… like coming home to a brick through the kitchen window.
The place was a mess, but the police and the insurers are being helpful.
Category: goatee-stroking musing, or something
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unhungry in lansing
We went to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, MI yesterday on the way home. It was about lunchtime, so we asked the staff for recommendations. The nearby Mama Bear’s Café was closed, so we took up another recommendation: the Golden Harvest.
Oo-aw, it was good. Where else can you munch on a perfect smoked turkey reuben while there’s Olivia Tremor Control cranked on the stereo? The Golden Harvest even has a MySpace page.
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because sometimes you might need a levitating pig graphic
From a Dover Publications clip art book I bought:
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a happy meaty place
Had my first experience of Arthur Bryant’s BBQ tonight. I have to say it’s way better than Montreal meat. I’m full up, but I could eat more.
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h*ppy chr*stm*s
Here’s hoping that the batteries last until at least 2pm, and that you managed to avoid (as I have, this far) hearing “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime”.
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fin
I have just sat what I hope is the last law exam I ever need to sit.
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not very walkable here
Walk Score rates our neighbourhood at 32%, which isn’t very good. There are some errors in its analysis — we have a library kittycorner on the main intersection, and not 12km away, as Walk Score claims.
But yeah, there are problems. Our nearest bookstore? Cupid’s Boutique, where I’m sure they sell many illustrated periodicals for the discerning gentleman …
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an end to triangular, aching thumbs …
I could use a Thumbthing. I have been known to fall asleep reading in bed, with my thumb jammed in the spine of a book. Waking up hours later, my thumb is aching and decidedly tobleroneform …
(via) -
You know you’ve been studying engineering law too much when …
… you think that you’d want to start a band called The Tortfeasors, with stage names derived from precedents: Hedley Byrne, Rivtow Marine, Junior Books, Donoghue Stevenson, Lambert V. Lastoplex …
Then you realise that would be a bad idea. On every level. Not least that I wouldn’t know what to do in (or with) a band.
I’m resitting the legal part of my PPE for the PEO next Saturday. Was somewhat taken aback when I heard I’d failed it first time, but now studying again, and seeing my notes and sample answers from last time — what, if anything, was I thinking?
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indigo’s most overpriced yet
I saw the most obscene markup in indigo this evening: the Linux Format OpenOffice.org special edition was priced at a hefty $34.95. This costs £10 in the UK.
The thing is, UK prices are quoted tax-inclusive. The ten quid you see is the ten quid you pay. Not so in Canada. In the most boneheaded move ever, our prices don’t include tax, so that $34.95 really costs you $39.84 (in Ontario, at least).
According to Google, £10 is $20.53. Indigo’s markup is almost 100%
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a great what?
Just got an e-mail which signs off, “Thanks and have a great.”
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do not do
Don’t be tempted to clean the foam pads on your Etymotic ear phones with anything vaguely solvent like. They will never be quite the same again.
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M-W Visual Dictionary Online
M-W’s Visual Dictionary Online is rather good. F’rinstance: ENERGY :: WIND ENERGY.
Update: whoa, I just looked at this on IE, and it’s an absolute ad-beast. It has been a while since I surfed with ads enabled.
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thappy hanksgiving (belated)
We’re in Ohio, having had too much turkey yesterday. I think this thanksgiving was brought to you by Married To The Sea, as Mindy, Karl and Carl sat around with their laptops chortling like turkey-filled chortling things.
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something other than wind blows here
Dave Bidini‘s article in today’s Globe & Mail, An ill wind blows (now irritatingly hidden behind a paywall, but helpfully cached here) troubles me about what got through basic fact-checking:
- “The turbines expected on the island are open-bladed, a style being replaced in Europe by closed-blade turbines, which do less damage to wildlife.” What are closed-blade turbines? I’m in weekly contact with colleagues in the European wind energy industry. If people were installing a radically different type of machine, I’d know about it.
- The article cites the National Center for Policy Analysis as a source. Quoting the NCPA on wind energy and the environment is a little like quoting the NRA on gun control. Check out the NCPA’s E-Team: Providing Accurate Information on Energy & Environment Issues. Overall, I’d say that ExxonMobil are getting great VFM on their donations to NCPA [PDF] if they’re now being quoted as a credible, balanced source.
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take it or leave it
I got Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael from the library on a friend’s recommendation. I tried, but I don’t feel the love for the psychic gorilla.
It’s not that the wise protagonist is a psychic gorilla. I can get past that. It’s just that the conclusions are so pat. I wonder how many readers come away with the romantic notion that they’re the only Leaver in a Taker society? (they’re wrong, of course; I’m the only one to which this applies …)
I also didn’t get the “Takers need prophets” deal. if you decide to follow the ideas in the book, what is Ishmael but a prophet? A not-for-prophet?
Writers like Jared Diamond (though flawed) and Julian Cope (though fried; but at least can play mellotron) wrote it better. Ain’t but the one way, as the Drude sang.
What I did like about the library copy that I borrowed was that it had clearly made an impression on a previous reader. Crabbed on every page in tiny, infra-neat madperson handwriting was a seemingly endless thesis about something. What, I can’t tell; the diligent guardians of the Toronto Public Library erased almost every word, so I couldn’t tell if a worldview had been shattered or affirmed. Maybe it was the wisdom of the ages. Who can tell?
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surely I’m not alone … ?
Ottawa VIA Rail station has a circular spiral ramp that leads down from the concourse to the platform level. It has a smooth channel for a handrail which looks perfect for racing marbles or toy cars down.
Surely I’m not the only person who has ever wanted to do this? It looks so inviting! -
a fitting memorial?
Maybe we should rename it Vancouver Dziekanski Airport.
