Pointless photo of the day, really quick version

Yep, that's all you're getting. I've got a program in less than half an hour, but I figured I should probably take a minute to at least post a bad photo since I likely won't be around for the next three days or so.

Three days without a computer. Can I survive?



Yes, actually, and quite happily. You should try it sometime. See you when I see you, internet.

Bleagh

It's still cold. I'm still not happy about it. I did manage to get myself to work today instead of begging for a ride, though, because the windchill was only (wait for it...) -35C when I left.

Well... at least that's five degrees warmer than yesterday, right?

They're saying that tomorrow's (un-windchill-corrected) temperature is supposed to be -3C. Yep. That's the way winter works here in Alberta. In a nutshell, continually effed up.

My African Violet is showing up here in protest of winter, in case you wondered. At least my apartment has some colour in it that isn't white, even if white and grey is all that can be seen out of the office window right now.

The sad thing is, complaining about the weather is about the only topic I have in my head right now. I'm posting a bit early because I have a lunch meeting to go to, and I guess that disrupting my usual brain-to-blog schedule made me forget that technically a person should have a subject in mind before she starts blathering. Ah well, at least you got some purple flowers out of this mess.

I'm done typing now, ok?

Ok by me.

Cancellations and weirdness

It was -26C with a windchill of -40C when I tried to go to work this morning.

Note that I said tried. Also note that I'm allergic to the cold (no, I'm not linking to it yet again. If you don't know already you either haven't been reading this blog or simply don't care. Either way, no link for you).

I went to the car, looked at the car, realised that I couldn't be outside long enough to clear the (admittedly, tiny bit of) snow from the car, and went back inside.

Then I called Wheat, who came and picked me up. The people I work with are pretty great, and extremely understanding about my weirdities. I don't say that often enough.

Well, actually, I don't say weirdities at all. I save that for the blog.

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Windchill that bad often means school bus cancellations, especially in rural areas where it's not safe for the kids to be outside waiting without shelter. The class I was supposed to be doing planetarium for today was from a rural school, so bus cancellation led to program cancellation. No skin off my nose, really, although I happen to like that school. What I don't like is being sore all night after a planetarium program, which is what happened yesterday since it's been a while since I've done one. I hate to say it, but I've definitely made at least a slight move into the old-and-creaky phase of life. It's all downhill from here, right?

Fan-effing-tastic. Gives me lots to look forward to.

One of the, I suppose, odder things about me getting ready for a planetarium show these days is the way I have to strap up. No, that's not as kinky as it sounds. I just mean that I have enough joints that need to be protected at this point that it sort of looks like I'm the world's most out-of-shape pro athlete. A pro athlete that's landed a lucrative contract with Tensor, though. Wrist brace? Check. May as well not resprain so quickly. Ankle brace? A given ever since I blew the ankle out in Grade 9. Knee brace? Well, ok, I don't have one of those, or at least not one I wear on a regular basis. There doesn't seem to be a point to it when the knee already sounds like a gravel pit.

I'm so off-warranty that it's not even funny.

Ah well. Creak creak moan moan, and now you know the main reason why next month's planetarium-o-rama will probably lead to either blog absenteeism or blog major whingeism. Maybe both, if you're lucky.

Back to work, now. Since tomorrow's planetarium has also been cancelled, maybe we'll whinge about the newsletter instead of the joints. It'll be a change, if nothing else.

Pointless photo of the day:

Well, I did warn you about my busyness in the next few weeks. Maybe I'll have a bit more time tomorrow, but don't count on it.

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A couple of random thoughts to tide you over in this time of blatherlessness:

- I just found out that a Jane Austen themed forum that I used to frequent back in the dark ages still exists. Who knew that they could find that many YEARS worth of Janeisms to geek out over? I already found it repetitive long before I left.

- For whatever reason, I've been in the mood to bake quick breads lately. I haven't killed anybody at work yet, even though I keep warning them about the strychnine. Oh, sorry. Obscure reference. Anyone interested in  (strychnine-free) recipes? I don't mind posting.

That'll be it for now. I need to get out of here before my overtime becomes something ridiculous.

Things lead to more things. Always.

That sounded really philosophical there for a minute, didn't it? Ah well, don't worry. I'm not intending to be all deep.

Rather the opposite, actually.

I spent a while yesterday browsing around the virtual shops for photography stuff. After all, a new camera may say that it's ready to go right out of the box, but that's just for the basics. I don't want to stay on the basics forever. You don't want me to, either. The faster we get away from frozen pumpkin pictures, the better.

So what else do I need for the camera? A few things, that thankfully can come in dribs and drabs. I've already bought a case (apparently carrying the thing around in a toque is fairly frowned upon. Or at least giggled at, as I quickly found out) and a card reader. I'm avoiding, for the moment at least, the expensive cable that I'm still more than po'd wasn't included with the camera. I mean, that's fine if the camera takes a standard cable that you can find anywhere, but that certainly doesn't seem to be the case here. HDMI cable? Well, that can wait, too. I haven't even really done anything about taking video yet.

Cleaning things I could mostly scam from the gadget bag that has my old Minolta film camera in it. I was out of lens paper, but Dad had some so I'm good there. I already have a full-sized tripod, and a fantastic tripod of Dad's that folds out to full size but folds up to a mini. I know you can still find stuff like that out there, but there's no way you'll find one as well built as this vintage tripod.

What does that leave, then?

Too much.

I need some filters, for one thing, and of course this camera's a 52 mm so my 48 mm (I think...) Minolta stuff is no-go. I could buy an adapter, I suppose, but a person may as well go for the ones that fit. It's not like my old filters were terribly expensive anyway, and why would I want to fit a smaller filter onto the lens in the first place? So what filters, then? I'd definitely like a polarizer, because I'd miss having one. I always used to keep a skylight on the Minolta for protection, but I see that there's two schools of thought as to whether they're necessary -- or even wanted -- these days, what with auto white-balance and all. Anything else? Maybe a fluorescent, since incandescent bulbs are disappearing rapidly. How about 4-point stars, or rainbows, or softeners? Not sure I want to go back to taking photos like a teenage girl, to be honest. It seems weird to finally have a proper SLR again and then consider using it for glorified instagram pictures.

That leads me to books. I've been looking at books. Cameras today have so many functions, it'd be a shame not to know how to use them. So, a book that specifically refers to my camera would be nice, and then an overall DSLR reference. Or references. I've found a few that look promising, but they can sit on my wish list for now.

That takes me to the toys, naturally. Flashes. Remote releases. That macro lens that I already have in mind but need to wait until after car insurance and income tax to pay for. Maybe a gadget bag specifically for this camera so that the Minolta doesn't have to find new digs...





Sigh. You get what I'm meaning now by things leading to other things. Do I need all of these things for my new camera thing? Of course not. Some of them, like the cleaning kit, are necessary. Most of them are just things that I'd like to have, and they can wait. It's still a dangerous thing to be looking at things, though.

Probably safer to be looking at lunch. Just a note on posting before I go, then. I have a pretty busy month coming up (read that as: you're going to be reading the word planetarium a bit), so don't be surprised if my blatherage becomes a little more irregular for a while. But then, most of my two fans are used to the ups and downs of this blog by now.

The others will just have to find something else to read.

Is that the time?

The morning seems to have gotten away on me somehow today. I got started later, I got caught up in some internet stuff without realising it, and I miss the cat (erm... that has nothing to do with the morning, really. I just miss the cat.). Now my stomach is reminding me that it's lunchtime, and I never did bother to come up with a blog-worthy blather subject.

That's right -- not even blog-worthy enough for a pointless blog.

What to do, then? Well, how about another edition of Weird Things in my Apartment?

Today's weird thing isn't so weird in itself. It's just a little weird that it got kept. It's a fairly small pin (remember, all of these weird things are being treated to a background of the fabric from my Ikea footstool. Think of that as not exactly as shown, by the way. Apparently they don't list the cushion I have on the website, and my footstool isn't birch. Anyway, it should give at least a little sense of scale), and as you can see the black paint has been rubbed off in a few places.

It's allowed to look a little worn, though. The thing's pretty near 120 years old now, by my reckoning.

I got it from my grandmother, and it belonged to her mother before her. I'm pretty sure that it's just costume jewellery, given the family attraction to that sort of thing that I've mentioned before. Given the time period there's a slight possibility that it's mourning jewellery, but it's more likely that it was just a black pin that looked good on a high white collar.

It also looked surprisingly good on a schlumpy eighties pastel blazer, which was how I used to wear it occasionally. Back in the eighties, of course. I don't tend to wear that sort of thing now.

Here's my great-grandmother, by the way. She died when I was a toddler, but I do have vague memories of her. Actually, I have vague memories of being dressed in yellow (not a big yellow fan to this day, me), sitting with an old lady, and trying to figure out what the weird inflatable purple rabbit was for.

Um, apparently it was Easter.

Anyway, the pin. I don't keep this particular pin with my other brooches, mostly because of its age and the whole family history thing. I really should take some shots of my other pins, though. They're mostly things that have been passed on to me from other family members since I've never been a big brooch buyer, and some of them are, frankly, hilarious. Hilarious gaudy costume jewellery would keep me from having to take winter photos for a while longer, don't you think?

Sounds enough like a plan that it'll probably end up happening.

As for now, however... lunch. Definitely lunch. I'll try to have a better topic tomorrow.



Or at least something more blathery.

Pointless photo of the day:

I'm having an actually-working-at-work day, so this'll have to be it for the moment.

Catch you on the weekend, probably.

Ahhh.

Found my knife.

Ok, seriously? This is a letter opener. I think I may have picked it up in Hawaii (because where else would you decide to buy a mock-sword letter opener with a cloisonne sheath?). I've had it for quite a while at this point.

Interesting (well, maybe not so interesting) fact about me: I really like cloisonne work. The good stuff can be so beautiful, and even the cheap stuff (like you see here) has its moments. I guess it kind of goes along with my whole thing about real jewellery; why go with goldtone when real silver looks better? can fit right in with why wear fake diamonds when real enamelling can be so pretty?

Um... don't look too closely at the goldtone on the enamelled sheath up there, all right?

Anyway, I need to get back to work. Sorry for the lack of blather, but to be honest I kind of forgot to blog. Later, all.





Oh, and I really did find my knife, in case anyone was worried that I was still walking around unarmed. I feel much better now.

Oh nooo...

I may have lost my knife.

You don't understand. This is tragic. I always have my knife with me. I use it for things. I've had it forever (or at least since I was... in university? High school? I think I was a teenager still when my parents gave it to me), and Victorinox doesn't make that model anymore.

That knife has been used in the field, around work, to... um... open wine bottles at a conference when no one thought to bring a corkscrew...

I'm very knife dependent.I know that it probably sounds weird for someone like me to carry around a knife, but it's a tool. It gets used daily. It goes in my pocket every morning. It's not in my pocket now.

What'll I do?



Well, I suppose I'll be looking very carefully around the parking lot, my car, and my apartment parking space to see if it got dropped sometime this morning. Then I'll check my key bin to see if maybe I just forgot to put it in my pocket (HIGHLY unlikely). And if all else fails?

I guess I buy another knife.



It just won't be the same, though.

All of this knife trauma (bet that's the first time you've heard that phrase without any actual injuries being involved) has kind of killed the original intent of this post, so I think I'll just end by explaining the pointless photos. On the top, a couple of the dead plants on my balcony. There are lots of dead plants on my balcony, since I purposely do minimal cleanup in the fall. And why? The photo on the left -- taken through a screen door and a window, in case you were wondering about the muted colours -- explains why. Wildlife loves dead plants in the winter. I constantly get chickadees and nuthatches checking for leftover seeds. They go to my feeder too, of course, but they always check out the plants first. Natural foods are always preferred, because birds aren't as silly as humans.

There was a pair of Downy Woodpeckers on the balcony when I took this photo, but the female wasn't terribly cooperative so you're only getting a look at the male. You can tell by the red patch on the back of his head, if you wondered.

Nature in the city. Always a good thing.



Too bad it can't bring back my knife.

Aaand it's no time to blog again

Yep.



No computer access this weekend, so see you on Monday.

Or whenever.

Oops

Had a program at a weird time, and forgot about the blog.

Don't really feel like it now.



Um... have an apple?

Pointless photo of the day:

My Christmas cactus has opened its first flower of the season (saving you yet again from the week of bad photography I promised a few days ago). That's early for this particular "Christmas" cactus, which decided years ago that it really wasn't all that fond of Christmas and instead preferred Easter. It doesn't matter that an Easter cactus is actually a different species of cactus altogether; this cactus likes Easter, so that's when it blooms. You can't exactly argue it into changing its lack of mind.



The cactus's name, for those new to the program, is Fred. No reason.



I don't really have anything else to add today, but I would like to note that yesterday was a beautiful spring day here. The high was over +8C. Yes, I really meant to type that plus rather than a minus. Plus 8C, everything melting, the chickadees whistling territorial cheeseburger calls... but one big problem.

It's the middle of January.

In Alberta.



Having pretend spring now is just going to make it feel all the more draggy when we're up to our knees in snow in March, you know.

Ah well. I'll enjoy the warm for the couple of days it's supposed to last, and then get back to complaining about winter. For now? Maybe I'll take the camera out and go for a bit of a walk.

Some days my work is very taxing, you know.

Pencils

Today's photo isn't new, and it isn't pointless.

It's memorial.



Sigh.

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Ok, back to pointless.

I had a bit of a weird moment the other day for an olf, and it concerned my -- well, I won't say vast collection, but there's plenty of them -- art pencils. I'm very fond of my art pencils, and I've been generally fussy about the way they've been kept. First of all, everything in its original case or container. Yes, even the blister-packed ones. I'd just peel open the top and keep the rest intact to hold the pencils. Second, everything had to be sharp. Note the past tense on that one because it's something I've got better about over the years. Even I had to eventually admit that oversharpening wastes an awful lot of material. Time was, though, that I couldn't even begin to make myself draw if every pencil in the set wasn't completely sharp.

Not obsessive at all, me.

So, yeah, I'd gotten over the need to spend hours sharpening things, but I was still carrying around a bunch of metal cases and blister packs any time I wanted to use a set of pencils. The other night, however, I had a very slight epiphany, which went as follows:

This is an awful lot of cases to carry around.
I bet it would be a lot less heavy if I weren't carrying these cases around.
Maybe I should stop carrying the cases around.

Sounds simple to most of you, I'm sure, but to me the thought of taking something pencilly out of its original packaging was akin to blasphemy. Shocking. Shocking enough, in fact, that I tried to make myself forget about the idea. Not carrying the cases? Ridiculous.




Or maybe not. The idea nagged at me to the point where I realised that maybe -- just maybe -- I should try taking my pencils out of their cases. Allow them a little freedom. Make them easier to cart around.

Last night I took the plunge.

I took the hot glue gun and some of my grandmother's sewing felt that I'd held onto for crafty things, and I made half a dozen simple pockets/rolls. AND I TOOK MY PENCILS OUT OF THEIR CASES.

And it didn't even feel weird, oddly enough.

Half a dozen cloth rolls allows me to still keep the sets separate, but should make it easier to store and haul them. And if it doesn't work... well, of course I've kept the cases. You can't just throw away the cases, after all.

A couple of observations from while I was deciding what should go where:

• I have a lot of money (and, erm, other people's money) invested in pencils.
• Apparently I like Derwent rather a lot. I think at this point they may owe me loyalty points.
• Water-soluble makes everything better. Graphite? Fine. Water-soluble graphite? Two pencils in one!...

Oh, and if anyone's curious as to the rundown, or if anyone out there is also an olf, here's the list of my rolls (or the roll of my lists? Whatever):

1. 12 Derwent watercolour pencils
2. 12 Derwent Graphitint & 3 Prismacolor water-soluble graphite pencils
3. 6 Derwent tinted charcoal & 4 Wolff's carbon pencils
4. 12 Derwent Inktense pencils
5. 12 Derwent water-soluble metallic pencils
6. 6 Conte crayons

There's also a set of 24 Derwent Aquatone pencils and a set of 24 Prismacolor Verithins, but I figured that sets that big may as well stay in their own cases.

You can't get rid of all of the cases.



I need to get back to work now, but I'll sheepishly admit that after I put the pencils in their new homes I did spend quite a while sharpening them. It's ok, though. It wasn't obsessive. It's just that some of the pencils were genuinely dull, and I figured I may as well take care of that en masse.

See? I'm an almost reformed pencil olf. That's coming a long way.



No, really.

Pointless photo of the day:

That's all I have time for today, I'm afraid. Long staff meeting this morning.

I'll try for blather tomorrow.

Oh... deer.

This? Is a bad photo. It was taken through a window, the deer was on the move, and it didn't give me a chance at an actual shot.

Ah well.

Just as a warning, you'll be seeing a number of bad photos in the next little while and it's entirely not the new camera's fault. I went out quickly for a few minutes yesterday just to say I took some pictures (ANY pictures). And when I say quickly, I mean quickly as in left the camera on autofocus and really didn't bother to check what the camera was actually focusing on. Don't judge the quality of the camera (which in reality is pretty good) from the half-assed photography you're about to see, is all I'm saying.

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I'm going to beg off on doing a real blather today because I'm a bit headachey right now. I'd explain why, but you'll no doubt be hearing about it in the next day or two. It's mostly just an interrupted sleep is all, but the reason isn't terribly happy.

Or... um... life-threatening, I should say. Don't want to panic any of my two fans.

Anyway. Stay tuned for the week of Really Crappy Photography, Featuring Winter. I'm sure we'll all enjoy it immensely.

Stocking caps. Yes, really.

What? The blog says pointless right in the title, and there can't be too many things more pointless than a discussion of stocking caps.

Today's pointless photo was taken on a whim this morning, and wasn't posed at all. That's my stocking cap on top of my coat in a corner of my old bedroom here at my father's place (which also used to be my studio when I was still teaching singing, in case you wondered why I have a piano in my bedroom). And, erm, yes... I do have a habit of just throwing my coat onto the floor of the room when I'm here. Not sure why, since I do have a place to hang it. Just laziness, I guess.

Anyway, there's my stocking cap. One of my stocking caps. I have a Christmas one, too, in the same pattern but with sparkly Christmas yarn. I guess we're past the season for that one, though. The fact that the stocking cap was thrown on top of my coat should probably tell you that I arrived here wearing said stocking cap. In public. Probably looking like a complete doofus.

I don't care. I like my stocking cap.

I posted about the Christmas one a couple of years ago here, and since then the blog gets regular hits from stocking cap searches. I suppose that means that I'm not the only one who likes stocking caps. Unfortunately (at least for the googlers that arrived at that other post), most of the searches were looking for a stocking cap pattern, not just a stocking cap mention.. I thought a little bit about copying out the pattern and posting it here to make up for the lack of pattern in the previous post, but even in this internet age of massive plagiarism I just don't feel right about reposting a copyrighted pattern. For the experienced knitters out there, then, I'll just say that this particular pattern features about 3 cm of rib knit (say about an inch and a quarter). Knit in some elastic if you don't want the weight of the finished product to pull it right off of your head. When you start the body of the toque (toque = Canadian for knit winter hat, for any of my two fans who don't recognise the term), increase for a few rows before you start decreasing. It makes the cap fit a head better than if you decrease right away. Length to aim for? Well, this one comes out to about a metre (around a yard) all told. Finally, you'll be able to knit most of the thing on circular needles, but you need double-ended needles to finish.

I suck at knitting with double-ended needles, which is why the ends of my caps are a bit wonky. I doubt you'd have noticed if I hadn't mentioned it, but now that I have everyone can see, right?

And why bother knitting a stocking cap at all, other than the pleasure of looking like a complete doofus? Well, it's a handy way to use up leftover skeins of yarn if you do it all stripey like I did. Also, it saves the bulk of a scarf on a cold day. The reason for the length (and the reason that I wouldn't bother going less than a metre) is that you can wrap it around your neck in place of a scarf. Yesterday it was -25C when I left for work (seems to me that I might have said a little something about that), and this thing kept my head and face warm even while scraping the windshield.

It didn't do much for my poor fingers, but then even a stocking cap can't do everything.

I've complained that I've had a little trouble so far thinking of subjects to take photos of with the new camera; maybe I should be gathering my doofy hat collection together and doing portraits with them? Not of me, of course, but of the hats. Maybe occasionally the top of my head, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. I do have enough doofy hats to keep that kind of a series going for a bit, come to think of it. That's what tends to happen when a person with a short attention span decides to knit. The thought of an afghan or a sweater is kind of terrifying, so you end up with dishcloths, scarves, or doofy hats.





Good thing I like doofy hats.

Pointless photo of the day:

Today's photo is a protest.

I suppose by rights I should have posted a photo of the trees this morning. They were all covered in hoarfrost from the fog we'd had, and I had (and have) the new camera right beside me so it wouldn't have been hard to take a few shots.

BUT IT WAS -25C.

Gah. I shouldn't have even been outside at -25C, let alone scraping the car windows. Or, for that matter, taking pictures of pretty, frosty trees.

Stupid winter.

So... here. Have an iris, with a special guest appearance by my foot and pant leg. Nothing but quality pointless photos here, folks. Nothing but the best.

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Sorry that this little rant is going to be all there is to this post, but I had to give a building tour this morning so I'm a little behind on the things I need to get done if I want to leave here before school gets out and the traffic builds. Enjoy the irises.

And the pant leg, if that's your thing.

Pointless path photo of the day:

Today's photo? Well, I have mentioned a time or two that I work at a nature centre at the entrance to a wildlife sanctuary. We have a few deer.

And I need to get out and take some newer photos, what with the new camera and all. This was from a couple of weekends ago now. I'd say maybe I'd take a walk tomorrow (one of the weirder things about working at a nature centre is that going for a walk is sometimes part of the job), but it's supposed to get colder again so no promises there.

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Aaand about half an hour later...

Well, that's the hazard of blogging at work. Sometimes you're interrupted by, you know, work. I'd say it's interrupted my train of thought as well, but I don't remember if I even had a train of thought when I started typing. Typing, by the way, is kind of a weird feeling at the moment since I'm sort of on ring overload. I don't normally wear more than two rings at a time (and usually only on my right hand, since things that end up on my left hand tend to get banged up an awful lot), but today I decided to wear two different rings than I generally do. And, of course, then went on to automatically put on the little silver pinkie ring that gets worn almost every day. Just one ring too many, and it's funny how much I notice it.

Ah well, likely no rings at all tomorrow. I'm sure I've mentioned before how the cold allergy thing makes my fingers swell, and if it's meant to be colder tomorrow it's just smarter to avoid any problems right from the start.

And with that, I should get back to the interruption of work. My work days can be entirely filled with interruptions, really. Blame this total lack of post on that, if you like. I'm sure planning to.

Why, hello, Mr Oreo

Mr Oreo usually lives on my fridge, but he fell off of it at about ten last night and by that means earned himself a guest role on Weird Things in my Apartment.

Seriously. If it would just stop being winter (in January in Alberta. Yeah, that'll happen)  and there were flowers or at least spiders to take photos of, my two fans wouldn't be blessed with Mr Oreo. Be that as it may...

Mr Oreo's been with me long enough now that I really can't remember where he came from. I'm going to assume that it was from a package of Oreos, though. I know I had him in Edmonton, so he's getting up there in years. Especially for a plastic bendy man. He doesn't have the most effective suction cup anymore, which is why he periodically takes a tumble. It usually takes a couple of tries to get him stuck back on. One of these days I just won't even bother -- the garbage can's awfully close to the fridge, after all -- but for now I guess he'll just keep looking happy to be stationed beside the magnet a friend sent me a long time ago. Nine lives and I had to choose this one, it says. It naturally features a picture of a donkey.



Juuust checking to make sure you were paying attention there. It's the same thing I do when I'm teaching kindergarten kids about senses, you know. They think it's hilarious when I say that I use my ears to smell with.

Incidentally, is anyone else enjoying the Ikea upholstery background in these photos? I don't exactly have a lot of neutral places to take pictures in my apartment, so ottoman it is. I think it's kind of suitable for this blog, actually.

Geez. A quick search tells me that Mr Oreo is a collectible. Not an expensive collectible, but a collectible all the same.



People collect weird things, is all I can say. Back to work for me, now. Tomorrow maybe I'll take a walk and see if there's anything worthwhile pointing the camera at out there. There won't be, though. It's winter.





Something tells me that the Weird Things series may become a very long one.

Merry Christmas

No, I'm not kidding. Merry Christmas to all of my two fans who are Ukrainian, Greek, or belong to any other church that follows the Julian calendar.

I've never celebrated Ukrainian Christmas, but I make note of it every year because my paternal grandfather was Ukrainian-Canadian. Yep, one quarter Ukrainian, me. It breaks up the English, English, Welsh, English, Irish, and English in my background, at least.

One of my (surprise! English!) ancestors is apparently listed in the Domesday Book, at least according to family tradition. He was a swineherd for Cedric the Saxon. Let's just say I'm not going to find out that I'm the long-lost heir to the British throne with the people in my family tree. And since I'm at work and don't really have time to get into all the genealogy stuff just at the moment, let's just say that there are bits of my history that amuse me for reasons that are probably a little immature. But seriously -- doesn't anyone else out there find it odd that a family named Drinkall (NOT my last name, if you're out to look for me. One of my ancestors, though) was Primitive Methodist?

I'll leave you to look up the Primitive Methodists on your own, if you're interested. Let's just say that there was a reason they were known as the Ranters.

Aaanyway. It's been that kind of a day that hasn't left me much time for blathering, so I'm going to have to leave it at that. Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating.



Take down your Christmas lights to those who aren't...

Blast from the (pointless?) past

Oh, you're in luck today. Out of an odd mood this morning and a general apathy towards taking pictures of winter even with a new camera, Yours Pointlessly now presents the first installment of:

Weird Things in my Apartment

Read that in the voice that announces Pigs In Spaaace... well, if you like. I did. I'm not sure why.

Yes, boys and girls, it's weird things in my apartment, of which there are a few, and where better to start than with a scorpion brooch? Not so weird, you think? What if I said it was a real, live (well, dead at this point) scorpion dipped in gold? Or gold paint, more likely, because I didn't pay very much for it.

Are we qualifying for weird yet?

This particular scorpion, which is... oh, about four or five centimetres long, to give an idea of scale, actually has a bit of a history. I've had it for a fairly long time, and I got it at a trade show at Klondike Days, which used to be Edmonton's annual summer fair. I say used to be, because a few years ago they changed the name to Capital Ex for no apparent reason. I suppose it made sense to them, but nobody else really liked it so recently they put the name up to a vote. Edmontonians decided on K Days, I understand, which used to be the nickname of Klondike Days but now will be the official title. I wonder what they'll vote for next? They've had X and K. Maybe it's time for Q to have a turn.

Anyway, one of the non-midway selling points of Alphabet Days used to be -- and may be still, but I haven't been in a long time so I wouldn't know -- an international trade fair. Every year they'd invite vendors from a selected country to display and sell their wares. Some countries went for prestige items to show off what the nation was capable of. Stupid move at a fair, where people usually just want cheap souvenirs. The more successful countries were the ones that went for interesting inexpensive stuff that a person wasn't likely to find in Edmonton otherwise.

The scorpion's fair featured one of those countries. Thailand. Lots of neat little trinkets, and I looked at a lot of them until I got to the Infamous Booth of Gold-Dipping. It had gold-dipped just about everything. Flowers, leaves, scorpions...

Scorpions. Ohhh yeah.

I was drawn to them instantly. The lady at the booth, who by then had been working for a few days, looked at me oggling them and said "You must be a scorpio". Why yes, yes I am. How did you know? Unsurprisingly, I guess, it turned out that the only people in Edmonton (at the trade show, anyway) who weren't instantly disgusted by the thought of a small, gold-dipped invertebrate were the ones born between October 23rd and November 21st.

I bought one, of course. And it didn't just sit.

It was a pain to wear it as a pin, so I used the loop you can see under the head and wore it on a chain instead. I didn't get too many stares, oddly enough, because at that time I was working on my degree and in a zoology department  no one really bats an eye at people wearing or collecting various animal parts.

Not as ghoulish as it sounds, honestly. You just need to see it in context.

The scorpion also went to all of my exams with me and sat on my desk. I don't believe in good luck charms so it wouldn't have been a disaster if I'd forgot it or anything. It was just habit. Good company, too. It never knew any answers, though, being dead and all. And gold-dipped. And a scorpion.

Sharp-eyed viewers may notice that the left arm (not the correct technical term, but shut up. I'm a mammalogist, not a scorpionologist) is glued on. The joint got flexible fairly early on, and the whole thing eventually fell off. Yay, superglue. Sharp-eyed viewers may also notice a cameo appearance by one of my hairs, which I didn't notice at the time I took the photo. If this silly series continues, you'll notice loads of guest hair appearances, unfortunately. My hair has a knack for guest photo appearances, kind of like the butt-end of the chihuahua we had growing up.

For those of my two fans who know my brother, see if he remembers all the half-a dog pictures we have...

I so need to get back to work at this point. No computer time for me tomorrow, but I'll see if I can't make a habit of posting a little more regularly next week. Of course, the last time I promised that I disappeared for even longer than usual, so grain of salt and all that. Posting silliness... now.

Well, that's odd

No, not the pointless photo. Well, the photo is odd, I suppose. And somewhat out of focus. I let the camera choose what it was focusing on, you see. Might not have been my choice, but by that point on my walk I was getting cold and didn't feel like taking my mitts off to focus the camera myself.

At least there's some interesting shapes to look at. And, of course, the knowledge that the pointless photography on this blog will continue being pointless, no matter how nice the equipment used is.

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Ok, now on to the real oddity. My two fans will know that I have a long-running problem with insomnia, and like I said yesterday the past couple of days hadn't been great. Or... great for insomnia, maybe, but not great for sleep or general functioning. When I left work yesterday I left with a plan of attack to solve the problem. I even detailed it to Wheat. Go home, do my best to eat a proper meal (I don't know about any of you out there, but when I don't sleep properly my stomach decides that it's not all that into food. It's kind of inconvenient, really), do absolutely nothing that might get my brain engaged (that's right -- no books, no art, and the stupidest television programming possible. Sadly, that last part isn't too hard), have a warm bath with the aromatherapy products (helpfully -- or hopefully? -- labelled SLEEP) that I was given for Christmas, and go to bed. The same kind of thing I've tried in the past when this has happened, you understand. Now here's the weird part.

It worked.

I damned near fell asleep in the bathtub, but that's not surprising. Warm bath, nice bubbles, tired person. It'd be surprising if I wasn't drowsy at that point. What was surprising is that I went to be at about 11 pm and the next thing I knew it was 5:30 am. That part? Almost never happens. Too often, by the time I get to bed my brain's all fired up for round two (or round whatever, depending on how the day went) and I'll either be up until stupid o'clock or wake up at stupid o'clock. 11 - 5:30 might not sound great to some of you out there, but to me it was fantastic to the point of being disorienting.

I'm going to try it again tonight.

Maybe I'll allow myself a BIT of reading, though.

But just a little bit.

What do you suppose would happen if I got used to this sleep thing? Interesting thought, anyway.





Don't worry, though. I'm pretty sure that the blog would still be pointless. Sleep can't change everything.

So, maybe this not disappearing thing isn't quite working out yet.

Yeah, sorry about that.

On the plus side, though, you are getting the joy of a completely pointless photo from the new camera. May as well start as I mean to go on, after all.

I have to be honest -- I've had very little sleep in the past couple of days (as in, VERY little. As in kind of feel a little bit queasy very little), so this probably won't be much of a post even now. Ah well, what can you do besides ramble on in this kind of case, right?

Well, I suppose you could stop typing, Dee.

Oh, but I can't do that until I say thanks for the Christmas gifts, especially since my enablers yearly suppliers of gift card to get art supplies with have no idea what they bought me yet. They bought me a lot this year, actually, since I got in on a 30% off sale. It was pencil year, I guess, since there were no pens in the haul. Ok, maybe a few pens. Less than ten, anyway, and some of those were clearance items so I saved a bit on them even without the discount. Other than that? Tinted charcoal, water-soluble tinted graphite, water-soluble metallics, and some verithin pencil crayons so maybe I can not use the Laurentiens quite so much in the future. I always try to pick up at least one thing that I wouldn't get otherwise so that I can experiment, and this year's experiments might be... interesting. As in, my first attempt didn't scan worth crap.

Maybe I should take a photo of it with my new camera?

Yeah, that might work.

I'm going to stop typing now, ok?



Ok then.