Nomina dubia

'Scuse the Latin -- my brain was just taking me back to university for a moment. Oh, and before I get into the reason for it, today's pointless photo is of a very ordinary Icelandic Poppy (one of my favourite flowers, for nostalgic reasons. Hey, possible blog-fodder one day? We'll see). An ordinary Icelandic Poppy... with a Goldenrod Spider hiding in it!!!

Um, you might have to click the photo to see that part. And I'm allowed to be excited, you know. This summer's wet weather has made it a lot harder to find my pointless invertebrate photography subjects, so any spider is cause for celebration.

Is too. My house, my rules.

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Anyway. Back to the title. It's nothing mysterious, honest. All it means is doubtful names. In taxonomy it's loosely used when the names species have been given are in someway questionable. Maybe the original type specimen is missing (oh, by the way: the singular form would be nomen dubium. You know, in case you wondered) so diagnostic features can't be confirmed, maybe two people have given different names for the same thing (although that fits more under nomen ambiguum, I think)... that sort of thing. They're names that are confusing in some way and will have to be replaced.

Aaaaand I've lost most of you to boredom already, haven't I? Don't worry, I wasn't planning to make this a post about taxonomy. Even if it's pretty important to me. Coming from the background I do, I can't help but think that it's important to our understanding of the world and the way things work in it to figure out where things might fit (notice the might, there. Our understanding of the world changes as we learn, so the fit we understand now might change later) and name them in a way that shows their relationships. And even if it frustrates the hell out of me sometimes (plant taxonomy being a good example, with so many recent changes) and even if I'm comfortable enough using common names in my everyday life, in the end it's important to scientific understanding that each thing out there has just the one name. Yeah, if you're out on the trail with me I'll gladly talk about Silverberry or Wolf Willow or even Silver Willow, but in my head I'm remembering that none of those names are terribly accurate (the willowy ones especially) and that the blasted stuff is Elaeagnus commutata. Blame school, I guess, but clarity in nomenclature is important to me.

Hmmm. That's a fair amount of typing considering that I haven't even got to what I thought my topic was yet. Let's see if I can streamline the rest a bit.

The reason nomina dubia is at the top of the page today really doesn't have anything to do with science, oddly enough. It was just the term that came to mind when I was talking to someone the other day and the subject of a friend's baby's name came up. This person didn't like the chosen name, you see, because she thought it was just a made-up thing and not a real name at all. Babies should be given real names, not confusing ones (Ah ha! Nomina dubia, said my easily-distracted brain to itself). At the time I just said that I thought it was a pretty name and left it at that, but it got me to thinking later.

Not a real name, but a made-up one, huh?

Aren't all names made up?

I have very visceral reactions to some baby names, yes, but for the most part it's because of other people I associate the name with and not the degree of made-up-edness. I mean, sure, there are traditional names and new names and sometimes even unique names, but all that really differentiates a traditional name from a new name is the amount it's been used. For instance, would anyone object to the name Wendy as being just a made-up thing nowadays? It's not all that old in its current usage, though. Although he probably didn't completely invent it, as is often stated, it was Peter Pan writer J.M. Barrie who popularised the name. In 1904. Not exactly ancient, is it? And yet I doubt very much that the person I was speaking to who hated the made-up name would have a problem with Wendy.

Personally, I'd have more of a problem with people who name their kids after soap opera characters. But that's just a personal thing with me and isn't really saying anything about the names or the people who choose them.

Now, some people will say that it's important to have a name with meaning (I wonder how they feel about taxonomy?) and some people will go through stacks of baby books to find just the right one, but you have to be careful there as well. I can't help but think that in their desperation to put a meaning to every name some of those books go too far. Sure, you can look at word roots and histories and decide that such-and-such a name means Little Warrior or Wise Council or whatever, but the minute you start breaking words down like that you run into the possibility of confusing different meanings. And that becomes even more of an issue when you bring in different languages. I have a friend, for example, whose name I just looked up on a baby-naming site. It tells me his name means Fox or Wily One. Not too bad, eh? Unfortunately, in German it means something a lot grimmer (shall I tell you, or leave those of you with the the baby books to figure out which name means Fox? I think I'll go with the second choice. More fun that way). Name meanings can be confusing in the same language, even, depending on where that language is spoken. I've brought this up before, but consider Fanny. Very few people would name their daughters Fanny nowadays, of course, but for different reasons. In North America it would be considered fairly old-fashioned and would be avoided as slang for the rear end, but in Britain it's thought of as slang for a female's privates instead.

Yep. I don't think meaning is that good a platform to base a name's validity on.

Overall I'm ok with "made-up" names. Some of them can be a little over the top, yes, and some of them make me think that the poor kid will be changing his/her name as soon as it's possible without an insane parent's permission, but as long as the name isn't offensive I don't think that there's a problem. I guess I'm not nearly as fussy about people names as I am about animals and plants, in the end.






Oh, and my name? Actual, real, non-internet name, I mean?

 Just think of me as divine, if you must...



But I'm sure I don't.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

I'd like to, but the fact is that watching last night's Emmy Awards just showed me once again that I have very little interest in what I suppose the Academy considers mainstream, voteable television. Yep, it was a night of why should I care since I never watch this? for me when it came to most of the awards. Let's face it: I only really have fan-stakes in 2 1/2 scripted shows (all dramas, oddly enough. And the half is because one of them that I think might rhyme with Jones or something like that has had enough silly plot devices in the past while to make even me think of rolling my eyes and packing it in), and the fall previews aren't exactly making me want to add to the list. Ask me about crab fishing, though. I could tell you about crab fishing.

Um, anyway. I guess what I'm saying is that as a non-vested person who wasn't really excited about any of the wins, the only impression I'm prepared to blog about was of the show as a whole. Which was... ok. Not awful, not great, but came in on time so that was a bonus.

It's not like I ever watch award shows for the awards anyway, as my two fans know. I'm all about the fashions. As I've said many times before, I'm endlessly amused by two things: the fact that people who have stylists and are given free clothes can still often manage to look reeeally bad, and the fact that the so-called fashion pundits never seem to know what the hell they're talking about. It's inevitable that at least one attendee is going to appear on both the best and worse dressed lists each year, and I find that absurdly entertaining.

So what about this year? Well, first let me say that for live coverage I was stuck with NBC's incredibly lame red carpet (which, apparently, you couldn't even be seen on unless you were in the cast of Glee...), so most of what I know I'm seeing on the entertainment sites this morning. In still photos, which admittedly don't always give the best idea. Having made that caveat, though...

Guys. Geez. BOW TIES. Regular readers will know my feelings on the long tie thing. Men can look so fantastic in well-tailored tuxes, but it's not formal wear if you've buggered up the tie. It's just a shiny suit after that, and you may as well be at the office (you know, if you work at the kind of office that allows shiny suits). Now, getting past that pet peeve I have to say that I was surprised to see a few men in colours other than black, and I approve. Yes, really. Nothing wrong with a bit of colour in a tux, as long as it's done right. Subtly. No one wants to see the return of the 70s powder-blue ensemble (Whomever knows...), but a bit of well-thought-out colour can make a change from the sea of penguins. I even saw a couple of people in white jackets who managed to not look like waiters, and honestly? That's not easy. I'd start naming names here, but pictures of the men are surprisingly hard to find so I think I'll just let the folks at Esquire handle it for me. Their slideshow is here, and while I don't agree with all of their picks they have a few things to say about fit and style that are kind of interesting.

As for the women? Well, I wasn't overwhelmed or underwhelmed (except by the hair. What was with all the bad hair last night?), but my favourite SHE'S THE BEST! SHE'S THE WORST! of the night was January Jones, I think. I'll leave you to look it up, since I'm kind of hitting lazy at this point. Blue shiny mullet-skirted dress with space-age boob cups, if you're not sure of the one I mean. And do I agree with best or worst? Hmm. Still not sure, I guess. I might have been more for it if the skirt hadn't looked so much like the designer used the comforter from someone's bed as its base. Too much skirt in all, maybe. Better for the runway than the red carpet. As for the others? I liked Emily Deschanel's purple tiered thing more than I probably should have, I thought it was a shame that someone as pretty as Lauren Graham chose to wear something so unflattering, I'm undecided on Kyra Sedgwick's apparently-made-out-of-crepe-paper dress, I found Jewel a little too precious (and I wish someone would teach her to stop singing through her nose), Glenn Close's metallic asymmetrical whatsis did nothing for her, and most of the rest were, I suppose, fine.

Oh, except I wish that someone would tell Heidi Klum that everyone already knows she has legs so it's really not necessary to wear a mini that barely goes past her crotch. To the Emmys. I mean, seriously.






I might have other thoughts as I read (and laugh at) more of the "professional" analyses, but this is more words than I've typed here in a week so I think I'm entitled to go have lunch now. You probably should too, if you haven't already.

So... do you have anything today, Dee?

Not really. Bit of a spinny head from not sleeping very well, but that's so normal these days it hardly bears repeating.

I saw a neat spider, which is usually (as my two fans know) worth a post, but if the photo I just took of it turned out at all well I'm going to use it on the work blog instead.

You're welcome.

I could, I suppose, tell you that autumn has apparently arrived in Alberta, but the fact is that I'm grateful for the recent cool weather since it makes my apartment much more livable. Apparently not livable enough for me to sleep like a normal person, but at the moment I don't think I can really blame that on the apartment.

As tempting as it is. I like blaming things on my apartment. The place is just so blamable.

So what does that leave me?

Not much, I guess, so I should go back to the work blogging. Which, most likely, will be just as successful.

Poor work blog. You just don't know what's coming....

Pointless photo of the day:

And this'll probably be short because apparently I'm having trouble with the whole hand-eye-brain coordination thing today.

I hate it when that happens.

Anyway. Pointless photos. They've been more pointless than usual this summer, haven't they? I'm choosing to blame one key thing, and that's mosquitoes. We generally have mosquitoes every year, yes, but it's not usually so bad that I dread going out in the yard long enough to take pointless macros.

It takes a lot to make me not want to take pointless macros period, but the mosquitoes managed it.

Man. I had more, but I'm seriously sucking at typing at the moment. It's taken a lot of backspacing even to get this far, and I'm not sure I have the energy (or, let's face it, the enthusiasm) to go any further. I guess this has been the week of we'll try again tomorrow, hasn't it?

Ah well. We'll try again tomorrow.

Ok, honestly?

I don't really feel like posting. I'm tired, my system's not happy (long story, but I will say one thing: I like rice, but there's only so much rice a person can take, you know?), and frankly I just haven't really got anything worth blathering about at the moment.

Yeah, I'm in a bit of a dry spell.

Ah well. Looks like I may be coming in to a bit of full-time work for a little while (same job; just a few more hours) and believe it or not having a more regular schedule often improves the blather quality.

Or makes it go away altogether, of course. Just depends on how busy things get.

We'll try this again tomorrow, ok? Not guaranteeing any more luck with it, but we'll keep trying.

I guess.

Pointless photo of the day:

That'll be it for today. I wish I had more, especially since I likely won't be posting tomorrow, but honestly? Right now I'm so tired that if there was anybody at all available to do the program that I have this afternoon, I wouldn't have even bothered coming in.

We'll try this again on Wednesday, then.

Bruisy

No, not the pointless photo. It's not bruisy. I am, though.

Bruisy.

Most of the time.

I had two planetarium programs this week, and to look at my arms and legs you might think they were two boxing programs instead. I'm well decorated from moving those crates around, let me tell you.

The thing is, though, that if it hadn't been planetarium programs it probably would have been something else. I live most of my life as a walking bruise. Call it general clumsiness, call it general left-handedness, call it general stupidity, but if I don't have at least three bruises of assorted sizes on my body it probably means I've spent the day in bed.

I swear sometimes that I get bruises from that, too.

And what does all this bruisiness have to do with anything? Nothing. Nothing at all. In fact, I've got nothing, so I thought I'd try typing about bruises and see if it took me anywhere.

It doesn't.

Ah well, I gave it the old college try. Probably no blather tomorrow because I won't likely be near a computer. I'd say it'll give me a chance to come up with an actual topic for the next post, but we all know how that goes by now.

Speaking of which...

Bye now.

I'M BUSY

I am, actually. I also accidentally bit the inside of my lip last night, and now it's all swollen and my tongue won't leave it alone.

Pretty annoying habit there, tongue.

Anyway, I am busy so I think we'll just have a quick natural history moment today and leave it at that. Today's pointless photo features a mosquito nectaring. Probably a male mosquito since it didn't seem to find me especially appealing, but both sexes visit flowers so I guess it could be a female as well.

Mosquitoes are important pollinators. They also serve as food for a large variety of invertebrate predators blah di blah di blah...

Look, I'm very willing to admit that mosquitoes are an important part of the environment and all, but does there have to be SO DAMNED MANY OF THEM this year?




Um, yeah. Done now.

Planetarium brain

I've got nothing, really, and I should get back to work (or wrok, which is what I initially typed. Might be more fun, really), so since I can't remember if I've ever explained planetarium brain let me do that quickly now.

And if I have explained it before, well... stop reading, I guess.

The mobile planetarium consists of a projector and a dome. The dome is a tent that's held up by air, just like a bouncy castle but nowhere near as injury-causing. The air which holds the tent up comes from a fan.

A fairly loud fan.

And I don't care what Mr Dyson says, the loudness will get you over the -- buffetting, is that the term he uses? -- every time.

So, when I say I have planetarium brain after a program, just imagine someone who has the physical fatigue of having hauled around a bunch of heavy crates combined with the mental fatigue of having been stuck in a reasonably small space for an hour or two with a fairly large fan that she has to fight against to get people to hear her.

Plus the slight fumage from the tent material itself, I suppose. That probably doesn't help.

So anyway. Here I sit with planetarium brain, extremely tight shoulders because my neck's not right and it's put everything somewhat off-kilter, and work that's not actually being done while I type this.



So I think I should stop typing this.







Ok then.

Oh no, it's another toilet paper post

But not a toilet paper photo. Aren't you glad that the photos here are pointless?

Anyway. This'll probably be brief because... well, just because. Do we really need a reason at this stage?

One of the things that bugs me about toilet paper is how absurdly passionate some people can be about the whole over or under thing. You know, whether the paper should unroll from the top or the bottom. Some people are really, really inanely concerned with it. One company had an internet poll to "finally decide" which was the right way (and no, I'm not linking to it. They don't need free advertising). There are millions of google hits for "toilet paper over or under". One person on a forum I belonged to went so far as to say that if she goes to someone's house and they hang their paper the "wrong" way, she changes it. And to all this I have to say:

WHO THE HELL CARES?

Who cares which way the toilet paper is hanging, as long as the toilet paper is there?

Oh, and to the guest-toilet-paper-rearranger: if you did that at my house you probably wouldn't be invited back again just because I'd think you were completely insane.

Hey, I have many things that I'm more than a little OCD about. There are things in my life that have to be just-so that might have you scratching your head. But toilet paper? Really? People spend that much time worrying about the orientation of their toilet paper?

That's just weird.

For the record, I do have a preferred way to hang the tp. But it's just a habit. My heart rate doesn't go up if I accidentally put the roll on the other way. And when I'm at my father's place? Well, I honestly don't know what he prefers in the way of paper direction, so when I replace a roll I put it on in whatever way it happens to be in my hand.

Yes, I do.

Some of my two fans are likely wondering how someone could do that in good conscience, but you know what? IT'S TOILET PAPER. It's not like someone hasn't been rotating their towels or something...






What? If you keep using the same towels over and over again, some of your towels will wear out faster than others. It only makes sense.

As opposed to worrying about your toilet paper unfurling, which doesn't.

And with that, I'll happily leave you to your own toilet paper debate, because I'm outta here.

Well, I'm hungry

Not for unripe grapes, no. But if you've been paying attention to the whinge at all you'll know that being hungry for anything is a good thing.

Wonder what bug I can catch next?

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I don't have a blather topic. I really meant to have one since I've definitely been shortchanging the place this week, but I just don't have that much to talk about at the moment.

There are a few things I could whine about, I suppose, but to be honest even I get tired of listening to me whine.

Sometimes I'll start typing and something will just come out of my brain, but I can already tell that this isn't one of those days. Maybe it would be after lunch and I should probably go get some of the aforementioned, but at the moment... empty.

If you listen hard you can probably hear the wind whistling through the blog.

Or maybe that's just the hamster wheels that keep the internet running.



What?  You didn't know about that? Well, did you think the internet was a series of tubes or something?

Ok, maybe it wasn't fair to bring that up since former senator Ted Stevens did recently die in a plane crash and I really don't know that much about the man besides what I see on the Daily Show, but honestly? If I had the choice of being remembered as a probably-corrupt politician or as someone who gave a slightly odd speech that inspired a lot of internet silliness, I think I'd go for the silliness. And in honour of that (and to give me something to end this non-post on), let's revisit an old hit: A Series of Tubes.

I'll... um... try to come up with something more blathery tomorrow.

Update, whether you want it or not

Gut? Seems to be finally settling down enough that it doesn't cause me dread to eat. Head? Not great, but good old OTC seems to be damping the ache enough for me to function.

Guess I might survive after all.

Anyway, I've still got work to do before I leave, so I think I'll just mention that it is, in fact, me in today's pointless photo.

I'm the hairy one.

The snake and I were modelling for the upcoming newsletter, and I'd like to inform you that garter snakes are NOT the world's most cooperative models. This is actually one of the rejected photos, but I figured that I may as well use it for something so here it is.

And that'll do it for today, folks. I'll attempt to be more blathery tomorrow, when I should have the time.

You want news? I'll show you news.

Or maybe I'll just show you a fairly busy rose. Good thing for the bee that the Goldenrod Spider is so small, I'm thinking.

So, news. You're not actually going to get any here, because the only news I really have is the continuing saga of not being able to eat properly. And why? Oh, come on. Someone had to be paying attention to yesterday's whinge, right?

It's not the kind of thing you want to rehash, anyway. Especially when hash itself would cause a world of hurt.

Anyway. The news in the title just refers to the fact that I'm forehead deep in newsletter editing (which? Could probably use its own blog label at this point. Newsletter comma moaning about), and any of my two fans who are regular readers know that newletter editing puts me completely out of the mood to blog.

Having said that, I'm keeping this short. As in, going now. See you later.




Ok, actually I won't, but I will see you on my stat meter so that almost counts.

Oh, it's been an interesting couple of days

I'd tell you all about it, but I know for a fact that even one sentence in you'd all be TMIing all over the place. Can't say I'd blame you, either.

Let's just say that when the doctor tells you that there are a couple of stomach bugs going around and you should remember to drink lots of fluids, he's neglecting to inform you of the part where your whole GI tract is about do its impression of being squeegeed from the inside out.

Yeah, we'll leave it at that, then.

Back to work for me, now, since things are sort of piling up (work things, I mean. Not the other kind) and I'm not entirely sure how long my system is going to let me stay at work.



Gee, this is fun.

Pointless random question of the day:

Am I the only one in the world who doesn't think that Emma Thompson is all that and a bag of chips? I mean, don't get me wrong -- it's not that I'm a loathing anti-fan and I'm sure that she's a very nice person, but she just doesn't do it for me and I don't, quite honestly, get the gushiness that many people on the internet seem to have for her.

Of course, it doesn't help in my books that she won an oscar for that fairly terrible adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, or that she was nearly twenty years too old to play the role she did in the film. Just goes to show that Academy voters and real Jane Austen fans aren't the same thing at all, I suppose.

And yes, I do realise that most normal people would say that nothing is the same thing as a real Jane Austen fan, and that it's probably a good thing.

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Ok, in lieu of an actual topic since I had a pretty awful night, let's play naturalist and talk about the pointless photo for a change. The featured creature is a Police Car Moth. No, seriously. That's what it's called. Proof? All right, here. If it's on the internet, it must be true.

Um, seriously? That's from the Royal Alberta Museum's website, and it's generally pretty reliable. I have my sources, you know.

Police Car Moths are slightly unusual in that they're diurnal (active during the day). They get their weird name from their resemblance to the markings on an old-fashioned police car, right down to the orange lights on top. The moth in my photo doesn't show the orange spots very well, but they're there all the same.

It's a reasonably easy moth to take pictures of because it isn't that strong a flyer and tends to stay put for quite a while once it's found a plant to nectar on. It can often be found on Goldenrod, although this particular moth was bucking the trend and feeding on Yarrow instead.

Too bad, that. The contrast of the yellow Goldenrod flowers probably would have made for a better shot. Ah well. You take what you get, especially when you're not willing to put a whole lot of effort into it.



[/biologist nerd who hasn't had enough sleep]

To art or not to art

I love these orange daylilies. Fantastic texture, great colour.

Um, consider that a warning that I have a few daylily photos hanging out on my nerdstick at the moment.

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Now, that's funny. I almost even made the photo have a point today, and without planning to. I was about to talk about the upcoming staff show, and daylilies actually tie into that.

You see, last year (ish. Was it last year or late the year before?) for the first time we had a staff art show in the Nature Centre's gallery. That meant that for almost the first time ever I ended up with some of my doodles on display. In a real gallery. It was a pretty bizarre thing for someone who doesn't even think of her doodles as any kind of art.

I submitted a bunch of stuff because there was an initial worry that there wouldn't be any submissions (in the end there were plenty, thank goodness), and you can find bad photos (and, um, one scan) of the three that ended up being chosen here, here, and here. Interestingly enough, of the three I probably would have only chosen the spider. I though a couple of the other things I submitted were a lot better. Oh, and you did of course notice that one of the three was an orange daylily, right?

Anyway, it's been decided that our experiment of having a staff art show was successful enough to be repeated this winter. And now I have to decide a) whether I have anything worth submitting, and b) if I don't, do I get off my backside and do something about it in the next month or so.

Here's the problem. Both of those options take effort, and I'm notoriously bad at the effort thing. If I have anything worthwhile already -- and that could include photos, if you've seen anything you like lately -- it would likely mean spending the time and money to get something properly framed, since I'm not sure we'll have the saved-my-ass option of borrowing museum frames we had the last time. If I don't have anything worth it, I'll have to come up with something. That means I need to have ideas, and I need to execute them.

The thing with that last bit is that playing in my mess of a mixed media journal has given me some non-illustration ideas to try out. Great, right? Added creativity rather than just doing my best to make a doodle look like the thing I'm doodling has to be a good thing. But. Suppose I decide to try a few things out? Suppose things get a little weird? Suppose I get all olf at the thought of having my general weirdness displayed somewhere other than a blog and then back out of submitting things all together?

ALL THIS PRESSURE...






Ok, all this non-existent pressure. If I don't submit anything, I don't submit anything. I'd kind of like to, though, since seeing my doodles up on display actually turned out to be a neat experience. Which, by the way, I never would have expected. I figured I'd be cringing every day at the thought that people were looking at my stupid little hobby, but that's not the way it happened. Weird.


All right, weird for me at least.



Ah well, if any of my two fans would like to help with the general indecisiveness have a look at the nonsense album from my other blog here. If there's anything that strikes you as displayable or any idea that you think could be developed if I do manage to get some ambition, just leave me a comment.

I should...

... be working on the newsletter right now. I really should. It's up in the background as we speak. Um, as I type and you read, rather. Or it was up in the background as I typed this, but maybe when you read it I will have already gone home for the day...

I'm confused.

And my brain hurts, which is normal when I'm trying to work on the newsletter.

I've so got nothing, can you tell?

Anyway, I really honestly should get back to the newsletter, so I think I'll just tell you about today's pointless photo and leave things at that.

Today's pointless photo shows what happens when an area that's not usually very wet in the summer gets a lot more rain than anyone expected. The erigeron has taken over my father's perennial garden, yes. Or at least it had the last time I was there. Maybe he's pulled most of it by now.

It always used to be such a well-behaved plant, too. Who knew that it was genetically related to the blob? And if you didn't click the link just now, come on. You have to. Best horror movie theme song ever.




Um, yeah. Going now.

Pointless GAH!!! of the day:

I've posted about this before so this'll be short, but PEOPLE. If you are silly enough to have automated music on your blog and I can't immediately find a stop button, I WILL GO AWAY. Quickly.

And surely I can't be the only one.

Why did anyone ever think that was a good idea?

Chapter 1164: wherein I grouse about spelling weenies

Not about spelling the word weenies, no. About the weenies who are so... well, weenie about spelling.

Specifically, transatlantic spelling.

It always amazes me just how up in arms a certain quarter of the world can get about American versus British spelling. As a Canadian I tend to favour a fair number of British spellings, yes (although you'll never catch me using tyre or gaol since it's not the usual thing around here) and I suppose it's partly a patriotic no-I'm-not-American-thanks feeling as much as anything (and to any of my two fans who happen to be American: no, I'm not anti-American. I'm just not American, and I'm very fond of the little differences between our two countries that make them unique entities), but there's no way that I would get all huffy if someone around here decided to use an American spelling.

Um, let's modify that slightly. I get a bit huffy if one of our staff members uses center rather than centre, but that's mostly because this place has centre as part of its name. It doesn't matter in that case that the actual word is the same no matter the spelling; it's a NAME. It'd be like if you took either my first or last name -- which both, sadly, have a multitude of spellings -- and arbitrarily decided to use one of the alternate spellings because they both sound the same so it doesn't matter. Yes, it does. One spelling would be my name, and any others wouldn't. Same goes for centre when you're referring to a building. If the people who run the building call it a centre, then it's a centre. Full stop.

Having made that exception, I'll say again that I'm not going to get all huffy if someone chooses to use American spellings in their day-to-day existence. There certainly are a lot of people out there who would, though. And there's probably just as many who get their knickers in a twist over British archaisms and extra letters.

It's all pretty stupid.

No, really. It is.

On the one hand it's just an excuse for misplaced snobbery (um... is there a place for placed snobbery?) and we-created-the-language-ism, and on the other it's progress and get-your-head-out-of-the-sixteenth-century-ites. Both sides are ignoring the fact that languages naturally evolve, and English has had a fairly long time to evolve in many different places. Of course there will be changes when language is used in different locales. Different cultures, different educations, different day-to-day lives all lead to different ways to use a language. And if the language doesn't change, then it becomes useless.

So, to any well-educated Englishman who snots about the American use of ass instead of arse being a mistake, let me say stuff it. Americans say ass. The average American ear hears the generalised RP speaker saying ass too, not hearing the elided R and the difference in vowel. Hell, half the time I miss it, and I'm an admitted anglophile. American English has evolved to the point where the word for donkey sounds like the word for bottom. And That's. Not. Evil. Or ignorant. Or anything else but different, really.

And while we're on asses, any of my two fans who are British might be interested to know that in general it's a shock to most of us in North America that when the word fanny is used you're thinking of a very different thing than we are...

Anyway. I'd like to go on and give a stupid example or two from the American English-people-think-they're-sooo-smart side of things to even up the point of view a little, but I really should get back to work. No doubt it'll come up again anyway, because you can't be on the internet without noticing silly stuff like this.

Or at least I can't.





I'd probably get a bit more done if I could, really.

Pointless photo of the day:

Yes, again.

To be honest, I'm feeling a bit off just at the moment, and for no apparent reason. It came on pretty suddenly, too, so I'm not sure what the heck is going on.

Maybe I need to reboot or something.

Anyway, enjoy the hollyhock. That's about all you're getting from me today.

Pointless photo of the day:

Aaand that's it from me.

Kind of busy just now.

The Maple leaf forever

The title of the post could actually start me off on how much I dread hearing the national anthem...such as it is. It's boring. And it's confusing or at the least not clear. We're standing on guard and watching thee rise ... who, exactly or where.

Why yes, I do think the other choice may've been a better one.

But no matter; although I do think maple leaves are nice, we don't want the blog to turn into a pumpkin, you know, with a point and all.

And I have documented quite clearly why a person shouldn't decide to blog her thoughts at the time of night when trashy magazines should be acting as a sleep aid. Clearly.

And before I forget to mention it: enjoy the cool photo of the leaf. Even I like this one. If I do say so.

Playing with toys

And one fast bee...

Ok, maybe not so fast. I just thought it was a weird enough picture to fit right in around here. The photos in the next while, by the way, might be even less inspired than usual. I tried to take some new ones yesterday, but with all the rain we had in July the current crop of mosquitoes is extremely persistent. I didn't last too long in the yard before I'd had enough.

More than enough.

In fact, the joy of dealing with the mosquitoes that had made it into the house combined with the general warmth made my father's place even harder to sleep in last night than my apartment is, believe it or not. I'm definitely not firing on all cylinders at the moment.

That's why I decided to fiddle with some blog toys instead of bothering to come up with any readable blather today. Yeah, I've changed things around a little again. I'm not sure yet what'll stay or what'll go, but this is how it stands for... well, probably for the rest of the week at least since I'm not likely to be fiddling with it at work. As for the new tabs, to be honest I was mostly trying them out for work since I seem to have turned this blog into a guinea pig. If you can think of anything that actually should be on a tab here (as opposed to the nonsense I've got up now), drop me a comment.

Going now. Probably to play with the blog toys some more.

Pointless thought of the day:

Ever notice that your whole day can change just by putting on the damp bra that you had to take off to wash because you forgot to bring a spare with you?

Ok, maybe that's just me.

And incidentally, in case anyone wondered -- I do indeed have nipples. Oh yes I do.

TMI? Ah, I'm sure we'll all survive that revelation.

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I'm beginning to think that maybe this blog is a little bipolar. No, not the blogger (as far as I know, at least); the blog. I was just looking through the archives for something and happened to hit upon one of my more extensively blathery periods. It was a bit weird to read through, actually. I was obviously in the middle of some philosophy book or other (I have my philosophy book moments, yes) and apparently thought that everyone needed to know all of my thoughts on thinking.

Oh, Talking Heads on the internet radio. Give me a moment while we burn down the house, ok?

All right then. Where were we? Um... changing laundry loads, I guess. Be right back.





Ok. One massive distraction later, I need to read back to see where I was going with this. Hmm. Bipolar blog, eh? All right then. The shorter version of where I was headed was that sometimes this place is almost manic in its wordiness (and, um, weird turns of phrase. Do I really write that stuff?) and sometimes it's nearly depressed in its I've-got-nothingness. There are all sorts of reasons for that, of course. Often it's just a factor of time since I don't have a computer and am dependent on a few minutes stolen from work or a morning here at my father's place in between clothes-washing for my blog time. It doesn't always give a person the optimal opportunity to compose a thought, you know?

There's more to it than that, of course. There's the fact that I've been blogging for a pretty long time now -- it's hard to get a proper sense of just how long since I deleted several years' worth of posts from the other blog when I decided to use it for artier things instead -- and inevitably a long-running blather becomes circular. I mean, I know that my two fans don't often read back to see just how circular, but even at that I don't want to spend all of my time repeating myself. As a result, I'll occasionally start in on a topic with gusto, get a few paragraphs in, realise I've probably already said all of this before, and end up with nothing but a pointless photo to show for my time.

Also, (and this is something that I truly do have to fight), there's the whole thing with clamming up. If there's something on my mind, especially if it's something really personal, I find myself not wanting to blog in case it all comes out in a completely inappropriate manner. This isn't meant to be a diary, and it's definitely not meant to be a psychotherapist. It's just pointless observations from an occasionally slightly odd person, that's all. And if something's bothering me, I don't really want my bother-coloured observations out there for everyone to see.

Yes, I know that several people have made careers out of doing just that. I think I'd get tired of maintaining a constant level of being insulted/indignant/angry, though. And I'd hope that you'd get tired of me if I tried to do it.

So where does that leave us? Oh, not with any kind of revelation. I'd be surprised if that was the case with a trivial blog like this one anyway. I guess what I'm saying is bear with me. I'm human, and I go through things. Sometimes I'm weird, sometimes I'm wordy, sometimes I'm blank, sometimes I'm knowledgeable, and occasionally I might even be a little bit entertaining. And if I happen to be going through a period where I'm not in the slightest? Well, it'll probably come back again at some point. Everything does.



And in the mean time, there's always the archives on the sidebar over there. ---------->
There are a lot of words to be found in the archives. Possibly even some worth reading...






Or not. It's just a blog, after all.

I like it that way.

Oh dear

I've been actually working at work, and as a result I've forgotten what I was going to blather about.

Thought it would come back to me, but it hasn't.

Hmm.

That must make it time for a brand new feature on the blog that I just made up now:

POINTLESS RANDOM QUESTION OF THE DAY!!!!!

Um, yeah. I don't know either. Let's just do this thing, ok?

Question:

Why is the potty dance?

No, not why does the potty dance. It's not a riddle. Why is the potty dance, as in why does it exist? We've all done it as children (for all I know, some of us still do it as adults), but what's it actually supposed to do? Seems to me that if you really really really have to pee all that jiggling around is just going to make things worse...






Yeah. This new blog feature may or may not be long for this world.

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On another note, the new gum I bought yesterday and am trying for the first time today is currently disintegrating in my mouth. Wonderful. It's advertised as having a very long lasting flavour, but if the gum itself doesn't last how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks can a person say anything about the flavour?

Geez, people.