Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

ba…ba….ba….

Scary Clown makes the above noted noise.  Apparently other people in the Engineering department are starting to do it – unconsciously.  When the going gets weird, the weird gets normative, as ’twere.
Some time in the last couple of weeks Burnt jumped up over Scary Clown’s pod and blasted him with a can of compressed air right in the face, and Scary Clown screamed “WHY??” so loud everybody in the engineering department started laughing.  Because your face was there?  I dunno….
I just got two reminders about kitchen avoidance, and why it’s a great idea.  1…. Morning ritual of trying to locate lids for my lunch containers…. 2…. where the hell is the coffee and the coffee filters I bought on the weekend?  Their complete nullibiety is a matter of some concern……….

Happy Easter

Wonder what the Pope is up to?

In world news, bird flu continues to simmer away in Indonesia. There have been 81 reported cases and 63 deaths, which is a 78 percent kill rate, folks. Across the globe – and this is what has been reported to the CDC so YMMV – it’s 61 percent. This spike above the kill rate for what has been reported globally is likely accounted for by farming practices, medical infrastructure and how long it takes to get critically ill folks to hospital once they start having breathing troubles. The last girl who died in Indonesia had gone into multiple organ failure and was turning blue by the time she was admitted, and that was probably after a jolting ten hour truck ride.

Just remember the magic mantra. If you don’t get sick yourself, you can save other people by pouring weak tea and water into them; if they start bleeding from orifices and turning blue, make them as comfortable as you can and go on to the next one, cause they ain’t gonna make it.

Elsewhere, Warren Buffett has plunked a lot of money down on a railroad, Burlington Northern to be exact, and it’s supposed to be the first time that he’s done that.
Jumping Jimmy Christmas how many times do we have to run over this same old ground?

This is really weird.

Check out the mileage maniacs.

Dungeon Siege prop

It’s been bally ages since I posted a pic of a prop of a movie which got made down the street and has never been released.  Uwe Boll, please stop making bad movies!  This cheesy hunk of foam was sitting in the woods in Robert Burnaby Park and I really wanted to take it home (gee Mom can I keep it?), but sanity prevailed.  But doesn’t every house need a cheesy fake megalithic structure?  Pic is about 18 months old.

Celebration of another year survived

Burnt, who is in his early thirties and has more energy than any sane human can compass, allowed me to attend his b-day celebration last night, which was very kindly of him. Alas for my 48 year old sagging bag of mostly-carbon, I had gotten two hours sleep the night before and after a couple of beers (okay, three beers) I felt my hold on consciousness become rather greased.

I did meet Phd, Burnt’s astonishingly awesome and recently highly educated fiancée, and numbers of his other friends. Scary Clown indulged me by bringing enough dead cow to the barbecue to feed me. He had a hard time believing me at first when I said that barely seared pepper steak and salad was indeed my idea of the perfect meal at that moment, but I guess he believed me after I consumed both steaks in short order. I told him that I wanted to adopt him as a sibling and he made a number of comments about my sanity, but from the first second I laid eyes on him he’s felt like family to me and nothing he’s done – even (or especially) the really gross or inappropriate stuff – has changed my mind since. I’m going to have to get a wav file of his clown laugh and post it to my site…..

Patricia, LTGW and I started the evening by leaving directly from work to visit Hellsgate Mall. Now, I don’t mean to berate the young folks, but a mall is no place to be on a Friday night (or the equivalent) and a liquor store is to buy liquor in. So I dashed in, grabbed a six pack of Thirsty Beaver, and dashed back out to the car (the mando was in an exposed area of LTGW’s scabrous diesel Rabbit, and I’d take a bullet for that instrument, so I wanted to stay close to it). I then got 20 MINUTES to people-watch as it took Patricia and LTGW that long to get the fuck out of the liquor store. What on EARTH were they doing in there? And do you know what it’s like to stand around a parking lot in East Van clutching a six pack of Thirsty Beaver beer? It was…. a slice.

Then Patricia and I inspected LTGW’s apartment. He had mentioned that it was small. It’s hard to find the diminutives which could adequately convey how weensy it is. LTGW, not to put to fine a point on it, looks like a cat in a carrier in that apartment.

Then we went to Scary Clown’s, where he greeted us by blowing a raspberry into the enterphone while we were still about 30 meters from the apartment block (it echoed terrifyingly in the entrance way and just about stopped me in my tracks). There we listened to his most excellent music collection – he really has exquisite taste – and viewed some pictures he took, some of which are, um, disturbing, and others of which are quite amusing, and also reviewed the personals on Craigslist Vancouver, which proved to be v. amusing. Then we staggered the two blocks over to Burnts, ate, hung out, and then home.

Well, not quite that fast. I managed to get myself to Main Street to get on the bus to the Skytrain Station, but not after walking rather farther than I wanted to because of construction along that stretch of road. A street person addressed me about something but I stood there radiating exhausted calm and good humour and only spoke the minimal amount (I was just about speechless from being so tired anyway). On the bus I got to listen to a girl from the Interior go on about what a hick she was. I found myself laughing at her and when I looked around I noticed that almost everybody at the front of the bus was trying not to laugh aloud, so I wasn’t the only one affected by her rather endearing looniness. Then on the Skytrain, which came right away, I was accosted by a young man who was just a big friendly puppy dog of a guy, and we traded comments about the difference between drinking when you’re 22 and 48 respectively and people sitting close to us started giggling. Then a smartly dressed (picture Ice Cube) black dude sat down and apologized in advance that he wasn’t going to be as interesting as my former seatmate which again made me laugh. All in all, it was quite an evening for entertaining and pleasant interactions with strangers. I lugged the mando around all freaking day and never got to unlimber it, though.

OMG. The walk from 13th and 6th to my place when I got off the bus nearly killed me. Now to the garage to move boxes….

a) Failure is not an option b) look at the purty pictures.

Indeed.

These are just gobsmackin’ly gorgeous. Thx biggo Debbie.

 

And somebody sent me an emoticon of a naked Betty Boop playing with herself, but I ain’t posting that.  Every time I think I’m in the lead for bein’ disgustin’, a teenage girl goes by me like I’m goin’ backwards….

Signed the lease….

I have a new address effective May 1st and will…. hopefully…. have functioning hydro when I get there.  I have never SEEN so many restrictive covenants in my life.

No BBQs allowed, not that I mind that much.  It’s one of the few things I’ll miss about home ownership, and I never did any of the work anyway.

On to the next nightmare…..

 

Beeyutiful day

It’s absolutely gorgeous out, but a little on the cold side.  I am in a good mood for the first time in ages.  There’s a party coming up, and I have to pack, and I have received my bonus cheque, and it’s really sunny, and we MAY just have licked the bedbug situation, but only if Katie STAYS HOME for the next month.  Te he.  There’s a way to get her to come home at night.

It makes me sad to say it, but Paul and I are evicting Dr. Filk.  We both asked him to clean up his living space preparatory to the sale of the house, and his response to both of us was a polite, “No, thanks”.  Since we aren’t going to be getting the full sale price unless the downstairs is at least tidy, we regretfully gave him his notice yesterday for May 1st.  This is dreadful family news and shows that Paul and I are cruel, nasty people with no consideration, and that all we care about is money, and that we have no sense of fine family feeling or any clue about how truly upright and moral people live.  Since everybody in the known universe with the exception of my mother and a couple of close friends thinks I’m self-centered and crazy, what’s a little more fuel for the fire?  C’est la vie.