fountains and fantasies...

11:56pm: Friday...


I got up ready to go to work, then got intimidated by the rain and ice I could see outside my window. I did go to work, and met gamergrrl for coffee, and went to the library, bought gorceries, and had a lovely dinner with Pim and maaseru... and then watched Fringe. It was a story about an adolescent with precognition, who saw people's deaths: seemed very like an X-Men story. And why not? J.J. Abrams steals from the best.

The weather turned out to be lest fearsome than it appeared; more messy than dangerous. I wonder what it will be like tomorrow.

1:41pm: Robert Burns...


I'd entirely forgotten this was Robbie Burns' Day until a friend from Texas sent me a card.

Wonder if I can find a kindred spirit to celebrate with...

A few quotes:

• I want someone to laugh with me, someone to be grave with me, someone to please me and help my discrimination with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration.
  
  
• Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire,
  That's a' the learning I desire.
  
  
• While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
  The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
  While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
  And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
  Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
  The Rights of Woman merit some attention. (1792)
  
  
• God knows, I'm no the thing I should be,
  Nor am I even the thing I could be.
  

I love the phrase "quacks of state".

12:55pm: ACTA... it's going the rounds
I think I'm preaching to the converted here. But anyway.

Originally posted by cantarina1 at post

12:18pm: Tea...


For some reason, I've been hearing a lot about tea lately. Lines on TV about how tea will fix anything - both in Sherlock and Fringe this week.

And of course, I love tea. fairestcat and commodorified recently introduced me to London Fog, which has currently become my favourite treat. Oddly, they make it best at the Second Cup - I'm thinking of the one at Somerset and Bank - where I have never much liked the coffee. Who knew? Usually I prefer the drinks at Bridgehead, and I like the way they present the tea, with its own teapot and infuser.

The worst cup of tea I ever had was at Mystiko, where the food was fabulous. The second worst cup of tea I ever had was at St. Hubert, where I made the mistake of ordering tea again a few weeks later - forgetting the first occasion, or perhaps hoping it was a fluke - and it was even worse the second time. I keep intending to write to these places, to tell them how to make tea that tastes good. It isn't hard. It really isn't. (Hot water is a good start.)

Just found this site: Samovar: Real Ritual which takes it to still new heights.

My favourite tea? Earl Grey, hot, with milk. I also like orange pekoe, and most unflavoured black teas. Don't like any fruit-flavoured teas, of which the worst is rose hip. Anise tea is good. Chai with milk. Ginsing, ginger, cardamom. Peppermint if I'm in the mood - which is rare, and I like it with sugar.

What kind of tea to you prefer?

11:39am: Vote for Canada...


Pim sent5 me this item about The Canada Party made me laugh.

Not sure I should let my American friends see it, though.

9:53pm: Fringe: 4x09, "Enemy of My Enemy"


Watched last week's Fringe this evening, on maaseru's sofa, with delicious soup.

I was losing heart for a while this season because ( it wasn't... )

7:29am: The Year of the Dragon


From Dear Abby this morning:

This is the Year of the Dragon, a symbol of power and good fortune. Those born in the Year of the Dr agon are confident, brave and fearless. A symbol of strength in Asian culture, the dragon once symbolized the emperor of China. I wish a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to all of you.

Happy New Year!

11:42pm: Le fin de semaine...


This weekend:

1. Had people over to watch all of the second series of Sherlock in a delightful marathon. Made cheesecake to follow the roast beef, rice and pepper squash. Loved seeing Sherlock again: that show improves on acquaintance.
   
   
2. Spent a good part of the morning washing dishes and playing Gardens of Time, nice and lazy.
   
   
3. Worked for hours on French homework and studying.
   
   
4. Remember that I had things to prepare before going to work tomorrow - things I couldn't do in the office on Friday so I told myself I'd do them at home over the weekend. So I did. Yay!
   
   
5. If anyone is curious, here is the test my French teacher gave us on Friday, to test our general knowledge of French grammar. I got about 75%, would like ( to have done better. )
   
   

4:59pm: Freedom...


“Without Freedom of thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of speech." - Benjamin Franklin

This is 'protest SOPA' day.

SOPA is the worst blow to civilization facing us right now - worse than the wars in Africa, worse than the environmental crisis. Because it means that freedom of expression is no longer one of our rights, because it proves that the corporations and the self-serving lawyers are in charge of our governments, and that our politicians no longer value freedom over commerce.

Freedom of expression, freedom of communication, freedom of information. It's the foundation of all progress in our world. Censors always like to have good reasons for their legislation - the Inquisition with Galileo, the anti-pornographers, the Stalinist or Nazi propagandists. It's never for the better.

Now it's the crusade of the copyrightists and those who want to control what we do and see online. People who clearly do not understand what we do and see online.

As a Canadian, I feel helpless to fight SOPA. I can't write to my congressman. Yet I know that if SOPA has its way, I will be as affected as any American.

11:03pm: Tuesday...


It was a hard day emotionally. I'm not sure why. I felt physically and emotionally drained and exhausted. Frustrated. At loose ends. I need to find work, soon. But dealt with it today by ignoring the problem entirely.

I went to the new passport office to renew my passport. It's at Meandowlands and Prince of Wales, which, with a apologies to the people who live in the area, is the middle of just about nowhere. The office isn't bigger or better than the old office downtown. It's shabbier. The location is just plain weird... and it took a long time to get there. On two buses. And then some climbing over snowbanks, and crossing a slippery parking lot....

But I got it renewed, easily enough. They don't take cash. I used my MasterCard. It will come by mail in about ten days, they said, and I'll have to pick it up at the post office.

Got home exhausted.

Read The Professional by Robert B Parker. A nice antidote to my mood; I really liked the ending, and the story of the two thugs. Parker really isn't sympathetic to polyamorous relationships, despite his sympathy to Gary for being incredibly promiscuous, seducing and manipulating women, and a blackmailer too. Strange. I was trying to figure whether we were supposed to believe Estelle was bi, but no, I think she was simply a voyeur.

Hawk should have been in the story more.

Also read Les grands sapins ne meurent pas by Dominique Demers, a novel about a girl of fifteen whose mother has recently died, and who becomes pregnant. It was excellent. One sentence I had trouble with: Il faut du front. What does that mean? I thought it might be 'I had to face things'. I couldn't find "du front" in the dictionaries.

10:34pm: Dancing books...


This video might explain why my books aren't always on the shelves where I thought I'd put them.

This article tells the story of the making of the vid.

7:50am: Happy Birthday...







To msilverstar:



Wishing you a wonderful year!

10:56pm: Sherlock: "The Reichenbach Fall"


This evening I watched Sherlock episode 2x03, "The Reichenbach Fall".

Woo. Best one yet. Loved it.

( Favourite bits... )

6:43pm: Tree in snow, today...

6:24pm: Snow...


The word of the day was snow. Lots and lots of snow. Around mid-morning it looked as if it might be stopping, but no, it was just getting its second wind.

It was really a terrific day. Partly because I felt good: after feeling tired and aching for a good part of the week, I felt good today, and with good energy. I proved that I could get up at 7, do yoga and meditate, shower and dress, make a meant-and-vegetable breakfast, and still get to work for 9 a.m. The work I was doing today at the CCA went smoothly - or at least, it went well for a while, until the photocopier died. Several people asked if I'd killed it. Not on purpose! Honest!

So I felt I could have a great lunch with gamergrrl at Migo, which we'd never been to before. Korean food. Ever since she went to Seoul she's loved japchae, and ever since she introduced me to japchae, I've loved it, too. So we both had japchae appetizers and I followed that with squid tempura; for desert, the waitress brought us, for interest's sake, a lovely cold, sweet ginger-cinnamon tea.

Yeah, I'd go back there anytime.

Luckily I went back to the CCA because there was more work for me to do - very good news. And the person who hired me for this job told me he was telling everyone else that they could hire me to do the jobs they really didn't have time time, which I thought was quite wonderful - meaning that he felt I did a good job with his work. Not only that, but he had me writing and organizing documents, not just printing and copying them.

So by the time I left work it was still snowing hard, but I wanted to get a panda calendar, so I walked down to Prospero Books and got one - and cause they were on sale for half price, I got a Zen calendar, because it was beautiful and I loved it, and I think I should have a Zen calendar because it suits me.

There were no buses. Sometimes that happens when it snows heavily: the buses just sort of disappeared. The only one which came by, adding insult to snub, said Out of Service, so I started to walk south on Bank Street just for the heck of it. Or the exercise. Or the challenge.

When I got to McLeod Street, I dropped in to Alliance Française just to see if there was a classe B-14 for me tomorrow. I didn't think the chances were great: they needed two more students to register after Tuesday. I guess they did, because the class is on the schedule. So I have another French class after all, just when I'd given up hope. And the $400 refund I would have got if it were cancelled would have been nice, but I was still disappointed... and happy now. And a little guilty because I haven't been studying much.

So tomorrow I have to head out at something like 7:30 a.m. in the snow for three hours of hard work in a language class. Why on earth do I think this is fun? Am I crazy?

...Anyway, there I was, all cheered up knowing I had a French class tomorrow, when my bus came by. When I got to my stop, it was just about dusk, and so pretty with all the fresh snow that I put down my groceries and my calendars and my cane - which I'd brought with me in case it was slippery, but it wasn't - and took some photos. All photos here are of the street I live on.




( The Glebe at dusk... )

9:58pm: FIC: Thor (drabble) - VIsiting Midgard


Title: Visiting Midgard
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: Thor, movieverse
Characters: Loki, Jane Foster
Rating: PG
Form: Drabble (100 words)
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of Marvel.
Notes: Cross-posted to my Dreamwidth account, my Livejournal account, and my fanfic journal.

( Visiting Midgard )

4:40pm: Printers... Troublemaking Printers...
< br>
I got to work and was issued with a laptop for an important printing job. I spent half an hour or more trying to get the documents to print.

Turns out that the laptops aren't set up to print - on purpose.

Right.

So now I'm installed at someone else's computer. And checking to make sure it works...

It works! But it's doing updates before I can print.

Someone else is going on holidays tomorrow, so I can work at their desk. It's the musical chairs of the co-op world.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

11:13pm: Tian Tian and Yang Guang


There is now a Panda Cam at the Edinburgh Zoo.

Makes me think of how I spent so much time watching little Hua Mei in San Diego twelve years ago.

6:12pm: Out in French limbo...


My French class has been cancelled. Seems I was the only one who signed up. The administrator said, "That's the problem with the students who are almost bilingual. It's harder to fill the classes at the upper levels."

She thinks I'm "almost bilingual". Hot damn!

Hope she's right.

There's a ray of hope: if two more students sign up by Saturday, there may be Saturday morning classes at my level. I live in hope.

5:47pm:

commodified said:

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life
in 2012.

In a spirit of immense optimism, I picked up the nearest book and it said:

With the middle and upper classes excluded, the army had to fills its ranks with freedmen, dispossessed peasants, city rabble (notoriously bad soldiers, partly because they were undernourished) - and Germans.

I'm not sure this makes me feel optimistic or pessimistic. There are indeed some really gorgeous Germans out there, but I don't know them.

The book is Civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor.

8:40am: Utilitarian beauty...


Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. - Eric S. Raymond

11:30pm: Walking along the canal..


Went for a walk today along the Rideau canal, with Lisa. It had been cold and snowing, but by the time we went out - about 2 p.m. - it was sunny and beautiful. We talked about her recent travels and books and various things, doing the loop across the Pretoria Bridge, up the east side of the canal and across the Bank Street Bridge, then back to my place, where we had a cup of tea.

I was extremely tired from walking on the lumpy snow, but it felt good.

At Pretoria Bridge, I took a picture of the canal in that rare stage after it's frozen and snowy, but before it has been plowed to become a skating rink:

2:05pm: A sunny, bright January day...


My father was born January 8, 1919. He would be 93 if he were still alive.

For many years, I got a bad case of flu when his birthday came up. I hated it! I assume it was just timed to be after he Christmas holiday exertions, the heart of the cold weather, and the dark days.

That hasn't happened in years, thank goodness, but I still think of it on his birthday, thankful that I feel healthy.

10:04pm: Booking Through Thursday: An Interview...


for January 5, 2012: If you could sit down and interview anyone, who would it be? And what would you ask them?

I'd interview William Shakespeare, because I love his works, and his life is a mystery. I'd ask him all the questions you'd expect: where did he go after leaving Stratford? Who was the Dark Lady? Who was the Fair Lord? Why did Iago hate Othello? Was there really a sequel to Love's Labours Lost? If he could change any of his plays, which would it be, and how? Which play is he happiest about? Which is he least happy about?

And what does he think of the reaction to his plays in the twenty-first century?

11:31am: Burning...

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. - Shunryu Suzuki, 1904 - 1971