There's Cold....

And then there is Canadian Cold. Like today.

I stopped to get gas this morning and the thermometer across the street on a billboard said -25.

It was so cold my seat in the van was hard. And cold. My butt is still recovering.

Its so cold I saw a polar bear look outside of his cave and say "f*** this!" before retiring back inside.

Yeah, its cold.

Whoops!

I locked my keys in my van today. I have not done that in 18 years of driving.

I had to call CAA to come pop the lock after I was finished banging my head on the van window.

Sigh.

You Picked The Sun?!

Here is a video clip of a guy on the French version of "who wants to be a millionaire?" trying to decide from a multiple choice question what revolves around the Earth: the moon, the sun, Mars, or Venus.

Its a little sad he didn't know the correct answer. But whatever, sometimes people just don't know the very basics of our local neighbourhood and I can forgive one person for being a little ignorant.

But he is so unsure he polls the audience. Over half (56%) picked the Sun as the object that revolves around the Earth. Oh. My. God. I've said it before and I'll say it again: people are stupid.

This is not some piece of trivia, this is the very basics of how the Earth operates, our day and night cycle, the phases of the moon and the tides of the oceans. The only small consolation is that the rest of the audience had the basic education to pick the right answer.

*pause*

You know the correct answer is the moon, right? Sigh.

Afterthought: Maybe its just people moronic enough to want to be in an audience for the borefest that is this show are skewering the results. We can only hope.

Optical Illusions!

Optical Illusions Galore!

War Is Tasty... Wait, What?

You think you have weird hobbies? Check this out:

What I Did Over THIS Christmas Break:

My brothers, sister, myself and some of our friends built a scale model of Minas Tirith during the Battle of Pelennor Fields from the novel, The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Out of CANDY. That's hardcore.

Excited? We're Beyond Excited

And well into Nervous territory along the border with Terrified.

The reality is starting to really sink in now. Relaxing Sunday afternoons? No more. Evening after work where we just sit and veg? Over. Pick up and go to a movie on the spur of the moment? Never again.

Sleepless nights? Check. Expenses upon expenses? Coming up. Fevers, colic, whining, and more? Guaranteed.

Gah.

Weekend Wrapup

This weekend Kim and I decided to stay close to home with the due date looming for the boys. This allowed me to get spring kicked off to a good start.

* * * * *

We got the BBQ working earlier in the week and we kept it going this weekend, cooking some pork chops and turkey franks for dinner on Sunday night. MMMMMMmmmmmm, BBQ!

* * * * *

On Saturday it was raining and cold outside so I stayed in and did some housework that needed to be done, mainly sweeping and mopping. I took my time; Kim was watching Biography channel (free preview weekend) and I often stopped to see what was going on.

That night we watched a couple good movies. Mr. Brooks which I really enjoyed (4/5) and Dan in Real Life that turned out to be better than I expected (4/5).

* * * * *

On Sunday the weather was clear and cool so I was able to go out and celebrate the annual Cutting of the Boxes spring festival. This spring we had not only boxes from Christmas but a large number of boxes from furniture and baby stuff for the twins. It was so bad that when I took my patio table out earlier in the weekend for BBQ duty the mountain of boxes collapsed and I was buried for three days until an international team of avalanche rescue workers from BC and five trained St Bernard dogs from Switzerland could find me and pull me out.

So there I was with my box cutter and work gloves and I got to work on the mountain swearing that no other unfortunate soul would risk life and limb to transverse it. It took a couple hours and there was a surprising amount of garbage like Styrofoam and plastic that at the time of disposal I figured I would get to later and now that it was later I was wishing I had dealt with at the time.

When I was done I had four garbage bags of debris and one organized pile of cut up cardboard. Now I need the Yard Waste facility open.

* * * * *
Today marks the beginning of our last full week as a couple with no kids. Its still hard to fully comprehend what next week will bring.

Surreal

On a lark I googled "Greenbush Ontairo" and the first link to be returned? A news article from the Taipei Times.

What. The. Hell?

Sure enough, its about my home town and the characters that inhabit it.

In the back of Greenbush General Store, in the heart of a tiny village an hour south of Canada's capital Ottawa, the locals get together twice a day to chew the fat over coffee and the odd cigarette.

What they are talking about should be enough to make Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and the local member of parliament, Joe Jordan, gag on their own coffee as they mull the next election, likely this year.

"Those Liberals, they're nothing but a bunch of [expletive deleted] crooks," came the opening volley from store owner Floyd Salmon.

Yep, that's home all right. The funniest part about all of this? Taipei Times is published in Taiwan; Taipei is the capital city! Apparently Reuters didn't have better sources to go to for this article. Weird.

Second link was a Wikipedia entry and here it is in its entirety:

Greenbush is a community in the Canadian province of Ontario.

That is what I expected to find. Basically a stub saying "people live here". Not a piece quoting some of the best political minds Greenbush has to offer in a newspaper from halfway around the world.

Surreal.

Assembly Day

Yesterday was Assembly Day in Casa de Dullemond.

While one of the bassinets from the baby showers was assembled by my father in law for the party, the second was left to me. So I dutifully gathered my tools and went to work and after about an hour had it put together and ready for its charge.

Then I went to work preparing the car seats for deployment. That wasn't too hard, they just needed some adjustment and straightening of the pads.

Finally I went to work on the motorized swing which was more of a challenge and nearly took off one of my thumbs in the process. The metal bars all had little snaps that you had to press in to slide into another metal bar, and plastic cowling in the way of all that. I knew it was coming and knew it could not be avoided: sure enough, SNAP and the plastic dug right into my thumbnail. BUGGER! Fortunately, I survived.

At this point Kim was doing some vacuuming upstairs when suddenly I hear "OOPS!" and the vacuum run hard. She turns it off and declares "I sucked up a sock!" She takes off the attachment and peers down the tube. "Its not in there." Since there is still three feet of hose until it gets to the motor, it could be in there, or in the bag.

So Assembly Day becomes Disassembly Day. I can't get the hose off the motor at first so I try and work the other direction from inside (after making sure the sock is not in the dirt bag) but find to my frustration that the internal end is firmly attached to the external end. There is no two ways about it: that hose has to come off.

Out come the tools and the tool assistant. With Kim holding down the vacuum with her foot and pulling up on the hose with both hands, I worked a screwdriver into the slot to try and pry the hose off the the nozzle. Much cursing and grunting was heard. Then, POP! The hose came off.

There is the sock... and a pen? "Where did that come from?"And a tube of chapstick? "Oh yeah, I sucked that off the dresser by accident a while ago." Insert long suffering sigh here.

Anyway, we put the vacuum back together with a new dirt back and cleared hose. It should work better than ever now.

Spring Has Sprung

You know how I know? The Infamous Garage Door (scroll to bottom):

You see, my garage is actually more of a carport converted with walls. I.e. not professionally done (hey, I didn't buy the house for the garage). Anyway, the main door of the garage has a poured cement blob for lack of a better word where the paved driveway meets the gravel floor of the garage (yes, I typed that correctly. Really, the house is great, the garage sucks). When winter comes moisture in the ground under said cement blob freezes and pushes blob up preventing the garage door from opening and closing. I leave the door partially open all winter so I can get in and out with recycling and garbage.

In the spring the ground finally thaws and eventually the garage door will allow itself to close again. And yesterday was that fateful day. Ah Spring!

That post was from April 4, 2005. At least the Garage Door is consistent.

As an aside... I've been blogging for three years?! WHAT?!

Suddenly...

...Twins does not seem like such a good idea.

YIKES!

Circle Puzzle

Can you figure this circle puzzle out? Don't look for the answer in the comments, that's cheating!

It took me a couple minutes to get the answer.

MORE SNOW?! NOOOOOOO!!!!!

I opened up the door this morning, saw that more snow had fallen, and I was not impressed. Ticked. Pissed off.

Don't get me wrong. I like winter, I do. I like the cold, I like sleeping wrapped in blankets with a little chill in the night air. I like the look of a winter wonderland.

But the snow banks of my driveway are huge already and another twelve inches in not appreciated. Driving in this stuff is annoying at best, dangerous at worst. I hate having to wipe my windshield due to brown muddy splatter from the cars in front of me.

You hear me winter? We've had enough snow. Time to bugger off, kthanxbai. (A little LOLCats humour for ya)

Trouble At Work

A friend of mine applied to and got a job at my company which I was thrilled with at first.

Then I realized... he knows! He knows how much of a slacker I am!

He might tell them! Everyone will find out!

OR WORSE! He might blackmail me. The bastard!

Then I remembered he is a slacker too. So I'm safe.

Carry on.

Evil Genius Test

I am 61% Evil Genius.

Evil courses through my blood. Lies and deceit motivate my evil deeds. Crushing the weaklings and idiots that do nothing but interfere in my doings.

Take the

Evil Genius Test
@ FualiDotCom

Comfortable Computing

When I moved away from home, my first computer chair was a decrepit metal and plastic monster weighing a metric ton and bleeding stuffing from a crack in its centre seat that was mostly sealed with duct tape. My mother got it for free from her work and it was better than a cheap folding chair (albeit not by much). Being the practical sort, I never gave it much thought and an old towel pinned into place avoided the sticky edges of the duct tape from removing any more hair from my legs in the summer.

When we got married, I seem to remember that old chair quickly going away and us using Kim's old computer chair for a while. Eventually that gave out and we purchased a used office chair from a used office furniture store in Ottawa, a nondescript large grey chair that was in decent shape and fairly comfortable. That did us for a few years but lacked any proper back support and was uncomfortable to stay in for any length of time.

More recently we purchased a cheap chair from the local grocery store. Not the cheapest; it had arms, adjustable height, and decent comfort. But not the best quality either. One of the Kids broke the back the first weekend we had the chair by leaning on it and bending its rotating joint back to far and busting the plastic. The chair was still serviceable but fragile, and more recently the seat has become thin and hard to our buttocks. With Kim getting heavier and more spare time now that she is done work, it was proposed that new office chair was desirable.

So off to Staples Business Depot we went and we spent half and hour or so sitting in various chairs on display and pontificating on their comforts, options, and price. Finally we settled on a nice solid leather "executive's chair" that is very comfy and sophisticated compared to my original old green beast. Last night it was in and I picked it up and put it together in the living room. Its big in our little office but I definitely appreciated the smoother ride, and the next movie night we have with the kids I think I'll use the office chair to watch it from, its that comfortable.

Yummy

A lot of new grocery stores have this thing I call a salad bar right when you walk in. Its a island preparation area where the store has its workers make green salads, fruit salads, salsa dip things (YUM!), vegetable trays, cut pineapple, etc, that you can pick up and go instead of, you know, getting the food for cheaper and doing the work yourself. Welcome to the instant gratification society but that's not the point of my post.

One thing the stores make that has piqued my interest whenever I see it is a Mixed Parfait: granola, fruit, and fat free yogurt in a container. Damn if it doesn't just look delicious. I had never tried one but was always tempted.

Today after Jiu Jitsu class I was feeling peckish and stopped by the Real Canadian Superstore on my way back to work. (BTW, was there ever a Fake Canadian Superstore? Did they have a war with the Real Canadian Superstore? Or is the Real Canadian Superstore actually a Fake Canadian Superstore in disguise? How do we know? These things keep me up a night.) And there at the salad bar was a bunch of Mixed Parfaits. "THIS time", I declared to everyone in earshot, "I will NOT be denied!"

I bought one, took it to work, and ate it.

And it was gooooooooood!

Now I just have to calculate how many Weight Watcher points it was worth.

I Want To Go Back to College..

... if only because they now have Quidditch teams. :)

TOO COOL!!!

Check out the video on this post over at Living the Scientific Life.

Hack a Playstation 3 blu-ray laser and turn the Star Trek Phaser into a Blu-Ray Laser Phaser! First time in the world this has ever been done! Less than$100

OMG! I want one!

I've Been Robbed!! Of My Senses...

This morning was garbage and recycling day. I'm out in the garage getting the garbage and I go to grab the garbage tags so the men would take my bag when they came around and it was gone.

I look on the ground, nope didn't fall. Behind something? Nope. A quick scan of the garage and I can't find them. Have I been robbed?

I look around and notice my chainsaw and weed whacker aren't in the garage either. I'VE BEEN ROBBED!

Between anger and frustration there was some confusion ("How pathetic do you have to be to steal garbage tags, an old beat up weed whacker, and a small electric chainsaw?") and I decided to see if the back shed had been burgled as well. I get the flashlight, trudge out in the back yard, open the shed doors, and see my weed whacker and chain saw. I don't remember moving them out here yet there they all.

So.... someone broke into my garage and stole my garbage tags? That was beyond improbable so I went back into the garage and did a more careful sweep. And sure enough, at the back of the garage near the garbage can there was the tags, face down right where I left them last week.

Crisis averted.