end of no-internet hiatus

It's amazing how having no internet at home for a week, combined with being sick and not getting in to the office much, and a lack of cable tv, put me straight back to the dark ages. Except for having light, thanks to electricity. And of course video games, which I don't believe the young knaves of yore grew up with. Anyway on with the photo caption contest thingy.I know I said I'd get away from political ones but it's just so easy to find photos of politicians looking like douchebags.

Submit to either photo and as often as you like. The Harper one in particular has huge potential, I think. Click for ever-so-slightly bigger.

I'm known (or if not, I'm about to be) for having vivid and often disturbing dreams, in colour, which I sometimes remember with great detail. They sometimes have very complete and even somewhat logical plots. Since moving to Calgary, however, there have been few to none of these memorable ones; even in the field this summer, which is when I had the most bizarre and shocking dream of my life four years ago. Anyway, for the last four nights or so I've had crazy vivid dreams every night, breaking the drought. In one, a picnic with my family (nuclear and extended) was interrupted by bandits wielding machetes, evoking violently strong emotions of fear and rage which I had never felt. When they kidnapped my cousin Hannah, I went on a rather horrendously gruesome rampage through bazaars and rooftops, from Italy through the middle-east and to sub-Himalayan jungles to rescue her. Another one was simply a fantastic continuous mad nighttime drive through empty Calgary streets in a Mazdaspeed 6.

Historically I get such dreams when sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, but now I really don't know anymore. They seem to come in waves.

Warning: car rant imminent. To avoid skip this next paragraph.

On that car... it's perfect. Sometime I'll get around to writing the bloody auto blog and it'll be the first entry. All the reviews I read, even negative ones, make me want it more. My subconscious memory of the feel of it during the test drive back in August was damn near perfect in that dream. For the price, there's really none to match it. It's got my needs covered: power, braking, handling, all wheel drive, manual transmission, and subtlety (extremely important). It's even practical, as comfortable 5-seater with lots of trunk space. It hugely outperforms similarly priced "badge" cars (BMWs, Mercs), but if you're the kind of person who wants to own a "BMW," rather than a necessarily good vehicle, go nuts and get a 325xi for the same money. You'll get 26% less power (218 bhp instead of 274) and only rear wheel drive (arguably the better setup on a track, but we live in Canada). Drilled aluminium pedals, terrific short-throw 6-speed manual 'box, an in-dash 6-cd changer with 6.1 Bose sound system, and fully Japanese build quality (i.e. no Ford meddling with this car). Only gripes: must use premium fuel, and interior noise is fairly high at highway speeds, especially in the back seats. The onramp from the overpass just south of the co-op northbound onto the vanier was particularly memorable... entered it in 2nd at about 20, and rowed through the gears. At merge time we were doing 160 in 5th, and acceleration was still impressive. I'm gonna take another test drive of it here in Calgary. At some point.

I am now extremely hungry, and must go home. Good day, loyal minions.