I should probably not consider growing a Holiday NeckBeard this year.
Category: goatee-stroking musing, or something
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why is it … ?
That I always get sick when I visit Richmond?
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big ole bagel
City Cafe Bakery, at the corner of Victoria & Strange (!) in Kitchener has the best bagels.
I hadn’t been there for years. Last time was with Steve Izma (typesetter and BTL Books guru) and his family, who are regulars.
Being Scottish and consequently dough-addicted, CCB is heaven.
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The big 14k
Yep, I’m 14000 days old today (how old are you?). It’s supposedly the length of a biblical generation.
Many people suggested ways I should celebrate (most involving ingestion of various ethanol-based solutions). It turns out that a company I’m working with is taking me out to the Leafs game tonight. There may well be ethanol.
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yecch!
Under no circumstances should you consider consuming gum that’s sat in its packet in the pocket
of a leather jacket for several months. It tastes of old death. -
is that you, dave?
New age singer Deva Premal’s name is an anagram of “Dave Palmer”.
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the colour of
I picked up these crayons at the GE Wind stand at CanWEA:
Yes, those really are the colour names – Purification Purple, Evolution Orange, Mother Earth Brown, Cleaner Coal Black, Solar Yellow, Revitalized Red, Hybrid Green, Clear Water Blue.
Is there a connection between wind power and crayons? Wait until I don my polyester leisure jacket, James Burke-style, until I tell you: Edwin Binney, inventor of Crayola, had a daughter (Dorothy) who married George P. Putnam. Putnam went on (with only a short detour into promoting then marrying the person for whom the word “aviatrix” is most often used, Amelia Earhart) to help create the Smith-Putnam wind turbine (itself perhaps the most heroically unsuccessful story in the history of wind energy).Wind turbines; crayons: it’s all connected, see?
Maybe I should’ve picked up a bunch of these at the show, as even a ratty package of them is going for over $30 on eBay. I’m glad that mine are already on their way to a 4 year old in Ohio, where they will be appreciated more than by any collector.
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hunger strikes twice
On the way to Canwea in Quebec, I stop for food – and find the place oddly familiar. Seems that Catherine and I stopped in this same A&W in St Nicolas on the way to PEI.
It’s not as if we sought out A&W; it’s just what was there. -
barefoot hydrodynamics
Ever since I discovered them, I have been fascinated by the Foxfire books. Not that I’m planning to go back to the land or anything, just they they often display flashes of ingenuity and craftsmanship.
Take this, for example:
It’s clearly a turbine runner, but it’s made from a slab of solid pine, pinned together then held in compression by steel bands around the rim.
It was made by Georgia craftsman Sam Burton, and is documented in Foxfire 2 (Wigginton et al, 1973, pub. Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-02267-0, pp. 142-163).
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most 70s book cover ever
Floaty-haired woman motif? Check
Happy couple riding a horse? Check
Elaborate, possibly ill-advised, used of perspective? Check
Fashions suggesting high polyester content? CheckFriends, I give you Mel Bay‘s Fun With The Dulcimer:
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beware of those you pay to beat you up
Alternative therapy for backache ‘can kill or disable’ | UK News | The Observer
Spinal manipulation, used by chiropractors to treat hundreds of thousands of patients a year, poses serious risks …
It’s probably heresy to say this in Ontario (‘cos DD was from Pickering) but I’ve always thought that having someone smack your spine about was not the smartest thing to do. But then, my one of my secondary mottoes for life is Allopathy Now!
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The Danish Poet
If you haven’t seen The Danish Poet, you should. I had some time to kill on Thursday evening, so went into the Mediatheque. I’d heard that the animation had won an oscar, so I looked it up. It’s a really sweet (if extremely convoluted) story of true love and Scandinavian coincidences.
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baby
Today’s instalment of The Perry Bible Fellowship surpasses its usual standard for twisted humour.
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aahh! they’re messing with my head!
For as long as I can remember (and likely before it), Weetabix has been my breakfast. The familiar yellow box has always been a priority item in the shop:
But now it’s gone blue!
How am I supposed to find it now? No other breakfast box had the familiar (and yes, comforting) colour. There is yellow on the box, but it’s different – lighter, less substantial.
If you need me, I’ll be the one in the corner, rocking and emitting small mewling noises.
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this is moronic
British, Irish pints prevail over EU’s imperial ban
The exceptions include pint bottles for milk and pints of draught beer and cider, miles for road signs and speed markers and the troy ounce for precious metals.
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In its public consultations on the question, the EU said consumers and teachers were largely in favour of the metric system. It found industry groups, companies and national governments feared metric-only labels in part because they would disrupt trade with the United States, which does not allow such labels.
Let’s think about this: the only measure you’re likely to sell to the US is the pint. The market for items sold by the mile is somewhat smaller. The totally, utterly stupid thing about this is that UK pints are a different size than US pints (568ml vs 473ml), so they’d have to use different labels anyway. No one under 40 in the UK was taught imperial units, so who is pushing this agenda, and why aren’t they dead yet?
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i am resolved
To become the world’s greatest join-the-dots artist. Observe the economy of my dots, the clarity of my numerals.
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Nothing to do with Enid Blyton or Tequila
Yentob in ‘noddy’ controversy | Special reports | MediaGuardian.co.uk
The BBC has admitted that Alan Yentob, the corporation’s creative director, has performed “noddy shots” on interviews that he did not personally conduct for his arts series Imagine. -
two observations
A tiny green birdlet with yellow eye rings hit our window, and the flew off a few minutes later.
A girl with a pink scarf sits asleep on the train, a tiny trickle of drool escaping from the corner of her mouth.
