Month: December 2012

2012 in review

Love each other while you can. If you can’t manage that, move back far enough so that you aren’t hurting yourself or other people.

The road to failure is lack of effort on a day to day basis, so figure out how much effort is required to keep some momentum, and then you’ll have success to look forward to. Don’t let a day go by without working towards a goal.  Or a goat, if you’re dyslexic.

Honesty is the best policy with yourself; it varies in usefulness as a policy with other people.

Heroes feel terrible the next day.  After the daring rescue, the paperwork.

Irony is a lousy trade for compassion.

The first person to a location usually leaves trash.  This is just as true on the internet as it is in a national park.

Aging gracefully is one third helping others, one third suiting yourself, and one third keeping your mouth shut.

If there is a worse event than the loss of a child or grandchild, I don’t want to experience that either.  I hope anybody who suffers the loss of a child comes to terms with their grief.

My life got better when I stopped believing I had a perfect memory.  Blogging / journal keeping helped.

When I think of the millions of people who grew up without the love and support of a family like mine, I’m filled with gratitude to my parents as well as the people who didn’t have those advantages and still didn’t turn out like jerks.

Asking why there are scumbags is like asking why there are mosquitoes.  They are part of the human ecosystem.  That said, don’t leave the things that attract scumbags into your life lying around your psychic yard.

retail therapy

I was having a crappy day. Then I thought, you know….. and I called and left a message for Ian and Lucile and my former mother in law; I spoke to Lois and Terry and Jan and my mostest favorite writing partner Dave, and I left a message for my oldest friend (46 years and counting) Bonnie. Then I went out and bought hair dye (as suggested by a friend to help with the job hunt, since yes I am facing age related discrimination, thanks for asking, and thank you Garnier Hair Colour Number 60 for a) still being available and b) being on deep discount so got TWO ya!) Then I bought long beans and garlic and I’m going to make a massive stir fry for dinner. Then I bought a new laptop because screw it I’m leaving Apple and going back to Windows and Simply Accounting for two seats (re church) and some resume software and got free antivirus. Having called many friends and having had a lovely chat and having taken action instead of sitting in my house and being a mook, the sun has come out. So there.

Eric Idle has put new words to the Galaxy song

Herewith transcribed from the Beeb home site

 

Just remember you’re a tiny little person on a planet
In a universe expanding and immense
But life began evolving and resolving and dissolving
in the deep primordial oceans by the hydrothermal vents
Our earth which had its birth almost 5 billion years ago
from out of a collapsing cloud of gas
through life which is quite new and eventually led to you
in only 3.5 billion years or less
Deoxyribonucleic acid helps us replicate
and randomly mutate from day to day
we left the seas and climbed the trees
and our biology’s
continued to evolve through DNA
We’re 98.9 percent the same as chimpanzees
whose trees we left three million years ago
to wander swapping genes out of Africa which means
we’re related to everyone we know ( spoken: “o ‘ello luv!”)
Life is quite strange
Life is quite weird
Life is really quite odd
Life from a star is far more bizarre
than an old bearded bloke they call God
So gaze at the sky and start asking why
you’re even here on this ball
for though life is fraught, the odds are so short
You’re lucky to be here at all!

be careful, you!

Preventable, regrettable.

Helped Katie get a live mouse for Izzy’s dinner yesterday.  The last frozen one she fed him ‘exploded’ upon being warmed up (you thaw them in warm water, NOT the microwave, what were you thinking).

I very much enjoyed the ‘Transferrable skills’ workshop at WorkBC yesterday.

I watched “American Primetime” a documentary about four fundamental character types in contemporary tv.  Also, Gonzo, which was amazing, and Johnny Depp’s narration is choice, and the archival footage is awesome and freaky, as are the soundtrack choices.

 

 

 

 

It’s the most… overstuffed time…. of the year.

today, visiting Tammy at her mum’s downtown, then fly back here for a four-thirty dinner so I can get to church for six to open… DANCING DOGS for Christmas Eve service.  A some point a trip to Thrifty’s for a turkey and some other Christmas meal supplies, and then cooking the turkey tomorrow.  Yeah!  Keith and Rob will be over for dinner… it had just going to be the two of us but I decided not to.

Troubled….

I went to a gospel concert last night, and I rarely get a chance to have my face rubbed in my prejudices quite so roughly.

1.  Lead chorister / choirmaster was the very parody of a jump up to Jesus gospel singer.  He also sang flat until he warmed up.  FRICKIN AWESOME ON KEYS THOUGH. no SRSLY.

2.  For the love of GOD people, Jesus was NOT BORN IN A MANGER.  He was born in a stable and LAID IN A MANGER.  If I hear another person sing born in a manger as lyrics I’ma lose my mind.

3.  Gospel should have a live band or a keyboard player as accompanist OR NOTHING.  This group had a very sophisticated set of keys that did everything a band in a box could be expected to do, including sliding up half a tone, and providing ludicrous amounts of bass and percussion, but no soul whatever.  That was candidly the most disturbing part of it.

4. Excellent use of soloists, although I’m not a fan of the sliding up into Minnie Riperton high notes.

5. I’ve heard every Christmas song a lot over the course of half a century; you’d think I’d be happy to hear different arrangements. As well as they were sung, and the choir sang their faces off, believe me, the arrangements did unspeakable things for long dead bears.

6. My cognitive biases had me saying to myself, “And how much more I love my dear little Beacon choir, even if I’d rather hack my feet off and eat them than submit to our current choirmaster by joining.”  Don’t play well in the sandbox, me.

7.  I got to sit next to Tammy, win, and walk to and from the theatre, win.

8. And I wrote an air walking home.

 

Some phrases are so evocative

I am currently reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein.  Which is, textual evidence to the contrary, about memory and memory palaces and the history of memory.

 

He has provided a phrase I find particularly memorable.  On the day of his bar mitzvah, he was a ‘parrot in a yarmulke’ which essentially means that I will not ever be able to think about a bar mitzvah ever again without this mental image.

 

I was writing cheques for church this morning over at Sue’s place (she also joined me for breakfast) and her cat punched a hole in a letter I have to send.  Most entertaining.

 

Wonderful Christmas film

 

 

Almost 100 years old! no work no more

Tammy is here for Christmas, yay! I’m going with her to Granville Island today.

If you’re near water and have a drum, beat it in solidarity with the Idle No More movement at 11 am today (PST).

Now, the laundry before I leave for downtown.  Tammy’s mum has already told me where to park for free at Granville Island… but I’ve lived in Vancouver 15 years and I already know.  Tee hee.

I get to see a gospel concert in the next couple of days.  I am a bit foggy on when and where, but I’m hoping I don’t have to drive too far.

It’s time for me to start practicing my Compost song for the sermon in January.