Category: Exceeding strange

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.

Supplemental 02

Yeah, well.  I got off the bus this morning and experienced searing chest pain, pain radiating into my back, and my vision greyed out for about ten seconds.

Panicking, I called work and got the First Aid attendant on the blower, and he came up with another coworker and met me halfway down the path.  The pain quit pretty much as soon as I got the oxygen, but I feel really strange and I’ll be talking to the doctor today.

I got into an ambulance but assured the attendants I had perked up, went to work and promptly got sent home again by a very stern and uncompromising version of Patricia, who hand delivered me to Jeff, who came and got me. I’m glad she sent me home, ’cause I do feel off colour.

I’m still having waves of discomfort, but I’m  thinking this is either radiating back pain, a pinched nerve, some new and entirely weird variant of a migraine, or just plain who the hell knows.  I know it isn’t my heart – they ran a tape on me in the ambulance and it all looked fine.

The paramedic asked me if I’d been under stress lately.  I don’t know how to answer that.  I don’t think a LOT of stress.  Like I said, who knows.  It was embarrassing though, and next time I think I’ll wait until I can’t move to ring the baloney alarm….

I would very much like to publicly thank John V. for his professionalism and for the relief I felt when I knew he’d be dealing with it.  And I’d like to thank Sandy C for calling the ambulance, and the folks who responded.  I feel very cared for today.  Although it seems there wasn’t anything wrong with me that being fondled by an ambulance attendant (joking, joking!) and supplemental oxygen couldn’t fix….

Sundry and Various

Last night when I was coming home I realized I wanted retail therapy, so I got Robaxicet, a teach yourself to read music book (which actually taught me something I had not understood before in the first five minutes, so that was useful), a miniature Gumby and Pokey set for Jeff, Ecuadorian chocolate, Cutthroat beer & a proper set of headphones for work including volume control.  Now of course I realize that I’m an idiot and I just should have gone straight home, so I would have avoided a broken down bus and…

ick….

wait for it….

auditions for Canada’s Next Top Model in Brentwood Mall – when the batteries in my camera had just quit.  Oh, and my cell phone batteries quit in tandem, so I couldn’t fire off an irritated text message to Jeff. I wanted to take a picture of the swarm of identical, malnourished, streak haired, pointy faced hopefuls, but instead I got an eyeful of leering men and resigned looking parents.  Rechargeable NiMh batteries do not cut it for this application.

I am just about finished my laundry, finally, and will be moving on to other interesting events today, like trying to sweet talk Jeff into accompanying me on a shopping expedition.  Yes, I know, but I want two things you can’t get nearby or easily, being my favourite kind of soap (French, honeysuckle scented) and more Sculpey so Katie can finish her chess set. And more paint.  I think I need blue, clear coat, and maybe a bronze or silver metallic.  And a fatter brush so I can really slop it on.  ScaryClown says he paints everything he does flat black and then paints overtop of that.  I will defer to the master on that one. He has severely restricted his alcohol intake, but frankly, he doesn’t look happier. And he’s bringing his lunches these days. So has the Dalai Jarmo, but that’s traditional for Finnfolk in early January, and he looks very happy these days and he’s going to be sitting close but not too close to me in the new regime.  PS note to self I need one of those who the **** is behind me mirrors for work.

Katie, bless her, did not actually look for work yesterday, rrr.  But Keith fitted his first set of contact lenses (perfectly, so he says) the day before yesterday so it appears that continuing to support his efforts to get edumacated is wise.

Jim and Jan are here this weekend and I can’t wait to see them.  They are so wonderful.  I wish I could just buy a city block and move everybody I love here. Except that many of them, like a kitty cat struggling to escape, would not be happy about living in Vancouver.  It’s a nice place to visit, etc.  And when I get a house I want laundry on the same level as my bedroom.  I got that when I was living in the Cornerstone building and gosh darn, I want that again, although that might have something to do with how steep the basement stairs are.  I nearly fell down them this week and it was scary as hell, because Jeff had his headphones on and I might have had a very poor time of it.

Biscotti.  Again.  I will be shipping it off to people by mail.

Valentine cards.  Since I am sending work valentines to Barcelona, California, Indiana and Washington, I have to start early this year.  There are 150 people on the list!!! I have created a monster, yet again.

I know somebody personally who is going to the inauguration, and I will be able to hear about it later this month.  Me happy.

And then my head exploded

SINCE I don’t know which of the two links I posted originally to this time stamp was a problem I’m taking them both down.

The first link was to an article by Marcus Chown – who, when I follow his google trail sounds like He Do the Science in Different Voices. If you google Marcus Chown Holographic, you will find the article.

Essentially, there is now a small amount of experimental support for the notion that everything we are, see, etc, is a holographic projection.  Where string theory and quasars fits in with this I have no idea.  I am just a meat machine, and my thinky thoughts sometimes are not well parsed.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

One of the many useful internet acronyms is TL;DR.  That’s when your truncated attention span decides to step out for a soda.

Continue reading Too Long; Didn’t Read

a big stew of links and updates!

I won something worth $720 and I gave it to a coworker after briefly toying with the notion of selling it.

I support the United Way, which is I why I won the above noted item.

I’ve been up very early every morning since the time change.

Patricia and I brainstormed a problem at work and the results were high five worthy.

I’m shopping today for my France trip.

Haagen Dasz Mayan Chocolate ice cream is REALLY good.

I have a very long list of things to do.

Flying Spaghetti Monster made a Pastafarian out of me.

Can a squirrel be cute?

There’s a new Youtube video in my account of the little waterfall next to work.

It’s so rainy that it’s actively dangerous to walk anywhere except pavement.  Wet leaves, slick grass.

It’s so rainy that the ground is exploding.  What the hell is it?

I had to take shots from different angles.

Is it a Helvella lacunosa?

These guys at least are cute and not reminiscent of inimical alien brains.

Found art in the ladies can.  This one’s for daughter Katie.

Barack Obama’s family is going to adopt ‘a mutt, like me’.  bwa ha ha!  We’re all mutts, Uncle Rocky.

I already sent this link to Paul.  Folks like this should get taken out behind the hangar and shot.

Some people study psychopaths, and I guess that’s a good thing.

I have an offer of a weeklong stay in a bungalow in Belize, and I’m seriously considering it.

Eddie and Gizmo demonstrate vertical superiority.

Doug’s contribution to the art of pumpkin carving.

Sandy P at work took this awesome pic when she was in SF.

Death by black hole and other astrophysical meditations; I especially like the notion that Apophis could have been called Bambi.  A physicist explains it all for you.

I am just finishing making waffles.

We watched Objects in Space again last night.  Honestly, it’s in my top five hours of tv ever. (Along with Restless, Michael Moschen’s special, the moon landing, and the episode of Band of Brothers where they parachute into Normandy).

If fonts had personalities…..

I am messing around a lot with Garage Band.

I found the sound of a door on freesound that was so good I put in on LOOP and listened for half an hour.

My digestion is much better since I started taking acidophilus.

Keith is supposed to turn up later today.

Oh, Nutella, how you glisten!

We are very SF positive in New Westminster.

That should hold ya for a while, I guess.  I’ll be off shortly to commit myself some serious retail therapy.