb 24 - Southern Trawl
Brian's on a trip to New Orleans, which sounds like a blast... now that they've rebuilt somewhat. I saw a TV special today about the city and the results of Katrina's assault on it in 2005, which had a large segment on the Superdome and how it successfully sheltered 30,000 people from the storm's fury. Some of them have posted their stories about conditions inside the dome during the storm, which makes for some intense reading. I recall that a former editor of mine from university took a road trip down to N'orleans back in the early 90's, and said the thing that stuck with him most were the dozens of bullet-ridden road signs on the local roadways in the state of Louisiana. Scary.
All of which means Brian probably hasn't checked up on BaconToday.com, which is my weekly bacon blog offering. BaconToday has a cornucopia of bacony goodness, so grease up and dive into the taste!
Feb 25 - Fire logs
I've been burning fire logs in the fireplace here for a few weeks now, and in general they're great: just sawdust and petroleum wax that give off a steady flame over the space of a few hours.
Unless they break in half and flare up - whoa!
I'd bought a new style of log, called 'Crackling logs' that contained tiny bits of whatnot to make the log 'crackle' like a regular tree log would, or so I thought. Instead, the log refused to burn like the others did, becoming a sullen spongy mass of embers that gave off a lot of smoke and very little flame, taking FAR longer to burn than I had thought. After far too long, the log sagged in the middle and then the whole thing burst into a brilliant conflagration - a furnace-like flare of flame! I feared for the structure of the chimney and raced to grab the fire extinguisher, but fortunately the flames only lasted a minute or so... after that I was able to open the glass doors and spread the flaring bits apart from each other to reduce the overall intensity. NOT a good feeling, that, watching this huge fire appear from nowhere and feeling hot enough to melt its way through the fireplace. Sheesh!!!
I enjoyed the fireplaces that I had when I was living in Fonthill: a pair of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling wood-burning fireplaces that really brought home the ancient thrill of taming fire, in the comfort of your home.
But what about if things went really south? As in, your firelog exploded with the force of a nuclear weapon? What would be the effects?
Thanks to this app available for GoogleMaps, you can now look up any place in the world, and see what effects dropping a nuclear weapon( or even an asteroid )on it would have. Having lived next to the power-generating Niagara Falls for most of my life, I always wondered if it was a priority target on somebody's list, and what would happen if a nuke did go off there... guess it's the post-apocalyptic g33k in me, but books like After The Bomb and Wasteland are always on my shelves for flip-throughs every few years. Plus, shows like Jericho and The Sarah Connor Chronicles also catch my eye year to year...
Feb 26 - Bat-Dates
Today I shut down or suspended whatever online dating accounts I had, after some few weeks of thought. Considering that I've had some of those accounts for years with no noticeable results, I'm going to be spending my time better elsewhere, not to mention saving the fees from the few sites that charge for the privilege. I have to say that overall, I've been disappointed with the sites, as few people respond to even the politest of emails, and the ones that contact me are for the most part not people I would be interested in even casually. So that says I am either far too picky, or like most, simply have not found 'the right person' ... if there is such a one. Compromise? Not in the cards. Yet.
Along the lines of making you laugh, the new animated Batman: The Brave & The Bold is a great show for simply entertaining you. Hearkening back to the visual style of the 1960's Batman, this new animated series aims to entertain without the camp and without getting too 'dark' with its story. From the two episode's I've seen so far, it does a fine job and is eminently watchable.
Feb 27 - Taxing my time
Work today was insane... I'm fine working by myself, but when the taxes are piling up, it becomes almost impossible to do everything. Phone calls and other customers poke at me like hot knives while trying to get through a tax file, each of which takes about fifteen minutes to complete and send in. The next two weeks are going to be much of the same, as this is the time of the year when everyone's T4's are arriving in the mail. So that means as soon as they do, they run in to get the cash. Sadly, not everyone will get a cash return... depending on how much a person paid in taxes during the year, combined with their deductions and credits, some folk may still owe $ to the government. Having to explain this to people reminds me of digging a tunnel in concrete with an old spoon... difficult, dangerous and time-consuming.
Feb 28 - Get Busy Finding
Apparently one can't find everything online... eBay let me down in my search for a cable for my monster-sized laser printer, as did all my usual( and some un-usual )tech shopping sites. So before work today I stopped in at Boomer's computers in Victoria... and was amazed! Barely 60 seconds after I stepped in the door, I had the cable in hand... for five bucks, no less! I had envisioned having to call up every computer store on Vancouver Island, but this astounded me... like pulling a copy of Action Comics #1 out of a pile of used comics at the local shop.
Now that I live out in Langford, I find myself wanting to go and visit downtown Victoria a little less, which is odd, as I really haven't take a day to simply wander around the many great shops there are there. Perhaps when the weather is warmer I'll devote a precious day off to doing just that, stopping in at one or two of the non-franchised cafes there for lunch. Hopefully by then some of my friends here will have some free time as well, though it seems I've managed to pick a fairly busy bunch.
Which is pretty much the same story back in Niagara: everyone gets busy, weeks or months go by and suddenly you realise the last time you saw a few folk was at a Christmas get-together last year... and it's now getting closer to Christmas again. Being busy stinks, sometimes.
March 1st - For da 'boids
Birdfeeders: source of inexpensive entertainment, food and ...
Deathtraps.
Seems that a neighbourhood cat has discovered that our new birdfeeder on the back deck is a great way to feed itself. I saw the grey blur miss two birds by inches this morning, which upset my mom as she wants to watch birds feeding, not being fed upon. So I spent several hours devising a blocking defence and setting it up on the deck - basically a see-through plastic shield to prevent the cat from coming up the back steps to launch itself at the birds at the top. I have to say I am rather proud of it, as the setup doesn't block the view from inside, is weatherproof and still allows people to use the back stairs easily if necessary. I finished just as rainclouds moved in and soaked things thoroughly.
I watched an episode of Total Drama Action tonight, basically season 2 of Total Drama Island from 2007 which I enjoyed immensely. The writing is quirky, the characters are diverse and it manages to be funny at the right times... unlike the animated Clone Wars series, which five minutes in I was tempted to mute and make up my own dialogue. The narrator for the series easily has one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard. Apart from that, the animation itself is excellent - there was a trans-atmospheric battle that had spectacular visuals and effects, but those can't save the show from rather mediocre writing or plots.
I also watched Who Killed the Electric Car? on CBC's The Passionate Eye, which had many eye-opening revelations about how GM's EV-1 program was scrapped as of June 2003. The fact that the cars needed so little maintenance( and thus lost profits for things like oil changes )scared both car companies and oil companies alike, who feared for their profit margins. I also discovered that the many trolley networks that cities in the 50's had were scrapped by automakers to pave the way for expensive fuel-guzzling fleets of buses... with large profits for the automakers again. It was an enlightening hour, and I highly suggest finding it online for a watch-through. Edutainment!
Still haven't had time to get some pictures of the place yet, but I am hoping next week to get a few into the blog. Everything is basically to rights since the move a month ago, and is quite livable.
Feb 23 - Wurdz
This week's favourite invented phrase: Doom Loop... which was not to be found in the Urban Dictionary.
Everyone has words they've invented, private things and names they use for places, friends, things in general. Pet names, nicknames, joke names... the list goes on and on, the results of silliness, odd events or deeds or just boredom. Some sites celebrate the inevitable evolution of the English language, while others lament the loss of 'The King's English' over time. Myself, knowing that English is an ever-evolving language, wonder at how different today's version will be in a century, when words like l33t and lifequake have been part of the lexicon for a few decades. Will it rawk? We'll see.
Not much going on this week for me, outside of work... things are very busy, and I am out of the house for about 10 hours a day. While this means I do get to sleep in past 8am, the end of the day tends to see me dragging from lack of energy and the demands of the job. So if I want to get anything accomplished, it has to be in the mornings, or wait until one of my rare days off... like Sundays, which so far have all vanished all too quickly, even without any recent road trips.
Feb 24 - Southern Trawl
Brian's on a trip to New Orleans, which sounds like a blast... now that they've rebuilt somewhat. I saw a TV special today about the city and the results of Katrina's assault on it in 2005, which had a large segment on the Superdome and how it successfully sheltered 30,000 people from the storm's fury. Some of them have posted their stories about conditions inside the dome during the storm, which makes for some intense reading. I recall that a former editor of mine from university took a road trip down to N'orleans back in the early 90's, and said the thing that stuck with him most were the dozens of bullet-ridden road signs on the local roadways in the state of Louisiana. Scary.
All of which means Brian probably hasn't checked up on BaconToday.com, which is my weekly bacon blog offering. BaconToday has a cornucopia of bacony goodness, so grease up and dive into the taste!
Feb 25 - Fire logs
I've been burning fire logs in the fireplace here for a few weeks now, and in general they're great: just sawdust and petroleum wax that give off a steady flame over the space of a few hours.
Unless they break in half and flare up - whoa!
I'd bought a new style of log, called 'Crackling logs' that contained tiny bits of whatnot to make the log 'crackle' like a regular tree log would, or so I thought. Instead, the log refused to burn like the others did, becoming a sullen spongy mass of embers that gave off a lot of smoke and very little flame, taking FAR longer to burn than I had thought. After far too long, the log sagged in the middle and then the whole thing burst into a brilliant conflagration - a furnace-like flare of flame! I feared for the structure of the chimney and raced to grab the fire extinguisher, but fortunately the flames only lasted a minute or so... after that I was able to open the glass doors and spread the flaring bits apart from each other to reduce the overall intensity. NOT a good feeling, that, watching this huge fire appear from nowhere and feeling hot enough to melt its way through the fireplace. Sheesh!!!
I enjoyed the fireplaces that I had when I was living in Fonthill: a pair of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling wood-burning fireplaces that really brought home the ancient thrill of taming fire, in the comfort of your home.
But what about if things went really south? As in, your firelog exploded with the force of a nuclear weapon? What would be the effects?
Thanks to this app available for GoogleMaps, you can now look up any place in the world, and see what effects dropping a nuclear weapon( or even an asteroid )on it would have. Having lived next to the power-generating Niagara Falls for most of my life, I always wondered if it was a priority target on somebody's list, and what would happen if a nuke did go off there... guess it's the post-apocalyptic g33k in me, but books like After The Bomb and Wasteland are always on my shelves for flip-throughs every few years. Plus, shows like Jericho and The Sarah Connor Chronicles also catch my eye year to year...
Feb 26 - Bat-Dates
Today I shut down or suspended whatever online dating accounts I had, after some few weeks of thought. Considering that I've had some of those accounts for years with no noticeable results, I'm going to be spending my time better elsewhere, not to mention saving the fees from the few sites that charge for the privilege. I have to say that overall, I've been disappointed with the sites, as few people respond to even the politest of emails, and the ones that contact me are for the most part not people I would be interested in even casually. So that says I am either far too picky, or like most, simply have not found 'the right person' ... if there is such a one. Compromise? Not in the cards. Yet.
Along the lines of making you laugh, the new animated Batman: The Brave & The Bold is a great show for simply entertaining you. Hearkening back to the visual style of the 1960's Batman, this new animated series aims to entertain without the camp and without getting too 'dark' with its story. From the two episode's I've seen so far, it does a fine job and is eminently watchable.
Feb 27 - Taxing my time
Work today was insane... I'm fine working by myself, but when the taxes are piling up, it becomes almost impossible to do everything. Phone calls and other customers poke at me like hot knives while trying to get through a tax file, each of which takes about fifteen minutes to complete and send in. The next two weeks are going to be much of the same, as this is the time of the year when everyone's T4's are arriving in the mail. So that means as soon as they do, they run in to get the cash. Sadly, not everyone will get a cash return... depending on how much a person paid in taxes during the year, combined with their deductions and credits, some folk may still owe $ to the government. Having to explain this to people reminds me of digging a tunnel in concrete with an old spoon... difficult, dangerous and time-consuming.
Feb 28 - Get Busy Finding
Apparently one can't find everything online... eBay let me down in my search for a cable for my monster-sized laser printer, as did all my usual( and some un-usual )tech shopping sites. So before work today I stopped in at Boomer's computers in Victoria... and was amazed! Barely 60 seconds after I stepped in the door, I had the cable in hand... for five bucks, no less! I had envisioned having to call up every computer store on Vancouver Island, but this astounded me... like pulling a copy of Action Comics #1 out of a pile of used comics at the local shop.
Now that I live out in Langford, I find myself wanting to go and visit downtown Victoria a little less, which is odd, as I really haven't take a day to simply wander around the many great shops there are there. Perhaps when the weather is warmer I'll devote a precious day off to doing just that, stopping in at one or two of the non-franchised cafes there for lunch. Hopefully by then some of my friends here will have some free time as well, though it seems I've managed to pick a fairly busy bunch.
Which is pretty much the same story back in Niagara: everyone gets busy, weeks or months go by and suddenly you realise the last time you saw a few folk was at a Christmas get-together last year... and it's now getting closer to Christmas again. Being busy stinks, sometimes.
March 1st - For da 'boids
Birdfeeders: source of inexpensive entertainment, food and ...
Deathtraps.
Seems that a neighbourhood cat has discovered that our new birdfeeder on the back deck is a great way to feed itself. I saw the grey blur miss two birds by inches this morning, which upset my mom as she wants to watch birds feeding, not being fed upon. So I spent several hours devising a blocking defence and setting it up on the deck - basically a see-through plastic shield to prevent the cat from coming up the back steps to launch itself at the birds at the top. I have to say I am rather proud of it, as the setup doesn't block the view from inside, is weatherproof and still allows people to use the back stairs easily if necessary. I finished just as rainclouds moved in and soaked things thoroughly.
I watched an episode of Total Drama Action tonight, basically season 2 of Total Drama Island from 2007 which I enjoyed immensely. The writing is quirky, the characters are diverse and it manages to be funny at the right times... unlike the animated Clone Wars series, which five minutes in I was tempted to mute and make up my own dialogue. The narrator for the series easily has one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard. Apart from that, the animation itself is excellent - there was a trans-atmospheric battle that had spectacular visuals and effects, but those can't save the show from rather mediocre writing or plots.
I also watched Who Killed the Electric Car? on CBC's The Passionate Eye, which had many eye-opening revelations about how GM's EV-1 program was scrapped as of June 2003. The fact that the cars needed so little maintenance( and thus lost profits for things like oil changes )scared both car companies and oil companies alike, who feared for their profit margins. I also discovered that the many trolley networks that cities in the 50's had were scrapped by automakers to pave the way for expensive fuel-guzzling fleets of buses... with large profits for the automakers again. It was an enlightening hour, and I highly suggest finding it online for a watch-through. Edutainment!
Still haven't had time to get some pictures of the place yet, but I am hoping next week to get a few into the blog. Everything is basically to rights since the move a month ago, and is quite livable.
