Month: November 2007

Great party

Katie K and I had a lovely time at the party, and while we were not technically the last revellers out the door, we did just about close it.  Thanks to the company providing taxi chits (!!??) we got home in decent time, too; I cleared the door at 12:21 this morning.  I danced in high heels and now feel much as expected.
Last night I dreamed that I was a human motorboat, and I could zoom around these amazing crumbling islands full of nesting seabirds at about warp factor five while dolphins and other human motorboats tried to keep up with me.  The worst part was not being able to see where I was going (I could only see where I’d been) but I managed not to hit anything. I suspect this has something to do with my trip to Saona Island.  Happy sigh.

busy day

Today I clean up a bit, run a couple of errands, head for the Spit and clack and ear flap with the Menopausal Posse, and then run home, change, attempt to whip my hair into submission and go to the company holiday cheer partay.  Then, collapse. Tomorrow, more cleaning and laundry and then, if the fates are propitious and the winds kind, I will see daughter Katie in the evening.

Katie K and I are through 2 episodes of Deadwood.

Rantin’

Given that there’s lots of hot hot taserin’ action in the news these days, I thought I’d fire up the four brain cells I have left and attempt a rant on the subject.

When I was a kid growing up in Ottawa, I lived next door to the Chief of Police. I wasn’t scared of cops. I had no reason to be. The man next door was a wonderful guy who had a wonderful wife and four redheaded kids who were ‘lively and intelligent youngsters’ (full marks if you get the reference). Over the last 40 years, a number of social changes have occurred which have degraded our ability as a culture to convey moral intelligence to our children, so I no longer have the warm fuzzies about cops that I did when I was eight.

Like what kinds of societal changes? Smaller family sizes, so kids don’t get the “scarce resources and you’d feckin’ better share and your big brother will pound the shit out of you if you do x” lecture. Broken families so that more children spend less time with adults who are related to them and might have some interest in conveying subtle information like how to change oil, go fishing, keep a clean home or behave properly. The women (and some single dads) who are left are tired and whiny. Byeeootiful, a substantial number of children raised by tired and whiny people!! whoo hoo. This is NOT blame the victim, if I’d had to raise Keith and Kate on my own the three of us would all be considerably more loony than we are.

What else? Looser associations between neighbours so that adults are more likely to believe their lying little swine of children than the nosy parker next door reporting on their animal torturing activities. Kids being locked in a room with a phosphor dot stranger six hours a day instead of getting in trouble outside with pipe bombs and pick up baseball games, like Murphy intended. Unbelievable quantities of brain altering substances, some legit and some not, available before puberty for substantial portions of the school aged population, and fewer adults to hit the baloney alarm when the exposure occurs. Kids hitting puberty up to two years faster than when I was a kid. Holy crap, that makes a difference! And day in, day out, the unrelenting message of thin, rich, irresponsible, mouthy, stupid, greedy, oversexed neediness that is the openly stated point or winking subtext of every goddamned commercial and print ad and most of the content in most of the broadcasts all the time and everywhere.

I don’t think I am alone in thinking this. It isn’t just that our culture is rude AND people believe in spooks and angels, or that the moon landings didn’t happen. I’m not going to hop up and down and say that things are worse now in every respect, but it isn’t just the KIDS that have had less of a fair shake being taught moral responsibility, personal pride and self-control. Most of the cops now on the street in Canada are younger than I am. So I’m thinking there are a lot of adults running around now who are having ‘control issues’ too. Or have no feckin respect for other people.

For the cops, who grew up in this toxic bullshit along with the rest of us and are not inclined by the nature of their jobs to have any high opinion of homo sap, there are a couple of wonderful new wrinkles. Like, for instance, a substantial number of the people they get to deal with are DISEASED. And, if they get any on them…. contagious. Given a choice between massaging somebody’s skull with a nightstick and possibly getting blood on you, and tasering some poor sucker, what would YOU do? Ah, no contest.

So don’t be too surprised that cops are having a field day with the completely safe tasers (or so they would have me believe). After all, if you’re healthy, a tasering can’t permanently hurt you. It sure gives the cops a healthy laugh to watch you writhe on the ground like a worm.

Further reading:

Taser International wants to be part of the solution.

Santa wants to give all the good cops a taser.

Consumer tasers. At $1000 a pop, I’m not expecting one for Xmas.

Truth not Tasers blog.

Taser never loses a liability lawsuit.

Ain’t it the truth

Nerd party.

Been to parties like that.

Had a very pleasant conversation with a former coworker today.  Man, if there is anything funnier than taking a return authorization for a refurbished product when the person you’re giving the return authorization to DESIGNED the product, it doesn’t exist in the tech world.  AND we’re getting together for beers next week.  I love the guy, but as much as he likes me, it isn’t THAT way.  And I wish it was.  He’s the nicest, funniest, smartest, classiest, techiest, artiest and bestest cookingest guy evar.  Cute too, at least by my standards.  One time, he made country style French apple pie when he had me and Paul over for dinner, and Paul and I were still making “Wasn’t that a pie!?” comments six months later.  And he cooked us Pad Thai once, too.  Mmmmmm.

My kind of crazy.  From Fark.

It’s the strangest thing.  I could not get my new TV to play DVDs back in colour no matter how hard I tried.  It’s amazing what happens when you actually put the connectors in the right jacks.  All is good now.  You know what did it?  I couldn’t STAND the idea of watching House without seeing Hugh Laurie’s blue eyes.  He’s so incredibly yummy….

I now have the complete Asterix and Tin Tin comics.  Long live digital media.  I heart Obelix. I remember when the kids were little, and somebody said something supremely obvious, we’d all yell, “Does TinTin have a COWLICK??? Does Captain Haddock have a DRINKING PROBLEM???” and then we’d fall about laughing.

nautilus3’s radiation treatments have started.  She’s about a quarter of the way through.  Her continuing good humour is a great comfort to me.  Life is still good!

Cats in an exercise wheel.  I love Bengals.

Work work work

I used to have a picture of Kung Fu Mike, figleafed by a laptop but otherwise starkers, which had that title.  I suspect it’s on the old computer back at Planet Bachelor; I must recover it at some point.

I had a very productive day yesterday, having drawn some of my bile during my long conversation with Patricia, and then I had a very pleasant evening with one half of the Minions of Loki, since we ate at the Penny, which is more or less halfway between her place and mine on Hastings.  The Penny is the very model of a Chinese greasy spoon.  I had sufficiency of leftovers for another two meals, yay.

I need help from a Mac geek to figure out why I am having problems with making my RAR or avi files run.  I suspect a compression issue.

Saturday is the company Christmas party…. Katie K and I are going.  She is planning on wearing a dress and getting an updo, which is a lot like saying Eddie Izzard has given up on high heels.  I am trying to figure out how I’m supposed to acquire a second hand tux between now and then; I think it’s more likely I’ll just wear what I wore last year.  It makes me look immensely fat and I have to take the whole thing off to take a whiz, but it’s comfy and dressier than what I normally sport… as Catherine once remarked, “Oh, Allegra, you dress like a grad student” which, considering I was raised by grad students, seems no stretch.  As for the tux, I can picture the William Hamilton cartoon with a woman sporting a tux with no difficulty, which is probably why, besides the expense, I am resisting.  There are apparently going to be Engineers in Tuxes at the Christmas (oh hell, the Company Holiday Cheer) party.  The following Saturday we’ll be going to Katie K’s company holiday buntoss, the biggest difference being there are TWO free drink tokens, and people will be bringing dogs.  I am OBVIOUSLY working for the wrong company.

Daughter Katie’s 19th passed without incident; Dax gave her a handmade plaque with her name on it, so it sounds like he was doing something to improve the shining hour while she was gone.

It’s been quite frosty up here in the mornings; walking to work has been an adventure.

By copy to Chipper, on the subject of Christmas songs, have you ever heard Dominic the Donkey? I think you have to be Italian to be familiar with it; Gianna at work exposed me to it and now I can’t get the little beggar out of my head.  It’s all about how Santa has to deliver prezzies with a donkey because reindeer cannot climb ‘the hills of I-ta-ly!’.  It was a new one on me.

Saturday will be a busy busy day for me, because the Dunnettfolk will be Spitting over at Jan’s that day.  And Spits, as I must explain, are the names those events where Dunnett fans gather and eat and talk and drink and show slides of their trips to Dunnett places (like Iceland and the Orkneys and the west coast of Africa and Cairo and the Crimea and Russia and Bruges).  My father’s eyes glazed over at gather.

Tasteless captions and other stuff

Patricia was over last night.  I tried to feed her, but she resisted!  Garn!  Instead we drank plunty beerz.  And whined.  She has less to whine about than I do, at least in the boy department.  Tonight I see one of the Minions of Loki, and we’ll probably whine like the whiny whiners we are.

Herewith tasteless captions (link removed for security). Not all of them are funny, but there are some gems in there.

Feast your eyes on the pictures

Science and other pics.

Last night I had the privilege of introducing Mike McG to Katie K and it’s always a pleasure to introduce two smart funny nice people to each other…. then Mike had to split and Katie and I hung out.  As always, she inspires me to actually COOK so I made…. ta da!  Tortillas, with tex mex seasoned meat, cheddar cheese, red pepper, purple onion, romaine lettuce, tomato and cucumber.  I was under the impression that you had to have a cast iron pan to cook said tortillas, and was pleased that non stick pans work just as well.  I’ve only had that bad of corn flour for two months, it was about time I cracked it open.  Then, evil creature that I am, I said, and for the first time since I moved in – there’s chocolate ice cream in the fridge!  I sure know how to haves me some fun.

Except that I am now migraining.  I’ve popped two T3s and I’m about to get some coffee, but I learned in the DR that if I think happy thoughts and stand up straight, I can actually get rid of a migraine before it starts to hurt.  This morning’s visual sign – it’s different every time because I have (wtf else) ‘atypical’ migraines – was a question mark made of accordioning rainbows which occupied the right upper portion of my visual field before dancing ceilingward and vanishing.

Weird you want, weird you get….

The first thing I watched on my new used TV was Happy Feet from King of Jazz.