Month: March 2008

Expensive Sunday

So I got a KHS bike, plus trimmings, at Sports Junkies.  Holy diddle, the brakes on that thing… I am used to reefing on the brakes and barely slowing down, and this thing is so touchy I nearly came off the first time I put on the binders.  The Luddite walked me through everything I needed to know (he is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about bikes).  Then I fed him at Taco Loco and headed home, where I flatly refused to pack and curled up with Dorothy Dunnett’s To Lie With Lions for the umpteenth time.

Pork uteri

Normally I would not juxtapose those two words, but now that I’m living in East Van, I have to tell you that they are for sale, very reasonably priced, walking distance from my house.  They look about as appetizing as they sound.  I’m going to try to find a recipe for them…. okay, now I feel really sorry for myself.  They go into pork sausage.  As a certain buddy of mine is forever saying, eyes wide and bright, “Good to know”.  I suppose if I told you Pork Bung is for sale too, you’d believe me?  I bet I know where that goes.  It’s probably stuffed and steamed and turned into a delicacy of some description or other.
As you may be able to determine from the foregoing, I have now completed the shop.  Everything Jeff put on the list has been purchased, and a couple of other things too.  Now for a bit of kip until the Luddite shows up.

Appropriate use of technology

Get up!  Your sinuses are burning! PS, your house in on fire.

Please don’t kill your siblings.

A communal effort being claimed by the sea.

Scientists need money…. don’t we all?

Pretty.

Lenin’s all busted up about something.

Interesting podcast about ‘the hum’ and what it might be and what might cause it. 12 minutes long.
This one’s been around for ages but I still think it’s funny.

Clichés so totally rock my world

I was horrified to read a list of clichés on gawker… and I’ve used almost every one.

I will try to “use my words” in future.  If I do any LOLcats stuff I’ll put in my Livejournal, how’s that?  And perhaps I will be more judicious in my use of italics.

I draw the line at my ‘Inertnests’ neologizm going away, though.  I thought it was a nice play on words, all those people in their little inert nests, smashing the stumble button, playing around with reddit, watching Noam Chomsky interviews on youtube….

Today I will do a bundle buggy shop.  I want to see how hard it is to shop locally…..

Oh my god.  I went to the Chinese greasy spoon at the corner of 22nd and Rupert yesterday am.  I ordered scrambled eggs and sausage and got scrambled eggs and fried wieners.  While I was contemplating this horkworthy attempt at breakfast, a trembling, staggering cockroach meandered down the far wall next to the kitchen.

I dropped by Planet Bachelor where the boys had a full house – Jessica W and Katie were there for brekky.  Christ, I should have gone there first.  I hung around long enough to suck back some coffee and pick up some more tax return stuff and then went home, where I stared at the walls and did zero packing for about six hours.  To intersperse with staring at the walls I re-read Curse of Chalion and read Oryx and Crake, which is like holy crap, how many dystopian novels does the world actually require?
Then I came back here on the bus… which only runs every half hour after supper on weekends.  Gizmo and Eddie are starting to get used to me and they are certainly handsome cats.  Eddie will walk right up to you and give you a shove when he’s hungry, with his paw.  It was quite funny.  Both of the cats snore; Giz is wheezing quietly right now.

I’m contemplating the pile of remotes and wondering if I dare try to turn something on.  I need coffee.

It’s all bout the timing

I wuz feeling all sad and bent out of shape (mostly because I want the moving faeries to deal with my packing) and the Luddite phoned and announced that he was going bike shopping with me tomorrow and all of a sudden I felt much better. I am not sure how he does it, but he has a real talent for communicating with me when I want to hear from him, and a priceless ability to leave me alone the rest of the time.  So I will have plenty of time to commune with cats and do a small grocery shop tomorrow (I brought the bundle buggy) so there will be food in the fridge when Jeff gets home, but I will also with any luck have a bicycle by this time tomorrow.

Off to the Ferry

I’ll be taking Jeff to the Ferry this morning and probably picking up some veg and hanging around the new place for an hour or so before heading back to the old place to pack.  Daughter Katie is supposed to turn up to help in the afternoon.  I haven’t arranged a mover yet, but hope to do that today as well.

Then I’ll head back here and commune with the kitties until Jeff gets back, and then go home and pack some more.  Life is pretty consistent these days!

I got an email from the Cassini folks.  There’s going to be a within-30k fly-by of Enceladus this upcoming week, so there’s that to look forward to.

All this time we’ve been worried about global warming and with the solar minimum coming on we’re all going straight into the deep freeze.  Why do human beings worry so much about the wrong things?  I still think the global economy’s perched on the edge of collapse.

Moving in the slow lane

Dragged my musical instruments over to the new place last night, on the theory I will be more likely to want to live where my mandolin is…  Also watched Perfect Stranger. Meh.  I liked the first half hour but the tenth time I saw Bruce Willis filmed with the top third of his head missing I started giggling. If you like the camera panning over the many assets of Halle Berry in a variety of expensive and tastefully clingy garments, this movie will appeal.  She is hotter than a two dollar pistol, no question.

Douglas squirrel

I got within a metre of one this morning.  They are so cute!

 

Slept at the new place last night. Keith was there as well. Man, the faucets in the bathroom squeak like a b*st*rd.  Other than that, and leaving my cell phone there, I had a good nights’ sleep; tonight, more packing.  The commute takes a little under an hour door to door – that includes the ten minute walk down from the SFU bus loop.  I’m thinking of packing my bed up if I can figure out how to get the mattresses there; I’ve already got some clothes and a toothbrush over there….I’m also working on how to do the commute without the Skytrain in the middle, given that it quits working from time to time.

There was a pile of pussy willow trimmings in the back yard – I absconded with some.

Watched 23.  Meh.

 

 

Geeking out

Honest to god, Kung Fu Mike wasn’t through the door at the new place an inch before he and Jeff were geeking out.  Mike and I hung around for a Few Days in September and a single beer, and then I got a lift home.  A pleasant evening hanging around and watching a movie and shooting the breeze.

Earlier Mike and I went to Kathmandu Cafe.  Small menu but everything we ate was delicious.

We got to the new place and Jeff had already set up the tvs. He described how he got everything moved – I was stunned because that stuff is super awkward when you’re by yourself.  Mike drooled so hard on the tv (and why not) and examined it closely for burnt out pixels. Then they geeked out some more (Jeff moved through part of a scenario in Assassin’s Creed.)  Happy sigh. All in all a thoroughly satisfying evening, and I even got enough sleep!!  No packing, of course….
Oh, and Gizmo ran away earlier and came back while Mike and I were visiting. Then he demanded to be let out again, and I told Jeff to let him.  (He showed up, guzzled some food, and demanded to be let out again…. welcome to having a teenager, I said.)

Denvention

ooooooh…. I am about to spend a lot of money to go to Denvention, but I simply must sing Lady of Komarr to Lois McMaster Bujold and expose more minds to the Tapioca Song.  I haven’t been to a Worldcon since Torcon II.  And I went with my mother and brother, how the hell lame is that?  But I did get to see Harlan Ellison and I got to see Asimov, too.

 

More later….