We Saw a Chicken …

Author: scruss

  • these ain’t buildings ..:

    … They’re bvildings, the Bay Street stone edifices.

  • Knut Overload

    Knut the Polar Bear Cub

  • punks 4 peace at the courthouse

    Someone has scrawled – in chalk, so it’ll wash off – “End War”, “Kyoto Not War”, “Smart Kids or smart bombs”, “Bring our troops home” and “Punks 4 Peace” all over the court house at 361 University. Sentiments I approve of – and it gives work to Guardsman Surface Restorations.

  • bunny car

    lindt gold bunny smart car

    Lindt Gold Bunny ad car outside the downtown Hilton yesterday.

  • my half-baked idea

    Smart Microwave: Microwave turntable remembers start position, and either adjusts rotation speed so it ends up where it started, or continues turning after the cooking stops, so it ends up where it started.

    Anyone who’s ever reheated a beverage, and pawed frantically at the superheated vessel to try and get the handle in a reachable position – this one’s for you.

  • go jump over the fire!

    Happy Norooz!

    Norooz, Persian New Year
    Year of 2566 (1386)

    In harmony with rebirth of nature, the Persian New Year Celebration, or Norooz, always begins on the first day of spring, March 20th of each year. Norooz ceremonies are symbolic representations of two ancient concepts – the End and Rebirth. About 3000 years ago Persian’s major religion was Zoroastrianism, named in honor of its founder Zoroaster, and arguably the world’s first monotheistic religion. Zoroastrians had a festival called “Farvardgan” which lasted ten days, and took place at the end of the solar year. It appears that this was a festival of sorrow and mourning , signifying the end of life while the festival of Norooz, at the beginning of spring signified rebirth, and was a time of great joy and celebration. Norooz was officially acknowledged and named “Norooz” by mythical Persian emperor, Shah Jamshid, from Achaemenid Dynasty (500 BC). Ashaemenied created the first major empire in the region and built Persepolis complex (Takhte Jamshid) in the city of Shiraz. Norooz in Persian means “New Day” and brings hope, peace and prosperity to the world and has been celebrated among people regardless of ethnic background, political views or religion in many countries around the globe such as Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Georgia, Iraq, Tajikistan, Syria, Armenia and India. Some of the activities during Norooz are Spring cleaning, buying new clothes, painting eggs, family reunion, giving presents, visiting neighbors and friends and celebrating by having a picnic on the 13th day of Spring. Happy Norooz!

    (more…)

  • first

    Saw my first redwing blackbird of spring just by Scarborough station.

  • nicked!

    Just saw someone getting their collar felt at Union Station for crossing the tracks – $110 fine.

  • better not the other operator

    Intel has a new ad campaign: intel.ca/multiply. Better than divide, eh?

  • for a reason

    I walked past a store in the PATH that advertised “Hard To Find Fragrances”. I’m guessing they stock such classics as Mulch de Chanel, Calvin Klein GOAT, and Balmain’s Haleine d’Ail.

  • a pox on nonstandard USB cables and those who would create them

    I’m trying to get all the bits of my Sony Cybershot P100 kit together, and I can’t find the dad-blamed USB cable. It’s a weird connector, and two reputable camera dealers have cried ixnay on the vailabilityay. So I have to find it.

    I have already turned the house over looking for it. Yes, I know that the recipient could just use a card reader, but it wouldn’t be so good.

    Gah! Things! They’ll get you in the end.

  • not even enough for a haiku

    A single swan on the Don

  • raise your double-doubles in a toast

    I’ve been Canadian for a year … pauses … eh?

    (did that come out natural, like?)

  • more on WordPress dates

    I got sick of the annoying date display bug, and so dug through the default theme files looking for specific references to date formats. And there were many …

    I found that, instead of using the WordPress the_date() function, there were many calls to the_time('l, F jS, Y'), which forces a specific date format. If you replace instances of the_time('l, F jS, Y') with the_date(), your date and time format set in the Options panel will work as expected.

    How hard was that? Not very. How easy would it be to be modified in the default template?

  • no false positives

    There was some low-level kvetching on a WordPress blog that Akismet was marking too many false positive comments as spam. Concerned, I trolled through all 11 pages of spam – and didn’t find one real comment.

  • tasty bytes

    my ibook status

    I just upgraded my iBook to 1.5GB, the most it’ll take.  The CD·ROM Store took a bit of time to get the memory in, but when they did it was $50 less than I was originally quoted.

    It took me four heart-stopping tries to get it installed. It went like this:

    1. black screen – eek!
    2. appeared to work, but no extra RAM recognized.
    3. black screen – double eek!
    4. works- yay!

    Each tim required power off, battery out, the keyboard to come off, a fiddly little plate to be unscrewed (which was  nothing like the Apple instructions said), the SODIMM reseated, fiddly plate restored,  keyboard in, battery in, power on. My old ThinkPad was a lot easier – I once installed RAM in it on a subway train …

  • three sixty five

    Happy first birthday, Kingsbridge Wind Power Project – commissioned a year ago today(ish). I hope there’s cake …

  • ctrl + alt + down

    … may cause hilarity when inflicted on an unsuspecting cow-orker’s PC.
    (ctrl + alt + up fixes it, btw. If it doesnt: you tried something you read on some random blog?!)

  • a dreadful pipistrelle-related pun

    I don’t particularly understand why my industry gets singled out for killing wildlife, and having to carry out lengthy studies where other equally guilty plants and installations don’t. But apparently, radar ‘saves bats at wind farms’.

    So, if this is really true, and it were installed, would it be a bat mitzvah?

  • not taping

    I’m off to hear Of Montreal – and I’m not going to tape it!