Month: February 2009

Valentines Day

I’m off to the BCCDC to get my last hep shots.  Hey, free shots for a food borne illness when we’re about to experience the collapse of civilization?  I’m in.

Jeff and I had a brief talk about what to do given that the bottom continues to fall out, and we have some issues to explore but have made not decisions.  Gunsmiths, locksmiths, and people who breed security dogs will probably do okay. These are not things I want to do.

My blood work and holter monitor stuff happens next weekend.

My eHarmony dude and I will be dining in White Rock this evening.  I am very much looking forward to it.  I’m just working on his Valentine card, which hopefully he will find amusing rather than unsettling.

I dunno about this guy.  I think he’s got me figured out.  When I said I hadn’t gone to the doc yet after my spell last week, he said, “That’s just stupid.  If it’s something you can fix, fix it.  Remember, if you have a stroke, you’ll just end up being a burden.”

Allegra goes to doctor pronto.  And loses her hat.

Hissed at Patricia yesterday, but she was right (of course…. why do I bother??)  I was cheesed off at the customer, but I googled him and found out he’s litigious.  All better now.  Don’t poke the bear!

Valentine’s Day approacheth

I have gotten some but not all of the Valentines cards ready.

I go to the doctor this morning.  Jeff’s going to drive me and then take me in to work.  I slept okay but my chest still feels funny; it doesn’t exactly hurt.

I’m making waffles.  We had leftovers last night.  Lima beans make for really dreadful gas, but there’s sort of a running contest around here (I’m losing, just so we keep it straight) so no harm done.

I’ve got a date for Saturday night.  I don’t mind a restaurant meal –  I really want to see the dog!  All 110 pounds of her.

LTGW called last night to check up on me.  I like it when people phone me.

I feel really stupid these days.  Honestly, I think in the last month I’ve lost about 20 IQ points.  You won’t get any argument from Jeff.  I just wish I could have oxygen all the time, that was so lovely.  Dries you out though. John V. warned me after I got the O2 that I’d be coughing for the rest of the day.

Thank you Dr. Filk

For the lyrics, I needed those.

Anyway, last night I fed Paul, Keith, Jeff and ScaryClown pork chomps, chicken breasts, corn, lima beans, smashed potatoes and garlic bread, and then we watched Planet  Earth and then I did a load of laundry and then I went to bed.  I was just drifting off to sleep and Katie called ‘To hear my voice.”  Happy sigh.  My chest was hurting but I know it’s just a pulled muscle plus anxiety so I breathed deep, pasted a big smile on my face, and holy crap, I’m woke up this morning still here.

I’m going to talk to Jeff about where all my passwords are, where my will is, cheerful stuff like that.  I have no idea if I’m going to drop dead anytime soon – does anybody, really ? – but I pity the fool who mucks out my room after I’m gone.  I elect Katie to do it.

Stabby, stabby, stabby McStabberson

Which is what you say when rain wakes you up, and you lie listening to it and think “I’ve got a hat.”  You go back to sleep, wake up at 5:30 – and THERE IS AN INCH OF SNOW ON THE GROUND.  I knew this would happen.  I mean, I knew it would snow the week of Valentine’s day.  The increased amount of light through my bedroom window should have tipped me off.  Now to check the sfu.ca weather site.  They say there’s nothing to worry about, everything is fine.  I bet they lie like a cheap rug.  I checked the weather, and they aren’t even reporting the weather we are getting RIGHT NOW accurately.  I mean, unless you consider rain/snow mix to be accurate.  To be fair, it has both rained and snowed.  Jeff’s response when I said, “Have you seen outside?” just to watch him leap up from his computer to peer through the blind was brief and Anglo-Saxon.

The economy is tanking so hard, and it’s so much on my mind, that I woke up this morning thinking about it.  I thought, by the time this is all over we will have blamed everyone but ourselves.  Oh, better think of something cheerful.

How to make commuters happy.

How to make your own font.

How to make yourself more resistant to evil.

Something random.  But only if you like the FSM.

Yet another link to atheist quotes.

Yours truly, Robof9

You know how I’m always going on about how they are trying to kill me with how slippery the walkways are?  Here’s Robof9’s take on it.

 

To whom it may concern,

 

My colleagues and I have been astounded by the lack of care and attention applied to the walkways on campus this winter season.

 

(Allegra edit – you miserable bastards, are you trying to kill us???)

 

Each morning, I and many of my fellow employees make the trek from the Cornerstone bus loop down to Discovery Park where we work.  We can be sure that on any morning when the temperature approaches zero degrees, we will be treated to a Russian roulette of walkways, staircases, and roadways that have been variously covered in snow, slush, or black ice.

 

(Allegra edit – But why slag the Russians when lazy Canadians will do???)

 

In particular, the worst two locations have been the pathway that connects South Campus Road to the parking lot immediately uphill from the Discovery Park buildings (and coincidentally, right across the street (downhill) from the Facilities Management building!).  This gladed run is steep, and due to either soil erosion or poor design has tilted off-camber in such a way as to guarantee a painful slide into the railing just as you’re trying to turn the corner at the bottom.

 

(Allegra edit, as I have personally witnessed, and it’s no damned fun watching or sliding).

 

The staircases that connect the Discovery Park parking lot to the buildings below are also continually in a deplorable state, particularly the western stairway.  They only seem to get attention a week after the weather has rendered them more suitable for an alpine Olympic event than for safe walking passage.

 

(Allegra edit, I would have said something a little more heated than deplorable – I was thinking “A F*****G MENACE”!)

 

In the last week alone, I have ground the knee off of a brand new pair of Levis (drawing blood in the process), and wasted a medium-sized cup of Costa Rican Rocket Fuel from Renaissance Coffee.  I’ve also witnessed half a dozen good solid falls by international students heading to the FIS/MTF building.

 

(Allegra edit – and I saw three myself this morning by the little waterfall.)

 

It’s only a matter of time before someone seriously injures themselves on these walkways.  Please take action now to see that they are properly cleared on a more regular basis, before someone gets hurt!

 

Thanks very much,

Robof9

(Who didn’t sign it that way….)

The barbarians are inside the gate

I was reading about the Australian wildfires. I light a candle for those who died and those of their relatives who are left to mourn for these senseless deaths.

And as much as the 20th century taught us about senseless death, the 21st century will be the worst ever, and maybe the last in human time.

The unemployment statistics in the US are the stuff of horror; the US is engaged in two simultaneous foreign wars, and at least another half dozen by proxy, including Israel/Gaza; the world is full of angry, disaffected, poverty stricken men and their numbers are going to swell.  There are pundits predicting that the future will be determined by them….

When the barbarians came to Rome, they had military leaders.  When the new barbarians strike, it will be from within, and they will have no more conscience or self-governance than a drunken teenager high on meth.  Over the next 15 years, we are going to see barbarities undreamed of brought into our living rooms, and then into our daily lives.

See the lyrics for Leslie Fish’s No High Ground. I wish I could, the damned things aren’t anywhere I can locate on tha interwebs.

Fabulous evening

So I went with my/an “I-met-him-on-line-so-I-don’t-know-what-to-call-him” to a dinner party last night and I had more fun than I knew to predict, that’s for sure.  I mean any evening that starts with “Bring your mandolin, they’ll love it” is shaping up to be okay.  I drank a lot of beer, and two shots of Grand Marnier (when did that stuff become so yummy?), ate perfectly cooked prime rib, laughed until I cried about three times, sang and harmonized my lungs out, listened to Pete Seeger’s greatest hits on the stereo, stood up to play Spinal Clinic and got hijacked into playing backing instrumental on Heidi singing/improvising “Border Collies are smarter than you” and got called outside to see the ring around the moon.  I met some wonderful people, I mean really seriously wonderful folks, and now Jeff and I are consuming waffles and trying to figure out if we really need to do any running around today.