The early morning news said it all; the professors at my favourite university are on the sidewalks, with polite picket signs and polite rhetoric. Parity, at any cost.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Strike fever | 202 words
I love the reaction of people to their discovery of Google Earth. Almost as if they’d received a private airplane, with none of the attendant disadvantages (how many runways do you have around the house?) The power of seeing familiar locations from above.
posted in technology | Comments Off on Wonder full | 134 words
Did you ever watch a very bad movie, not because you had gone all the way to the cineplex and paid good money and bought the super-jumbo-with-buttery-coating popcorn, but because it was on TV and there was nothing more important on the “to do list”? I sat (lay on the bed, actually) through an early Will Farrell movie that grew out of a skit on SNL today. No doubt, this was a work of art in the bad movie genre, but it was on at exactly the right time. I feel like I’ve eaten too much cotton candy. Waste of valuable time. The catch (excuse), though, is that I chose to lay back and watch. Nobody else cared; nobody else even watched it with me. Did anyone else in the world watch it with me? With some of those “upper” cable channels, you can’t be sure anymore.
posted in media | Comments Off on Even junk has a place | 157 words
The hunting/fishing/camping show is “on” in town this weekend. A chance to see all kinds of new equipment, watch dog training demos, go fishing in a swimming pool. And zero interest on the part of my family.
posted in economy | Comments Off on Wrong time of year | 185 words
Sometimes our efforts, in whatever domain, seemed to be destined for zero-sum. A pity, because it removes value at both ends of a scale of measurement.
posted in computing | Comments Off on On one hand, on the other | 143 words
Just across the way, in spite of all the snow, a construction team is hard at work erecting a big box. That box will soon hold a new grocery store, located strategically right across the road from another grocery store.
posted in economy | Comments Off on Shopping surplus | 172 words
My confidence level is growing. The upgrade to WordPress 2.02 went without any weeping and gnashing of teeth. After a little housecleaning, and a further check to see how many of the skins have failed to be “obedient” I’ll erase all the safety net copies stored here and there and consider how to upgrade the “other” server copy. Running two separate instances of the software has allowed me some insight into how the real world functions. On my local server, when it doesn’t look like I’m in control, I simply reboot and make the bad stuff go away. With the public server, that option is not available. I have to probe in a different manner to see where or why things aren’t as expected.
posted in computing | Comments Off on Another patch in place on the blogging wheel | 132 words
Given the amount of printed material that contains “identifiable data” about us, it was an inevitable purchase. We now have a shredder in the house. No, I’m not referring to the dog, who has her own role to play. This is a small, noisy affair into which you feed sheets of paper and produce your own version of rat bedding.
posted in economy, environment | Comments Off on Doing our part for privacy | 203 words
Back when the first dog came to live with us, we went through a period known as house-breaking, where the whole family learned a new set of life skills. Close the door, always. Keep the toilet seat in a closed position. Close the garbage door and the refrigerator. Don’t leave stuff lying around. In short, we became model citizens of living in the house, because the small beige fellow never forgot his role. Well folks, the good times are back. The new white baby, curious as she is and always in stealth mode, means that the old rules apply once again. If not, she will cut her new teeth at our expense. Dogs do make us behave better, people.
posted in pets | Comments Off on Remembering how it used to be | 119 words
The evening news brought fascinating images. Our current prime minister is on an officially secretive visit to Afghanistan (secret for reasons of security). There, he spoke of the importance of our mission there, while admiring the inukshuk and grabbing a photo opportunity at the controls of a Hercules aircraft.
posted in politics | Comments Off on Visit in stealth mode | 117 words
