my car karma, shot

We looked a bit bemused when the Hertz guy gave us a free upgrade last week to a Ford Escape XLT SUV. It’s almost exactly not the car you’d want for long freeway driving.

I just did the fuel economy for our trip. It’s not pretty. For the whole trip, we averaged 11.7 l/100km, or 20 mpg (US — that’s 24.1 mpg for UK readers). That means we used over half a cubic metre of petrol. Eek! We’re all gonna die and it’s my fault!

Litres / 100 km is a strange unit. If you do a dimensional analysis (L3/L), it ends up being a unit of area. So I’d be quite correct — if a little weird — to say I got a fuel consumption of 1.17×10-7 m2.

pretty stinky kitty

We had a huge skunk nosing about the back garden this morning. If they didn’t have the incredible smell potential, they’d be pretty cute.

gone fishin’

Dave Raine said he’d take us to dinner at a fishing store. Woo, we thought; hot dogs and soda while he dug for bait. Ths isn’t the case when the fishing shop is the HQ of Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO. They have a fantastic restaurant, complete with cordon bleu chef. Who knew?

(and who knew that I’d end up with a fishing rod from there, either?)

now writing with …

J. Herbin Lie de Thé cartridges in the Rotring 600. It’s a little like writing with strong tea. The cartridges come in a very nifty little aluminium pot.

I think I still prefer Waterman Havane, as it’s a warmer brown. Lie de Thé writes well and I’m happy with it for now.

new category: WAGDAIYF

Anouncing my new category on climate change: WAGDAIYF, acronym for “we’re all gonna die, and it’s your fault”.

where are the hybrids for hire?

We’re about to hire a car. I’d like to price a hybrid. So I go looking for hybrid rentals. Nada. Well, not quite; Discount said they’d added a bunch of hybrids to their fleet, but they can’t be found on their fleet page.

I walk through a Ford dealership every day. When the Escape Hybrid came out, there were a couple in the lot. They seemed to hang around for a while, but now there are none. I guess it was all greenwash after all, ‘cos I see a lot more Mustangs and trucks selling than hybrids.

In short, we’re all going to die, and it’s your fault.

red

We have a very small, somewhat bedraggled, poinsettia in our front room. We got it a couple of Christmases ago, and we surprise ourselves that it’s still alive. Since its initial forced colour faded, it’s just sat as a small green plant.

Today, though, it’s got a splash of red on it. Who knew that the Christmas plant would be doing its thing near Easter?

Ryan is in the house

My DVD of the Chris Landreth/NFB animation arrived today. I’ve watched it, and the supporting material, several times already. There are so many tiny details in the frames that it’ll take me many viewings to catch even some of them

Ryan on Saint-Laurent

The closing scene is the most poignant for me, with the fragmented Ryan panhandling outside Schwartz’s on Saint-Laurent. Reflected in the deli’s window is the bold young Ryan of his Street Musique heyday. All the lettering in the Montréal street scene is reversed, as if to say that the reflection is the real world, and what we’re seeing a distorted mirror.

tim gotta dexit

I noticed that one of the PATH Tim Hortons now has a Dexit machine. I’m glad I can’t remember where it as, as I think I’d die if I went there too often.

my wind-powered PC

As a thank-you for speaking at the ESC/EWB Power Shift lecture series, I was given a Pembina Institute Wind Powered PC tag. That means that the energy equivalent of three years of PC usage has been bought for me from a windfarm.

I’d like to thank the folks at UofT for putting up with me for the evening, and buying me dinner at the (in)famous Peel Pub (would that be innfamous?). I enjoyed it, and I hope they did too.

it’s spring, I think …

two mourning doves
These two doos were sat on side fence for ages; long enough for me to get through Catherine’s tax return, and get quite far into mine. They’ve flown off now.

book no fair

I thought I might’ve had a couple of books waiting for me at the library yesterday, but all of these holds were waiting for me:

  • Banvard’s folly : thirteen tales of renowned obscurity, famous anonymity, and rotten luck / by Collins, Paul
  • Been brown so long it looked like green to me : the politics of nature / by St. Clair, Jeffrey.
  • Hey Rube : blood sport, the Bush doctrine, and the downward spiral of dumbness : modern history from the sports desk / by Thompson, Hunter S.
  • Mutants: on genetic variety and the human body / by Leroi, Armand Marie.
  • The pencil : a history of design and circumstance / by Petroski, Henry.

Looks like I’ve got a lot of reading to do in the next three weeks …