Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

I got some free potting soil, so I refreshed some of my indoor plants, and put some pots on the balcony to get them ready for some tiny veggies or herbs. I tried planning a couple radishes, and a couple yellow peppers, so hopefully they sprout. There is plenty of rain forecast for this week. I still need to get out to my garden and plant some things. They didn’t turn the water on a few days ago, because of freezing nights.

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On Saturday I dropped my crippled bike off at Dutch Cycle. Even though I got there at about 2 minutes past closing time at 4PM, they were nice and let me in the door. The missing wheel can apparently be repaired for about $35 (used), and I’m hoping they throw in a speedometer magnet with that too. I can possibly get it on Tuesday, but I bet it will turn into Saturday or Wednesday if I’m lucky.

Saturday evening I dragged two friends out, to Bushwakker’s, and I had potato skins. I cut off a bite, and when it touched my lip, it burned it. Then I was in that awkward situation I hate, where you know if you finish putting the food into your mouth you’re going to burn it, but if you spit it out, you’re going to look rude. I went with the pull the food out of my mouth with my fingers technique.

Sometime shortly before or after that I was bugged for swirling my water glass around the top of the table whilst making a “wooo” sound. So I proceeded to prove that I was still sober by stacking a salt shaker on top of two glasses, then a pepper shaker on top of the salt, then a menu, and then tenting two coasters on top of it all. I threatened to balance a full water glass on top of the menu, to cries of objection. I wouldn’t have really done it (because I couldn’t have).

Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Weird Al’s take, using some news from the ’90s to modify the song. There are subtle (and not very subtle) modifications to the video.

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Hat tip to Roshan (who just enjoyed his first Staycation in about 4 years!)

This story almost stunned me, and what’s even more surprising is that it’s about 150 years old!
Imaging a solar flare so bright, that you could SEE the sun getting brighter. Would you be a little concerned? Well, how about if your [telegraph] started to power itself?! These are things that happened in 1859, and could happen again at any time [assuming you have a telegraph or enjoy cell phones, TV, radio, computers…], with as little predictability as an earthquake. Quebec Hydro got a taste of what could happen in 1989.

And how would you like to lose 8 LINES of pixels on your digital camera? Imagine if it’s in space and there’s no way to fix it except with fancy image editing? Not many weeks after that happened, these aurora were photographed by me. Imagine most of the world’s satellites being disabled in a day?

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Now, on to something NotSafeForWork fun(ny). Imagine designing a logo, and not having someone giving you a hand with it? OGC in the UK did that apparently, and almost copied the ‘hand not connected, yet still phallic’ OGC in B.C.
If you don’t get it, turn your head to the side when viewing the logo, and pretend you see a penis somewhere.

The jokes about government employees being wankers, are perhaps appropriate at least in this case.

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And did you know cavemen used Powerpoint? Me neither. How me plug in projector? Me not know F7 + Fn keys.

My friend Robert finished his thesis defense on Monday, so a group of us went out to celebrate. We started out at an empty Habanos for pool, and played for an hour. Next we hit Dairy Queen, and I cashed in my “free small Blizzard” card on an Oreo fudge earthquake sundae. It wasn’t too sweet which surprised me in a good way; Blizzards sometimes give me a sugar headache. Then we drove up to Galaxy cinema to see the new movie “Iron Man” [8/10]. As I turned into the cursed parking lot, my power steering started to groan. Oh oh. I pulled into the closest parking stall available, right beside a CIBC (which I was going to head to later that night anyway — more good fortune) and popped the hood. There was a fluid leak all over the passenger side. In the growing darkness I couldn’t tell the colour, but it looked like orange coolant had sprayed onto the accessory belt, and I reasoned that it was due to the coolant work done last week at RMP. So we walked across the parking lot to the theatre, and enjoyed the very good movie.

Returning to the car a couple hours later though, there was a bit of a puddle under the car, and the power steering was not working. Getting a better look at the fluid, I saw that it was more like oil, and realized it wasn’t coolant, and a power steering fluid leak had started (finishing my car off). So I phoned CAA and the tow truck arrived within half an hour as promised. It was now after midnight though, and we thought we’d call a cab from Brewsters but they were locking up, and so were all of the other places within sight.

We saw a city bus, one that would go right by my place as luck would have it! Except it was the last bus of the night, and wasn’t going the other direction! Darn, eh?

Walking across the street to a pay phone to get a number of a cab company turned out to be in vain as well. The Yellow Pages where “Taxi” was, had half of the page ripped out! The only number completely intact was for “Premiere” which sounded expensive, and besides they were the company with the driver that tried to intimidate friends of mine in the UofR strike in November. I then remembered I had a number for Capital Cabs in my wallet (from a job last year with the Gov’t that used them) and gave them a call. The cab took almost 30 minutes to arrive, and we killed time talking at a bus stop beside a different Dairy Queen. As model citizens, we didn’t pee in the bushes of the Dairy Queen. I just thought I’d mention that.

So to recap:
Bike front wheel: stolen
Car coolant: repaired at $1150 + damage to power steering???
Car steering: disabled + $untold cost EDIT: fixed for $147 power steering line with hole from belt rubbing + $16 cab ride

Vehicles suck.

UPDATE: RMP refunded me both the repair that Capital did, and my $16 cab ride. Thank goodness finally something went right.

Pat Martin got burrrrned.

What’s up with that title though? “NDPers are wimps”? The lesson didn’t last past Robert noticing Martin’s swampy high ground. I’m not saying Robert’s a wimp, but wouldn’t it be amusing if now someone discovered an instance of Robert acting like one? Perhaps he’ll be a good sport and offer up an example to complete the joke.

I’ve got nothin’.
Actually I have a link to an explanation of power usage in Ontario, or “hydro” as they call it there. It’s interesting if you like that kind of thing.

Saturday I watched the B-movie (literally on the B side of double sided The Arrival DVD) “The Arrival II” [3/10]. The acting wasn’t up to par, the writing wasn’t very good, the sci-fi had obvious errors in it, and there was a plot hole someone noticed, but besides all that it was about as good as could be expected for a sequel to a Charlie Sheen movie.

Calgary Grit and Nose Hill demonstrates just how crooked the Conservative Party has been, using the Nigerian scam letters we get in our inboxes every day to illustrate it.

From: Conservative Headquarters
To: Conservative Candidates
Date: December 2, 2005
Subject: Urgent Request

Dearest Candidate,

Good morning, how are you and your family? I hope fine. Please, I am sorry to bother you with our problem.

Please know that it’s not by mistake I am contacting you but by the special grace of God. Let my start by introducing myself. I am writing from Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party with this urgent request from Party Headquarters.
[…]

WWNPHD? I had to click to find out what it meant. If you’ve seen the first movie, you’ll think this is pretty funny. Find the link on the horse on this page for the Harold and Kumar movie sequel.

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My blog is back up to lucky number seven in the top 25 political blog list in Canada. I had a feeling I had gained in some Page Rank, after I got a few new emails from SEO nuts looking to score links to their spammy sites.