You know you've got nothing when...

... you're seriously thinking of writing a post about your travel mug.

Yes, really. My two fans may remember how much I hated my old mug? Well, I don't hate this one. Contigo. And since Wheat got it for me from Costco it didn't cost nearly as much as their website says they do.

I do find it funny that nowadays many of us walk around daily with what's basically a sippy cup for adults, though.

Aaanyway.

I really wish I did have something, because I know that blogging's a bit light lately. I must be on weekend brain even though I'm at work, unfortunately (the brain part, not the work), because the blogging thought process has been What can I talk about? My sippy cup? The fact that I like to wear rocks? My rings, yet again? But I like rings. I wish I could wear more jewellery at work, but considering my job and the fact that my uniform shirt is a t-shirt it would probably look weird. I just downloaded a game for the 3DS and it took FOREVER. Do you think that anyone would care? I wonder if I should stop for a fast-food (late) lunch on my way home instead of using the perfectly good food in my fridge...

Yeah, seriously. How messed up would any of those non-topics have been?

I did think of saying something about the fact that it's sort of odd that the Discovery Channel's run so many episodes of Mayday in the past couple of days when no one's even been able to find that Malaysian airplane yet, but I'm sure that was probably just coincidence.

Or was it?

Dun dun duuuh...





Ok, this is just getting weird now. Obviously I don't have the brain to actually have a topic today, so I think I'll stop typing before it gets even weirder. See you in a day or two, since I won't be near a computer tomorrow.



And because you're dying to know, I'm sure, I'm currently wearing my grandmother's topaz -- the yellow one, not the blue one -- my rolling ring, and a piece of Baltic Amber. I've had a hankering YES I SAID HANKERING for a bit of lapis lately, for whatever reason. Maybe because it's pretty. I foresee a trip to the rock store in my not-too-distant future.

Geez louise. Stop typing already, Dee.

Ok, then.

The pie yesterday was nice, by the way. I had saskatoon, and a bit of quiche as well. The quiche first. We should have more pie days, I think.



STOP TYPING.

Ok, then.

Pointless photo of the day. Days. Whatever.

You can already tell from the post title that I don't really have anything, right?

I have a headache, if that counts.

I also have a program this afternoon, but not before I eat some pie.

Yes, boys and girls, it's Pi Day today. That'd be 3/14, for those who aren't familiar with the whole thing. Although... now that I come to think of it, that doesn't even really apply to the Canadian way of dating. It should be day, month, year, not month, day, year. So here in Canada it's not Pi Day at all. It's 14/3/14.

I'm going to have pie anyway. We're using Pi Day as an excuse to have pie at our noon quarterly meeting.

And now you know.

And I still don't have anything.





Not even the pie, yet. But it's coming...

Revisiting

I've been thinking that I need to get out the modelling clay again.

I went to post my doodle for this week's Illustration Friday prompt on the other blog (not really much of a work of art this time, since I was just playing), and one of the suggested links at the bottom of the post led me to one of my old modelling clay men submissions. Back when I was making an effort to post every week -- which I should probably get back to -- I didn't always feel like drawing. On those days I'd make little men out of modelling clay and put them in various situations that fitted the prompt. Hang on... here's some of them. Weird, but fun. I'm not sure why I stopped doing it. I even have fresh modelling clay, if I'm not mistaken.

I tend to be like that with hobbies. I'm a serial hobbyist. I'll go great guns at something for a while, then I'll drop it almost completely and move on to something else. Needlework moves to knitting moves to poetry moves to sketching, and so on and so on. That's not to say that I never come back to anything. Doodling's been with me for years, for example. It's just that sometimes I get more serious about it for a while, and then I back off a bit. Same thing goes for photography, although for a different reason (a different reason than the NO reason for the other stuff. Good one, Dee). I loved to take pictures as a kid, but as I've said before things slowed down a lot when I was expected to pay for my own film and processing. I still took photos; I just didn't really experiment with them at all. The advent of affordable digital, of course, changed all that. I take a stupid amount of photos now. Occasionally of very stupid things, even. It's great.

It's also great to come back to a hobby after you haven't done much with it for a while. It's fresh again, but at the same time you remember why you enjoyed it in the first place. I can always tell when a hobby's ready to be rebooted because it'll start nagging at the back of my mind. Anything can set it off. Putting on an old toque, for instance, and realising how many years ago I knitted it. That'll get me thinking about the other neat toque patterns that I have that haven't been tried yet, and that in turn gets me checking my yarn stocks "just out of curiosity", and once that happens you just know I'll be knitting another toque soon because I won't stop thinking about it.

In other words, yeah, I've been thinking about knitting a new toque or two for next winter.

Notice that I say next winter?

After the past couple of weeks of lows in the -20s and windchills in the -30s, yesterday was finally above 0C. It's supposed to be above 0C all week, actually. I'm living in quiet hope that spring might find us sometime before August.

In the meantime, though, I took the picture to the left yesterday. The melt has a long, long way to go.

This has been such a strange, strange year.

Anyway, I've distracted myself.

I suppose it's as good a time as any to wrap this up, then. In the world of rotating hobbies most things come back, is all I was really saying. Knitting will come back (probably soon), poetry will come back (because I don't seem to be able to stop it. My poetry ain't great, folks), playing the piano will come back (eventually), photography and doodling will never go away, and prepare for the return of the Little Modelling Clay Men because they're pretty much in my brain all the time anyway.

It's an odd brain.

See you in a day or two, all.

Women

I needed a flower today. Outside it still looks like January. It's warmer today, though (finally), so maybe I'll go out and take some pictures of melting things this afternoon.

----------

So, it's International Women's Day, and I... completely don't care. I think that it's a little bit silly, to be honest.

Yeah, I know that things are far from perfect for women (and for men, for that matter, but I suppose that we're talking women here). I know that there is a lot yet to be done about workplace equality, women's rights in general, and, in many places, even women's safety and rights as human beings.

Does a Day really help that, or does it just give those who are tired of hearing the (unfortunately often strident) voices calling for changes another reason to stop up their ears even more? I dunno. All I know is that I'm already tired of my twitter feed being filled with links to "5 Inspirational Female _______" and things like that. In an odd way it reminds me too much of being Canadian.

Should I explain that?

Canada. Perfectly nice place. Massive inferiority complex. Big, noisy neighbour to the south. We're constantly playing the game of See? Such-and-such famous person is ACTUALLY a CANADIAN!!! to make ourselves feel a bit better about not being the big, noisy neighbour to the south.

That's a bit like what International Women's Days and other commemorations are for me. See? Women can do ALLLLL of these things!!!

Of course we can. So do it. It's just like all these initiatives to get more women in the sciences. You want to be in the sciences, women? Then do it. You want to do something else? Then do that.

Ok, full disclosure. The women in science initiatives drive me a little nuts because in my field (biology, that'd be. Zoology, to be more specific) there were almost always more women than men in my university courses. All that hearing we need more women in science did for me was to inform me that the people pushing it didn't consider my science to be REAL science. After all, you're not a scientist if you're wearing hip waders instead of a lab coat, right?

I wore both, actually, when I was in school.

Well, not at the same time, of course.

Anyway, since I suppose I should make a slightly more tangible contribution to the day than just saying that it's not really necessary, let me end by saying that commercials aimed at women are the STUPIDEST THINGS EVER.

Well, maybe not ever. But they rank right up there. Cascade Kitchen Counsellor helping women with dishwashing angst (because only women do dishes, I guess)? Ode to an Armpit? Have a Happy Period (gaaaaaaaaaaah)? Women, if you want to be treated as equals maybe start with insisting on advertising that assumes women have brains.

It's not exactly up there with Votes for Women, but it would make this particular woman a lot less annoyed on a daily basis.

Ow. My brain.

I spent the morning talking about owls. Which was good, don't get me wrong. It's just that doing three hours of programming like that is just really starting to make me feel old. I'm wiped afterwards.

Of course, it doesn't help that I had a very interrupted sleep last night. I had to be at the school reasonably early, and as usual my brain decided to be its own alarm clock every hour or two. I hate that.

Anyway, that and a lack of lunch (because I wasn't in the mood to pack one this morning. Yes, entirely my fault) has meant that I'm definitely lacking in brain at the moment. You're lucky you're getting any words at all.

Even if they're not really saying anything.

Anyway (again), I'll try for an actual post tomorrow. For now, though, and to make up for the Ukraine scarediness from yesterday's post AND to show you just how tired my brain really is, this bit of internet silliness is really making me laugh right now.

Later.

Politics, both snitty and frightening versions

I couldn't remember what today's pointless photo was from the thumbnail preview.

I still don't remember taking it.

Ah well. It's here now.

----------

So, a couple of quick political comments before I get back to work. First, if anyone from outside Alberta (hell, if anyone INside Alberta) wants to know what the really frightening part about Premier Alison Redford is, it's that Premier Alison Redford is going to lead to Premier Danielle Smith.

Whomever help us all.

In other political news, anyone who thinks that Justin Prettyboy is going to somehow save Canada (by... um... being pretty? Seriously. What of substance has he actually done?) is as delusional as all those who voted for Obama's first term thinking that he was going to save everything. Is he the saviour after all? Yeah, Justin won't be either.

I'm not a conservative (or even a Conservative), by the way. I just think that people actually need to think more when choosing leaders rather than merely reacting. That kind of thing is what makes you end up with a Danielle Smith.

----------

And lastly, the Ukraine. This whole thing more or less scares the crap out of me. Anyone much younger than me won't remember, but when I was growing up Soviet aggression + nuclear missiles (and US aggression + nuclear missiles) pretty much meant we spent most of our time -- even if it was a background thought, the thought was still there -- wondering who was going to kill us first. It sounds cliche and old fashioned to those of you born after about 1985 (sigh. You're damned near thirty now. How on earth did that happen?), but it was very real. Any international incident could set off another and another in a great big chain of OMG. And OMG would have been very, very bad.

And the Ukraine events just sound way too familiar.

Figure yourself out, world. We don't need to go back there again.

Quick pointless photo of the day:

The stupidly cold weather had me housebound for a couple of days, and even though I was working from home I have plenty to catch up on now that I'm physically AT work.

Yep, yet another non-post. I'll put a couple of the work pics up on the other blog if you need something to look at, though.

If I do find time to post eventually, I may want to talk politics for a moment.

Yeah, I said that.



And now the blog will turn into a pumpkin. Ah well.