cubins

Snow!

2007-12-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

Hi There!

We're still here - in spite of reports appearing on the ABC News website saying we've been buried. We tend to get a little less snow here in Dundas valley because we're more sheltered from the weather, and because of how we're positioned relative to the lakes (land to the West). Still, the last of our furniture moving could be a bit awkward...

Rachel uses her amazing vanishing power with snow.

Lots of snow piled everywhere

Frozen stream out the back, and our big natural Christmas tree.

Ben and Forgi. Yay

We may not write again before we fly out - in a few days we'll disconnect the internet and then we'll be off on our travels in Europe. Look for us back in Aus at the end of January!

Love to all!

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This post brought to you by Ben and Forgi!

The Escape from Canada

2007-12-09T22:56:00.000-05:00

So while Rachel is away overseas, I'm getting down to the serious business of packing up all our stuff.

Well actually not quite yet. See in all the hoo-hah of finishing up with work and farewells and generally running around like a headless chicken, it has taken me til now to find enough quiet time to finish the mastering of my new CD (see other posts below). Just this weekend, I finally pulled my finger out and got to work, and it didn't take me that long after all thank heavens! There were a few hiccups (eg discovering that an all important serial number for a software program is actually on a piece of paper in a folder buried in a box somewhere on the other side of the world and that I can't use the _save_ feature without unlocking the program) and I had to "compromise" (read: find a way that wasn't what I originally imagined but was really quite good all the same - bloody hard for an artist), but the result is awesome. I would just like to say that I love Soundforge! Now just a matter of polishing off the sleeve notes - have the pictures just need to write the words (the "easy" part, as though any part of an artistic creation is easy :-P )

I'll be printing copies of the CD once I get back to Aus (yes another couple of months, but next to getting my music rig and software working on a new computer with Windows Vista it is a Cakewalk - no pun intended).

And now I can pack up my music gear with impunity!

Yay! And a sandwich! A sandwich made of yay!

BTW, Rae is in Syd today and she says it smells like eucalypts! I can't wait to go home! Here it smells like car fumes...

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This post was brought to you by Entrippy Recording Studios, Dundas, Ontario (temporary location).

AWESOME!

2007-11-26T20:42:00.001-05:00

We got up at 3 am (Ben) & 4 am (forgi) to watch the Aus election via the internet.

Totally worth it!
:)

Postal Votes

2007-11-15T21:48:00.000-05:00

Just asking Dr Karl who we should vote for in the senate...

Haven't times changed! There are three green parties on the ACT senate ticket (Greens, Climate Change Coalition, Anti Nukes), and I struggled to work out who the conservative parties were if indeed they were there at all. No One Nation, no Fred Nile - the closest party to what I would call conservative were the small-government LDP - as much in favour of legalising euthanasia as gun ownership! Let's hope this is finally a sign that Australia has worked out that the biggest problem of the 21st century isn't terrorism.

So we're sending off our postal votes tomorrow, with a week to go before the election. Postal votes involve 3 envelopes - one to get the ballots to the Australian Consulate in Toronto, one to get it back to the Australian Electoral Commission, and one with our signatures confirming it's a legal ballot.

BTW, just in case the Liberals win, and they're reading this, I want to say that I voted liberal and that I'd like some of their Regional Partnership grant money to be spent in my electorate...

Forgi-doo does DC

2007-11-04T16:36:00.000-05:00

Here are some shots from the latest episode of Forgi-doo. It's called "Forgi-doo does DC"

Forgi-doo visits the President

Forgi-doo at the Smithsonian

Forgi-doo outside the Capitol

Forgi-doo stops to take a photo

Join us next time when Forgi-doo battles the evil Professor at the University of Doom.

Escape

2007-10-24T22:10:00.000-04:00

Hi there

Here is a sneak preview of my new CD which I'm working on at the moment. This is the CD label.

More soon!

7 Years in the Making

2007-10-14T22:35:00.000-04:00

Hey there

I've got some exciting news! I've finally at long last completed the final song for my second album of electronic music. Given that I wrote the first song approximately 7 years ago, it has been a long time coming.

The new CD is called "Escape" and I'll be "releasing" it under the pseudonym "DJ Entrippy" as with my previous release "Scale" (2000). By releasing, I mean I'll be making a few dozen copies and distributing to friends and contacts, and maybe the odd music store or radio depending on opportunities.

I'm very excited to tell you a little about the album. Here are a few fun facts:

- the track I just finished appears first on the album, while the track I wrote first, seven years ago, appears last
- I've been playing around with a mixing program to make the tracks fade into one another to produce a smooth result
- the title track "Escape" is in two parts, and I have perfomed it live (when I was in Canberra)

- the work of my lovely wife Rachel appears on the album (courtesy of herself)

- the tracks use one of three different synths, from Roland, Yamaha and Propellorhead with different sounds
- there is a hidden track

I'm working on the album artwork, and on final mastering now. I'll be posting some of the artwork here when it's ready. With a little luck, I can finish this baby off before I have to pack up all my gear and ship it back to Australia - that will take a minor miracle, but I'm determined to do it!

More soon, so stay tuned!
B

Forgi-doo

2007-10-12T18:27:00.000-04:00

Forgi-doo
She's wearing a big shoe
Forgi-doo
She has a great - big - shoe

We're going to be making a children's program called "Forgi-doo" about Forgi who drives around in her giant shoe. This is a concept photograph of Forgi-doo in her first episode "Forgi-doo at the Cactus Parade". We have the theme song too (can't put musical script on blog quite yet...)

We're looking for television sponsors at the moment. If you know anyone, please let us know!
Yay!

Local Dundas Musicians

2007-09-20T18:16:00.000-04:00

Hey guess what?

I discovered recently that Dundas, Ontario is the home town of an internationally recognised electronic musician by the name of Dan Snaith. He's better known as Manitoba, or now Caribou (after "Handsome Dick" Manitoba threatened to sue for copyright infringement). He's playing at La Luna in Hamilton next Friday and we're going to see him live (if we can get tickets that is...). I'm reading that his recent stuff is more in the 1970's French rock movement (whatever than means) which is less electronic than I would ave liked. Still, I think it will be interesting.

Yay!

B

Sailing!

2007-09-13T18:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we went sailing again with Alex. It was an evening sail so we just went round Burlington Bay. He took some lovely photos of us with his fancy camera!

Alex got me to steer for a little while (until we neared a race and he decided he'd better take control). I managed to do pretty well at keeping my tickles straight (the tickles are little pieces of string on the sail which let you know which way the wind is blowing).

Here's us with the steel mills in the background.

We were also having fun making faces to show off Alex's camera's high-speed function!
Look! It's Popeye the sailor man!

And my lovely lumpy looking so sweet!

Classic forgi!

We also discovered that ginger-beer + red wine + orange makes a pretty good sangria type drink and we ate warmed Brie with sweet red-pepper jelly on top made by Alex's lovely friend Louise. She is (one of?) his part-time crew and the editor of SNAP Burlington, a community news paper focusing on good news!

(Warmed Brie with sweet stuff, e.g., cranberries, on top seems to be an extremely Canadian dish.)

Benedict Needs

2007-09-06T21:30:00.000-04:00

Hey

Shamus Young of Twenty-Sided-Tale fame suggests typing "(your name) needs" into google and seeing what the top ten hits are.

Benedict needs to declare the fruitfulness and the multiplication as Mission Accomplished
Benedict needs to stop backing Republicans
Benedict needs someone to preview his speeches
Benedict "needs a Benelli"
Benedict needs a large space to address punters of the sort who don't normally frequent the joint
Benedict needs major help in the exercise of public relations and diplomacy
Benedict needs a few lessons in manners
Benedict needs to learn from his error and make peace!
Benedict needs to get in front of a camera again and apologize
Benedict needs to sell homes the way some people need coffee in the morning

Guess which one isn't about Joseph Ratzinger?

This post was brought to you by Benedict

Music: Response

2007-09-03T16:03:00.000-04:00

I came across the Top 50 Electronic Albums rated by Impreza22B recently and was surprised at how many of the album I owned, or had at least heard or heard about. It is a rare thing to find anyone with even vaguely similar music tastes in my experience (unless your music tastes are "Top 40s" in which case it is vapidly easy to find like-minded listeners).

While I think Impreza22B basically got it right, it inspired me to put together my own list of:

Top 50 Electronic Albums

1. Oxygene – Jean Michel Jarre (1977)
2. Into Deep – LSG (1999)
3. Selected Ambient Works – Aphex Twin (1993)
4. In Sides – Orbital (1996)
5. Beaucoup Fish – Underworld (2002)
6. Second Toughest in the Infants – Underworld (1996)
7. Beyond the Infinite – Juno Reactor (1996)
8. Dead Cities – The Future Sound of London (1996)
9. The Mix – Kraftwerk (1991)
10. Sunday 8pm – Faithless (1998)

11. 100th Window – Massive Attack (2003)
12. Phrases and Numbers – Infusion (2001)
13. Relentless – Pet Shop Boys (1993)
14. Protection – Massive Attack (1994)
15. Snivilization – Orbital (1994)
16. Outrospective – Faithless (2001)
17. Mezzanine – Massive Attack (1998)
18. Brown Album – Orbital (1992)
19. Music Has the Right to Children – Boards of Canada (1998)
20. Blue Album – Orbital (2004)

21. Kid A – Radiohead (2000)
22. Dubnobasswithmyheadman – Underworld (1993)
23. Leftfield – Leftism (1995)
24. Accelerator – The Future Sound of London (1992)
25. The Fat of the Land – Prodigy (1997)
26. Walking Wounded – Everything But the Girl (1996)
27. G-Spot – Speedy J (1995)
28. Orchid for the Afterworld – Sonic Animation (1999)
29. Oxygene 7-13 – Jean Michel Jarre (1997)
30. Behaviour – Pet Shop Boys (1990)

31. Come With Us – Chemical Brothers (2002)
32. Tourist – St Germain (2000)
33. A Hundred Days Off – Underworld (2002)
34. Splinter – Sneaker Pimps (1999)
35. Frequencies Will Move Together – B(if)tek (2003)
36. Geogaddi – Boards of Canada (2002)
37. Freek Funk – Luke Slater (1997)
38. The Hive – LSG (2002)
39. Bible of Dreams – Juno Reactor (1997)
40. Melody AM – Royskopp (2001)

41. Beam Me Up – Space Cat (2000)
42. Music for the Jilted Generation – The Prodigy (1994)
43. The Altogether – Orbital (2001)
44. No Roots – Faithless (2004)
45. Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 – Aphex Twin (1994)
46. Behind the Sun – Chicane (2000)
47. Movement in Still Life – BT (1999)
48. AM/PM – Endorphin (2002)
49. Junk Science – Deep Dish (1998)
50. Decksandrumsandrockandroll – Propellerheads (1998)

The nice thing about finding Impreza22B's list was finding a few new music groups I hadn't heard before, most recently Royskopp (insert umlaut somewhere there) and The Future Sound of London. In the latter, I've struck gold! Actually, I read that FSOL have another album that I'll probably get in the next period that might be even better than the two albums I've included above.

(I'd love for my own stuff to be in this list, but I've got to get famous first... ;-)

B

Bed Lobsters

2007-09-02T11:00:00.001-04:00

We have discovered that if you google-search for "bed lobsters" you only find about 10 hits, and 8 or so of these are cheatery along the lines of "...a comfortable bed. Lobsters are served for dinner..." We seek to rectify this so that there is more information on the internet about bed lobsters. We present:

The Great Bed Lobster Discussion Thread

Here are some things we know about bed lobsters:

they bite
you never actually see them, you only "observe" them (by being bitten)
occasionally they are "observed" outside the bedroom
they are animals and not vegetable or mineral
they don't need seawater to survive as they are not true crustaceans

We are also starting a Bed Lobster Awareness Raising campaign. If you would like to contribute, please send money to us. We will send you a receipt (donations tax deductible*).

Feel free to leave a comment about your experience with bed lobsters! We would love to learn more about this domestic phenomenon.

*Must be permanent resident of Luxembourg to qualify for tax deduction.

Doing the diagonal

2007-08-31T23:43:00.000-04:00

Sometimes at the traffic lights in Dundas, there is a second or two just as the lights are going to change when you can walk straight across an intersection diagonally. Right when the traffic is just stopping for the amber light and the cars going the other way haven't got a green light yet.

But I'm too chicken to "Do the Diagonal" most of the time... unless it's like the middle of the night.

:-)

Also, the nearest set of traffic lights to us is in plain view of the local police station.

--

This post proudly brought to you by some guy called Steve

catch up part 4 - Toronto!

2007-08-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

We recently had a short visit from the amazing Ley
(shown here demonstrating Punjabi dancing!)
We all went into Toronto for the weekend, where we also met up with Josh & Elli!
(This is us having a picnic in the park.)
We went up the CN Tower, which took forever, and was kind of pointless because the air was so smogy we couldn't see much! We did see the glass floor which was kind of cool, but I feel no need to go again...

We hung out for a while with some friends of Josh & Elli, then in the evening we spent some time at the Just for Laughs Comedy festival. We saw some strange and interesting things including a piece which was apparently a homage to Mad Max and included all sorts of crazy wire acts and pyrotechnics.

The next day we all went to Islands, which were created by adding to natural sandbars. People still live in some parts (though not as many as used to). I'd like to go back and see more or the Islands!
We swam, and the boys & Elli played frisbee, and we tried to play hacky sack, but it didn't really work in the sand! Ben & I managed to kick feet really hard (by the end of the day I couldn't walk... I also got very sunburned on my legs). This is the view from the ferry on the way back.
Elli & her friends stayed and the beach, and the boys and I went on a tour of the Steam Whistle brewery. We scored a free tour because they were full up the day before when we wanted to go!

Ley & Ben organised this photo. It is called "The Cheese Stands Alone". It's a Magic thing... Or possibly a shop in Lincoln Square or part of a children's game...

catch up part 3 - newfoundland pt 2

2007-08-10T20:38:00.000-04:00

We started our trip on the east coast, then crossed the country to Gros Morne national park, taking a small detour up to Twillingate to see some icebergs!

These were all stuck on shoals so the boat captain knew just how close he could go. This one has rolled over several times before it got stuck (you can tell by the rounded appearance).

Iceberg number 2. Icebergs are white because of all the little bubbles trapped within them.
Iceberg 2 seen from another side. A couple of big chunks broke off this one as we were passing, which was rather exciting!
Iceberg 3 had an inviting looking bay in the the center, but we decided not to go swimming!

On our way back past iceberg 2 our guide fished out some iceberg ice for us to try! They had to stop the engine to do it, and when they did we could hear the ice fizzing! It was extremely cool (pardon the pun).
Even the dog tried some ice (she hated the rest of the trip, but I guess her owners didn't want to leave her in the car).
We stayed that night in Grand falls- Windsor, who's main claims to fame are a paper mill and a salomid interpretation centre (that means for fish in the salmon family). They have a salmon ladder which is like a series of locks (or pools) that the fish jump up, so that they can get up larger falls than they would be able to without human intervention. We learned that in another part of the country, where they couldn't build a ladder, there is a salmon elevator!

We ended our trip on the west side of the island in Gros Morne national park. We stayed at the lovely Pond Road B&B, in Rocky Harbour. Donna & Jim made excellent breakfasts and were very interesting people. The first day we took the water taxi across from Norris point to Woody point to see the Tablelands (you can see them here across the water, they are the red hills with snow).

The tablelands are part of the earths mantel which was pushed up above the surface.
We were fortunate enough to get a guided tour with an awesome guide, Fred. He started his tour with a song all about the tablelands to the tune of Gilligan's Island! He is shown here explaining plate tectonics with the aid of me, another woman and a rock. You can see the difference between the tablelands on the left of the valley and the more usual (and fertile) soil on the right.Fred showed us their proto-glacier (the snow didn't melt between years, and if that continues to happen it could happen it *could* form a glacier ; p ).
That afternoon we went seakyaking again! (If you look at the picture of the harbour you will see the kayaks pulled up on the beach.)

We were lucky because the next day the weather turned rather wet. It did clear enough in the afternoon for us to go to Western Brook pond which was a fijord before the land lifted up and cut it off from the sea. Now you have a half hour walk to get to the boat which takes you out on the pond.

This is us on the boardwalk on the way out, where we saw some moose!
I should also mention that while in Newfoundland we tried cod with scrunchions (crispy pork fat); cod tongue; fish cakes; caribou; moose (including on pizza); toutons (like dougnuts) with and without molasas; bakeapple (cloudberries), partridgeberries (lingonberries) and blueberries; quidi vidi beers and iceberg vodka!

catch up part 2 - newfoundland pt 1

2007-08-10T19:43:00.001-04:00

MEGA postings part 2 - the first part of our trip to Newfoundland (east side).

We played hackysack in Halifax airport! It was awesome fun, and we didn't hit anyone or break anything (just).

We decided to go sea kayaking the first day, but we weren't quite awake...
A double kayak is a test of marital cooperation (technically Ben was steering, but I kept trying to take control).

Inside the Devils nostril (really, that's what it's called)!

Our first iceberg, which we saw while driving along! Daddy shows how to wear it on his head
(more icebergs in newfie post 2).

St John's harbour was lovely and had 1.5 x lifesize Newfoundland and Labrador dogs. The sign said that they were designed to be touched and ridden, so I obliged.
forgi and Da consider taking the coast (or view from the old barracks on Signal Hill).

St John's harbour from Signal Hill (where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless telegraph).
Da showed where he had hidden our Marmite sandwiches (as the fog rolled in).
Picturesque Quidi Vidi harbour, home of the Quidi Vidi brewery (unfortunately closed the day we went).
Kissing on the eastern most point of North America (Cape Spear where we saw the tail of a Minke whale).
We also went to the lighthouse (at Cape Spear).

playing catch up - part 1

2007-08-10T19:07:00.000-04:00

We've been a little slack on the blog front, so here's a catch up MEGA post part 1!!

Some pretty spring flowers (as promised several months ago). It turns out they are noxious weeds (Thanks to Da & Maggie for finding this out for me).

While my Dad was visiting we went to the Alexander Graham Bell house. He lived in Brampton, so they claim the telephone (here's an early example).

He also had a platypus in his house which amused me!

That weekend we also went to Crawford lake. It is one of the few meromictic lakes in the world. A merometic lake is one in which the water doesn't really mix, meaning that you can take samples from the bottom and find out about the surrounding area. In this case they found out that there used to be a Iroquoian village near by!

There were turtles! :)
Here's a picture of the inside of the reconstructed longhouse (it was National Aboriginal something or other day, so they had lots of people there explaining this which was fascinating).

On one of our walks we saw some baby raccoons!

EEEYYYAAAAAAARRRRRGGHH!

2007-06-24T20:58:00.000-04:00

Magic - Canadian Regionals

2007-06-16T20:34:00.000-04:00

Hi there!

For those of you not interested in reading about my experience playing the game of Magic: The Gathering, please feel free to stop reading now. The following may be as dull as listening to somebody talking about their hobby without stopping to explain what any of the jargon means. Because that's exactly what will happen...

So I decided to write in our blog about my trip to an 8 round Swiss Magic tournament in Toronto last Saturday called "Regionals" in Magic circles. The top 8 finalists go on to compete for the National Championship in a few months, and there were about 160 starters all vying to be the top deck.

The format: Type II Magic, which includes the 9th Edition Core set, everything from Ravnica block and everything from Time Spiral block. Multicolour decks are still the go since Ravnica's dual-lands are still playable (but only until September...). The top three decks-to-beat are, in no particular order, Dragonstorm, Dralnu du Louvre, and Gruul Beats. It's a little like Rock-Paper-Scissors in that Gruul Beats (the beatdown deck) does well against Dralnu Du Louvre (the control deck) because Gruul is very fast and Dralnu can't keep up, Dragonstorm (the combo deck) is even faster than Gruul so it gets the edge in that matchup, but Dralnu has disruptive elements that stop the Dragonstorm combo from going off, so Dralnu has the edge in that match. As such, there isn't a "best" deck, and you're at the mercy of who you are randomly paired to play against.

My choice of deck for regionals? An AngelFire variant (blue-white-red) called "Boom-Wrath Opera". Here the list of cards:

4 Boom/Bust
4 Wrath of God
4 Lightning Helix
4 Remand
4 Court Hussar
4 Lightning Angel
4 Foresee
2 Numot the Devastator
1 Aeon Chronicler
4 Azorius Signet
2 Izzet Signet

1 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Sacred Foundry
1 Boros Garrison
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Adarkar Wastes
2 Island
3 Steam Vents
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Urza's Factory
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
(60 Cards)

(15 Sideboard Cards)
1 Aeon Chronicler
3 Detritivore
2 Disenchant
4 Riptide Pilferer
3 Faith's Fetters
2 Pull From Eternity

This deck is well-established in Type II of late, and it is designed to hunt beatdown decks by either Wrath'ing and killing all their creatures, or gumming up the board with Lightning Angel or Numot, and then winning through card advantage. It has trouble against control decks that use counters, especially Dralnu, which is what the Riptide Pilferers are for (cast on turn 2 and attack their hand), and also has trouble against combo due to a relative lack of disruption (see also Riptide Pilferer). The land destruction (Boom/Bust, Numot, and Detritivore in the board) helps against some combo decks, but these are difficult matchups.

I knew going into Regionals that this probably wasn't the best deck choice, but I'm a beginner at Constructed Magic, and I could actually assemble the cards I needed for this deck, which isn't something I could say for a lot of the other decks going around. I also had a fairly good idea that i'd beat good players and lost to bad players more or less no matter what I played, so I picked a deck, practised a lot with it and hoped for the best.

So, last Saturday, after staying up with my friend Mike late to test our decks out against various dummy opponents, I went along to the centre-of-town-Toronto venue. Mike and I met with with another friend Miles - we'd been debating over email about the best decks to play, the decks to watch out for, and who was going to win what. Mike had high hopes with his home-brewed green-blue-white Scryb'n'Force deck that played a few fatties but also some comes-into-play creatures such as Mystic Snake that he could Momentarily Blink. Miles had decided Gruul Beats was the way to go, and had a fast, tuned, efficient deck that wasn't worried about making metagame calls, but instead going all in on Plan A ie dead opponent RIGHT NOW!

160 players. 8 round tournament. Top 8 go though to Nationals. So we need at least 6 wins, probably 7. Let's go!

Round 1: My opponent is playing Dragonstorm (blue-red with, well, dragons). Doh! Not a good matchup, although I did okay in practice last night against it so I'll give it a go. Game 1 I win through a series of Booms and then a Bust taking out my opponent's land (thanks to signets and Flagstones, I still have land myself) and keeping him off Dragonstorm combo mana. For Game 2, I side in the Pilferers and the two Pull from Eternity (to take out a suspended Lotus Bloom), then have to mulligan to 5 which is bad. But I keep a hand where I drop turn 2 and 3 Pilferers and start attacking hand. Then my opponent goes off prematurely with an early Hellkite off a Lotus Bloom and Seething Song to kill my guys and hit me. I'm down to 10 life before I get Wrath mana to draw equal again. A few turns later, he hard casts a Hunted Dragon and, even though I get to swing back with 3 knight tokens, he's way ahead on the damage race. Game 3, I bring in 3 Faith's Fetters which are better than Lightning Helix in this match because they can stop a lone Hellkite. I swing early with a Lightnikng Angel and get him down to 11. I Pull a Lotus Bloom from Eternity and I put Faith's Fetters on his storage land to slow him down. Mid-game, he goes off prematurely into a Hellkite which takes out my Lightning Angel to equalise. I've got the choice between answering with Wrath or Numot (which is a bigger dragon than his) and I opt for Numot. A turn passes without his attack, so I'm confident now. I go to attack on my turn, but my Numot and some of my land get gigadrowsed. Next turn, he goes off in earnest, Dragonstorm for 4 and I lost on the spot :-( Very close, but Dragonstorm has an inevitability about it I wasn't prepared for.

Loss 2-1. 0 points out of 3.

Round 2: Opponent, a teenage kid, playing Boros Deck Wins (red-white). He claims he's playing the "best" version of Boros according to what he read on the web, but it really didn't matter because this is a matchup I'm fine with. I keep hands with early Wraths, and my Booms trump his bounce lands (heh-heh-heh), so he ends up with no creatures, no lands, and no cards in hand. Game 2, I bring in the Faith's Fetters to slow him down even more. I'm in a little trouble when he drops Circle of Protection: Red, but he's land-shy and keeps tapping out. A couple of Soltari Priests keep hitting me and I go down to 3, but ultimately, Numot hitting twice per turn thanks to Sunhome overtakes him in the damage race.

Win 2-0. 3 points out of 6. So far so good. I'd prefer to be on 6, and I've got to be careful now, but I'm still totally in it. Let's just hope for a good matchup next, say another beatdown deck.

Round 3: Opponent playing Mono Green beats with Greater Good. Game 1, I keep a slow hand, but it has Wrath on turn 4 so I keep not knowing what he's playing yet. I see lots of acceleration in green, Llanowar Elves, and Scrib Ranger which combos with elves to make a 5-drop on turn 3 if he wants. The deck is really fast and playing 12 hasty beaters in Timbermare, Groundbreaker and Giant Solifuge, along with Primal Forcemage to make them huge when they hit. Game 1 I'm on defence all the way. I wrath early, but he follows up with more beaters, and I'm taking trample damage all the while. I get one Lightning Helix hit in to stay alive a little longer but end up getting run over quickly. Game 2, I board in Fetters again and do much better on the play. I take a few hits, but Numot has the last say in the matter. My vigilant guys seem to be a good foil for his, especially Cout Hussar who can trade with either Groundbreaker or Giant Solifuge (who I can't kill any other way) while soaking up 3 points. Game 3, he's on the play again, and I haven't learned my lesson and keep a slow hand with Turn 4 Wrath. I do indeed Wrath but his hasty guys keep ahead and I'm down. Man I didn't see that one coming! Watch out for mono-green beats when Ravnica rotates out!

Loss 2-1. 3 points out of 9. So now I'll really be struggling to make Top 8. i need a lot of things to go right. Just 3 quick round and I'm already playing for pride most likely. Disappointing, but well I guess I didn't do as much homework as I might have.

Round 4: Opponent drops turn 1 Watery Grave :-( Looks like Dralnu, my worst matchup. Of all the luck. Dralnu decks aren't supposed to be as low down as Table 60-something in Round 4! This game is over pretty quickly - with a Spell Snare taking out an early signet of mine both games and me never resolving a spell. I get a glimmer of hope in Game 2 when I get 8 mana and Urza's Factory (which can make tokens whether or not my opponent has counterspells), but a huge Tendrils of Corruption puts him way ahead on the damage race.

Loss 2-0. 3 points out of 12. There's a lesson here. Inevitability is a necessity against control decks like this. Cards like Urza's Factory are good because they just keep coming. Cards like Numot are fine, but not if you can't resolve them. By the way, the Detritivores looked like a good idea in theory, but even with three of them suspended, they just aren't fast enough. Also, Teferi stops them coming into play, so they're just slow land-d spells. And I didn't see my Pilferers.

So, now definitely playing for pride. At the same time, Mike has won 3 out of 4 and looking hopeful. Miles even more so as he's unbeaten. That was huge! Go Gruul!

Round 5: Opponent playing Gruul Beats. For some reason my opponent was rattled - he missed a draw phase in Game 2 and we both got a warning from the judges because neither of us noticed til a whole turn later. And then he nearly did it again. Game 1, I kept his creatures off the board, especially his Radha Heir's to Keld (I sensed he needed the mana, so 2 in a row met with an untimely Lightning Helix). Some Land-d to follow slowed him down. Eventually, a large Aeon Chronicler (a full grip means I'm swinging for 7 or 8) finishes the job. Game 2 is similar though I go down to 5 before Numot comes down and starting picking off his lands in pairs.

Win 2-0. 6 points out of 15. At last some success. It's too late now, so I'm just playing for ratings points and experience. But it's still fun anyway.

Round 6: Opponent playing an unknown deck with Green, Black and White. Game 1 he doesn't put up mich of a fight and mentions not getting the cards he needs. I speculate out loud that he's playing Project X I think, but he says not. One and then another Lightning Angel seal the deal after I see off two Birds of Paradise with Lightning Helixes. For Game 2, I board in the Detritivores and take out a Wrath, and Court Hussar and something else. Now, I find out what he's really playing. I see Wall of Roots, then Loxodon Hierarch, then finally Glittering Wish searches for whatever multicoloured tool he wants from his toolbox sideboard. He hits with Crime (of Punishment fame) and kills me with my own Lightning Angel. Game 3 I figure out to put that 4th Wrath back in and basically decide my Game 1 deck is best. On the play, I get hit by various disruption spells (Extirpate and Seek and Castigate) but manage to keep a couple of Boom Busts in the deck. I Bust midgame with no creatures on the board, but with several signets on my side. I recover to 4 mana quickly, drop a Court Hussar, find a second and then a Lightning Angel. With me hitting him for 5 each turn, and him having nothing but a signle Godless Shrine, he concedes. Now that is a game where the gameplan really worked. When Bust works, it really works. This is also what Angelfire decks do to Solar Flare.

Win 2-1. 9 points out of 18. Onward. I'm starting to work my way up the board tables again, so I'm playing closer to the top players. By now, Mike has lost 2 rounds on the trot, partly due to accidentally including half his sideboard in with his main deck. He blames this on the deckbox I lent him... Miles on the other hand is still unbeaten, having only agreed to a draw in Round 5 against an opponent with the same deck. They decided their mutual best chances were by agreeing to a draw. In any case, he only needs to win one more and he's through.

Round 7: Opponent playing some weird mono-black monstrosity with Stuffy Doll. Okay, so now I'm really up against the dregs. At first, I was expecting a mono-black "The Rack" discard deck (he has Augur of Skulls and Persecute), but he reveals he's not playing The Rack. That's a good thing because I got wrecked by a mono-black discard deck in Missisauga just last week. So the combo appears to be Stuffy Doll, swing with Stuffy Doll, then tap multiple Deserts targetting Stuffy Doll to do "wow" 3 points of damage to me. i laugh and drop my flying 6/6 dragon that kills lands (like say his Deserts)). He has a Damnation for Numot #1, but not for top-decked Numot # 2 and loses Game 1. In game 2, I find out that he's playing Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, but Korlas hdoesn't do so well when I Bust all his lands away. As with Round 5, this is my ideal game, where I recover more quickly, drop a couple of Lightning Angels and charge through for the win!

Win 2-0. 12 points out of 21. Okay, so there are prizes for the Top 32. I might just squeak it in. It's doubtful though cos there are a lot of people on 15 already. Anyway, I can but try.

Round 8: Walkover when my opponent doesn't show. I watch my neighbours play and see a Black-white "The Rack" discard deck tear a dragonstorm deck to bits. Game 1, the Dragonstorm guy can't keep cards in hand at all and loses. game 2, he mistakenly takes his Gigadrowses out and ends up losing to Circle Of Protection: Red even with 4 Bogardan Hellkites on the table. A single Gigadrowse would have finished it. As it was, black "The Rack" wins.

Win (though hollow) 2-0. 15 points out of 24.

I finish 43rd and well out of prizes, but that's one game more than last year's Regionals (I borrowed a beatdown deck from Mike and won 4 out of 8). Mike is steamed about the circumstances of his match losses and calcluates he could have won 7 matches ifonly various things had gone right. But that's the way the cookie crumbles. Mike also finished a bittersweet 33rd, one place outside prizes (only 3 packs, not the end of the world).

The big news is that Miles finished on 22 points: 6 wins and 2 draws, and 3rd place overall! He's going to Nationals! He was absolutely stoked! We were really glad for him because he earned it. Here is proof: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/regionals07/scarborough
scroll down to 3rd place. Miles won a whole box of Future Sight boosters for his troubles.

Hey, if you're looking at that link, also note that in 6th place was an Angelfire deck that was very close to what I played. The key differences? A single maindeck Firemane Angel which would have provided that inevitability against Dralnu I so badly needed (once you hit 10 mana, you can return it to play from the graveyard again and again without counter worries). Also, two Ivory Mask in the sodeboards, which answer Dragonstorm (want to deal 20 damage to me? now you can't!) and also discard decks to a certain extent. This just goes to show I should look through the card lists more diligently. I would have struggled to get two copies of this 9th Ed rare, but still it's nice to know what it would have taken. And of course I'm sure this guy knew what he was doing better than me.

The other Top 8 decks were Dragonstorm, Mono-Blue pickles (copy Brine Elemental with Vesucan Shapeshifter each upkeep so your opponent never untaps again), and mono-black "The Rack", along with another Gruul, a Zoo deck and a mono-red beats which came first overall. No sign of the feared Bridge from Below dredge combo deck, which probably claimed a few wins but generally got hated out of the metagame by graveyard hate. Lucky for me because I had a weakness there!

Anyway, that's that. Back to drafting for me (the kind of Magic where it doesn't matter what cards you own already), at least until the next time I feel like trying my hand at Constructed Magic. It is indeed fun!

--

This post proudly brought to you by Boom-Crash Opera.

"Said you'd never get any where!
They don't care and it's just not fair.
You know and I know better."

(Actually that turned out to be a Screaming Jets song instead, and I didn't recognise any of the songs that Boom-Crash Opera did in the 80's, so I'll just pretend to remain ignorant of my mistake...)

Buskerfest

2007-06-14T21:42:00.000-04:00

Not last weekend, but the one before it was Buskerfest in Dundas!

This meant that the downtown area was full of street performers! Really good ones! There were several shows which were on rotation at different times and locations along King st (the main st).

We went out and had sushi on Friday evening and then caught some of the shows!

We caught the second half of the silly (?something) waiter show, which involved making lemonade with a catapult and juggling chickens.

Then we saw the Quebec Russian Bar trio. For those not in the know, the Russian Bar is a flexible plank. The show part involves two muscular young men holding the bar on their shoulders while an athletic young woman does amazing tricks like BACKFLIPS on the plank!!! (Remember please, that this is in the middle of the street, although they did have a few mats on the ground). Anyway it was very cool!!

We also caught some of the puppet tamer ventriloquism show (which was very funny) before my legs gave out.

On Sunday afternoon we went out again and saw some more of the puppet tamer's show, a bit more of the Russian Bar trio, some of the Dexterity brothers (who weren't as funny), some other guys we didn't catch the name of (but who were very good) and Miss Tallulah and The Ladder of Men who was incredibly funny! (Check out the video on her site : )

We had lots of fun!

And Ben got a puzzle box (it's really tricky to open).

You can see some extra photos here (we forgot to take the camera...)

Canadians - the nice Nazis

2007-06-04T20:22:00.000-04:00

Hey there.

Believe it or not, we're still here. In spite of general blogging slackness (notwithstanding Rachel's recent Florida update) we're still out here in lovely (read smelly) Hamilton batting away as the weather heats up. In fact it's getting quite warm at the moment. We saw off the last of the snow about 3 months ago and now we're within a few weeks of the summer solstice already! Time flies when you're having fun.

Since it's hot, I decided today to resume my Monday evening swimming exercise, which I had discontinued months ago due to having too many things on weeknights. I discovered that the usual session I had been going to had moved to an hour earlier, so said swimming didn't eventuate and I'll need to leave work a little earlier next Monday if I'm to get that to work.

Oh well. It's a pretty good deal really. You see, what I do is I turn up to the swimming pool for some part of the hour of open swimming that's advertised on their website. It's really meant for members of the student union, which of course I'm not, so I'm actually expected to make a sizeable donation to their coffers every so often. The thing is, even though the charges and subcharges and membership fees and supercharges and ubercharges are spelled out in meticulous detail on the website, there doesn't seem to be any way to actually pay them money.

Almost a year ago when I first went to the McMaster pool, I stopped at the front counter just outside the turnstiles and got my wallet ready while I asked the cashier to remind me how much it was. The cashier looked dumbfounded, and eventually settled on some excuse about "umm I don't think you have to pay this week, just go on through". By then I've noticed that people are walking through the turnstiles in both directions and they don't appear to prevent anyone from going anywhere. Okay fine, well maybe someone further in is the person I'm supposed to pay. I vaguely remember there being a contact name on the internet so there must be someone responsible for collecting monies. On through the winding hallways, past the squash courts and the gym, til I find a place that looks like the locker room area. There's another counter and a couple of undergrad-looking people there. I ask again about who I'm supposed to pay to use the pool and again get a confused look of "huh? I didn't think this job required me to actually know anything...?", and they direct me to the locker rooms, so on I go. Okay so I've got this far without anyone so much as asking me to show a student card -interesting! I get changed and carry my gear through to the poolside area, and finally there's a guy sitting behind a table looking like he's actually in charge! But of course as I approach it becomes clear that he's really: "don't ask me man, I'm just .... sittin' here". (I would have said working, but if he was incapable of telling me anything useful about the open swim session currently going on right in front of all of us, then what job could he possibly have been working?)

Fine! So on I swim wondering what the deal is. A free swim I guess! I don't feel great about taking something that's worth money and not paying for it, but what can I do? Shoving a handful of twenties down a drainpipe in the shower room as penance wouldn't really help anyone, would it? And in the umpteen times I've gone back, feeling sometimes sheepish and sometimes delightfully naughty, I've never ever been challenged.

"Excuse me sir, you're clearly not a student of McMaster. We can tell by your complete lack of student demeanour! What right do you have to be here? Guards, escort this man off the premises immediately!"

Canadians have these ridiculously complicated bureaucracies that they love to construct. But when push comes to shove, they're really just nice people who want to come up and say hello. Are they even the same people? Are they some sort of were-creatures who are nice by day and then turn into Nazi rules-lawyers by night who put up signs everywhere saying you're not allowed to do anything? And do they actually abide by these rules themselves? As I rarely see anyone suffering the consequences of not following the rules, I have no idea...

Today, upon returning to the pool after my hiatus of several months, I thought my luck had finally run out. The usual door to the locker room was locked and looked like it had swipe card access. Okay, so at last they've cracked down. Well it was good while it lasted. Guess I'd better try once again to find someone who I can bribe to get into the pool.

But then, another student walked past and looked at the door the same way I had. He spoke up and told me that they're renovating and to try around the corner. He sounded quite convinced that I actually had a right to be there, and so a glimmer of hope reappeared.

Round the corner then, and the glass door had a sign saying "Do Not Enter". Oh well. Once again, thwarted. Clearly I'm not supposed to be here. But read on... "Emergency Exit Only, Door is Wired to Alarm" - well I guess that really does apply to everyone, not just Ben the felon. And then, through the glass, a door opens off to the side, and a man in his board shorts with a towel over his shoulder emerges and walks down the hallway toward where I know the pool area is. Okay, so there's a "secret entrance" now! They're getting trickier! Can I find my way to where the secret entrance is?

So back down the maze of pathways, back past the gym and the squash courts, toward where the main entrance is. It suddenly hits me! It's not a conspiracy to expose cheaters like me at all, they've just been doing renovations to upgrade their locker rooms! The old locker rooms were pretty ancient after all. I hold my breath once more as I walk past the main desk and observe that there is nobody stamping tickets on the way in - successfully evaded the authorities again! Arrright!

A makeshift sign says this way to change rooms - good!

Then around a corner, and the choice of two sets of double doors. Which one goes to the pool? I don't see any obvious signs, so I walk toward one set and just as I reach for the handle, a girl who has come in behind me says "Uh, that's the ladies, the men's is over there." Right! Okay then the other set of doors! That was a little close for comfort. Surely somebody must suspect that I'm really a fraud sooner or later with all these slip ups! Why, any real uni student would surely just know, without the prompting of mere "signs", which way they were supposed to go, right? I must have given myself away, and security is on their way right now...

Anyway, into the men's locker room and, good heavens this is like a level out of Quake!? The passages just go on and on and there seem to be so many places for space marines and demons alike to be lurking. Actually, back to reality, it's just a change room, but it looks like it's fitted out with enough space to host the olympics. I just keep walking, through the locker area, past the showers, and past the signs saying that each patron absolutely must take a shower, including salient washing details, and on through to the double doors to the pool.

Okay, so now finally I'm in the home stretch! I'm back into a part of the building that is actually familiar and on way to the pool. But wait - look at the speed at which those swimmers are attacking their lengths! They're not casual swimmers! I've seen this before when I've come 5 minutes early for the open session - they're doing drills! But too late now, the lifeguard is already hailing me, and the swim coach, seeing me hesitate, calls out to me. Here we are! I'm finally busted right at what might have been the moment of triumph. It's plain that I'm not supposed to be here, and now I'm caught....

Wait, what did he say?

"You're in the right place! Come join us! Hi! I'm Steve!" (Offers a handshake which I accept.)

"I'm Ben. Uh, is this the open session?"

"No, this is the triathlete training session."

"Right, didn't there used to be an open session on now? I haven't been here in a while."

"Oh, that's from 4-5pm during the summer break." (As opposed to the 5-6pm I was accustomed to. Fine!) "But if you like you can join us here, if you want to join in the drills?"

"Uh, thanks, that's okay, I'm a bit out of practice, so I just want to warm up slowly. I'll come back next week - a bit earlier perhaps!" (Smile! Remember, it's not a lie if you believe it! So says the famous George Costanza.)

May I also point out that it must have been perfectly obvious that I hadn't showered on the way out to the pool, as instructed. I hadn't even grabbed a handful of water on the way past to make my hair look wet. But nobody seemed to care!

I walk away, and the lifeguard also says hi on the way past. What nice people! They really just want people to get into the sport. Which is great!

It's a good idea not to judge Canadians by the signs you see around the place - you'd totally get the wrong idea about how laid back they are. They're not Nazis, they just make rules and signs like Nazis. And not even useful signs like "Cashier" or "Men's Change Room", just signs with rules that they don't enforce!

VSS pics

2007-06-03T20:51:00.001-04:00

As promised: me wearing glow-sticks in my hair, looking like an alien! The full glory is not clear in the picture because the top is not visible and the glow does show up, but you get the idea... I am shown here with the lovely Jen (photo by Jenna).

The antennae were so long that I almost put out people's eyes if I bent down (good for posture?). There was one other person with sort of antennae (little short stick stuck in a headband arrangement). Vickie started talking loudly about how we were the same species and would have to breed and he hastily left... should I be insulted?

I should point out that this photo was taken at Club Vision, the disco which is part of the official VSS program... They hand out free glow sticks. So I DO look more freakish that most of the people there, but not as much as if I had brought my own glow-sticks!

What does VSS stand for? Ben says Very Sexy Scientists... there are SOME of those at the meeting, but it really stands for Vision Sciences Society.

(For those confused by all the names: Jen & Jenna both study faces at McMaster; Vickie hates faces and is about to finish her PhD in infant motion perception, also at McMaster.)

exploding/squealing ginger-beer

2007-05-26T09:16:00.000-04:00

Our most exciting news in recent times relates my first batch of ginger-beer for the summer season.

Continuing the great family tradition of combat cooking, the ginger-beer is the exploding/squealing variety... Luckily I learned from the stories of previous disasters told to me as a child and when we bought bottles we bought the self-regulating kind (rubber stopper, flip-top).

Everything seemed fine til we came to open bottle number 1.
It shot the lid across the room and proceeded to froth all over the table and carpet.
Ben took an after shot, but blogger will only let you see it sideways...

We opened the next bottle in the shower...

The next evening we found that one of the bottles had vented lovely sticky ginger-beer all over the shelf it was on. On the up side it didn't froth quite so much.

Later, while cooking dinner, we heard a loud sound like a fire alarm... The noise scared the hell out of me! We located it to the box of ginger-beer bottles. A bottle was venting and shooting liquid at high pressure!

On the up side, it did mean that when we heard the same noise at 1 am we knew that the house WASN'T on fire it was just the ginger-beer coating everything in sticky!
We jumped up and dragged the box into the bathroom and put a towel on top of it (we had already put a towel underneath).

So now we're trying to drink a dozen bottles of ginger-beer as fast as we can before more explode and/or annoy the neighbors with their siren like whistling!

(I did also go to VSS in Florida recently, if/when I get pictures I will post them.)

Mega-Birthday Haul

2007-04-01T10:49:00.000-04:00

Hey there!

Well that has got to be one of the biggest and wackiest birthday prezzy hauls I've had in living memory! Not that I'm materialistic or anything ;-) but I do like puzzles and games and things.

Forgi and I spent the day together just doing stuff! Here is us posing with a mutant mushroom of love!

We went to the nearby country town of Waterdown to have a look at the sholps on their main street. We've been meaning to do this for a while as it looked like a good spot. We found a second hand bookshop, a "British food" shop, a second hand clothes shop and a tea room called "Tea at the White House" where we had a Devonshire tea. We also practiced our Tai Chi steps outside in the not-quite-spring cool temperatures of late March.

And here's what I got!

There was a package in the mail from Mum and Kara which had: "The Weather Makers", a book on climate change by Tim Flannery; "The Gunston Tapes", a DVD of clips of Gary MacDonald's comb-overed alter ego; "Sudoku For the Smallest Room: A Book for the Bog" featuring splashproof plastic cover; and four t-shirts with prints such as "Who are you and why are you reading my shirt?" Forgi had done some web-shopping and got: a ThinkGeek t-shirt with an Escape key; a bonus booster pack of PerplexCity puzzle cards (part-trading card game, part Da-Vinci-code-like competition); some notepads and envelopes and magnets from Nut And Bee (dot com) with wacky cartoons; and a remake of the original Nintendo Donkey Kong LCD game on a keyring (because I keep my broken-band watch in my pocket anyway so I may as well have something cool with which to tell the time).

These PerplexCity cards look like fun. It was really only a bonus add-on that ThinkGeek threw in with the t-shirt but is intriguing. There is a $200,000US prize for solving the main puzzle - which involves collecting together the whole set of maybe 200 puzzle cards. There is also an internet element to it.

Josh also sent a demo of an online roleplaying/puzzle game called Puzzle Quest, which I stayed up way too late last night messing around with. If you've ever played the Sega game Columns aka Diamond Mine, then you know the main puzzle part of the game - it's used to represent the battle sequences so that it's testing your wits rather than just your key-pressing reactions and dexterity.

Anyway, that was good! And I still have all of Sunday to just do stuff! And my tax return!

Yay!

Bye!

drawing personality test

2007-03-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You feel morose and are prone to lethargy.

What does your drawing say about YOU?

adventures with maple syrup

2007-03-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't rude, despite what you are all thinking...

The weekend before last B & I went to Westfield Heritage Village for their annual maple syrup festival! (I started this post over a week ago but have been too busy to finish it til now.)

In case you don't remember from previous posts, Westfield is a collection of old buildings with volunteer guides who will tell you the history of each. For the maple syrup festival they had three stations set up telling you how maple syrup was made by the native Canadians, how it was made by the pioneers and how it is made today! With tastings of the modern stuff...

I love education like this!

For those who don't know, the sugar maple is native to this part of the world. Other maples can be used to make syrup but the sugar content is so low that it isn't really worth it.

All maple syrup making starts by tapping the maple tree. You basically put a spout in the tree and hang a bucket off it to catch the sap. For good sap collection you need cold nights and warm days. It is the combination of the two which causes changes in pressure between the tree and the outside, which in turn means the sap will flow out. Further south they can't make maple syrup because the difference in day/night temperature isn't great enough.

You need about 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup!

The native Canadians used to make maple syrup by hollowing out a log, filling it with sap and then putting hot rocks in the sap to boil off the excess water. They always went to the sugar stage because that is easier to store (maple syrup does go off, so should be stored in the fridge or freezer). Apparently this leaves three layers: one of good stuff, sandwiched between two of crud! The native Canadians would stay up for 24 hrs or so making the maple syrup!

The early settlers used the same basic method, but instead of putting hot rocks into the sap, they could put the sap into successively smaller iron cauldrons and boil off the water that way.

The modern way is the same again, they just use more modern equipment.

Maple syrup has two flavours - molasses and vanilla. Cooking it for longer leads to more molasses flavour. Sap tapped later in the season has lower sugar content so it needs to be cooked longer to get the same final product. "Light" maple syrup has more vanilla flavour, "Amber" has more molasses and is recommended for cooking.

Once the leaves start budding on the trees it's time to stop tapping. At this point in the season the sap changes and tastes bad!

Mogo Jigsaw

2007-02-25T23:08:00.000-05:00

Lookee what we did!

Inside 12 hours too! My Mum sent us this jigsaw to help with cabin fever. It's nice to remember what Australia looks like at this time of year. There are more greens (foliage) and whites (snow) here, and much less of the reds, oranges and yellows you get in the dry Australian country.

I miss home!

Rant pants

2007-02-19T10:31:00.000-05:00

Hi there.

So, I've decided that, rather than suppressing a rant, or risking ranting to my workmates, or boring Rachel with another rant, I'm going to rant on our blog! There's a slim chance it might make me feel better. There's also a risk that even more people might think I'm mad, but well if you really think about it, we're all mad aren't we!

I'm fed up! This place bites! Maybe it's the cabin-fever speaking from being trapped indoors since January (which is really a pretty light sentence compared to other Canadian winters), but it just seems that nothing around here works and we end up spending more and more time feeling our way through inefficient systems, or dinky little "pet" systems that suit only the one or two individuals who control the power, or the absence of systems because it never occurred to anyone that there was a need for one. By the way, don't expect this rant to make much sense - I haven't worked out yet how exactly all of these little pieces of frustration add up to a coherent conspiracy to make Ben's life miserable, but I'm quite sure I'll figure that out before long. Perhaps that's just it - it isn't a coherent whole, it's a thousand little terrorist acts by separate cells who don't really know what the others are doing anyway, and don't care, so long as there is jihad. They behold the jihad, for it is their system, and it is good!

I should put a disclaimer in case any Canadians are reading this - don't be too offended (but still don't come near me at the moment either) it isn't personally your fault that nothing works. But be warned that this place is a major pain in the arse to migrate to - and I'm an English speaker! Imagine not having very good English?

Everyone you meet is dumbfounded when you ask them the most basic questions, like they expect that everybody already knows what they need to know because everybody has lived here all their life. Their face reads: What? You don't know that? And then they probably think: well actually nobody has never asked and I'm not actually sure I know myself - but I've lived here all my life so I guess I should know, but I'm too embarrassed to say I don't know, so I'll just pretend that it's a stupid question and hope they go away. I end up having to be clairvoyant about what is the right question to ask. Now if I go away feeling like I'm stupid, can you imagine how eg an Indian migrant feels? They're probably getting attitude from people like: geez those Indians, they're really strange, they must do things really differently in India, are they from Mars? when really it's just that the locals are so short-sighted that they don't realise how entrenched they are in their own little clique systems and language.

In Subway: "what salads do you want?" "um, lettuce, tomato, onions and, er, capsicum" they reach for the cucumber, "No, capsicum" they reach for olives "Cap-si-cum, oh what do you call it here, bell peppers!" they're still dumbfounded and finally reach for the capsicum through a process of elimination (and meanwhile your sandwich has cucumber and carrot on it as well) "oh these, green peppers" like everybody knows they're called green peppers. Which is bull anyway because they're called bell peppers in the supermarket. And in any case, there's something called pepper that is a table condiment, as well as there being green peppercorns used in some dishes. There are also chilli peppers, some of which are green (and green chillies are different from jalapenos) but they're also called green peppers. So there's this perfectly good word "capsicum" that isn't getting used because people here somehow find it much less confusing to call five different things "peppers". But I'm the one who is stupid here! Not them!

Shall I just not bother? Don't ask for capsicum unless I can guess what they happen to call it in their dinky little store? My guess it that that is what a lot of people do. It is socially unacceptable in Canada to make a fuss. It is more important to be nice and mellow than it is to get things done. Canadians may be "nice" but this also tends to translate into "incompetent".

Sometimes I think knowledge is a curse. The more you know, the more idiots can completely frustrate you. And a certain kind of idiot seems to take sadistic pleasure in knowing that they're able to trump your knowledge with their ignorance.

The other day, the strangest thing happened. I was reading some mail my mother forwarded from Australia. I actually felt nostalgic for a time when information you get sent is "grokkable".

A pamphlet "Super Co-contribution: How it works" that came with a super statement I got. I look inside and at a glance I have "What is the super co-contribution?" "Am I eligible?" "How do I apply?" etc Within about 5 seconds I know what the pamphlet is about and whether or not I need to read on. This is typical in Australia - there is a very high level of thought gone into communications like this.

Compare this to an equivalent document I got from my current work in Canada. I open the package which has several sheets Letter size paper. "OMERS: Omissions period details" then a few personal details, my name and a membership number (bearing in mind I've never heard of OMERS and didn't know I was a member), then "The omission period cost is based on contributions that should have been paid had you contributed to the OMERS plan during the omission period..." and more details about something that I think I'm supposed to pay, including the amount and a due date. The amount is several thousand dollars and I'm alarmed at the suggestion I am liable for a large sum to god-knows-who, and why didn't anybody tell me. I scan through the document for any clues as to what OMERS even stands for - I find nothing. There are two forms labelled "Omission Period Member Election" and another official-looking form from Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency.

I've spent at least a minute getting this far and still have only a vague idea of what the package is about, except for an alarmingly large "bill". I look for further clues: my employee ID is listed so it's something directly connected with Human Resources at work at the school board. The Omission Period goes from May 29th to date, and May 29th is when I started my job. The other sheets remind me of sheets I filled out when I joined the Commonwealth Superannuaction Scheme, so I think this is something to do with superannuation, but I'm not sure because "Member Election" doesn't prove it isn't something else. In the end, the payment date isn't until May this year, so I put aside the package to figure out some other time.

At work a week later, I get mail telling me I've been made permanent and made it through the probation period (was I on probation? huh?) and that I'll get a package in the mail at home from the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System asking if I want to buy into their pension plan retrospectively. All this time, I would have been having a cut of my pay going into this plan, only I was on "probation". Nice of them to tell me all this background information that may well have had a significant impact on what we're doing (just as well we didn't eg commit to a house mortgage on assumption of a certain amount of take-home pay or anything). At least this second package has more explanatory information (like actually spelling out acronyms, not that they'd ever need to because "everybody knows what OMERS is" - except of course everybody else who doesn't know) so I have half a chance. By now, I've had an extended conversation with our secretary to work out what's going on, and that only yielded a vague idea of the situation anyway.

This is typical of how things work around here. People send out minimal information and then expect you to work out the rest through word-of-mouth. In fact, I don't think it ever really occurs to anybody to write anything down at all. "That would take too long". And everybody here is just used to getting information verbally, and having a string of contacts that allows them to do that - which usually means there is a boffin in every building that everybody asks for everything - and everything falls apart when that person leaves. And the flip side of the equation is that if you did take the trouble to write things down, you'd find that nobody reads them because instead they go ask their neighbour what it's about.

The problem is that nobody bloody reads anything! Probably because they can't even read properly! So they never get any practice at it. So they don't know what a well-presented mailout looks like because they've never seen one! They don't understand how to communicate to somebody who doesn't already know the answers! They don't even take on board the fact that it might be their responsibility to do so! But they don't even imagine that it is possible (without of course making the argument that it would be a huge amount of work that they could never make time for - not in between fielding phonecalls from all the people who didn't understand the last mailout!

So my problem is this. I work well with things written down. Then they're on paper and you don't have to clog up your brain remembering them. Everybody else here works on word-of-mouth, which also means that you get inaccurate information passed between several people. Others are used to that, and often use the "we didn't get time" excuse to hide the fact that their organisational skills just can't bear the weight of anything more complicated than the simplest tasks. And yet knowing what they could do to fix things only seems to make me more and more frustrated at seeing things made a meal of time and time again.

What good is knowing how to fix things if the people who can change things won't listen to you?

And who is to say I'm right anyway? I'm talking about cultural change. Right or wrong, maybe my ways just won't work for people who are used to muddling through by word-of-mouth information?

Actually, the school board has a cultural change policy that schools should become "Professional Learning Communities". I'm privileged to have worked in what I would call professional learning communities (Methodology Division at the ABS for example) and I know what it is like. It is much more effective - policy decisions are made for the right reasons, and they actually stick instead of being subject to fads. The School Board's PLC policy is a step in the right direction - if only people actually understood what it meant and were genuinely committed to it.

Sigh! Torn between trying to change the world, or just giving up and going to sip a pina-colada by the beach somewhere. Too bad there aren't any beaches around here.

--

This post was proudly brought to you by Wendrick the Wendigo (he is from Bendigo).

Skating on ... snow?

2007-02-16T21:20:00.000-05:00

Last week we went ice-skating on the inlet at Princess Point (vague location for those who care)!

We bought Lumpy some 2nd hand hockey skates on the Saturday, and on our way home saw people skating on the inlet, so we decide we would have to try it!

Sunday afternoon we rugged up warm, and off we went.

Our first mistake was putting on our skates (with guards) in the car. It would have been a fine idea except that there was a muddy hill to get down to the ice...Some helpful strangers offered us an arm to lean on.

For those who have never been somewhere this cold. The river, or lake, freezes and is then covered over by snow and goose poo...

(Canada Geese play a large role in the North America soil enrichment program. Not everyone is grateful.)

People clear snow of patches of ice (and sometimes smooth it) so that they can skate on it. Mostly "people" means small children with hockey sticks. If you are lucky they can not only skate, but also avoid hitting you with the stick.

In this case "people" also included the amazing lumpy! (Shown here in aforementioned skates.)

And side-kick lumpkin! (Shown here showing off.)

Note the cracks on the ice. Another unforeseen hazard was the wind. Going in one direction involved no pushing at all, but going the other was rather hard. Thank the whatever for full-zip Gortex pants!

In the end we got bored of skating in tiny circles of cleared ice and set off through the snow which covered most of the ice surface. Some patches were rough, others smooth; sometimes the wind had moved most of the snow, other times the snow came up above my blades. It was a strange and thrilling adventure for a rink trained skater.

After the recent fall of snow (see snow day post below) we are hoping to go skiing!

Poor Spaz Cat!

2007-02-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

Out in the cold on a day like this. I'm such a meany for not letting the poor guy in. He mostly stays inside our neighbors house in this weather, but every so often I guess he must insist on being let out and then wishes he hadn't...

I tapped on the storm door window and go a "Rrroowrr!" of "Oh it's you again! Well if you won't let me in then go away!"

--

This post was proudly brought to you by the Bed Lobsters (TM)

Snow Day!

2007-02-14T15:49:00.000-05:00

Today Rachel and I got a snow day!

That means both the School Board and McMaster were closed for the day due to inclement weather. We've just had a blizzard that started about midday yesterday and continued til about midday today.

When we went outside, we saw this:

(and that seat is under the front verandah...) so Rachel started doing a little bit of this

and then I joined in

Dude where's my car?

Oh there it is...

We got something like 50cm of snow within 24 hours, and I think the surrounding areas got more than us - we're a bit sheltered in Dundas.

Lucky for us, the weather has cleared up this afternoon so we just went out to do stuff like shopping for food. We lean toward buying fresh fruit n veg a lot, and so don't have a great supply of tinned food - might have to rethink that a little bit!

Ready for Valentine's day?

2007-02-02T20:08:00.000-05:00

How much do you really love your significant other? Enough to feature in your very own romance novel? The site notes that "you can even include your dog or cat!"
Wait! Don't they remember Dr Abby from The Truth about Cats and Dogs? "You can love your pets but don't love your pets."

Of course you could have just have the two of you cloned...

Ah the web is a weird and wonderful place!

love to all!

Happy Birthday bug!

2007-01-07T10:43:00.000-05:00

I thought this story was so amusing that I would post it here so everyone could share it!

You may or may not know that Dec 6th was my brother's 25 birthday. Ben & I decided to get him something special, and in my wanderings through the net I thought I had found the perfect gift!

Mozilla apparently have a "bug" tracking system called bugzilla! Even better they have a t-shirt with bugzilla written on the back and a cute little bug on the front! So our bug could wear it and people he worked with would imagine he was an IT geek, while those of us in the know would imagine him crushing Tokyo!

To order this t-shirt I had to use an online site, where I typed in his address my address, gave them credit card details and so on. Fine, done that before. But when I got to the final screen I was told shipping costs for international shipping had to be calculated and I would then be contacted to confirm the order. Sounds fine. I didn't begin to worry til I clicked the link for more information and looked at their examples...

US$17 for a t-shirt plus US$60 odd for shipping to Australia, plus taxes = approx US$100 ??!!

Then I got an email saying that the order would ship, but with no information about shipping costs! So I replied saying wasn't I supposed to get to see the shipping costs first? I then received an email from them saying that I should not have received the first email because I needed to verify my address... This in reply to an email containing my address, as entered into the webpage! Anyway, I was still curious, so I sent them another email saying yes my address is as listed below, now please send me shipping costs before you send the shirt.

I got an email saying that the shirt had been sent and the shipping costs were $0... I wasn't quite willing to believe that so I replied, asking whether the $0 value was correct and whether the shirt had, in fact, shipped. They replied that no, the shirt had not shipped and it would cost US$56 to do so. Total cost of shipping one t-shirt to the UK US$73!!

So I politely told them to bugger off and asked why the cost was so high. They replied it was because they shipped with UPS which was really quite competitive... Must be something to do with the size of the company because ThinkGeeek's UPS shipping costs were about US$24 to send bug AND Nic's birthday presents to the UK.

Happy birthday guys!

xmas

2007-01-01T18:29:00.000-05:00

We couldn't make it back to Aus for xmas so we went to hang out with my rellies in Milwaukee/Chicago!

After a marathon marking effort (my wonderful TAs and I received the 66 exams at 4:30 pm on the 20th and finished marking by 3 am the 21st), we flew from Toronto to Milwaukee. We spent a very relaxing few days staying with Maggie & Charles (my step-cousin and her husband).

Maya (my step-aunt) & Ed (her husband) were also there. They had three of their dogs, so with Maggie & Charles's two that made FIVE (3 golden retrievers, 1 chesapeake retriever - a breed designed to retrieve birds from semi-frozen water - and a manic miniature poodle). Maya and me are shown here with four of the dogs (the poodle is not allowed to roam because he runs away) walking round Maggie & Charles's garden. Notice the complete lack of snow. No white Christmas for us.

We also had a lovely dinner with some more of the rellies: Gary, Jilaine, and their son (I think is was Joey...). Maggie made a lovely meal! Unfortunately Charles was on call all over the holiday period (they are both Drs) and so he had to keep getting up from the table.

Maggie took us to the small town of Cedarburg, which is very pretty. There we accidentally got a tour of their volunteer fire-department. How? We were peering in the window at some of the old engines and a man asked if we wanted a tour so we said sure! He even gave us calendars.

It was very impressive, particularly because it was all volunteer run (I think the chief got an honorarium of $200/yr). They even had a special truck for when they had to go and rescue people who had fallen into icy water! Instead of showing you that I've put in a picture of Maggie and me looking at the engines.

What do you do with all your wet fire hoses? Wash them in a big machine and then hang them up to dry of course! I love this picture, it looks like aliens!

On Christmas day we jumped in the car and went to Maggie's sister Karen's house in Chicago! (Maya and one dog had gone down the evening before, we took only the little poodle, so with Karen's big poodle that made only three dogs for xmas).

We had a lovely Christmas dinner. There were 13 people in total: us, Maggie & Charles, Maya & Ed, Karen, Joanie & Sarah (more aunts), Michelle (a friend of Karen & Maggie's) a friend of Sarah's and some friends of Karen's from the UK. They were very funny and Ken and I spent some time complaining about the local (USA/Canada) uni education. : p

No pictures of Christmas - Sorry!

We then spent a few days hanging out with Karen (& Gus! I like big poodles : ). Boxing day doesn't exist in the USA, so Karen went to work and we went exploring! We went on a walking tour of Chicago's historical skyscrapers (in case you didn't know, the skyscraper was born in Chicago).

This is an example of the "Chicago style", which has a big base, long narrow mid section and then a fancy section at the top (it was designed to look solid so that people would be convinced it wasn't going to fall down!).

It was a lovely day, so after some lunch we walked round Millennium park. Notice the giant silver jelly bean. We're still not sure what it's for...

This however, is a amphitheater. The strange silver curling things are sound baffles (or possibly a space-ship)! After our walk I made Ben come shopping with me for cashmere jumpers...

We met up with Karen and went to have a drink at the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the Hancock building (not to be confused with the ANU library, which doesn't serve drinks). This picture is actually from Karen's work building because we had to wait so long in the queue to get into the Hancock building that it was almost dark and we weren't quite at the window so no pictures. Still, the view was amazing, particularly, for some reason, from the ladies loos... There was a rail to stop you from feeling that you were about to fall out, but otherwise the wall facing the cubical doors was floor to ceiling glass!

The following day we went to the planetarium which had some cool moon stuff (including the Gemini 12 spacecraft), lots of fun stuff for kids and an amazing collection of pocket sundials!! We also saw a movie type thing (projected onto a big dome) about the ancient Egyptians use of stars (and what stars were important to them). It was narrated by John Rhys-Davies!

The planetarium also has the most amazing views of the Chicago skyline. This one is my favourite...

We walked back past Buckingham Memorial fountain (which you can't see in this picture because our heads are in the way... : )
In the evening we went out for Vietnamese (very good) and then to the Green Mill which is a cool jazz lounge which my grandmother apparently used to frequent. Even more cool, it used to be a speakeasy! Karen told us that when they were renovating in the area they found tunnels between several of the buildings, which they think were used to transport liquor. We heard a gypsy jazz group who were very good and we managed to score a table squashed up against the stage for the second set thanks to Karen's friend.

All in all, a very fine trip!

My mother would be proud!

2007-01-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

Sometime in mid-December we hosted an "Aussie" lunch for my lab-mates (this is part of a series started by Xiaoqing & Yingfang where we showcase food from our various countries). Since we could not get Roo or anything really interesting like that the menu was set as

Tzatziki, guacamole & carrot sticks (for the international element)
Pumpkin soup & Damper (with optional Vegemite)
Lamb chops (from NZ :) with cumin & garlic, green salad with macadamia nuts, couscous and beetroot salad and lentil patties
Lamingtons
Australian fruit cheese & water crackers

Which was all a great idea, except that there is apparently a trick to making sponge cake...

Mine ended up about an inch-thick, continuing a fine family tradition of combat baking. But I refused to give up! Running to the local supermarket I inquired about plain sponge cake. No, they didn't have any, but they did have angel food cake! So I used that instead. I dislike the Styrofoam consistency of the cake, but otherwise it worked remarkably well. And the "sponge" cake? I decided against using it as an offensive weapon and instead soaked it in a mixture of coffee, fine cocoa, sugar and brandy. We ate it with whipped cream and it was very good!
: )

The Winter Blahs

2006-12-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Winter Solstice was last night, and our days are only about 8 hours long again. The light quality isn't very good either cos the sun never gets very high in the sky.

I just heard on the radio yesterday that up to 20% of Canadians get a mild form of depression associated with the short days and, presumably, not getting enough sun. The "Winter Blahs" is what they call it. A few percent (2 or 3) get a more severe version called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is like wintertime depression.

It's not surpising to find it's an issue for potentially everyone in the population. I've heard several people talk about just having to go outside and do something to avoid going insane - and that's why a lot of Canadians like to go skating. In Montreal, you can even commute to work by skating along the canals - that would be cool.

I've been trying to go for walks around the block at lunchtime at work - and I'm still managing to do it even in late December because there is no snow around at the moment. We got a major dump about a month ago but there's been nothing much since. (Global warming again?) I'm going for the occasional swim at the McMaster U swimming pool when I'm in-between various bouts of cold and flu. Rachel walks to and from work every other day or so, and we've managed to find a skating rink once.

A very Merry Christmas to you all who are still reading. We've been doing this blog for a year now to keep everyone posted on our settling down in Canada, and we've done that. (Though it may well be as soon as a year before we're packing up to leave again...) We'll keep putting things up here from time to time, but I suspect we'll just have less to say unless we go travelling somewhere and take photos. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, and come visit us some time!
Cheers
B

Which Japanese Demon are you?

2006-12-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

Ryu
You scored 8 in Malice and 27 in Chaos!

Japanese dragons, or "Ryu," are very different from their Western counterparts; where the Western dragon is typically reptilian, with a heart as cold as its blood, the dragons of the Orient actually tend to err more on the side of beneficence. This should not, however, be construed as a license to treat them with disrespect; Oriental dragons are extremely powerful beings who do not tolerate impudence.

Ryu, like the dragons of the West, are known to have a fondness for shiny objects and treasure. Some Ryu are willing to part with their treasures if they deem a mortal worthy of inheriting it. Other dragons may also, like gods, grant wishes and supernatural powers to those who seek them.

At the same time, one must be wary when dealing with dragons; some may be extremely temperamental, and others even harbor a hatred for mankind and its desecration of the earth. Most dragons are by no means evil, but must still be treated with extreme caution.

Link: The Japanese Demon Profile Test written by Maharbal on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Lumpy is a Fox!

2006-12-15T09:03:00.000-05:00

Kitsune
You scored 14 in Malice and 32 in Chaos!

You are the Kitsune, or "Fox demon," the ultimate doer of mischief. Kitsune belong to a class of demons known as "Henge," or animal shape-shifters, along with the Tanuki, or badger-demon. They are uncanny creatures who are notorious as much for their malevolence as for their wild and unpredictable behavior; a fox demon may help a human, only to betray him in deepest consequence at a later date. Kitsune are known to frequently possess women or pose as humans, causing chaos and catastrophe where ever they go. They are mischievous creatures who take great pleasure in playing terrible tricks on unsuspecting mortals; however, this behavior indicates that they are more perversely playful and apathetic to human suffering than genuinely evil and desirous of harm.

birthday!

2006-12-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

Before I got ear-muffs I had a birthday, and since I haven't written anything in ages I thought I should tell you all about it!

First, I must say it was awesome because lumpy is awesome and bought me cake and chocolates and a really cool mug! Mmmm it was Gooood cake!
In my class that day I couldn't remember any of my questions after the group presentation (and had forgotten my notes), so I said "it's my birthday so you can all go home early"! : )

That weekend we went to Fort York which is part original, part restored and is where the the Battle of York was fought in the 1812 war against America. Also the birth place of modern Toronto. One of the most interesting things is that it used to be basically on the shore, but the shore has had so much filling in that it is now quite a bit inland and is pretty much under a freeway...

So you have this weird juxtaposition of the new city and the old fort.

It's an old sloping walled type fort, so that people are easier to shoot as the run up towards you. Good for long-range weapons.

Inside wall with cannons.

Outside wall with spikes.

The soldiers lived in dorm style accommodation. With slits for firing through! All the windows are on the upper floor (this is one of the rebuilt buildings).

The offices were rather better off (this is the mess hall). Note the floor covering made of Canvas, which was rather popular at the time (it's more hard wearing than carpet and can be made from any left over sails you happen to have).

They had a special power store with copper fittings (to prevent sparks) and a ventilation system to keep the gun powder dry.

In other news, I am thinking of changing my stylist...lumpy assures me that this is the latest look, but I am not convinced!

Love to all!

Forgi got Earmuffs!

2006-12-07T17:43:00.000-05:00

Look!

So-So Living

2006-11-19T11:20:00.000-05:00

The O'Connor Wattle St house that Rachel spent 2 years in sharing has finally been sold on, quite possibly to be knocked down for building flats. It's opposite the road from Tilley's and hence in the area where highrise flats are allowed under the new planning laws. The owner of Tilley's just happened to be Rachel et al's landlord. Stefan and Kristen found the ad description on All-Homes, as well as an "early draft" of the ad description before spin-doctoring had been performed...

SOHO LIVING

This enormous retro home is directly across the road from one of the Inner North’s most popular café precincts. The 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom home has large living areas as well as an eat-in kitchen. This home offers you the chance to have what would be undoubtedly a very much desired address by anyone seeking more then just a home but a lifestyle that is more akin to trendy parts of larger cities and is also becoming a way of life in Canberra. Investors and builders will also be astute enough to realize opportunities like this are rare.

... and the "early draft" ...

SO-SO LIVING

This retardly enourmous home is directly across the road from one or two cafés, including one that treats its customers and neighborhood with contempt due to its bloated fame. The 4 bedroom, 1 walk-in closet, 2 bathroom (one open-air/rain) home has large living areas (also with rain access) as well as an kitchen you probably don't want to eat-in. This home offers you the chance to have what would be undoubtedly a very much desired address by anyone recently arriving from a war-torn or economically depressed nation. It will taunt you with the possibility of desperately mimicking a lifestyle that is more akin to trendy parts of larger cities and has not yet become way of life in Canberra, which, lets face it, is a large rural center with what added benefits accrue from being home to the beloved national government. Investors and builders will also be astute enough to realize opportunities like this are rare, as knocking the property flat would be a good idea and you can do virtually anything from there.

Did you cut my deck?

2006-11-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

It's the things you don't think of.

I'm pretty fascinated by the language nuances you uncover when you're in a foreign country. The first month I was here, I started to speak like I was Canadian (or at least what my semi-conscious brain thought sounded Canadian) just because I was listening so intently to everyone's accent. I'm sure the Canadian-ness of my accent has actually reduced since then because I've gotten over my initial fascination.

Two of Rachel's work colleagues, a couple who are originally from Brisbane, are both linguists and their theory is that people adopt the accent of their country just enough to be understood by the people in that country. I'm sure there's some truth in this: if you ask an American is there are "any bears around" in an Australian accent, then they don't know what you mean. We say "beahs", whereas they say "bearrs". Sometimes it's just easier to fake that "rr" and be understood sooner. I definitely notice that when I'm in Aussie mode I get asked to repeat myself much more often.

But even after almost a year of this, it still didn't hit me right away why a Canadian at our table at a Magic tournament recently did a double take when I asked if my opponent wanted to "cut my deck". "What the...? Oh..."

(In Magic, you and your opponent both have a deck of cards that you use to play the game. You "duel" using the cards in each of your decks to play the game. One of the rituals at the start of the game is to take half the cards from the top of your opponent's deck and put them on the bottom of the pile, as a minimal protection against cheating.)

You see, when a Canadian says an "e", it leans out toward what we think of as an "a". Now, if you think about what we Australians must sound like to them, our "e"s snip off more like an "i". We sound to Canadians a little like how New Zealanders sound to us. I'm not going to spell out what my Canadian colleague thought I said, but I'm sure he was very confused for that second before he realised it was just my accent.

I dread to think what he would have made of the various other commonly-heard pre-Magic-game phrases such as: "Hang on, I'll just shuffle my deck" or "Would you mind not looking at my deck?" or just "Can I cut your deck?"

--

This post was brought to you by Royal Decks Missisauga

(Since whenever I have email conversations with Bug about Magic decks, my Google-mail gives me ads about deckbuilding of the carpentry type. I guess their context-detectors need work.)

Scary Halloween Costumes

2006-11-05T15:02:00.000-05:00

Showtime, Synergy!

Jem! Is Truly outrageous! Truly truly truly outrageous! Whoah Jem, the music's contagious! Outrageous! Jem is my name, no one else is the same! Jem is my name!

Jem!

(We are the Misfits! Our songs are better! The misfits! And we're gonna get 'er...)

Dressing up for Halloween is such a big deal here, I had no idea! Rachel and I went to a Halloween party hosted by one of her workmates and the range of costumes was quite something. My last minute attempt at doing Jem's alter-ego Jerrica wasn't met with a whole lot of enthusiasm as I'd only done the blonde wig part and nothing else - that and half the people there were too young to know who Jem was, boy did I feel old! Rachel had fun finding all the various accessories to be Jem, including some truly hideous star-shaped earrings that you can't really see in the photo above.

It doesn't seem to matter what you dress up as so long as you do a really thorough job of it. There was a really good Conan there, a "Devilled Egg" (ie an egg with horns, but people thought she was a jaundiced cow...), various witches and ghosts (including one with a sheet that wasn't even white...), a peacock, Smurfette, Borat (who won the best costume competition because the resemblance was so good), a prize boxer, Charlie Brown, a scarecrow, a dryad, Duff Man (a superman outfit with the S signed over) and various other superheroes, the paperbag princess, and an Allen key which was my favourite because "Who would think of dressing up as an Allen key, let alone go to the trouble of assembling a plywood structure and a shower curtain for the purpose, and then be prepared to knock party-goers' blocks off just trying to turn around in a crowded party room?"

And after all that, we didn't actually get any trick-or-treaters knocking at the door. So now we'll have to eat all these healthy muesli bar snacks we bought ourselves. (Maybe that's why nobody came - they guessed we weren't giving away sweets...)

Want some 'shrooms?

2006-10-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

In Canada, they call them "washrooms". I hadn't noticed til I read a newspaper article the other day that this is different to the Yank terms "bathrooms" or "restrooms". Some Canadians I have heard refer to the "loo", but you rarely hear "toilet".

I'm working in an ex-primary school building at the moment, which has been reclaimed for office space by the board. Halfway down the hall are the "washrooms" and someone had put a sign up some time ago saying so. The sign is stuck to the wall of an alcove so that it sticks out into the hallway and you can see it from both sides. Problem is, from our side you can't see the "wa" so it just says "shrooms".

So really it seems our board has bigger problems that just literacy if the board staff are selling mushrooms to primary school children!

(Unfortunately, when I pointed this out to our secretary, she changed it. She did see the humour, but was being far too responsible in my opinion. I was quite happy to add other signs around the place offering "meth" outside the math room or "E" where they hand out report cards or "coke" at the tuck shop...)

Name Change

2006-10-21T10:11:00.000-04:00

I am changing my name to Goom, the Gormless Goo.

It was a tough decision, with Booford Bones being the other shortlisted name, but the state of my sinuses tipped the scales in the end.

You may call me Goom, or the Goo, or Goom the Gormless Goo.

That is all.

PS. I'm going to a conference in Montreal next week. Yay!

The Evil Living Curry of Doom

2006-10-12T20:15:00.000-04:00

We had some bad luck recently with our cooking. We had a ton of vegetables to use up so we figured we'd do a massive veggie curry in our big pot and freeze half of to eat some time in the next few months. Rachel has a veggie curry recipe for lentils and tofu and whatever veg is around, involving mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry powder and coconut milk, and she also threw in a tin of Patak's Korma curry sauce too to give it a bit of zing.

Now we still don't know exactly where the evil contaminant came from. It might have been the Korma sauce, but it could have been something else. We cooked it late on a Friday night and left it on the stove overnight with a view to finishing the cooking in the morning and adding the coconut milk (which isn't supposed to go in until you're done with simmering). When I lifted the lid in the morning, it had a weird "head" of froth. I didn't think much of it at the time and just gave it a stir and turned the stove back on low.

Later, after we'd transferred it to plastic containers to cool, we discovered that it had actually started to dribble over the edges of the containers, still doing this weird frothing thing. By now, the kitchen smelled of this weird creamy curry smell that wasn't entirely appetising. We were wondering what could be in there that could make it froth like this. It's not like there's any yeast ingredient, and anyway if there was something in the Korma sauce it would have been neutralised in the long simmer. We were starting to doubt whether we could actually eat it at this stage, but for a lack of a better idea we put two big containers of it and two smaller lunch containers in the freezer.

Rachel got the other curry from the freezer - the Madras curry we made a month ago to freeze for a rainy day - and put it in the fridge because we needed the room.

By the next day, we had decided to get rid of it. Freezing it helped because we could tip it out into the green bin (can't use plastic bags cos it's organic waste, so there's an extra messy logistical problem...). I got them out of the freezer and dumped them. 2 or 3 containers' worth, I can't remember, but there was bucketloads of it because we had used a ridiculous number of vegetables in it. It was such a shame because it was so much food to go to waste. But it really did smell very strange. At least it didn't smell as bad frozen. (I _hope_ I can get the smell out of the plastic containers...)

The next night, we were going to eat the Madras curry (the good one from the freezer from a month ago) and I got it out to microwave it. When I was scooping some into a plate, I noticed something funny. This was definitely not the beef Madras I was looking forward to all day! It had lentils and tofu and that weird smell ... oh crap! Hang on, if this was in the fridge then that means I threw out ... oh crap!

Or maybe what really happened is that the Evil Living Curry of Doom evilly twisted our perceptions so we _thought_ we were throwing it out when really we were throwing out good food! Or maybe it switched places! Or maybe it infected other containers in our freezer so that they _all_ contained Evil Living Curry of Doom!

Right now it's on the front lawn lurking in the un-emptied green bin. The garbage truck usually comes today but didn't. _Maybe_ it's because they always come a day later when there was a public holiday on Monday (Thanksgiving Day for Canada), or just _maybe_ it's another Evil Plot! Given how much time it's had to melt, I'm really quite scared of what I'm going to see in the green bin after emptying. I couldn't really do a very good job of wrapping it in newspaper because there was such a big dripping wet half-frozen mess of it. It may require some sort of exorcism if this continues.

If anyone has any holy relics that are useful for exorcising your house of Evil food, they would be very helpful about now.

--

This Evil Living post was brought to you by the Evil Vengaboys of Doom

"Doom, Doom, Doom!
I want to meet my doom!
We'll meet our doom together,
From now until forever!"

Magic & airport safety

2006-10-08T21:20:00.000-04:00

Passengers are advised that wands must be given up before boarding the aircraft...

(I made mother take this picture for me when we were in Philadelphia airport on our way to Virginia. : )

Anniversaries, Lipstick, and the Wrong Side of the Road

2006-10-01T12:37:00.000-04:00

Howdy!

Rachel and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary just two weeks ago. We went to the 1010 Bistro in Westdale and had the Salmon which was very nice albeit a little on the sweet side (pineapple based sauce). We got each other stuff! I got Rachel a "Roots" T-shirt (there is a Canadian clothing company called Roots - as in grass roots - that Australians love to make fun of), and she got me the Underworld Back To Mine CD which is really cool! She also got "The Court Jester" with Danny Kaye on DVD for the both of us and we watched it and had a great time!

Rachel impersonates the Venus de Milo

We've had a few dramas lately. Rachel left a whole tube of lipstick in her jacket pocket before it went into the wash. We was hwith cold water so that would have been fine, but I didn't detect any problem until the whole load had been through the dryer twice (like 2 hours worth) by which time the whole tube had been pretty much emptied all over our clothes :-( Rachel went to work with the stain remover and did a pretty good job with it for all the important garments! There's still a few specks here and there, including on some of my underwear...

I went to a Magic Pre-release tournament in Oshawa last weekend, which involved getting up at the crack of dawn to drive about 150kms on highways to the site (Oshawa is beyond Toronto from where we are) with 3 other rabid Magic fans along for the ride. Well, I finally did it! I drove on the wrong side of the road! After more than an hour of driving, I took an exit off the highway (remembering that slip lanes are effectively one-way streets) and when I got to the next intersection, I turned left as though I was back in Australia! It was about 8am on Sunday morning so there weren't any cars around - which is probably half the reason I made the error. Anyway, Mike who was riding shotgun is thankfully a very calm thinker in times of crisis, and called out "You are on the wrong side of the road!" It can't have been more than a few seconds before we noticed, but it was long enough to come up to a set of traffic lights and be wondering why there was a guy pointing at me with his headlights on (stopped waiting for the lights to change thank heavens...). Anyway, after taking a moment to asses the situation (median strip so can't just cross over to the correct right-side, intersection zone ahead so can't usefully go forward) I looked to see if it was clear, drove out to the middle of the intersection then reversed around the median strip til I was waiting at a red light on the correct side of the road. Whew! There were about 3 cars waiting at red lights at this stage, and now I'm hoping that nobody took down my plates and reported to police (I haven't heard anything). So that was extremely hair-raising!

When we stopped, one of the guys in the back said to me "That was soo cool!" so at least I gave the guys a thrill they may not have otherwise had! And thank heavens for Mike because I seriously did not realise what I'd done (and why I couldn't see any traffic lights pointing at me even though I was at a traffic light intersection etc).

Hooray!

The Wiener Turner

2006-09-15T22:58:00.000-04:00

We went to a barbecue with Rachel's work colleagues today. It is an annual event to do with welcoming new grad students, and there is a competition to bring the best Wiener cooking system (think campfire and sticks with marshmallows). Our entry was the "Wiener Turner":

(Get it? There's a picture of Tina Turner attached to the tongs? Get it? Ahahaaha!)

Actually some of the Canadians were a bit mystified because the way they say "Tina" (Tinah) and "Wiener" (Weenerr) don't rhyme the way they do with an Aussie accent.

Alas, we didn't win the prize. In fact we were dead last out of the five entries :-( Ahead of us was the "Hands Free" which was Phil Gander with a piece of coat hanger wire attached to his belt buckle in a suggestive manner (the wiener jokes were coming thick and fast). Then third place went to the "Barbie-cue" which was a wiener stick made out of a Barbie-accessory fishing rod and tackle box (where the condiments were kept). Second was the Peter Jensen's "Baby Love" which was an amalgamation of bits bought from dollar shops, including a broom stick handle attached to a weird-shaped wire picture frame meant for baby photos (hence the name) - which you use by sliding your falafel patty (the entrant was vegan) in where the photo would go and holding the apparatus over the fire (I'd like to point out that Peter only successfully cooked one out of four patties this way, losing the other three into the fire). The winner was from one of the academic's children who had a Bo Peep shaped stake from which a wire coat hanger (original shape) hung. She claimed you could cook a hotdog at the same time as toasting a bun, aided by a piece of strategically placed alfoil to enhance the heating. And because you just drove the stake into the ground near the fire, it was also hands-free.

So we were totally outclassed! After seeing the other entrants demonstrate their contraptions, I had to think up a special feature for the Wiener Turner on the spot, so I explained that, because you had to hold the tongs (and your arm) so close to the fire, you would know exactly how hot the fire was!

(At least I got a few laughs from the audience...)

--

This post brought to you by the Society for More Movie Quotes about Rutabagas (SOMMQAR)

Padme: "Oh Anikin, you've grown!"
Anikin: "So have you m'lady. More rutabaga that is."

classical logical fallacy explained

2006-09-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

T implies p

not p implies not T

but it is incorrect to say

not T implies not p

because you could have been drinking something else...

80's (cheese) meltdown

2006-09-10T21:46:00.000-04:00

Due to popular demand, here's 10 more cheezy song lyrics for you to munch on! (See post below "Cheezy Lyrics"). Please let us know in the comments how many of these you get!

11.
"Her name is Gouda and she dances on the sand."

12.
"I'm on my way
from Roquefort to Stilton-ness today.
Uh-huh, Uh-huh..."

13.
"Monterey Jack
Monterey Jack
Every single one of us is Monterey Jack."

14.
"Provolone
Before you go-go
Don't leave me hangin' round like a yoyo."

15.
"Bocconcini-ro's waiting
Talking Italian."

16.
"But don't tell my heart
My Pecorino heart
I just don't think it'd understand."

17.
"Oh, what a feeling!
When there's Fetta on the ceiling."

18.
"Edam girl
She's been living in her edam world."

19.
"All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants Romano cheese."

20.
"Eat Mascarpone
We eat, we eat 'scarpone
Eat Mascarpone
We eat, we eat 'scarpone"

--

This post brought to you by Cheese Delivery

If you want cheese
Delivered to your door
You just call
Cheese Delivery.

Order online today at www.cheesedelivery.com

Cheezy lyrics

2006-09-05T20:36:00.000-04:00

Rachel and I have a debate going. How easy is it to recognise the lyrics of a song you know if you aren't given the tune? Well, we're going to test this theory with a little quiz. The object is for you, the reader, to try and see if you know the following songs. If you can name the song and artist, that is good, but we're mostly interested if you know the tune.

There's one twist - we've replaced some key words with types of cheese just to make sure things aren't too easy. But we've done it so that the lyrics still scan with the same number of syllables.

Let us know how many of these you get! Some are easy, and others are more obscure - depending on who you listened to in the 80's...

1.
"I just freeze
Every time you see through me
And it's all over you
Tasmanian Blue."

2.
"It's Gorgonzola
Zola-night
You're fighting for your life inside a Gorgonzola tonight"

3.
"I am a man
A simple man
A man of Cheddar."

4.
"How am I supposed to eat this Jarlsberg?
Now that I've been eating it so long?"

5.
"Whoah, he's a Parmesan man"

6.
"Come on baby can't you see
I stand accused of Limberger paninis"

7.
"Everybody's down on their knees
Camembert Cheese
But who needs that
When it's all in your hands"

8.
"Haloumi's made of this
Who am I to disagree?"

9.
"I'm your Mozzarella
'arella for money
I'll do what you want me to do"

10.
"Do to me Wensleydale say Ricotta do
Do it (eat my Brie) Do it (eat my Brie)"

The Dundas Cactus Festival

2006-09-03T10:57:00.001-04:00

Still catching up on posts...

A couple of weeks back, after we got back from Montreal/Ottawa, Dundas had its annual Cactus Festival. Summer festivals are big around here and many of the small townships have them. It helps with tourism a little, and with small business commerce as shops can set up stall in the main streets. And everyone here seems to love parades...

The Dundas Cactus Festival parade went right outside our house! Here's proof:

The parade was quite something! It went for 45-50mins, and included 5 (or was it 6) marching bands, two of which had bagpipes (extremely cool!). Can I remember who they were? The Salvos, the police band, the scouts, the Burlington somebody's, and another one. There were a number of other musical acts too, eg 3 orbands mic'd up on the back of a semi-trailer, and a couple of local dance troupes with boom boxes. The parade also serves as some small-scale advertising for local businesses, which went to varying levels of effort from having a painted van through to having a horse and buggy or float of some description.

Lots of people turned out on the street to watch. Forgi and I sat on our porch eating seasonal watermelon and drinking home-made ginger beer!

I'm just looking through my photos to see what else there was - and it's too many thing to put photos up of everything. There was: an out-house on wheels; a kendo demonstration; a cactus made of balloons; a troop of footsoldiers in the traditional red and white army fatigues; a white limousine; several floats from the "Rameses Shriners", a men's club where you need to be a senior Mason just to join (they wear those Egyptian "fez" hats); a half-dozen go carts zooming around; a trailer with 5 people on exercise bikes; a clown; and the local fire truck

BTW, the whole "cactus" bit relates to a cactus that used to belong to a local plant shop. But it closed. And the cactus moved somewhere else. But they still have the festival!

Mike and Jan are back in town again. We'll get them to do a guest blog on Niagara Falls shortly! Bye!

Postcards from Ottawa

2006-08-29T20:58:00.000-04:00

Back for some more photos from our recent trip! As well as going to Montreal for 3 nights, we came home via Ottawa, staying with Josh and Elli who have been there about as long as we've been in Hamilton. They kindly put us up in their basement apartment. I was extremely jealous of their new kitchen and bathroom fittings - but less jealous of the bathroom rail that came so easily out of the wall when Josh reached up to close the window...

Here is a picture of Josh making flash-steps in his kitchen. Elli looks on, impressed.

We arrived mid-Saturday, and J+E packed us a picnic lunch which we took to the big park area in town. Picnic blanket shenanigans ensued, with a hapless Josh finding himself tied up by a one-handed Forgi (the other hand occupied with a nectarine).

The main area of Ottawa is set around a lake, a little like Canberra. Unlike Canberra, many of the buildings are much older. The main parliament building is set right on the edge. This is, in fact, the building where Stephen Harper recently pulled Canada out of the Kyoto agreement. Go Steve! :-P

Just beside are this interesting series of locks leading to the lake.

Here's an amphibious tour bus. Apparently one of these sank a few years ago and a few grannies got killed. The bus was a bit too airtight - to the point where nobody could actually get out. I guess they must have dredged the bus as soon as the emergency services could get organised, by which time a few of the more fragile passengers had died from the various stresses involved. Oops!

Another statue of some musketeer guy who founded the city or something...

Here is a statue that's clearly of far greater historical significance. Err, actually it seems to exist only for taking silly photos...

Later that evening, we caught a taxi to go see a fireworks competition. That was pretty cool - some of the best fireworks I've seen. The taxi only had room for 3 in the back, and we had to make sure none of the police cars (there were heaps directing traffic because of the fireworks display) saw us. Forgi got the short straw...

The fireworks were cool!

Also, B(if)tek, one of my favourite Australian electronica acts are apparently really popular here!

No wait, this is just a beefsteak restaurant. Oh well. Anyway, a good time was had by all!

(Well can _you_ take a photo of the back of your own head? It takes skill!)

Goo

2006-08-27T21:14:00.000-04:00

I have to tell you about my goo collection. It is very good. I now have:

hair goo (Forgi made it for me to help me not go bald any more ;-);
hand sanitising goo (Forgi got some from work, they use it for experiments);
goo (plain);
2 kinds of Maple Syrup, one of which is special stuff from Montreal our neighbour gave us;
mission goo.

I want to collect more kinds of goo. Please give me suggestions!

I am not at all stressed about work deadlines!

Bye!

The Royal Mountain of Quebec

2006-08-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

Hi!

Forgi and I went with her folks to Montreal and Ottawa last week! It was fun!

In Montreal, we stayed 3 nights and had two days sightseeing in the Old Port area where there are lots of historic buildings and pleasant water views. We could have easily occupied oourselves for a week or more with what there was to do and see in Montreal, but that will have to wait for another time. We were staying on the French-speaking side of the main river-bound island (okay both sides are bilingual, but the side we were on leaned toward French), so we confused a few waitresses by saying "Bonjour!" and then staring blankly at them when they continued in fluent French. We were staying in the Latin quarter, on Rue St Christophe (Avenue), which was near a whole bunch of restaurants.

Here are some photos of Montreal:

The Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours. Originally a relatively humble chapel built by the early settlers, including a rather determined "uncloistered nun" by the name of Marguerite Bourgeoys. The rear section (originally built as a school house) had been converted into a history museum which was very informative. It seems Ms Bourgeoys travelled the Atlantic 7 times during her 80 years. There is an interesting portrait painting of her that had been painted over several times over the centuries. In the 20th century, they discovered this using x-rays and decided to see what the original looked like - quite different! The original painting was of an old, very lived-in face of a woman who obviously had a lot going on, whereas the idealised version that had ended up on top after multiple re-paintings looked much more like the old woman who'll sit you down with a cup of hot chocolate and ry your clothes.

Lots of big churches in the area of various denominations. Here is the church of the ABC (see the ABC logo in the centre of the picture). Actually, the logo is an M and an A superimposed, and was seen in several places, including on a seminary building which was the oldest building on the island.

Another old-manor-turn-museum in the middle of town had a large vegetable garden. I think these cabbages seemed much more impressive still in the ground than when they finally end up chopped up and steamed on your dinner plate.

The City Hall. There were several buildings around with the green roofs such as this. There were tours going on in the interior, which was very dark due to very little natural light being let in. There was a large display panel inside that talked a lot about the 1967 Montreal Expo and the 1976 Olympics, two events which the authorities are still raving about.

From the top of the chapel, we could see people riding around on these weird 2-wheel things that looked halfway between a manual mower and a pogo stick. We checked it out at the waterfront that afternoon - they're gyroscopically controlled so you just lean in the direction you want to go. It looked like heaps of fun; too bad we were all pretty tired and we would have had to wait 2 hours to get a go (and the Robbins' are a bunch of wusses when it comes to rides ;-).

An apartment complex called Habitat 67, which is considered an eye-sore by many locals. It's a conglomerate of more than 100 apartments arranged in cubes in such a way that the windows of any apartment aren't looking into the windows of any other apartment. The result looks like something hornets built.

The Basilica de Notre Dame. Half the churches in Montreal seem to be called Notre Dame ("Our Lady" ie Mary) but this is the big bad one. Built in the 1800's when they had plenty of money, everything is covered in gold. The contrast between Marguerite's relatively humble chapel and this behemoth monument to the greatness of God (amongst other mortals who apparently thought they were pretty good too, including the musketeering founder of Montreal, Paul de Chomedey, of whom there is a pedestal statue in the square in front of the basilica) is marked. The building sports "fake" gothic architecture, including a cylindrical internal roof that isn't actually weight-bearing because they had figured out how to do A-frame roofs by then.

Inside the Basilica, a wooden staircase winds to the top of the intricately-decorated pulpit. A great vantage point from which to give a sermon to the masses - and I doubt too many of them would contradict you either.

The light was low inside, so I turned off my camera flash and used longer exposure - pardon the not-terribly-steady hands. The organ over the entrace was very impressive. Still, I didn't feel like I was in a particularly "holy" place, rather than a place that was designed to impress and even scare into submission. I thought this was a really interesting place, not least as an example of what the church saw fit to do with money in the 1800's. I'd go to a classical music concert here, but I wouldn't want to go to a wedding - too weird having a statue behind the altar of Abraham about to sacrifice his son.

Anyway, we actually did heaps more than this, but couldn't take photos inside the museums. One museum on the waterfront had an entire subterranian layer where they'd unearthed the foundations of early Montreal buildings. One spot used to be the governor's house, and now it has the main museum building, and then you can walk under the street through an old sewer (cleaned up of course ;-) through to the remains of a fountain square that also used to have, at various times, a guard house, a warehouse, and a gate into the city.

Anyway, blogger is about the crash on me so hitting "publish" now...
Cheers
Ben

medical potatoes & NY

2006-08-18T11:19:00.001-04:00

We're several posts behind, so I thought I get in start...

Mother and I went for a meditation weekend down in Virginia from the 4th - 7th. It was just what I needed! We meditated and walked in the woods (beautiful clean fresh air!!!) and ate zone balanced meals and had some massage. For those who don't know we do a form of high-tech meditation which involves sitting and listening to a sound-track.

There were lots of lovely blue insects (this photo mother actually took somewhere else for me).

Including Giant BEES! (Also in Montreal where this was taken : )

From Virginia, we took the train up to Montreal to meet with lumpy & Da. Our plan was to take train to New York city, arriving in the afternoon, see a bit of the city and then the next day take a train to Montreal...

When we got to the train station at 6 am (an hours drive from where we were staying) we found that they train would be TWO hours late!
The lady behind the counter who was just putting out the sign to tell us this said "you should have called!".
I asked "you mean yesterday?"
"Oh no" she says "yesterday they train wouldn't have left New Orleans yet!"
"So when should we have called?" I asked.
She thought for a moment. "About 1 am."
: p
Strangely there were a lot of people who hadn't called...

So anyway we went to find some breakfast, and loudly discussed global warming (my current strategy is to loudly discuss what people can do about it in the hope that some might take up a suggestion or two! : ).

But we got into NY late (and tired) so we didn't really have time to see anything. We did walk around and look at architecture a bit (and made a brief foray to Time Square before deciding it was too noisy and full of tourists).

The next train left on time, but was held up at the border while two young gentlemen were escorted off... (Who knows why, but the train left without them.)

We arrived in Montreal slightly AFTER the menfolk instead of before them as originally planned! Montreal will be the next post!

(While we were away my lovely husband and father put up curtains in the living-room! : )

p.s. Medical Potatoes is what lumpy calls meditation I'm not really sure why except that it sounds vaguely similar...

Polish banana drinks on a search for skates

2006-07-29T20:19:00.000-04:00

The Pez are visiting!
(They may also do a guest-post)

For those of you who don't know bug, that's our (bug & my) parents...

They arrived on Thursday from Sweden without half their luggage, but at least didn't have to sit on the tarmac like Laura did.

Friday we left them to try and get on Hamilton time and deal with the change from low teens to 30+ and humid!

Today we went in search of ice-skates for Da. He had been communicating with several shops while he was still in Aus. He was originally going to try and take public transport, but lumpy pointed out that would take an inordinate amount of time so we all went on a road trip to the outer parts of Toronto!

The first shop (in Newmarket) had many pretty skating dresses for Mama and I to look at, but I think lumpy was a bit bored and we soon went in search of lunch while Da tried on many many pairs of skates...

The options seemed limited to sit-down restaurants or Mr Sub, but then we spied a Polish Deli... Unfortunately the didn't do hot lunches on the weekend (no snitchzel for us), but we did get a salad, some strange sauerkraut croquettes, a light rye loaf, some cheese, some ham and some juice... All the juice had Bananas in it. We sampled Banana & Lemon (which also had pumpkin); Banana, Carrot & Apple; Banana, Apple & Peach; and Banana & Blueberry. The general consensus was too much Banana for us! We ate in the car with the aircon on because it was so hot and humid out.

Da didn't find anything quite right at the first shop, so we then went off to a second place in Willowdale. Lumpy, Mama & I went off to find cold caffeine and ended up in a Turkish (we think) patisserire. They did very nice (extremely sweet iced coffee). We refrained from the sticky pastry things...

Da found some skates which fitted and we all came home for Thai beef salad.
The End.
(Mother mis-heard and thought I was "reading about Polish Army jokes" instead of writing about strange polish banana drinks! : )

Extremes

2006-07-17T17:15:00.000-04:00

We're in the middle of a heat wave. At just after 5pm, it's 32 degrees, with a "feels like" index of 39. Earlier today, that latter figure was over 40. They give us a "feels like" index to account for humidity in the summer and wind chill in the winter. I think I'd agree with their assessment - it doesn't feel like 40 degree dry heat out which is more like being in an oven, but it is as unpleasant in terms of constant sweating.

It has been hot since Thursday. On the radio on the way home from work, they said they're expecting Ontario to use a record power wattage in the next hour (5pm to 6pm), breaking last year's record set also in July. Air-conditioners. I've got ours on now - a clunky old window-unit that came with the flat. We're not that happy about using it in power-wastage terms (increased occurrences of heat waves being statistically linked to global warming and all), but you do what you have to in this sort of heat.

So, we're here in Ontario. In summer, it is as hot and humid as some places in the tropics - and yet there are no decent beaches (unless you like swimming in steel-mill runoff). In winter, it gets cold enough to snow for weeks - and yet there are no decent places to ski (actually we haven't really tested this, it's probably as good as skiing in Aus). I've forgotten why we came here...

...although it's pretty good compared to being in Lebanon at the moment. Apparently there are as many as 50,000 Canadian citizens in Lebanon (16,000 registered with the embassy), and the government is scrambling to evacuate them amidst Israeli shelling. About 5,000 are Canadian residents there on holidays. Most are probably Lebanese migrants who have spent some decades and/or generations in Canada. I'm a bit surprised we haven't heard of a similar situation with Australian citizens in Lebanon - doesn't Australia have a lot of Lebanese migrants? Aha, I just found it on the ABC News website - Australia has about 4,500 people registered with the embassy in Lebanon. And they're also being shipped out, albeit by the hundreds rather than thousands. A report I heard from a refugee from Lebanon said a lot of people may not even be able to get to the ships because some arterial roads have been destroyed.

And there's more bombing going on in Iraq. And Indonesia just got hit by another tsunami. And China and India are having floods.

Perhaps we should all move to Vanuatu. Apparently, they're ranked number one by a new "happiness" index:
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1684800.htm
Zimbabwe was last.

People can't drive

2006-07-13T21:22:00.000-04:00

There are some really bad drivers here. People don't seem to know how to use indicators. The way people just vague their way between lanes is astonishing - so much so that I had to start using vague as a verb for lack of a better word. Some people really don't seem to be able to stay in their lane either - I saw someone today straying halfway into the slip lane exiting the freeway before noticing that they weren't in their lane any more.

The scary thing is that heavy freeway traffic really is harder to drive in than anything in Australia (except maybe a few key roads in Sydney and Melbourne for less than 5km at a time). I don't understand how they avoid having accidents like every day. There's also a really hugh variation in driving attitude: you can have the nervous 90km/hr right-lane only drivers (remembering that the right lane is the slow lane here) on the same road as the 150km/hr hoons who appear out of nowhere.

I guess this is why car insurance premiums are so huge here (think 3 to 6 times what they are in Australia), and why they're like double if you're male and under 25.

Guest blog 2

2006-07-02T18:13:00.000-04:00

Westfield Heritage Village
Today we 3 lumps went to a fabulous place called Westfield Heritage village. A collection of more than 30 Canadian historical buildings set up by 2 local school teachers who thought that there was not enough local history being taught, so they purchased the land and set up a site to present 19th centruary rural life.

The result is fantastic, each building was staffed by volunteers complete with costume, who knew about the history of the building and were able to tell us about where the building had come from and who had lived or worked there.

Much to my delight a number of the buildings had been used in the filming of Anne of Green Gables (AoGG) and while I won't make it to Prince Edward Island (the home of LM Montgomery) I can say that I have seen a number of the buildings used in its filming and sat at the famous Bright River Train station waiting for Matthew!

We enjoyed some home made biscuits with butter and jam (or scones if you are Australian) and iced tea and Lemonade (no not 7up but real freshly made lemonade).

There were some fabulous characters around the village and it was a day thoroughly enjoyed by all 3 of us (even if the 2 local lumps got sick of my ravings and excitements about AoGG!!)

See the Westfield website.

The village blacksmith making a long-handle kitchen fork - the old-fashioned way.

A covered bridge. Horses won't cross a noisy river because it sounds too dangerous.

The trading post building - c. 1830, moved from Leeds County to the Westfield site. (All of the buildings have been relocated from somewhere in the area.)

The general store is along the main street, and was built in 1848 in Elgin County.

One of our guides demonstrates a camera obscura. We're posing for Lumpkin (not the other way around) - a lens/mirror arrangement projects our image onto paper for Lumpkin to trace, producing an accurate sketch.

Laura playing Anne of Green Gables at the train station.

A fancy soda machine at the general store, which carbonates water on the spot. Flavours of the day were lemon, orange, vanilla, pineapple, strawberry and sarsparilla.

Guest blog - hon member of team lump

2006-07-02T17:35:00.000-04:00

Canada day - Saturday 1st July 2006
A bit of background on Canada Day, according to a website on Canada day's history it is a celebration of "the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada." Having said this however like a number of Australian's when asked about why we have Australia Day, the local Canadian people really have no idea and when asked this question promptly answered, "the purpose of Canada Day is to have a day of work, a BBQ or party with friends and enjoy the free fireworks!"

Lumpkin, Lumpy and I spent Canada Day afternoon and evening at Lumpkin's friend's place, all the Canadian people were very welcoming and found it a novelty to have three Aussie's to celebrate Canada Day with!

We enjoyed a great BBQ with lots of great burgers, hotdogs, popsicles and other yummies and introduced the party goers to Haloumi cheese and Anzac Biscuits (or cookies, biscuits here are different.) I might add that haloumi cheese is Turkish and we had to make the ANZAC's to make things even!

We had some very amusing conversations about the different meanings of words in the 2 cultures and i found about the Canadian school system and the real reasons why kids are sent to summer camp! (Thanks to Jess) I also learnt if you want lemonade you have to ask for 7up or sprite otherwise you get many blank looks!! (thanks to lumpkin and lumpy!) I managed to tread on someones toes by saying later in my trip i was going to Victoria island instead of Vancouver island but was later forgiven for my ignorance.

After several threatening rain showers, Ferrinne rounded up the party crowd mostly grad students, post docs and other significant (or insignificant others!) and we took the walk down the hill to Hamilton Harbour to watch the local firework display, a great show (although people didn't have radios blaring like skyfire). I definitely enjoyed the fireworks but was even more excited by a big flock of Canada Geese who were also enjoying the show! (The locals couldn't understand my excitement until I asked if a Kangaroo would be exciting to them!)

All in all a fantastic evening with all the important things, good food, interesting people and a few fireworks for good measure! Oh and did i mention Ferrinne's cute dog Sydney spent the evening with us too!

Pat and Ben: "you can plough my field any time, baby"

The office: Vicky, Ferrinne and Rachel

Ferrinne's dog Sidney is very good natured and has an amusing underbite.

As we watched the fireworks, a gaggle of Canada geese tried to make good their escape. We might have been sitting on their spot.

More Canada Day fireworks across Hamilton Bay.

A good time was had by all. (Laura had the camera, so there aren't any shots of her :-(

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This post was brought to you by our special guest blogger, Laura (an honorary member of Team Lump), who is visiting from Canberra this week. Thanks Laura!

The Protege

2006-06-28T18:31:00.000-04:00

Lookee what we bought...

Yay! No we can do stuff and go places!

And look at our lovely backyard now we're in summer!

We are getting bucketloads of strawberries to eat now and they're yummy!

!!!

Farmer's markets and giant ice-creams!

2006-06-25T11:51:00.000-04:00

We had a great day shopping yesterday!

First we went to Locke st to go to the big Asian Grocery store there. We got black beans and soy sauce, chilies, lime-leaves, bean noodles and tins of Thai curry paste. We had a little bit of time before the next bus so we wandered further down Locke st and found a really great little ice-cream place.

The girls there were really enthusiastic and gave us lots of samples. We both opted for the waffle stack which was $3.50 each and turned out to be HUGE (requiring two-hands). Ben had caramel and chocolate fudge and I had mango, strawberry and lemon gelato. We decide to walk into town rather than getting on the bus because we were worried that we might cover the other passengers with ice-cream! The ice-creams started melting before we could finish them and we had to stop so that I could eat leaning forward. I dropped ice-cream on my feet! In the end I couldn't eat the last little bit...

Next we went to Jackson square, which is always a surreal experience. I think Lumpy has mentioned it before, but it's a huge mega-mall most of which is empty. A lot of the shops which are occupied have little cheapy stores selling plastic toys or tacky dresses.

We went to the "Asian Market" which is a sprawling section on the top floor containing an Asian grocery type thing (where we got some more curry paste and some mirin), and some Indian/Pakistani type clothes. I bought a cute skirt for $10 (needs a little fixing).

Then we went to the Farmer's Market which is in a kind of multi-story car park next to the library. There was lots of fresh fruit and veggies, and people selling spices. There's something very calming about being surrounded by healthy food in bulk! We found an Indian guy selling curry paste which he assured us was better than Pataks being made by an Indian company. So we bought some of that.

We also went to Denningers to see if we could find Russian Caravan tea and to have some lunch. They have German style hot-dogs and so on (a healthy food day ; p ). But NO Russian Caravan.

This morning I looked on the Twinings site and the only place where they definitely sell loose leaf Russian Caravan is AUSTRALIA!! Not the UK, not the USA, not "international". (The Russians *MAY* have it, I can't be sure because I can't read Russian, but I think it's Traditional Afternoon tea not Russian Caravan.)

Crazy, but true.

WTF!?

2006-06-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

Observe these three Exhibits:

Exhibit A: (left) Go Transit Bus Ticket
=======================================

Clearly marked are the messages: "TICKET MUST BE CANCELLED TO BE VALID" and "CANCEL TICKET BEFORE EACH TRIP". Well obviously! Because there's no way anyone would think the word "cancelled" might mean that the ticket was no longer valid. Of course, the nice thing about this is that once you've used up the 10 charges on the ticket and it is cancelled, you can theoretically use it forever after that. But of course, you've got to figure out how to use up the 10 charges given that it is invalid as long as it isn't cancelled. WTF!?

Exhibit B: (middle) HSR Bus Ticket
==================================

HSR stands for Hamilton Street Railway. Railway. But it's a bus ticket. And the bus company doesn't run trains. Anywhere. Nor trams. There are no rails involved in any sense of the word.

Exhibit C: (right) Twinings Tea Bag
===================================

This one is just funny. It's an English Breakfast tea tag, but it also has "The Gout Anglais" since everything here has to be labelled in English and French. I wouldn't have thought any self-respecting Frenchman would be seen dead drinking English Breakfast tea.

No wonder there is a literacy problem here in Canada.

Luncheon of the Boating Party

2006-06-18T15:22:00.000-04:00

Hey there!

Rachel and I went sailing last weekend with our landlord Alex and his partner Isabel. Alex has a yacht which he very enthusiastically works on and sails every year. In fact, at the moment, he's kind-of a hard man to get hold of because he sails so much.

Anyway, last Sunday, we were doing our slowly-getting-up-and-eating-pancakes routine when Alex phoned and invited us out on his boat for the day. We graciously accepted:

Alex owns a berth in "the Bay" (I'm sure it has a name other than that, but that's what it's called around here) which is just north of Hamilton and north-east of us here in Dundas. The marina is on the Burlington side (north-west) of the bay. The bay is part of Lake Ontario, but separated by a sandbar - which is just as well because the Hamilton steel mills dump a lot of crud into the bay. So, you don't swim in it and you don't eat any fish you catch.

The sandbar make the 3rd side of a triangle of land enclosing the Bay. The sandbar has a highway running along it, on a big trellis bridge high enough so that large ships can pass through a canal. The highway connects Hamilton to Burlington, and forms part of the QEW that runs all the way from Toronto to Niagara Falls and the US border. You can see it in the distance in the photo above as we leave the marina.

Downtown Hamilton ...

... and panning just a little left, the Steel mills. Companies Stelco and Nofasco (sp?). Used to be 5 or 6 companies we're told, but a combination of bankruptcy, merging and general downsizing means we're down to 2. Alex tells us they have industrial accidents there regularly - it's just a dangerous line of work - so we're glad other people are doing that job and not us. It's easy to be too trendy and say "Oh it's an eyesore" and "They should be shut down, they're so dangerous", but so long as we use steel, somebody has to do it.

Anyway, we went through the canal to Lake Ontario ie the really big bit of water. This is Alex steering the ship as we pass under the highway suspension bridge. There was also a scenic roadeay closer to water-level that gets raised every half-hour to let boats through. Sometimes it gets raised at odd times because a steel cargo ship is coming through...

... or just through the sheer strength of the index finger of our intrepid skipper...

Out on Lake Ontario, the water is really clear. Alex went for a swim, but didn't last long. The water is pretty cold here, being snow country in winter. It looked pretty inviting but neither me nor Rachel brought our swimmers (in fact I would have to buy swimmers - we didn't really pack much in the way of warm weather gear).

The sailing part was fun. Alex and Isabel did most of the sailing work because we didn't know the terms they were using. But we caught on and were doing more by the time we headed back to the marina.

For those of you who are still reading, here's our latest news: we put down a deposit on a car yesterday! A Mazda Protege. We decided to pay a little more in order to get something with reasonable resale value - and reasonable insurance premiums. It's ex-lease, and we have an arrangement to get an independent mechanic to take a look at it tomorrow or the next day. We can still back out if it turns out that the car completely sucks, but it seems fine on the surface, and it's had only one owner. It'll be a little over a week before we can drive away with it - the car dealer asks for 5 working days to do the detailing and servicing, which they don't do in any serious way til it has a buyer. They buy a whole lot of ex-lease cars in Toronto to sell on, which seems to be standard practice for this type of dealer. that made it easier for us because we only had to go to a couple of places, instead of driving to half a dozen private owners. Our friends Pat and Renee were nice enough to drive us there for the day.

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This post was brought to you by Ben. Yes, just Ben.

conference2

2006-06-04T21:05:00.000-04:00

I've just arrived back from conference number 2!

It was in Rochester, NY and was on statistical learning and brain plasticity (which just means how the brain changes and how we learn based on what we experience). It was great because there were lots of people from different areas of psychology are related disciplines, but because the audience was so broad everyone had to give more background that they might at another conference so I really learned a lot. Nearly ALL the speakers said they felt like they didn't really belong there, it was really funny!

I shared a room with my two bosses, both very intelligent and amusing but quite different people. Somehow my traveling neck-pillow went missing (which would have made sense if the maids had changed my sheets, but they hadn't...) and TL decided to try and get it back or get me compensation. So far neither has happened, but it was funny listening to her talking to the people at the front desk!

On a completely different note, if you live in Australia at the moment please consider signing this petition for a Bill to reduce discrimination against same-sex couples.

Summer's arrived with a screeeech!

2006-05-31T17:39:00.000-04:00

We've just had 3 hot days in a row to take us into June. The first two were over 30 and today just got up to 30 in the last couple of hours. The "feels like" index is up at 37, and was over 40 yesterday. It's humid here so the heat is worse than Canberra. Having said that, these days were about as hot as the hottest days Canberra throw at us. If this is as bad as it gets then we'll survive. I think we handle it better than most Canadians.

Also, it hasn't been cooling off overnight, so we've been using the air-conditioner unit in the bedroom. It's on now to give a little bit of relief. My office is in a converted primary school so it's not air-conditioned. We have a fan and that's it. It's a bit mean of the weather to suddenly start with hot weather just when I've started work.

Seriously, Monday's maximum was more than 10 above any max temperature we've had since we've been in Canada. We're told that last summer was a scorcher, with this sort of weather from the beginning of June through to mid August. Also, the winter was mild. It's not a great omen, so we live in hope that this is just an out-of-character early burst of summer.

My new job is good. I just had a long meeting with my boss this afternoon on my first work task. This is my third day and I'm already doing relevant work (using SPSS which I only opened for the first time ever on Monday), so that's pretty good. I thought I might have a bit of hard learning to do before I could be any use, not having formal qualifications as a statistician, but so far it's not that hard at all. I guess I know more than I thought I did!

A sunny smile to you all!

Indian Names

2006-05-27T22:35:00.001-04:00

I was reading this comedy book by Paul Reiser which had a bit about names, as in choosing names for babies or pets or otherwise. He was making fun of the whole Native American mode of naming where you wait until someone is old enough for some defining event to happen and you name them after it, ie you name them by something that they did. The Kevin Costner movie "Dances With Wolves" taught us all about this. Reiser's book hypothesises how this would go in the Western world where the everyday things we do aren't anywhere near as romantic. "Oh, so do you remember that guy who was always yelling at the vegetables?" "Yeah I remember, Barks At Salad, I wonder how he's going?" And the kids end up getting called "Fell Off His Tricycle" or "Allergic To Nuts"

We were wondering what we'd get if we tried to think up Indian names for some of our friends. Some were easier than others. See if you can spot anyone you know (including maybe you)...

Small Kicking Cook
Collects Blue Things
Reads With Weights
Looks Like A Vegetarian
Runs Up Mountains
Dances With Machines
Belches From Cliffs
Reads Web Comics
Spins With Planets
Speaks In Tongues
Makes Wacky Music
Makes Cruisy Music
Fond Of Punnishment
Professional Naked Poet
Runs With Disc
Thinks About Fixing Stinky World
Plots World Domination

We're in there too, but it's hard to come up with Indian names for yourself, except for "I'm Me, Ain't I Great?" Maybe you can think of a better one for one or both of us - and get your sweet revenge all in one comment!
Bye

--

This post was brought to you by Ben who likes word games of all sorts! :-)

Gee! Two!

2006-05-24T11:25:00.000-04:00

I got my driver's licence! Yay! Took the test this morning. No hiccups. Lost like one mark for "incorrect steering" (read put my hand on the inside of the steering wheel when I backed out of the parking lot).

I went with a driving school this time. Boy it makes a difference when they can see you're with a driving instructor and using their car. The testers are so much nicer. (We went to a different test centre as well where the people are less frumpy.)

So this is a G2 licence which is like P plates in Australia. The main differences between the G2 licence and the G (full) licence are: I have to have exactly zero blood alcohol level on a G2; I pay higher insurance premiums; the test to get a G2 is easier, keeping to city streets and not highways.

Now we can see about getting a car. Just as well cos I start work on Monday. (Yes, later than what the other post said - they needed a police check which is due back Friday.)

In other news, we just said bon voyage to Jack Bauer and friends as the 5th season of 24 came to a close on Monday. We've got the end of the 2nd season of Lost on tonight, and then the final episode ever of Charmed on Friday. We also caught the final ever episode of the West Wing on Sunday a week ago so that was sad. So now there's bugger-all television on for the summer, just like back home when you get to December. I'm surprised I haven't seen ads for Judging Amy yet...

--

This post proudly brought to you by

Bling Chickens (of the Ghetto)

Check out their new album "Bukkawk, yeah!" from BMG, and their July-August tour of the ghettos of the world.

The Settlers

2006-05-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

It's been almost 5 months since we've been in Canada! In case you've forgotten what we look like, here's a photo of us now!

I really should shave. Forgi discourages me from shaving...

We were just playing Online Settlers of Catan. It's free! You can play against robots or real people. It uses a Javascript so you don't even have to download anything. Scott E sent us the link. We're hoping to set up a group game soon.

For those of you who don't know of the game, it's a German board game that emerged a few years back and a group of us used to play it ad nauseum. It has an interesting dynamic involving trading commodities between players, which allows you to form alliances and/or vendettas. The surest way to lose is to look like you're winning, because all the other players will do everything they can (which is quite a lot) to stop you. It's addictive! Play it! (Although if you're a newbie, you might need to look up the rules someplace else, because the Java site assumes you're familiar with the boardgame...)

Sayonara!

Conferences and Florida

2006-05-12T20:14:00.000-04:00

As lumpy said I have been away for the week in Sarasota, Florida.

The weather HERE has been lovely. The weather there was hot and humid, although it did only piss down with rain once. The conference (VSS) is really an excuse to go to Florida beaches with some posters and talks thrown in. So most people stay on the keys and hire cars to get round. I only decided to go at the last minute (when Daphne told me the grant would pay...) so I ended up in a different hotel from everyone I knew and had to beg lifts (which many people generously gave me).

But I had a great time! I caught up with lots of great people and met some more. I had some great food and learned about some new results in several fields I'm interested in.

Highlights were hanging out with a whole bunch of Aussies and Kiwis on the afternoon off, having dinner with some great face reserachers, and doing daggy dancing at Club Vision (thanks to Emma, Linda, John and the boys from UCL for participating : ).

Lowlights were getting a massive blister on my foot the one day I tried to walk to the conference from my hotel, and forgetting to get the flight number of the people who gave me a lift from Tampa airport when I first arrived (which meant I spent a stressful hour or so wondering whether they had come to the other baggage claim and missed me).

Extrememly amusing were the old guy who asked me at breakfast whether I enjoyed being a woman (I stopped going to breakfast after that but one morning when I was waiting outside I turned around and he was standing there smoking and staring at me with his one eye that wasn't covered by an eye patch!!), and Paul mishearing me and thinking gumlings must be baby Koalas.

As a thank you for giving me lifts I have to find a picture of the Queen's legs for some of the McMaster people.

Only in Ancaster could I get a job!

2006-05-11T14:30:00.000-04:00

Heyyy!

(This is me doing my Richard D James impersonation. His music is quite good albeit scary, especially when he writes under the name Aphex Twin.)

So, I've landed this job working for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. I got the call on Monday that I'd be signing papers on Friday (now tomorrow) so that sounded pretty certain. Of course, until you see it in writing you can't be absolutely sure there won't be a hiccup of some sort. However, today I went into the office to meet some of my will-be co-workers, and they gave me "the key"! That means they're serious! (And I only have to wait a day for the contract anyway...) So, it's time to celebrate! Hooray!

I'll be working for a research division in the school board called the Evidence-Based Education and Services Team (E-BEST) as their resident statistician. After doing this job for a while, I'll be able to call myself a statistician in earnest (instead of a survey methodologist which sounds pretty impressive and is actually hard, but people don't know what it is ...). It's a year long contract with the possibility of renewal, and it pays better than my ABS job at home which is a very pleasant surprise.

The hardest part has been figuring out how to get there. Ancaster is like Dundas - a bunch of rich-person's suburbs loosely attached to Hamilton. Both Ancaster and Dundas were small towns in their own right up until the last decade when Hamilton's growth has extended to their border. This means of course that public transport goes from Hamilton to Dundas, and from Hamilton to Ancaster, but not from Dundas to Ancaster. So I've got to catch 4 connecting buses to get there. In spite of this, I've calculated this will take only just over an hour, and appears to be the best option available for next Monday.

My options are:
(a) drive;
(b) taxi;
(c) get lifts (from neighbour)?
(d) buses;
(e) cycle.

I've just ruled out (e) upon establishing that the office building doesn't have a shower facility. Cycling was already looking iffy because it's about 14km and up hill in the morning. Hamilton also gets really humid in summer, and I work up a sweat sometimes just eating a hot meal ;-) Attempting this in a suit would be impossible. (Although I have also established that casual wear is acceptable. Hmmm, too bad my wardrobe consists of suits and ragged t-shirt and not much in between - add clothes shopping to the list for tomorrow!)

(a) is out of reach for the time-being. I will be taking the driving test in a couple of weeks and then we can think about getting a car, but we still don't know how we'll actually get to the car yards, nor how we'll organise insurance for a potential purchase on the fly. I expect I'll be run off my feet for the first few weeks getting to know the job anyway.

(b) is the fallback position if nothing else is possible. I figure it's worth 2 taxi fares just to get established in the job in the first place. So long as I'm earning more than the cost of the fares, it's still more money than I'm getting now unemployed. In combination with some of the other options, this could be a good gap-filler. Of course, it's not really a long term option. (Or is it? When I know how much the fare is, I can do some sums and see if it actually works out to be less than owning and running a car. Given petrol and insurance prices, there's a chance this is competitive.)

(c) has come through nicely. My neighbour Helen drives through Ancaster on her way to work and has agreed to give me the odd lift for the first few weeks until I get set up, if she happens to be going in at the same time as me. This will probably work out to be 2 or 3 one-way lifts per week, and every little bit helps. May I just add here that Helen is a total legend ;-)

(d) looked bad at first. It's 3 connections: one from Dundas into Westdale near the University (part of Hamilton), then one to Meadowlands (a shopping district on the near side of Ancaster), then one across Ancaster to the office. The problem is that the third bus goes on a big loop "the wrong way" in the morning, and again "the wrong way" in the evening. It's designed for people who are trying to leave Ancaster in the morning and return home in the evening, whereas I'm trying to do the opposite. So I end up having to catch the bus and follow it to the end, wait 10 mins, and then follow it back about half way before it gets to my stop. And I don't gain anything by getting off on the first leg and walking because the nearest stop point is about 1.7km from my destination (maybe 20mins march). My original time estimate for this series of buses was 1.5 to 2 hours. However...

...today after Helen gave me a lift into the office to meet my co-workers, I tested out the bus system. It was still AM, so at least on this occasion there was a bus going the "short-way" to Meadowlands. I asked the driver his advice and he said my proposed route of going to the end of the line and coming back would be about 55 minutes (yuck!). Then he thought a bit and suggested that I actually change buses on the same route. There's a spot on the route where you can get off and catch the earlier bus going the other way, thus saving about half an hour. Now I haven't tried this yet, and if I miss the connection I lose the half-hour again, but according to the schedule it looks promising. So if I go up to 4 connections, I save half an hour!

The actual time it took for me to get home today was 95 minutes, but that included missing two connections I could have made, partly so I could duck into McMaster and pick up the bus schedules with maps (rather than relying on my hand-scrawlings from internet timetables). In theory, with the buses going the "right" way, I could have been home in 35 minutes. It will be longer than this in practice as the buses usually go the "wrong" way, but it's still much better than 2 hours.

Then I can shorten the trip further by not following the bus all the way to Meadowlands. Bus #2 and #3 share about 2km of road that goes to Meadowlands, and I'm lucky enough that if I get off at the top of the common route, I can catch a bus that's half an hour earlier than if I went all the way to Meadowlands. Once again, if I miss the connection I can add half an hour to my trip, but the times look good. Also, it's occasionally possible to ask the bus driver to radio to the other connection and ask them to wait. Don't know how this will go in peak period, but again the potential for a half-hour saving.

The connection between buses #1 and #2 is really really tight in the morning. The schedules say I get to the connecting stop at exactly the same minute as the transfer if it's before 8am, and a couple of minutes too late if it's after 8am. I have a choice here: I can get off the bus a couple of stops before the routes merge and basically run down the road to another stop and hope I get there in time, or I can take a slightly earlier bus. Fortunately at that hour I can get one that leaves 15mins earlier, but the pickup point is further from my house. At least this guarantees I'll make the connection. And on the way home, the timing is right on, and I can catch the right bus without hassle.

So summing up, it looks like 70 minutes in the morning, and about 60 minutes on the way home. That's not bad for 4 connections. The ride home is more like 90 minutes if I don't catch the 5.30pm bus, and the 6pm bus is effectively the last as one of the connections drops out, except on Thursdays and Fridays. I guess if I'm working late I'll be getting a taxi home.

Anyway, I think this calls for celebrations!

This is a random photo off my hard drive where I happen to be holding a glass of wine with my lovely sister Leonie (celebrating another recent special occasion ;-). Rachel is home tonight so I can take a now photo of us clinking glasses!

Once again, yay!

Short one

2006-05-07T12:33:00.000-04:00

It's official. There are 491,000 people in Hamilton according to the highway signs when you enter Hamilton by car. That makes it the equivalent of Newcastle in Aus, both in terms of size and demographic (industrial).

There is a bird here who sings a song like the Austin Powers theme. It goes "ti-ti-tee-tee" repeatedly. It could be a black bird, we're not sure, but I call it the Austin Powers bird. I half expect to look outside the window and see a bunch of birds doing a formation dance.

They were filming a TV movie on Main St in Dundas the other weekend. It didn't have anyone particularly famous on this occasion, unless you count the girlfriend from the Ferris Bueller movie 20 years ago (I wouldn't have recognised her if the paper didn't point it out). On the other hand, we found out that they've done some quite high profile stuff here including a recent Robin Williams movie, and scenes for the West Wing with Jimmy Smits as a post-Bartlett presidential candidate. There is a 50's style diner on King St that closed 30 years ago and now exists solely for TV and movie filming.

The end.

Niagara at last!

2006-05-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

Hi

So I promised some photos of Niagara, even though the postcards I sent have probably already arrived by now...

We went to visit Niagara Falls a few weeks ago. It's about 100km East of where we are, near the border with America (sorry USA). We hired a car for the weekend (as detailed in another post...) and spent the Sunday making our way out to the city of Niagara Falls. There are actually two such cities, one on the Canada side and one on the American side of the Niagara River. The Falls have two parts: American Falls which is totally on the American side (but we get the good views of it) and Horseshoe Falls which wraps around the top end of the valley and you get a good angle from either side.

Here's the approach shot. You can see the river water moving away from us and then it just stops. There's a cloud of spray where the major falls are.

The Canada side has half a dozen highrise hotels and seems to be a major tourist destination. The American side didn't seem to have this much development, presumably as the views aren't as good.

We're just passing the top of Horseshoe Falls here and you can see we get pretty close. The closest point is just a few metres from the water rushing over the edge. It's quite a sight. It's also relatively quiet because you don't have direct line of sight to the bottom so the sound is muffled.

Looking downstream through the spray, we can see the valley with American Falls on the right in the distance, and a bridge which connects the two countries. The sun was out today so there's a nice rainbow.

We're walking downriver all the time, and now we're looking back on Horseshoe Falls. The water falls a lot longer than is clear from this photo, and that's why there's such a big cloud of spray kicked up. You get a little wet as you walk through the area which is downwind of the spray. Once again, you can see that the railing goes right along the edge of the cliff and river.

On the American side, they've built a viewing platform that goes out beside American Falls.

Forgi and Horseshoe Falls.

A good shot of American Falls. It's the same distance from the top of the cliff to the bottom, but there's a lot of rubble piled up beneath these falls which breaks the fall of the water as it goes down, so there isn't quite the same amount of obscuring spray as with Horseshoe Falls.

Here's a perspective shot. The road here is just the access road to the carpark. The building in the distance is an old hydro power plant - not sure if it's still in use.

Just for fun, I caught a second-order rainbow on film. I used my polaroid sunglasses in front of the camera to improve the contrast a little. The first-order rainbow is clear enough but you might need to adjust your screen to see the second-order rainbow - it passes through the upper middle part of the photographer and ends near the squatting guy. You might notice that the colours are backwards: from left to right it goes red yellow green, which is the opposite of the first-order rainbow. Now as a physicist I should know why this is but I don't. There must be some reason I don't know about, unless it's just that my geometry is wrong. Can anyone shed any light on the matter? (pardon the pun ;-)

Okay, that's heaps.
Bye!

There were 14 Easter Eggs!

2006-04-26T10:26:00.000-04:00

... and here they are ...

Did you find them all?

Crappola Granola!

2006-04-24T19:56:00.000-04:00

Well wasn't that a crap day! On many levels!

I failed my driving test. What's that you ask, why was I taking a driving test? Because Canada and Australia don't have a reciprocal licence exchange relationship! That means that I had to send a message home to the Australian authority who issued my licence asking them to send me an official letter (at a price of course, stupid administrative fees) stating how long I've had my licence and what offences are on my record (I had one speeding ticket once, 92 in an 80 zone past a pill-box, big deal!). And then on the strength of that, they generously let me sit the written test to get a G1-licence (L-plates) and skip the mandatory 1 year waiting period before I could sit the practical test. They even generously let me skip straight to the G-licence test (the highway test) rather than having to get a G2-licence (city streets test, basically equivalent to P-plates). Never mind the fact that if I came here from the US or France or, I don't know, Austria, I would've been able to get a G-licence over the counter in about 10 minutes. They even have that relationship with the UK who drive on the left like we do! But not with a 2-bit nowheresville country like Australia. Like do they even have cars in Australia?

I would send an email to Alexander Downer, the foreign minister, suggesting a reciprocal driver's licence exchange relationship be set up with Canada, but we all know how good Alexander is at reading his cables...

Anyway, so I hire a car on 2 weekends out of 3 to get some practice on the highways because they say you have to sign an affidavit saying you've had enough highway experience in the last month and won't crash and die taking your examiner with you. (Hmmm, wish I'd thought of that earlier...). We even drive out to Niagara and back, and also to Scarborough (beyond Toronto) and back. Highways aren't easy and they are stressful, but they're do-able. And so I drive today by myself in a hire car to the drive test centre - this is all perfectly legal I might add, because I'm allowed to drive a car with my Australian licence, I'm just not allowed to own one because none of the insurers will cover me without a local licence. I get there 10 minutes ahead of my test only to be told I was supposed to be there 30 minutes early. Nobody told me that, and I did read all the instructions. Oh wait, I didn't read the fine print at the bottom of the booking sheet - right it was in bold even if it was no bigger than the other font, and also half off the page due to poorly positioned photocopying. So I've already pissed off the examiner by being "late" (we still got away on time) and I start the driving test. I'm going okay until I notice I'm doing 60 in a 50 zone. I kinda freak and slow down right away (I don't brake but I ease off) and then I'm thinking to myself, "Did I just fail the test?" Something so simple as going over the limit. And I'm used to suburban streets being 60, and the street in question only had houses on the far side (which is enough of course). So now we're turning in a direction which is back toward the driving centre I think. I'm worrying but thinking "well I don't know for sure so just keep concentrating, exagerrating your head checks etc". A few minutes later and we've gone past the driving centre and towards the highway. Okay. Heading for the lane that takes us onto the driveway. It's a left turn so I put on my indicator to turn and the instructor immediately tells me to turn it off because there's another turn in front of the turnoff in question (she's right, and the guy in the ute turning out of there would've driven in front of us if I didn't cancel the signal, but this is still okay).

I'm still pretty nervous now. While I know I'm a competent enough driver, I've had a few moments over the last couple of weeks to do with the fact that I don't know the area very well. A missed highway turnoff here, getting caught in a turning only lane there, not seeing a speed limit sign here (they don't have the red circle and are harder to spot)... I'm worrying that some unknown event or obstacle will come up that I won't be able to deal with. So I'm pretty tense and I'm not concentrating as well as I might be.

Anyway, I'm on the highway and the instructor asks me to, when it is safe, change lanes one over to the left (remembering I'm supposed to keep right as it's a right-side of the road driving country), and then change back again. I can see a semi trailer in my rear view mirror in my own lane approaching (I'm doing 100, he's speeding, maybe 110). I change into the lane on the left (the middle lane of 3) and when I'm done, the semi on the lane I want to go back to has approached. I decide to let him pass me rather than cutting him off or speeding. He doesn't pass me very quickly so I slow down a little to let him past. Meanwhile, another semi approaches in my own lane. Eventually he decides to pass me on the right too because I don't get a chance to move back. I'm talking this all out loud to the instructor to make sure she knows what I'm thinking. I'm nervous but I'm taking the defensive case as I see it. I know the trucks aren't allowed in the left-most lane by law. Anyway, I eventually get into the right-most lane again and we continue. We get off the highway and get on again coming back the other way. She asks me to do the double-lane-change again, and I do it right away before anyone gets near me. I probably do it too quickly (later I see that I lost marks for not waiting 2 to 3 seconds after indicating before moving lanes !? WTF? as if there's time on a crowded highway - the gap in the traffic moves on before you can wait that long). Anyway, I also get ticked off for taking a corner too fast getting on the highway - it had a sign posted maybe 40km/h (suggested) which I don't see and I'm doing 70 or 80, but I slow down right away and i'm in control of the car at least as far as I'm concerned. I'm a bit worried about this, but I'm pretty sure it won't be a fatal error.

So, eventually we get off the highway exit and back toward the driving centre. Only the dreaded reverse parallel park to go I'm guessing. I've relaxed a bit by now. I've done the highway bit and the rest I think I can handle. We go back into the drive centre parking lot - somewhere here there's supposed to be some markers to do a parallel park in, but instead we just park normally in a space and she says turn off the ignition. For an instant I'm like didn't we already do the stop and park bit? Then she says I've failed. I'm floored. I've been dreading this moment since I found out I had to do the driving test. The driving test is the only test in my life I've ever failed (except for that 9th grade Indonesian language vocab test where I had been off sick the last week and didn't know any of the words...). I've had this bad feeling all day that something was going to go wrong. And it did.

The driving tester tells me that what I did wrong was letting the trucks pass me on the right ie the outside lane. In particular I slowed down to about 80km/h to try and hasten the pass, which meant the second truck behind me had to slow down. She said I was supposed to speed up to get in front of the first truck in the first place. I protest that this would've involved speeding. She said it would've only been a few km/h over the limit (never mind that the truck was approaching at about 110, ie already 10 over the limit). Then she adds that I took the entry lane too fast as I already knew. Anyway, I've failed the test. I ask her a couple of other questions, including about doing 60 in a 50 zone. Turns out I was fine because I eased off shortly after realising my speed, so I didn't need to worry about that at all.

So! Fuck! Pardon my French, but it's my blog and I'll swear if I want to! And now I get to drive home by myself on the highway (which supposedly I'm too dangerous to drive on) and drop the rental car back. At least the guy at the rental car place was nice. He said he'd failed his only attempt at a G licence too. He was just using his G2 licence permanently and putting up with bigger insurance premiums (and having a max blood alcohol level of zero instead of .05, and probably fewer demerit points to lose). He said he failed because he sped up to pass a car to overtake to do the exact same lane change. Great, so at the moment it seems like it's a matter of luck how you go on the highway.

The reason why all this matters so much at the moment is because I need a local licence to be able to buy a car (insurance reasons) in order to be able to get to a job I'm about to be offered in Ancaster (it's 3 buses = 2hours, or expensive taxis, or sporadic lifts from neighbour otherwise). So I was particularly tense for this particular test. I'm probably a bit tired too because I spent all day Saturday driving more than an hour to Toronto, spending about 10 hours there playing Magic, then driving home in about 80 minutes due to getting lost. I had good sleep on Sunday, but still you're pretty worn out from all that driving.

Oh yeah, did I mention I've _almost_ got a job? Well I do. And when I know for sure, I'll write a more positive blogpost about it. When I've figured out how I'm going to get there that is...

I'd also like to rant about how nothing in Canada pours properly. Juice containers are so poorly designed that they either slop all over the place from being poured to quick, or they dribble down the soide of the carton onto the table from being poured to slow. I could've sworn things were better designed in Australia. People just don't seem to try here, or get the fact that things can be done better. They're so - mediocre!

Forgi also had a bad day - which ended with tracking cat poo on the stairs after emptying the rubbish. She's just spent ages scrubbing the carpet to try and get the smell out. And it's cold again now so we might not be able to open windows for a while... At least we're allowed to own guns here. I wonder if I can get one that loads with cat poo so I can shoot it back at the little buggers...

And the ginger powder we bought from the Asian grocer doesn't smell or taste remotely like ginger! It just smells vaguely of "Asian grocer smell". We don't know what the heck it is!? It could just be really old I guess.

Oh and a big kissy kissy to that arsehole who decided to lift the bungee cords from our rubbish bin last week! The same week I bought them! The first week we put the bin out! Some gutter-dweller decides it'd be fun to pinch a couple of cables that we use to keep our bin lid closed in case of raccoons. They're even like dirty! And they cost like a few bucks for half a dozen! What sort of low life would bother!?

Well, I've told some people I'd put up Niagara photos soon, but not today!

Rachel told me to add: "Some days are like that, even in Australia."

--

This post was brought to you by Crappola Granola

"What the heck
did they put
in this granola?
It tastes like..."

Crappola Granola (TM)

Graffiti which says "I love you"

2006-04-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

It's nice to think that around the world some people are writing this, instead of all the other objectionable things they could be writing.
: )

I love you at flickr

I found this through some blogs which I've discovered, and am reading on and off because they are by people in Toronto! (Squiddity and I love you 365)

So as Master Charles (my guru, or meditation teacher) says, ask yourself "what would love do?"

Easter Egg Hunt!

2006-04-15T16:09:00.000-04:00

Howdy!

Happy Easter to everybody! We're celebrating with a little Robbins-family tradition, the Easter Egg Hunt! We've taken a number of not-quite-so-small Easter eggs and hidden them around our living room. They look like this, and they're all warm colours:

See how many you can find! You might need to click the photo to enlarge it.

Let us know how many you find by posting replies!

Happy Holidays!

Web Comics

2006-04-14T19:19:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: This post is about comics which I read online. It contains obscure references which not everyone will understand, some of the references maybe only I will understand. If you have no interest in this topic, feel free to skip it. In fact this goes for any of our posts, read as much or as little as you like (that's the beauty of blogs)!

I know that some people like to have links to web comics that they read, but I decided that that would make the links sections too long... Does this mean that I read an awful lot of web-comics? Why yes, yes it does. It's not my fault that people are so funny! (And no, I don't read them at work.) I have listed approximately when they update (i.e., when new comics are posted), for people who are interested in such things.

I just discovered this one... bunnies, cute crazy bunnies! Updates daily
Bunny!

The robot is like Gir only worse! ("worse ... or better?") Updates M-F
Questionable Content

Kind of anime. Zombies need permits to attack Tokyo... what can I say?
Updates are a bit irregular, but I still love it.
megatokyo

I'm not really sure how to described this... sureal? Updates M-F
Scary Go Round

long time favourite (especially Kiki) Updates everyday!
sluggy freelance

Robots and ... this one is kind of wrong, but funny... Updates M-F
diesel sweeties

Best definition of geeks vs nerd vs dorks... Updates T, F (mostly)
Cat and Girl

Regularly has me in stitches. Are they hampsters? I don't know! Updates T,W,T
Patches

Wouldn't you build a robot gf who could also make toast if you could? Updates M,Th
apple geeks

Victorian underwear, robots, monsters (approximately Fish's description) M, W, F
Girl Genius

Mandatory reading for grad/PhD students and anyone who has to live with them. Irregular.
PhD comics

He's a Dr & a Ninja! Read them ALL. M, W, F.
Dr McNinja

The cutest things EVER!!! No really. Cuter than baby ducks. Whenever.
Tiny Monster

Have you ever played D&D? Or wondered what it was like? Read this! M, W, F.
Order of the Stick

It has a ferret! The guy is crazy. Updates Mondays.
Point of Futility

This is strange and funny, even more funny are his updates about his baby! M-F
achewood

There are several more which I found, liked, but which sadly don't update so I'm not going to put links to them.

Ducks & geese

2006-04-12T17:46:00.000-04:00

For those of you who remember the scary ANU ducks, I just thought I'd share a thought I had this afternoon...

I'm SO glad that Canadian Geese are apparently very docile!

(For those of you who don't know the ANU ducks, they are kind of mean and hiss at people, which is fine is something duck size but would be rather scary from a full sized goose! ; )

Hamilton goes green!

2006-04-06T17:29:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not just talking about the increasing foliage, though that is nice too...

What I'm referring to is the new curbside composting!! Yes, you heard right! In an effort to reduce landfill Hamilton will now pick up not only glass and paper but compost as well!

It's called the GreenCart program.

At the same time they are limiting the amount of ordinary garbage you can put out (otherwise you have to pay).

How cool is that?
: )

(And guess who figured out how to make links? I'm learning just a little bit of html... : )

Birthdays and Parties

2006-04-04T16:03:00.000-04:00

Howdy!

I'd just like to say a huge thanks to everyone for making my birthday so nice! Everyone's such a long way away so I really wasn't expecting much. I'm touched! I'll do my best to send something, a postcard at least, to everyone in the next period. (It might take me a little while, because I have a very promising job interview tomorrow...) Here's some of the stuff I got, including a now very impressive-sized bean plant! Go Team Bean!

Rachel and I went to an 80's theme party the other week. It was truly tacky. I was actually disappointed that I didn't know more of the songs the hosts were playing. Rachel's office-mate Ferrinne was hosting (Ferrinne is another op-shopper and owns more clothes than Rachel, but it would be a close thing if Rachel hadn't just had to downsize her wardrobe to to a finite number of suitcases...) Ferrinne said she'd found something like 24 hours worth of 80s music in her collection without even having to download anything fresh. Alas, there was no Bananarama or Duran Duran or Pseudo Echo or Icehouse or Divinyls. (We were told that Duran Duran was actually big here, and Bananarama had one hit with Venus, but they were still sadly absent from the collection in question.)

As you can see, we improvised with what we had for 80's style outfits. Oh if only today's pop music was this cool!

We're going to see Flowers of Shanghai tonight at a film appreciation series at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. It's the second of three (last week we got A Touch of Zen). The series is called "Dynasties of Intrigue: Chinese Eras on Film". They have a guest speaker come and tell us a bit about what forces in the Chinese film industry have shaped the film, and then we watch the film. We're testing out the Mahal Indian restaurant in town beforehand too, and we'll see if there is anywhere in town that serves truly spicy food.

--

This post was brought to you by Wiccan Chicken

"By the prickin' of my thumbs,
Wiccan Chicken this way comes..."

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nostalgia

2006-04-02T16:59:00.000-04:00

washing scent from Australia
smells like sunshine
instead of winter

This is a picture of the wash-house in the basement of Dundurn Castle. Unfortunately we don't have a castle and have to use the dryer. I didn't realise how much I missed that fresh washing smell til I put on some PJs which Fran had sent over for me!! Hopefully when the weather warms up we can put clothes outside, but our line is right next to bridge over the creek which all sorts of random people use and I'm a bit worried they'd get nicked.

New look blog

2006-03-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

Why? Because we wanted links and we couldn't figure out the html changes needed to introduce them into our previous template (I followed the help instructions, but it did nothing!).

Yay! Now we can link you all too!

(BTW I originally had bug and Nic listed as Slack Monkeys, but lumpy said that was too mean... : p )

Random stuff

2006-03-29T13:21:00.000-05:00

Hi!

Did you know that Canada was originally named the Commonwealth Northern Development? The name Canada didn't come until later when people in the house of parliament in Ontario were thinking aboot the acronym CND. Someone said out loud: "So the acronym goes C - eh? - N - eh? - D - eh?" and the name CANADA was born...

I'm quite happy with myself because I actually wrote some music in the past week. And I _finished_ a song! This hasn't happened in a long time. So long in fact that my music files, even those that were on the "drawing board" have been compressed by the "compress old files" option of the disk cleanup wizard. I now have almost enough music for the second album! (ooooohh! aaaaahhh!)

Here's a couple of photos from our recent trip to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (about 2 1/2 weeks ago). I didn't take many because they asked for no flash photography and my camera was being disobedient.

This is the ceiling of the main entrance. It's a pretty old and impressive building, some parts of which look more like a cathedral. The writing on the ceiling says "That all men may know his work," which is not something I expected to find in a museum...

The museum is being renovated at the moment - they're adding a big crystalline splat on the outside which you can see in this scale model. It reminds me of what they did to the Louvre, where they added a big "modern" bit to an otherwise extremely old and stylish building. As you can guess, there's lots of opposition to this modernisation. I think it will be interesting, but I agree that the new section will probably date pretty quickly.

We stayed at the ROM for most of the afternoon (making the most of the fact we'd spent 2 hours or so just getting there from Dundas) and we saw the Native Canadians exhibition which had lots of interesting items of weapons and clothing, early canoes, and a selection of native art. The exhibition was, unfortunately, a little too focussed on the explorers who obtained the items, at the expense of beign rather light on information about the items themselves. We're told a few graphics were still missing from a recent move of the gallery, so maybe it'll be better next time.

We visited a few other exhibits including the Lalique glass sculpture exhibit, the Egyptian gallery, some 16th and 17th century suits of armour, and a collection of art-deco furniture. They also had an Islamic exhibition which had a bit about the fundamentals of Islam and the history of Mohammad. As with Christanity, there are a few inconsistencies. For example, although Mohammad did a lot of preaching about adhering to a strict moral code, he saw fit to take over Mecca by force to establish the first Islamic state. I don't think this event plays a big part in Islamic teaching, but it's not a terribly good example for God's prophet to be setting. In the following centuries, the word "conquest" was used to describe the fashion in which the Islamic state grew; some of the areas converted willingly, but it's not clear what happened in the other areas.

Another interesting bit of information was that Mohammad sanctioned both the old and new testaments of the bible. Apparently Mohammad got some of his ideas - monotheism, rewards in an afterlife - from talking to Christian merchants from the west (Mohammad was himself a merchant). Mohammad presumably never actually read the bible, which would explain why he also said that Jesus wasn't the son of God, and didn't die on the cross (Christian websites focus on these differences rather than the similarities). Mohammad appears to have been illiterate, and chose to preach directly to crowds in Mecca where he lived. Some of his followers wrote down what he said, and this collection of writings were eventually put together to form the Koran.

It wasn't until about a century after his death that Muslim clerics saw fit to commit the Islamic moral code to writing (something Mohammad had argued against) in the form of a text called the Hadith. The Koran talks more generally about morals, but the Hadith prescribes things like prayers 5 times a day, and could be the origin of Sharia Law (as distinct from Sharia which just means practising Islam). The Hadith comes in various strengths, and appears to play a similar role in Islam that various sects and denominations of Christian churches play.

One point that struck me as amusing was that Mohammad was against the worship of monuments at Mecca. The ruined building in the middle of Mecca predates Mohammad by a couple of centuries, and Mohammad saw this as part of a bigger problem of idol worship. How exactly the pilgrimage to Mecca worked its way into being one of 5 core tenets of Islam isn't clear, although there is plenty of sense in travelling to the birthplace of Islam. Most likely the two ideas were amalgamated in much the same way that the Christian holy days of Christmas and Easter just happened to coincide with Pagan festivals. I'm not sure that Mohammad would really have cared that much. He was more interested in stamping out corruption, drunkenness and debauchery, which he saw as being the cause of poverty and hardship, which he'd experienced first hand when growing up.

Hmmm... so it's possible to pick and choose the parts of the Islamic story to justify some pretty extreme action. It's also possible to pick and choose the sensible parts and come up with a moderate religion. Sounds like most religions really... Please note that I haven't rigorously checked many of these facts, and I suspect many of them are disputed by historians anyway. And I've left bits out (like I didn't bother to mention the Archangel Gabrielle at all...). So there.

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Gavin & Betty-Ann have an adventure

2006-03-25T20:33:00.000-05:00

This is really an adventure we had about three weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to putting it on the blog yet...

Our land-lord Alex is a great guy and has been doing some music stuff with Betty-Ann. He also grew up around here. He asked us if we'd like to go a hike with him to Tews and Webster falls. I was feeling a little tired so I asked whether there was much up & down. HE replied that the escarpment wasn't very far so there wasn't much you could do in the way of up and down... We obviously have different views about what a lot means.

It's true that there is only so far you can go up here, but you can go up and then down a bit and then across all on steep slopes... Which is exactly what we did.

He did show us the place were people used to have outdoor parties (remember the prohibition on drinking outside in Canada). Apparently they used to lower an old bath-tub down the hill and fill it with ice and beers. Drunk people wandering round on steep slopes above a creek? Yes people did sometimes get injured!

These falls are nearly as tall as Niagara falls but obviously have much less water. Much of the water freezes as it sprays out over the edge leading to weird formations. This is a picture looking up the valley towards the falls at the end. It doesn't really given an impression of the height because all the trees here are so tall and thin! These are maple and oak.

Most people go to the top of Tews falls and look down. Not Alex! He likes to go to the bottom and climb out.

He had never done this in winter before, but he's a sensible guy and luckily he brought a rope!! (He's a sailor so he knows his knots etc as well). Shale, bit of dirt, dry leaves overlaid with ice from the falls... Nice... Betty-Ann asked me the next day why his arms were sore. I pointed out that we had been climbing up using our arms a lot of the way!! Here's a picture of Alex pulling me up the first bit.

And this is the view from the top, looking back where we've come from.

We then took a leisurely walk along the top (i.e., the path) to Webster falls which was also very pretty. The water coming off the falls makes these weird cauliflower looking ice sculptures... This is from the top of the falls looking down. There is a nice kind of park at the top.

We then walked back along the path to where the car was parked. It's all within easy walking distance from our house. While not volunteering to pull anyone up the slope we'd love to show people the falls when the visit!

Tune in soon for more adventures of Gavin & Betty-Ann!

The New Adventures of Gavin and Betty

2006-03-21T18:57:00.000-05:00

Hi all!

I hereby announce that I will be changing my name to Betty-Ann Teabing. Rachel will also be changing her name to Gavin Rachel Rebecca Robbins (GRRR).

Look what lumpkin got me for my birthday!

A magic bean that says "I love you!" Cos after all, nothing says I love you like a magic bean. This will learn me for my mad ravings about beans all the time!

... and called it macaroni ...

2006-03-13T13:48:00.000-05:00

The Dundurn Castle guide told us a story that, when MacNab was occupying the house with his family in the mid-1800's, one of the latest rich-person delicacies was Macaroni Cheese. If you could serve Macaroni Cheese at your house, which MacNab did, then you were considered pretty hip as well as very well off for being able to transport such an exotic food from abroad to your tabletop. In fact, the term "macaroni" became synonymous with "hip" or "cool", which is why Yankee Doodle "stuck a feather in his cap, and called it macaroni..."

Dundurn Castle

2006-03-09T20:14:00.000-05:00

Well we're a bit behind on the blog! The weekend BEFORE last we went to Dundurn Castle the home of Sir Allan Napier McNab who was the first Prime Minister of Upper Canada as well as the first lawyer and banker in Hamilton. This was all AFTER his distinguished military career and as you will see he had a pretty fancy house! It has been restored to how it would have looked in 1855 at the height of his term. Restoration was done based on the diary of his daughter who would have been 13 at the time.

The front of the house

The front hall

The drawing room (pink for the ladies)

The loo!! McNab was the 1st person in Upper Canada to have a flushing toilet. He also had indoor plumbing for his bath and sink! This house was ULTRA modern (it also had gas lighting before there were street lights in the area)

The servants quarters were also very modern, although built below ground there were light wells, gas flares in the kitchen and a pump in the scullery. The kitchen had a copy of Mrs Beeton on the table! : )

They also brewed their own beer. : )
The cock-fighting ring (in it's own little house) is now used for weddings!

The guides were really great! They knew their stuff (both about the castle itself and other information about the time). We had lunch at the coach house and also went to the war museum which is very close by.

More on our adventures soon!
love lumpkin

by popular demand!

2006-03-03T17:47:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the comments on the first picture! They're great!

I've set the comments so that people don't have to be members of blogger to post comments, but please leave your initials or something so WE can enjoy who said what.
: )

Here's some more...

wedding - the out-takes!

2006-02-22T11:27:00.000-05:00

I just found out that the photographer didn't delete all those extra photos which weren't in the proof, he left them on th CD! Obviously brides are sensitive creatures and don't wish to see themselves like this...
except for freaks like me, who find it FAR too amusing not to share this with the world.
: )

This photo is still copyright Art Atelier.

Please post captions in the comments section!

Envir-o-mental!

2006-02-17T21:13:00.000-05:00

This is a little rant warning - I've been meaning to have a little rant about my environmental peeves here, so this is going to be it.

Packaging: In Aus biscuits come in a silly little tray in a plastic wrapping, I think this is more packing that needed. HERE biscuits come in the tray then plastic then a BOX!! The worst example of over-packaging was when I bought some ginger and lemon tea. We used to get this all the time in the Wattle St house and it came in a box. This box looked different so I thought that it might be individual tea bags, maybe even the kind in little paper wrappers but when I took the plastic (1) off the box (2) the little individual paper wrapped tea-bags (3) were wrapped in plastic in sets of five (4)!!!!
(OTOH I already mentioned the milk in bags, which at least creates less landfill).

Power use: So far pretty much all the people I have talked to have no control over the heating in their apartments (i.e., there is no thermostat) so they all OPEN A WINDOW so as not to expire!! (We had our landlord look at our heater and he showed us how to turn it basically off over night when the weather isn't too cold).
Many of the houses around here also seem to leave their lights on all night. WHY? So people can see how nice their place is? So they don't feel so bad when they have to get up and it's still dark? Global warming anyone?

Buying things: It seems to be hard to find things like recycled loo paper, and low impact detergents unless you go to a hippy store (which we sometimes do : ). Some of the things are actually recycled or whatever but it's really hard to find that information out!

Recycling: They do have recycling here but you have two identical blue boxes one of which should have your paper and one of which should have glass, plastic tins etc. If you put paper in with the other things they don't take the recycling away!

On the up side people generally do seem to make pretty good use of public transport, and the Uni is looking into recycling green waste and using less salt on the roads. And we have a strange assortment of organic veggies to keep us happy (we're still not quite sure what a rutabaga is, but we know we've had some nice kale : ).

love lumpkin

P.S there was some confusion about which one was lumpy and which lumpkin. I would have thought you could figure it out but here's brief recap (as always avoiding names to protect the... well, us I guess ; ).
Lumpkin is busy with work, but writes poetry and is overly addicted to exclamation marks and smilies.
Lumpy does not currently work but has a camera and writes funny quizzes.

The story of how the names came about is that I (lumpkin) apparently started calling lumpy "lumpy" because lumpy was often still snuggled in a nice warm lump in bed when I was already up in the morning. I only learned last week that I was named lumpkin out of revenge! (I thought it was sweet before...). Did that completely fail to make sense? Well then, you should have NO doubt as to which one is which (as long as you remember I have a family history of nonsensical nicknames ; )

Critters

2006-02-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

So far we have seen mostly squirrels (which I still find fascinating), but I thought I would also give an idea of the birds and the things we haven't seen.

I have also seen
Canadian Geese (lots and lots and lots of them...),
sparrows (wearing their extra fluffy underwear and looking twice as fat as the kind we have in Australia),
an owl (which was very large, but I didn't get a good look at)
Gulls (again, can't see in detail)
some kind of large bird of prey
A cardinal (B pointed this out it was very exciting).

We haven't seen the Raccoons who have apparently decided our roof is a good place to sit and GROWL! When I first heard this noise I thought there were bears in the living room (I was meditating at the time) and I went and woke Ben up! I also heard some scrabbling and we told our neighbour who said we should tell the land-lord because it was probably squirrels in the walls. The landlord came and looked and said that there had been Raccoons sitting on the roof by the chimney (they like to do this to keep warm) and there was nothing we could do about it. Several people I asked said that Raccoon don't growl... But I've been searching the web this morning to try and verify that because there are a couple of very angry (and/or randy) animals on my roof snuggled up to the chimney!

So far I haven't been able to find a match for the growling sound I heard, but I did find a few other ones which were similar to the other shriller sound (perhaps I had a raccoon and a bear? ; P )

http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/raccoon.htm
http://www.terrierman.com/soundspage.htm

I hope they start purring soon instead!

Quiz: Canadian Road Signs

2006-02-10T14:51:00.000-05:00

Walking around the block, I've noticed some very strange road signs around here, some of which I had to look at several times before I knew what they meant. As such, I've taken some more photos, and you can guess what each sign means!

1. This sign says:

A. No stopping.
B. No phantom octagons.
C. Neighbourhood watch. No shady characters with angular features.
D. No Ultimate Fighting Championship matches.

2. This sign says:

A. Avoid the drink while driving, literally.
B. If you are approaching the Black Knight (notice his totally black coat-of-arms), overtake him on the right - he has a blind spot there and won't see you sneaking up on him.
C. Drinking then driving reduces your ability to drive in a straight line.
D. Keep right of median strip.

3. This sign says:

A. Speed hump ahead.
B. Mutant camels used as speed humps in this area.
C. Danger! Flood zone.
D. Danger! Acoustically resonant area. Sopranos, mind your expensive wine glasses.

4. This sign says:

A. Street party! No olds allowed.
B. Street party! Maximum capacity of street is 40 people, enforceable by law due to risk of street collapse. Please queue behind the line and have your ID ready to show to the bouncer (to make sure you're not old).
C. Maximum speed limit 40kph.
D. Maximum speed limit 40mph.

5. This sign says:

A. Trucks may turn left or right or continue at intersection.
B. Trucks must split load into three at intersection. No favouritism for rich neighbourhoods.
C. Oil geysers in area. Keep a tanker handy in case you find one.
D. Fugitive truck wanted by Greenpeace for environmental vandalism - knocking over a fire hydrant causing significant water wastage. Please contact Greenpeace if you witnessed the incident.

6. This sign says:

A. No parking on left between 2am and 6am after the 16th of each month. No parking on right any time.
B. No parking on left between 2am and 6am any day, and no parking any time after 16th of each month. No parking on right any time.
C. No parking on left or right between 2am and 6am, and no parking on left or right after 16th of each month.
D. No peeing on left at certain times and days. No peeing on right ever. The city has standards to maintain, don't you know!

7. This sign says:

A. Road tyre graffiti encouraged as part of city youth initiative. Be creative!
B. Slippery when wet.
C. Avoid swerving due to risk of head becoming separated from shoulders, even momentarily.
D. Take corner carefully. If you have a bowling ball in the back seat of the car, duck!

8. This sign says:

A. Stop sign ahead.
B. Entering Flying Octagon Nature Park. Please have park entry fee ready. Don't forget to look up!
C. Ultimate Fighting Championship spectators this way to ringside.
D. Neighbourhood watch. Beware of shady characters with angular features, thought also to be spreading communist propaganda.

The first correct set of answers received will win their choice of a luxury yacht, a private jet, or a lifetime subscription to the Flying Octagon Nature Park of Dundas. Please email solutions to haha@notarealemail.com

Adios muchachos!

Oot and Aboot in Dundas

2006-02-02T19:36:00.000-05:00

Hi!

Here are some photos of Dundas. There are some interesting old buildings around the place that I think are worth showing. I took a walk around the block today and took some happy snaps.

On Cross St, one intersection away from King St, is St Paul's church. (Does the 'St' make it a catholic church?) Not as impressive as some churches of course, but when you're from Canberra where few buildings are much older than 50 years, you notice anything that looks remotely "vintage". It's kinda nice to pass this on the walk to King Street.

If you want to follow where we are on a map, try using Google Local. It's a feature of Google that works in North America (and where else in the world? let us know if Google Local works in your area, I don't think it works in Aus yet). Go to www.google.ca, type in "King St W & York Rd, Dundas, ON" and hit the Local button instead of doing a regular search. You should get a map of central Dundas. (I'm trying to avoid giving our address on this blog, but if you know our address it should be pretty straightforward to see where we are - we're on the north side of the road ;-)

Next, here's the intersection of King and Cross, looking west along King St. King is the main drag in Dundas - most of the relevant shops are on King rather than being on Main (which also happens to meet King at this intersection). In picture is the Carnegie Gallery (white building - haven't been inside yet), the office of recently ousted federal member for ADFW (Ancaster - Dundas - Flamborough - Westdale riding) Russ Powers. He hasn't got around to taking the "MP" down from next to his name just yet...

Walking half a block up King, we come to some of our favourite shops. The Horn of Plenty is a converted cinema and you can still see the box office out the front. There's quite a lot of space inside for what started out as a health food shop. To the right is Cumbrae's organic butcher (black) and Picone's grocer (green). Picone's has some items we can't find anywhere else, like fresh basil that isn't brown, dry biscuits that aren't loaded with sugar, and the heretofore unknown Scottish breakfast tea. The shop with the red sign is a sports shop, which appears to sell mostly ice hockey sticks.

A block up King is the post office building which has a clock tower. It's now used for sorting the mail and isn't open to the public (note the fence around the perimeter, probably erected to discourage the homeless, but really making the place quite ugly and unfriendly).

There is continuous development and commerce along King St pretty much until you reach the escarpment. The Google map shows a freight train route, which runs along the side of the escarpment about half way up. It is a good indicator of where the escarpment is, at least for the north side of Dundas. At the top of the escarpment to the West is Flamborough, to the South is Ancaster. Dundas is surrounded on 3 sides (north, west, south) by the escarpment, and joins on to Westdale in the east where the university is. Development is more-or-less continuous between the towns, and in fact all of these towns are officially part of Hamilton now, where central Hamilton is further east beyond Westdale. We estimate Hamilton (including our area) is between 200,000 and 500,000 people based on what we've learned from the recent election (four electorates, and our electorate has 100,000+ registered voters).

Here's an Otto-man bus - yes they really do look like this - and swarms of these can be seen going around the place a bit before 3pm each day. When you look at them side on, there is a really long overhang at the back of the bus, maybe 4 or 5 rows of seats worth. It looks like if you got enough people together at the back of the bus, it would flip up like a skateboard. If they are rear-wheel-drive, you could probably drop the clutch and do a wheelie!

There is more of Dundas to the south and also to the north (before you hit the escarpment). On the corner of Main St and York Rd, a block south from King St, is the Town Hall. Amongst other things there is a public office where I picked up one of Hamilton's "blue bins" for recycling. They're trying to push recycling here, but I'm not sure how well it's catching on. The blue bins are crates, rather than full size rubbish bins, that would be full if you put say 4 pizza boxes in them. On the other hand, they collect every week, and they do special collections throughout the year, from old furniture to discarded Christmas trees.

If I turn around on the corner of Main and York and look north up York, I see what's in the next photo. This is a reasonably typical Dundas street, with individual houses and high rise apartments built right next to each other in haphazard fashion. (Remember, I grew up in a town that was planned from conception!) The apartment blocks like the brown building on the left are pretty common around the place. Yes, they're ugly, but the fact that they increase the population density around here is good because there's a half decent chance of hanging on to good shops and public transport.

The day is pretty dreary today, overcast. But that means it isn't freezing. It's 6 degrees when early February might be 10 degrees less in your average winter.

This last photo is looking up the stream toward York Road running north (right) - south (left). You can just make out a road railing (look for a silver line) in the top right of the picture. This is Helen Street which runs up and across a small ridge and ends at the Cemetery further along York Road. I found that this makes for quite a nice walk, and I'm looking forward to further exploring the views in the area.

Well, that's a short tour of the centre of Dundas. I'll have to go back and get a shot of King Street at night when they turn the lights on - very pretty. And if it ever snows again, it'll probably be even prettier! It has snowed seriously once since we've been here - twice at a stretch if you count the meagre covering we got in early Jan.

So long, and watch this space!

lumpkin writes

2006-01-31T20:53:00.000-05:00

I know lumpy has been doing all the writing, but I've been helping him ...no, really. And I've been busy teaching, researching, walking to and from work (35-40 mins each way), but I decided I really should write something. So here are some of my word pictures.

Fran gave me a really cool book on haiku for my birthday. Apparently you DON'T have to have the 5/7/5 thing. So I've been writing lots of these really short pieces. You don't have to like them as always I write them for me, but I'm willing to share!

(before leaving)
my thoughts are purple bees
and meditation golden sap
amber is precious

(trying to get a SIN)
using only legs & wits
to get there, I was surprised
by the helpful official

crowded buses
uncomfortably intimate
with someone's belly button

(mornings)
morning mist
Canadian geese sound
strangely like kurrawongs

the smell of burnt toast
reminds me of my mother
eating sardines

(in Toronto)
Snow, it turns out,
doesn't always fall
down

eyes slide sideways
lost humanity
gloves in the gutter

(grading students)
A C is still a C
only average is the same
the world over.

In case you didn't know they have the A, B, C, D system here. Now I have to go and read about the parrahippocampus.
: )

Another 10 things about Canada

2006-01-25T12:44:00.000-05:00

11. Our chest of drawers is called Malm. Our desk lamp is named Format. Our couch cover is titled Tacka Lillbo. Our standing lamps are christened Not. Ikea is both cool and strange at the same time.

12. Hamilton buses have special hydraulic lift arrangements that lower to street level to allow wheelchair-bound passengers to wheel themselves right on.

13. Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. Pretty much everyone lives in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia or Manitoba. Alberta (oil-guzzling cowboys) and Quebec (contrary frogs) hate each other.

14. The Liberal party in Canada is actually liberal (small l), or at least centre-left. The New Democratic Party (NDP), which is a bit like the Australian Democrats, is further left again, and actually wins seats in the lower house. The conservative party are called the Conservative party, and used to be called the Progressive Conservative party but decided to drop the Progressive part. They just got elected to power, and their campaign advisers have previously helped John Howard win elections. We're scared.

15. The federal election system uses first-past-the-post voting to elect members to individual electorates/seats, and the party with the most seats in the House of Commons gets to govern. In spite of this, Canada usually has minority governments because Quebec votes for Bloc Quebecois, Alberta and Saskatchewan vote Conservative, the inner cities vote NDP, and everyone else votes Liberal. These minority governments, while unstable, at least provide protections that the Senate doesn't - Senators are appointed rather than elected.

16. 95% of the Canadian population is crowded to within a couple of hundred kilometeres of the south border with the USA. In Mike Moore's 1995 comedy film "Canadian Bacon", the American government used this fact as part of a propaganda campaign to demonise Canada and start a war.

17. They sell frozen juice here!? You get a 400ml can of juice concentrate that stays in the freezer til you need it, then you mix it with water to get about a litre and a half of juice. And it is pretty much like the stuff on the non-refrigerated shelf we used to lug home in Australia. Very convenient!

18. They sell pre-cooked bacon, and it is scary. It comes frozen and it "looks" like cooked bacon, sort of. You microwave it. However it seems to have far more actual meat on it than the bacon in the fridge aisle which is extremely fatty. Even the bacon from the organic butcher is maybe 50% meat on a good day. (This is to say nothing of the "back bacon" that I had in a bagel at the Magic tournament on the weekend. That was not bacon! That was some weird burger meal patty where I could practically taste the preservatives. Bleagh!)

19. We are getting sun in January because it's unseasonally warm. I'm told we don't usually get this much sun, or any sun at all this time of year, so we are making the most of it. Actually we have no choice because we have no curtains in the living room.

20. Just over a hundred years ago, in response to intelligence suggesting the USA might annex Canada, the Canadian army infiltrated Washington, burned down the White House, and then left again, all as a way of saying "Don't even think about it!" True story! Needless to say, the USA have suppressed this little-known bit of history.

funny stuff from http://thesurrealist.co.uk/

2006-01-20T19:23:00.000-05:00

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Forgi!

Forgi kept at the window will keep vampires at bay.
A lump of Forgi the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
99 percent of the pumpkins sold in the US end up as Forgi!
Forgi is born white; her pink feathers are caused by pigments in her typical diet of shrimp.
Koalas sleep for 22 hours a day, two hours more than Forgi!
Forgi will often glow under UV light.
The liquid inside Forgi can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
The word 'samba' means 'to rub Forgi'.
It is bad luck to walk under Forgi.
Forgi will often rub up against people to lay her scent and mark her territory.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Benedict!

It's bad luck to whistle near benedict.
Two thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in benedict.
Benedict cannot be detected by infrared cameras.
Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the amount of benedict in your ear 700 times.
On average, women blink nearly twice as much as benedict!
If you drop benedict from the top of the Empire State Building, he will be falling fast enough to kill before reaching the ground.
You can tell if benedict has been hard-boiled by spinning him. If he stands up, he is hard-boiled!
Benedict was first discovered by Alexander the Great in India, and introduced to Europe on his return.
Benedict is the only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World that still survives!
Benedict was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom his name comes.