Writer's Block Broken

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry:

Starlets opt for no underwear trend

Seriously? Yep.

But the apparent desire by some of Hollywood's hottest young female stars to be photographed getting in and out of limousines in short skirts while wearing absolutely no undergarments is arguably one of Tinseltown's most disturbing new crazes.

You don't say.

"Of course they're doing it on purpose," says Toronto-based podcaster Stephen Knifton of Popstream Productions. "I think Paris Hilton was the first person to supposedly do it accidentally, but when you're a celebrity well-known just for being famous and you have no other discernible talent, then you're going to use whatever you have to stay famous. There is no such thing as bad publicity."

"And plunging necklines just didn't cut it anymore, so they had to take things to the next level - literally."

[...]

Gynecologist Jackie Thomas cautions against fans following in the footsteps of their Hollywood idols. In terms of vaginal infections, no underwear at all can often be better than constricting synthetic panties, she says, but there are other considerations to take into account.

"It's unhygienic not so much for the woman who's not wearing underwear, but to the people around her," says Thomas, who practises in Toronto. "Let's face it - like every other woman, they've got a certain amount of discharge and they are hanging around with other people."

Isn't that a pleasant thought? "Dude, I accidently got Lindsay Lohan's vaginal discharge on my hand! Whoa!"

Gross.

Listen, I'm not a prude who thinks we should be ashamed of our bodies or anything, but at the same time displaying your genitial for attention is a sign of sickness. Get help. Soon.

I Got Nothing

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've got a case of writers block. Uninspired or something, a little tired. Slightly bored at work at the moment as well. I'll try harder for tomorrow.

National Identity

Nation: 1.a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own.

Recently our federal politicians have been grandstanding back and forth about motions declaring the province of Quebec a nation. A lot of paper and bytes have been wasted discussing what it means, whether it is true or not, and why or why not it is a good idea to talk about it.

Idiots.

Of course Quebec is a nation. Its been a nation for years, decades.

I've got more news for you: Ontario is a nation as well. So is Alberta. And the other provinces and territories. There are nations within nations, nations stretching across other nations, and people belonging to multiple nations.

Quebec is a nation within the nation of Canada, just like many other nations. Having our "leaders" declare this in Parleiment does not make it any more or less true. Seperatists do not want their own nation, they already have it. What they want is more power for their nation and that power must come from the nation of Canada.

And that is the rub. Its always about power.

Canadian Slang Proficiency Test

Almost! You earned a total score of 72 %

Impressive, but still in the dark. Bone up on your regional and urban slang and try again. Try the following and come back for another go: watch a few episodes of Degrassi Jr High; develop a secret crush on Rick Mercer or Monica Deol; Listen to a Buck 65 CD; Buy a Kardinall Ofishall album; read Jian Gomeshi's article on coffee shops; and/or study the second season of Air Farce and fast forward to the chicken cannons

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on proficiency

Link: The Canadian Slang Proficiency Test written by green_apple_ on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Bright Light! Bright Light!

All the sun of the past few days has been very appreciated, warm enough to go outside and cool enough to remind us that Winter is around the corner.

This weekend we have a double whammy: the Kids are coming up tonight but on Saturday afternoon Kim and I have to go to the Lukas Rossi concert that was postponed from a couple weekends ago. We are getting Kim's mother to watch the Kids for the afternoon and then we will go home and catch the Santa Claus Parade in downtown Carleton Place. That will be a busy day.

Sunday we will be taking the Kids back home in the afternoon, so Kim will probably make her Pancake breakfast like she usually does when the Kids are up.

In other news, I'm been idlely considering changing work. My current job is ok, but the level of challenge and interesting work has definitely fallen off lately. There's always the promise of better work on the horizon but it seems to be always out of reach. It doesn't help that there is four of us database guys all looking for the next big feature.

In order to spice things up and give me some options, I've been doing self training for new technology at work. Management set up this online training software and gave us 3 hours a week we are allowed to use it, so I've decided to take full advantage of that. If nothing else it'll give me something different to do for a while.

Five is More than Enough

If someone tells you that bigger is better, be sure to look them in the eye and say "Five is more than enough. Any more than that and you can't tell the difference anyway."

Five megapixels that is. (Get your mind out of the gutter! I know what you were thinking)

Hat Tip: Stupid Evil Bastard

Kieth Oblermann Unloads Both Barrels Into Bush

Read the whole thing, and if you still think "Stay the course" in Iraq is a good idea, then you and I are in different realities.

No, I Don't Suggest Hiring Homer Simpson

Colby Cosh has a new article in the online National Post and I want to bring it up and add my opinion.

Windmills aren't the Answer

It is starting to look as though wind cannot meet more than a fraction of our energy demand even if other issues with the technology, like esthetics and wildlife impacts, are ignored.

To summarize the article quickly, windmills provide a fraction of their potential and at the wrong time of day. Worse, they provide it in such an unstable matter that it has potential to cause brownouts and blackouts on the power grid.

The fact of the matter is that almost all of the renewable and ecological energy sources available to mankind have drawbacks that prohibit their widespread adoption. Solar technology is limited to sunny parts of the world with little cloud cover, wind power is not stable and also geographically limited. Hydro involves building dams that threaten wildlife habitats, geothermal and tidal power suffer again from being limited to a few locals worldwide.

In my opinion, the growing population of earth needs energy that is cheap, plentiful, and virtually pollution free. Nuclear Fission power is all three.

Yes, there are risks as demonstrated by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Serious risks. But with a well trained staff and proper funding there is no reason why a modern nuclear power plant cannot have a virtually spotless record. Its time for our governments to make the right decision and move forward towards the future.

Sears Strikes Again!

Last week Kim asked me to pick up a parcel at the Sears outlet. She was a little nervous since it was a gift for me, but Sears always wraps the parcels in blue bags.

Well, apparently not always.

She was not impressed when I walked in with my gift in no bag at all. I had a good laugh, Kim frowned and fumed and told me I'm not getting that present for Christmas now!

Good ole Sears, cutting back the frills.

TGIF!

I heard that out of the past 72 days there have only been 20 sunny days. I honestly can't remember the last one we had.

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Last night it was raining when I got home and I noticed that the gutter over the garage roof appeared to be leaking right at the corner near the house. I could reach it and when I pushed up it seemed to stop leaking, but when I let go the water came back. I noticed the same thing a few weeks back and at that time I tried propping the gutter up a bit but ti wasn't working this time.

Suddenly I realized the gutter wasn't leaking, it was overflowing. I get the step ladder out and climb up and sure enough, the entire gutter was full of water to the brim. When I was pushing up on the corner it simply overflowed at the other end. Duh.

So I climb up to where the downspout is and pull some leaves and gunk out of the hole. Swoosh! The gutter empties like a toilet bowl being flushed and the water gushed out on the grass below.

Man, sometimes I can be so dense.

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This weekend Kim's sister Tammy is coming up and they are going to go Christmas shopping tomorrow. I am going to go into work to make up some time that I took off for the fertility treatments in the morning, and just bum around in the afternoon getting ready for a tournament I have on Sunday.

I love my wife but I treasure the odd occasion when I'm left to my own devices, gives me time to recharge and relax and goof off without feeling guilty. It only works though, because it is rare. If every weekend was like that I would soon grow very bored and lonely.

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*gasp* Sunshine! I see sunshine shining on my fingers as I type this! Its a miracle!

You see, for the past two years I've been sharing an inside office at work, and this past spring requested to move to an outside office since people on the inside offices weren't supposed to be sharing. You either had your own office or had a window. Well, last week I moved to share an outside office with a nice big window but haven't seen any sunshine yet for longer than a couple seconds. Right now there is sun, flitered through a cloud, but sunshine nonetheless. Already I can feel Vitamin C being produced.

Damn. Clouds rolled in. *sigh*

I Was Reading the News Today...

And now I wish I hadn't.

First this editorial which makes me sick.

And this story which makes me even sicker.

I like to believe in justice. I like watching Bad Guys get caught on CSI and Close to Home. It gives some comfort to the lie that "the system works".

Hah. What a joke.

You do the crime, you do a little bit of time, less if you get off with good behaviour. None if you get a good lawyer and sympathetic jury. Sickening.

How could someone that helped kidnap and rape two pre-teen girls get only 4 years total? Those girls will be suffering for decades. I wish I could say its inconcievable yet there it is.

Disgusting.

And to people who purchase OJ's book and pay attention to his sickening display of lies on TV I say "for shame". You are accomplices to his crime.

Disgusting.

Holy Frig!

I see blue sky! Out my window! Could sunshine be possible today?

*crosses fingers*

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Sorry there hasn't been much blogging this week. Its not that I've been overly busy, its just that I'm suffering from a bit of writer's block. I feel like I'm in standby mode and about to move into Christmas season mode. I blame putting up the Christmas lights early, its thrown my whole fall off kilter.

Anyway, I made another purchased for Kim's Christmas gifts last night, and I have a couple good ideas ready to go.

Procrastination

"Procrastination is the deferment or putting-off of an action or task, usually by focusing on some other distraction (compare temporisation). It is Latin for "foremorrowing," or making some such of tomorrow." - Wikipedia

I am a master of procrastination.There are some benefits to it. Sometimes a task put off doesn't need to be done at all later, or the extra time you have to think about it allows you to be more efficient. Sometimes someone else does it. Its all good.

Having our own home for the past three years has introduced several tasks that need to be done throughout the year, and instead of doing them as they come up I have put my skills at procrastination to good use and let them build up to the point where they become "big jobs" that require a few hours of effort.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not lazy. I just have a lot of inertia. It may mean I'm hard to get moving, but once moving I can work as long and as hard as anyone else.

So there are several big jobs throughout the year. There is the breaking down of the cardboard boxes in the winter after new Years, where I trundle out to the freezing garage and cut up all the cardboard from Christmas and the rest of the year. There is the annual clean out the garage where I spend a Saturday or Sunday morning taking the mentioned cardboard to the yard waste depot along with several bags of leaves, grass clippings, twigs, scrap metal that has accumulated in the garage over the year. In the summer the job of cutting the grass and trimming the weeds is a constant battle that sometimes I lose, especially in August when the grass is supposed to stop growning but never does. This past year I once let the grass get so long in the backyard I had to go over it twice with the lawn mower because the first run simply could not get it all.

And in the fall, there is the important dual tasks of putting up the Christmas lights and sweeping the chimney. Usually I put these off until the snow is flying, there is ice on the roof, the temperature is so cold that exposed flesh freezes and burns, and Kim is forced to hold the borrowed ladder for me which only adds to the pain. That means I usually get them done sometime around Decemeber. But not this year, oh no! This past weekend, not even half way through November, I did both tasks in one day (as well as other around-the-house stuff... see? I'm not lazy, its just inertia). Saturday night we bought some poles for our chimney sweeper (usually I borrow from Greenbush) and Sunday I put up the new LED lights with fancy clips Kim found at Walmart (no droopy lights this year!) and swept the chimney. It was cold but not freezing, I got soot all in my mouth, ears, eyebrows, etc... but its done.

All the way downhill to Christmas now baby.

Sorry for the Lack of Updates

Work was crazy last couple of days and my free time chewed up because of it. Fortunately, I have this afternoon off for our last Fertility Clinic appointment, and Kim and I plan to stop at the mall (or two) afterwards. Have a good weekend and don't swallow any toothbrushes!

Future Shop Not So Futuristic

Ever wonder why a store like Future Shop uses ancient technology for their Point of Sale system? I mean, dark green screen with light green letters? No graphics? No mouse, all Keyboard driven? That was fancy stuff in 1985 and obsolete in 1995.

It makes me lose a little faith in them every time I see it.

This and That

I heard on the radio this morning how some peace activist group is giving away white poppies with the word "peace" on them as an anti-war protest counterpoint to Rememberance Day. A lot of people (inlcuding the radio host) are apparently livid over the insult to veterans, prompting the host to say something along the lines of "if they won't stand nehind the troops they can go there and stand in front of them."

What utter jingoistic crap. While I think using a white poppy is of questionable taste, I think getting hung up over symbols to the point of frothing at the mouth is idiotic. And confusing not supporting war with not supporting our troops is a rather Orwellian tactic that pissed me off enough when Republicans in the states did it. It has no place in my Canada.

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Kim and I were playing some Yahtzee last night and during one of my turns I had two sixes up and my last roll in my hand. I looked at Kim and said "I'm gonna roll three sixes now. Yeah, six six six!" I rolled the dice and what came up?

Three sixes for the Yahtzee.

I'm telling you I'm pure EVIL.

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Remember that day of sunshine we had this fall? When the temperature was nice and it felt positively fresh outside instead of cold, dark, and rainy?

Yeah, me neither.

Old Friend, Chance Meeting

Saturday I was walking back from the bank in Carleton Place and ran into a good old friend from my days in university, Kathleen. We recognized each other and the first thought in my head was "Thank God I lost all that weight a while back!" How vain is that? Sad but true. My second thought was "Wow, she looks like she hasn't changed a bit!" which if you know Kathleen, is the highest of compliments.

We talked breifly on the street corner, catching up as much as we could on nine years of happenings in a couple minutes. She gave me her email and I vowed to put it to good use (which I did this afternoon). I really regret completely losing touch with my school friends after getting married and moving away. It was my own fault; it was easier to let go and withdraw into a small world with Kim than it was to make the effort to keep in touch. I've always been bad at long distance friendships but its been something I've been working on as I get older and wiser.

Hopefully this chance meeting in the quiet town of Carleton Place is my chance to redeem myself a bit.

Trivia Note: Kathleen was the stand in for Kim at the wedding rehearsal in the church while Kim was checking out where everyone was standing and that it looked ok. I remember Kathleen giggling and turning a bit red. Good times. :)

Workbench of Doom! Part II

You may recall me telling you about removing the Workbench of Doom from the basement back in September. Well, this weekend we purcahsed some pantry cupboards on sale from Canadian Tire and set them up in the basement to replace the missing bench. The end result:

For those that don't know, the workbench took up that entire back wall underneath that fluoescent light and about a foot or two out from where the cupboard doors are now. Next step is to move some other furniture around and get to work on our second bathroom in the basement.

"Walking Through a Winter Wonderland..."

I walk out the door this morning and I'm greeted by this:

I turn in shock to look at my car and I view this:

NOOOOOO! Winter is coming!

Orange, First Stripe

Its been a while since I earned my Orange belt in Jiu Jitsu, but with the new classes and being busy due to doctor's appointments I haven't had the time to concetrate on my new material. So it was well overdue last night when I did my stripe test and earned my first stripe.

It went okay. I knew the idea of the techniques but was missing a lot of little details. But hey, that's what the stripe tests are for: review and make sure we get the full story one on one.

The test was scheduled for 8 but I get taken in early and after the stripe test I participated in a killer of a class. I was so tired my legs felt weak and I haven't felt like that since I started in March. Yowsers. It felt good to be moving again though, and I hope to get going to three classes a week again now that stuff is quieting down.

Still Alive... Barely

Its hard to blog about life and my thoughts simply because I prefer not to think about life right now. I'd rather just be in the moment and get swept away by the trivalities of work, hobbies, and TV.

But I can't live an unexamined life and sooner or later I must move forward constructively. That doesn't mean going off and impulse buying a new computer (which I did but thankfully Future Shop was out of stock and didn't fill my order). No, for me it means coming up with a new plan for the road ahead and start working towards that goal.

So its Novmember 1st. My next goal is to get through Christmas in one piece (trying not to overeat) and start the new year with a clean slate. I'm going to build those shelves I want in the basement and start working on that downstairs bathroom. A new computer can wait until next summer.