Doggy Debate

An excerpt from this article:

Fresh concern about the sometimes dangerous dogs was raised over the weekend when a 25-year-old Toronto man was attacked by two dogs and seriously injured. It took police 16 shots to kill the dogs.

I think the debate should be about whether the police need more target practice. My, what terrible aim you've got.

Random thoughts

- It was S's last day at work today. It'll be a lot quieter. And less fun, probably. She was pretty good for going around and talking to everyone. Probably the only person in the office who got along with everyone. And I'm the only girl in the technical side now. That will be odd. Although as G said, I don't just take insults, I throw them back too. We'll see how it goes. R from sales took over some of S's duties too, so there's probably not going to be much for me to learn in that area. But then he is more qualified, as he has a CS degree and she was a programmer. Ah well.

- I shouldn't play silly games for so long. Now I have a headache. But it sure did make the evening go faster.

- Liberal MP has no apology for calling U.S. missile defence supporters idiots
This makes me angry too. As far as the article goes, she didn't say anything anti-American, the statement was against the missile defense program. And I completely agree with her viewpoint. Canada is allying itself with someone who is exaggerating alleged terrorist activities and using scare tactics and lies to the media in order to keep himself in office. I see this "missile defense system" as an excuse to give Bush power over a bunch of missiles. Bush is a scary enough person to give power to in America, I don't think we should be too quick to add Canada to his list of conquests. Canada has always been a peace-keeping country. And agreeing to any kind of military maneuver with Americans is asking for trouble. More likely than not, any countries that Bush has been shoving his nose into will see a missile "defense" system as a threat.

I really don't see why the United States is allowed to have weapons of mass destruction when other countries are not. Personally, I see George Bush as a much greater threat to international peace than a lot of other countries' leaders. The States at one point supplied a good portion of these weapons to developing countries. When they point fingers, there should be a lot more pointing back at them as having added to this problem. That they go to help "solve" the problems in other countries seems to foment a lot more unrest than is put down.

Realizing...

how ridiculous it is that I freak out when finding a hair with 3 separate split ends.

Spammy

From: "Ray"

To: "ford"

Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 1:37 PM

Subject: Anonymous Drugs, No Prescription!

Wow! I sure could use some anonymous drugs! Those are the only kind that will give me my fix.

Blah blah work blah blah blah

So a buddy of mine (www.ambiguo.org - go check him out) mentioned a few days ago that he was making his five-year plan. At the time my reaction was, "Ha! I don't even have a five-minute plan!"

But then I got to thinking about it, and maybe that's the problem with my life right now. I don't have a plan. I have no big ambitions. The only thing I really want to do with my life in the near future is go see Great Big Sea when they come to Regina in a couple months. And since I already paid for the tickets, I'm well on my way to realizing that plan. And it's not that I'm satisfied with my place in life. I'm patently not. No, I don't really have a patent on that, it's not part of my five-year plan.

So how does one go about making a five-year plan? I'm applying for jobs, but I have a bad habit of never expecting things to work out. It's funny, how when you expect things to not work out, that they tend to not work out. I think it's karma (or, in my case, lack thereof). I want to start taking voice lessons again so that eventually I'll be able to teach, but I'm not really into the whole learning thing anymore. And I don't really have the ambition or motivation to force myself to get up and do things. I need my parents to push me into doing things again. It's odd, in high school I got up and motivated myself. Even into the beginning of university and just after I graduated I could go out and get things done. But now I have the figurative piano tied to my ass. And I don't know how to remove it. Piano scissors, anyone?

Birthday funnin'

I was out at the farm this weekend, it was M's birthday. She's a great kid, so much fun. One of her llamas had a baby the morning of her birthday. Much better than my birthday a couple years ago where my sister-in-law J had a baby.

So we went over to R and J's place for dinner, and I got yet another chance to corrupt young relations. Gods knows why I'm allowed around children, or heavy machinery, or even the remote. But who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

C, who is nearing 2 years of age, just upgraded to a big kid bed (translation: a mini version of a real bed), so she was quite pleased with herself. I should really remember to carry a camera, there was a lot of amusing hand clasping, and grinning with mouth open and eyes closed. So of course she was showing her bed off to all and sundry. And each person, besides seeing the bed, was required to read the book that was on it. So she got several versions of the story of a puppy. Monotony doesn't seem to apply to children. Pity, that.

Just a scramble of yesterday

W and I went out for supper. On the way out we stopped at Chapters and wandered through most of the store. Picked up a map of Ottawa for him, where he'll be working next semester. Hopefully I'll be able to visit him, money permitting. We also got some classics since they have them cheap. And W will be able to start culturing me up, as he's always threatening to do.

Then we watched one of the many "new" movies at my place. My roommate's crazy friend decided he didn't want a whole whack of his movies anymore. So H and her ex, R, divided them up according to some system of voodoo magic that was beyond me. All I know is that they have a bunch of movies stacked in an undiscernable not-quite-random order. I didn't want to touch them in case they fell over or exploded or something. Most of them I haven't seen, so that will make for some choice in movies now. Yay, something to do once W leaves again.

After the movie we watched the Olympics for a while until W realized how late it was, and I took him home. Gods I'm going to be tired later today. Right now I just have a nasty headache coming on.

They're taking over the world!

Argentine ants form super colony spanning 100 kilometres in Australia

Back from the dead

I'm back from my vacation. It was good. I got to play with my honey and see St. John's and area. Also I drank more this past week than I have in the past couple of years. Combined. Hi, I'm a big loser.

And I spent a small fortune, approximately two thirds of what I've managed to save in the past few months. (cough-my mom also gave me a bunch of money as I'm not very good at that making car payments and saving-cough) Did I mention my mom is my hero? For giving me the way to live beyond my means.

As for the sights:
- Went up Signal Hill, the old fort/battery guarding St. John's harbour. We went at dusk and again before sunset, and had a gorgeous setting for seeing the Atlantic Ocean and St. John's. Hopefully my pictures turned out. I really need a digital camera so I don't have to keep crossing my fingers.
- Went on a whale and bird watching boat trip through an outfit called O'Briens. They did a really great job. The trip is billed as 2 hours, but we got 2.5 due to their generosity and insistence on giving customer satisfaction. We saw humpback and minke whales, the humpback being only about 30 feet away. We also saw a plethora o' puffins and terns and gulls. And the tour guide sang to us! It was great. Newfies really do all have some musical talent. Amazing people. To use a Newfie-ism, they're the best kind.
- Went to Cape Spear, the most eastern point in North America. Beautiful place, and not too far out of the city. There's a battery there too, lots of history in the city and area.
- Was down on George Street, 3 times. One of the bars we hit, O'Reilly's, is one of the older buildings in St. John's. Even while drinking you get smacked by character and charm.
- Drove out to Harbour Grace and saw the SS Kyle in the harbour there. Stopped in at the museum there, they had some information on the pirate Peter Easton and a lot of old period stuff. I even learnded things on my vacation! As usual, W was a font of historical information that I would never have expected him to know. But then he's a big trivia buff. We also went down to Brigus, in the hopes that their blueberry festival had started, but we were a day or two early. Very sad, since blueberries are so tasty. Ah well, something that also grows in Saskatchewan. But we wandered around the town and went through the tunnel there. W made the comment that there's probably been a lot of sex had at the end of that tunnel.

We also went out to Conception Bay South one afternoon for a cabin party drunkenly promised by a friend of W's. Good times were had by all. There was drinking and barbecuing and swimming, and the wrecking of host J's parents' seadoo. Just temporary damage, happily, but after a few minutes of zooming fun it ran no more. Probably for the best, since after that the drinking started.

There was also some moving of furniture and some rushed last-minute and last-second packing in order to get all W's belongings either stored or stuffed into bags to go with us. And I whipped up a lovely fleece duffel bag for him. By hand, no less. And it survived the trip, which shocked and amazed me. Although this was mostly due to the marvelous powers of fleece, and not to my sewing capabilities. But it seems pretty durable, if prone to picking up grass and sticks and small children. Plus it's about the size of a sleeping bag, so after picking up those children you can also store them. And, as W pointed out, it's nice and comfy for laying on while waiting in airports between flights.

Anywho, that's my trip in a nutshell. A rather large and rambling nutshell. Hey, I don't make the shell, I just have to squeeze into it.

We're only human (I think)

People are weird. It's something I've known for years, but every once in a while it smacks me upside the head anew. I know I'm weird, I see it in people I work with, I see it in people I meet casually or pass in the street. Sometimes a person's oddities are amusing or helpful. And sometimes they annoy the fuck out of me.

My honey is a good example. He and I don't agree on everything, which is the way of any relationship. And generally it doesn't bother me. But lately everything has been bothering me (I've turned into an all-round grouch lately, please don't take it personally). Including W's stubbornness, which is approximately equal to my own. So I had a bit of a blow-up, where I was close to going off the deep end and doing something stupidly drastic, as is my wont. Even though I realized I was being unreasonable. I got to thinking it through later, and now I take the approach that he's not going to change his opinion, so why bother banging my head against a brick wall. My head will just hurt and I won't get anywhere anyways.

Serenity now!

Once upon a ferris wheel

I remember going to Buffalo Days, the annual fair in Regina, when I was about 14 years old. My little brother and I got to go by OURSELVES. We were the epitome of cool and grown up. I had enough money saved to get my ride ticket, and Mom gave me enough for K's ticket. And I took some extra because fair food is full of sugary fatty goodness, and we all know how much I like sugary fatty goodness. So Mom dropped us off and we had a few hours of freedom before we had to meet her somewhere. Which I don't think I listened to or remembered, but it didn't bother me at the time of dropoff.

So my aunt, who went every year with her kids, had told us we could get day passes for cheap, which included the fair entry fee. Lo and behold, when we went to get some of these, turns out they were out of these advance tickets. Mom dropped us off cheerfully though, in the knowledge that I was responsible and could handle it. So, fine, we had to pay the entry fee. I paid the childrens' fare for K, who was 12, and the student fare for me. And then we went to get our ride tickets.

Which is when some nagging little fears started to poke and prod me. The tickets were more than my aunt had said. And I hadn't counted on paying the gate fee when I calculated money to bring for extras. So I ended up with around 40 cents left after paying for the ride tickets. But hey, that was fine, we had RIDE TICKETS! We went on so many rides. I've always been a firm believer in going early so you can beat out all the after-work people and the sleep-in-till-mid-afternoon people. We could go on any ride without waiting, it was great. We rode for hours, finally stopping to go get a drink of free water, which was the only kind we could afford.

And then the shit hit the fan. K is diabetic, and had just become so recently. His blood sugar started to get low. Which would have been fine, had we more than 40 cents with which to purchase sugary items. And at Buffalo Days, everything costs an arm and a leg. Or two legs. You don't need legs to ride. So those nagging little doubts turned into an all-out AMY FREAK SESSION. Really, it doesn't take much for this to happen. In hindsight I realize I could have gone to one of the many first aid stations they have there and begged ignominiously for some sugar, or syrup, or sweet sweet candy. But hey, I was 14, what did I know? So we ran around looking for free sugar packets, and K snarfed some of those. But it wasn't helping much, he needed real food. So I figured, take him into the Agridome where nothing was happening, and he could sit around while I ran around scrounging more sugar, or looking for miracles to happen.

And then a miracle did happen. We ran into my brother and his fiance, or my sister and her boyfriend, or some other happy related person we knew with money and food-finding capabilities. (transcendent heavenly miracle music inserted here) We were saved. And then Mom happened along too. Very convenient. So all these responsible adults were able to fix it, and life was good again.

When I explained to Mom why I couldn't buy him food, she got mad at me. For not having enough money. And when I tried to explain about the cost of the tickets, and gate fee, and freaking out, I still got no sympathy. And she didn't even pay me back for the portion of the gate fee and ride ticket I'd spent on K. Life is so unfair.