ouch!

Someone deserves an egging. Or perhaps a more distinctly Canadian attack... I call upon the mightiness of the Chicken Cannon. It should be filled with timmy's coffee, maple syrup, a beaver, and several ravenous grizzly bears.

PS It can't be a typo... it's spelled properly and capitalized. If you're more outraged than amused, or just want to know why, send email to cbicsmd@yahoo.com (I suspect that's it).

pros and cons

Things that are good right now:
-My bike has been fixed and should be ready in about an hour.
-The next episode of Top Gear starts in 1 week, 23 hours, and 22 minutes.
-The weather is nice (overcast but good and warm).
-My field season begins soon.
-I will soon be done everything for this term of school.

Things that are not good right now:
-My bike won't be ready for at least another hour.
-The next episode of Top Gear doesn't start for another 1 week, 23 hours, and 22 minutes.
-The weather could be nicer (not overcast).
-My field season has not begun.
-I am not finished yet for the school term.

Being the incurable optimist that I am, the pros definitely outweigh the cons here.

I've realised recently that I'm an optimist to an extreme. Not in how I think things will turn out (eg. experiments, hockey games), but in how I perceive people and situations. It's not a conscious thing, I dunno why it is. Whenever I meet any person I immediately find the things about them that are positive, and generally ignore the rest (unless it's criminal or sthg). This inherently gives me deep respect for every person I meet (regardless of age, social status, etc), which is difficult to deal with at times (there are a few exceptions). This has got me labelled naïve, or a suck up. That I am a suck up is not correct. I treat everyone with this same deep respect, profs and classmates alike, and my enthusiasm for what I study leads me to converse with profs about it, which has been interpreted incorrectly (it was hilarious in field school since most ppl seemed to understand that, and everyone got a label from this particular character). Regarding naïveness... sure I was. And to some degree still am and will always be, but not as much as it may seem to some. However, I'm not stupid; I am aware of much. It's not correct to confuse optimism for naïvety and pessimism/cynicism for realism/experience. Anyway I think I may be all together too nice.

However in this case, the pros definitely outweight the cons; I'm always happy because I find the guilded linings to the worst situations. My satisfaction with life is through the roof. And nobody can complain about me being "too nice" without sounding petty.

So I'm not gonna change. I don't even think I could if I wanted to. I like being happy and enthusiastic; although I'm running out of words to convey my enthusiasm (awesome, fantastic, terrific, brilliant, excellent, sweet.... errrrrr... suggestions?)

Well this is an uncharacteristically deep post. Especially compared to the last few.

To quote The Cheat: meh.

more hilarity from planet earth

The more I look at that expression, the funnier it gets...

I wish I even had the ability to pull a face like that. I guess it's sort of an embarrassed "oops", but I suspect it's more of an "oops I got caught" than an "oops I stole a gun".

Google Image Survey

As promised, here's my copying of shannon's blog thing.

Answer the questions with images from google.

Your Name (check one at far left):











The age you will be on your next birthday:














The place where you live:















Your favourite colour:















The place you want to go on vacation:














Your favourite drink:




















Your favourite animal: (it's the predator, not the snack)















Your friend's nickname:


















The name of your pet:















Your bad habit:

Evening post

My god do I ever hate shopping. Even for such things as power tools and field equipment. And Canadian Tire sucks at having anyone around to help you. If you embark on a quest to find staff, and do eventually find them, they have no fucking clue about anything.

Tomorrow, after returning an $85 car adapter for my laptop (I found a $29 150W converter that turns the car outlet into an AC 120V plug, which is more useful and not a ripoff), I'll post a similar thing to what shannon's got here.

Almost time for "House." Does anyone else watch that?

Kudos to these dudes

It's good to see some guys taking pride in their accomplishment. I don't know whether this is exactly the sort of accomplishment to be terrifically proud of... but still.

How the hell did they manage it, anyway? Roll it down the side of the quarry?

Good job boys.

I want that.

I guess I'd need a car first.

Had a terrific weekend of invigilating and then marking the GLGY313 final. If everyone did this sort of thing for their weekend, there'd be no wars, or murders, or pain... just 6.5 billion suicides. It sucks that much. I also spent a lot of time dispelling the dementia bought on by my all nighter, i.e. sleeping and watching downloaded Simpsons, Voyager, and MXC episodes. Ahh bliss.

Now to do grocery shopping and swing by the post office for a package I ordered. Details to come.

Cheers, all!

Now sleep-free for 30 hours and counting...

Click for something that affirms what we always knew but didn't have the proof to justify mocking half a country over. aww hell we never needed justification. let alone proof. But here it is nonetheless.

I plan to stay awake until this evening.. so in the end around 36 straight hours. It doesn't compare to the thesis weekend, but it's up there. I guess the big difference is that I have to get up early to invigilate an exam tomorrow. I have to be back here at 7:30. You'd think a straight day and a half working here at the school would pay off some measure of debt to the gods.

But no. They're such a vindictive lot.

You know... that's a tempting offer.

(click for fully legible)

I think I will. I'm sure the GLGY 313 students would enjoy knowing that as I mark their finals next week.

Indeed.

I haven't posted in some time. While I could easily use the excuse that "I've been ridiculously busy," I would, of course, be lying. It's true I've had (and still have) horrific amounts of work to do, but I prefer to ignore it until I develop sufficient fear to actually do something. Which should be kicking in in about an hour, since this massive project is due Friday and I haven't started.

Anyway, I categorically refuse to offer any explanation for why I haven't posted in nearly a week.

Ahhhhh... on to writing a paper. No wait... I think I'll play a little "critical mass" first. Just to get in the right mindset for writing a paper. I find that firing missiles at enemy ships in 2D (but with cool illumination effects) gives me the drive I need to conquer my projects. Or fire missiles at them.

What utter bullshit. Spock's comment is disconcertingly apt.

to: complaints department, universe administration.

Dear sir/madam/alien:

I wish to lodge a complain in the strongest possible terms regarding the intolerable treatment of myself over the last four or five Earth-days, by life in general. There is no particular sentient being to which my pains can be attributed or upon whom my vengeance can be exacted. I therefore demand compensation from the universe in general.

I demand no vast sums of resources or capital, but rather that: my right wrist, knuckles, and knee stop hurting, my bike be fixed before I go 600 km away for 4 months, my dinner cook itself, my two papers write themselves, and my ability to sleep be returned to me. Also I would like to regain the time lost today marking lab-midterms for nine straight hours (hence the damage to my right hand), preferably by having time slow down for the Earth hours of 12:00 am to 10:00 am tomorrow, April 15, 2006, to allow me to regain some of the countless lost hours of sleep from the last week.

Thank you and for fuck's sake hurry up.

Grumball.

P.S. If you feel like writing a master's thesis in metamorphic petrology, I could really use one on the metamorphism and structure of the Soards Creek area, BC.

Builder's chat-up lines

For those of you completely incapable of linguistic extrapolation and in addition totally devoid of experience with British english, a "chat-up line" is a pick-up line. Now that my cruel and dismissive attack on my subjects is out of the way, here are a few chat-up lines that could be used by someone who works in the building trade, transcribed from my cd of the BBC's hilarious impromptu comedy radio show "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue."

"I don't just lay bricks you know..."

"I hope you don't mind a bit of banging..."

"If you're looking for someone who can be in and out within three weeks then I'm your man."

"D'you want to get felt laid down in the loft?"

"D'you want to find out why they call me "enormous bill"?... cause it'll be twice the size of your estimate..."

"You won't know I'm here."

and lastly...
"dear oh dear who put this in?"

And here's one of my favourite MXC contributions to the comedic arts, from the competition between the "porn industry" and "construction workers." The game is "dash to death" where the contestants run across an obstacle course set above muddy water. As usual Vic and Kenny are commentating.

Vic: "Here's Mike Sauszol, he's a sheet rocker moonlighting as a sink caulker.."
[Sauszol begins his run]
Kenny: "Sink caulker? So he likes doin' chicks in boats?
Vic: "errr, I wouldn't know, Kenny"
Kenny: "So, what's he do with his caulk?"
Vic: "He puts it in the crack."
Kenny: "Oh, so he's in porn then."
Vic: "Kenny! Listen! He's in construction!"
Kenny [confused]: "But.. k, err.. you say he sticks his caulk in the crack..."
Vic (under Kenny's line): "that's right"
Kenny [frustrated]: "...but he's in construction. I thought you said he was a sheep stalker!!!"
Vic: "I said 'a sheet rocker'! Plus, I was talking about caulking compound!"
Kenny [incredulous]: "He built a place to do this?!!"
Vic [frustrated]: "Caulking! It's used to fill cracks!!"
Kenny: "Am I missing something here?
Vic: "Well thanks to you, Kenny, we've pretty much missed the entire run..."

There are other, possibly better ones, but I watched that episode last night. I plan to transcribe more hilarity from both ISIHAC and MXC in future. There are a few "gardener's chat-up lines" and "musician's chat-up lines" so stay tuned.

You have my permission to go. Cheers!

This is part of why 30.6% of Americans are obese. They eat donut sandwiches. Mind you that does sound pretty freakin' tasty...

I busted my bike yesterday in the park, well just the transmission system. I was most of the way through the park, about 5 km from home, when the bottom bracket went. That's the bearing system that supports the main crankset axle. It started creaking as I was climbing the hill (a long and arduous process) and finally, as I was trying to race across the dips and hills of the glacial deposits up top, the bearings disintegrated. I know this because the axle suddenly lost all solidity and wobbled inward on my downward pedal with my right foot, causing my foot to snap off the pedal and onto the ground, with a lot of force behind it. This resulted in a twisted knee. It's not too bad, I don't limp or anything, I just really feel it going up or down stairs. The worst part was, of course, getting home. My bike was immediately turned into a rather large and expensive scooter, with decent brakes and front shocks. I had to walk it up the hills, and scoot along straights (right foot on left pedal, push with left foot). This was not made any easier by the dislocated crankset axle, causing the pedals to be ridiculously wobbly. Thankfully much of the trip was down the hill, for which I could simply sit on the bike normally and coast. My complete inventory of tools for fixing my bike is:
1 Mole Wrench (aka Vice Grips for you non-Brits)
1 Set of 20 Alan keys (aka Hex Wrenches for the same)
1 Multi-bit Screwdriver (not useful for bike repairs)

I do not have the necessary equipment for removing pedals or extracting and replacing the bottom bracket, thus I must hence (scoot) to the nearest bike shop. To be done tomorrow. It's not a big deal, I was planning to replace some other transmission components anyway (the main cog rings have seriously worn teeth, and it needs a new chain), and some of the cables.

Okay, now that you're all up to date on Grum's bike, you can go back to whatever else it is (if anything) that you find remotely as interesting.

Cheers!

best suggestions of lost things and other stuff

The best suggestions were brain cells and sanity, which are often related. Thus I declare trek and Sarah to be the winners. However everyone made excellent suggestions; keys and cellphone are annoying as hell to lose but at least replaceable. Such things are not the end of the world.

I was, however, disappointed that we didn't get any crackpot theories about the nature of the ether itself. For shame. I personally picture it as a sort of parallel universe, or better yet a "subuniverse" of this one. It would be an infinite white space, possibly foggy so you can't see very far. Breathable air and a ground surface with Earth-like gravity and physical laws. However all entirely white everywhere, providing no reference points at all. But then if you walked around you'd start to find things in the fog. Like socks, keys, brain cells, and the sanity of stressed out people. Sound wouldn't travel past your visibility range. I dunno why, it's just the way it would be. There would probably be a large population of sock gremlins, hanging out by portals that lead into dryers. Obviously these portals only open when the dryer is running, that's why we never see them. I'm convinced that the portals would be kinda glowing green and misty, bobbing in the air and possibly emitting a low humming sound.

Here's some more real headlines that crack me up:

I love the "smile of the week". I'd be smiling if I was going to buy some sheep. And regarding the one about breathing being good for you... why is it only "most" doctors?
The last one's a survey of Americans... the question starts "Now that Iraq has..." (then continues as you can see). That answer is simply fantastic.

one of the best e-mails I ever got:

Hello Grum,

I haven't heard from you in ages! This can only mean one of two things. Either things are going so well that you have no need of my digital companionship; or, and I think more likely, one morning, just before you could put on your shoes, you were kidnapped by overweight, radical Iranian nationalists and flown to South America on a pedal plane, where you were suddenly attacked by an indigenous tribe of cavemen wielding crossbows, forcing you to crash-land in a crocodile infested river where your overweight captors were devoured. Using a combination of luck and a piece of the wreckage, you were able to skin a nearby crocodile and fashion it into a handy pair of shoes which you used to walk out of the jungle and into the dessert--a large bowl of ice cream that completely ruined your left shoe. And so, you had to hop the rest of the way to the Pacific Ocean, where you were hired as a circus freak for having such a muscular right leg.

The circus travelled to Europe and made its way through several countries that were still vying for EU status, with the result that the circus was poorly attended as everyone was too busy trying to look as sophisticated as the English. This meant that you had to go without food for several days, and soon both your legs were the same size again. As you did not want to lose your position as circus freak, you fashioned some elbow spikes out of some soap, but due to a terrible pun you were arrested as an ivory trader.

While in jail you met a strange old man who claimed to know the ways of the force, but he turned out to be nothing more than a poorly-spoken physicist. Nevertheless, he was able to help you escape by tunnelling under the walls. Due to a miscalculation of standard deviation, you surfaced inside a magnificent movable pyramid that was abandoned by the Egyptians soon after chariots were invented.

I suspect that you are now driving the pyramid back toward Calgary, and are endeavouring to install a powerful Wi-Fi antenna in the pyramid in order to contact me before you arrive. It's obvious to me that your lack of communication thus far is simply due to the difficulty of placing your large rod in an Egyptian beauty while travelling at speed.

Cheers,

Joe

----------------------------------

Thanks Joe... the physicist is working on a supercharger for the pyramid's V8, and Egyptian Beauty is proving very receptive.