Friday, June 30, 2006

Animator v. Animation


Another find entertainment from the folks at Weebl's Stuff.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

My car broke down!


And it sat in the shop for two days! Wrath! WRATH!!!!! WRATH!!!!!

But it's repaired now, and it was all under warranty.


So, that's nice.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Yaks

All Google-y eyed



















'Tis a funny thing, this blogging world. Two years ago, I'd never heard of a blog. Had you asked, I would have thought it sounded like something you should see a doctor about. Something that should have ended with "ectomy."

And it's all Google's fault that I'm here. I found the first blog purely by accident. I don't even remember what I Googled or why, but one of the hits led me to a blog written by a mother in the US and from the first I was hooked. I followed a link from that blog to another young mother in Toronto and from there across the Atlantic. At first, I just lurked and occasionally commented. Slowly, I built up relationships with other commenters and the bloggers in whose comments boxes we'd met, until now I feel as if I have friends all over the world, some of whom have evolved from blog friends to email and/or IM friends. Although I've yet to actually meet any of them, their friendship and support adds an element to my life that I could not have imagined when I first ventured out into the big, old world of the internet.

I was encouraged to start this blog and dragged my heels, doubting anything I would write could possibly be of interest to anyone but me. But I bit the bullet and here I still am nine months later. Sometimes it's silly and sometimes it's serious and I am still always amazed and touched when anyone takes the time to read it and still more when they comment. But enough serious crap.

Now that you know how I got here, here's how some of you have arrived. And all I can say is, some of you need help.

  • 'photo sexy de dawn april' (yes, this would obviously lead you to me [insert extreme eye rolling here])
  • 'stacey's country jamboree'
  • 'anacin commercial canada'
  • 'wrath emoticon'
  • 'nobody likes me everybody hates me' (why are so many people Googling this?) and just plan 'everbody hates me'
  • 'quidi vida' and 'quidi vidi Latin'
  • 'cat killed with car is bad omen' (especially for the cat) and 'cat omens'
  • 'norks' - from UK MSN
  • 'notify-blogger sea-sick june-2006' - from Greek Google (but why would you need to notify Blogger that you're sea sick?)
  • wolfgangerl

Monday, June 26, 2006

And not before time, either...





















I have no idea why Blogger will not upload a photo to the previous post, but it won't, not even via Photobucket. But today? It's all hearts and flowers and I have been fogiven.

This is the pic I was trying to include in my previous post and now you've seen it, you can understand why. I mean... that kitten hat. It just had to be shown to the world. I was one deadly fashionable toddler, eh? Yeah, I was stylin'.

This was taken on Duke Street, Saint John West, New Brunswick, Canada in December, 19... never you mind. I was two. That's all you need to know.

Note the death grip my mother has on my wrist. I must have been a wild, stylin' toddler. Some things never change...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Adjusting

(There would be a picture here but Blogger is having another of its little picture rejecting snits, so I'll have to add that later. Update: I have given up on both Blogger and Photobucket and uploaded the phto I wanted with this post to Flickr. It's hard to get good help.)

On my travels through the blogosphere, I not only find the nonsense of the badgers and mazes and such, but real people facing real life challenges, one of the greatest of these being grief.

Carol's mom passed away a while back and she occasionally posts about the journey she and her father are now taking, through grief and back to whole again, if that can indeed ever happen.

TC got word recently that his dad had passed away. It wasn't quite the jolt for him that it was for Carol, as his dad hadn't been as much of constant presence in his life, but nonetheless, the passing of a parent is never easy.

In one of Carol's recent posts, she said,

"I couldn't call her to tell her I was sick. She was always a great one for sympathy. No matter how insignificant my pain, she honored it and gave me complete support. But yesterday I couldn't get that from her. It seemed inconceivable because I can totally remember her. I can hear her and see her. How can it be that I can't call her? She has not faded from my brain at all, but she is completely gone. It doesn't make sense."

Reading that reminded me of my own struggle to grasp the inconceivability of my mother being gone. It was as drastic as if I woke up one morning and was told that the sky would be orange for the rest of my life, never, ever blue again, so great was the rift in the fabric of my universe. I'm not sure if it was because my mom was the first of my parents to pass away, or if it was because your mother (if you're lucky) is the first human being of whom you become aware and for a time, is your total universe, or a combination of both, but it was quite a mind-blowing experience, adapting to a world without my mother. Don't get me wrong, I had quite tidily untied those apron strings, ripped them firmly in two, in fact, and had lived several thousand kilometres away from my mother for almost 10 years before she died. I was a mother myself by that time. But I always knew she was there if I needed her and like Carol's mom, she was always interested in what I was doing and wanted to see my sore toe or hear about my cold in that way that only your mother does. And the idea that I would never, ever hear her voice again? Completely, totally, mind-bogglingly inconceivable.

But that was 16 years ago, and time passes and grief lessens and you do eventually get used to that orange sky. You never, ever like it, but you become used to it.

I still don't like it.

Monday, June 19, 2006

It's a badger bottle!



















When I arrived home for lunch today, I found a card from the post office telling me I had a parcel waiting for me at the local Canada Post outlet. I thought to myself, "Self. What could it be? It's not my birthday, nor Christmas, nor Easter, nor any special day. " So I skipped off to the PO with a song in my heart to collect my surprise. And what should it be but my very own badger bottle, complete with cross stitched badger on the lid!

Thanks to Kat who went to all the trouble of creating this for me. It's much appreciated. AND... it has candy in it. Bonus!

Swan Lake














Abby and I took a walk through the park today and found a pair of swans with 4 cygnets. As Misty would say, I had my camera set to shiny and went into oooo clicky mode. More pics on Flikr.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

The JCB Song

















This is just adorable. It's been around for a while, so forgive me if it's old news to you. I was just scrolling through my favourites links and found it. I think I probably bookmarked it before I began this blog. Click on the pic above for a link to the website (with activities) or click here to go directly to the music video. For anyone who's ever had a 5-year old, or been one, this is priceless.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Like crack, but more addictive










Luckily for me, Jen of When Ducks Attack finds all kinds of wild and wacky things on the 'net. This one is highly addictive. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Maze Frenzy

A life sentence



















Brought to you by the fine folks at One Horse Shy

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Omens and doom and a cat

The release of the remake of The Omen got me to thinking about omens and when they’ve occurred in my life. Which led me to thinking about one of the times that I have blithely ignored many, many omens and plunged ahead to my doom. One of those times involves my arrival in this fair province...

I am an immigrant. A boat person*, if you will. I grew up about 1,000 miles away, southwest of here. I moved here solely because my (now ex, then to be - hereinafter known as X/2B) husband found a job here. I was told it would be for 3 to 5 years, which was a big factor in my decision. You can go anywhere for a few years. That’s an adventure. But moving away for good? Serious shit, people. Had I been told it would be for life (so far), my response would have been, “Have a nice life! Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!” as I had never particularly wanted to live anywhere but my home province and if I did think about moving it was to somewhere “exciting” like a big city or another country. But that’s another story.

There were omens aplenty that perhaps I’d chosen unwisely on my inaugural journey here. Let's travel back in time to December 1980...

Omen, the first About two weeks before our trip here, we went out to celebrate my birthday. On our way home, we were blindsided by a drunk who thought running a red light would be a sensible choice. Luckily, neither of us was hurt, but it did quite a number on the rear quarter panel of my car. The car we were planning to drive over 1,000 miles in less than two weeks time.

Omen, the second We set out on a lovely winter’s day in January. Clear road, clear skies; we drove the 8 or so hours from Saint John, NB to Sydney, NS uneventfully. So far, so good. Visited a friend of X/2B’s from law school. Had a lovely supper at their house. About half an hour before we were to head for North Sydney to catch the ferry, we looked out the window. How amusing! In the hour and a half we’d been in their house, about two feet of snow had fallen.

Omen, the third The trip from Sydney to North Sydney, which normally takes maybe 35 minutes… took 2 and a half hours. During the ride, the driver’s side wiper blade decided it would not clear a 2 inch-wide swatch directly in the driver’s line of vision, which might be just annoying under some conditions, but renders you completely blind in a snowstorm. But did X/2B pull over? Turn back? Did he heck as like! He wasn’t going to let something as trivial as life-threatening driving conditions stop us! We ended up navigating by me (the passenger) eyeballing the line left in the snow at the edge of the road by the snowplow and advising X/2B accordingly… “A little to the left, now to the right…” Had the plow gone off the road, we would have gone right after it. And we were being followed by an increasingly long line of cars, who were navigating mostly by following us.

Omen, the fourth We finally got to North Sydney, boarded the ferry and, more or less on time, the ferry set sail. Ten minutes out, the water was so rough, people were getting seasick. Luckily, neither X/2B nor I suffer from motion sickness but being surrounded by those who do is no day at the beach.


We continued to sail overnight through the blizzard, however, when we got to our destination, we were unable to enter the narrow channel that leads to the harbour, as the seas were too rough. So we bobbed around just off the coast of Newfoundland like a demented cork. The ferry crossing that normally takes 6 to 8 hours? Took thirty-three and a half hours. That’s 33 ½. Hours. If you looked out the window, it looked like a scene from one of those war movies where they show a destroyer in the North Atlantic and when you look out a porthole you are peering straight up into the sky and then straight down into the water and then sky and then water, then sky, then water… you get the idea. I’ll wait while you get the anti-nausea meds…

Information on exactly what was going on was not forthcoming. Had I been told we were just riding out the storm and everything was fine, I would have been quite comfortable. But total silence and a refusal to provide any information by crew allows your imagination to run wild. Thoughts of the fate of the Titanic became impossible to ignore. The only thing that kept me calm was that none of the other passengers looked frightened. Very, very green, most of them, but not frightened. Perhaps they were just too sick to care and would have welcomed anything that brought relief from the unrelenting nausea, even drowning.

Of course, the ship was only provisioned for an 8 hour crossing, so running out of food was a distinct possibility. Or would have been had all, or even most, of the passengers been capable of eating. I think there were maybe four of us who were still able to hold down food come meal times. The only upside was that they gave it to us for free. As a reward for us having sea legs or as an apology for them being so stupid as to have set sail in the first place, I never found out.

There was one moment of comic relief. As we were sitting in the dining room, one person toppled right over, chair and all. We stifled our laughter, as we neither wanted to be beaten nor cast overboard.

So… thirty-three and a half fun-filled hours later, we docked at Channel-Port-aux-Basques and set out to drive across the island. This is a 10-hour drive during summer conditions. But we weren’t met with nice, dry roads. Oh no.

Omen, the fifth The same blizzard that had made the crossing hell had dropped many, many inches of the lovely white stuff all over the west coast of the island. Instead of setting out on a four-lane divided highway, we were driving on the one lane that the plows had managed to clear, which meant that every time you met a car coming the other way, you both had to slow down to about 30 kph and edge past each other, hoping like hell you didn’t get stuck in the snow on the outside edges of the lane. This lasted for several hours until we finally drove out of the blizzard zone and then were only confronted with the usual joys of drifting snow and black ice.

Omen, the sixth The car we were driving was an old Ford Maverick with a wonky AM radio that worked when and as it pleased. It did not please to work during this entire trip. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, as we had an 8-track player (yeah, we’re old) for entertainment in it, however… unbeknownst to us, our families were a bit alarmed that they hadn’t heard from us within the expected time frame and called the RCMP who put out a bulletin over the radio stations for us to call home. Now, I wanted to call them as soon as we arrived in Port-aux-Basques, because we were already hours behind schedule by then, but Mr. Everything’s-a-Contest wouldn’t stop because we were one of the first cars off the ferry and he didn’t want to get stuck behind all the traffic and when he decided something should or shouldn’t happen, he was a force with which to be reckoned. It was generally just best to clam up and ignore what your common sense told you, because it couldn’t possibly natter on as long as he could. As this was in 1981, long before cell phones, we couldn’t just call while on the road, so while our families had us dead and buried, we were blissfully unaware of their distress. Or rather he was. I knew they’d be worried. But I was young and not yet aware of just how deeply lacking he was in common sense, so I trusted him. Yes, I’m an idiot. And yes, this was Omen, the sixth and a half Telling me that life would be hell with this man**.

We finally trundled into town approximately two days late. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Omen, the seventh Yes, there’s more… While we were traveling, X/2B commented that the car didn’t seem to have the traction it had formerly possessed. We put this down to the terrible driving conditions. Shortly after we arrived here, the car went in for servicing and while it was up on the hoist, it was noticed that it had one summer tire on one of the rear wheels (and it was rear-wheel drive). When the shop had repaired the car, they had put the spare tire, which had a summer tire on it on the car and hadn’t bothered to mention it to us. Unbelievable negligence on their part that couldn’t gotten us killed around town, never mind on the highway.

What's that? I mentioned a cat? Oh. Right. We had a cat in the car with us. A cat who refused all food and drink for the duration of the trip. Which was good, because if he'd been using the litter box that was on the floor in the back seat, I would have had to get out and walk...



*Not to minimize the experience of the Vietnamese who fled their homeland in true peril of their lives.

**To be fair, he didn’t annoy me any more than I annoyed him. While I was steaming about his lack of common sense, he would be stewing about my ridiculous need for caution. It was, as they say, a match made in hell, and why I am so delighted to be divorced at this time.


Saturday, June 10, 2006

Also by request












For David

Freed Yaks (BTW - This is a clicky linky thing)

By request











For Ricardipus.


Note: The audio seems to be out of sync with the video. Or it could just be my computer.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Duck! Rabbit, duck!















It's desthpicable!

Googling norks



In which we enjoy even more Googling fun and games.









Words. I love 'em. So, I Googled "norks," a British slang term that I originally heard from Auntie Marianne, a fellow (fellow?) yak supporter. And here's some of what I found...

Norks Dackservice - From what I can gather, my Swedish being non-existant, dack is Swedish for tire (or tyre for my British readers) and Norks are a brand name. The slogan on their website is Ratt dack till din bil! Or should that be Datt rack done killed Bill?

Nork Residents' Association - The ward of Nork falls within the boundaries of Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, in the North East of Surrey. Which is really funny to me as my grandfather was from Surrey. Could explain a couple of things, huh?

New Orleans Rhythym Kings - A 1920's jazz band, from what I can gather.

Nork Deddog - is a special character in the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe. He is an Ogryn, part of the Imperial Guard army.

And that's just from the first 10 hits.

What's that? Yes, I do have a job. Just far too much time on my hands, otherwise.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

All Google-y eyed

Mwa ha ha! I am hit #10 on Google when you search "moose accidents on the Trans-Canada Highway. "

Update: This just gets funnier! I'm the #3 hit if you Google "how to pronounce nematode." I suppose, having posted this, I'll move to #1...

Sunday, June 04, 2006

I'm baaaaaack...


We saw nary a moose on our travels. Lots of frogs, oddly. They were all over the roads at the resort. And when I say 'all over,' I mean squashed all over the place. Ick. Luckily the place was big enough and built on a steep enough hill that we could justify using cars, because walking through hordes of squashed frogs is not my idea of a good time.

Made the trip in 7 hours, had a lovely chalet to stay in, food was lovely (if a bit slow to show up at times). All in all, just a lovely venue for a meeting.
Snaps, with notes and such, have been posted to Flickr.

And now to bed in my own little bed, because all the feather pillows and pillow-top mattresses can't beat your own petit lit...

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Go west, old broad...














And I'm off to the scenic west coast of the island for the weekend.

But before I go, an update on the parking sign. It's been moved! To where I wanted it! Woo and hoo! Details and photos on my return. Won't that be exciting? I know...

Play safe, boys and girls. Talk at ya when I get back.

Thanks to ma homies...



Well, all it took was some subtle threats by TC and Ricardiwig...pus and full service has been restored. It's nice to know you boys got my back.

And here is the lovely moose picture I wanted to post. As you can see, they do have horns, at least the boy mooses do, and the least they could do is sound them before crossing the highway.

Speaking of which, they could also help if they would stick to the assigning moose crossing areas, lovingly labelled by the Department of Highways, thusly...













Update: This is what happens when a car has a disagreement with a moose. Note the moose is still in the car... look at the back...

Do not adjust your set...

We are experiencing temporary technical difficulties. Please do not adjust your set.... Regular posting of drivel, I mean gibberish (sorry, Mr. Fab!) will resume shortly.


Blogger is not allowing me to post pictures. The bastards.