Saturday round up with extra moose

Considering that I think marriage is a crock I don’t know ‘zactly how to feel about this.

Disturbing pic of a kid done up Clockwork Orange style.

I’m only posting this in the hopes that pOp will forward a story about his childhood, maybe with an optional explosion.

Man, I didn’t know there was a floor show for the ferry line up. Ocean floor, that is. You can all tell me what a crappy pun that is later.

Very happy to have her back.  Jeff and I were worried about her.

Moose go back to school, get edumacated.

Moose, go away

I ignore the dog and play with the ball, for I AM MOOSE.

I make weird noises, ’cause I am a MOOSECALF.

SMG is back on TV. We’ll see.  I’ve started watching Lost Girl so I don’t know if I’ve room on my TV plate.

 

I HAVE UPDATED the Red Deer link… check out the pics.

 

Why it’s been bally ages since I posted a decent moose pic

I just had a giggly notion to google Moose Porn but I don’t want to see cheerful and inebriated white people in moose headdresses having at each other (for, brethren and sistern, think ye not that would be my portion in so googling?), so instead you can have this perfectly safe for work newspaper article courtesy of Cousin Gerald.

 

While you were looking at the safe moose pic, I went off and googled Moose Porn.  Now I can say, “Oh god, I’ve just seen a cam pic of a moose’s ass in rut.”  I told myself don’t go there, and I went there, and I’m sorry, and that’s how I know I’m not old yet, I keep doing entirely dumbass shit like that.

Pork chops with a crust of hazelnuts, dijon mustard, maple syrup, salt and pepper, lightly broiled, with nuked red potatoes and corn for supper.

Tonight I said, “Colin Ferrell’s accent when he’s not acting sounds like he’s trying to barf up the Blarney Stone.”

so grateful…. and a bit sad

Spent the evening of Peggy’s most recent b-day hanging around the Puddle (I swam eight lengths but boy is my back stiff this morning) and consuming mint tea and biscotti.  Highly recommended.  Paul and Tom were there too.

Last night I dreamed that Justin Bieber was dead and I was hired to squeal like a teenaged girl at one of his retrospectives, there being no actual teenaged girls to do the job.  I was giggling and squealing like a trooper when an unidentified woman about my age came up to me and shot me in the head with a Nerf gun.  And, such are the manifold blessings of my life, I woke the hell up.  No disrespect, but I think The Bieb has peaked.

My coffee is ready.  Jeff has consumed half a honeydew melon for breakfast, but I cannot bring myself to follow his example.

I get to see the Bean soon! My time off at the end of the month is rapidly filling up.

Kenneth Mars has passed away.

Things to be happy about

I am happy because I get to drive Jeff’s car for two days so he can ferry his friends to and from the ferry.  Cause my car has you know like four seats. My car, except for the verklimmt idle racing once in a while (up and down between 800 and 1200 rpm) is running tip top, and so smooth and quiet you’d never guess she’s coming up on her 15th birthday.

I am happy because I have a good job with awesome coworkers.

I am happy because Katie has painted a new painting and I gave her all my acrylic paint so she can do even more!

I am happy because when Jeff came home yesterday he gave me a big hug.

I am happy because I have a comfy cozy bed to sleep in, and when it’s raining like this that is a very good thing.

I am happy because I spoke to my mother on the phone for 40 minutes last night.  Not one instant of it was complaining about health problems, and so roll out the double happiness sigil.

I am happy because I thought of a title for something “The Chapel of Extremity” based on something by Brion Gysin and I wonder what it will end up attached too.  That’s the weird thing about creativity.  It’s holographic and you never know what the slice will reveal.

I am happy because when I went to get my computer fixed he said, “Three hundred dolla for fix, sixty dolla for new drive from London Drugs.  Why you no go London Drugs?” Which struck me as eminently sensible, and I will definitely go and spend money there some other time.

I am happy because even if I’m not sleeping more than six hours, it’s a solid six hours.

I am happy because Julian Assange is going to have a publicity field day while he sits in jail in England and wait for the extradition.

I am happy because now I have seen most of The Wire, I’m finding The Wire references everywhere in popular culture and I kill myself laughing every time I find one.

I am happy because Cate Blanchett is going to reprise her role as Galadriel.  And there is going to be a second Sherlock Holmes.

I am happy that Paul bought a new bed.  I wanted to make a silly joke about it, but I won’t.

I am happy that Keith is having good job interviews and hopes to be working full time soon.

I am happy that I am alive, and world is still singing in me.

Not one word else

Yes, I am dating somebody.  I can hardly deny it when he met everybody in my family yesterday.  That is enough on that subject.

I missed the winter spectacular as a result (Sue gave me tickets), but life presents us with many situations where bi-location would be useful, and I decided to stay home.

The rest of yesterday was a few chores and being amazed by the fury of the rain.

And now, a picture of a bat eating a banana, and a list of the best restaurants in Vancouver, and Nathan Fillion kissing his new co-star.

Odds und sods

Doris Lessing interviewed. She has a way of saying things that is resonantly remarkable.

Alan Moore is inta majic. Now why the heck would anybody be startled by that.  What he says really resonates.  I know I am supposed to be a hard ass atheist, I should be a materialist, blah ha ha woof mew.  There’s a lot I don’t know, including my own mind, sometimes.

A picture…. The guy who plays Esposito on Castle getting ‘bit’ by the Eric Northman from True Blood. For shiz like thiz twitter was invented….

Onion-style article about the stupidity of contemporary Brits.

So about all this type casting, stereo typing, and other mental short cut stuff….  Will be very hard to read, but I thought it was pretty funny.

I would have posted links to MP3s of Emma Goldman’s writings, but when there was a mispronunciation in the FIRST 30 SECONDS I say to myself, damn those modern anarchists, can’t they get anything rite write right??

And with this last link, I realize that irony explodes into a cloud of multiversial memes, and go back to transcribing Dennis’ reminiscences.

Various kinds of news

Jeff took me out for wiener schnitzel at Balkan House yesterday.  It is a truly superior meal.  For the price you cannot beat it.

I have reduced my beer consumption a great deal… but that will get fixed tonight.  Today Katie is 21 and I’m taking her to Drink in New West with a bunch of her friends.  I don’t think I’ll stay too late, drinking with your children’s friends is like saying you don’t have friends of your own.  At least it’s one bus ride home, for both of us.

My brain turned to mush when This Guy called and said school stuff will prevent him from seeing me this weekend, but then my brain started functioning again as I went into planning mode.  Hopefully I’ll see him some time early next week. Cue the evil grin.

According to twitter world famous Canadian writers message each other all the time about incredibly trivial stuff (for example the slug post from yesterday started as a tweet from Margaret Atwood), Nathan Fillion is having a bromance with Seamus Dever (co-star on Castle), and Dita Von Teese just ordered a “thanksgiving in a box” from the American Store in Paris.  These little peeps into other people’s lives are kinda cool, actually.  It’s interesting to see which celebrities ‘get’ twitter and which don’t.

I follow Stephen Harper; all his tweets ever do is say exactly what he is doing at a certain time.  It’s like a GPS for the PM.  Never any opinions expressed… just where he is.  I know what John would say about that if he was still alive….

A number of celebrities (referred to by Perez Hilton as celebutards) are already in train to be sued by people they have (while high as f*****g kites if the internal textual evidence is to be believed) slandered.  Other celebrities somehow think that misspelling every second word and sounding like an ignorant, lazy, disloyal chenozzle is, too use the parlance of happier times, cool.  As a single example, Courtney Love.

Other celebs, like Weird Al Yankovic, tweet stuff like this, as of twelve minutes ago…


Didn’t see anybody famous sitting in First Class. If this plane crashes, I am TOTALLY getting the headline!

Which you have to admit is kinda hilarious, spelled correctly, and provides insight into how he thinks.

John Cleese’s tweets are alternately content laden “I am here with so and so” and funny.  Bruce Sterling is always going off about exotic locales in Europa – but this morning he linked to a Pop Mechanics article about Robert Heinlein’s house.  William Gibson passes along Amazon reviews from his wife (who must be one of the funniest women who ever lived, if her taste is anything to go by).  So yes, I’m enjoying twitter.

Anyway, I’m off to a church meeting.  Everybody, as you were.

Singing and playing

Off to Tom and Peggy’s yestreen for Roast Beast and Many, Many Vegetables, and then singing.  We started with the Tapioca Song, and blessedly, got better from there.  We even sang Barrett’s Privateers, also Frobisher Bay, Columbus Stockade Blues, I sang “Junk Drawer” a capella, and of course I’ll Fly Away.  Peggy has TWO standup basses right now while Patrick is in Europe touring. Don’t you find that a beautiful kind of excess?

Bjork and Moomins.  Great combo; crazy spooky wildly creative elf-inflected northerners.

I’m 51 today.  Mike and a bunch of the gang from the old Statpower days are taking me out for drinkypoos at the Mountain Shadow.  I am so looking forward to seeing the folks.  Jeff greeted me on my 16th birthday by playing 16 Candles from the American Graffitti soundtrack first thing in the morning…. I have a distinct recollection of being blasted out of bed by it, but then again my distinct recollections turn to sand the second I try to build something on them.  I also recollected it was snowing that morning.

Unbelievable wind and rain right now.  It’s November in Vancouver, all right.

I really wish I’d started taking Vitamin D earlier.  It’s virtually impossible for me to feel depressed or anxious when I’m taking it on a regular basis.

Chipper, your gift of that stripey orange shirt is being appreciated by new people every week.

Tammy is in Venice and elsewhere in Europa.  She sounds like she’s having a wonderful time.

Roundup

Darth Vader has a little fun with Luke Skywalker.

I’m Asian?  Why didn’t anyone tell me????

A sad moment in Canadian naval history.

Organlegger update.

Thoughtful silverback is thoughtful.

New giraffe in Abbotsford. Cute!

New police brutality in Abbotsford.  Not so cute!

Oh, how nice.  The VPD will move into a building made for the Olympics.

Ashton Kutcher’s recent tweet: Barbra streisand is at my house. I have to admit I’m a little nervous.  Ashton is aplusk on twitter.  Yes, his spelling and capitalization suck; he’s an ecktor, not a friggin English teacher.

Also from twitter, William Gibson’s wife (whose name I should know but has not turned up in my research) recommends this video of an angry dude at a roadside pull over request.  I’m sorry, even though I knew it was coming I still laughed.  She also recommends this one too. I looked it up, Cullman Liquidation really exists.  Also from Ser Gibson, the following link.  Tibetan time lapse mandala.  William Gibson is GreatDismal on Twitter.

I have written in homilies and other places about how the disappearance of a language is a marker for genocide.  Here’s some good news internationally.


Emotional pointillism

Yesterday’s practical job interview was a disaster, but a low key one.  I’m not displeased with the haircut Katie gave me in the course of the interview, but I’d like to take the woman who supervised her and fire her at high velocity from the deck of the Iron Workers’ Memorial Bridge… in effigy, of course, I do not advocate violence except when in an excited and irrational frame of mind, which advocacy, when it occurs, I am obliged to immediately retract as being contrary to both my core self interest and my belief system, spindrift as it is.  Katie was philosophical about it, which helps.

I googled Glenn Beck to find out what church he goes to, subsequent to learning that he blames atheism for the end of the American dream.  Personally I blame their judicial system, which, skipping hand in hand with television over the last 60 years, has f|cked the Americans to the point where recovery into a society where self-governance and personal responsibility are considered virtues seems very unlikely.  Anyway, Glenn Beck, a Mormon, blames atheism.  It’s a lot like blaming Canada in its charming looniness … and it sure as f8ck is easier than looking in a mirror.  Of course me blaming the judicial system without pointing to the interconnected power structures which have allowed Glenn Beck to make fabulous amounts of money by being emotional, uncommitted to the facts and verbally abusive to people who haven’t ever done anything to him personally, would be very remiss, but the courts could have done more in the last 60 years and they haven’t, so they are the notional cat I kick this morning.

Marc Emery was taken into custody on Monday.  He’s a manic self-publicist with a libertarian messianic complex and a smoking hot wife.  I still don’t think he should have been extradited.  I hope he isn’t injured or murdered in custody; I hope he comes out of it sane, or at least as sane as he is now.  I am very angry at the Canadian government, but as long as we have Harper, it’ll be like this.  I knew Marc when I weighed 132 pounds and wore aviator frames so I guess I am biased.

After the interview disaster in the late afternoon (softened by the Seabus ride somewhat) I took the girls (Cassie, Kashka and Katie) for a drink at drink.  Yes, the department of redundancy department has made adjustments, and there is a new drinking hole for adults who wish to have a conversation and properly constructed drinks.  This new establishment does not use drink mixes.  The music is not turned up full blast; the wait staff are attentive, professional and fun.  I am booking Katie’s 21st bday party now!  609 Columbia for anybody who is interested.

Today is a day of packing and worrying.  I f|cking hate travelling, but if you want to get someplace you have to travel, alas and oy vey iz mir.  Jeff says, mimicking piteous kitten for comic effect, “But what will I eat?”  He’ll be fine of course.  He got the Margot grooming course; she bitched at him exactly the same way she bitches at me, so that will be fine too.

I closed all the windows permanently in preparation for winter.  The air conditioner needs to get put away, except I’m damned if I can figure out where.

I’ve decided not to take my computer on my trip; but that’s only because the notion of backing it up before I leave makes me all exhausted.  I’ll take pot luck on internet access; I don’t imagine it will be much of an issue, as everybody I’ll be visiting has some.

Currently, it is raining.

I made mini-cinnamon crunchies yesterday and gave some to Landpeer Kim with the rent cheques for the next three months.  I had to do something after she gave me all those home grown tomatoes.  Yum!  Also, I invented the recipe while I was making it.  The two people I thank most for my current ability to cook are Catherine and Paul.  Catherine because of her very inspiring adventurousness, Paul because I got kinda competitive with him in the ‘not using a recipe’ department.  Now I feel like I’m a good cook almost without thinking about it.  I can’t remember the last time I cooked something inedible; the worst thing I cooked in the last year were those dreadful muffins; they induced heartburn of world class immensity.

My back is really bothering me, which is another reason why I do not want to fly.  Or rent a car.  Silly me.

I light a candle for those killed and homeless in consequence of the earthquakes and flooding in the Philippines and Indonesia.

People keep sending me links I’ve already posted to my blog, in one case two years earlier.  It is to smirk.

I had a lovely conversation with Patricia the other day and look forward to catching up with her live upon my return.

I am a cool hunter.  One hundred thousand years ago I would have been finding tasty things to eat for my kids and grandkids.  It’s the same, but only different, as an ex-coworker of mine used to remark.

MilkDrop is a superlative visualization plug in.  Highly recommended; trippy as all get out. I occasionally have to look at the ground when the presets go into migraine-inducing territory but that’s my only complaint.

I am emotionally sensitive to certain wavelengths of light.  The more I consider this, the more I think, what?

I can hardly wait for the first snowfall so I can take video of Miss Margot.

She is very rotund.  We will have to start meal feeding the cats, which is harsh.

I have decided never to take her to my parents’.  Given her unaccountable urge to tangle herself up in people’s legs as they are going up the stairs, the prospect that she would either trip and kill one of my folks or get crushed by accident is too much to bear.