More Funny Terror Alert Indicators

This one comes from the good folks at CreativeSpill.com with the slogan "Paranoia made FUN!". The Originals can of course be found here.

My writing...

You're a Dialogue/Character Writer!


What kind of writer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

OK great, 50,000 words of dialogue... I still need characters and that pesky plot thing too!

NaNoWriMo OhMyGawd!

Word count = 0

Word count zero, plot count zero, character ideas zero. Less than 24 hours to go, and I'm already occupying that behind the eight ball, between the hard place and the rock state of mind. What am I going to write about? I can't even begin to think about the topic, let alone contemplate writing the 1666.66666666667 words per day it's going to take to land this puppy of a contest. You can follow the dismal progress at "What I'm Writing"

[easy Ric.. this is just stage fright]

Right stage fright... right I can work through that.... how do I handle it when I'm doing theatre.... hmmmmmmm... Eureka! That's right! When I get stage fright in theatre, I drink scotch... lots of smooth wonderful scotch, and then the stage fright goes away. Mind you this is going to play hell with my typing.

Anyone have any other ideas?????

BlogExplosion - Boom or Bust?

BlogExplosion is not new at generating internet traffic. We realized that beyond linking to other blogs with reciprocal links and posting on other blogs in general, generating daily traffic your blog can be very challenging. With Blogexplosion we provide all bloggers big and small the opportunity to generate hundreds or even thousands of visits to your blog every month!

This site uses the tried and true techniques of the Internet Marketing gangs to generate traffic to your blog. Essentially if you sit and surf blogs through their site, they will send readers to your site at ratio of roughly 2:1. Drawbacks? Well they get to decide which sites they present to you for surfing, so a number of the blogs you will be reading are little more than fronts for businesses and advertisments.

On the other hand, their system is like the "Next Blog" button on Blogger except that there is a time limit of how long you must stay on a blog (30 seconds or so), until you can view the next blog. An advantage is that they seem to have eliminated those sites that have the silly pop-up dialog boxes. This alone is worth the price of admission.

So I'm going to try blog surfing this way for a bit. I can deal with the blatant ad sites, but the elimination of pop-ups while I surf is a blessing.

What kind of Blogger am I

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

What kind of blogger are you?

This may be so... but I'd never be as good looking as the cartoon above, even if I was a girl. Picked this up at Wannabe Muse. Interesting site indeed.

War of the Worlds

It's the anniversary of Orson Welles's broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" in 1938. Welles wrote an adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel in which Martians invade Earth, and presented it as if it were really happening on the Halloween broadcast of a show called "Mercury Theater on the Air." It began, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, strange beings who landed in New Jersey tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from Mars." Thousands of listeners missed the first part of the show and didn't know it was Welles's "The War of the Worlds." People clogged the switchboards trying to get more information about the landing. A few people reported seeing the aliens.

From the Writers Almanac by Garrison Keillor. Available Daily by e-mail.

Art work is the cover of "The War of the Worlds" album by Julie Covington, Justin Hayward, David Essex, Jeff Wayne, Richard Burton, and Phil Lynott.

Contemplating Murder

I have House Guests and I'm contemplating murder. So best write about it and get it out of my system.

The Colossus Next Door

On CBC One Tonight at 9:00 PM EST

The Colossus Next Door...tonight on Ideas. What role should
the world's only super-power play on the global stage? In
the 2004 Donner Lecture, historian Niall Ferguson discusses
the importance of understanding the American empire.

You can listen to it on the web if you don't have Radio access. Pick number 4 CBC Toronto.

I listened to Nial Ferguson discuss his book on a TVO broadcast a short while ago and it was a very enlightening look at the imperial power to the south. Well worth a listen if this is the kind of thing you like.

---

Note: It turned out to be the same lecture as was on TVO. I listened to it again anyway.

A Ray of Hope

There is hope out there, as can be shown from this classified ad recently handed to me my a friend who knows my plight.

Brilliant Misfits Wanted

The [name deleted] is Canada'’s largest intellectual talent agency, managing the lecture careers of celebrities, novelists, media, personalities, and leading academics from around the world. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Boston and Vancouver, we are uniquely positioned to continue our growth and development as one of the world’s premier agencies.

If you are still looking for a great career, then this may be the company you’ve been looking for. If your are truly brilliant, massively well read, and are both engaged and engaging, then you may find a fit amongst our misfits of MBA’s, LLB’s, chess masters, and ski instructors who represent some of the world’s most interesting people.

Due to our continued growth, we need a new agent - someone who is used to success, has incredible communication skills, the ability to sell ideas, can work independently, and who wants to think for a living. We’ll pay whatever it takes to get the right person. Please send us a fascinating cover letter that tells us who you are. No resumes or CVs please.

Oh my gawd... You mean there are places like this were you can actually work and think at the same time, and they pay you for it? Sign me up. Now if I could only think of something witty, urbane, and truthful about myself to get my foot in the door and see if the glass slipper actually fits.

Oh Poo!

Message for Rathwel... You are Eeyore! This will save you some time :)

As for me? Possitively pompously pedantic in every way. The choice of erudite curmudgeons the world over.

You are Owl! Wise and calm, you constantly feel
that you must help those around you who are...
not as gifted in certain areas as you are. As
in, everyone.


Which Winnie the Pooh character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Same as it Ever Was ne c'est pas?

Woke up this morning in a fog, literally. It was too early for the sun and the mists rolled in and out of the alluvial valleys of the Oak Ridge moraine as I made my way to the office following the hazy red lights of the southbound traffic.

I arrived as usual. Nothing changed. Nothing different. Nothing to hope for. Nothing but nothingness. I feel like I'm trapped in a bad French existentialist movie... in black and white... and no subtitles.

[sigh].

Karma's a Bitch

I'm conflicted. On the one hand I want to be a caring and compassionate human being. My parents spent long hours dragging my butt to Sunday School to have the milk of human kindness force fed to me and on some levels they were successful in their task. I am generally a nice guy and I care about the plight of others and the welfare of several classes of small mammalian creatures (OK some reptiles too, but I can take or leave birds).

On the other hand, and this is the dilemma, I discovered that the beloved one was t-boned at an intersection this morning while driving into the office. It wasn't life threatening. He'll live. I don't know more details as they are sketchy, but I'm wrestling with the fact that I feel pretty much no remorse at all. In fact, we've been having a rather good chuckle at our morning department coffee about how karma works in mysterious ways.

Is this bad? Have we crossed the uncaring line? Things that make you ponder.

I'm a what?

Ok I admit it, I have this thing for Tron... there I said it, are you happy?

I am a Light Cycle. I drive fast, I turn fast, I do everything fast. I even breakfast. I tend to confuse people with my sudden changes of heart. Sometimes I even confuse myself, which tends to cause problems. What Video Game Character Are You?

Royal Navy Approves Satanist

When I first read this my initial reaction was "What the F!*k". My second reaction was "this will give Rum Sodomy and the Lash a new lease on life". My third reaction was "if we wrapped the body of Nelson in copper wire and placed large magnets around him, the spinning motion would generate enough energy to power London... forever".

So perhaps it's a good thing after all.

"The British Armed Forces has officially recognised its first registered Satanist, a newspaper reports.

Naval technician Chris Cranmer, 24, has been allowed to register by the captain of HMS Cumberland, based at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth.

The move will mean that he will now be allowed to perform Satanic rituals on board the vessel.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Cranmer realised he was a Satanist nine years ago. " more...

It's an odd world isn't it? But to each his own I suppose, how long until someone wants to worship Sauron I wonder?

Thanks to Hot Pepperami for pointing it out.

In My Flowing Cup Freshly Rememb'red

Today is St. Crispin's Day and the 589th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. Raise a toast to Harry and the lads. Lest we forget.

If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Old Words New Revelations

I am on a quest in search of the illegitimate offspring of Voltaire. Which is a round about way of saying that I’m reading a wonderful book by John Ralston Saul (husband of Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada). The book is entitle Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. I originally read this book when it first arrived on the market in 1993. It’s over a decade old, and some of the modern references are to politicians and businessmen that have since passed into our own dusty history. The analysis, however, is spot on regarding the insipid way that the technocrati (no relation to a fabulous Blog utility) have cornered the market on power in politics and commerce. This is nearly universal in a general sense, but is precisely the issue I’m dealing with with the beloved one at the office.

“It follows that the theology of power, under which the technocracy prospers, marginalizes the whole idea of opposition and therefore that of sensible change. Opposition becomes a refusal to participate in the process. It is irrational. And this trivialization of those who criticize or say no from outside the power structure applies not only to politics but to all organizations.” (Voltaire’s Bastards pg. 27)

This is my department in a nutshell, and the beloved one is one of Voltaire’s own. A bastard.

My Time! My Day!

It's Take Back Your Time Day, What are you doing for yourself?

I'm doing the following;

• Having Coffee with my wife
  
• Playing with my kids
  
• Playing with my dogs
  
• Reading (book #1) (book #2)
  
• Writing
  
• Blogging
  
• Listening to the The Vinyl Cafe
  

How about you?

This explains a lot..

These things are starting to scare me. They scare me because they are true.

You are a PAPER-CLIP! You have great managerial
skills because you make sure that what goes
together stays together. Things would be in
complete disarray if you weren't around to hold
down the fort. But that's the problem- you
aren't always around. Sometimes you are
nowhere to be found and the projects you have
to keep track of get jumbled up. Or sometimes
your coworkers get you bent out of shape and
you just can't work at all. You have a very
important job, but it would help everybody if
you were more readily available.


What Piece of Office Supplies Are You? (many, many clever results with pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla

And The Beat Goes On

Drums keep pounding rhythm in my brain....

It has been a week since the talk with “Dad”, I mean the VP of my department, and while there has been peace, it is an uneasy one. I’ve kept a civil tongue in my head and agreed to do the stupid, mundane things I’ve been asked to do, and processed form after form of mind boggling IT bureaucracy. So what has this bought me?

In the last week I’ve discovered the paper I wrote on implementation of wireless networking in the office was in fact actually devised by the beloved one. The project is being given to the new junior guy, while I’m supposed to check little boxes on a form saying that I looked at a log file and things are OK. Imagine my surprise.

He has also arranged to separate the department staff from one area were we all sit together and work in relative harmony, by moving the LAN guys to work stations outside his door. He feels he will be better able to protect their time from interruptions if he can always see what they are doing. He is so helpful don’t you think?

So we agree to peace, and they make moves to marginalize our work and divide us. How do I love this place, let me count the ways. Zero.

What Number Are You?

This explains why my Logic Professor always thought my arguments were circular... (try the veal folks, I'm here all week). I hope I get a slice of cheese or at least some ice cream served with me.

I am p Everyone loves pi _

what number are you?

this quiz by orsa

Take back your time

The count down is 3 days away. On October 24th it is officially Take Back Your Time Day. It's about time to and that can be taken any number of ways. I'm particularly aware of this in my job. I'm up at 05:00 to be in the office at 07:30. I work until somewhere around 16:00 to 17:30 and then commute home usually around 18:30 but sometimes as late as 19:30. Leaving about 9.5 to 10 hours to eat, sleep, enjoy my family, relax, etc etc etc. So saying I'm onboard with the idea of taking back some time is the understatement of the new millennium.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? Are you, or your friends or relatives, working more now but enjoying it less? Does your family's schedule feel like a road race? If so, you're not alone. Millions of Americans are overworked, over-scheduled and just plain stressed out.

* We're putting in longer hours on the job now than we did in the 1950s, despite promises of a coming age of leisure before the year 2000.

* In fact, we're working more than medieval peasants did, and more than the citizens of any other industrial country.

* Mandatory overtime is at near record levels, in spite of a recession.

* On average, we work nearly nine full weeks (350 hours) LONGER per year than our peers in Western Europe do.

* Working Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks. Many of us (including 37% of women earning less than $40,000 per year) get no paid vacation at all.

Gathering Leaves

Poem: "Gathering Leaves," by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). (buy now)


Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight;
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

From the Writers Almanac by Garrison Keillor. Available Daily by e-mail

Happy Birthday Tommy!

Today (October 20, 2004) is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tommy Clement Douglas. He was born in Falkirk, Scotland.

Tommy Douglas was Premier of Saskatchewan (1944-1961); the first federal leader of the New Democratic Party (1961-1971); and a Member of Parliament for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (1935-1944) and the New Democratic Party (1962-1968, and 1968-1979).

His accomplishments well known by most Canadians, including being the father of Medicare.

This week, the CBC has started its contest to select "The Greatest Canadian" and Tommy Douglas has been nominated. The program and contest feature Douglas and nine other Canadians. Six weeks from now, one of them will be named "The Greatest Canadian." The episode highlighting Tommy's life, hosted by MuchMusic's George Stroumboulopoulos aired on Monday, October 18th. It will be rebroadcast on CBC Newsworld at 7pm ET on October 23rd. The winner will be announced on Monday, November 29 at 8pm ET on the CBC.

The CBC vote is a great opportunity for all Canadians to mark the anniversary of the birth of Tommy Douglas.

I Love John Stewart.

I love John Stewart from the Daily Show. I mean I really love him and I don't normally like guys that much. He's witty, smart, funny, intelligent, and he makes self absorbed political hacks look like, self absorbed political hacks, or CNN Crossfire hosts. Don't believe me? Then watch the clip for yourself. As far as I'm concerned Tucker Carlson doesn't even come close.

Shangri-la Misplaced

The results are in. The election has been made. We have been weighed and measured and found wanting. A co-worker of mine drafted a letter to the VP basically paralleling the discussion that I had with the VP last week. You might think that faced with at least 50% of the department going on the record that there might be some credibility given to our issues. This of course was not the result that met us this morning.

It was sitting innocuously in our email in baskets this morning, pretending to be a memo like any other. It wasn't. Instead, it delivered the final blow to our already precarious morale. The letter went on about hearing our concerns, and promising that steps would be taken to correct the situation, however at every step of the way the VP reinforced his belief that the beloved one was the man for all seasons and that we would need to work ever more closely with him to overcome our differences for the good of the company.

It was as if the clouds parted and the voice from on high said, “This is My Son, in whom I am well pleased.” What was it Milton wrote? Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven... This is the end... My only friend, the End

My Life Rating

My life is rated R.
What is your life rated?

Now there's something to try and explain to my mother. She has always thought of me a PG-13.

I found this at Life And Times Of A Hot Pepperami(an NC17).

Sunday Night Silent

It is the lull before the storm. The peaceful serenity of a Sunday evening. All is quiet. All is calm. There is a restful silent stillness which imparts a feeling of renewed strength and hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for a new beginning. Hope for hope itself.

Tomorrow the struggle and strain of life begins afresh. There will be deadlines to meet, silliness to endure with a smile, and a desperate battle with mediocrity to wage. We may be warriors of the working day, our paths the rainy marches through the mud of corporate vain glory. Struggling to juggle one task after the other for the benefit of those who will not appreciate the effort. Who will add to our labours with little reward, save the privilege of labouring on. Who will wonder with incredulity that we are not more grateful for the great boon they give to us. The weariness grows heavier, and in the middle of the week that is to be, what I wouldn’t we give for the peace and tranquillity of these few moments of Sunday night silence.

Car Memories

When I was a lad on family car trips I would occupy the back seat of the old Buick with my older sister, Dad would be behind the wheel, Mom watching out the passenger window. Now being siblings separated by a scant eighteen months, my sister and I occupied the back seat in much the same way as Israelis and Palestinians occupy that strip of land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean sea the Romans used to call Judea. You knew a violent fight was going to erupt at some point along the course of the drive. Dad was a very patient man but at some point in the drive patience wore thin against the grating sound of the constant squabble. Eventually those immortal words would come out of his mouth, "Don't make me stop the car or there will be trouble!" The imperious warning was often followed by a swat of the right hand at the unfortunate offspring sitting in the rear passenger side of the car. Typically me. My sister and I would stop hostilities, but my sister would be smirking at the swat she evaded by clever positioning out of Dad's reach.

I experienced this deja vu in the office yesterday. I was summoned to the VP's office to discuss the "issue" between my self and the beloved one. I stated my case, gave examples of the poor treatment that I and the rest of the department experienced. I was frank, open and honest. To his credit, the VP listened and promised to investigate my side of the story, but, he didn't understand how I could see my boss in a bad light, as he was well thought of by other managers. I said that that wasn't the case with any of his employees, who all felt as I did. The net of the meeting, however, was the swat of Dad's right hand. The VP wanted peace. Wanted it now. If he couldn't have that then I was the expendable one. Somewhere I could feel the beloved one smirking.

The lesson learned was an old one. Form triumphs over substance. Any fact can have any spin put on it. The value of staff is little. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery. My conversion to Winston Smith is nearly complete. I can sense the HR professionals compiling my nonpersonhood file as I type this...

Click to Enlarge

www.dlibert.com

Kindred Spirit

Sometimes you run into a kindred spirit... I received this email from a good friend, and thought it would be worthwhile sharing. It troubles me more than you know that this happens outside the corporate world too.

Why Do I Do This?
By LUCY SNOWE

Career advice for part-time instructors

When I teach an introductory course in creative nonfiction, I often begin with an essay by Terry Tempest Williams, "Why I Write." Every sentence of that essay starts with the same statement: "I write": "I write to record what I love in the face of loss." "I write because it is a dance with paradox." "I write for the surprise of a sentence."

After some discussion of the text, I ask the students to follow Williams's model and write a sentence that begins with "I write." They do not put their names on the papers, which I then collect, shuffle, and distribute randomly. Students now have in their hands a different paper -- a different reason for writing. Sitting in a circle around me, they read aloud their anonymous classmates' statements.

It is one thing to write something and read it out loud. It is another to write something and hear someone else read it aloud. The statement, suddenly separated from the writer, takes on an independent life. And it joins force with a group of statements, which, like Williams's essay, is much greater than the sum of its parts.

In a sense, the class has written an essay like Williams's -- an aggregate that lists, describes, emotes, reasons, muses, plumbs the depths, and paints the surface. It is an interesting, often moving, exercise. And it puts in the students' minds a writer's perpetual question: Why do I do this?

That is also my perpetual question. I am a writer and a teacher of writing, intertwined identities. I earn my livelihood by talking to college students about writing, giving them assignments, reading their work, and commenting on it.

In between semesters and sometimes during, I write articles for newspapers and magazines, and in the summer I work on longer pieces that take shape slowly. The work is satisfying but the remuneration is sparse. Teaching supports my writing, and as a professional writer I can offer my students insight into the craft of nonacademic prose. I'm a very good teacher, and I teach at a major research university in a full-time, but non-tenure-track position. I have a pleasant office on a beautiful campus in an attractive city. Ostensibly that makes for a satisfying professional life. Except...

Except for the disconnect I experience daily between the work that I love, and the way I am treated by my department. I accept that I have a low-ceiling position and that tenure will never enter the picture for me. But getting even a definite one-year contract is an ordeal.

My contract is always on the line, always subject to caprices, fiats, machinations, and finessing that the chairwoman hints at darkly but never explains. My salary, I am asked to believe, is contrived through the powerful magic of department administrators who cajole spare change out of cheapskate deans. À la Dickens's Mr. Murdstone, everything is meted out to me with parsimony, hauteur, and a grotesque sense of noblesse oblige.

When, after 15 years of teaching at this university, I asked for a three-year contract, I was flatly told no, and warned not to ask again, "because," the chairwoman said, "I'm just going to tell you 'no' again."

I often recall that meeting and others like it. I wonder what goes through the chairwoman's mind when she delivers such pronouncements, since we both know she earns a six-figure salary and has been actively luring academic superstars to campus for similarly cushy jobs.

Does she ever wonder what it's like to be strung along until the last possible moment? Or what it feels like to have a contract -- filled with boilerplate about patents that cannot be yours if you invent something and about the pointlessness of publications (since yours don't count toward tenure) -- appear in your campus mailbox at the last possible minute, or even a few weeks late, and to sign and return it immediately for fear that delay of more than a few hours will consign you to oblivion? Can she just shrug and accept that such are the laws of academic supply and demand?

Over the years I have become used to the shabby treatment, but it wasn't until quite recently that I realized how deeply corrosive its effect has been on my psyche. Dealing with academic administrators is so unpleasant and so painful that I have become overly anxious, wary, edgy, short-fused, and sleep-deprived.

Sometimes, halfway through the semester, I ask my students to write about a situation from two perspectives. What is it like to be a cashier in a supermarket? What is it like to be a customer in that cashier's check-out line?

Like my students in that assignment, I find myself split. On the one side, there's Happy Me, who immensely enjoys the intellectual challenges of designing courses, going into the classroom, introducing students to wonderful literature and ideas, and seeing them grow as writers.

On the other side, there's Angry Me, whose talents and contributions are ignored by her employer, who earns the lowest salary of all full-time faculty members in the department, and whose colleagues are often gratuitously cruel.. I remind myself interminably that the constant disdain, pettiness, and passive aggression that I'm subjected to by these so-called humanists is a statement about them, not about me.

The reality is that I'm the one who suffers, and I know this is a destructive way to live.

This fall, one of my colleagues, a part-timer, was let go. I noticed that she wasn't at a faculty meeting in September. I was puzzled. I asked around. No one had any idea where she was or what had happened. It was one of those Orwellian moments when you discover that your cubicle neighbor has been vaporized and everyone else pretends that nothing has changed, and you start to question your own memory and sense of security.

Next year I could be the vaporized person and history would be rewritten so that I would be retroactively excised, just like my former colleague.

Teaching here is like being in a bad marriage that looks good to outsiders. I'm the wife whose husband slaps her around but who, nonetheless, smiles gamely, maintaining the relationship "for the sake of the kids."

But the hand-writing is on the wall in giant strokes. I'm constantly asking myself if I'm strong enough to get by without the cushion of an institution that offers me library privileges, computer support, health insurance, a pretty office, college tuition assistance, and the opportunity to work with intelligent, capable, sensitive students. It's a lot to renounce; otherwise I would have quit a long time ago.

Recently I learned that my department has been negligent. It was supposed to have informed me well in advance if my contract would be renewed for the following year. That had never been done -- whether as a consequence of profound indifference to my fate, or administrative ineptitude. (My guess is the former.)

But now there's a new edict in effect, and within a few weeks my immediate superiors are supposed to tell me my status for the next academic year. Nothing would surprise me. If they want to cut me to part time, they'll do it. If they want to get rid of me, they'll do it. No reason has to be offered, or they can make faux excuses such as "budget," "reorganization," or, as students like to say, "whatever."

What will I do if I lose or leave my job? I won't look for another in academe, that's for sure. I'm at a university that's arguably one of the best places in the world to teach, whose merits I fully endorse and whose student body is outstanding. A lateral career move would offer me less, and worse, than what I now have.

Instead, I'll write. Because I can't not write -- it's essential to my existence. I'll figure out how to live without the pleasures and the malice of academe. In the long run, I might be content with the way things turn out. But not being able to teach would be a serious loss.

It's an insidious dilemma: Dedication to vocation versus psychic survival. The sad thing is that it really doesn't have to be like this. I shouldn't have to endure the psychological abuse -- job insecurity, authoritarian administrative decrees, patronizing double-speak. I shouldn't be subjected to this kind of treatment, period. There's no reason why a top-tier university -- or any postsecondary institution -- should force a gifted, committed teacher with a legacy of appreciative, successful students, to the brink of despair.

At least, standing on the brink, I know why I write.

I write to exorcise the demons. I write to gain perspective. I write to remind myself that the act of putting words on a page and then sending them into the world is an act of liberation.

Lucy Snowe is the pseudonym of a lecturer in English at a major research university in the East.

The Hours

I don't remember getting up this early, on a routine basis, since the days in the Friary when we chanted the Divine Office. I was always late for Matins and always under the disapproving eye of Father James.

I'm generally not a morning person and no matter how hard I try, I am never glad of being up before the break of day. Lately, however, I find that I am constantly awake in the wee hours of the morning, and it feels like obligation. Which is to say it feels like having to say the Office all over again. I didn't like it then, I don't like it now.

It's not the heady rush of waking up early on Christmas morning flush with anticipation of presents and good fortune. It is rather the slow, steady and inescapable realization that one more day in the occupied territory of my fabric covered box is nigh. There we sit facing the west wall of the cubicle, sending silent kvitel* to the divine in hopes a of a messiah we know isn't coming. So back to the task at hand... making bricks with no straw, whilst dreaming of a land of milk and honey.

* Kvitel: From Yiddish - meaning small note or request.

Happy Birthday Lenny

It's the birthday of comedian Lenny Bruce, (books by this author) born Leonard Schneider in the town of Mineola on New York's Long Island (1925). He got his start in comedy working as an emcee for a strip club, where he told jokes as he introduced the performers, and eventually he got his own show.

Bruce was controversial because he used profanity in his act, but also because he spoke openly about sex, race, and religion. He once said, "Because I'm Jewish, a lot of people say to me, 'Why did [the Jews] kill Christ?' We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him." People called him a "sick comic" but he said, "I'm not sick. The world is sick, and I'm the doctor."

In 1961, a policeman came to Bruce's show and charged him with obscenity. He got out on bail, but the judge told him that if he said one dirty word at his next performance, he'd go to jail. So at his next performance, with the local district attorney in the audience, he pulled out a copy of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (1934) and read all the dirty parts to the audience. He figured they couldn't arrest him if he was just reading literature.

He tried to fight the charges of obscenity, in court and on stage. He said, "If God made the body, and the body is dirty, the fault lies with the manufacturer." But he sank into depression and became obsessed and paranoid. He spent entire performances reading court transcripts out loud, insulting the judge and the prosecuting attorney. After spending four months in jail, he stopped performing and died of a drug overdose on August 3, 1966.

In December of 2003, Governor George Pataki granted a posthumous pardon to Lenny Bruce for his 1964 obscenity conviction. A new box set of recordings of his performances came out this year called Let the Buyer Beware.

Lenny Bruce said, "Every day, people are straying away from the Church and going back to God."

He also said, "I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce."

From the Writers Almanac by Garrison Keillor. Available Daily by e-mail

Open Door Closed Door

It was a long day, One of those tediously drawn out affairs that you would gladly trade for a role in a scientific study trying to determine the impact of common building bricks as instruments of blunt force trauma.

The beloved one is in rare form; assigning tasks, blame, recriminations and anything else that is not nailed down. Always in the formula that it is solely me and no one else that is the cause of the problem. I attempt to point out that I'm not the singular one person in our happy group that feels that their career is circling the bowl waiting for the final flush. This is of no matter to him. I must be dealt with separate and apart, as will the other members of our small ensemble. We few, we unhappy few, we band of brothers in the winter of our discontent.

Behind me, I hear the door closing as one by one the masterful spin of events is brewed to perfection. Soon there will be rational enough to close the last door and then I will be no more. Not one with the corporate body. I will be shunned. Expunged from the record. Assigned all fault for all things. But wait, what is this? I arrive home and there are messages waiting. Other opportunities. Other ventures to be had. So as this one door closes, many more are showing cracks of light and hope is not lost.

But can I survive the race until it is finsihed?

Henry and I

Henry and I share something in common. No, I'm not the King of England, nor would I want to be, Windsor Castle is a fire trap. Henry also had six wives and a uniquely permanent manner of divorce, I have had, to date, only two wives, with no beheadings, only some wishful thoughts at times in that direction. But I digress.

The similarity between Henry and myself is of a different nature and localized in our lower extremities (no think lower still). You see we both suffer, although he in the past tense due to an earlier case of death, from gout.

Gout is a systemic disease caused by the buildup of uric acid in the joints, causing inflammation, swelling, and pain. This condition can develop for two reasons. The liver may produce more uric acid than the body can excrete in the urine, or a diet of rich foods (e.g., red meat, cream sauces, red wine) puts more uric acid into the bloodstream than the kidneys can filter. In both cases, a condition called hyperuricemia results. Over time, the uric acid crystallizes and settles in the joint spaces, most commonly in the first metatarsal phalangeal joint of the big toe or in the ankle joint.

From Podiatry Channel

Can you say hurts like hell?

Gout is exacerbated by things like Beer, fish and chips, steak, breads etc... all the good foods. Gout is alleviated by the crap that rabbits an other herbivores eat. This is usually where I launch into the rant about eating meat is vital to the development and evolution of larger brains and rational thought. I mean seriously, how much intelligence does it take to sneak up on grass? Of course, this is where my Vegan friends club me over the head with a pot of tofu or affect a false limp and whistle "Here gout boy, here gout boy!". Unfortunately they often stand at a distance my cane does not reach.

This is my third attack of the "royal" swelling curse. In the first, I was at a loss to figure out what it was, and so were the doctors at the hospital. In the second, a bright young intern took one look at the swollen foot, did a rough calculation of my age using the metrics of girth, curmudgeonliness, and wispy gray hairs in my beard and said "Yep, that's gout." I hated him immediately. Not for his diagnosis, but for the fact that he was a bright young intern and I was a girthful, curmudgeonly, graybeard. He gave me some drugs that would fix the immediate pain and swelling issue, and my family doctor has me on a drug program that will lower the uric acid content of my blood. (See Allopurinol. Allopuranol.)

This third attack, is self diagnosed and self inflicted. I know what it feels like, I know what it looks like. I know the enemy. What I don't know, it appears, is how to take my medication regularly, and the concept of moderation of my intake of all the good food and ale which is bad for me. So here I am, in self imposed immobility, waiting for the acid tide to go out with the next flush. Wishing for a nice roast beef sandwich, smothered in gravy, side of fries, and a nice Irish stout to was it down with, while toasting the memory of good old Henry.

Remembering Christopher Reeve

In Memory of
Christopher Reeve
1952 - 2004

"Superman's Song"
by Crash Test Dummies

Tarzan wasn't a ladies' man
He'd just come along and scoop 'em up under his arm
Like that, quick as a cat in the jungle
But Clark Kent, now there was a real gent
He would not be caught sittin' around in no
Junglescape, dumb as an ape doing nothing

Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him

Hey Bob, Supe had a straight job
Even though he could have smashed through any bank
In the United States, he had the strength, but he would not
Folks said his family were all dead
Their planet crumbled but Superman, he forced himself
To carry on, forget Krypton, and keep going

Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him

Tarzan was king of the jungle and Lord over all the apes
But he could hardly string together four words: "I Tarzan, You Jane."

Sometimes when Supe was stopping crimes
I'll bet that he was tempted to just quit and turn his back
On man, join Tarzan in the forest
But he stayed in the city, and kept on changing clothes
In dirty old phonebooths till his work was through
And nothing to do but go on home

Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him

Dad's Home

I ran across this at double flee a and I laughed. I laughed a lot.

Sometimes the day at the office has been sooooo bad, that I feel like doing this too. Watch the movie...

Now I'm going to practise my guitar, place kicking, and swordsmanship. You never know when you're going to have to use them. Mind you, the eyes would be cool too.

Old Photos

Family holidays, especially the Christo-triumvirate of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, are times when ghosts of the past are dug out and reviewed. Today in Canada we are visiting the Ghost of Thanksgiving Past.

I'm old enough that a good majority of my childhood photos are in black and white. They are square with rough edges, and are slightly faded from too much exposure to light and the elements. Neither of my parents were particularly adept at photography, but occasionally they captured some real gems. I suspect that in the majority of families that this is the case as well. There is a certain amateur charm that is brought forth in these old pictures. A warmth that would be lost had a more steady professional eye and hand been in charge of the shutter.

My spouse and daughter are undertaking a project to renew the old albums. The pictures are being rescued and transported to new homes of acid free preservation. The new albums have margins, and spaces to write in notes about the subject matter of the photo. This task has also fallen to me by default. As witness and occasional subject of these old images of my past, it is my memories they will have to sift through to properly archive the collection. These mental pathways need a good cleaning and the walk will do me good.

Happy Columbus Day Yanks!

"In fourteen hundred and ninety two,
Columbus was played by Depardieu."


Columbus Day in American History;

1792 a ceremony organized by the Society of St. Tammany, or Colombian Order was held in New York City honoring Columbus and the 300th anniversary of the landing.

Oct. 12 1866 out of the pride for their native son, the Italian population of New York organized the first celebration of the discovery of America.

1869 when Italians in San Francisco celebrated Oct. 12 they called it Columbus Day.

1892 President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the 400th anniversary of the event.

1905 Colorado became the first state to observe a Columbus Day.

Since 1920 the day has been celebrated annually.

1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every Oct. 12 as Columbus Day.

1968 President Johnson declared it a federal public holiday on the 2nd Mon. in Oct.

Historically, Columbus was not the first to discover America, nor was he the first European to land at America. He was the first to exploit, kill, and enslave the Arawak Indians of Haiti.

The myth of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America is due to Washington Irving. His "biography" of Columbus was popularized in a dramatic and embellished account.

In recent years, the holiday has been rejected by many people who view it as a celebration of conquest and genocide. In its place, Indigenous Peoples Day is celebrated.

---

If your looking for something to do with the kids today try this site. Lots of links and activities.

Ops. I Did it Again

I love Peanuts. Salted or not. I've loved them since I was in the 3rd grade in nineteen sixty- oh never mind. Looks like I fell off the quiz wagon again.

You are Rerun!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Back from the Brink

So I was about to take this on-line quiz. This one was entitled Who were you in a past life? I started thinking to myself, "what the heck are you doing this is absolutely nuts!" I suppose I was right. This has to stop. I'm not even going to post the link to this silly quiz... There I feel better, as if a great weight were lifted off my shoulders. Past lives indeed. Why is everyone someone famous in a past life? Why not a stable boy, or chamber pot scrubber? Anyway, you've all been spared that one.

Inceidently if there *IS* something to this past life thing, I was Alexander Graham Bell... so pay up all you deadbeats, I've got royalty cheques comming (yes that's the way we, and the majority of the english speaking world, spell checks).

Wrong Holiday, or How I Learned to Love Home Repair.

So it's not really Thanksgiving, or at least today is separated from the Thanksgiving festivities and is handed over to another holiday. One we lovingly call Labour Day. No it's not about commemorating the contribution of the Labour movement to our modern society, for that would imply a day of much needed rest for a job well done. No this is the type of Labour Day where labour gets performed.

It is probably the last good weekend to empty the pool, mulch the leaves, cut the grass, clean the eaves and clean up the house that Jack built. I'm not positive the builder's name was Jack, but I decided to go with it as it fits the narrative.

We long for a place of our own. We long for property, a nice garden, and a place for the dogs to run free. It's like a Faustian bargain however, as we never really get what we want. The house always comes with things to do, and it rarely comes with people to do them, so without a tremendous influx of cash, I am my own general contractor. You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

Happy Birthday Thelonious

It's the birthday of Thelonious (Sphere) Monk , who was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina (1917) but grew up in New York City. He started piano lessons at a young age. By age thirteen, he had won the weekly amateur night contest at the Apollo Theater so many times that he was no longer allowed to compete. Six years later, he joined the house band at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where he and Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and a few others invented a new kind of jazz known as bebop. It involved unusual repetition of phrases and an offbeat, angular pattern of sound. In the '40s he started making recordings, and in the '50s he came out with two of his most popular albums, Brilliant Corners and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane . With these albums, he gained international attention as a pianist and a composer. The Thelonious Monk Quartet, which included John Coltrane, began a hugely successful regular gig at the Five Spot. Monk played at jazz festivals with other famous jazz legends around the country until the 1970s, when he stopped touring. His most famous compositions include ''Round About Midnight,'' ''Straight No Chaser,'' ''Blue Monk,'' and ''Misterioso.''

Poem: "Theolonious Monk," by Stephen Dobyns, from Common Carnage (Penguin).

Thelonious Monk

A record store on Wabash was where
I bought my first album. I was a freshman
in college and played the record in my room

over and over. I was caught by how he took
the musical phrase and seemed to find a new
way out, the next note was never the note

you thought would turn up and yet seemed
correct. Surprise in 'Round Midnight
or Sweet and Lovely. I bought the album

for Mulligan but stayed for Monk. I was
eighteen and between my present and future
was a wall so big that not even sunlight

crossed over. I felt surrounded by all
I couldn't do, as if my hopes to write,
to love, to have children, even to exist

with slight contentment were like ghosts
with the faces found on Japanese masks:
sheer mockery! I would sit on the carpet

and listen to Monk twist the scale into kinks
and curlicues. The gooseneck lamp on my desk
had a blue bulb which I thought artistic and

tinted the stacks of unread books: if Thomas
Mann depressed me, Freud depressed me more.
It seemed that Monk played with sticks attached

to his fingertips as he careened through the tune,
counting unlike any metronome. He was exotic,
his playing was hypnotic. I wish I could say

that hearing him, I grabbed my pack and soldiered
forward. Not quite. It was the surprise I liked,
the discordance and fretful change of beat,

as in Straight No Chaser , where he hammers together
a papier-mâché skyscraper, then pops seagulls
with golf balls. Racket, racket, but all of it

music. What Monk banged out was the conviction
of innumerable directions. Years later
I felt he'd been blueprint, map and education:

no streets, we bushwhacked through the underbrush;
not timid, why open your mouth if not to shout?
not scared, the only road lay straight in front;

not polite, the notes themselves were sneak attacks;
not quiet-look, can't you see the sky will soon
collapse and we must keep dancing till it cracks?

for Michael Thomas

---

From the Writers Almanac by Garrison Keillor. Available Daily by e-mail

Thankful Things

From the home office in Punkydoodle's Corners, Ontario, the top ten things to be thankful for on Canadian Thanksgiving.

10. No pilgrims or other puritanical individuals in buckled shoes
09. Freezing the turkey not required. Just leave it outside the door. Brrrrrr.
08. Pumpkin Pie.... it's the new apple.
07. Cariboo Racing.
06. Tim Hortons will still be open. Late.
05. The Turkey Fairy leaves drumsticks under the pillow.
04. Getting people to believe reason #5.
03. 3 downs in the CFL , and the symetry of pass, run and kick
02. Another excuse to drink Canadian Beer.

And the number on reason to be thankful

01. Family and Friends (but not if they "boggart" the stuffing).

Not a Pilgrim in Sight

It's Thanksgiving, Canadian style. So break out your Moose steaks, Maple Butter, and BC is playing Toronto in the CFL. That's Canadian football son, bigger field, fewer downs, and weather is sometimes still a factor.

While Thanksgiving does hearken back to American traditions and it is generally believed that it was brought to Canada by those Americans kicked out of the republic after Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness were secured for all. Of course the United Empire Loyalists had to celebrate it earlier in Canada, as the harvest comes sooner and it is generally more miserable here in November. In actual fact the first Canadian Thanksgiving is recorded years before the Pilgrims ever set foot on or near Plymouth Rock. The kudos goes to Martin Frobisher who had things to be thankful for in 1577-76 while looking for a North West passage. Things like not freezing to death.

So things I'm thankful for? My kids are with me this weekend. I've got a wonderful spouse. Three great, though slightly annoying, dogs. Friends and family. No work. Did I mention the CFL is on? and being able to just be...

A LAN Admin is a Terrible Thing to Waste

It's Friday. It's a Friday before a long weekend. In this particular case it is the Friday before Canadian Thanksgiving. The other great thing about it being Friday is the seventh day pilgrimage to the fountain of the dark nectar of the gods... Guinness.

It's been a particularly nasty, brutish and not short day at the office with the silliness of the beloved one reaching new demoralizing lows... So what's a group of Network and LAN specialists to do you ask? Well look here.

Oh the depths we sink to.

Fortune: Good and Bad

Well the phone interview went very well. It took place outside the Metropolitan United Church in Toronto. I was on my cell, prospective employer was on his cell. We chatted for over 30 minutes about networks, management philosophy, things I hate about bureaucracy. After all the ranting and raving, and an outbreak of prolonged church bells ringing in the time, he still wants to organize a second interview. Oh My Gawd! This could be really great. This could be the end of the silliness that is currently passing for my career.

OK. Big problem time. The job is in Waterloo, Ontario. Besides being named for the defeat of Napoleon, it also happens to be a scant 145 kms away from my current house. (See Map) It will tke me roughly two hours to drive it, there are no trains I can take... I've done this kind of long distance drive before when I worked in Hamilton, but I only lasted a year there and it nearly killed me.. figuratively and physically.

It would mean moving. Life suddenly gets more complicated [sigh].

Oh great! Trapped in Deep Space 9...

I have to stop these things.... I don't even like Deep Space 9... OK I like Kira, but that's it.


You're a Cardassian! Intelligent and devious,
you're a bit of an enigma to those around you
and scientific to the core.


What Star Trek Race Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I feel like exploiting a technically weaker foe now...

Happy Birthday Frank

It's the birthday of the science fiction author Frank Herbert, (books by this author) born in Tacoma, Washington (1920). He was an obsessively curious kid growing up, and he actually dropped out of college because they wouldn't let him take as many courses as he wanted to. As a young man, he supported himself variously as a professional photographer and television cameraman, radio news commentator, oyster diver, and jungle survival instructor, and as a newspaper reporter and editor.

He was an early member of the environmentalist movement and he was especially interested in ecology and resource management. After having worked as a journalist and written about those topics, he decided that the best way to get his ideas across would be to write science fiction novels.

His first novel was The Dragon in the Sea (1956), which was moderately successful. He got the idea for a new novel while he was writing a magazine story on government experiments to control the shifting sands in the coastal town of Florence, Oregon. It took him six years to research and write it. And that was his masterpiece, Dune (1965) about a desert planet where people only survive because they have learned to conserve and recycle every possible trace of moisture.

Dune was one of the first science fiction novels to completely imagine an entirely different world, with different plants and animals, different social classes, and a whole set of elaborate religious beliefs. It became a cult novel on college campuses and went on to sell about 12 million copies in 14 languages.

Herbert went on to write five Dune sequels. He spent a lot of the money he made inventing solar and wind cooling systems for his home. He also served as a consultant in ecological studies to various foundations as well as South Vietnam and Pakistan.

Frank Herbert said, "I refuse to be put in the position of telling my grandchildren: 'Sorry, there's no more world for you. We used it all up.'"

From the Writers Almanac by Garrison Keillor. Available Daily by e-mail

Fortune Favours Who?

My horoscope this morning said that “an obsessive scoundrel is about to leave your life”. Now let me think. I know a great many aboulic people, and a few scoundrels as well, but who do I know that is both aboulic and a blackguard... hmmmmm... this may take awhile... hey that’s right it could be my manager, the beloved one!

Not that I put any stock in horoscopes or other forms of divination (like picture readings), but I’m willing to give this one a shot. Especially when I checked my phone mail this morning and there was a message from someone willing to talk about another professional endeavour. My how the stars seem to align. Not that I’m superstitious, but fingers are crossed.

In the Name of Love

You do a silly quiz and this is what you get...

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come, he to justify
One man to overthrow

You're in touch with the world, and you have a very
strong opinion on things like politics and war.
Even if you do end up changing your image in
the future, most of us will still like you.


What band from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ok I can see it, but only if I'm the cover version by Elmer Fudd....

No Wonder... It's all about Math!

This little Gem came to me by e-mail, and rather clog up the ether with lots of individual notes to all of you, I thought I'd post it here and you can read it if you want to. It does however reflect my way of thinking about the office.

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%



and


K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshit and Ass kissing that will put you over the top.

Do You Know Your Code?

My blogger code: B5 d- t- k+ s+ u-- f++ i+ o+ x-- e+ l+ c-- (decode it!)

Don't miss your chance to be uniquely like everyone else... hurry while supplies last, your mileage may differ, offer void where prohibited, prohibited where void.

Why Can't I Just Throw the Ring In?

Every day I walk into Mordor. Every day there is the oppression. Everyday I feel a part of me difting away that I may never be able to reclaim. The ring is heavy around my neck and I know in the deep places within me that I need to toss it into mount doom and be done with it. But the ring gives power, or seems to at least. The ring puts food on the table, or so my mind tells me.

I suppose the only question I have is whether I will be Isildur or Frodo.

Old Files From a New Angle

It's amazing what you find when you root through old file cabinets, especially if they're your own. I have a rickety old filing cabinet that belonged to my paternal grandfather Walter Harvey Knight. It was old and rickety when he made use of it in the 1950's, it grew older and more rickety under my father's care, and now it is positively senile and held together by the fiat of the divine alone under my care. I would not trade it for the world. It is my curmudgeonly guardian of all papers that should have rightfully been tossed out decades ago, but were not.

In my most recent expedition into it's creaky drawers and jumbled file folders I discovered a bunch of dog eared notes, some scribbled, some typed (on an equally old and rickety Underwood typewriter that I found in a bus stop, but that's another story). These notes turned out to be some old stories and even, gods forbid, poetry of mine that has been lost this part quarter century. I was young, I was clever, I was very fond of rhyming couplets for some reason. The ones that don't embarrass the heck out of me will be posted over on the Writing Blog as time allows.

Self discovery is sometimes self re-discovery.

Three Dog Night

No I'm not talking about the Rock Band of said name, but of the Inuit* practice of guaging the temperature by how many dogs they needed to sleep with to stay warm and alive. Last night it went down to 1 degree celcius, that's just above freezing. It's a time when water passes from a mobile liquid state into a sedentary frozen state, puts it's feet up on the coffee table and watches TV. Unfortunately this event also coincides with the Hot Dog vendors leaving the streets until they return in the spring as swallows unto San Juan Capistrano. Another less poetical occurance at this time is the need to use an ice scraper to remove the frost from the car windshield this morning. ARRRRRRRRRGH! There I feel better.

* Inuit - the name natives of the arctic circle call themselves, meaning “the people”. It is the word used in Canada rather than the word “Eskimo” which means “eaters of raw meat”. The former being less pejorative we think.

It's Not a Quiz... It's a Survey!

That being said, it's like giving 18 year old scotch to an alcoholic... the quiz addiction continues...

I'm a member of the Autonomous Rebels. I can't wait to get the motorcycle. I'm 11% of the Canadian population and 27% of the "Boomers". My key values are Scepticism toward Traditional Institutions, Questioning Authority, Freedom, and Individuality. Apparently Governor General Adrienne Clarkson is an icon of the tribe. I actually prefer her spouse John Ralston Saul, but only in an intellectual and literary way

Want to see where you fit? Click -> here <-

"This survey assesses human social values by asking questions about your view of the world, and about your personal goals, wishes, hopes, dreams, and expectations. There are no right or wrong answers to such questions so please be as honest and as complete as you can be when filling them out."

Note to Americans: It's for Canadians but shhhhhh! I can sneak you north of the border. Dress warm it's cold up here.

Oh Gawd....

The latest in blog fads is brought to you by the good people at http://blogpet.blogspot.com. Put a cat on your blog that interacts with the reader... I first encountered the kitty at http://agodon.blogspot.com/. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

My grandfather used to ask me a rhetorical question "If a thing can be done, should that thing be done?" I'll leave you to answer that, but I'm still shaking my head and looking in the closet for my Pet Rock.

The Road Not Chosen

Today is the feast of Francis, and no, I'm not going all "Henry V" on you. I mention it because it is a time of reflection for me. Once, a long time ago when I was young and so was my enthusiasms and idealism, I was a brother in the OFM, the Order of Friars Minor, the Franciscans. I was caught up in the "Dare to be a Priest Like Me" campaign in the Archdiocese of Toronto and being naive and inspired I signed up for my hitch in the ranks.

I choose the Franciscans because of Francis. Here's a guy who turned his back on all that the world offered and lived a simple life of giving and prayer. What could be better? I didn't have a particular issue with the vows. My thinking went a little like this, "Poverty, check that's me. Obedience, well I guess I can take orders, sometimes. Chastity.... hmmmm... OK dating wasn't going so well, and I've always got confession as a back up... Oh heck, lets give it a whirl."

So I joined up, spent a year in Toronto attending University, spent a year in Boston (as an illegal alien) with a side trip to Central America, experiencing at the time some particularly nasty uncivil wars.

All while I was in the order I noticed that there were some good Friars that obeyed the rule and served god and the people of god. Then there were the others that paid lip service to the rule and were hiding in the order from something in the world. There were also the glaring contradictions... We had satellite TV and Cold bottled beer... outside the friary the Hounduran poor lived in hovels with nothing, and the vow of poverty was ours.

So after a while the naivety and inspiration faded and I was left a fish out of water. I eventually left the order, joined the world and embarked on a different road. A road that gave me two wonderful children, but also a divorce. A life that gave me a wonderful spouse, but the life of the working poor. I am happy with what I have, but every so often, like on this day of Franciscan celebration, I wonder what it would have been like had I continued on that road.

How Terrible is Terror?

Courtesy of Wacky Neighbor


Courtesy of the number 7 and the letter Q at Geek and Proud

9/11 was tragic. The war is tragic. But it is also tragic that the official systems of alerting the nation are so flawed and basically inaccurate that our only possible response is ridicule... tragic indeed.

A Time for Fall Fairs

It's autumn. Leaves are turning rusty red and jaundice. The Weather Channel tells me that my area is seeing a 10-15% colour change with more on the way for Thanksgiving. See their Fall Colour progress report for up to date information. Oh and incidentally, for you confused Yanks, Canadian Thanksgiving comes in October.. by November we are buried in snow and have little to be thankful for.

So what is there to do on such a fall weekend? Why attend a fall fair! It is a tradition amongst the rural folk of Ontario to have fall harvest fairs celebrating, the bounty of the good earth, animal husbandry and tractors. This, however, is not the fall fair I attended. You see city folk like to celebrate stuff too, so this weekend we went to the Toronto Fall Psychic Fair. No animals, no bushels of grains and definitely no tractors. My levels of skepticism were fairly high.

The pageant of prognostication was held in the venerable old Queen Elizabeth building on the CNE grounds down by the lake. It was filled with all manner of artists, readers, seers, mystics, that you could imagine. One in particular is a family friend and who was running her own booth and who, due to the awesome power of the bloggernaut, will receive a shameless plug. Visit Nancy at Universal Sky. Say Hi. Say Ric sent you.

Now I'm a skeptic through and through. The Universe and I don't seem to see eye to eye on things which I have blogged at some length in my Pathetic Fallacy entry. But, there are more things in heaven and earth than in either mine or Horatio's understanding so I'm willing to accept that this may be useful, helpful, and meaningful to other people. Case in point, my spouse had a reading done which seemed very helpful to her. I've heard the tape, and it's pretty close to the mark.

Case in the other point, I bought a picture from this guy, who gives "readings" based on the picture you pick. The art work is supposed to call to some inner part of the self which reveals things about your past and future. He had two prices, $15 for the picture, $35 for the picture and a reading. I went for the picture only. He wasn't busy, so he insisted on a reading at no charge. He was warm, friendly, and a little charming. The things he said where insightful, intelligent and thought provoking. Unfortunately, they were not about me. I'm glad I didn't pay the extra $20 for someone else's reading. I thanked him, took my picture and left the booth. While I was getting my reading, a group of people were watching with some interest and when I was finished the artist/reader had new prospects waiting to go. It's as if he knew giving me a free reading would lead to more readings... perhaps he was psychic.

I lied

I said yesterday that it would be the last one, I lied.

hmmmm hopelessly addicted am I hmmmmmm.

:: how jedi are you? ::

Happy Birthday Groucho

"It's the birthday of comedian Groucho Marx, born in New York City (1890). In 1908 he began acting with his brothers Harpo and Chico, and they became famous as the Marx Brothers. He was known as the most talkative Marx brother, and he's famous for his snappy insults. He said, "Marriage is a wonderful institution. That is, if you like living in an institution." And, "I have nothing but confidence in you, and very little of that."

From The Writers Almanac available on-line and daily by email.

Be shure to check out the Random Groucho Qutes Page today and as often as you like.

Musing Around

Ok last one for awhile, and then I'm going to nip the Quiz Monkey off my back.

Apparently (to steal a phrase from rathwel) I'm having this on going thing with Clio, the muse of history. Good thing I spent all that time getting my Bachelor's degree in History and Philosophy oh so many years ago. At least we'll have something to chat about.

~Clio~
Your muse is Clio, the Proclaimer, the muse of
History. Her symbol is the scroll. You're
very interested in history; have you considered
archaeology for a taste of something new?


Which of the Nine Muses is your muse?
brought to you by Quizilla

Of course if you must know the truth, I'm only using Clio to get to Thalia... Men are such pigs.

The Things You Miss While Sick

Well it looks as though The Day of Glorious Revolution has come home to roost. There is discontent in the ranks of the Royal Highland Network Engineers and the results of the employee survey and certain requests for transfers to other departments have finally clued upper management into the concept that "Houston, We have a problem". If history holds to form the Spanish Inquisition (quite unexpected) will begin to get to the root of our unhappiness. I will lay odds that I will be surprised by the Company's answer. It will likely bear little resemblance to the reasons I think I'm unhappy... but the company knows best doesn't it?

I suppose what I'm really upset about is missing "Friday Mass", the Rector Jimmy Sr. presiding;

Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed, be thy Pint.
Thy will be drunk, I will be drunk,
At home as it is in the tavern,
Give us this day our foamy head,
And forgive us our spillages,
As we forgive those who spill against us,
And lead us not into incarceration,
But deliver us from hangovers,
For thine is the beer,
The bitter and the lager,
Forever and ever,
Amen

Prayer by spacecows

The Dream of a Country Life

I've just finished rereading a couple of favourites The Art of Natural Building and Home Work. They are both books about living closer to the land in a more natural setting. They are both books that spark a dream I have about returning to the country.

Now I'm not some urban idealist who thinks that a country life would be quaint. I was razed in the country and played in fields of corn and cows (mind the meadow muffins) and am well aware that the country life can be made up of hardships and deprivations.

Some deprivations I could stand, like not working in a cubicle, people racing their Honda Civics up and down my street, rush hour, waking up to the sound of police or fire sirens, and a host of others. Things I could get used to; waking up with the sun, the sound of crickets, the song of the wind through pine trees, the feeling that the earth is a part of my life and not just something I stand on.

What dreams may come indeed.