Plenty of Nothing

RBOC: Or, It's Been How Long?

So. I'm not doing such a great job at the regular blog posting.

• I've decided that one form of hell is called 'User Acceptance Testing'. It's a peculiar form of torture in which the "user" (only rarely known as the "customer") tests the application and gets that special joy of reporting that the written requirements have not been met and knowing that the schedule is so tight that the requirements will never be met.


• This week I learned that a snake is the least effective means of clearing a clogged drain. Boiling water, baking soda, and vinegar can make tiny improvements. The real solution though is an angry woman with a plunger.


• I also learned that disgusting things moulder away in bathroom sink drains. How exactly do toothpaste, hair, and spit turn into such foul gunk?


• Reading has slowed to a crawl. Graphic novels/comics are getting some play (Wimbledon Green and Kabuki Dreams). The dragons in the Napoleonic War series has been finished. The overall effect has diminished by the let's-make-this-into-a-fat-trilogy phenomenon. Still pecking away at the Communist histories.


• While I haven't located a copy of Crow Shooting which I wrote about back in November, I did find a copy of Man's Friend: The Crow at McGahern's. It's a 1937 pamphlet issued by the Emergency Conservation Committee of New York. Its reference section has made me add "You Can't Duck the Crow Question" (Field and Stream, 1934) to my want list.

Heather

I Seem to be Letting the Side Down

When in doubt, RBOC:

• The flu is a pernicious thing. It zapped me over the holidays and I'm still dragging around. Some people around here think I stay inside too much. It's the flu, I tell you, the flu, not fear of -30 weather or sloth. The flu.

• Why oh why are people seduced by Flash?

• I seem to have come down with a slight case of compulsive behaviour. First it was cataloging the books (just over 1900, and, no, I don't really think that's a lot of books). Then it was Weffriddles which passed quickly. Next up: editing Wikipedia pages. And now, God help me, Second Life looks interesting.

• Inquiring minds want to know: Why does anyone want to be a dental hygienist?

On the reading front

• McCarthy's The Road was gruesome what with the roasted baby and the basement full of "provisions" and I haven't read enough apocalyptic science fiction to place it in the range of pessimistic and dire warnings. The ending disappoints in the same way that the end of Beasts of No Nation disappoints. McCarthy's prose is interesting tho--both spare and lyrical. I've not read anything else of his but I can see that I probably should.

• Sangster's history of women in Canadian Leftist politics was another one of those books that are alternately very interesting since the cover topics I'm dreadfully ignorant about and very frustrating because they're surveys. I'm still curious about Annie Buller and more curious about Beckie Buhay, who was, it turns out, Tom McEwen's common-law wife in the early 30s. Then there's Gladys MacDonald, who spent a year in the Battleford Jail for her newspaper work and once released she was interned in the Kingston Penn for being a Communist.

• I'm reading other things in a desultory fashion. Not much seems compelling enough to spend large chunks of time on it. That'll change I hope cause grasshopper brain gets tiring after a while.

One last thing: why do people dislike the bagpipes? How could you sit still to something like this.

Heather

Distaff Side's Random Bullets

Warning: absolutely no hockey content.  And that's a good thing.

• The flurry of vacations at work seems to have ended--wonder if we really can accomplish miracles before US Thanksgiving?


• I've been reading more about Jean Ewen and have just finished her father Tom McEwen's autobiography The Forge Glows Red: From Blacksmith to Revolutionary, his rather rambling account of his years as communist functionary. (He was one the the eight men sentenced to five years in Kingston Penn for sedition in 1931).  What I learned:
  • never take anything from a blacksmith if he's holding it with tongs
  • RB Bennett and McEwen loathed each other and McEwen had a long memory
  • a useful term: "swivel chair organizer"
  • for a freakishly over-educated person, I know shockingly little about this period of Canadian history
  
  
• I feel a new interest coming on but I have no spare bookcase space.  Then again, I can pick up some of the basics from one of my favourite websites: the Theses Canada Portal. (Yes wretched PDF files but free, accessible research material). Wonder if it has anything about the Hull Internment/Concentration Camp.

I Had an Idea But I Forgot: More Random Bullets

It's been that kind of week.  Eighteen hours to vacation.

• You can tell that it's been a energy-sapping work week when I can sit down and calculate how much I am being paid per minute (after tax) but cannot remember how much I'm paid per annum.
• Lawn signs are sprouting as the municipal election looms.  Our neighbours briefly sported a sign for the leftmost mayoral candidate.  I nearly fell over when I saw it on their lawn cause they're Reform Party supporters.  It's gone now--replaced with a sign for one of the more conservative people running for council.
• Douglas is drinking the beer that smells like desperation.  Beer aged in whiskey casks.
• Much of my work life has become a strained email version of "Who's on First".   And no I don't get to play the Abbot bit.
• Jack of that show is getting on my nerves.  Already.  (See. Random.)
• Excessive tiredness led to brattiness last night.  Slightly redeemed self by making the tea and sending bratty-self to bed. Lost points by forgetting to pour the tea.
• Did I mention that vacation starts in 18 hours?

Heather

Almost Too Tired Even For Random Bullets of Crap

Back from visiting relatives.  Oddly exhausting and much of the trip was a lot less fun than a sweaty concert. 

Happy highlights of the visit included

• a trip to Frenchy's where I scored a couple of t-shirts  and a couple of wonderfully ugly work shirts with embroidered logos. (Frenchy's made the New Yorker last week. Calvin Trillin loves it.)  I think Douglas will look quite fetching in Paul's Plumbing snap front shirt.  I'm holding onto the minor hockey tournament t-shirt for myself I think; he can have the Take-One-Down-Hand-It-Around t-shirt
• a dash into Stanfield's outlet shop where my search for long underwear was wildly successful.  He now has all the wooly undershirts he could possibly need. And as an added bonus--even though they were seconds, the arms and legs are the right length. Genuine 100% itchy grey wool Windsor Wear remains elusive.
• a jaunt out Tatamagouche way to the Lismore Sheep Farm yielded some beautiful wooden needles, a drop spindle, and wool that should make up into some good working mittens. My guess is that it'd also make a good gansey.

Heather

Signs That Fall Is Coming

1. Geese overhead in the early morning

2. Noticing the geese because one blanket doesn't do the job anymore.