Oscar Night

We'd like one Angeline Jolie*, one Johnny Depp* to go please, and while you are at it a Jennifer Garner would be lovely too.

*Still looking for Oscar 2004 Pictures of them. Sadly no luck yet, but the dress Angelina is wearing is stunning.

Teddy Corruptioin

With all the talk of morality and exposed breasts causing the downfall of our civilization and corrupting the youths of today I found this little trivia question rather amusing:

At the height of the teddy bear's huge popularity in the early 1900s, there is record of one Michigan priest who publicly denounced the teddy as an insidious weapon. He claimed that the stuffed toy would lead to the destruction of the instincts of ------------ and eventual racial suicide.

Answer: MXXXXXXXXX

Motherhood.

Yup, so take those teddy bears away from the children. Uh-huh.

Koala Cuddling

Playing trivia on DC++ P2P.
Got this question:

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary opened in 1927 in ----------, Australia, and it was the first and is still the largest koala sanctuary in the world. Tourists can cuddle one of 130 koalas, hand feed kangaroos and emus, and see a large variety of Australian native wildlife in the 50-acre sanctuary, such as wombats, Tasmanian devils, and dingoes. Koala cuddling has been banned in New South Wales since January 1997, but cuddling is still permitted in Queensland, and especially at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. In Queensland, koalas can only be cuddled for less than 30 minutes per day. They must also get every fourth day off. At Lone Pine, koalas are timed for "clock on" and "clock off" when they go to the koala cuddling area.

Aside from wanting to go there, it is located in: BXXXXXXX

For answer:

BRISBANE

another year added.

Happy Birthday Old Man.

Another year older, another year gone.
The body once subtle and graceful has turned on its own.
The toes they seem farther and so does the paper.
The noises are dimmer and the text it seems smaller.
You crack and you pop, when walking about,
like some form of giant rice crispy treat.
But they years have been good,
filled with much love and good cheer.
Here’s to many more such years,
may each one see you surrounded by those you love
and may they be filled with the sound of laughter.

Hoping your birthday was a wonderful one.
our squishes and kisses
and all our good cheer
us.

"taking the bridge"

I'm still trying to figure out how they got away with it.

Training Fu

In the past three days of training I have managed to sprain my right shoulder muscle [rhomboid major ?] while writing on the dry erase board [it’s a little too high for me and I have to strain my arms and stand on tip-toe to reach the middle top], aggravated an old elbow and wrist injury by mousing while standing [the only way I can demonstrate something at someone else’s computer] and talked my throat ragged. I fear that by the end of the week I’ll be carrying out the course through the use of queue cards.
My once mighty training has become weak, very, very weak.

Friends are like bras..."

The Diamond Edition of Carnival of the Vanities is up, hosted by the wonderful delecatable Goddess.

"...The good ones never lets you down."

Yummy Soup

At a nearby Irish pub they occasionally have very tasty soup, which we enjoy consuming with a variety of our favourite dishes. The usual depending upon our choice of the moment might be: fish and chips, capon wings (6 - but I get to eat three since Munin can't handle all of that vast quantity of food... truly), irish stew, bangers and mash, their house hamburger (it has jalapeno peppers in it), Sri Lankan curry (typical for an Irish pub, it has curry dishes...), or whatever specials they might have which appeal at the moment.

Now having installed the latest photoshop for fun and photo editing, I was struck by their new preview setup for filters, rather nice. (bling) Neon! Hey... not bad, rather interesting actually. Sort of looks like one of those velvet artworks of Elvis, only this is soup. So for some that is an improvement, for others it is a blasphemous comparison.

Either way, take your pick and see what you think. Maybe I should post the original along with it... maybe later.

It Lives…

The ‘puter is mostly up and running. There are just some files that need to be moved from one hard drive to the other, about 8 gigs worth of stuff, and then some software needs to be reinstalled. And, then it will be mine. All mine. My precious…

everyone's a cynic?

Aren't you a sweetie? You are barely capable of a cynical thought. In fact you need to develop your skeptical side- a healthy dose of cynicism is no bad thing.

Humph! Apparently I am not as cynical as I thought I was. How about you?

Afternoon Geekiness

My computer is getting a new hard drive, Hugin’s old motherboard* and case today. The afternoon hours will be spent fiddling with its innards, moving components, reinstalling software and copying over files. Wish me luck, ‘cause I haven’t had to do this in five years. See you all on the flip side ;oD

Extremely versetaile.

To this effect, the first section of the course will present extremely versatile methods to create sketches, even if the user will not necessarily use them on a regular basis.

Yes ladies and gents, not only will you learn how to use the sketching tool, but we will show you “extremely versatile” methods of creating sketches even if you, yes you, will not want to use them on a regular basis.

Our manual is peppered with these little gems. Though the sentence in itself is not a glaringly misuse of sentence structure, the fact that it and others grace the pages of a manual and are considered to be proper, leaves me shaking my head. Granted the original manual was a rush job. Granted they only had a week in which they had to write a 40-hour course. Yes there was no one there to proof it. But, it has since gone through 5 revision, you’d figure that they’d at least catch some of the misspelling and grammatical errors, clean up the sentences and make sure that the file names listed in the examples a: exist and b: match the material and example to which they are associated. Gah! Well back to the prep I go.

Now y’all come back and take the course you hear.

Back meet muscles. Muscles meet back.

I overdid it at the gym last night, and now my back muscles, which in the past have only had to support the rather light weight of my front and head, are threatening to go on strike if I ever deem it necessary to repeat last night activities. Muscle I never knew I had are screaming for relief, and the rest of them have taken to spasming at the slightest hint of movement.

Bath. Tiger Balm. And laying flat out on the couch are tonight’s scheduled activities followed by a good nine hours of rest. Hopefully they won’t pack up in the middle of the night and leave me stranded in the morn. Wishing you all a restful and relaxing evening. I would squish you, but fear that, that may just be the last straw on the proverbial camels back. Instead I blow kisses at you all. Smooches. m.

loopy. yes. i am.

Eight hours spent in front of the computer. Twenty minutes of each hour spent watching the screen update. The other forty minutes are spent in a frenzy of clicks, mouse movements and curses as you try to get the views placed in the detailed drawing. Pens are chewed, notes are scribbled, doodles are doodled and as each second passes you lose a little part of your sanity. Eight hours gone and you find yourself to be a drooling loopy mess. As you head home, the realization kicks in. You get to repeat the whole mind numbing process on the morrow. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

All together now “I am going slightly crazy. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Maybe."

Love is…

Those morning moments when I steal the blankets and you snuggle up to keep warm. The cold winter days when you let me put my ice cold feet on your tummy to warm them up. The soft kisses you place when you sneak up behind me. The moments we share, and the times when we sit together snuggled on the couch reading or watching a movie. But most of all “Love is…”

YOU!

Love you beloved.

Smooching Day...

Sending you all lots of squishes and smooches.
xox mwah! xox
hugin & munin.

Tickety Boo

Coversation between friends, to my great amusement:
D:Is everything tickety boo with you?
C:Ya mate, it's all tickety boo!

Tickety Boo
[Q] From Christopher Key: “Several of my Canadian friends use the term tickety-boo to describe an event that is proceeding quickly. Any idea where this one originates?”

[A] It’s certainly common in Canada, but is very probably British in origin. The usual meaning, by the way, is more that something is satisfactory, all in order, or OK.

We can’t be sure what its origin is. Eric Partridge always contended that the word was forces’ slang, most probably from the Royal Air Force, and that it dates from the early 1920s or thereabouts (though the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t find a written example before 1939). Considering the number of Canadians who flew with the RAF during World War II, its move to Canada isn’t surprising.

The difficult bit is taking the word back any further than the 1920s. It could combine that’s the ticket—with much the same sense—with the childish phrase peek-a-boo. But some find a link with the British Army in India, suggesting it comes from the Hindi phrase tikai babu, which is translated as “it’s all right, sir”.

Source: World Wide Words

The Key

We moved into our apartment some time back. Nice place and it has the front security door that we received a key to. "A" key. Of course I've asked for another one over the time we've been here but nothing. And being a security door you can't just go and get the key copied at the hardware store.

So, I bugged the super about it again and lo and behold we get another key! Amazing!

This causes me to pull out a better keyring and place my other keys on it. Cool, I can come and go as I need to. If I forget my wallet inside I don't have to buzz eighteen different apartements in an attempt to get inside. If I need to go out before Munin gets back, I don't have to leave an advertisement in the security door lock and hope nobody moves it before I get back.

This is good.

Of course this morning I go to get my keys which I have hung up where Munin normally leaves her keys and there is nothing there. Oops.

So I look around just in case and nothing.

Yes, she has taken my set of keys.
I am again and as always at her mercy.

Shyness

I have been trying to figure out why I am somewhat reluctant to go to the Y today and then it hit me. On Saturday I was fine because Hugin came with me, and swimming is pretty much a solitary activity. One where your only interaction is with the medium in which you immerse yourself into. Enveloped in the soft caress of the water, the rest of the world fades to a blur and you become one with the tide. Today however is the fist time I will be attending a class. No backup from Hugin, just me, a classroom, a bunch of nice strangers who have been there from the beginning and a teacher. I don’t do well with strangers; I tend to curl up into myself as I look for ways to hide in plane sight. I know that this reaction/reasoning is all very silly, but no matter how many pep talks I give myself, no matter how many times I join a class/group/event where I am likely to meet new people, the shyness is always there.

Autopilot

Have you ever had one of those mornings where your brain goes into autopilot and you can’t quite remember the steps you took to get you to work,? It always worried me when this happens because I cannot recall if en route I had done something extremely silly or strange. I have been sitting here for the past few hours trying to recall what I did on the way to work, and nothing, it’s all a foggy blank. Knowing myself, it will probably come back to haunt me one day when I meet up with a friend who’s sitting with someone I don’t know and they’ll say. Yeah you’re that weird chick on the bus who hums, to herself and picks her teeth.

Give me a Y!

Hugin and I joined the Y yesterday. After a 40 minute workout for Hugin, and what I think was a 18 lap swim for myself, a sauna and shower we stumbled home to crash on the couch expecting today to be one of unmoving aching and moaning. Surprisingly we seem to be better off then expected, Hugin’s experiencing soreness in his biceps and shoulders, which has led to rather amusing shirt aerobatics and I am experiencing mild upper arm twinges.

The other side effect seems to be an uncontrollable need to be active and bouncy, much to Hugin’s chagrin. [shaking head] In short I am really happy we decided to join, it feels good to be active.

Reading Push/Pull

I'm reading Robin Hobb's book Golden Fool at the moment.

I enjoyed the Assassin series but I have to make an observation that bothers me.

Golden Fool is a book that makes me feel like pushing at the protagonist, and saying, `this way you idiot', `do this', `wake up' and other similar thoughts. The protagonist is always delaying things, or not mentioning things that to the reader seem rather important and almost dangerous not to mention to the other characters. But they continue on in their own pace as you read frustrated at their lack of vision.

Yet I continue reading because I want to know what's going to happen, what these `mistakes' the protagonist make will lead to.

Then there are the other kind of book that pull you along as the characters make choices and perform actions the outcomes of which you cannot imagine let alone predict. Mainly because they know the plot and therefore have the advantage, while you are swept up along them trailing behind their performance much like the last car in a roller coaster. Often these kinds of books contain activities hidden from the reader which are revealed later as master strokes.
I can't think of a book like this right now.

Some books you read and you are in the moment, you follow what happens as it happens.

I tend to prefer the latter styles, as the second type is much like a puzzle that reveals itself as you go and the third just keeps you moving along. The first style reminds me in a way of Frasier. The characters keep doing things that make you want to cringe, but you keep watching anyways.

Not over the hill!

Warm, joyous and happy birthday wishes go out to Amber on her 30th birthday. Wishing you all the very best of everything, dear. Hoping that your day was filled with much merriment, lots of laughter, love, squishes, kisses and all things wonderful. Wishing you many, many happy returns.

Remember, thirty is not the beginning of the down slope. It’s just the beginning of a very enjoyable ride. As they say, it’s all up from here baby! ;o)

All our love and happy wishes,
bonne fête
us.

Ice-Box

My little corner of the office has been turned in to a veritable ice-box. Someone, [sarcasm] the lords bless their kindly soul [/sarcasm] has taken it upon themselves to turn up the AC, cause it just ain’t cold enough outside.

Am very much looking forward to home, blankets, portable heaters, hot toddies and hot showers.

Downright Pavlovian.

My alarm didn’t ring yesterday and I woke up at 6:59am, a minute after what was suppose to be the second snoozed blaring of the bell. I lay there for a minute pondering the virtues of either resetting the alarm and snoozing 10 extra minutes or getting up and facing the day.

After a few seconds of sleepy consideration I opted for the second alternative. Thirty seconds later I crawled out of bed, edged groggily to the office and began the morning ritual. Slump heavily into chair. Flick on the computer screen. Stretch. Crack, pop and snap. Yawn. Connect to net. Yawn some more. Check weather. Shiver. Moan. Shiver some more. Glance quickly at news. Yawn. Make way semi-coherently to bathroom. Turn on water. Stretch. Hop in. Yelp as the cold water hits toes. Scramble back out and readjust temperature. Step cautiously back in. Lather up and rinse off. Mumble disjointed inanities to self. Stare blankly at tiles for a few moments. Turn shower off. Grope blindly for towel and wrap about body. Grab toothbrush and paste. Squint at it. Realize that it’s green. Green?!? Wait for mind to make connection between green and Hugin’s toothbrush. Replace toothbrush and pick purple. Brush teeth. Knock knee on bottom of sink. Curse mildly. Trod off to room and spend a mad five minutes looking for articles of clothing that have mysteriously moved during the night. Find them under a pile of other clothes. Get dressed. Snag lunch. Make a mad scramble out the door.

By 10 am, after the large morning coffee I am awake, coherent and ready to get on with the day. This of course lasts just past lunch when the body shuts down to process food, bemoaning the lack of bed, pillows and a rather large horizontal surface on which it can rest itself. By 5:00, just as the fresh arctic wind hits my face I am bright eyed and bushytailed ready for the adventure back home. [read: ready to curl up into a ball on the couch, and while the away the hours till bed, reading, puttering about and playing on the computer.]

Yesterday however, 10 o’clock came and went without a dent in the mental fog. 11 rolled around, and the two coffees consumed did nothing to dissipate the murk. By 5:00 I was ready to crawl back into bed, where I truly belong and wonder off to la-la land. Yes, my daily ritual had been thrown all decoct by the failed ringing of a bell.

Despondent and disillusioned.

Lost: Vim. Joie de vie. Zest. Enthusiasm. Keenness. Eagerness. Verve. Passion. Gusto. Delight. Joy. And, childlike wide-eyed wonderment.
If found please return to a despondent apathetic indifferent and sadly disillusioned Munin.
Will trade cookies, chocolate and ice cream for said articles.

Yes. It’s another one of those Mondays. Fnarg!

Winter pixels

Added some more pictures up on the Photoblog, and ironically we are now a year and a bit behind instead of just being a year behind. [wry shaking of head] There has to be a quicker way of posting the pictures. Though I suspect that short of metal telepathy any innovative way of getting the pictures up on the site will always be deemed as too slow.

Most of the photographs taken at the end of December 2002 were shot in the old part of the city, one of my favourite locations for snapping pictures. I recall that the day was well below freezing [-20 to –30oC], with a cold strong wind blowing north-south off the water, the sky was the crisp blue of icy water and the clouds had just begun to roll in. Minus the frost bitten toes, frozen fingers* and the frequent hot chocolate stops it made for some of the better pictures that we have taken in that area. Hope you enjoy.

Additional shots taken in September, October and November 2002.

Query: Does anyone have any tips on installing gallery? Do’s and Don’ts?!?