Welcome to Oz

That horrid copyright law that the Reform Alliance Progressive Conservatives wanted to push through would die if the government were to fall.

Too bad a recent poll says that Canadians are set to vote Reform Alliance Progressive Conservative.

But maybe if we spread the word that our music is about to be hideously restricted, we can get Canadians to change their minds. Who wants to pitch in for a series of billboards on the 401...? ;)

The horrible decisions that geeks have to make.

Today the entire ride from Cambridge to Kitchener was done within earshot of a conversation a rider was having with the driver.

It seems this girl, maybe 17 or 18 years old by my best reckoning, was discussing her pregnancy with the driver, whom she seemed to know well.

She started by complaining that her father was quite intent on her getting an abortion. This was mentioned a few times.

She mentioned she was buying a house with "him" (the father of the child, presumably.). Her grandparents had given them some money to go towards the downpayment, and she was quite upset that they hadn't given more. Apparently the grandparents have a hot tub they never use, and this expensive item, and that expensive item, and the grandparents could have easily contributed the entire downpayment.

Then there was more talk about her parents, and how her mother had offered to look after the child while she and him were working. She didn't want to take the mother up on this, as when the mother had been looking after one of the girl's sibling's children, the sibling had gone in and collected said child while the mother was asleep, and the mother had woken up quite distraught that the child was gone. This part of the conversation ended with "if my mother calls Children's Aid on me after that, she's really going to regret it!"

The conversation then changed to discuss this girl's fantastic new job in a call centre, and how she was being trained to be able to effectively deal with complaints, and how easy the whole job thing was.

I did a bit of writing on my fic, but the girl was quite loud while discussing her problems, and I was having a hard time tuning her out in spite of all the background noise.

It was... odd. I left the bus wondering what sort of life they were going to have with all the strange surrounding issues of Children's Aid and discussion of abortions and lingering resentment over not getting more support even though the support was obviously available. But she seemed happy enough, and quite unperturbed about the situation over all. Hopefully he feels the same way and things work out.

But next time I hope she keeps her voice down about her personal life. It's a bit odd to get this conversation about a random stranger out of nowhere.

( And... )

Poll #1253754 Finish this sentence:
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

He spread his arms like a beneficent

Dear Mr. Harper,

The National Post is now mocking you.

I think it's time for you to reconsider that election. Really really fast.

No love,

Oz

We are being mocked by the New York Times.

The only remedy is to not vote Conservative.

I'm thinking we make a good push for the Green party. At least they haven't had a chance to get in on the mudslinging as of yet.

Or Molson. Molson generally has a good platform. As does Labbatt's.

*ponders possibilities*

So, we're going to the polls October 14 despite the promise of no elections before the next election date set by the Reform Alliance Progressive Conservatives when they won the last election.

He must really really want that copyright bill to go through to play pool like this.

Repeat after me, loudly, and as many times as possible:

Doesn't Harper look tired?

It was a busy weekend, but one I feel I shouldn't be commenting on because there are only so many times I can say, "Yeah, tired and dizzy and saw After the Dance" before other people start sounding like characters from After the Dance and begin describing me with words such as "bore" and "torture".

So, umm, yeah. Things I did this weekend in St. Catharines that could at least be called different are:

- I destroyed a bracelet.
- I bought a new bracelet.
- I bought clothes from Land's End.
- I saw a new play, Mrs. Warren's Profession, which was utterly destroyed by having really bad historical costuming on the two female leads.

Umm. Yeah. Oh, and I picked up Inversion:Earth again, and have figured out somewhat where I am going once they finally end up off world. Thanks to this little program called Scrivener which slb44 was looking at, and got me interested enough in looking at and trying to use that I suddenly realised (a) Colonel Daniel is a friggen' emo even if he does have a reputation for being a hard ass, and (b) where SG1 was going off world really really sucked. Scrivener has helped me to at least get Doctor O'Neill emoting, and in a much damper place overall.

Which, umm, sounded better on paper than in LJ.

No, really.

*facedesk*

Ok, so this morning I'm feeling tired, and dizzy...

Edit And the server I need to work on is down and has been all weekend. I feel the sudden need for more caffeine...

I received an email today with the subject line "FDA Moves to Ban Obama as Addictive".

Really, what else can I say to that one? ;)

The downside of being part of an international team is that I now know/work with several people in Gustav's path. Especially one particularly nice guy I'm doing a project for in Florida, who last week I was talking to on a lousy cell phone connection as he tried to work from home due to Faye.

I must say that the idea that parts of my team could be unavailable or worse in the next few days is... not pleasant.

Thinking globally can really really suck.

Yesterday Slashfood posted the Omnivore's top 100 list.

Today it's the Top 100 American foods list. And while I have eaten some of the items, there are a lot that just seem sort of. Umm. Yeah.

That may be just this Canadian's relatively healthy objection talking though.

But it made me think. I know we've played this game before, but what could be considered the top 100 Canadian foods?

Alternatively (or additionally, whichever way you prefer), what are the top 100 vegetarian foods?

If there's enough interest in either/both of these, I will try to actually compile a list/lists. Feel free to quiz friends, neighbours, countrymen.... oh wait, wrong speech. Heh. Sorry. ;)

Last night I made Pisto Manchego with eggs for dinner.

It's not that bad a recipe. The prep is easy enough, but the standing over a hot pan for the better part of an hour was a bit much for me. I started feeling horribly dizzy partway through the process, and hubby ended up finishing off the cooking.

It was really really really yummy though. Even without the additional "salt to taste". I think that dicing the zucchini fine may be a key to making the cooking a bit easier.

The rest of my evening was spent laying down, trying to shake off the dizzy. Which meant this morning was a flurry of packing and deciding what needed to be laundered and what was a going to wear today, which means I am wearing an interesting combination of khaki green slacks, a shirt that is a deeper and different shade of green, black shoes, black necklace, and light-coloured wood hairstick. Some days I really shouldn't dress myself. ;)

Ah well. Long weekend. Hopefully I shake this and manage to have some fun. Maybe all I need is an escape from the tension of working on databases all day, and all will be right again with the world.

Slashfood today pointed me at a blog that has a list called The Omnivore's Hundred. The idea is that, if you are an omnivore, these are the hundred things that you really should try to eat at least once in your lifetime. As I'm a pretty adventurous eater, I figured hey, why not give it a go?

So I'm bolding all the stuff I have eaten. Let's see how this ends up:

( Behind the cut, as some of these foods are not items to be looked at by the squeamish (that means you, slb44! )

Looks like I still have a few things left to taste. *considers doing research*

Well, I'm not leaning anymore, which is a bonus.

I'm still exhausted, however, and still wobbly.

The bus I catch in the mornings stops at the far end of the platform at the downtown terminal. There's a slope, heading down from the bus stop towards the terminal itself. It's always been there. I've noticed it before (especially when running to catch my bus, resulting in an uphill sprint of several hundred metres *grin*). But yesterday and today it's been like trying to hike down Mount Kiliminjaro without a safety rope.

Except I still have my cane. Which I guess in this context would be the safety rope. Which sort of kills the whole analogy, doesn't it?

*seriously contemplates another cup of coffee to wake up*

Oh Meniere's. You are so. Much. Fun.

Yesterday on top of dizziness, nausea, headache, exhaustion (and sleep thwarted by teh ebil Mattamy homes, may they be infested with termites), and a general tendency to want to fall over, there was a constant sort of rushing noise in my left ear. Constant. I was having trouble hearing the TV over it (even shows that weren't SG1 on Space and had volume).

Today? I am leaning to the left. No, seriously. I got off the bus downtown and promptly tried to fall over (thankfully I have taken to having a cane with me this week because of the dizzy, or it would have been fall on ass in front of half of Kitchener time).

If I started daydreaming at all on the walk from the stop to the office I started heading to the rhubarb.

Standing and talking to someone, I started tipping over a bit. Even when I was holding on to something.

The dizzy is pretty much gone. I'm just tired, groggy, and tipsy. And not in the good way, either.

Hopefully the tipping is temporary. Because I really really don't need any other interesting issues with this.

And standing upright would be nice to do again too.

I have some rainbow chard I bought at market on Saturday that I'm going to need to use up tonight.

After my last experience with chard, I'm a little leery about some of the recipes out there which seem to want to cook the hell out of it. Does anyone have any recipes/experience with chard that actually works that they wouldn't mind sharing?

All I ask is you keep in mind I do not have non-stick cookware, only the old fashioned cast iron or stainless steel type.

Home dizzy today, and had a hard time sleeping until 10:30 since the construction up the street is loud and involves large machinery. Damn it. I need sleep.

There's nothing on TV. Although Space was playing Avatar at extremely low volume. What's with these guys and their insistence that no one should ever hear SG1 actually talking?

I'm watching BBC News. There was a lovely little blurb about Afghanistan and trying to eliminate poppy growing, and what a great job they were doing of reducing the number of opium farms. There was no mention of what they were replacing them with, or how those people are making their living after the poppies were hacked to bits with machetes.

It's cool watching their world weather though. Afghanistan is apparently having trouble with dust storms while northern India is having monsoons.

My space bar doesn't want to work properly. Unless I make a point to hit it hard, I don't get a space.

On the upside, the kitties are being adorable and are looking after me. *pats Cali* Good kitties.

I've done a lot of different things in my life as I've tried to figure out what I've wanted to do with my life.

Everything from scrubbing toilets at a resort, washing dishes at a summer camp for seniors, retail, various positions in various thrift stores, electronics assembly, automation and computer sales,administration.... I'm a generalist of the first order, and I have found that the various things I have done come back and surprise me at the oddest times.

Hubby asked me if I would be available to tutor the daughter of a co-worker in English. Given the English degree, the life-long love of reading and writing, the previous tutoring I've done, the TA stint, and the many recent discussions I've had about Hamlet and the differences between the various film and play versions I have seen (but not Gibson's version because that was just bad), I apparently came up in a conversation and everyone thought it was a great idea. Including me, for some strange reason.

So here I am trying to figure out how the heck to tutor a girl going into grade ten who has decent grades already on what I remember from English classes I haven't taken in *cough*14 years*cough*.

I could use some eyes to bounce some ideas off of as I try to figure this out. If anyone is so inclined to see if I make sense with my logic, or has an opinion they'd like to share I'd be very grateful.

( Under here to save the eyes of those not so inclined )

I am glad I worked this out in here. I've had ideas just fro writing it out and trying to make it clear to someone else. At least, I hope it's clear. Hopefully it's not something that's just going to scare her off of English forever. *grin*

Anyhow, if anyone has any more recent experience, or any ideas on how I can make this a bit easier.... again, I'd appreciate it.

Per my Sunday post, I'm not the only person noticing that attitudes towards food are very poor.

There are no words to describe how glad I am that I had to give up lunch meat after being diagnosed with the Meniere's. Although I did have a sandwich a week or so ago that was left over from a meeting, and there's no way of telling where the meat came from... :x

There are new methods coming out to try and kill off the bad bugs... but I think I'll stick to my local food and jsut avoid the mass produced stuff that seems to be (and I will readily admit this is just from reading these recalls for the last couple of years and has little other scientific basis that I can rhyme off the top of my head) a little less lethal.

Testing our food's DNA to make sure it's as advertised is an intriguing idea. I look forward to seeing what the DNA results of a hot dog show. ;)