I set up a site for catherine last night: c-raine.com.
Blog
-
Rocker on Code Optimisation
When the code stops producing digestive reactions in others, stop refactoring.
— Alan Rocker
-
YEP, Toronto
Young Environmental Professionals’ Toronto chapter has re-opened. They’re having their first meeting on Wednesday February 9 2005, 6:30 – 9:00 pm at the Bow and Arrow Pub (yay! best beer ever!).
The speaker will be Joe Mihevc, talking about Transportation in the GTA and its environmental impact. Here’s the YEP Toronto Re-launch Event Flyer, which has the RSVP details.
-
Quest for the Lama on the B766
On Cinders McLeod‘s recommendation, I just read Anne Donovan’s Buddha Da. It’s the story of an ordinary Glasgow house painter’s search for Buddhist enlightenment. It’s written in quick, brilliant dialect, and is packed with humour and pathos.
There’s an excerpt from Ralph Magazine. There are a few typos, but you get the idea.
-
The Moogle Project
-
thinkpad t21, linux 2.4.28-gentoo-r5, and ACPI
If you find yourself running this kernel, make sure you remove all ACPI support from the kernel if you want to use the onboard 3Com Tornado 3c556B CardBus ethernet adaptor. You used to be able to get away with the acpi=off kernel parameter with 2.4.26-gentoo-rn kernels, but this doesn’t work any more.
This has been a Nerd Public Service Announcement.
-
i r00l (a bit)
from my Kingdom of Loathing character:
PvP:
Ranking: 388
Fights Won: 119
Fights Lost: 119An Adventurer is Me!
-
Uncle Doug’s gift of a journey
Catherine’s Uncle Doug died suddenly last week at his home in central Pennsylvania. His nephew, Phil, was with him when he died. As we’re the nearest (geographical) family, Phil asked us to come down to help out with tidying up Doug’s house.
We drove down Saturday, and what an remarkable journey it was. The US immigration folks friendly and helpful at Buffalo; sure beats the grouchfest at YYZ. Once into Pennsylvania, the scenery was beautiful. Hills, valleys and forests running down to the Alleghenies. Didn’t think there could be such crinkly countryside so close to the flat plains around Lake Erie.
Doug’s house was entirely self-designed and built. It sits very well in the green countryside. The nearby town of Huntingdon is as nice a town as you could hope for, with a working main street that looks like it has escaped the ravages of Wal-Mart.
So, we’ll miss you very much, Doug, but thanks for the journey.
-
99 years out of code: Y2K was so five years ago
As seen on bottled water in a Holiday Inn Express: Produced 1904, Use By 1906. Either some grand conspiracy has kept the Edwardian invention of PET bottles and computerised inkjet printing out of the public eye, or somebody somewhere hasn’t quite got their date printing right. -
I’m calling you from JAIL!!!
Yay! Was (Not Was) have reformed. A tour, a new album, and a best-of will ensue.
-
MonstreX Ultra: monster repellant
Troubled by pesky monsters lurking in closets or under the bed? Jody‘s kids were, but ever since they got a can of MonstreX Ultra, monsters are a thing of the past.
(Jody’s site is definitely worth a dig around in, especially for the Linux and Raw Digital Images resources. If you can’t find anything else, he has a fairly nifty CMS.)
-
i demand my 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine!
About this time of year, many Scots will be using Irn Bru to quell a raging hangover. There’s nothing quite like the reddish-orange, sugary, fizzy drink to make the pain go away. It’s the combination of sugar, liquid and caffeine that does it.
Scottish expats in Canada aren’t so lucky. We’re not allowed to have caffeine in anything other than cola, so the ‘bru that’s imported here is caffeine free. It has all the bite and zing of wet cardboard.
I don’t understand why cola can have caffeine, and nothing else can. They allowed Red Bull in on a technicality. Since Irn Bru has been used as a pick-me-up for generations, I feel that Canada’s policy discriminates against my culture.
Where there’s a culture of heavy drinking, there’s also a culture of dealing with it. Canada is placing the wellbeing of Scots at risk by not allowing caffeinated Irn Bru.
-
fusion snack
now snacking on: tea biscuits spread with dulce de leche, washed down with a mug of tea.
-
yet more unfunny faux-Scotticisms
[Yesterday’s Globe & Mail had a cartoon by Graham Harrop. Subtitled “Jock Layton“, it showed a character yelling across the legislature floor: “Ye’ll No Talk To Me Like That, Mon! Yer A Wee Haggis An’ Ye’ve Got Yer Troosers On Backwards If Ye Think We’re Passin’ That Load O’ Tripe!“]
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:35:14 -0500
To: Arts /at/ GlobeAndMail.ca
Subject: yesterday’s Backbench cartoonI am offended by Graham Harrop’s cartoon in the 30th December Review section.
I am Scottish, and to me, ‘jock’ is a racial epithet. No-one in Scotland would use any of the expressions used in the cartoon.
Consider the situation if the cartoon had made fun of any other minority speech pattern. The whole ‘Comedy Scotsman’ thing went out with the 1970s, and I’m disappointed to see such a thing in the Globe & Mail.
Stewart Russell
Scarborough, ON. -
in, but not of, Montréal
(photo above links to gallery images)We’re just back, and we had the best time. We basically lived out of a copy of Fodor’s that Caroline lent us.
I was immediately taken by Montréal’s subway system. Not merely do they run on rubber tyres (fast acceleration!) and have cool station names (c’mon, wouldn’t you rather travel from Côte-Vertu to Henri-Bourassa than from Kipling to Kennedy?), but the power electronics in the trains “play” the first three notes of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s version of Fanfare for the Common Man. Which, if my memory’s mot completely gone, had something to do with the Montréal 1976 Olympic stadium.
We stayed at the Lord Berri Hotel, which is pretty much downtown. We were most taken with the food. Schwartz’s Deli does the best smoked meat ever (it’s worth the wait), while St-Viateur Bagel really does whup the oversized, overrated New York bagel.
(St-Viateur was the only problem we had with Fodor’s. They said that the St-Viateur Bagel & Café was at 1127, avenue du Mont-Royal Ouest, while in reality it’s at 1127, avenue du Mont-Royal Est. Our STM 3 day tourist passes, and a passing Mont Royal bus, saved the day.)
The city reminded me of Edinburgh, minus the unpleasant smell. We’ll definitely be back many times.
