Jean Shepherd‘s In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. I have rather a failing for the works of midwestern humorists, and Shep reads like a hopped-up Garrison Keillor. You’d like him.
Month: May 2005
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a bit bitey
Did some weeding tonight (with a propane torch, of course). Got bit by my first mosquito of the year, a droning monstrosity resembling nothing less than a single-prop bush plane. Haven’t these mozzies heard that I’m not allowed to give blood because
the wussy canadian donation system can’t handle gude scottish bludeEuropean blood might have brain-melting cooties? -
selling stuff on ebay
stewart_russell is selling:
Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar lens, Bessa-L body, and Kaidan panoramic tripod mount.
* Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar 15mm-f/4.5 lens, Leica screw fit, silver. Clean optics, slight rub on lens cap. Complete with cap, finder, manual, and box (but no rear cap). A very rewarding super-wide optic.
* Voigtländer Bessa-L camera body, Leica screw mount. Bought last year, never had a film through it, essentially unused. Complete with manual, strap, body cap and box. A simple, metered manual body for wide-angle lenses.
* Kaidan KiWi VL panoramic tripod mount for Bessa-L. Allows for complete 360° cylindrical panoramas. Used once, as new. Complete with extra click-stop plates for different lenses, manual (on CD) and box.Westmark Industries Raytex PL39 pinhole lens, Leica screw fit
Westmark Industries Raytex PL39 pinhole lens for Leica screw mount. A well-made, precision machined pinhole lens. As it’s bright aluminium, I’ve blacked out the back to cut down reflections, and an written exposure/f-stop reminder on rear flange. Lightly used. Complete with manual, instruction sheet, and box.
Nippon Camera Bessa World magazine/book (in Japanese)Published in 2001, Nippon Camera “Bessa World” mook (magazine/book). Produced to support the then newly-released Cosina-Voigtländer Bessa rangefinder cameras. Now out of print, this is quite hard to find. 128 pages, 210×280mm, good condition.
Please note, this publication is written in Japanese. If you don’t read Japanese, it’s still an interesting picture book about the Voigtländer Bessa cameras.
pictures here.
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the anti-anti-windfarm backlash
Kids, this is neither big nor clever: Vandals target wind farm campaign
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black smoke
heavy black smoke coming out the chimney stack of the Oakville Humane Society — that can’t be good.
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the old laptop / a new kernel / a new laptop!
Upgraded the Thinkpad T21 to kernel 2.6. Fairly painless, and things look like they are moving more quickly.
Major annoyance is the T21’s built-in 3Com mini-PCI ethernet/modem. It seems to hate all the power-management goodies that ACPI gives, and will only work under the older APM. It seems the solution is replacing the 3Com board with the Intel PRO/100 SP mini-PCI board, and all may be well.
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critter day
First I saw groundhogs on Ashtonbee, then we saw Bill the Pomeranian Guy in Yorkville. He had a whole bunch of pups with him, and these little critters were friendly, fuzzy and fearless.
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canadians++
Mailed off my citizenship application form today, since I’ve now lived here for more than 1095 days.
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filesystem error mashup
Occasionally my iRiver’s filesystem will throw a wobbly, inserting a section of weirdness into a familiar tune. Tonight, near the end of Neutral Milk Hotel’s The King of Carrot Flowers Pts Two & Three [which, inexplicably, freedb has tagged as The King of Carrots and Flowers (parts two & three); it used to be correct. So much for the self-correcting nature of volksmetadata …] it inserted eight seconds of The Blind Boys of Alabama’s Look Where You Brought Me From.
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lost pitt pen
I managed to lose my Faber-Castell Pitt pen at the AGO last night. They’re not particularly expensive, but they do write well, and you have to find the right kind of art store that sells them.
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BBC NEWS | Scotland | Canal freight plan takes to water
BBC NEWS | Scotland | Canal freight plan takes to water. And in Kirkintilloch, too!
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a picture of mine, on treehugger
meep! A picture of mine has been frontpaged on treehugger. And it’s not one of my best, either. -
otnay osay ightbray: Shop manager broke into own store
Shop manager broke into own store
“A supermarket manager has been remanded in custody after admitting carrying out a £50,000 break-in at his own store.”This would be unremarkable, except that we used to shop there when we lived in Kirkintilloch. It used to be a branch of The Co-op.
Bet he wouldn’t have done it had it still been the Co’; he’d have been stealing from himself!
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broken bird
Walked by two agitated starlings. A third starling was on its back in the road, legs kicking. It looked like a fledgling, maybe fallen and couldn’t get up. I went over to pick it up. Red stuff had come out its head. A vehicle had hit it. The parents were hopping about, screaming. There was nothing I could do; nothing to pick it up with. Couldn’t dispatch it with sandals.
I walked back to the verge. There was another starling fledgling hiding in the grass, a sibling maybe. It had soft grey nest-fuzz among its feathers, the wide yellow slash of a nestling’s beak. It ran close to me for comfort, then stopped. Not all moving things might be friends. We watched one another, the parents still screaming. I had to leave.
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canadian moment
A CN freight rumbles up to Kennedy on the rail spur just south of Eglinton. It stops. Two men get out. They walk up to Tim’s on the corner of Kennedy and Eglinton. They come back with double-doubles and donuts. The engine starts, the crossing lights flash, and off goes the train through the intersection.
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Industrial Flower Factory
Cool name, cool idea. Industrial Flower Factory make low power draw, small footprint, low noise computers. I reckon that my hulking old AthlonXP is one of the major power draws in the house, and it certainly creates the most noise pollution.
IFF’s machines are a little pricey, but when they’ll save so much of your hydro bill, that’s got to be good. They’ll also preinstall Linux, which make me happy.
