Pointless non-video of the day:

Oh, you got lucky. Today's post was going to be an inexplicably pointless video (pointless even for me, yes), but there was an upload error and I'm far too lazy to try again.

So you get another dragonfly.

I hope you're not tired of them yet. You should see how many I still have on the nerdstick.

This is the part where I tell you that I had a late lunch (and since I couldn't face the thought of making another lunch this week, today's special was 100% Grease-Fried Grease. Ah well, we all have to succumb once in a while) and that I have other things to do now, so the dragonfly's about all you're getting.

It's ok, though. It's not like I had anything to say anyway.

Creeeak

There's a very small lizard on my desk.

I don't really have anything to say about it, but I wanted to make the point that there is, in fact, a very small lizard on my desk.

Ok then.

----------

I'm going to try to keep this short today (for anyone keeping track, it was 4 am this morning. That's a whole extra hour. Yay me), so let's get right into it. I'm creaky. When I get up in the morning... er, no. Let's go a little bit later in the day. When I go down the stairs to the parking lot in the morning I'm never sure if my left ankle or my right knee is going to come along for the ride. It takes a while anymore to make sure that both of them are working.

Aren't I too young to be so creaky?

I don't have any big moral or anything. I'm just asking the question. Aren't I too young to be so creaky? And if I'm this creaky now, what will things be like in ten years? Twenty?

It's all a little disturbing.

I've always said that I can't figure out why people want to live to be a hundred (and for all those who said twenty years ago that I'd change my mind as I got older, I just want to point out that it hasn't happened so far), and to be honest I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to the inevitable cane/walker (zimmer frame, for those across the water)/wheelchair that seems to be in my distant future.

Well, maybe a cane wouldn't be so bad. But only if it has bitchin' flames.

My knee problems are largely the result of a fall I took years ago (off of a bus. And shut up, world), but even my athlete of a brother says he's starting to feel the family joint problems coming on.

Yippee.

My relatives definitely do their part to keep the knee replacement surgeons in business, I can tell you.

Anyway, I'm going to tempt fate and take a walk now. Part of my job, believe it or not. Enjoy the lizard.

And no, it doesn't have a name.




Yet. I'll keep you posted.

mrpkhnh?

I've been up since 3 am. Not by choice. This morning was entertaining as all hell in my brain, but I can feel myself crashing as I type.

In other words, this ought to be good.

Or at least random.

Today's pointless photo, by the way, is of a merlin. It didn't feel like posing, so you get this weird-ass silhouette instead of something that actually looks like a bird. I watched it hunting last weekend, but it sort of confused me at the time. It seemed to be diving, grabbing, and eating nothing. No little birdies were losing (or even loosing) their lives. As I said, confusing... until I realised that it was hunting dragonflies instead of songbirds.

For those of you who don't know what a dragonfly is, look at every second picture on this freaking blog anymore. Yep. Lacking sleep here, as I warned you. And yes, I do have still more dragonfly photos waiting on the nerdstick.

Let's see... what else?

Well, there were altogether too many fingerprints on my monitor when I came in this morning. I know they weren't my fingerprints because fingerprints on a monitor are pretty high on my list of annoyances. I don't understand why people feel the need to touch monitors in the first place, and I sure as hell wish they wouldn't touch mine. Ok? Everyone hear that? Fingers do NOT belong on monitors, boys and girls.

Not surprisingly, I've already cleaned the mystery fingerprints that no one ever owns up to off of my monitor.

If they're back tomorrow, someone loses (not looses) a hand.

In other news, my father has managed to find himself a cold. I'm not sure how he did it, to be honest, because I haven't really noticed any other sickos around lately. I expect to in a week or so what with all the kids going back to school, but not yet. Maybe the father figure was just trying to beat the rush.

The reason I mention this is that I want it down in print for when I end up feeling ill about this time next week. It'll be all my father's fault, you know. Especially because one of the last things he said before I left his place was "I hope you don't end up with what I have."

Doomed.




Thanks, dad.

[/mishmash]

Talk, talk

It was raining here yesterday. I have a lot of photos of wet things now.

Don't worry. I'll space them out a little.

----------

You know, when I typed the title to this post I fully intended to blather on at length about something that I don't feel like blathering on about now. Funny how quickly a mood can change. Now... oh, now I suppose the challenge is to come up with something in the way of a topic that has at least a bit to do with the title.

What do you mean I could just change the title and talk about something else? You people are no fun.

Ok, let's try this. I ramble on in this space almost everyday. Sometimes it makes sense; sometimes it doesn't. More often than not it's just to keep myself in the habit of doing it.

But why do it in the first place? I don't have an agenda. I never (well, rarely) try to change anyone's mind about whatever subject I'm massacring (geez, does that word ever look wrong in print). I'm not using this as a journal.

Why take up the space, then?

And better still, why start a second blog to add to the pointlessness?

Hmmm. That reminds me. I haven't cleared any more posts from the old blog yet this week. I'll have to do something about that before I shut down.

Let's look at this from a different angle. My internet communication has changed a lot over the years. It started out primarily as occasional e-mails, largely because I had very limited access to the computer. After that I discovered (unfortunately, some might say) the world of chat rooms. Let's call that my cyberworld adolescence. There was no responsibility behind anything I said. Whatever I typed would disappear soon enough, and if I offended anyone I honestly couldn't have given a flying rat's bum.

It didn't take long to get bored with the chat rooms, though. The problem with that kind of communication is that it never really changes. You're generally starting each time with a (fairly) clean slate, yes, but it also means that there's very little moving forward. A bunch of people go online and say a bunch of stupid things, and then they log off and go on with their lives as though that period never existed.

It was different when I later became involved in forums. I was a member of several forums, and I suppose I was lucky in the forums I chose because they were often more than simple entertainment. Since posts were going to be around for a while and read (and possibly misunderstood) by many different people -- and this is where I started to feel like internet interactions were with actual people rather than just personas -- I put more thought into them. I also put more thought into what others were saying. Maybe it wasn't always earth-shattering thought, but somehow in the less temporary world of the forums others' thoughts followed me into the real world a little more.

Sadly, forums tend to get a little circular after a while. Long-term members feel like they've discussed everything already and resent newer members trying to rehash old topics, and newer members feel like they're being punished for trying to speak up. After a while the majority of members just give up trying. It's happened in nearly every forum I've ever been a part of, so I'm not basing this on a single experience.

I used to be a very active participant in the forum world. Now I lurk. And blog.

Obviously I need some kind of talking outlet or I wouldn't be doing this, but I'm not entirely sure how blogging fits on the spectrum of communication. The other examples I'm mentioned had a sense of community, but blogging is, by and large, talking to oneself.

I mean, I know that people read this. I have a counter for a reason. The occasional comment also lets me know if I've struck a chord at all with anybody. I'm not exactly sitting on a deserted island here.

Still, it's like I've lost the desire to have full-on public interaction on the internet lately. I sit here and blather, people care or they don't care, and I'm fine with that.

Should I be?




Maybe instead of thinking about this I should go and find someone to have an actual conversation with. Penny looks like she wants to talk about something.

Penny also happens to be a cat. Conversations with her aren't all that stimulating, frankly.

Maybe I'll just go have lunch instead.




Yeah. That's easier.

You're all capable of using the comment link. Talk at me if you want to.

So...

If by chance you happened upon the blog a few minutes ago and thought you might have seen a video here but now it's gone, let me tell you what happened.

There was a video here.

Now it's gone.




I was just playing with the video uploading thing. Test subject? A cat. And a laundry basket.

The laundry basket poses better than the cat, if you wondered.

Anyway, I never intended to make a three second video of the cat a permanent addition to the pointlessness. Sorry if you missed it. Not really sorry, actually, but it seemed the polite thing to say.

Will there be further video? Dunno. I never intended to become an amateur director, and I don't have the best equipment. My digital camera, while wonderful for pointless photography, is not the steadiest thing in the world for video. Honestly, the internet doesn't need more pointless seasickness.

The only other recourse would be my cameraphone, and I'm sure the world is waiting with fish breath (baited. Bad joke resurfacing from the old blog) to see what masterworks I can create with a bloody phone.

Not literally bloody, of course. That'd be disgusting. And sticky.

I'm off then (shut up, Wheat. Have I stabbed you in the shins recently?), but I thought the least I could do was to leave you with the usual result when the laundry basket decides to pose for pictures beside the cat.

Max just has no self-control when it comes to laundry baskets, you know.

Pointless photo of the day:

It's an Araneus orb weaver of some sort. Think Charlotte's Web, if it helps.

That's going to have to be it for the moment. I'm kind of busy.

Back later if I can think of anything worth logging back in for.

Pointless photo of the day:

And that's about it, really. I've got nothing. It's a dreary, drizzly day and I just want the work week to be over.

Incidentally (and this comment should let you know how many times the backspace key has been used up to this point in the post), what exactly is it about the actions needed to depress the letters T, H, & E that make them so often come out in the wrong order? I mean, I'm a not-too-bad touch typist (I used to be much better, but easy correction on computer versus pain in the ass on typewriter has led to a depth of laziness over the years that rivals the typewriter's layer of dust), but I seem to get teh so much more often than the.

Teh. Teh teh teh teh teh.

Looking around the internet, I'm certainly not the only one with that problem.

Ah well.

I don't feel like expanding on that, but you can if you like. I'm going to go feed an apple to the mealworms.





It's not as exciting as it sounds.

Lunch

Lunch today was frozen cannelloni.

Well, I guess technically they weren't frozen. I did nuke them before I ate them. They had been frozen previous to that, though.

By someone in a factory somewhere, I'm assuming.

Lunch is always a problematic thing for me. When I'm not working I tend not to eat lunch, and I suppose that's mostly because I get totally sick of lunch things.

What things?

Well, that's the problem. It seems like no matter what I eat for lunch I'll find myself bored with it.

When I was in school and taking bag lunches I got so sick of sandwiches that to this day I avoid them. Cold sandwiches, that is. Hot sandwiches are sort of in a different category.

When I was a little older I'd go to one or other of the local restaurants (it's hard to go to the non-local ones) regularly with my mother and grandmother. Grandma liked to treat us, you see. Unfortunately, it didn't take long before the thought of another restaurant lunch became nearly unbearable. Yes, I got so sick of the same old thing at the same old restaurants.

Now? Now I generally pack a lunch before I leave for work because a) I'm cheap and b) there are days when I can't get away for long enough to buy lunch. I try to pack decent lunches. Reasonably healthy. Fairly tasty. No sandwiches, true, but usually either a wrap or a stuffed pita of some sort to replace the normal sandwich course.

I am so sick of those lunches.

Today I started to get out the lunch-making supplies and I just... couldn't. I couldn't face it. I thought about bringing nothing and heading off to a fast food place instead (we actually have enough staff in the building today that I could have managed it. That's a rare thing for a weekend), but in the end I grabbed the aforementioned cannelloni from the freezer and headed out the door.

They were ok.

I'd be sick of them if I brought some again tomorrow, though.

[aside] Is anyone tired of me using the word sick yet? It's entirely intentional, if you wondered. I'm decent with synonyms if I want them, but this time I was aiming for effect. [/aside]

Lunch, for whatever reason, is just a massively unsatisfying meal in my world. Breakfast is nothing to write home about, but I'm usually too dozy to notice. Supper can be all right if I'm in the mood to cook, but it manages to at least be serviceable when I'm not. Lunch? One word.

Gah.





Kind of like this post, yes.

Ah! My eyes!

A weird thing happened the other day. For years I've been muttering about the fact that my apartment's bathroom is very dark. There's no window at all, and the only light fixture is one of those typical seventies two-bulb-and-glass-shade things. Makes the whole room more than a little bit dismal, really.

Well, one of those bulbs burned out.

I grabbed another 60 watt and climbed up on a chair to unscrew the shade. What I found underneath was a little bit of a surprise.

Both of the bulbs had paint on them.

I need to explain this, don't I.

Ok, here's the thing: first, it means that the bulbs have been there since the last time the apartment was painted (that surprised me. I could have sworn that I'd changed a bulb in that fixture before). Second (and this is where the weird comes in), it makes the bulbs at least fifteen years old.

At least.

I've been in the apartment for fourteen years, and it wasn't freshly painted before I moved in.

Fifteen years.

Sheesh.

I guess I don't overdo it on the power consumption. Either that or those bulbs were made by the Keebler Elves in their magic tree.

Anyway, I replaced the burned out bulb with a new one. After that I replaced the other bulb with a new one as well. The new one was so much brighter that it had made the room look disconcertingly lopsided.

Definitely not what you want if you happen to get up half-asleep in the middle of the night.

Now?

IT'S SO DAMNED BRIGHT IN THERE I CAN HARDLY STAND IT.

Seriously. I get up in the morning, go to the bathroom, and hurt when I turn on the light. And they're just ordinary 60 watt bulbs.






There's something to be learned about getting what you wish for, I guess. I just wish I wasn't learning it in my own loo.

----------

I don't usually like to link to ephemeral news stories, but this one about Brian May was too good to pass up.

----------

My stupid shoulder tells me I'm going now. Stupid shoulder anyway.

Augh

Today we're featuring a grass spider in my father's cotoneaster hedge. Grass spiders are funnel weavers. They make trampoline-style webs that end in funnels. The spider waits in the funnel end for something to bounce on the trampoline, and then (if all goes well) it's dinner time.

The spider, in effect, lives in a hole.

There are times when I'd like to live in a hole.

I'm not sure I want to eat bugs, though.






Today's snit, if anyone's keeping track, is brought to you by the continuing neck issue. It's got so that things are pretty mobile again, but it's obvious from the headache that's even now forming and the pain in my right shoulder that's making typing a less than thrilling experience that all is not exactly tip top yet. Getting there, yes, but I'm still hurting enough to be annoyed by it.

This record's kind of scratched, isn't it?

Ah well. If I'm going to be honest, I have to say that I didn't really have anything to say today anyway and obviously nothing seems to be what's coming out. It should have been predictable.

Shall we raise the white flag and give up on this whinge of a post, then?




Yes, I believe we shall.

Look, mommy!!!

I made a duck today. Erm, a clay tile with a facsimile of a duck's head on it, that is. And no, today's pointless photo is not of a duck. I didn't have one of a duck.

Actually, that's a lie. I have a picture of the very same duck that I started talking about above, but it's on my cameraphone and I can't imagine it's worth the fifty cents it would cost me to e-mail it to myself from the phone just to put it on the blog.

Trust me, though. I made a clay duck and I have the photo to prove it.

It was part of an art class that I'd brought stuffed animals (the dead variety, not the fluffy bunny type) to so they could use them as models. I was there last Wednesday, too. They invited everyone to participate in the art experience of the day, so I figured what the hell.

Last week I drew an owl in charcoal. This week I made a duck head.

Yep.

Oh, and I still have a headache, if anyone's wondering. Makes it extra special to be working late tonight, but since I spent part of the morning playing with clay I guess I can't complain too loudly.

Well, I can... but it's not like anyone ever really listens.

The funny thing is that I was praised for my duck-head-making skills. I should probably mention that the other participants in the class were children, special needs adults, and their aides. The fact that I was praised for my duck head in no way should suggest that it was all that and a bag of doughnuts.

Doughnuts, yes. I'm not in the mood for chips at the moment.

In a weird way it took me back to some ECD (that'd be Early Childhood Development, for those who've never had the pleasure) courses that I took years ago at the local college. Why ECD? You know, at this point I'm really not sure. Seemed like a good idea at the time? Wanted to broaden my horizons? Dunno.

Anyway, one of the strange things about taking ECD courses is that you do things like learn how to play (ok, ok, you learn how to encourage developmentally appropriate play in children. But still. The course was called Play, fergodsake). There was also an art course called, oddly enough, Art. Wouldn't have worked if they'd called it Norman, I suppose.

Art (when you're studying ECD) involves a lot of simple techniques with plenty of scope for individual creativity. Shall I translate that into normal English? You learn how to do art like a three-year-old. The end results look pretty much the same, whether you actually are a three-year-old or whether you're just learning how to teach three-year-olds. I'm sure you're getting the idea by now.

Anyway, I had art class on Friday afternoons, and immediately afterwards I'd head into my parents' place to direct a choir practice (long story) and visit. I'd naturally bring my latest art project with me, because I wouldn't have the time to stop off at my apartment before leaving town. My mother got a somewhat unreasonable kick out of seeing my fingerpainting or whatever else and she used to... wait for it... hang the stuff on the refrigerator.

I was in my mid-twenties, and she was hanging my "art" on her refrigerator.

She was telling the neighbours, too. With glee. "My daughter did these."

Absolutely and completely embarrassing.







A little like being praised for your duck head, I guess.

Time to end this Post of Many Interruptions now (I won't even tell you what time it was when I first started typing). Sorry if it makes sense. I try not to whenever possible.

I dunno. Something about nuts, maybe.

Headache, yes. And that's all I'm saying about that today.

You're welcome.

----------

One of the interesting things about clearing the entries on the old blog (did I mention that I've been clearing the entries on the old blog? Well, I'm clearing the entries on the old blog) is that since I don't want to delete the blog in its entirety -- that is, I want to keep the domain name and reuse it -- I'm having to delete post by post. I generally do about a month at a time, and as I go I've been skimming the blather just in case there's something I feel needs saving.

Nothing so far.

Big surprise to my two fans, I'm sure.

I talked about a lot of things in four years' worth of that blog, though. Sometimes the same thing over and over again, true, but overall I had more to say than I would have believed possible.

And now, of course, since those posts are gradually entering the black hole of the interweb, I can talk about it all over again here and very few people will be any the wiser.

heh heh

It also means I can start taking pointless photos of my wristwatch again, since all those shots have already been deleted. Don't know what I mean by that? Well, watch this space.





Hmmm. Maybe not this exact space. Some space, though.

----------

I said something about nuts in the post title, didn't I? Nuts, then.

Um.

Ok, how about the fact that it's evil of my father to buy pistachio nuts when he knows I have very little self control in that department?

Sigh. Pistachio nuts. They're so good.

I am glad of one thing, though, and it's that the processors of pistachio nuts have gotten over the supposed need for all pistachio nuts to be dyed pink so that we, the idiot consumers, don't notice that the nut shells do indeed have the occasional blemish.

I think I've read somewhere or other that blemishes were the reason for the dye job. Can't remember where now, however, and I'm far too lazy to look it up.

I definitely don't miss the pink-tinted fingers. And lips. And tongue.




Erm, yeah. I suppose you could say I always looked a bit like a clown college reject every time I ate pistachios as a child.

I believe that's all I have to say about pistachios. As for any other nuts or pseudonuts (covering all my bases there), well... macadamias are also incredibly dangerous to a nutter like Yours Blatheringly. Nutter, get it?

Oh, shut up. I haven't been well, remember?

I also like almonds rather a lot, although I'm better at rationing those. I like peanuts, but only if they're dry roasted or in the shell. Could never figure out making an already greasy food even greasier.




Mmmm. Food.

I should have had breakfast.

There are pistachios upstairs, you know. My father bought them.





Sigh. I may just as well admit that I haven't a chance here.

I'm going now.

Probably to eat pistachios.

*mutter*

One of the problems with having a buggered-up neck is that it's thiiis close to impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

I'm feeling just ducky at the moment.

I'm also fairly blatherless, as you can imagine, so I'm thinking that maybe I'll call this a simple pointless photo day and worry about actual content at a time when all my various parts are in closer agreement as to some working order or other.

Or something. I don't know. I'm tired and cranky.

Later, then.

Ow

The Toronto office said "ill enough".

I suppose that should be translated as "immobile and stoned".

For those new to the program, complaining about a headache followed by a sudden disappearance generally means that my neck is out. And out it is. I can move more today than I could yesterday, but I've still got a whopping headache and (at least this morning) a fairly nasty rebound from the muscle relaxant I took to ease the spasms.

That would be the stoned part of immobile and stoned, yes. I'm not stoned today, though. It's sort of frowned upon to come to work loopy.

It'd make things more interesting, actually, but there you go.

Anyway, since I don't really have much to say that doesn't involve a generous helping of whinge, I think we'll keep it brief. Typing isn't the happiest action at the moment, to be honest, so that gives me a decent excuse if nothing else does.

So many ways to captionate (is so a word) this photo

Let's see ... the Alberta office is ill enough that we've brought in a Cardinal just " in case " she doesn't pull through .... er, this is my pet named Peeve ...


Oh, heck, just consider it a handsome (tis a male, you know) place holder until she returns well enough to mock me. It would be me she mocks, yes .. not a mocking bird, you see.

Um, yeh, going now.

I have a headache!!!

Hmmm. Apparently exclamation points don't cure headaches.

I really seriously do have a headache. A bad headache. Bad enough that I'm going to use it as an excuse to take a bit of my built-up overtime and head home early today.

There's only so long I can pretend that anything's actually penetrating the fog, I guess.

Since this post is decidedly lacking in content (did I mention that I have a headache?), maybe I should leave it up to you to provide some for me. Let me explain. Yesterday I had several extra hits on the blog via blog search engine simply because I typed the words "Craig" and "Ferguson" in some order or other. You never know what weird (and in this case, mostly not-to-the-point) search terms will attract people to the pointless blather, it seems. Sooo... what should be the next one? What should I try to sneak into a post (when I have a working brain, I mean) in hopes of more mostly-disappointed accidental visitors?

The comment link is there for a reason, is what I'm saying.





It's so you can do all the work, I guess...

Typing English Goodly 101

And a harvestman. No reason.

----------

I think I'll let Bob the Angry Flower introduce today's topic. Go ahead, Bob.

I passed a big, commercially-made sign on my way to work today. It was advertising "Two-bedroom Condo's" for sale.

Sigh.

I blame the internet, you know. You get enough people out there typing things quickly and making silly mistakes, and it's like it reaches critical mass. Joe Notsure looks at the mistake and is confused as to whether it's correct or not, so he repeats it. Jane Reallynotsure looks at his mistake and figures that it must be correct because it's there right in front of her in print (and as Craig Ferguson says, if it's in print it must be true), so she repeats it too. And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...

Erm... it was a Breck shampoo ad. In the... um... seventies.

Yeah, I'm old. Shut up.

Anyway, since I got tied up looking at something completely unimportant over my lunch break I don't really have time to delve into this highly frustrating topic the way I might have. We'll keep it short, then. Boys and girls, definitely does not have an a in it. Really. Look it up. Also, it isn't possible to loose one's pen, or one's girl, or one's mind (well, maybe the last one). And finally, apostrophes aren't for sprinkling liberally throughout your paragraphs in the hope that one of them actually sticks in the proper position.

Oh, and if you really want to annoy me, pick the wrong option on the current poll. More on that particular pet peeve another time, though. Especially now that EVERYONE will be aiming to pick the wrong option on the current poll just to piss me off.

It's all about me, remember.





And see? Putting an apostrophe in the right place isn't all that hard.

Pointless photo and that's pretty much all you're getting from me of the day:

It's a cosmos flower oh yeah and there may possibly be a tiny little goldenrod spider in there but I can't really be sure.

That's it, I'm afraid. Well, not afraid so much as busy.

Going now.

Pointless something about a meteor shower

The pointless photo, by the way, is not of a meteor shower. They're in there somewhere, though.

Just because we can't see them doesn't mean they don't exist.

This'll be short today. I wasted time working on a fragment of semi-artistic something or other that might maybe make it onto the blog if I can get a niggle or two straightened out. We'll see.

It hasn't left me much in the mood for blogging, though.

I managed to get out for a while last night in the brief window we had between clouds and have a look at the Perseids. It's past peak now, yes, but there were still enough bright streaks around that I feel like I haven't completely missed it again this year.

Meteors, a couple of satellites, and a decent look at Jupiter even though it's getting kind of low on the horizon. I guess I can't complain too much.

Have I ever said that one of my favourite constellations is Corona Borealis? Well, if not... Corona Borealis is one of my favourite constellations. Something about the combination of the mythology, the actual resemblance to the crown that it's supposed to represent (not terribly common in constellations, as you find once you start learning the sky), and the fact that it's not the first thing you're going to be able to find when you look up at night.

You have to put some effort into Corona Borealis.

As opposed to a blog, which you can entirely fudge if you happen to be in that kind of mood.





I'm in that kind of mood. See you later.

Um... ok, pointless something then

I've so completely got nothing today.

Not even in the mood to pretend to think of something.

I would like to know, however, how 17C outside can be a pleasant spring day, but 17C inside is absolutely frigging freezing. Doesn't anyone else out there find that a little strange?

Did I already say I've got nothing?

I'll end, then, by saying that today's pointless photo isn't of a dragonfly. I thought we needed a change, so today we're looking at a damselfly instead.

What do you mean what's the difference? It matters to them, you know. Besides, I absolutely refuse to be a naturalist today, so you're going to have to look it up on your own if you're so inclined.




So there. Nyah.

Bloody weather

That's a quote, by the way. Some of you know from where.

The rest of you can google it, I guess.

----------

So, I didn't mention that I'd be blogging late today. That's only because I didn't know if I'd be blogging at all, though. You see, I was supposed to be hosting a star party for the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, which would have meant that my work day started at about seven pm and went on until godawful in the morning.

The fact that I'm here at the office blogging right now should tell you that the party's over. Er... sorry, that's a musical number that I'm too lazy to find a safe lyrics site to link to. The fact is, the party never started because we're completely clouded over.

Hard to see meteors through clouds, you know.

For those of you who can actually see clear sky, it should be a decent year for the Perseid shower since the moon's light won't be interfering. So go outside. Make me jealous. Dress warmly (we're getting to the time of year here where it cools down pretty sharply at night. If it doesn't where you are, then DON'T dress warmly. See if I care), bring the insect repellent, make sure you have something to recline on (it's much more comfortable that way) and just watch the the sky for a while.

That's the nice thing about meteor showers. You don't need anything more than yourself to enjoy them.



Oh, and you should probably only attempt this when it's actually dark outside. After midnight is best. Looking now would be completely pointless.

Pointless?

Perfect for the blog, then.





Gotta go pretend to be nice to people now. If you see meteors, don't tell me how it was. I'll just hate you, and neither of us needs that.

Pointless vulgarism of the day:

But first, a joke. Well, part of a much longer elephant joke. Too lazy to type out the whole thing. And yes, I do like elephant jokes for the sheer ridiculousness of the repetition. Erm, anyway. Here's the joke:

How do you get two whales in a Mini?

Along the M4 and across the Severn.

Ok, so how many of you got that? How many of you are in the UK? How many of you are at least of British extraction in some form?

The point (point??? Oh no! PUMPKIN!!!) is that you have to know at least a bit of basic British geography to get that one. I put it in a memo the other week knowing full well that there was probably only one other person on staff that would see why it was even remotely funny.

Sometimes I do things like that. No reason.

----------

If you're wondering what all the harping on Britain has to do with the post title, this is the part where I'm going to tell you. The original title of today's post was going to be Oh, bugger. I forgot to blog. I decided to forego that, though.

Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure now why I changed my mind.

Due in part, no doubt, to my English grandmother (aha. Britain again), bugger is a very regular part of my vocabulary. I've talked about that before on the old blog, but that was the old blog. Besides, things may soon be afoot with the old blog. I'm not saying anything specific, but if there's anything over there that my two fans feel they can't live without they might want to make themselves a copy.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, bugger.

I like bugger. It's very useful. I learned from my book on the history of swearing (yes, I have a book on the history of swearing. You can look that one up on your own, if you're interested. It's findable) that it's also very versatile. It can even be multiple parts of speech if you try hard enough.

It can be quite vulgar as well.

Yep.

I'm aware of that.

Can't say it bothers me, but I am aware of it.

The funny thing to me is that you can often tell people of British background by the way they react to bugger. People who currently live in Britain would be used to hearing it regularly in all its glory, naturally, but I find that even Canadian offspring of Brits are quicker to shrug it off or not even remark it.

I can only speak for Canada in that regard, you know. I'm not from anywhere else, so I wouldn't have a clue about most other places.

Well, except maybe our neighbours to the south.

Have you ever noticed how touchy Americans can be (notice that I say can be rather than are? I'm not trying to paint everyone with the same brush here) about the word bugger? I once made the offhand statement to an American friend that I had "buggered up my ankle" and she looked at me as though she was wondering how that was physically possible.

I doubt she would have even thought twice if I'd used the word screwed instead, but using buggered immediately sent her straight to sodomy.




Um, not literally. That would have been an uncomfortable moment.

I'd go into this more, but at the moment I need to get back to work more than I need to talk about international cursing. I'll just say, then, as a Canadian who's fairly used to translating British to American and vice versa, I get a kick out of seeing what unexpectedly upsets whom.

It's fun.






One Pika interruption later, and I've completely forgotten what else I was going to say. Just as well.

It probably would have just been bugger anyway. Or something like that.

Pointless spider photo of the day:

And a fine jumping spider it is. He (yes, he) is pictured on a raspberry leaf. This was the only shot I got off before he starting following my movements and got out of range of the camera's ability to focus. Even on macro, yes.

That's about it for now. The post is early because apparently we're eating defenseless sea creatures today (suuushi!!!) so I won't be around at noon.

My foot? Still a disaster. Wore looser shoes in hopes that they'd be less irritating but all they're doing is slipping and causing more rubbing. Ah yes. The stain on my sock grows ever wider.

Hmmm. Maybe a bandage would have been in order?





Sure. Why didn't you mention it before? Sometimes you're no help at all, you know.

Later.

One shoe off and one shoe on

And I think someone somewhere along the line said something about insect porn?

These are mosaic darners; probably Variable Darners (Aeshna interrupta). The male is the blue one.

Ladies, how many of you would be keen for sex if it involved, amongst other things, a male's abdominal appendages grabbing the back of your head? Yeah, I didn't think so.

----------

Since the Toronto office had been kind enough to post again today, I'll keep this short.

I'm having myself a bit of a puzzling day, so far as footwear goes. You see, as I said the other day (and my day off was great, thanks for asking. I stayed in the pyjamas, read, and watched DVDs. That's all. Great, did I mention? Too bad about the whole arguing-with-myself thing that meant I didn't get much sleep last night, though. And shut up, Wheat), my ankle's being a slight bother again. That's ok. It happens, and I'm used to it.

The problem is that my ankle would very much like me to be wearing some good support right now, but my foot is disagreeing with that idea. A couple of nights ago as I was drifting off to sleep my foot was feeling a little itchy. The natural thing to do about that is to scratch it with the other foot. Well, that's the natural thing for me, anyway. The problem is that I was sleepy, wasn't paying much attention to what I was doing, and didn't notice that I was rubbing the skin off of my itchy foot.

Didn't notice until the next day when I saw the blister, that is.

So now I have a sore, slightly oozy foot (sorry for that mental picture) which doesn't want to be in a shoe, but the ankle it's attached to is very, very insistent that there MUST be a shoe. And not only a shoe, but a decent shoe. No trying to placate it with sandals or moccasins, folks.

What to do, what to do.





At the moment my shoe's off. I'll put it back on when I need to walk somewhere.

I'll complain as I put it on, too. Because I can.

Name that tune!

I would bet anyone reading this a hundred dollars that the Alberta office is now humming the little ditty associated with the title of this post.


Nah, that would be a totally unfair bet. You just know she's chair-dancing if she can.

Whatcha get is whatcha get

And so, gentle readers, this is the Toronto office coming across the ozone and into your lives. Hmm, now that's kind of creepy when you really think that through, isn't it.

Today's pointless photo could have come to you from just about every night this summer so far as, yes, (and watch me lapse into a true Canadian topic, the weather) each evening has been cruelly identical.

Never before have I so looked forward to cooler weather and I'm sure hoping it doesn't take until October for that to become reality.

It's been difficult to take my yearly pointless photos of flowers, of flowers and insects, flowers and flowers, insects and insects. I've been imagining the odd (as in strange/odd) searches that have brought people to the blog because of the insect "porn" mentioned, though. Er, yeh, anyyyyyway ... difficult to take my garden photos because it's just too dry for things to have much joy and beauty going on in that parched clay soil out there.



Well I just typed a bit and deleted same. You're welcome.

It's hot. It's humid. I cannot remember the last time the a/c wasn't on and I'm ... oh a bit cranky and sleepy, I guess. I hate air-conditioning. It offends most of my senses. I'm grateful to be cooler but the constant background white noise makes me a tad irked (read: aggressive). Oh and that's central air; I have no clue whatsoever how folks who use room a/c's don't end up jumping from ledges or seriously harming anyone who crosses their path.

I posted a pretty picture though! Couldn't let SWMBO down, you know.


Now if this isn't up there with the best of the pointless points, I sure as heck don't know what it takes.


And yeh, tired - did I mention? Time for a serious nap.



Just on a personal note, my thoughts are with the family of Det. Cst. Robert Plunkett.

Pointless spider photo of the day:

Cute, isn't she? Goldenrod spider in very typical crab spider pose. And if you'd seen the weird contortions both I and the sunflower were forced into to get this picture, you'd agree that the spider thing really does have to stop.

Not yet, though. I got a couple of good shots yesterday.

Not to mention the myriad dragonflies that'll still likely find their way here...




I really need a different hobby, don't I.

----------

This is going to be one of those why bother posts. I've really got nothing. Well, I've got a sore ankle, but that's not terribly unusual. Something must have shifted again, because it's achy enough to be annoying.

One damned thing after another, as my grandmother would have said.





No, seriously. She really did say that. Along with a lot of other things that I don't suppose people would expect to hear from their grandmothers. It was normal for mine, though. She was... colourful in her speech sometimes.

I didn't mind.

Hell, I'm colourful in my speech too.

Anyway, me 'n the ankle still don't have much to say, so maybe we'll just cut today's blather short. I won't be near a computer tomorrow, so it'll be up to the Toronto office to be pointless.

She assures me that she can handle it.

Pointless photo of the day:

We haven't had a spider here for a while, so I figured what the heck. This orb weaver was busy cutting the damselfly out of its web. I should have taken video instead of stills because it was interesting to watch the process, but a) I didn't think of it at the time, and b) I can't be bothered to find a video host just for one glimpse of a spider and a dead damselfly.

I can't be bothered. That should have been the title of this post. I have no idea what's going to come out today.

Well, we could go the eating route and make the pointless photo ever so slightly pointed. Only slightly, mind. Wouldn't want to get carried away or anything.

Yesterday when I fed the salamander I hung around to watch him eat for a couple of minutes.

Incidentally, I have no idea whether the salamander really is a he. I can't even remember what the salamander's name is supposed to be, come to it. I've taken to calling him Boris lately. No reason.

This salamander (and no, I don't have a photo. That would be too much like a point. Hang on a sec, though. I should be able to find you a link... or maybe two) spends most of his time being boring. Yes, boring. He sits and stares. Occasionally he burrows into the moss and... sits and stares.

Get the feeling that I don't really understand having amphibians as pets?

Throw a handful of crickets in his tank, though, and it's game on. Erm... slowly. Watching Boris hunt crickets is a bit like watching slow motion sports replays. It's not exactly a spirited chase, but it is, nonetheless, very effective. If I throw in the crickets and go do something else for ten minutes, by the time I come back it's pretty much guaranteed that there won't be a single sign that there was ever such thing as a cricket in sight. Of course, it helps that the crickets are stupid enough to practically walk into the salamander's mouth.

Hmmm. Maybe there's more to this than I thought. Do you suppose Boris could be some kind of cricket hypnotist?

We didn't always feed Boris crickets. We used to feed him mostly mealworms, and it was always a struggle. You'd sit there and jiggle a larva in front of him, and he would sit. And stare. And sit. He never did catch on to the fact that mealworms might possibly be food-related.

You can imagine my surprise, then, at the reaction I got when I gave him some crickets in desperation (we'd been buying crickets for the toad). Total change in body language. Turns out that this incredibly frustrating-to-feed salamander just needed the right stimulus. I mean, I knew that tiger salamanders are very much triggered by motion, but it was interesting to see that he was waiting for just the right kind of motion. Jiggled beetle larva? Whatever. Active, stinky, stupid cricket?

Banquet.

Now he'd be happy if I'd give him a dozen crickets a day, but since no one at the nature centre really wants to deal with a three hundred pound salamander he has to put up with the feeding schedule I impose on him.

And, I'll admit, I'm starting to develop a bit of a fondness for the boring amphibian. He's no snake, but there's more to him than you might have figured.

A stomach, for one thing.







I think I'm out of blather now. I'll need to go change laundry loads in a minute or so anyway.

Pointless photo of the day:

That's going to have to be it today. I'm busy.

Hear that, Wheat?

For whatever weird reason, we're busy here. On a Sunday. On a long weekend.

Yeah, I don't get it either.





Nobody out there has noticed four odd strangers riding horses or anything, right?

Just checking.

Janeism

When I first heard about this movie I thought for sure that they'd probably cast some Hollywood beauty to play an author who wasn't really considered a beauty even by her family.

When I heard more about the plot, my thought was that they'd probably go the easy route of deciding that Tom Lefroy was somehow the love of her life rather than a slight flirtation when she was a teenager.

What can I say? I'd be prouder of being right on both counts if it wasn't for the fact that probably every Jane Austen fan in the world could have predicted them. Predicted them even without knowing that such a movie was in the works. Go up to a true Jane Austen fan, say "wouldn't it be cool if they made a movie about Jane Austen's early life," and the Janeite will say, "oh, they'd just cast some pretty little bubblehead and give her a phony romance."

Um, not that I'm saying that Anne Hathaway is a bubblehead. I doubt very much that she is. She's also no Jane Austen.





Don't you just hate literary snobs?

The problem with Jane Austen movies overall (but remember: all blanket statements are bad) is that they take something that is undeniably popular with a certain, fairly specialist crowd and try to translate it into a very populist medium. It's inevitable that the things that make Joe (Jane?) Moviegoer happy are going to niggle at or outright annoy people who not only know all of the books backwards and forwards but have also read all of her extant letters, juvenilia, and a helluva lot of Georgian background material besides.

*sheepishly admits to being one of the latter*

OLF, if you recall. When I decide that I like something, I don't usually go about liking it just halfway.

I really like Jane Austen. I own well-read copies of all of the books, letters, and other writings. I have several biographies on my shelf and have read many others. I was, for a while, a very active member of a Jane Austen forum until I got tired of the circular arguments which only seemed to be interrupted by teenaged requests for homework help.

And when it comes to the movies, I'm one of the hard-to-please types who more than likely frustrate the heck out of producers. Yes, I notice behaviours that, while they may be expected by a modern audience, are such flagrant violations of the all-important social rules of the time that they make me wonder if the filmmakers actually bothered to read the books. And yes, anachronistic props or costumes annoy me.

You're probably wondering by now if I've actually even seen a Jane Austen movie. I mean, if I find them so frustrating wouldn't I just avoid them?

Well, no.

There are a couple of decent ones, you see. The decent ones, with all of their faults, make you think that possibly, just possibly, someone will come up with a way to make a truly great movie out of one of these truly great stories that could be all things to all people. It's never going to happen, but the hope stays. Like the person in the article I linked to above says, the favourite Jane Austen movie is always "The next one. The one that will be perfect."

Having said that, I do have ones that I like. The Firth/Ehle Pride and Prejudice is classic, and since it's a miniseries they didn't have to try to squeeze everything into a couple of hours. It's not perfect, but it's enjoyable. I liked Persuasion even more, though I cringed when Wentworth asked her father for Anne's hand in the middle of an evening party. So, so not done. What was nice about that movie, though, was that they didn't try to make the surroundings and costumes perfect. It all looked a bit more "real" than you normally see in a period movie. Even the low light levels in some scenes seemed right. These people did, after all, live by candlelight.

Which ones don't I like? Well, lots, as you might have guessed. One of my least favourite is maybe a bit of a surprise, however, since it was pretty much feted when it came out. I'm talking about Sense and Sensibility. Yep. Can't stand that movie. There was a bit of nice casting in Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman and the film looks nice, but none of that can make up for the fact that Emma Thompson was fifteen years too old for her character and constantly kept calling everyone dearest.

Urgh.




Gee, Dee. Tell us how you feel.

Anyway, I've taken up far too much time with this lack-of-effort. Will I be seeing this latest film? On DVD, maybe. I'm more looking forward to the PBS showing of the latest group of BBC television adaptations, to be honest. From what I hear, there's plenty to like and yet still plenty to complain about.

You've got to keep the Janeites happy somehow, right?

Gestalt

So, what do you see in the pointless photo? A backyard fish pond?

I see a self-portrait. It is, after all, my shadow.

Perception is an interesting thing to me. Obviously not just to me, of course. Why would we have things like gestalt theory if other people out there weren't spending a whole lot more time than I can be bothered with trying to figure out exactly how perception works?

I like the idea of gestalt. The whole should be more than the sum of its parts, don't you think? I don't have a whole lot to say about gestalt just now (we can't break the blog rule of late posting means little said), but I can't imagine that my two fans are terribly surprised that I should be interested in something that involves, in part, pattern recognition.

For those new to the program, I'll say that I'm a bit of a freak for patterns.

I did want to leave you with a quick example of how different people can come to the same conclusion in totally different ways (perceptionally speaking. And yes, perceptionally is too a word. At least it is today). Say someone brings in a plant to the nature centre and wants it identified.

Someone brings in a plant to the nature centre and wants it identified.

Come on. You know you were thinking it. And shut up if you were.

Wheat and I would likely both be able to identify the plant. If you asked Wheat later how he did it, he'd tell you that the flower had x number of petals, y number of divisions in the leaf, that the branching pattern was alternate, or any number of other perfectly good physical ID characteristics.

I'd give you slightly confused stare, say "well, that's what it looked like," and proceed to grab a field guide from one of the bookshelves so that we could both look up the plant together.

I know the plant, but I couldn't begin to explain why. The whole means more (in my brain's style of recognition) than the sum of the parts. Kind of cool.

But not so good if you're trying to teach someone how to identify plants.




If you are, you might want to ask Wheat for pointers.

If I haven't already stabbed him in the shins, that is. In that case he'd probably be a little too distracted to care about your frigging plant.






And yes, I had to bring up shin stabbing again. I can't create a label like Stabbing Wheat in the shins and only use it one time. What would be the fun in that?

Ok, back to work for me (shin stabbing or no shin stabbing). Have a good long weekend, for those of you who are already on the long weekend. I have to wait a couple of days for mine.

Two things I've learned today

Oh, and some dragonfly porn. Not a great shot since I had to take it with the zoom and through a tangle of grass, but I think it works aesthetically if not for ID purposes.

They're some sort of darner, I think. I'll leave you to look them up.

----------

So. I learned two things from surfing the news sites while eating my lunch just now. One is that I officially have an excuse if I decide to snap one morning and stab Wheat in the shins as he's coming into the office (why the shins? Well, why not?). It seems that lefties have an elevated risk of psychosis. Ok, slightly elevated. But add that to the elevated risk of schizophrenia, accidental death, and probably lots of other depressing things if I cared to warm up the search engine... and my bet is that Wheat's going to get it in the shins sooner or later.

On the plus side, we're apparently better at coping with multiple stimuli. I'll remember that the next time I plan to pilot a jet fighter.

----------

The other thing I learned gave me more of a pause (yes, more than stabbing Wheat in the shins). Tommy Makem has died.

I'm sure there are a few of my two fans (a few of two? Oh, never mind) who are thinking Tommy who? right about now, and really that's too bad. I grew up listening to Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers (amongst others), and it gave me an interest in folk music that's never gone away. It's true that my own tastes later developed more along the line of traditional-style performance and instruments, but if it hadn't been for people like Sarah Makem handing the music down and her son Tommy keeping it alive for audiences, those who've worked to reconstruct historical performance wouldn't have had much to go on.

Besides, the music is just fun to listen to. Look it up if you've never heard it.

It's weird, but every time I hear that one of those folk artists who came to fame in the sixties has died, I feel like part of my childhood has gone too. I don't feel that for the rock or pop singers, as much as I like that whole era.

Maybe the folk music had a little more heart to it, I don't know.

I have to get back to work now. This post has caused me to turn the internet radio over to the folk station, which is a shame because it's not one of their better channels overall. Funny how something I like so much can drive me nuts so quickly when it's not done properly.

Ah well, I can always go back to Guitar Heroes after a bit. Either that, or wait for Wheat to get back from lunch so I can... oh, you fill in the blank.

Futility is resistant... um, or something

Actually, futility is spending far too much time going through an internet caterpillar database (yes, there are such things) to try to identify that thing to the left, only to find that the picture that exactly matches my specimen (right down to the plant it was feeding on) is only identified as being from the Noctuidae... which, as the Wikipedia link says, is the LARGEST family in the Lepidoptera (that'd be butterflies and moths).

Knowing that my creepy little friend is some form or other of an owlet moth doesn't really help, you know.

There's a reason why I studied mammals. An elk is generally easy to identify as an elk. An elk also can't normally be found stripping the leaves off of my father's delphiniums.

----------

I have a dilemma and a headache. Since there's no chance any of you can do anything about the headache, I think I'll leave you with my dilemma.

Given my druthers I'd leave you with the headache instead, but see above re: futility.

The dilemma is this: The wasp nest appears to be in the soffit right in front of the screen door on my balcony. I stood and watched them for a while yesterday, and of course they couldn't have given a flying rat's bum that I was there. Why they (well, one) cared enough to attack the other day is anybody's guess.

Oh, but I'm distracting myself. Did I mention the headache?

Back to the dilemma, then. I bought some wasp spray, but I haven't used it yet. As I said, at the moment they don't seem to care that I'm around. It's possible they'll get more aggressive as the season progresses, though. Do I trust that they won't and leave them to their little waspy ways (which do provide a certain amount of benefit, from an ecological point of view) or do I spray the living crap out of the nest and risk being trapped on the balcony by a bunch of angry, not-terribly-dead-yet stinging insects?

The nest is right in front of the door, remember. And before you suggest it, I wouldn't be able to get at the proper angle from inside the doorway. No chance of a quick slamming of the screen to keep the beasties at bay.

You do realise that if they'd only left me alone I wouldn't have even noticed they were there? And now I'm contemplating chemical warfare.





Seems like there ought to be some sort of lesson extrapolated from that, but my head hurts and I can't be bothered to walk down that particularly convoluted path. You can do it if you like. I won't even ask to be credited in your paper.

Going now.