-ly

Quick one, because I need to get back to work:

Has anyone else noticed that the suffix -ly is disappearing from our speech? How often have you felt bad(ly) about something? Have you taken someone's comments literal(ly)?

Languages evolve and it may turn out that -ly isn't all that necessary in our multicultural world these days, but I'm old-fashioned enough to find myself putting the suffix back on mentally (or even out loud, if I'm alone) when I'm noticing the missing bits on news broadcasts and things like that. Or, yes, in casual conversation with someone. I'm not saying that I never omit -ly myself, of course, but it does seem interesting to find language change in progress like that.

To me, at least. But then I'm a proud nerd, so there you go.

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In other news, my dad's cats are huge. They had to go to the vet recently, and Tom weighed in at 6.4 kg. That's about 14 lbs. Bob? I knew he was tubby, but I wasn't expecting to hear 6.8 kg (15 lbs). That's heavier than the Christmas turkeys Dad buys.

Less tasty, though.



I'm assuming.

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Last(ly): Courtesy of Donald Trump's embarrassing attempt at being religious during his speech at Liberty College University, some really needs to write me a 2 Corinthians joke. You know, two Corinthians walk into a bar...

The Naming of Cats

 Before I start, if for some reason you haven't read the poem that goes with the title, read it now. And remember that Andrew Lloyd freaking Webber had nothing to do with it.

Come to think of it, you should probably read all of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. It doesn't take long, and it's nice to remember that the same person who wrote The Waste Land had his fun side.

Um, anyway.

Today's featured cats are, as usual, the Turkey Brothers. For those new to the program, that's Tom on the left (and the ugly candy cane is his fetch toy. He's asking me if I'm going to throw it. And yes, I did.) and Bob on the right. And yes (again), if you think that you're seeing an absolutely humongous lava lamp behind him, you're right. The thing takes about two hours to get warm enough to blob.

The Turkey Brothers are, indeed, brothers, and they have perfectly sensible names. Tom Cat and Bob Cat. There shouldn't be any sort of weirdness there, right?

Well, there is. The weirdness is me.

For most of my life I've seemed to be unable to call an animal by the name the owner's given it. Our last dog was pretty much always Dogbreath to me rather than Rikki. Todd's (that would be the office mate formerly known as Wheat on the blog. Long story) dog Arthur is Doofus. You'd know why if you met him. Our last cats, Max and Penny, were Smack and Lump. Actually, Max probably thought that Max (or Smack) was his second name. His first name? Jesus. As in, Jesus, Max...

And the Turkey Brothers? Once I noticed that they were responding to their names I honestly tried to do my best to use them. Tried. I do on occasion, but the urge to rename -- or alter names -- is, I guess, too strong. The result? Well, Tom often gets Thomas, which isn't so bad. Bob, however, I started calling Bobimus from early on. It was suggested by Terry Jones's Nicobobinus, which I'll leave you to look up yourselves this time. I don't know why I went for M instead of N, though. Bobimus naturally led to Tomamus, sadly. He doesn't get that too often. I'm sure he's happy about that.

Lately Bobimus is evolving (devolving?) into Bobule. As in Globule. He's a big, round cat who's pretty good at being a speed bump rather than getting out of a person's way, so the name seemed kind of obvious.

Where to next with them? Who knows. They're only a year and a half old or so, so I'm sure that over the course of long lives they'll develop more names from Yours Blatheringly. Since they're called the Turkey Brothers for a reason they already have a multitude of other names from both Dad and me depending on their behaviour. None of those really stick, though, since they're not exactly polite.

I'll end with the proof that we actually do have a Christmas tree, with minimal decorations in case the cats went full-on turkey. You can't really see the lights because of the flash, but they're there.

I have no idea what Dad's cowboy hat is doing on the lampshade. For that matter, I'm not really even sure why Dad has a cowboy hat at all. Stampede is only once a year.



I suppose that the hats don't just disappear after that, do they? Kind of like Christmas trees.

So...

Yep, they do. They being my parents. And the government. It must be true, then. Also, did you know that if you open Google when you're signed in and it happens to be your birthday, you get this?

I did not. And let me tell you, it slightly freaked me out in a computer Big Brother sort of way until I looked at the right-hand corner of the screen and saw that I was signed in. Thanks, Google, for the ever-so-slightly-creepy acknowledgement.

Anyway.

If you wondered, this is pretty much the sum total of my celebration today. I did some quick colouring on a free phone app (and if you wondered, adult colouring is a real thing, boys and girls. I was in Chapters to pick up a book for my dad's birthday, which is the day before mine, and there were adult colouring books all over the place. And, erm, yes, I bought one. On discount, though. I wasn't going to pay twenty dollars for a colouring book), I was startled by Google, and...? The end, I guess.

Oh, I might make some pizzelle later, since I was given an appliance that makes pizzelle and crepes, amongst other things.

Let's end with a revisit of my 70's childhood, which I found while looking for something else (isn't that how it always works?). Oh, and excuse my horrid skin; I had a reaction to a new wrist brace. This lovely leather sign of the times was well worn during my phase of being obsessed with owning things with my name on them. It used to be much pinker, which is funny because I've never been much for pink. Maybe the name won over the pink? Probably. I'm taking it home with me. Maybe I'll wear it this week for old times sake.

And speaking of old times sake, this is pretty cool. And I love how Dee Snider still totally owns the corniness of that song so many years later.

And speaking of later, this is the part where I usually say that. So... later, folks.

Let's talk fonts

Today's pointless photo is, again, pointless. Just so you know.

Ok, fonts. Well, strictly speaking it's typefaces (for a good explanation of the differences have a look at this), but since the majority of people -- including me -- tend to say fonts instead of typefaces these days I'm just going to stick with the shorter word.

Feel free to grind your teeth, pedantic-types. I know I certainly do about other topics.

Today Google unveiled a new set of logos, including a new look to the main one we're all familiar with from the desktop search page. My reaction? Meh. It's kind of characterless, and a little too square for me somehow. I liked the curviness of the serifs. And with the previous font (see? now I'm having trouble saying font instead of typeface. Seriously. I didn't need to be more of a nerd) having lost the chunkiness of their earlier versions, it had a certain amount of grace. Now it has... uniformity? I dunno. I suppose it'll grow on me, but right now I'm finding it pretty dull.

But do typefaces (gah) even matter? Yeah, they do. We register them even if we don't realise that we do. Whether we want to or not, we think differently about the things we're reading depending on how they look. Typefaces (ok, fine. You're in typeface mode. Anyone who wants to mentally replace typeface with font every time you see it is welcome to do so) can make things look stodgy, strict, uptight, overly precious, approachable, childish... the list goes on, and you get that impression even if you're not involved in the design world. That's why companies put so much effort into typeface decisions. They really are the first impression.

So did anyone (anyone with complete font availability, that is. I have my defaults set up so that you may not be seeing what I'm seeing, depending on where/how you're viewing this) notice that the last paragraph was in Arial rather than Trebuchet? I'm not a huge fan of Arial, to be honest. It's a little plain and shouty. I suppose my feelings there come from it having been default for so many things for so long. That's why the blog defaults to Trebuchet instead, if your system has it. A bit rounder, slightly closer to handwriting with the little curve at the bottom of the l and t... yes, I actually did put a lot of thought into my default font. And now that I'm thinking layout, you'll see that the word font has come more easily than typeface. It's how they're listed in computer applications, so all of a sudden typing font is ok with my brain.

My brain's weird, but that's not news.

I'm not a font nerd (this one's Georgia, by the way, and that again depends on whether your system has Georgia installed) but as a pattern-oriented person I'm certainly aware of them and definitely take a little bit of time when choosing them. I also get a chuckle out of so-called Font Wars, where nerdier people than even me actually argue about the merits of different typefaces. Prime example of that, of course, is the "war" over Comic Sans. Designers hate Comic Sans (some of the reasons are here, which saves me from making this post even longer) and I can't say that I'm exactly a fan, but I've used it for a couple of displays.

Yes, that's right. I've used it, and I'm not ashamed to say it. The thing is, Comic Sans is the most readily available (note that I'm not saying the best; just readily available) easily readable font for that type of thing. Many dyslexics, for example, have a slightly easier time picking things out in Comic Sans. I had some short display texts that were supposed to be for a variety of ages, so at the time I put them in Comic Sans. Would I do it now? Maybe. It would depend on what else I had available. If I did, though, I certainly wouldn't give a rat's behind if you called me a Comic Sans Criminal.

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I have more to say about fonts (who knew? Ah well, I'm always looking for blog fodder), but I need to wrap up for now. I'll leave you with a slightly related topic (depending on how ugly you find the new Google logo): ugly flags. Have you seen the choices that New Zealanders have if they decide to go with a new flag? Wow. Not sure how I'd go on that one. Maybe the fiddlehead if it was white and blue instead of white and black? Ah well, good luck to them. We went through it in Canada too, fifty years ago last February, and I think it turned out all right for us.

Language things that have bugged me today

Accompanied by begonias. Why? Because begonias, that's why. Actually, just because they were there. Dad recently put them in his front planter, which he generally does every year. Mom usually had geraniums instead, but I'm not that big of a fan of geraniums because of the smell. I'm just as happy to see the begonias.

 All right, let's get down to it. Oh, and I'm hoping that there are less words today than yesterday because I really should do that work drawing I've been putting off.

First, let me say that I'm well aware that when I said "because begonias" up at the top there I completely annoyed a few people. It would have annoyed me if I'd read it in, say, a book, unless a character was being quoted. I figure that there's a time and a place for certain types of language, though, and I certainly use different forms of English depending on how formal the situation is. This? This is a blog. If it was formal it would come across as being incredibly pretentious. I purposely choose a pretty casual voice when I'm blogging (yeah, you read right. There's actually thought behind this blog). However, there are language and grammar usages that are always going to annoy me no matter what the situation, and I found a surprising amount of them even in a short browse around the web and social media this morning. Gotta love the internet for making people sound uneducated, right? Here's a bit of what I saw, then:

More unique.  Or it could have been many other variations on comparing uniqueness. This is a very longstanding annoyance of mine, to be honest, because whether people realise it or not it indicates that a person doesn't know the meaning of unique. Unique is unique, as in there's nothing else like it. By definition, something that's unique can't be qualified. Nothing that's unique is more or less unique than something else that's unique. They're both JUST unique, because saying unique is enough.

It's a usage that's creeping in more and more which means that in a living language sense the meaning of unique is changing for people. That means that, in the end, as a proponent of non-proscriptive language rules (rules should describe a language as it is, not tell it what it should be. In an organic language, at least. A created language like Esperanto is a different animal) I should and will (grudgingly) accept the new, evolving use of unique. It sure the heck bugs me, though.

It's versus its. It's not hard, people. It's = it is. Two words. Its = something it has. Possessive. Yes, I do know that its is an unusual possessive and that most possessives have commas, but English (the ultimate mongrel language) has tons of exceptions to rules and most people remember them without much problem. We all (well, most of us) know that the plural of foot is feet, not foots; why can't so many people remember it's and its?

It's (it is) something you should have learned in elementary school.

 Apostrophes where apostrophes aren't necessary. Oh man. You see this everywhere these days, and I can't figure out if it's (it is...) some form of overcompensation or what the deal is. Plurals do not need apostrophes, folks. The plural of desk? Desks, not desk's. The plural of cat? Cats, not cat's. The other day I was at my local grocery store and they had bagged up overripe banana's for quicker sale. The banana's what? The banana's bag? I didn't even know that bananas owned things.

You're versus your. I can't believe that I even have to get into this one. You're = you are. Again, two words. Your = something that belongs to you. Possessive. 'Nuff said. Or should be.

Have people stopped teaching contractions, or something?



By the way, if anyone's wondering why some of the begonias (not begonia's) have rock-looking things on them, they're (great, now I'll have to do they're versus their) plastic glow-in-the-dark pebbles that my uncle brought home from the dollar store while he was working there. I have no idea why Dad decided to put them in the plants. Whim, I suppose.

They're, their, and there. I'm getting tired. Let's make this quick. They're = they are. See a pattern? Their = something that belongs to them. There = a place that's not here.



Sigh. That was just this morning, folks. It's enough to drive a language freak spare. I'm not really a snob about it, even though it probably looks that way now. It's just... well, part of my job is editing things, and I get really tired of seeing educated, intelligent people looking like they don't know their own language just because their brains have gotten autocheck/internet-speak/cellphone lazy about it. You may think it doesn't matter and wonder what stick is up all the grammar nazis butts, but it really does affect the way you appear to the others who are reading your words. It also makes your opinions matter a lot less, whether you realise it or not. So please, take a breath and think about your language next time you post a comment or... well, anything. It'll be good for your image, and much better for my head.



And so much for less words. Ah well, busy week ahead, so it may well be no words at all coming up for a while. We'll see how it goes.

Smack the smug off his face

 No, the flower isn't smug; rather the opposite, actually. It's Pasqueflower or Prairie Crocus (not a crocus at all, but just named that for the early blooming), and I'm sorry that I didn't get a better picture of this one but I won't be around when it fully opens. Colour's nice, though, isn't it? I'm a big fan of pasqueflower.

I'm not, however, a big fan of Jim Prentice, as you may have gathered from some not-so-veiled hints in yesterday's post. In fact... well, go back and read the post title again. It's a standing phrase with me, I'm afraid. When someone -- usually in the entertainment business -- tends to spend too much time looking like the cat that got the cream, I have a pretty low tolerance for it. Not that I want anyone to really be smacked, mind you. It's just a phrase. A phrase that it's hard to get out of my head when it comes to some people.

Like our dear premier. Or his far-too-long-ruling party.

I just can't stand the sense of entitlement. We're the PCs. Of course you're going to vote for us because you're Albertans (baaaaah. Sigh. I wish my province wasn't so full of sheep impersonators). We run things. And if we don't run things you know what? HELL IN A HANDBASKET, EVERYONE. Want proof? Well, let's get a bunch of CEOs (um, Jim? You do realise that plenty of people are already upset that corporate taxes are far too low in a province where you've told the average taxpayer to suck it up, right?) to tell you that if the PCs don't run things,  HELL IN A HANDBASKET. And if you're actually thinking of voting in another party to govern? We'll fix that with attack ads and scary robocalls. Hell in a handbasket, people. Hell in a handbasket.

My two fans know that I'm not very political, but this kind of garbage campaigning pisses me off. Not just from the PCs, of course, although they're the masters of it. The moment that any party leader spends more time telling me how crap his/her opponent is than what s/he (can we please have a way of being inclusive without all of this s/he stuff, English? That kind of pisses me off too) is about, my vote is gone even if I might have considered that party. We're not Americans and we shouldn't have to put up with American campaigning.

Um, I have problems with their platform too, if anyone wondered. It just doesn't piss me off as much as the smugness and the childish campaign strategy.

And yes, I'm going to stop typing piss me off soon.

Anyway, if we have to have a PC government (and for a change it's not a certainty), I hope that it's a minority. That'd smack some smug right there. And Santa? It'd be all right if Entitled Jim lost his seat as well. I promise I'll be good 'til Christmas.

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I was on Internet Book-And-Everything-Else Giant yesterday. Yes, on Independent Bookstore Day. Sorry for the blasphemy, but the fact is that as much as I like a good bookstore (and I really do), there just aren't many around here unless you count used book stores. Add in the part where someone like me who's on a fairly limited budget can get a helluva lot more for their money on the internet these days, and I can understand why in areas where there actually are independent bookstores those stores are hurting. I'd help if I could, folks, but they'd have to move here.

The reason that I was shopping yesterday was that courtesy of my personal job inertia I had a healthy VISA gift card to spend. Years ago when we used to do service awards the award was whatever wasn't selling in the local museum's gift store (that could be good or really wretched. I have one of each), but since the current board decided to revive service awards they went with the money (well, credit) instead, which was a nice surprise. And fun, since I have a personal rule that when given a gift card I treat it like a gift and buy at least one thing that I might not have bought otherwise. Yes, I do have moments of thinking that I reeeally should buy that thing I need that's much more useful, but they're short-lived. If you can't have fun with a gift card, then why bother being given one?

Erm, or something like that. You know what I mean.

Anyway, now the anticipation sets in because I told the free shipping bot (yes, I know that I'm spending someone else's money. Still doesn't mean that I should pay for shipping) to group my shipment in as few boxes as possible, and one of the things that I ordered takes a while to come in. As a result, I'm waiting semi-patiently on three books, a bone folder (because... project-thingy that I still haven't fully explained to you people), some art supplies because for whatever reason both Derwent and Prismacolor products had some pretty deep discounts going on, and... a tea infuser. Yep. Shaped like a... well, I'll show you when I get it.



And since that won't be for a while, I suppose I'd better get to work FOR work with the art supplies that I have with me at the moment. Eventually. Doodling for work always takes a bit of procrastination to get to.

I should be done by next year.

Books. And books. And tea.

And a random cat, because.

And incidentally, sometimes even in this day and age of "brainless" blogging applications that work just like a word processor, it can still help to have a smidgen of HTML. A slight computer glitch (operator-caused, I freely admit) threw some really random stuff on this post when I had to save to draft. All gone now, though.

I think.

Anyway, books. I have a lot of books. I have less books than I used to since I'm getting a lot better at giving things away when I know that they're one-use books, but I still have a lot of books.

I like books.

I'd never manage with an e-reader, because... well, it's not a book. I have a DS card that has a bunch of classic books on it, and I almost never use it because it's just. not. a. book. It's a thing pretending to be a book. It doesn't have the feel of a book (see previous art rants for my whole weird thing about texture), it doesn't have the smell of a book, and it doesn't have the utility of a book. What do I mean? Well, as an example, if I baked using recipes I'd looked up electronically, I'd have flour-covered electronic devices. Easier to clean up a cook book. If I travel with e-books and forget to bring a charger/extra batteries, I'm kind of screwed when the power runs out.

And besides, people. Books.

Having said that, my two fans may have noticed that a while ago I removed the bookshelf that used to be on the sidebar. And why is that, Dee? Oh, well, it was kind of cluttering things up, and I kept forgetting to update it. Besides, the only thing I ever went to that site for was to update the bookshelf, and it seemed kind of pointless.

So here's the thing. I kind of figured that I might add photos of the books I'm currently reading to the regular rotation of pointless photos here. I even took a bunch of shots, which I've since deleted. And why? There are better pictures online at the Home of All Things That Used To Be Just Books And Is Now Apparently The Universe (official title, yes), for one thing. For another, do you really care if I'm currently reading a book on printing, a book on book-making (yes, seriously), and (trying my damnedest to re-read) The (concise) Golden Bough? Or that I'm thinking of buying a Deborah Cadbury book?

You probably don't. But it is my blog (as I used to say too often: my house, my rules), and I'm generally short of topic matter.

In other words, it'll probably happen. Bad photos and all.

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We've had in other words already, so now here's in other news:

In other news, I think I'm going to have to buy some tea. The Christmas gift tea is pretty near gone, and when I went to fill my infuser for work the other day I was reminded that what looks like a humongous stash is actually several tins that have enough for about two cups each. I might -- gasp -- have to resort to using tea bags, folks.

And for those new to the blog, I should say that I'm really not that much of a tea snob. I've just got used to loose teas, that's all.

You really missed tea talk, didn't you?



Oh, don't make that face.

At any rate, I may be doing some tea cruising this afternoon, and I'm sure you'll find out the results soon enough.





Next up, rocks.

No, I'm not kidding.



Oh, don't make that face.

Something

O spider I see in the vanity sink,
they say that you've been there two days.
I think you should probably find your way out
or someone will flush you away.

I 'spose if the sides are too steep for escape
You're likely in need of some help.
Yeah, I'll grab a cup and then scoot you up top,
but next time please do this yourself.

 NO, I HAVE NOT LOST MY MIND. It's just Bad Poetry Day. And apparently copyrighted for profit, according to that link. Kinda figures, doesn't it? And yes, I wrote a poem about a spider (which I really did save this morning, to no one's surprise who's ever read this blog. It was a European House Spider. How sad is it that I knew the scientific name without even looking it up? Anyway, I let it go so that it could keep eating things in the basement. Incidentally, I do understand if people are creeped out by this particular species. Long legs, very scurry-y... they're harmless, though. Um -- what was I saying before I started on this?) and accompanied it with picture of fish. It wouldn't have been pointless otherwise, would it?

Just for fun, I put a modified version of the first line of my bad poem through this poetry generator a few times and got this:

Spider in the bathroom sink
While I sit all alone singin the blues........
though i never knew what was in the flue.
Grey souls, Grey shoes I've even got grey blues.

Deep, man. Deep.

I actually have been a bit of a poetry writer over the years, but this is the first one I've written in I don't know how long. It's like most of my hobbies, really. I'll go totally gangbusters on something (poetry, knitting, needlework, I-bet-some-of-you-are-expecting-me-to-say-doodling-but-I've-never-really-given-that-up) for a while -- sometimes years -- and then completely drop it for sometimes years. I'm pretty cyclical, though. Hobbies never seem to totally go away, and the return is easily triggered. Say a person (ok, me) hasn't knitted for a while, and then notices that the homemade dish cloth is getting ratty. Well, you take out the cotton yarn and the needles and you whip up a quick dish cloth. Then you think about the fact that you haven't made a new toque for a while and get out the patterns. Then you find yourself frequenting the yarn aisle looking for something that would do for a fuzzy but not too fuzzy throw...

And then you get tired of knitting and remember that you probably still have some embossing paper hanging around here somewhere.

I'm a natural born dabbler, I guess. It's good for my job, though. I can do a little bit of a lot of things, and when you're trying to think of programming ideas that can be handy.

Anyway, lunch time now. If you're at all interested in my poems from back when I was regularly writing (some good, some ok, some definitely a good fit for Bad Poetry Day) there's a few at this link from the other blog. And just for fun, here's a last word from the poetry generator. First line's mine. The rest? The universe, I suppose:

Cows, cows
End this charade now, disguise not your battered soul.
I see her now!!!! 
The shock of never rips through my soul.

Summary of my week, pointless photo style

Otherwise known as: I Guess I Talk About Some Weird Things on the Blog.

So here it is, then. Silver rolling ring, pewter and brass Aquitaine sundial ring, brass candle extinguisher (yeah, I found a couple more brass things around the apartment after that post. Not too many, though. I'm not exactly brasstactic), and Kinder Surprise Spiderman because he was there and adds a bit of colour to the composition.

I have no idea why he has ears.

Note that I said candle extinguisher, not snuffer. I read enough 18th century literature to be bugged by the way that North Americans tend to say snuffer when they mean extinguisher, actually. That thing in the photo is an extinguisher, for putting out candles. A snuffer is more like scissors with a little box attached to one blade to catch debris (picture!). They were used to trim the wicks of (usually) tallow candles to keep the flame from getting too large and melting the tallow into a puddle. If you were bad at snuffing candles you could accidentally snuff the flame out... which is where the extinguisher/snuffer mix-up comes in for our non-candle-dependent society today.

And there's your olf information moment of the week. Aren't you lucky.

Anyway, it's late, and since Google's weirdness killed my attempt to blog earlier in the day this is all you're getting (it wasn't just Gmail that was affected, folks). I'll give it a better go tomorrow. I've got some purposely blue photos I can talk about, after all. What's that, Dee? Oh, you'll find out one way or another.





And for anyone who actually wondered, yes, I'm still having fun with the rolling ring. It's there on my finger begging to be played with even as I type this. I think I'll go do that now.

Tradition

I was sort of joking about traditions on my Christmas post, but here's on that's a real thing. These little felt mitts -- homemade and supported by a hair clip -- always have to go on the tree. Always. It and a bird (which Dad didn't put on the tree this year. It's probably pretty ratty by now, though) were, according to my mother, the first decorations she and Dad had on their first tree. The mitts have gone up every year since, with the exception of one Christmas that we spent in Hawaii.

That's a tradition that's headed rapidly to its 50th year. Wow, now that I say that it really does count as a tradition, doesn't it?

And don't you dare stop to figure out how old that must make me. You kids get off of my lawn.

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I'll be headed back to my place today (and back to work tomorrow. Weekend work is what I end up with when Christmas and New Years fall so stupidly mid-week), with a stop on the way to see if the licensing office is open so that I can get my 2014 tag before my plate expires. Yes, somebody left her renewal until the last minute again. I guess I like standing in line with all the other idiots who don't take advantage of the months (literal months) in advance that they send out the notices. I haven't decided yet whether I'll stop on my way out of town or stop once I'm back in the city. The advantage of stopping on my way is that it'd be done while it's in my head, but the disadvantage is that the local office only takes cash.

That's right, cash. There are still some businesses out there in this day and age that  (gasp!) don't have debit machines. It's a real pain in the behind, and I'm not sure how they've managed it for so long. Yeah, there's a third-party cash machine in the building, but seeing as I'm too cheap to pay the charges it'll mean a trek down to my much-beloved bank if I stop there.

Um, don't get me started on how much I hate my bank. I'd like to save that topic for another day.

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And now, the return of Today's Tea!

Well, not today's, to be honest. I haven't had any tea yet today. The past two days' teas, though, have been from the David's Tea (sorry, DAVIDsTEA) Christmas collection, and I can't give you a direct link to it because it's no longer Christmas and I've noticed that they're very, very quick to remove their seasonal collections from the website. Anyway, I've tried the Gingerbread and Santa's Secret, which is a black tea with peppermint leaves. Both very nice even without sweetener, which is saying something coming from a habitual honey user. I don't think either of them needed it, though. Coming up? Well, I think I'll leave you on tenterhooks because I know you like a little suspense.

Everybody's feeling the suspense, not knowing what tea I'll be drinking next, right?





You people are no fun. Type at you later.

WAIT WAIT WAIT. One last thing, as I see by the open tab. I meant to share this link, which is one of those things that talks about how Canadian vocabulary is different from other English-speaking nations' vocabularies. I find them interesting, if a little well, duh at times. Different countries, different histories, different vocabs. Anyway, I'm posting it here because for a change I've used every single one of the words listed (yes, even the alcohol ones). Often these lists are so regional that even I'm stumped by a lot of them. This time, though... if any of my two fans that aren't from here find these words odd then you honestly might have a little trouble understanding me at times. Funny.

And hooped, by the way, is a very useful word. It needs to become universal. You know, like toque.

Going for real this time. Byyye.

White space

Yeah, still in denial here about the whole winter thing.

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I'm currently (well, not currently. Currently I'm typing this. When I'm done, though, I'll go back to currently doing what I was doing before) working on the nature centre's quarterly newsletter, and my two fans will know that it puts me in a bit of a mood. Editing a newsletter is aggravating, really. Trying to get submissions, trying to get those submissions to sound like they're actually written in English (sometimes that's a little iffy, even in a place like this that's supposed to be all about communication), and then trying to wrestle those submissions into a readable format on the page...

Um, ok. I honestly like that last bit.

I enjoy the aesthetics of a well laid out page. I try pretty hard to make sure that my pages are well laid out, and I like to think that I succeed more often than not. I wouldn't call myself a professional by any means (although technically, since I do get paid to do it...), but I think my pages are reasonably pleasing to the eye. With that in mind, then, three things that I think are important in layouts for newsletters and posters. And, I suppose, by extension blog posts:

Number one. White space. Big surprise on that one, since that's the title of the post. White space is important. It gives the eyes a rest, it makes things look balanced, and it keeps a page from looking like more than just words and words and words. It might surprise you, but I generally take care about white space even here at the home of the blather. There's a reason for the apparently arbitrary line spacing and the occasional weird non-paragraph. Sometimes it's cadence, yes, but sometimes I'm looking for a shape. If I don't like the way the pointless photo's framed by the words, for example, I'll go back and reword and respace until I'm happier.

Number two. Stay away from the dark side. Backgrounds, I mean. Dark backgrounds may look nice, but they're bloody awful to try to read anything on. The other day I was flipping through one of the magazines that we take here at work, and they'd printed not just pages but entire sections on this truly awful shade of brown. I don't know what effect they were trying for, but the affect on me was that I didn't bother reading it.

Number three. DON'T TILE. Yes, that needed caps. Nothing looks cheesier than a tiled background, even if you've got a blank space for text placement. And if there's no blank space at all? There's no readability. I'm reminded of that every single day by a poster here at work that I can't do anything about because I didn't make it. Ah well, it'll be gone next week. Thank Whomever.

Anyway, back to the newsletter. Yay.





I hope yay, at least. A girl's gotta have hope, despite past experiences.

Something something Friday

Read the title as: I really have no idea what this post will be. Or if this post will be. I'm so much on Friday brain at the moment that as hard as I've tried to actually think of something to rant off about, it's all just turning into meh.

Good word, meh. It expresses a lot. Too bad that it's not officially a word or anything.

So...

Um...

Well, I could, I suppose, remind everyone that it's always a good idea to have a compressor in your car. Even if you're not pumping up your own flat, you may be able to help out a coworker.

Sigh. Short story, that one. What else is on the menu?

Menu, maybe? I wasn't in the mood to make lunch this morning, so I just packed a bunch of random stuff from my fridge. Ok, to be honest, not entirely random. I did try to make it a reasonably balanced semi-random. Real food, even. The problem is, I didn't manage to fool my stomach with it and now I'm getting major whatthehell from my disappointed digestive system (whatthehell, by the way, reminds me that if you've never read any of Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel poems, you really should. Too many people these days haven't even heard of them, and that's a shame). Not in a what did you do to me sort of way; more like a what's missing from this food picture. I guess that my stomach wasn't in the mood for the unexpected today. Oh, and speaking of which, I may have just hit on a slight topic:

Why is it that so many of us are so regimented as to what can be eaten at what time of day? Food should be food, really, but we've definitely labelled things as breakfast, lunch, or dinner food to the point where no one would think it strange if I have cheese and toast for breakfast, but heaven help me if I decide to add a second piece of toast and a pickle and have a grilled cheese sandwich instead (which, actually, has been known to happen when I know I won't have time for a proper lunch during my work day). Or what about the fact that many people will go to Denny's or IHOP -- I've not been to either, but I'm guessing on the menus based on what I've heard -- at any time of day, but will wonder at you if you make waffles for supper at home?

Incidentally, could someone please explain to me why I like waffles but don't care for pancakes much? Largely the same base batter, really, but I'm just not big on the pancakes. Texture, maybe? Waffles are crunchier? I dunno. I can tell you, though, that I don't like french toast at all...

And on a related food note, today's tea is Salted Caramel. I was a bit meh (ha!) about this one when I had it unsweetened at Dad's, but a little agave syrup gave it more life today. Great. Now I'll have to reorder the syrup too.





Anyway. That's enough typing for someone who didn't have anything to say. No blather for the next few days since I likely won't be near a computer. Have a good long weekend, but please don't forget to think about our servicemen on Monday. It's the reason for the day, after all.

How to write

I promise that my hand isn't really that pink. Or foreshortened.

Anyway.

It's newsletter time at work again (or, rather, it was newsletter time three weeks ago but no one ever gets stuff in on time) and long-time viewers will know that newsletter time always sends me into a right snit.

I hate editing the newsletter.

Part of it's the on-time problem (I wonder -- do dentists ever get tired of pulling teeth? I sure do), but the bigger part is the blah, so-so, and sometimes truly awful writing that I have to figure out what to do with.

It drives me mad, really. This is an interpretive centre, and we're in the business of not only communicating, but communicating well. We have an educated staff, too, including more than one teacher. Why do they have so much trouble expressing themselves?

This may surprise any of my two fans that only know me from the blog, but I can write. From the feedback I get, I can honestly tell you that I write well. At this point in my career I can say that I write well at many levels, too. Here on the blog it's very informal and stylised (um, for those who didn't realise it, I do actually put thought into the way I express myself while blathering). For the newsletter and work blog it's somewhat more formal but still fairly conversational. For displays, it's concise and clear. Back when I was writing scientific papers in university, it was extremely specific. For the weekly memo to the weekend staff... erm. Well, those get a bit goofy. I have a hard time writing a business-style memo when we're pretty loose around here.

What I'm saying is that for each of these applications there's a way to write that works well. Choice of words is important. Syntax is important. Clarity is important. Why don't these educated people know that?

You can't tell at all that I get frustrated, can you?

I recently got a submission from a staffer who doesn't usually write for the newsletter but decided that she'd submit something this time. Good. I always need content. She even had it edited by an English teacher friend, apparently. Good again. It would be nice to be able to just slot something in without editing it.

Sigh. Shouldn't get my hopes up. Apparently English teacher friend never learned that simpler is better. I'm going to be changing a lot of utilise to use and peruse to look, unfortunately. That kind of writing doesn't make you seem more intelligent; it just makes it look like you're reaching.

My mother was, for a large part of her career, the office manager for a medical clinic. She used to type out a fair amount of dictation. One of her big pet peeves was the phrase was seen by myself rather than just was seen by me. Myself is basically the doctor version of utilise in the article I will, unfortunately, be editing.

Aaand I guess I'd better get to it. Expect a fair load of grumpiness in the next work week, folks. And if you really want to piss me off, make sure you send me an e-mail with at least one utilise in it.



Address it to myself.

Who cares headline of the day:

Justin Trudeau Smoked Pot

Ok, maybe it was yesterday's headline, but I had other things on my lack-of-mind then.

This headline has as much relevance to me as Justin Bieber is a Douchbag or Ben Affleck is Playing Batman. I couldn't care less if I tried. Maybe it would do the rest of parliament good if they all took a 4:20 some day. And it's not like I'll be voting for the phony little weasel anyway, right?



Nah, I'll be voting for some other phony little weasel.

Incidentally, and not that you should care about this any more than I care about most Justins, but I'm actually in favour of legalisation of marijuana. Legalise it, regulate it, tax it (especially the tax it part. Just think of the returns on a pot tax)... that certainly has to make more sense than having the court systems spending so much time sending people to jail for carrying a spliff or two.

Anyway. I've totally forgotten what this post was going to be about now.



Hmmm.

Oh yeah, selling out.

I just finished reading an article by someone (doesn't matter who) that I really admire. I admire his talent, I admire the skill and uniqueness with which he expresses himself, and I got a good deal of enjoyment out of the column.

That is, until I got to the bottom and found out that it was a sponsored article. Sponsored by a company directly interested in the subject matter.



Well, great. Way to lose all of your credibility in one sentence, writer.

Now, I'm not saying that professional writers shouldn't be paid. Hell, technically even I get paid to write in my job (definitely not for this pointless blog, though). But as soon as you're paid by a company to write about something that they're concerned with, you're a shill. A well-expressed shill, but a shill nonetheless. And this guy already makes enough money that he had no need to be a shill.

Sigh.

I'm not going to say I'm disillusioned by this because the world's the world and famous people sell out all the time. I'm also not going to say that I want all art to be pure, since that's pretentious bulltwaddle. Nah, all I'm going to say is why don't we all just forget that this ever happened and watch a spider dance? No, seriously. It's absolutely fantastic. Please watch it even if you don't like spiders. And it's a pretty spider, to boot.

Besides, spider dancing has to be the purest of art, right? It's not like they're getting paid or anything.

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Ignorant truck update:

When I got home from work, the floor was already thumping. It thumped all evening, and was still thumping when I went to bed. Luckily, my brain was finally tired enough that it managed to ignore what was going on (a very weird thing for my too easily distracted brain to do) and go to sleep. Slept until 6 am, too, which would be like sleeping 'til noon for most of you.

The floor wasn't thumping at 6. It will be when I get home, though.



Sigh.

Geez, woman

Photo? Random ducks. Everyone needs random ducks now and then.

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Last night I was bored. I'd gone through the stuff on my dvr, was too lazy to get out a dvd, and for the life of me couldn't find anything to watch on tv. The old fogeys amongst you will remember Bruce Springsteen's song 57 Channels and Nothing On; I wonder if he knew that we'd be into the hundreds of channels now and there's still nothing on. All those frigging channels and not a thing worth watching. Well, after a frustratingly long time of flipping back and forth hoping that maybe I'd just missed something interesting in the listings, I finally gave up and read British history in the bath for a while.

What the hell is wrong with me?

My small apartment is full of things to do. Let's see... I could have knitted. I could have done any number of artsy things (art is happening again, by the way. The reason that none of it's been blogged is that I've mostly been blobbing around in my mixed media mess journal, and no one needs to see that). I could have baked. I could have cleaned, for Whomever's sake. What did I do instead? Sat around getting frustrated because I couldn't find any mindless entertainment.

Pathetic.

And it happens too much with too many of us nowadays. We're a bunch of Roman emperors, sitting there demanding music and grape-peeling from our slaves. It's just that the slaves are now television and the internet, that's all.

Next time this happens I'm going to force myself to start writing bad poetry again, you know. Even if it's bad poetry about the fact that there's nothing on tv, at least I'd be using my brain.

And if that happens via bad poetry then you'll alllllllll be suffering from my boredom.





And with that, I should get back to work. Edible plant program today; hope for me that we don't all get rained on. Oh, and speaking of edible plants, remind me to tell you about my wheat sometime. Yes, that's right, wheat. On my balcony. It's got heads on it now, so here's hoping...

Censored

Picture? Nothing to do with anything, as usual.

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Not for the first time, I've been finding myself puzzled by the arbitrariness of censorship in the media this week. There are a couple of news stories that brought it on, really: the train crash in Spain, and the family in Winnipeg whose two children were possibly killed by their mother.

In the first case, there's both the news footage of horrific scene after the crash, and the (equally horrific) security camera footage of the actual crash as it happened. In any of the media outlets that I checked -- both internet and television -- both videos were shown with no censorship at all, and in the vast majority of cases with little or no warning that you "may find this disturbing". Seemed a bit odd, that, what with all the bloodied people and covered corpses, and the oh shit feeling in the pit of your stomach as you watch that train coming around the bend, knowing full well what's about to happen to it.

In the second story, the weirdness came about in the still pictures shown. When the story was first reported -- again, both on the internet and television -- there were several photos of the family published, partly with the aim of finding the mother. And when I say several photos of the family, I mean several photos of the entire family, with no censoring. The next day, though, I noticed that more than one television network was airing the photos with the father's face pixellated.

The next day.

Sort of a shutting the barn door after the horse is already gone, I figure.

Now, my problem with this is that it really does seem so arbitrary. I can certainly understand pixellating the man's face (Whomever knows that he should be allowed his privacy after the unfathomable thing that happened to him), but the day after? What good does that do anyone? And how do you suppose the families of those bloodied and dead people in Spain are dealing with the fact that the world has seen their loved ones splashed all over the news without any censorship?

It doesn't make sense. But then censorship rarely does.

Just to make my own position clear, I'm rarely for censorship. Oh, sure, there are things that I don't think should be out there -- like the footage of that murder that was put out on the "gore" site (another news story, sorry. The owner of the website recently tried to skip bail in Edmonton), but I think that most of what gets censored in our society is just one group's views loudly shouted over the rest of us.

Nudity's a good example. And I'm not talking porn, here; just nudity. Why is nudity such a big deal to so many people? We all have bodies, and deciding that those bodies are somehow filthy and need to be hidden from everyone is so very unhealthy. It creates body issues, for pity's sake. It creates titillation when there really doesn't need to be any. It creates the OMIGOD JANET JACKSON'S GOT A NIPPLE situation that most of the rest of the world was secretly laughing at the US about.

Censorship like that just gives people a wrong sense of what wrong is.

And don't get me started on the arbitrariness of language censorship in the media. I can't get into it as much as I'd like to because I need to get back to work, but since I've posted about language before and will likely do so again that's ok. What I will say, however, is that the situation in Canada is at least a little more reasonable than it is in the States, where Craig Ferguson isn't allowed to say tits. Tits, yes, and the man's show airs at 12:30 at night. And the same wrong-problem arises because of that stupid kind of censorship. Bleeping a word like tits just makes people think that he said something far, far worse. Again, it creates titillation out of a non-titillating scenario.

Maybe the censor-types out there just like to be titillated? Who knows? It'd be one explanation.



An arbitrary one, I suppose, but that would fit right in with most censorship.

Gotta get back to work now.

Working at work

Yeah, again. Terrible stuff. I should have time to think of a blather tomorrow, but for now I'm mostly just posting so that I don't disappear for over a week again.

Which, as you've noticed, tends to happen if I don't stop by to at least post a pointless photo. Speaking of which...

This is just another random shot in my apartment taken from the bed because I was too lazy (or bored) to get up. The conch shell is a souvenir from a Hawaii trip. The one where I was in high school, I think, not the earlier one. And yes, I can blow the conch. I don't do it often in the apartment for obvious reasons, but every once in a while if I get the urge and I think it's likely that not many people are home (like, say, mid-afternoon on a weekday), conch trumpet it is. I like to think that it confuses the hell out of anyone who does happen to be home.

The glass-looking thing is a glass thing. Or maybe a plastic thing. With a laser scorpion engraved in it. I think it was a present.

As for the rest, well, I have a shelf and a half of dictionaries. I like dictionaries. Old ones, new(ish) ones (haven't bought a new standard dictionary in years because I, like the rest of the world, tend to use the internet for modern references these days), translating ones, biographical ones... I can get pretty good mileage out of a dictionary, as odd as that sounds. The thesaurus, on the other hand, I may have opened once since I got it.

No idea why.

Anyway, that'll have to do for today. See you next post. Whenever that is.

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.

Tomeless

Well, the world's officially going to end. Today's pointless photo is not only not pointless, it's editorial.

It had to happen eventually.

And what brought on this chain of events? The announcement by Encyclopaedia Britannica that it won't be producing hard copy editions any longer. Not exactly staggering or surprising news, especially given that the most recent paper edition costs some $1400 (and there's still some left, if you're dying for them and have the room on your bookshelf), but a landmark nonetheless.

For me, especially.

I loved encyclopedias so much as a child. I have to say as a child, unfortunately, since the truth is that I haven't used one since school, but they were a pretty big part of my life for a long time so of course the news makes me miss them a bit.

We never had Encyclopaedia Britannica in the house when I was growing up because it was considered pretty expensive even then (and they did, after all, have to be replaced periodically as knowledge progressed), but it was a regular recourse for me in the library as soon as I was old enough to understand most of the big words. At home we had a Collier's set (or, rather, my parents did, since I would have been approximately one year old when they got it and I'm sure that they weren't counting on having a prodigy), and then later on a World Book Encyclopedia. They were geared more to kids, the World Books, and there was a pretty good chance that if you visited our house for any length of time when I was between about... oh, let's say eight and fifteen... that you'd find me at some point sitting cross-legged on the floor with some random volume open on my lap. Sometimes it was because I specifically needed to find out something, but more often it would be because I just wanted to learn something. Anything. And since the World Book was fairly well cross-referenced, learning anything about something would usually lead me to learning something about something else that I hadn't been planning to learn about, and so on and so on and so on.

Yep. I was that much of a nerd even then.

I loved hard copy encyclopedias. I love the pages, the pictures... I even loved the feel of the weight of the things. But will I miss them?

No, of course not.

Like most everyone else these days (and as not-so-subtly hinted at in the photo. See? I said it was editorial) I find it much more convenient and quick to look for things online. I don't think that I would bother with a non-electronic encyclopedia even if I found one for five dollars in a thrift store. It would be too much of a bother to store, even if I might get some nostalgic pleasure out of flipping through the pages. The plain fact is that old-fashioned encyclopedias are just too non-portable for the way we work these days.

Amazingly enough, even in this bookish house I couldn't find an encyclopedia to take a picture of this morning. The old ones are long gone. What you're looking at in the picture is part of the dictionary from the old Collier's edition we had. It was saved, I guess, because it takes a little longer for dictionaries to be out of date (although even that's less and less true now. Doesn't stop me from loving dictionaries, though. Someday we're going to have to talk about my ridiculous dictionary collection. You heard me -- I have a collection of dictionaries. They're on different subjects, naturally, but... oh wait. I'm distracting myself, and that could so easily be another post that I'd best not waste it).

If you click on the photo, it should be obvious why I chose the page that I did. When I decide to be on point, you better believe that you poor people get beat over the head with it.



That sounds painful, actually. I'd better head back to the pointlessness. Less chance of injury.





The pointlessness, by the way, will be vanishing again for a couple of days. I don't think that I'll be near a computer tomorrow, and my Monday looks to be so busy that there won't be a point in even trying pointlessness. The rest of the week should be a little better than last week, though.

Maybe.

No promises, at this point.

Or pointless, as it were.



And now you know why I don't write encyclopedias...

Losing my Latin

Forgive today's pointless doodle. I know the arty things usually go to the other blog, but in this case I'm having a bit of a laugh with myself. You see, this is one of the exercises from an art program for the DS that I got on a whim with my points. It just seems funny to me that I'm making "art" on a what? 2 x 2 1/2" screen on a video game console?

Ah well. Maybe it'll be able to teach me how to paint. I've certainly not had much luck trying to teach myself.

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Now, to today's title. Further to my botanical thoughts from yesterday (oh! Should I throw out a few pointless botany terms before I go on? Ok, let me see... how about diadelphous? Glabrous? Acuminate? All perfectly good words in the world of plants), I ended up back in the more comfortable world of zoology last night when I was trying to come up with something for this week's Illustration Friday prompt.

The word was fluid. So what would you expect to do from that? Raindrops, maybe? Cocktails would have been all right. A lake would've done. Me? I drew blood vessels.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Look up the reason here if you're desperate to. I'm not going to type it twice.

Once I got on the track of arteries, I needed some reference material. Oddly enough, I don't carry around the structures of the body in my head anymore. There was a time when I could have made at least a rough sketch of the major vessels from memory, but that was a lot of years ago and (again, oddly enough) I don't do much dissection these days. Or any at all, really. That is, unless you count taking apart a pork roast to fit it into the slow cooker.

I make pretty decent pulled pork, you know.

Where was I? Oh yeah, reference material. And after the pulled pork thing, my crab salad sandwich really isn't going to cut it for lunch.

Anyway, I started flipping through my old dissection manuals looking for a likely subject. And yes, I do realise that some of you are officially grossed out by the fact that I kept my old dissection manuals, but hey. I'm in the nature business, remember? Occasionally they come in handy if someone's brought in a random bone or something for identification. And they don't stink of formalin anymore. Well, not much, anyway. The random staining would probably be disturbing to a lot of people, but...

Sorry. I'm distracting myself. My head's still not working quite right, which is part of the reason for last night's arterial extravaganza. I had a couple of other ideas, but I didn't think I'd be able to get my brain around them.

Back to topic. Obviously there's going to be a lot of terminology in an anatomy book. It's more comfortable terminology to me than the botany stuff, but these days I have to pause and think about some of those words to get the hamster wheel going, if you know what I mean. I can't exactly rattle them off like I used to be able to.

Which makes the notes kind of fascinating, in a weird way.

I took notes in my lab manuals, you see. It was easier to scribble in the margins (and all over the covers for the longer stuff) than to take out another notebook. Which, to be honest, probably would have just gained a bunch of all-too-identifiable stains. Better to keep that to the one book, right?

The notes and drawings are in my handwriting, of course. Reading them now, though, makes me feel a little like I have a split personality. Somebody was able to spell those twenty-letter words (only slightly exaggerating there). Somebody had all the muscles in a cat's neck and shoulder memorised. It sure the heck wasn't me.

Not anymore, at any rate. And incidentally, flipping through that cat book reminded me just how oddly braided a cat's shoulder muscles look. It's amazing. You should look it up. Or I will, if you like. That'll save you all the pictures of actual dead cats stretched out on dissection trays.

You're welcome.

Anyway, I know that I'm not the only one who could look back at old university notes -- I don't care what subject -- and be slightly astonished at how much I knew when I was intensively having to know. Do I know less now? No, I don't think so. I know different. I'm not in a lab every day, so I don't use the lab stuff much. Ask me how much I would have known about the wildlife in an aspen forest back in university, though. Not nearly as much as I know now. Back then I was learning how to be a specialist; today I have to know how to be a generalist.

I'm good with how things turned out. Still sometimes miss the labs, though. Even the formalin. And I never thought I'd say that.

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Just a note for anyone who's disgusted by the talk of dissection in both of today's blog posts: I studied zoology. Dissection was a vital part of learning anatomy. It always will be, no matter how good computer simulation gets. To really understand how a body works you have to do more than just stare at a screen. You have to be able to touch, feel, see how things move... and compare them with other things. You really do, and I wouldn't trade my anatomical training for anything.

Having said that, though, I'm going to say something that might surprise you: I'd like to see dissection taken out of high school biology courses. Seriously. On a practical note, the bulk specimens they buy are usually crap and you can't see anything anyway. On a moral (if you will) note, it's pointless to kill a bunch of animals when the vast majority of kids who take biology will never do a thing with it once they're out of school. So how do you teach the few who will use it about anatomy? That's the place for computer and plastic models. I don't deny at all that they're a great place to start, and that's how it should be done for beginners. Anything else is just the gross-out factor of having a group of kids cut open a dead thing, and that's a stupid and pointless waste.

Um.

Thus endeth the lecture?

I have to get back to work now.