The thousand sided dice will be on line sometime today or tomorrow. As my brother and I did the data review we removed some prefixes and suffixes and added some. In the quarter century since the project was inaugurated, the biggest reason words got removed was for reasons of pc. For example, one of the words that got removed was voodoo. Voudun is a global religion even if it is centered on the Caribbean, and I can’t hack using religious slurs as part of the project. That thought ___did not occur___ when I entered the word in the first rounds of data entry. Other words came out because they were gendered slurs, or because the word use had shifted enough to give both me and Jeff the squick. Jeff deferred to me in the removals, although we had some DANDY discussions on a variety of subjects. He ran tech and entry, I ran the simulsearch. I think we took out less than ten on both sides, so I guess out of two thousand I was doing okay. It stuns me how much English has changed in the last 25 years. A project like this really brings it home. http://ksided-dice.com is the link, no it’s not up yet. ‘citing times! Big hugs to Jeff for all the coding! I may have had the idea, but it would be air without him. PS the original code from the dawn of time with the data files is available, but you don’t want it; as an artefact of processing speed improvements it screeches when you roll the dice. Like a haruspex. AiiiEEEE!
Category: …best of
The little list
I made a list of things that make me happy about 5 years ago (probably before I blew out my back), and it’s really interesting to see how things changed.
Foreign films. Still true.
Wreck Beach. Still true; but I don’t go as much.
Roller skating. I haven’t done that in ages, and given that my balance is not good, I think that’s done. I still have ice skates but gosh, I’ve put on enough weight to make them a bad fit.
Writing songs. Now folks, what do YOU think? SVQ. Still my favourite activity by far. And so cheap! And so close! And so filled with inertnesting surprises!
Baking pies. I don’t think I’ve made more than one pie since I started living with Jeff. That, I hasten to add, is not his problem/fault/responsibility. Mmmm, pie. Too hot to bake right now.
Going to a spa. Oh, yeah. In fact, I think I may book something soon.
Cooking a large meal for a houseful of friends. Still true.
Throwing a party. Still true.
Walking. enh, not so much. I have to get going on this and just make a walk part of my morning routine, rain or shine.
Watching bugs. I can still do this for hours. I prefer that they not be silverfish under my bed though. I just cleaned under my bed, laid down some silverfish poison, and found twenty bucks. Even my fucking room is expressing an opinion on the subject of how stytastic it is.
Listening to live music. And you would guess….?
Home-making presents. Still doing that.
Watching fireworks. Well, the Vancouver crowds suck unholy mops, but yes.
Walking downtown on a Saturday night. I love people watching. Early in the evening, before the drunks get violent.
Getting a massage. Sadly, I have to pay for these now. I can winkle a few minutes out of the kids, but sigh.
Driving through terrain. I love highway driving in BC.
Seeing unusual animals – pets, IRL, zoos, TV shows – I loves me weird critters. Current favourite is velvet worms.
Travelling alone. I hate it; I prefer to do it alone. And sometimes being by myself at 30000 feet is okay; that’s the part of the trip that doesn’t freak me out.
Eating lobster. Yes. This.
Having sex. Haw, haw, haw. I’m celibate now – have been for a year – and I can cross this safely off my list of things to enjoy. This aphorism deleted. And nobody wants to hear details either way so, bully for me.
Going to the ballet. Haven’t done that in ages. The last opera was ruined by the perfume (Fuck Entitled White Women and their TRAIL OF TEAR GAS). But I could definitely handle some dancing soon.
What wasn’t on the list – drinking beer. Surfing the internet or watching ER for 6 hours at a time. Hugging my kids. Hearing a friend’s voice on the phone. Going to church.
Welshidoc and the three quarks From Jaxamicus, a commenter on io9
Welshidocs and the Three Quarks:
There was once a family of quarks who lived in a cozy cottage in the farthest reaches of space. There was a great big Papa Quark, a medium size Momma Quark, and a little tiny baby quark.
One morning Mama Quark cooked them some unaccounted-for mass for breakfast. As the mystery-breakfast was both hotter and moving faster than predicted, the three quarks decided to take a walk in the darkness while it cooled.
They had not been gone long when a physicist from Cardiff named Welshidocs came along. He had been picking Bosons and had wandered into the depths of infinity. When he saw the three quarks’ cottage, he smiled and clapped his hands. “How elegant!” he cried. “I wonder who lives there?” He stood on his toes and peaked into the Computer Model. There didn’t seem to be anyone home, so Welshidocs opened the door and went right inside!
The first thing he saw was the table set with three bowls of unaccounted-for mass; a great big bowl for Papa Quark, a medium size bowl for Momma Quark, and a tiny little bowl for baby quark. “Oh, that Nobel Prize in Physics smells so good!” Welshidocs said. Then, as he was feeling a little hungry, he picked up a spoon and tasted the mystery-breakfast in the Great Big Bowl.
“OUCH!” he cried, dropping the spoon. “That mass is MUCH too arbitrarily assumed to be spherically symmetric!”
He tasted the doctrine in the medium size bowl. But that chaos was MUCH too cold.
Then he tasted the ideas in the tiny little bowl. “Mmmmmm,” he said. “This set of assumptions is JUST right!” so he ate it all up!
Having eaten his fill, Welshidocs moved into the living room and climbed into the Great Big Superstring Theory that belonged to Papa Quark. “Oh, no!” he said. “That theory is MUCH too hard.”
Then he clambered into Mamma Quark’s Classical Mechanics Theory “Oh, no,” he said. “That theory is MUCH too soft!”
Next, he dropped himself down in Baby Quark’s Dark Energy Theory. “Ahhhh,” he said with a smile. “This theory is JUST right!”
Just then there was a loud CRAAACK! and Baby Quark’s theory broke right through!
Welshidocs stood up and dusted himself off. Then he climbed upstairs to the bedroom. There he saw three Gravitational Waves all in a row. “Oh,” he said, yawning, “I am feeling sleepy.”
So he pulled down the covers and climbed into Papa Quark’s Great Big Gravitational Wave. But he quickly jumped down. “That wave is MUCH too hard!” he said.
Then he tried Mamma Quarks’s Reasonably Observably Sized Gravitational Wave. But it was far too soft.
So he climbed into Baby Quark’s Curiously Perfect Gravitational Wave. It was JUST right. Soon Welshidocs was lulled fast asleep!
A little while later the Three Quarks returned from their walk. They were feeling very hungry and were looking forward to eating the nice bowls of tasty unaccounted-for mass.
Suddenly Papa cried out in his Great Big voice, “Someone has been eating my spherically symmetric mass!”
Then Mamma cried out in her medium size voice, “Someone has been eating MY chaos theory!”
And Baby Quark cried out in his Tiny Little Voice, “Some has been eating my wild hokum. And they’ve eaten it ALL UP!”
Then the Three Quarks saw their theories near the fireplace.
“Someone has been sitting in my hypothesis!” Papa Quark said in his Great Big Voice.
“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis!” Mamma Quark said in her medium size voice.
“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis,” Baby Quark cried in his tiny little voice. “And now it’s BROKEN!”
Then the Three Quarks went upstairs to the bedroom.
“Someone has been sleeping in my Wave, which I can observe although the wave itself is inconceivably large!” Papa Quark shouted in his Great Big Voice.
“And someone has been sleeping in MY Wave of reasonably observable size that I have no evidence of existing!” Mamma Quark exclaimed in her Medium Size Voice.
“Someone has been sleeping in MY Fermi Paradoxical wave,” Baby Quark squeaked in his Tiny Little Voice. “AND HERE HE IS!”
Just then Welshidocs woke up! When he saw the three quarks standing around him, he leaped off the Wave and ran down the stairs and out the door.
He didn’t stop until he was wee, wee, wee, all the way home.
And the Three Quarks never saw Welshidocs again!
a little bit of ever’ting
It was a solstice party (1 pagan in attendance, check), a housefilk (whenever two or more of you are gathered together in the name of the typo, amen), a hootenanny (small children running around and massacring harmonicas and tambourines while Tapioca is cooked), a religious/cultural interpersonal therapy session as we sang the hums of our people (Falling Free, Frobisher Bay among others), an impromptu poly gathering (6 people in attendance openly poly, plus lurkers), a-a-a-and a shameless attempt on my part to get everybody to compliment me on my sheer good sense for buying Otto. Who is a boy, Katie K confirmed it. She also arrived with a housemate in tow and La Merveilleuse Tillie‘s fraking awesome rosemary infused vodka/vermouth libation, which despite the no drinking rule I tasted cause I had to. And I ain’t sad to. I’m glad to. Still a taste left, if ScaryClown comes over tomorrow I’ll feed him some. Stayed away from the beer, but Mike left 3 in the fridge, so at least I haz some to offer guests. Day before yesterday I made biscotti, and then shared them out liberally at the party, sending some home with the LET’S SING SONGS ABOUT DEATH (literally her first words when she unpacked the bass) Peggy and the ever useful and opinionated Tom. Also dispensed biscotti to Mike, who sang The Weight (ah, the piercing harmonies!) and Tomorrow Wendy, and to Rozo, who spectated with that sleepy and mischievous smile I’ve gotten so fond of. The glorious and unabridgedly awesome Cindy added that special soupçon of harmonious madness without which no housefilk can be characterized as ‘good’. Or is housefilk like sex and pizza? ah, erm. Anyway, we sang zombie songs (dead people), Frobisher Bay (freezing to death), Tomorrow Wendy (which has lots of death in it), Dead Flowers (roses on your grave), and really really kept the theme of somgs about death on track more or less by accident. Paul sang Last Page and Cindy sang Runtime Error, Type Mismatch so Lady Miss B was there toooooo. Although regrettably not in person, possibly because I neglected to invite her? Duh.
I cleaned my house and wrote a song yesterday, and people came over and we laughed and chatted and sang and played. Success! My brother has been feeling meh but not enough to crimp fun (he slept in the guest room, but Eddie the wonderkitty kept him company).
Due to overwhelming popular demand (two facebutt friends), I will be setting words to my new song, which is the third I’ve written in the Game of Thrones universe. My Needle and I, and Funeral March of Lord Tywin (instrumental) were the first two. This one is called The Maid of Tarth. Oh Otto, you are demanding instrument, but I will rise to the challenge. And now I realize that it’s 4 GoT songs, I forgot about Sam the Slayer. When I get into a Universe I seriously fracking commit.
Now…. how do I keep my house clean enough so I actually throw housefilks more than twice a year? I mean apart from a chartreuse flamethrower and a tank of oxygen….
Casa Shadd
So yesterday around noon Cindy called and after a long phone call I thought screw this noise, I want to catch up in person. So I drove to her place in the pissing pouring rain and then we sang and played and then we walked to Tops Restaurant where we consumed the specials and Cindy ordered blue Jello. (MANGATORY SGA REFERENCE!!) I took pics, I was so charmed, but I’m not gonna post them.
Then we sang and played some more. When I got home Jeff was five minutes into the Tintin movie WHICH WAS AWESOME. no srsly.
Today, looks like it may clear up enough for a pick-a-nick at church and then I’m doing supper for Father’s Day for Paul. The new minister preaches today for the first time so we’re trying to pack the hall, so I’m going to go pick up Carol around 10. The ever awesome Sue heard that I was doing that and said, “Oh I have to be early for choir anyway I’ll open church!” and I coulda kissed her for that.
P E N G U I N C A M ! ! !
Invective
quhat a day
Quhat being Scots dialect for What.
The night before I didn’t contact the volunteers. I was SO anxious and phobic that I literally could not pick up the phone. (Most of the time I’m not affected by anxiety to that extent but making phone calls is really hard for me, and I’m trying to work out why.) I realized that I was a wreck and went to bed. I got up at 4:30 am, picked out and edited the poem I read for the children’s story, printed it, edited the homily a couple of times more for clarity and accuracy and printed it, went through the undifferentiated piles of emails that are the complete mess that is cooperative ministry right now and found to my surprise that I did in fact know who all the volunteers were (amusingly, Paul was supposed to do set up this weekend but he left town… Luc covered him) and they were all sober and reliable people who of course all showed up. So my list of cooperative ministry (the volunteers who bop about the church and make things happen on Sunday morning, from the extremely amazing Sally (aesthetics) to the extremely amazing Laura (coffee) was actually accurate!
I even put in all the announcements that Rev Katie emailed me, AND put in a different graphic for the front cover AND got the order of service printed all by about 7:30. Then I packed everything up, had a shower, and realizing I had a WHOLE HOUR before I had to get to church, so I did the sensible thing and made Jeff waffles for brekky.
Saw Margot crawl into the garden plot and flatten herself to the ground to become ‘invisible’ waiting for the juncos to come back through the quinoa. Sorry kiddo… you ARE NOT invisible.
Went to church under overcast skies – I was the first person there so there’s that great feeling of unlocking all the doors and turning on all the lights
It’s time to play the music
It’s time to light the lights
It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.
That kind of feeling, and then getting out the mats for the kids to sit on and helping set up the table for the altar and hauling out the podium and consulting with various folks, and watching as Sandy hauled out the enormous cart Tom made for the sound system. (Brief aside – we have hard of hearing folks in the congregation so we have a bunch of wireless headsets for amplification and all that stuff is in the cart, along with the board and the cabling etc etc.) Then the greeter’s table is set up, and then parents come in to set up the kids (the older kids were off at a Catholic mass). And just greeting people…. and then Tom and Peggy and Marnie show up, and music starts happening (12 string, stand up bass and piano). Getting asked, once again, why it is I don’t consider ministry…. what am I supposed to say? God told me not to? I do not have a vocation, peeps! When you get the call it’s unmistakable. The only time I get a call that’s unmistakable it always ends badly, with me yelling “You freaking telemarketers, how did you get this number?!” I’ll tell you why I’m not a minister…. because I read the behavioural standards that I would be expected to adhere to, like not sleeping with parishioners and ceasing to be nude in public on occasion and being somewhat less vivid and colloquial and vehement in my speech. And don’t get me started on the drugs and alcohol stuff, it’s just unconscionable. I’m also, not to put too fine a point on it, making the same amount of money as our current minister, who is 13 years out of school. Ayuh.
Then it all started and it went very well. I made the aside about being asked about which version of the Bible I was using for the verse and answering “Sheesh, Mom, what difference does it make to an atheist?” which got a huge laugh. I have a lot of people to email the homily to.
I remember gazing at the congregation during the meditation and seeing Erin shifting her little one around trying to get her to latch, and passing my eye over all the mothers in the congregation and they (and a few of the men, truth be told) were all grinning. They knew the feeling… after the service I went up to Erin with a mock look of distaste on my face and said, “Baby did NOT get memo about staying quiet during meditation!!!” and all the women clustered ’round her cracked up and chided me, and that’s when I told Erin how many people were smiling with their eyes closed as they heard the baby – I think she was pleased.
Delivering the homily and feeling comfortable enough to wander around the stage instead of staying glued to the podium like I have always done previously, remembering to look up often enough to connect with folks. It was easily the most attentive group evar….
Having all the handouts disappear. Anne in particular liked Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit; somebody else, can’t remember who, saying that the little List of Cognitive Biases would make for an amazing conversation starter at Thanksgiving dinner.
Bringing strawberry twizzlers for snacks, and helping myself.
Talking, talking, to lots of people afterwards. Giving Carol a lift home in that magical fall sunshine that feels like summer filtered though dreams.
Blowing through the door like a hurricane and frying up the pork and onions for the stuffing, firing up the oven, stuffing the turkey, draping it with four pieces of thick cut bacon, jamming it in the oven, and ignoring it for about four hours. Katie calling to ask me if I’d forgotten anything and then showing up with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and whipped cream. (She called ahead and offered! I am not a failure as a parent! subtext). I then hauled the bird out once and basted it and put it back in while Katie and I made veg. Falling asleep on the upstairs sofa and awakening to see that Mike and Rozo had arrived, which triggered another round of Holy Crap, Must Feed People.
Final dinner arrangement;
Me Jeff Katie Mike Rozo:
Turkey with pork, onion, apple, brown bread, sage and garlic stuffing; hubbard squash drizzled with maple syrup, black pepper, garlic and allspice, boiled carrots, mashed potatoes, dripping gravy, green salad and dun tot (egg tarts from Anna’s Bakery OMG provided by Mike & Rozo) for dessert.
I came upstairs and both of the cats were on the dining room table. Margot was inspecting the last of the gravy…. Eddie looked hideously guilty and was licking his chops rather inelegantly (his tongue was out an inch) but Katie couldn’t find anything missing. Eddie’s expression made me howl with laughter.
I then bopped over to Planet Bachelor with Katie in tow (didn’t feel like going over there by myself) fed Kira who was most happy to see us, and then came back, watched some tube with the folks, and then announced around nine-thirty that I’d had a most excellent but also most lengthy day and I was going to have to say my goodnights. Katie slept over and now I’m going to get up and make her a breakfast that will be awesome.
And that was my very long, very happy making, most excellently wonderful Turkey Day.
Today I plan to drink beer and wash clothes. There IS nothing else on my to do list that I will do today. Well, actually, if I want to keep things copacetic with Jeff I should clean the kitchen and run the dishwasher. It’s pretty thick in there.
Oh, I lie. After breakfast I have to run to the bank and get some money. I think I may be buying a guitar today.
Heron Woman does it again. I do nothing for days and then explode into non stop action. It is my way.
2009 roundup, my good wishes for this year 2010, and I’m outta here for a week
January I went to Conflikt II, one of the last times I saw John. I bought him a meal, and that makes me happy; there’s video of him from the con, and that makes me happy, too. I started dating a nice man, but he some months later abruptly stopped calling me when I said something as a joke to one of his friends. It was too bad; his trailer site down by the border is one of the best kept secrets in the lower mainland, and I did like his friends and they enjoyed my music. Once I tried to kiss him and his dog got in the way. I would give anything to have pictures of his mastiff cross Sammy getting a big smack in the jowls from me. Given that we didn’t so much as kiss for the rest of our dating career, he wasn’t the right guy for me, but I also know he had had a horrific divorce and might have been dating because his friends were bugging him to. I think kindly of him.
February I sent Valentine’s cards to my coworkers. If I am going to do it again this year, I should probably start writing the poems now. I saw David Byrne while wearing a holter monitor, and if that isn’t one of the most baby boom quotes ever, well, I am in the wrong demographic bulge. I got a holter monitor because I had chest pain, triggering an ambulance call, which pain was, apparently, stress related. I also got the last of my hepatitis shots and distributed biscotti at 4 in the morning at Conflikt II.
March I visited with Wendybird, I also got Miss Margot, two days after seeing her picture for the first time. I did it; I fell in love with another creature because I saw her picture. I really feel like she was destined to come and live with me, and now, when she sits nose to nose with Eddy on Jeff’s bed and bats Gizmo’s tail while he does the cat equivalent of rolling his eyes, she’s just one of the family. I can hear her snoring right now. I also bugged my dad enough that he coughed up a single family story. Bwa ha ha! Paul and I got a great visit in with cousin Ruth and Katie read the Sookie Stackhouse books after being exposed to True Blood. Paul had what he found out later was going to be his last alone time with his brother John; they sang and played together, which they hadn’t done in ages.
April John was struck off his motorcycle by a woman in Victoria. I made a canonical list of my songs (topping out at 130 – the total is now 152 so I’ve either written 22 songs in the last 8 months or I remembered some I’d earlier forgotten or some combination thereof) . I had a hissy fit and tried to bail on living with Jeff; with some effort (more on his end than mine) it didn’t happen and all I can say, sitting in my living room in my quiet little house in Burnaby, is thanks Jeff. I also thought about renting a trailer site in White Rock. Glad I didn’t do that either.
May Jeff and I got an eviction notice, and John died 15 minutes before we got to the hospital, in a one two punch over two days that drove me insane for about two months. I looked okay, I sounded okay, and I was definitely, hopelessly and pretty much every minute I was conscious – not okay. Carrie stayed with us a while. There were horrible bad words exchanged with Paul’s relatives about the memorial service, and I’d like to publicly state that not talking about that on my blog was very hard to do. I gave notice at work. I couldn’t concentrate anyway. At the end of May we found where we are living now thanks to Paul’s timely information. I thank Mike most reverently for the material and moral support he provided to me after John’s death; Jeff’s love and support was just about the only thing that kept me going some days.
June I left my job after a lovely going away party; Miss Margot was neutered; we moved in here, and the cats were very, very happy to have a nice big back deck and a yard and alleyway to explore. Went to John’s Memorial Pondfilk and it was lovely.
July the pinball games came to live in the basement. I wrote a lot of songs down. Jerome and Shannon had a little boy. My little cousin Alyssa turned one. I attended Patricia’s Cavalcade of Cheese. Went to Wreck Beach with Katie and her friends and Mike, and it was just about the most enjoyable day ever. I decompressed a great deal.
August me and Jeff and Mike went to the Pretenders and it was the best outdoor concert I’ve ever been to. Read the most recent translations of Rumi and the Epic of Gilgamesh and was moved to tears by both. Paul and I visited Unca Dave at the Cancer Lodge. That would be the second last time I saw him alive, and the last time for Paul.
September I went to the Jericho beach folk club a couple of times and was treated to awesome concerts there. We emptied the last of the storage lockers and thereby saved ourselves some bucks. I met Vilma, Mike’s new GF, and found out I had a bunch more songs tucked away someplace, so my lifetime total of songs crept up another notch. Katie and Keith and I went to Victoria to say goodbye to Unca Dave. I bought a Kaossilator after jamming with Brian C and Mike on a fabulous evening (which Katie also attended, and during which I heard Jeff and Keith, watching something funny downstairs, laugh so hard they made the house shake.) I started getting more involved with church.
October I had THE BEST HOLIDAY EVER in Ontario. I got totally energized by what happened to me; seeing Deb, Jan, Chipper, Catherine and Tammy made me so happy I nearly exploded with it, and seriously, when I am having a rough day, I think about that holiday and FEEL BETTER. Boingboing.net ran an item on lampreys and I used it as an opportunity to drive traffic to Jim Palmer’s Lampreyland site (see sidebar). I moved minced moose to the minister. (Honestly, you thought I’d get through a whole year of recap without once mentioning moose? Whose blog is this?). I did one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, and I can’t talk about it publicly.
November I turned 51 the day my Unca Dave died. Keith said, Now I’ve lost two cool uncles in a single year. I had one amazing date with a guy who never called me back. I had another amazing date with a guy who never called me back. I spend a lot of time wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I applied for my old job.
December I avoided Christmas but not family get togethers, and started dating a really cool guy with a very chill dog. We have in the short time we’ve been dating met our exes and some of our kids. I auditioned for a band and didn’t get it. I emailed a woman who’s putting together women only rehearsal space and that appears to be happening in January, but we’ll see. I learned how to clean Margot’s eye gunk properly and trimmed her whiskers, which were pushing into her eyes when she was trying to eat, a most unhappy and unsanitary state of affairs. And I greeted the new year with snores, as evidenced by me mout’ bein’ as dry as a sand trap when I woke up this morning.
In summary; 2009 was a transitional year. I quit looking for a boyfriend (this one will either work out or I will quit looking); I got a lot of work done but not nearly enough to satisfy me; I reconnected with church and formally rejoined; I found out what I’m like when somebody close to me dies and I really didn’t enjoy the learning; I learned a great deal of family history and each fragment of it falls into place in such a way that the fabric of life is made richer and stronger; I realized that my gifts are greater than my challenges.
I send a big hug out to all my relations, friends and readers; I hope 2010 is a year full of enticing prospects and the riches of family, work, contentment, honour and playful creativity. And biscotti.
Now it is with some trepidation that I announce I’ll be intermedia fasting for the rest of the week. So, no blogging, no tweeting, no facebooking, no livejournal, no compulsively checking email. I’ll see you back here on the 8th.
Food
Last night I fed Tom, Peggy, Ben, Paul, Keith and Jeff pork roast done with garlic, bacon and bay leaves (it made the house smell REALLY GOOD) and many, many vegetables, including beans and cauliflower and broccoli and beets and potatoes. Katie and her housemates were invited, but Katie was already on tap to do shrimp and spinach canneloni that night so she turned me down with thanks. It would have been an ‘add two leaves to the dining room table and where the hell are the chairs going to come from’ evening if they HAD come, so I don’t complain and I added some chairs to my want list.
Margot quacked like a duck for the folks. She has a doctor’s appointment on Monday; she needs to be checked out for heart problems, which are quite common in Persians and don’t necessarily show up during the work up prior to neutering; her quacking and breathing issues may be normal Persian noisiness or it may be something more sinister. She’s so placid, except when I’m brushing her, that she doesn’t appear to have any problems otherwise. I keep telling myself that she’s like a kid… I get to look after her for a while, and then she’ll leave my life; I’m attached to her but I hope not too intransigent on the subject. And it’s my own damn fault that I brought her into a household where it would be impossible to keep her as an indoor cat. She gets FILTHY sometimes, having all that fun out in the rain and dirt. If it’s really pouring she won’t go out, but light precip doesn’t seem to register.
Back to the Friday Feast. I said to Ben, “There are two pinball machines downstairs.” He said, “I’ve never played pinball in my life.”
shock, horror!
We fixed that. Obviously he must play pinball before he goes to Hudson’s Hope. (He got a job with Hydro).
After Tom Peggy and Ben went home, I decided I needed both air and exercise, and Paul and I wandered around the neighbourhood looking at the Christmas lights (Keith and Jeff were busy killing zombies in the trial version of Zombie Apocalypse). There are some spectacular displays, especially close to the school. Then we came back after about half an hour and I picked up the guitar and composed another (what, another frakking tune, what the ???) song, which I think is going to be called “God Willing” and be about the immigration of my ancestors to Canada. No lyrics yet. I know; for an atheist, I’m such a sucky accommodationist. But you would be too if you had so many religious relatives, who also happened to be pleasant, intelligent and hard-working.
That’s the single biggest issue I have with the media atheists (I FLATLY REFUSE to use New Atheists. That’s like calling people who are Christian NEW CHRISTIANS. Atheists are atheists, there’s nothing novel about them, and you can see their lineage throughout history from Epicurus forward.) They are on the “All theists are stupid” train, whereas I am on the “All human beings have cognitive biases, and atheists may have at least one fewer than theists” train. Also, many media atheists have the distinct advantage of not giving two shits what their religious relatives think of them, an advantage I don’t have. It’s why I don’t give vent to some of my more shocking opinions (yes, hard to believe, isn’t it? But much goes on behind my face that doesn’t come out in my blog). I was a lot more venty when I started this blog, as I recollect. I don’t usually go back into the old format portion of the blog unless I’m trying to figure out what happened in say, July of 2005.
Keith called up the optician’s office he was still working at on Saturday (he didn’t give that other job completely up, the wise soul) and hopefully he’ll be getting more hours later this month. It’s hard to be a young person these days.
Today, AVATAR. I am very stoked. Now to check the hellacious mess that is the Translink site and plan my trip itinerary.
I so enjoy feeding people. It makes me feel good, and that was a damned fine roast. I miss the rosemary bush from the front of my old house. A sprig of rosemary in the roasting pan would have made it even more wondrous.
Passing observation
The best conversations are the least repeatable.
Angry and perturbed turns into meh, and then huh, and then te he.
I spent a good chunk of yesterday angry and perturbed, but as is typical for me, once I figured out what to do about it, I quit being angry and perturbed. Continue reading Angry and perturbed turns into meh, and then huh, and then te he.
I got publicity for the Morrison Creek Lamprey!
Freshly written down
But more than ten years old. Now, in all it’s disgusterpating glory, is one of the songs I am very very proudest of. Company dump. I wrote this for a coworker named Jamie with whom I worked at SR Telecom in Montréal.
Company Dump midi. Sprightly, ain’t it?
Company Dump pdf of sheet music. Mit Lyrics.
PLEASE PLEASE WIDELY REPOST THIS. I want this to be the unofficial anthem of the Canadian Working Stiff by Christmas.
Anybody who wants to sing this – even at a paying gig – doesn’t owe me a dime. If you want to record it (a likely story) please talk to me; the moral right of my ownership is thus asserted.
In my wildest dreams, a ludicrously talented art school student decides to turn this song into a three minute video… I suspect it could be very, very amusing.