tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-197294442024-03-07T16:12:15.019-07:00The Everyday Happenings of GrumI have fun by looking at rocks. No really... I'm doing my masters on them. But no soft-sediment crap. That's scum hiding the good stuff. In Calgary since Jan 4, 2006. I am now 92.4% closer to the mountains I love.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-68415451181690787672008-01-14T21:53:00.001-07:002008-01-14T22:30:12.965-07:002007 Recap, 2008 ForecastBeen a long long while since I posted. Much has occurred. First some notes.<br /><br />This journal was, of course, originally intended as a frequent update on my life for my friends scattered all over the country, and particularly those left in Fredericton after I moved to Calgary. This task has largely been superseded by Facebook, also known as the devil. But it is mighty fun. Don't step in the privacy violations. Anyway, that's the main reason for the neglect. <br /><br />Reason two is simply that I had a very full field season over the summer, and had too much to write about at any one time. Of course, after that, the amount of stuff to write about simply increased and increased, and as we near the time (April) by which I wish to have the thesis complete, the time I had to blog decreased continually. <br /><br />The main reason I'm blogging right now is because I saw Mike Morrison's blog, wanted to comment, and thought "well if I do that then he might just mosey on over here and see what a sorry state this blog is in." So here's an update. It's mostly a list, because I have about 6 other things I should be doing. Let's begin.<br /><br />Events since last blog post:<br /><ul><li>Went home in May and surprised sis for birthday. Good times.</li><li>Had a long productive summer field season in Mica Creek. Also went with my supervisor to Trail (again) to look at stuff not too far from the field school area (previous post). See Facebook for some field photos, although last summers' aren't as spectacular as those from 2006.<br /></li><li>End Aug and early Sept I moved apartments. The new place is awesome. Haven't spent much time there lately, for reasons that will become clear below.</li><li>Late Sept I bought a car. 2003 Subaru Forester, 65,000 km on it, awd, manual, brilliant. Got it through a dealership and they provided a crazy good warranty. Photos on Facebook.<br /></li><li>Sunk, who doesn't check this blog and refuses to succumb to the inevitability that is Facebook, came to visit in early Oct. Great times.<br /></li><li>Hosted the Dept of Geoscience Grad Student Society Hallowe'en party. It was not at all nerdy. I met Amy there.</li><li>Spent most of my time between then and Christmas with Amy.</li><li>Went home for the break, saw friends and family. Went with family to the Caribbean on (another) cruise. This one was eastern Caribbean. See Facebook for the photos.</li></ul>Since I've returned I've arranged a PhD project, submitted an abstract to a conference, and am now working on doctoral scholarships. And spent a lot of time with Amy. Next on the list is creating my map, finishing structural and metamorphic analyses, and building a poster for the aforementioned conference. I have to have that stuff done by late Feb when I present. Meanwhile, I lose a week and a half starting this Thursday when Steve arrives and we go on a ski tour through the Rockies. Mum and Laura then come to visit. Oh God there's no freakin time!!!!<br /><br />The extended forecast calls for my MSc thesis to be complete by the end of this term, then I write a paper on it and do reading and preparations for my PhD project early in the summer, then run and collect some samples to work on for the PhD through next year in August. The PhD officially starts in September. Projected completion date: August 2012. Supervisor is a new guy here at the department who is great! Really cool project too; I can't wait to get going on it.<br /><br />Perhaps, someday, I'll post again. Maybe at that point the thesis will be done. Dear future self who has his thesis done: you lucky, lucky, lucky bastard.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-61255441402852169222007-05-08T09:57:00.000-06:002007-05-08T13:56:18.633-06:00back from fieldschoolA while since I've done funny news stories. Thus the next couple of posts may or may not be unbelievably funny.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguedd4Uw4-a8_PjVH156ElUb59czfo0q9nYAUKO6ND6XIi1nd7Zbae6uqRtdVlhAPtRRpUVFl7mNLW6KyTpmxeofgz9r-40UXm2VxRdHb9o8xnRXzi_RfGKU-rlBkZ6DzZKHk0yA/s1600-h/H_3229_49.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguedd4Uw4-a8_PjVH156ElUb59czfo0q9nYAUKO6ND6XIi1nd7Zbae6uqRtdVlhAPtRRpUVFl7mNLW6KyTpmxeofgz9r-40UXm2VxRdHb9o8xnRXzi_RfGKU-rlBkZ6DzZKHk0yA/s400/H_3229_49.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062233062266756434" border="0" /></a>"Here is how to safely shoot a fellow officer in the head."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RkCqJzal3WI/AAAAAAAAAEA/PWrEvNrTkME/s1600-h/H_3239_12.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RkCqJzal3WI/AAAAAAAAAEA/PWrEvNrTkME/s400/H_3239_12.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062233066561723746" border="0" /></a>I wonder why...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWfgctixLF3WnE4B0nYCXlCJh-KwVVflHayIcGEvoURpu_IhLrF4d23olKww96_JR42Ix1i9Hxc6jas0-nznSpxknxbcZeUBFcJngds8O0kQM6sjIg-nHN6LtXzGrTEvaBK-fLA/s1600-h/H_3239_22.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWfgctixLF3WnE4B0nYCXlCJh-KwVVflHayIcGEvoURpu_IhLrF4d23olKww96_JR42Ix1i9Hxc6jas0-nznSpxknxbcZeUBFcJngds8O0kQM6sjIg-nHN6LtXzGrTEvaBK-fLA/s400/H_3239_22.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062233066561723762" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RkCqJzal3YI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/VV16jY0d2mg/s1600-h/H_3239_50.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RkCqJzal3YI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/VV16jY0d2mg/s400/H_3239_50.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062233066561723778" border="0" /></a>Microphones in the eyes... that's an understandable photographic error, but how is that photo then selected for use?!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RkCqKDal3ZI/AAAAAAAAAEY/BK_fBpq4N-c/s1600-h/H_3244_09.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RkCqKDal3ZI/AAAAAAAAAEY/BK_fBpq4N-c/s400/H_3244_09.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062233070856691090" border="0" /></a>Yeah I had something like that; an 18-wheeler crushed my feet and my right earlobe fell off.<br /><br />Fieldschool was a good time, with some neat rocks and beautiful scenery. I surprised myself by not being totally inept at teaching students field techniques and concepts, despite than most of them were older than me and many had more field experience, albeit in the oil/gas industry, not hardrock (why are the undergrads at this university so old??).<br /><br />Today they're working on their reports and good maps, and I'm around to help out. On Saturday I'm going home to surprise my sister for her birthday (I'm fairly certain she doesn't read this because she doesn't remember I even maintain a blog, let alone where it is). Also I'll be home for Mother's Day, which I'm sure Mum appreciates.<br /><br />Remember a few months ago when some US defence contractors up here in Canada reported being spied on by Canadian coins that commemorate our war dead with the red poppy quarter? Well they thought the red poppy in the centre was some sort of nanotechnology espionage device, and that these quarters were being 'planted' on them by spies (eg in the cupholder of a rental car, or, as I prefer to think they believed, by the evil cold-hearted commie scum working at Timmy's). Anyway they've admitted it was all an incredibly silly mistake, and just reading <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/05/07/tech-colour-quarter.html">the cbc article</a> was enough to make me laugh.<br /><br />Come on, America! Why would we want to spy on you guys? We're pretty much the best of friends, compared to most neighbouring countries, and we share much of our technology and military systems anyway. If for some reason we <span style="font-style: italic;">did</span> want to spy on US military contractors, we would not use something so stupid as coins, since coins flow in and out of peoples' hands all the time. No we'd just head on down over the border and take a look around, because we look and (if we remember to say 'huh' instead of 'eh') sound just like Americans. And if our accents are a bit more than they're used to, we say we're from Maine. Or possibly Alaska.<br /><br />I finally capitulated to the nagging alert window and updated my version of itunes, and for the hell of it, skimmed through the <a href="http://www.gripewiki.com/index.php/Apple_QuickTime_7.0.4_%28free_version_for_Windows%29_&_iTunes_EULA">EULA</a>. Look at section 15. How could itunes possibly be used for such things? Does it count if you have it playing in the background as you're working on such a project? Are Lockheed-Martin workiers exempt? I understand it's just a general-issue apple product EULA, but still, I think it's amusing.<br /><br />A new contest, to be properly propounded next time: Come up with a word for the opposite of "dense", including opposites for "density" and "denser" etc. It bothers me that such a word doesn't exist. Maybe I'll come up with some more things that I think need words for next time.<br /><br />Cheers.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-5181736034965096322007-05-02T23:39:00.000-06:002007-05-03T01:29:08.977-06:00life update<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RjmNzDxSA4I/AAAAAAAAADw/I4BYnYkw9XE/s1600-h/stockwellday-701088.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RjmNzDxSA4I/AAAAAAAAADw/I4BYnYkw9XE/s400/stockwellday-701088.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5060231564652315522" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"Day's touchdown victory dance led him to runway 36L, where he was finally taken out by flight 354 from Edmonton."</span><br /><br />Been a while since I just said what's going on in my life, and after all, that's what this blog thing originally was; a way of friends from back home keeping up to date with me, since we're all scattered across the country.<br /><br />The last post with any sort of me-update was back in March. Since then I've gone skiing a lot, zapped a lot of rock samples with electrons, marked a lot of exams, helped people move apartments, done taxes, and (excitingly) worked out that I can afford that Mazda that I so desperately crave in December, all being well. I'm not sure if I'll actually get it at that point. It really depends on the likeliness that on any given weekend someone with a car will be going skiing, and may be willing to take me.<br /><br />I was very very stupid with my skiing this year, going out 17 times total (for 19 days of skiing), mostly at Sunshine, with a couple of trips to Louise, one to Kicking Horse, and two to Fernie. I would have easily paid off a Sunshine pass, and I paid way more in rentals than I would have had I just bought some decent skis at the beginning of the season. I plan to avoid the same mistake next season.<br /><br />I'm also (90% sure) moving into a new apartment with a couple of friends who play musical instruments, sometime in June. This necessitates acquiring some decent keyboard equipment so we can jam. Not only that, but the place (which I haven't seen yet) is apparently amazing. It will be nice to have a place I could actually have some people over, rather than just a place with not even a table, which has never felt like anything more than a temporary residence. In fairness, though, the location of my current place is nigh unbeatable.<br /><br />Right now I'm in <a href="http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&amp;amp;amp;q=Trail,+BC&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=12&om=1">Trail, BC</a>, TAing a fourth-year field school in igneous and metamorphic geology. I've never been to southern BC before, and this area in particular is quite beautiful. The weather isn't cooperating, unfortunately, with rain every day since we arrived in town. We're mapping what essentially amounts to three plutons (intrusions of magma which cooled deep underground, now exposed at the surface thanks to erosion), over hills with excellent exposure (i.e. a high percentage of the ground surface is bedrock, rather than vegetation or loose rocks). Unfortunately the rain makes the hills a bit dangerous in places, but once it really starts coming down we call it a day anyway. If it were my own camp/research, we'd still work, just avoid the very steepest stuff.<br /><br />That's another thing I've been planning for: the upcoming field season. I'm really looking forward to this summer, and I know what I want to pin down, tie up, and leave out. My supervisor is coming into the field with me for at least a week, which is nice as I only got one day last year! My main objective is to learn as much as I can about transposition (extreme shearing, in simple terms), and how to identify it, so I can decide whether this effect is widespread or localised in my field area. Previous literature suggests that primary sedimentary structures (layering, grading, etc) can be identified, but frankly, last summer, I found none that were unequivocal. I was, of course, drawing on my experience from the heavily transposed Monashee Complex rocks I worked on before, which are directly south of me about 70 km. Therefore, I've been inadvertently trained to look for (and see) structures associated with strong shearing, rather than sedimentary structures in well cooked-up rocks, which may not have been sheared so much (although I certainly still think they've been exceedingly buggered up). A problem is that the geology between my area and the Monashee Complex is not strongly nailed down. There may be no real stratigraphic discontinuity between the regions, meaning my rocks are a part of the Complex. I need to order some PhD theses from this 70 km stretch to see what may be going on.<br /><br />Sorry for the geo-ranting. It's just my nature.<br /><br />Someday, when I'm feeling brave, I'll put up some more funny pictures. I haven't done that in ages.<br /><br />Cheers all.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-25583817339172819132007-04-01T13:36:00.000-06:002007-04-01T14:33:02.537-06:00nuclear waste managementThis comes to mind every time I hear debate about nuclear and toxic waste disposal. The general public is uninformed and politicians are lax to go near such a nasty issue.<br /><br />There are currently forty thousand tons of used nuclear fuel sitting in shielding pools and concrete canisters in Canada (20 million rods weighing 20 kilos each). It is still emitting heat and dangerous radiation. While it is possible to reprocess this material by enrichment and reuse it in reactors, it is not currently cost effective to do so (and we’d still have waste in the end anyway). We have an obligation to make this material safe for future generations, and the safest way to do this is through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository">Deep Geological Disposal</a>. This involves finding a highly stable location underground with no interaction with groundwater systems. Batholiths (large bodies of magma that cooled deep in the crust) are the ideal setting, since they often have negligible porosity or permeability, and are inherently very tough rock.<br /><br />The estimated cost of burying Canada’s nuclear waste in batholiths in the shield is between 9 and 13 billion dollars over the next century, for the waste currently awaiting disposal and the waste that will likely be generated in future.<br /><br />We have in this country the most attractive setting imaginable for toxic and nuclear waste disposal. The Canadian Shield, centred around the Hudson Bay, is a thick volume of buoyant (relative to the mantle) crystalline (igneous and metamorphic, i.e. tough) old crustal rock, rife with batholiths.<br /><br />It is well understood how to sequester material in deep facilities. You line the walls with sheet metal, then concrete, then bentonite or another clay to ensure an impermeable boundary even in the unlikely event that one of the rare but powerful intra-cratonic earthquakes causes a shift or breach in the facility.<br /><br />It would be an expensive but relatively simple matter to tunnel a kilometre down into a huge intrusive, build a large containment facility, and stuff our waste down there, at the aforementioned cost. But why stop there? We could drastically offset that cost, and even profit from the endeavour, if we were to dispose of the waste from other countries in our stable shield rocks as well. If we charged the US and Mexico to dispose of their wastes we would soon cover the construction of the storage facilities and then begin earning a profit. There’s also the added benefits of our much more stable rock being used for North American waste disposal, reducing the risk of environmental damage across the continent. <br /><br />There is controversy in the US regarding <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_mountain">Yucca Mountain</a>, their Department of Energy’s favoured disposal site. While the geology may be sound, there is little doubt in my mind that deep storage in shield rocks is inherently safer over the extreme long term. We don’t have to gauge the US over waste storage; they would be responsible for transportation, but if we charged, say, $350,000 CAD a ton, we would cover the expense of burying our own waste when we buried about the same amount of theirs. <br /><br />It’s not a matter of raking in cash, in my mind it’s a matter of human safety over the next few thousand years. Toxic waste management should be borderless, not an “us or them” issue, as in “why should we deal with the US’s waste?”, since the answer is “because we have the more stable rock”. <br /><br />I don’t think that the concept of safety over the next million years is particularly relevant. If humans are still around even in a thousand years, it would be surprising; we’re getting very good at developing ways of killing ourselves, or we will have raped the planet and escaped to somewhere else. If we are around, think of the technologies we’d have for dealing with the material. The only case I can envision in which safety for ten thousand years is important is if there’s some apocalypse and we’re thrown back to the stone age, with no knowledge of the waste’s existence or dangers.<br /><br />I would suggest that we take the whole world’s waste, but I think the environmental risk associated with shipping millions of tons of nuclear waste across the ocean is unacceptable. Each continent has one or more ancient cratons, so to avoid trans-oceanic shipping humanity should probably just construct similar sites in stable cratonic rocks on each continent.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nwmo.ca/Default.aspx?DN=1487,20,1,Documents">http://www.nwmo.ca/Default.aspx?DN=1487,20,1,Documents</a><br /><a href="http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htm">http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htm</a><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craton">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craton</a><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Platforms%2C_Shields_and_Cratons">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Platforms%2C_Shields_and_Cratons</a>Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-88504024950535445872007-03-20T23:03:00.000-06:002007-03-20T23:13:05.654-06:00amusing questions thingThis was going around facebook, and in answering it I went a different route; one that didn't involve an angsty description of my life (by answering truthfully). Feel free to repost, if you're feeling angsty, or if you realise you can do a much better job of being funny than me.<br /><br />1. The phone rings. Who do you want it to be?<br />The UN, agreeing to my outrageous terms.<br /><br />2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?<br />No, that's what loyal minions in colour-coded jumpsuits are for.<br /><br />3. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?<br />I give orders, they are followed, and the world trembles in fear.<br /><br />5. Do You Play Sudoku?<br />Yes, with remote explosives and the pen-detonator from "Goldeneye".<br /><br />6. If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive?<br />Yes. The question is, would the wilderness?<br /><br />8. Did you ever go to camp as a kid?<br />Never, I always dressed conservatively. And you misspelled "too".<br /><br />9. What was your favorite game as a kid?<br />Pooh sticks with dynamite.<br /><br />10. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was married, would you?<br />My evil plans leave no time for such frivolities.<br /><br />12. Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you?<br />I could, but they'd end up in the pirahna tank if it became an issue.<br /><br />13. Do you like to pursue or be pursued?<br />Oh I don't know which I love more... the thrill of chasing down some wretched snitch, or the thrill of escaping from hapless law enforcement agencies. I suppose they're both made more fun by the fact that I'm rather well armed and funded, and not above sacrificing hordes of underlings.<br /><br />14. Use three words to describe you at the moment?<br />Incomparably superior human.<br /><br />15. Do any songs make you cry?<br />The Bond theme used to, but not since I realised that stupid 00-agents play it on speakers every time as they approach, making them easy to get.<br /><br />16. Are you continuing your education?<br />No need, since I already know everything.<br /><br />18. If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed?<br />A weapon, since I'd assume it was another SAS attack.<br /><br />19. How often do you read books?<br />Never, I already have them all memorized.<br /><br />20. Do you think more about the past, present or future?<br />The past is irrelevant, the present I already knew would happen, only the future is interesting.<br /><br />22.What color are your eyes?<br />Mauve.<br /><br />23. How tall are you?<br />two foot six, and tall with it.<br /><br />24. Where is your dream house located?<br />In orbit, so I can observe all my territory.<br /><br />27. Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth?<br />Of every FBI agent who enters one.<br /><br />28. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden?<br />I took my Director of Counter-intelligence there last week to explain in detail how his predecessor failed and was dealt with.<br /><br />29. Why are tons of questions missing?<br />Classified.<br /><br />30. Where was the furthest place you traveled today?<br />Svalbard, to destroy the new global seed-storage facility. Don't want any resistance movement to have access to a food source.<br /><br />32. Do you like mustard?<br />Only in gas form.<br /><br />33. Do you prefer to sleep or eat?<br />I require neither.<br /><br />34. Do you look like your mom or dad?<br />I have neither.<br /><br />35. How long does it take you in the shower?<br />28.62 seconds.<br /><br />37. What movie do you want to see right now?<br />The next Bond movie, to see his plans.<br /><br />39. What did you do for New Year's?<br />Dealt with underlings who wanted the day off, and oversaw completion of silo 4-B.<br /><br />40. Do you think The Grudge was scary?<br />Who do you think that boy grew up to be?<br /><br />42. Do you own a camera phone?<br />No, I communicate using telepathy.<br /><br />44. Was your mom a cheerleader?<br />See above.<br /><br />45. What's the last letter of your middle name?<br />'?'<br /><br />47. How many hours of sleep do you get a night?<br />See above.<br /><br />48. Do you like care bears?<br />I fought and destroyed them at the battle of Proxima Centauri. No-Heart continues to evade me.<br /><br />49. What do you buy at the movies?<br />The theatre.<br /><br />50. Do you know how to play poker?<br />How do you think I got so rich?<br /><br />51.Do you wear your seatbelt?<br />Without fail.<br /><br />52. What do you wear to sleep?<br />Recall how I do not require sleep.<br /><br />53. Anything big ever happen in your hometown?<br />No, but pay attention on June 17th 2014.<br /><br />54. How many meals do you eat a day?<br />See above.<br /><br />55. Is your tongue pierced?<br />Daily.<br /><br />56. Do you always read Facebook notes?<br />Telepathically.<br /><br />58. Do you like funny or serious people better?<br />My army's motto is "Comedians Cause Casualties".<br /><br />59. Ever been to L.A.?<br />Facility YH-15 is there, so once or twice a year.<br /><br />60. Did you eat a cookie today?<br />No, again see above.<br /><br />61. Do you use cuss words in other languages in the appropriate situations?<br />I do not require 'cuss words'.<br /><br />62. Do you have a crush?<br />Yes, a few times a year; it's such a terrifying way to intimidate the remaining underlings.<br /><br />63. Do you hate chocolate?<br />With a vehement passion.<br /><br />64. What do you and your parents fight about the most?<br />See above.<br /><br />65. Are you a gullible person?<br />I cannot be convinced of anything.<br /><br />66. Do you need a boyfriend/girlfriend to be happy?<br />I require no happiness.<br /><br />67. If you could have any job (assuming you have the skills) what would it be?<br />Supreme Emperor of Earth. And words like "if", "could", and "assuming" are unnecessary at this point.<br /><br />68. Are you easy to get along with?<br />It is possible, although unlikely, that you'd survive an encounter with me.<br /><br />69. What is your favorite time of day?<br />7am, when the previous day's captured secret agents are brought before me.<br /><br />70. What should you be doing right now?<br />Preparing the serum for interrogation subject Gamma-8.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBRK0EZt6fpzO-gCtmh8btn3Cmm8eowRtOqJ0sBNkCVHcS3vN3RRtPfP-FL5emjCymx1foi3jRowWt0uj4JSe61TTGFehf8FXKQUxy-kiJnxDujG4lS_p9D_V5mrRqWwbSsTbIbA/s1600-h/225px-ErnstStavroBlofeld.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBRK0EZt6fpzO-gCtmh8btn3Cmm8eowRtOqJ0sBNkCVHcS3vN3RRtPfP-FL5emjCymx1foi3jRowWt0uj4JSe61TTGFehf8FXKQUxy-kiJnxDujG4lS_p9D_V5mrRqWwbSsTbIbA/s320/225px-ErnstStavroBlofeld.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044239628544281538" border="0" /></a>Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-22462068618566361922007-03-12T00:11:00.000-06:002007-03-12T03:23:34.067-06:00musical snobberyThis post wasn't supposed to be so long (this is a trend of the last few posts, possibly because of the greater time intervals between them). Whether you decide to read the entire snobbish mess is completely up to you, I make no apologies for length or content.<br /><br />I realised a couple of things recently. One is that skiing is a decent metaphor for life: you have to be trying hard enough to fall fairly often if you want to learn anything, and confidence is everything. In both life and skiing, even feigning confidence can be enough to get through the steep bits. You might still crash and burn, or possibly die, but if you don't it's good fun.<br /><br />The other thing I realised is that my complete disinterest in the lyrics of songs (with one or two exceptions) means that it can give people <span style="font-style: italic;">completely</span> the wrong impression of me when I say what songs I like. I realised this when I was chatting with my officemate the other day about music. To my surprise she enjoys Slipknot and other metal artists (my itunes library is 90% metal); so I mentioned that I think their best song is "Metabolic," and she gave me a funny look and asked me what I thought of the lyrics. I had no idea what they were (for one thing they're all shouted/screamed) but it turns out it's <a href="http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Metabolic-lyrics-Slipknot/FD9EDF6BC3BEADA148256AC0000B62A1">pretty weird</a>.<br /><br />The first time I hear any song I really concentrate to hear the intervals and the timing, and I visualise playing it on a keyboard. If I like what I hear, I often go and do just that. It's actually really annoying that I can't just enjoy the music unless I have deciphered its structure and understand how it works. But sometimes music is way too complex for that, which is why I don't listen to classical or jazz very much, despite that I really enjoy such stuff. I also don't bother with pop, light rock, and other radio music, because the chords are all EABA and it's musically uninteresting. I feel that lyrics get in the way, unless they're sung and form an important melody or harmony line, but in that case they could just be 'aahs'.<br /><br />So the stuff I most enjoy has unique chord usage, with complex timing. Here's a couple of examples of the power chords from stuff I'm listening to as I type this (click for bigger):<br /><br />The main riff from "Decline" by Biohazard (M=120):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUExP6sfWI/AAAAAAAAAC0/fZLmRTEPqNA/s1600-h/Decline.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUExP6sfWI/AAAAAAAAAC0/fZLmRTEPqNA/s320/Decline.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040940602043956578" border="0" /></a>For some reason Musictime messed up the tie lines, but nevermind. This repeats 8 times.<br /><br />Now the riff I enjoy from Metabolic, this also repeats 8 times (M=100):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUGIP6sfYI/AAAAAAAAADE/RAbgktNkA40/s1600-h/Metabolic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUGIP6sfYI/AAAAAAAAADE/RAbgktNkA40/s320/Metabolic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040942096692575618" border="0" /></a><br />Next a part of the song "Cleansed by Silence" by Ion Dissonance (a band from Montreal). They only play the riff twice, with shouting over the first time, and nothing (much better) over the second, I've written both out here. Musictime won't let me make that one 16th note bar any shorter (I probably should have made it two bars per line instead of three to spread out the notes more). There are more ways to write this than 5/4, 4/4, 1/16, but I think this way captures the feel most effectively. The fact that they tack on that extra 16th gives the riff a very stulted feel, but I like it. I've cut this section out and repeated it using "Audacity" to show how it would be if they did it more than once. The file is on putfile (link below - be warned it has a rather violent/loud style, but the lyrics aren't vulgar, just unintelligible).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUExP6sfXI/AAAAAAAAAC8/9FbEHVwvatw/s1600-h/CBS%28ID%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUExP6sfXI/AAAAAAAAAC8/9FbEHVwvatw/s320/CBS%28ID%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040940602043956594" border="0" /></a><a href="http://media.putfile.com/repeating-part-of-song-by-Ion-Dissonance-to-show-timing-54-44-116">Click here for my Cleansed by Silence chop-job</a><br /><br />The Biohazard and Slipknot songs aren't actually in D, but in my mind I see everything in D because I don't have perfect pitch (doesn't matter so long as all the intervals (ratios) between notes are the same). Most of my own music is also in D (but can usually be transposed if people I'm jamming with would prefer another key).<br /><br />You can see from that that I am a fan of very offbeat timing, often in unusual time signatures. I enjoy it in metal because chords can be chucked out with such disdain or irreverence, and I like to think of it as throwing it in the face of all the boring uninspired four-beat-four-chord bands out there. Chances are that offends just about everybody, because that sort of music is the most popular. However, remember I am talking about the timing and the chords, not lyrics or the general feel of a song. I have no concept of poetry, and don't even think Tool lyrics are interesting. But I love Tool; they are masters of 5/4, and use chord sequences like few others.<br /><br />I also like chords and chord progressions that are unique. My 'favourite chord' is root + fifth + major second + major third + diminished fifth + major seventh. Here it is in G.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUQTv6sfZI/AAAAAAAAADM/dwh5tcZXcDQ/s1600-h/G+major+major+seventh+dim+5+add+9.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RfUQTv6sfZI/AAAAAAAAADM/dwh5tcZXcDQ/s320/G+major+major+seventh+dim+5+add+9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040953289377349010" border="0" /></a>I like this sound because few use it. Korn actually have some very interesting progressions and make good use of diminished fifth chords, particularly if the root (G, above) is the minor second of the key the piece is in (in this example resolve it to an F-sharp major, although that will be a lot prettier than anything by Korn). The diminished fifth is also called the tritone, and in the 1700s and 1800s the sound was called "diabolus in musica" (the devil in music) since it can sound dark and evil (my example there shows how this does not have to be so) so it's used by metal bands a lot. Slayer even named an album Diabolus in Musica, but few people get the reference. And yes, they make a lot of use of the tritone, but usually without the major third or the seventh, giving it a darker, dissonant sound.<br /><br />Just for reference, my favourite classical piece is "Neptune" from the planets (Holst). It still sends shivers up my spine at one point (powerful chord with Ab+G+B+E). Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring, The Sacrifice" is good too.<br /><br />So yeah, I am an incorrigible music snob. But if any of this strikes a chord with you (clang!), we should chat. And possibly jam.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-5518949682709711892007-03-09T00:25:00.000-07:002007-03-09T02:45:27.508-07:00dreams, scary and hilarious.Hoi hoi, lowly mortals!<br /><br />First I want to say to Michelle that I specifically said I felt conspicuously young, not that they seemed old to me. It's a maturity thing, rather than an age thing. But I will say that my comment about Calgary being cultureless is more to do with the lack of atmosphere around the city than a lack of culturally exciting events. Obviously there's more happening here, event-wise, but I'm talking more about the feel of the place. This city is composed primarily of highways and stripmalls. You (Michelle) are living in the core of Kensington; perhaps the most interesting place (atmospherically) to be in all the city. Maybe I'm confusing atmosphere with the feeling of community in Fton.<br /><br />And yes, Shaggz, I am the lead vocalist for the pseudoband "Warthog". It goes well with both my position as "frontman", and with the fact that I can't sing.<br /><br />It's been an interesting week, with the parents and sister visiting. We went skiing at Fernie, which was amazing on Saturday, and short-lived on Sunday as the soft/heavy melting snow is the likely cause for Mum's torn <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_cruciate_ligament">ACL</a>. She may have to have reconstructive surgery, and cannot walk without a brace, or even drive. It's so ironic since she's by far the most cautious skier I know, yet also very experienced and skilled. Here I am throwing myself off near cliffs, and she messed up her leg avoiding a tumbling snowboarder on a green run. Mum has had no pain at all associated with this injury, however, which is really weird. She just cannot put any weight at all on her leg (it gives way immediately). <br /><br />Since they left it's been a week of telecommuting, with all that implies. So now that I'm caught up on Top Gear, Lost, House, and My Name is Earl for the last couple of weeks, I can really get my head down and do some work tomorrow (Friday). Except that a birthday party I'm supposed to get trashed at starts at 2pm. I guess I won't go until 6 or 7 though; I enjoy playing catch-up. <br /><br />Did I ever relate the tale of the dream I had five years ago that is still crystal clear in my memory? When I tell most people about it they joke (or do they?) that I should seek professional help. It was the summer I was in the field with Paul McNeill, and while in that remote desolate camp under the Saturday Glacier I had the most incredible, bizarre, and terrifying dreams of my life. The one in particular began simply enough: we were preparing to go into the field and needed some empty boxes/crates to put stuff in. Our search began at a hospital (obviously). Entry to the hospital was by a 45-degree glass elevator, not unlike the funicular in Québec City, however it went down from street level to the entrace, which would have been the second basement level. <br /><br />Inside, the windowless concrete hallways were painted nursing-home green, and all the staff were (literally) faceless, 8 feet tall, and very menacing, wearing green hospital smocks. I entered a room to search it for boxes to steal. The room was a cube about six or seven metres to a side. It was unfinished concrete except for green padding covering the walls to about halfway up. There was no furniture, but there was a clock high on the wall, ticking backwards. There was one occupant. He was of indeterminate age and extremely frail, in a white hospital gown and with shaven head, he was huddled in the corner of this empty space, staring at nothing. With complete horror I realised that this was a hospital for the terminally ill, and the clock ticked backwards showing exactly how much time he had left. He was kept in this empty concrete cell (for that is what it was) by the enforcers, the cell was padded so he couldn't try to hurt himself by running into the walls, and worst of all, the only object in the room - the dreadful clock - was well out of reach so it couldn't be disabled.<br /><br />Paul had found some first aid boxes and tipped out their contents so we could use them. We walked past the ghastly faceless enforcers, who only realised what we had done as we reached the elevator. They ran towards us as I hammered on the 'door close' button. It closed just in time, of course.<br /><br />The next night, as I slept, we returned to that hospital for the medical supplies Paul had ditched, making this the only repeat dream I've ever had. Again we made it to the elevator just in time, but this time it stopped halfway up the track and started to go back down. Paul smashed a window (remember it was glass) and ran up the track and I followed. At the top was a decidedly more down-to-earth (and anti-climactic, in a way) scene, as two or three dozen cops demanded from behind their flashing cars, with guns drawn, that we lie down etc.<br /><br />It ended there, but it's the cell that stays with me... and particularly that clock. No nightmare before or since has been so terrifying, even the one when I was five when my family was turned into skittles by a horrible machine. There are a hundred ways to analyse it if you're into dream interpretation, which I am not. I think it's about my own fear of death, which is something I never think about. However, it's hard to see what each element symbolises; the clock is clearly the countdown to the inevitable... what made it so frightening was that it actually knew the moment, and was unstoppably counting down to it. Am I the frail lonely patient, trapped in the cell with that clock? Who are the faceless enforcers? I'm thinking that the plot of 'me and Paul trying to prepare the field' is not relevant to the deeper meaning, since that's exactly what we'd been doing for the days before we flew in. But then again, what do I know.<br /><br />I routinely get vivid dreams, often very plot-driven adventures, and usually involving protagonists and antagonists, the latter are generally frustratingly impossible to overcome. I only have one experience with dream interpretation. Once a lady from the church of a girl I dated tried to interpret some of my dreams as "God dreams". I did not relate the above dream, but a comical one I had had the previous night, which was Star Wars based and involved me flying around a city with kilometre-height buildings suspended in the sky, on a flying bicycle. I went down to a lower level for lunch, and while I ate Luke Skywalker stole my bike and flew away upwards. I found an elevator to follow him up, and saw a hovering platform full of stormtroopers. I slaughtered them all of them mercilessly with some sort of blaster gun (I left that bit out of my description to this woman) and got on the platform. Then Luke showed up on my bike to congratulate me on taking out the stormtroopers. Without a word I shoved him off the platform for stealing my bike. He fell several kilometres to his death. Bastard.<br /><br />Anyway she apparently did not know much about Star Wars because she decided that Luke represented the devil, the bike represented Jesus, and the city represented Heaven. I neglected to ask what it meant that Satan was riding Jesus around Heaven. I personally believe that my life over the preceeding days, which involved getting my bike seat stolen, and playing a lot of Jedi Knight II, was the real inspiration for the dream. I also believe that the dream was inherently hilarious. All I know for certain is that it felt really good to shove that annoying whining pansy off that platform to a horrible death.<br /><br />I haven't had any memorable ones lately, fieldwork often triggers them, though. We'll see in the summer.<br /><br />Cheers for now.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-8598967814499690072007-02-21T02:54:00.000-07:002007-02-21T03:47:19.854-07:00return from absentiaI categorically refuse to apologise for not blogging for 36 days. The simple truth is that I've lacked motivation, and there's like four people who read this. I'm interested to see how long it takes for someone to notice I've posted. However, it doesn't count if you have the e-mail notification on.<br /><br />There isn't a whole lot of news... Trailer Park Boys Live was totally awesome (photo), I went skiing a couple of times (including Fernie, which is amazing even by these standards), finished the course I was taking (last one I have to take - ever, if I don't need any for a PhD), some partying, and a trip to Edmonton.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMBKX3J1IQD5SbTvjO1d8WCkBSRFdUrNoY0vrXWc93qz8nXevLTDFfVJAJysyZsQQ3JMoWWrq7UOuZp_iQ7HyRGalaegktC4e3eCjepaoC2ndw5unWJ8-tK00n0TV772KpDBCcg/s1600-h/TPB+live.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMBKX3J1IQD5SbTvjO1d8WCkBSRFdUrNoY0vrXWc93qz8nXevLTDFfVJAJysyZsQQ3JMoWWrq7UOuZp_iQ7HyRGalaegktC4e3eCjepaoC2ndw5unWJ8-tK00n0TV772KpDBCcg/s320/TPB+live.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033926421750884050" border="0" /></a>I'm a huge fan of Ricky's various shirts and I wish they'd been selling them at the merchandise desk. However, they only had Helix and Swollen Members apparel (they played a set each). It was a varied enough selection of acts to bring out a very diverse crowd, although most were there for TPB. They did a Green Bastard sketch and a Conky sketch and sang Liquor and Whores, and it was terrific.<br /><br />There was a geology party a couple of weekends ago called "Rock for the Gallagher", which required us to dress as rock stars. Four of us, pre-drinking at one fellow's place, realised we looked like a band, and so formed "Warthog" (named for the beer we were drinking at the time).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsJevuB56Y30hBDcztrHZtoxw7hqxMwDGIKXR-OLsrDTfSme2L_YGjfOryGzZHPMeZyEKlHG-W2ag-7G__rsNP53Ro_7ZdGub5uUOtMcFsL5Fvq1uCBAFgHXlphptHMtyh6syMA/s1600-h/Warthog2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsJevuB56Y30hBDcztrHZtoxw7hqxMwDGIKXR-OLsrDTfSme2L_YGjfOryGzZHPMeZyEKlHG-W2ag-7G__rsNP53Ro_7ZdGub5uUOtMcFsL5Fvq1uCBAFgHXlphptHMtyh6syMA/s320/Warthog2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033926430340818658" border="0" /></a>Click for big.<br />L-R:<br />Graham - lead vocals, keys<br />Gareth - drums<br />Joel - guitars, keys<br />Chris - Bass<br /><br />Note 1: we have no instruments or music, and only Joel and I have ever had lessons on anything, both on keys. Mostly we're just an image.<br /><br />Note 2: I'm also the front man, since I look slightly different and have spiked hair.<br /><br />Note 3: Look closely at the book on the table and you can see that we're frauds.<br /><br />Note 4: Chris, Joel, and I represent 60% of the U of C hardrock geologists. Missing from that set would be Erik (mentioned below) and David. That's five out of 145. Most of the rest are geophysicists/oil&gas, with a few (including Gareth) geochemists, hydrogeologists, and environmental types. There are some structural-geophys types that get close to hardrock, I guess. We have no volcanologists, although the new prof arriving next Sept to replace my supervisor (who's retiring) is one, so he may bring in more hardrock types.<br /><br />The Edmonton trip this last weekend was for a conference focussed on Cordilleran geology in Canada (the rocks of the mountain ranges in AB, YK, and mostly BC. It was an extremely interesting conference, as was the partying in town. For instance, in trying to walk home on Whyte Ave on Saturday night, Erik (a friend, fellow grad student, and Frederictonian) witnessed a brutal beating and was the only one of several dozen onlookers who tried to help the unconscious man lying facedown in a mud puddle. His drunkenness brought out his bravery and he dispelled the attackers and shouted at the inactive bystanders to call 911. Someone did, and after the ambulance arrived Erik left the scene. Not 10 minutes down the street he saw pretty much the exact same thing going on. He cabbed the rest of the way.<br /><br />I had a more tame time, cabbing right from the bar we were at (which was deserted as they were showing the Flames game on all TVs). On the Friday I went to a U of A geology student party, which was much more along the lines of the parties we had back at UNB. I swear there's only like 15 or 20 of the U of C grads that will do <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span>, and even then only half of them will party/drink like I'm used to. And they're mostly Easterners! (Mind you, who isn't out here.)<br /><br />Calgary is the white-collar city: the oil execs, the geologists, the company headquarters, and most of the money is here, making it a rather boring and cultureless city at times. Edmonton is the blue-collar city, closer to the actual tarsands: the machinists, engineers, fitters, rig workers, and general grunt workers are there, making it a more - colourful town. It's like Fton vs St John. Obviously I'm generalizing, there's U of A and the seat of the provincial government there as well, but the Edmonton economy is dominated by the oil work.<br /><br />Nevertheless, I had a great time and it was particularly good to see Andy and Paul from UNB, I'm only sorry I didn't get to see Katherine or Leanne, who both live there.<br /><br />Well it's 3:32 am and I'm going to bed. My jobs for tomorrow include setting up a squash game and finding someone who isn't already at the hills to drive me out to ski this week (it's our break week, referred to officially as "reading week" but popularly as "ski week"). Joel's at Kicking Horse (in Golden) with some of the highest vertical in North America on Thursday/Friday, so I'd like to get there for that. I also have to clean the apartment this week since some of the family are coming to visit in the NB march break and I don't want them to know I live like a pig.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-59475164026022481972007-01-16T13:45:00.000-07:002007-01-16T14:19:44.196-07:00busy weekendBetween Thursday and Monday, I did the following:<br /><ul><li>Saw a comet (photo further down)</li><li>Fed a hare living under my deck (photo further down)</li><li>Went to a very good talk by Andrew Hynes, a prof from McGill who I could have worked with instead of coming here<br /></li><li>Met Stephane Dion<br /></li><li>Took someone on a date</li><li>Went skiing at Sunshine (without hitting a squirrel)</li><li>Watched all of the second season of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sopranos</span> in what free time I had</li></ul>And the coming weekend looks busy too, since I'm going to see Trailer Park Boys live, and I have to do a lot of schoolwork.<br /><br />As usual with photos, click for big.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwDB5NyQx91eRJ8FEZMiWLwvM_rPL7u-CMrLIoQWmN-AxNUXQ7R_OHIXPTX1jDSYL832R8_0XbzXpttvq2ZqvB1j_RTGodTSwOWJVHsNXWtGkcBdcLz1Pnv_aSp99WGI7M78ptg/s1600-h/McNaught.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwDB5NyQx91eRJ8FEZMiWLwvM_rPL7u-CMrLIoQWmN-AxNUXQ7R_OHIXPTX1jDSYL832R8_0XbzXpttvq2ZqvB1j_RTGodTSwOWJVHsNXWtGkcBdcLz1Pnv_aSp99WGI7M78ptg/s320/McNaught.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5020738173615483026" border="0" /></a>Comet McNaught, from between the 9th and 10th floors of the Earth Sciences building. It's the light thing in the sky with a tail, in case you couldn't tell.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7DfUfrozWvCuy0RI4QNXOlzsPaqWY3qRA5o00Qxab3PRSDk5Z7wgC6lx4YrQJNgoMVhjFLTkxTVMBd_7hEHe0GIo5kr25FEH9dkInPb2dtDUOmPvOrpwg0oKR0QBFYTEla5Lj_w/s1600-h/Jonnie+Tight-lips.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7DfUfrozWvCuy0RI4QNXOlzsPaqWY3qRA5o00Qxab3PRSDk5Z7wgC6lx4YrQJNgoMVhjFLTkxTVMBd_7hEHe0GIo5kr25FEH9dkInPb2dtDUOmPvOrpwg0oKR0QBFYTEla5Lj_w/s320/Jonnie+Tight-lips.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5020738165025548418" border="0" /></a>The new roommate. However, I haven't seen it around since Friday. I decided to name it Jonnie Tight-lips, due to watching too much Sopranos and Simpsons, and because it's not particularly conversational.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzWD1vLq96qHXVzXH5PzEBX6K4xLwyeRIBTwKrzIifIiM8ZMZ3a1UA349EkIl14xU4CCXzAvRnyqrBYWBJQC4hCCIDj2JmKCjgohB5kjBM6nkzXU7-R8e22i6YwfphBwdgXJNog/s1600-h/my+office+view.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzWD1vLq96qHXVzXH5PzEBX6K4xLwyeRIBTwKrzIifIiM8ZMZ3a1UA349EkIl14xU4CCXzAvRnyqrBYWBJQC4hCCIDj2JmKCjgohB5kjBM6nkzXU7-R8e22i6YwfphBwdgXJNog/s320/my+office+view.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5020738177910450338" border="0" /></a>The view from my office on Friday. As with the other shots I've trimmed this down from my camera's 6 mpixel 1.334 ratio, just so that it uploads faster, and to remove irrelevant stuff. I use Irfanview to do this, cause it's simple and quick.<br /><br />Time to prepare for my lab at 5pm.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-39389804961754306932007-01-11T15:02:00.000-07:002007-01-11T18:01:20.888-07:00more of grum's daily doldrums<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC3bw9TRolD2shjpP09ouIi9He2TD3mmJjiuRKVUx91SrJVTqKf14hVfoAH6eSNn55g8QeMeBBKdC3aPzm5ugQITtRYumBAI1MC_P6t3JlXtEYGUItwzsl1Y-xA8azyecEo3TpCA/s1600-h/DSC01071.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC3bw9TRolD2shjpP09ouIi9He2TD3mmJjiuRKVUx91SrJVTqKf14hVfoAH6eSNn55g8QeMeBBKdC3aPzm5ugQITtRYumBAI1MC_P6t3JlXtEYGUItwzsl1Y-xA8azyecEo3TpCA/s320/DSC01071.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018917798971713650" border="0" /></a>A family photo from England: The Complete Spray Family (Grandad and his two sons' families). From left to right, by lateral position of centre of head: cousin Michael, Grandad, me, Dad, Mum, bro James, sis Laura, aunt Hillary, bro Adam, cousin Richard, uncle Alan. <br /><br />Apparently there's some ancient poem with the line "God preserve us from the Sprays" in it, a reference to my family's heritage as wreckers on the southeast coast of England and opposing shores of France. Google can't find it. A thousand points* if you can find it for me. I'll frame it and put it up somewhere to remind me to try and live up to my ancestors' reputation. Ironically on my mother's side I'm related to a Welsh prince "Llywelyn" (not sure if it was Llywelyn the Great or Llywelyn the Last).<br /><br />Spent yesterday doing nothing useful at all. I meant to "telecommute", i.e. do work at home, to avoid the myriad sick people at the office (Erik got a particularly nasty flu, possibly Norwalk), but of course ended up spending the whole day watching Sopranos and old Top Gear episodes, and playing Age of Empires. I didn't shower or get dressed, or stray any farther from my room than the bathroom. I am only here today because these are my office hours for my lab section of GLGY 443: Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology.<br /><br />Despite that I am quite familiar with the material of this class (as opposed to optical crystallography last term), it will be far more work because we mark the labs (we didn't in crystal). Since I understand it fairly well, I'll be much more effective as a teacher, which benefits everyone.<br /><br />For me, this material is one of the reasons I got into geology; I like to understand things, especially important things, like the Earth. It's my rather direct way of finding answers to the big questions like "why are we here". Igneous and metamorphic rocks hold the clues to the most ancient history of our planet. Like how the earliest continental crust was generated. Understanding our planet, and indeed other planets (real and theoretical), holds great interest for me. Sedimentary rocks are also very important, but if you want to study older rocks, there's a good chance they've been metamorphosed at some point, and are, ipso facto, metamorphic rocks and no longer considered sedimentary rocks (not that the rocks care how we classify them). I wouldn't mind studying tectonism on other planets, but the chance to do fieldwork (the other reason I'm doing this stuff) is limited to comparative work (since I can't just hop in a truck and go to Mars to get some samples).<br /><br />Essentially I'm a historian for pre-pre-pre-pre-history. The rock I work on was cooked up around 95 million years ago, but was deposited between 750 and 600 million years ago. As such, I do not search for proto-humans, or even any fossils at all. The life explosion started at around 550. When dinosaurs traipsed about on top of my field area, the rocks that are currently at the surface were more than 25 km deep below their feet.<br /><br />Possibly more family photos to come, if they don't try to lynch me for not having their permission to put their pictures on the net.<br /><br />At least one of the local hares has decided to live under my deck. Possibly because yesterday I threw a bunch of old mini-carrots dated December 12 into the yard for them (yes, I care about nature). They weren't off, just really dry and tasteless. Anyway they were apparently well received. <br /><br />Actually it's all part of my new plan to acquire a pet "fell beast" (one of those flying beasts with exruciating screams that the Nazgul ride in Lord of the Rings). First I attract the hares with carrots. Then the hares attract coyotes, the coyotes attract bears, the bears attract animal control, and animal control officers will hopefully attract a hungry beast. I'll train it to sit in the tree in the yard, eating unsuspecting locals and screaming over the neighbourhood. I would enjoy flying around town on it, attacking the police helicopters and generally scaring the hell out of everybody.<br /><br />I just found, under some papers, a bag of m&ms that I bought a few hours ago and totally forgot about. It's little surprises like this that make life so great.<br /><br />Join us next time for the story of the <a href="http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?imgid=4539&gid=325&index=0">Comet McNaught</a>, of which I might have just obtained two good photos. Probably not as good as the ones from south of Red Deer (only an hour or so away) in that link, but we'll see.<br /><br />*points not valid for exchange or purchase of any goods or services.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-83320595571925228922007-01-03T19:00:00.000-07:002007-01-04T08:38:45.856-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVywWmH8eimoN3D4LQ-TCH_qZAVJCq9-xgdiWGKpLxLJJ17fcI5Km1_X-w3i8-zDwAKQH3Fjx6jEkLi3Mc3wC7cnOwgbWlP687ro_E1IOGDyJjResowXC3pi3zv-Tmf1QffobhLQ/s1600-h/DSC01046.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVywWmH8eimoN3D4LQ-TCH_qZAVJCq9-xgdiWGKpLxLJJ17fcI5Km1_X-w3i8-zDwAKQH3Fjx6jEkLi3Mc3wC7cnOwgbWlP687ro_E1IOGDyJjResowXC3pi3zv-Tmf1QffobhLQ/s320/DSC01046.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5016200112830360226" border="0" /></a><br />Back from the Old Country, where all six of us (nuclear family) were from the 25th to the 3rd. It was very hectic, each day rushing off to see members of Dad's or Mum's family, sometimes both. I saw relatives I hadn't seen in 12 years or more, and in other cases met relatives I'd never met before, so it was a really interesting trip. We stayed with Mum's twin sister (not identical) and her two children, in a village of 2,700 called Tarporley. It's 10-20 minutes east of Chester, a city of 80,000 situated about 45 minutes southwest from Manchester.<br /><br />On the eve of the 31st, we all played various family games until midnight, when we went out to watch the fireworks. Tarporley put on a show as good as or better than Fredericton's typical Canada Day display, but the thing is, <span style="font-style: italic;">every</span> town, village, city, and even individuals had displays, which meant that in a country as densely populated as Britain, the view from anywhere decently high up (as we sortof were) was unbelievable. We stood and watched over the Cheshire Plain as for half an hour, the horizon was continually lit, over all compass points, by blips of light and colourful bursts. The sound drifting to us over the plain was a continual rumbling, like distant artillery fire. Next time I'm there at New Year's, with this in mind, I'll be heading to a real high point, like local Beeston Castle, which is up on a high hill overlooking the plain. On the drive to meet cousins on my Dad's side the next morning, we saw a lot of colourful bits of plastic from exploded fireworks, and paid serious attention to the possibility for unexploded ordnance to be lying around.<br /><br />Sadly no photos of this incredible display, but I will post some more shots of English countryside later.<br /><br />I have no New Year's resolutions, it's not something I do. With a memory like mine, I cannot remember them unless written down somewhere, and then I'd lose the paper. Or forget to check the file if it was on this thing. This therefore becomes extremely ironic, because one of the things I want to improve about myself most is my memory. However, my main resolution was formed many years ago and hasn't been well adhered to at all: to stop leaving stuff until the last minute and then doing a rush job and handing it in late. I can still do a fine job at the last minute, but the lack of room for error is problematic. Basically I have a problem with time management, which I'm working to fix. I'm pretty happy with myself besides that. I would like to be fit for more than the field season, but I'm not completely out of shape even after two weeks of pub lunches and restaurant dinners and a complete lack of exercise besides hide and seek with my young cousins.<br /><br />More to come later, when the Clavinova in the next room has stopped calling to me to go play.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-2555252387270632732006-12-20T12:50:00.000-07:002006-12-20T15:31:15.805-07:00skiing at Lake Louise<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOe3QOBpjJQWm3iVSSHqM2b5-IrFruqTa6v5IyyHsmOJ6Pz1vGBuz4MuRm64RiwHNTZEHb46Oxrvd0RsFkzsi8GyYKJyLt9YDwM19HWTYMWZCgUKHr4BMmbReqyscj0iZDoEkhA/s1600-h/Louise1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOe3QOBpjJQWm3iVSSHqM2b5-IrFruqTa6v5IyyHsmOJ6Pz1vGBuz4MuRm64RiwHNTZEHb46Oxrvd0RsFkzsi8GyYKJyLt9YDwM19HWTYMWZCgUKHr4BMmbReqyscj0iZDoEkhA/s320/Louise1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010739468056196610" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3iYxZFwwjtijJwSOnhzgo8ckSsjn6BzUK9Kj57nuvxIIs6oAAcJ1IKl3bjNRyRdZqfJvAM3FTwk4N5HDk3KsMCCy8MLXJBsPypHlrwwo1q5AAwx17YmIQNFZRfbHPLjaUeaJhmw/s1600-h/Louise2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3iYxZFwwjtijJwSOnhzgo8ckSsjn6BzUK9Kj57nuvxIIs6oAAcJ1IKl3bjNRyRdZqfJvAM3FTwk4N5HDk3KsMCCy8MLXJBsPypHlrwwo1q5AAwx17YmIQNFZRfbHPLjaUeaJhmw/s320/Louise2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010739476646131218" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBlQMfQ_7rJYm5COHaJIkdq7cZTT5BoxjjFFgH5GRgRmV05V7GFpD8WNBxNzw9W80L5ERB210X2MJwKsYqeaBQuhSdou7q6iwQmufQzZic83RIWF2DRlUlQwLV-xvOZDkqehqZ1A/s1600-h/Louise4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBlQMfQ_7rJYm5COHaJIkdq7cZTT5BoxjjFFgH5GRgRmV05V7GFpD8WNBxNzw9W80L5ERB210X2MJwKsYqeaBQuhSdou7q6iwQmufQzZic83RIWF2DRlUlQwLV-xvOZDkqehqZ1A/s320/Louise4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010739485236065826" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdPYf2ifdXN4N-CCSAN8k-g4u24cghZfwM0iIOZy9DAdkJgoJr5YUHg2OvP796xO01EdQPhyV7pxE6iArJiVhn-Bx594bIB2NVwoDfZa_oBXNBcAOcNNuZwM1oXVlEmT8LrnqsFA/s1600-h/Louise5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdPYf2ifdXN4N-CCSAN8k-g4u24cghZfwM0iIOZy9DAdkJgoJr5YUHg2OvP796xO01EdQPhyV7pxE6iArJiVhn-Bx594bIB2NVwoDfZa_oBXNBcAOcNNuZwM1oXVlEmT8LrnqsFA/s320/Louise5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010739493826000434" border="0" /></a><br />What is it with me and analgesics? They either act instantly (implying a serious placebo effect) or take ages. Example, you demand? Today. Just now, in fact. I'm not sure why (since I slept 9 hrs Monday night and 10 hrs last night), but when I got to work/school this morning at about 10:30, I developed an increasingly nasty headache behind my eyes. For me headaches usually occur like this when I'm low on sleep. Anyway, in agony, I stumbled to the convenience store on the ground floor of the CS building along a glass corridor from Earth Sciences. They had Advil; good enough. Two tablets washed down with OJ and water, and still the nastiness persisted; bad enough that it prevented me from thinking, even enough to play hearts. Somehow I passed the time opening and closing windows on my desktop until just ten minutes ago (almost a full hour after taking the tablets)... when the pain disappeared. It was instantaneous and actually shocking; any explanation for this, bio people? It was good timing as I was toying with the idea of defying their "two pills per 4 hrs" dosage recommendation, on the basis that I have more body mass than most. Yay for inhibiting the COX-1 enzyme, depite how long it took.<br /><br />In other news, I went skiing again yesterday. This time we went to Lake Louise, where because it was Tuesday it was pretty empty. As expected many of the runs were very icy due to the windswept nature of this ski hill, but we mostly stayed on the better protected hills. My rentals were, as with a week ago at Sunshine, fantastic. My thighs hurt from supporting all my weight plus g-forces while carving those turns so nicely. I am also improving my mogul-handling techniques, depending how steep the incline is. I had one absolutely spectacular wipe out, described in the following diagram (click).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg20uEdBaJ25l6KK-xgVmWt92aQ1RsjyPWtrvn8q0hXH-W5NKaECWAkULnseaRoqRJXr75yP3tK6NhTVHJbVvFj7_T3hTroasUCoQzlN6bcaCUhgJ1IB4WQQr2cQq34mAILxzyhTg/s1600-h/Image019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg20uEdBaJ25l6KK-xgVmWt92aQ1RsjyPWtrvn8q0hXH-W5NKaECWAkULnseaRoqRJXr75yP3tK6NhTVHJbVvFj7_T3hTroasUCoQzlN6bcaCUhgJ1IB4WQQr2cQq34mAILxzyhTg/s320/Image019.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010730706322912754" border="0" /></a>Apologies for illegible handwriting. Loads of respect if you can decipher all of it.<br /><br />I was tricked because the first time I went down that run I went over one of these drifts and only the lip part was soft; perhaps it had begun life as a mogul because it was mostly solid. However, this was clearly not the case with all of the drifts. I was only slightly injured because of the way my right wrist was bent due to the ski pole not wanting to plunge into the snow so eagerly (the left one went in at a better angle). It was surprising to find myself unexpectedly near-horizontal while in the air, but it was also rather comical.<br /><br />At lunch my rental skis (although strangely not the poles) were taken from the rack by someone, understandable since all the rentals were the same. Even more strange was that they didn't leave a pair of skis with the same size-setting on the bindings (there was a pair there but they were too small for my boots). Since we were at a lodge on the other side of the mountain I had to take the lifts back to the main lodge to get replacements (free of charge). Luckily when we went back to check the same rack later that day, whoever it was had realised their error and put them back. The dude at the lodge agreed to return them for me. If they hadn't been returned, I'd have been on the line for roughly $300-400. As I said, they were nice skis.<br /><br />On a sidenote, it is difficult to get off a ski lift with only ski boots, but I managed it without falling over. I still looked like an idiot: have you ever tried to run in ski boots?<br /><br />Unlike last time, I did not collide with any wildlife. I did get some nice pictures of mountains I don't know the names of. They're up above somewhere in case you somehow subconsciously screened them out. Now go look and be jealous. There are more reasons to come to Calgary than the nuts economy.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-82096544046681425572006-12-18T04:10:00.000-07:002006-12-18T05:46:49.308-07:00another pointless all-nighterIt's 4:10 am and my accomplishments tonight (since 8 pm Sunday) amount to printing three pieces of paper (the content was already done) and extending (by a few cm) a couple of straight lines representing UTM grid kilometres on my base map, all while listening to the latest "Lost" podcast. It was tough, I needed a ruler. I just finished a four hour session of playing the original 1991 DOS game "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-10_Tank_Killer">A10 Tank Killer</a>". Prior to this orgy of tank destruction I had watched a bunch of Malcolm in the Middle and Sopranos (downloaded Friday). Now I ask myself, what better way to continue to avoid doing any work than making a blog entry? None, of course; besides, I'm way overdue.<br /><br />It has been 7 days of complete slack now, apart from making those kilometre lines and printing out the coordinates of each station from last summer (now I must put them on the map). Usually I would have posted a couple of contests or perhaps just some amusing photos either from my vast repository or pilfered from the net. However, my motivation is lacking somewhat. I don't know what it is, but it seems that many blogs are cooling down, are being updated less and less frequently. Is it a decline in general interest? Is this trend more global than just among my friends? I doubt it. You start scanning around the blogosphere (I abhor that word but for lack of a better one must use it) and find that blogging is on the increase everywhere. So why are the friends I'm thinking of, and myself, gradually abandoning our weblogs? Maybe it was cool at the time, and now a passing fad? Or perhaps just some sort of welcome distraction that is losing its appeal (as almost all distractions do)? I don't know. I will continue to post, probably on a weekly sort of basis (a far cry from the 10-20 times a month last winter/spring). Also I looked back at those old posts, and is it just me or are they way more amusing than this drivel I'm composing right now? This train of thought has amounted to nothing useful, although I don't think I'll delete it.<br /><br />I got caught up with events in the blogoverse (any better?) this week, as I said, and saw <a href="http://www.verizonmath.blogspot.com/">this most excellent blog</a>. I went the whole hog and watched the <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q">youtube video</a> (audio only, it's on putfile as well). Here's the upshot if you're too lazy to go and read the first post on that blog: Dude uses cell networks for data transfer, was going to Canada, wanted to know Verizon's rates for data transfers in Canada. So he does what any reasonable person does, and calls them up to ask. He is quoted "point zero zero two cents per kilobyte" and, knowing this sounded low, asked for a note to that effect to be made in his account. He was charged $0.002 per kb, and had a bill of about $79 from the trip. He expected $0.79, based on the quoted rate, and then proceeded to have hours of conversations with various managers at Verizon call-centres, none of whom could understand the different between 0.002 cents and 0.002 dollars. It's funny at first, then gets more disturbing as person after person (and possibly entire rooms full of people: in one call the girl gets him to hold while she asks around) fail to get it, despite admirably patient hours of explanation. Anyway it's brought up this whole issue of poor math instruction in the states, although it's likely that the people who've held call-centre jobs long enough to become senior managers don't have a lot of other career options. Anyway, the funniest thing to come out of this is this picture from <a href="http://www.xkcd.com/verizon/">this</a> website (click for big).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RYaMBYeE9dI/AAAAAAAAAAM/kDIbbCO3NMc/s1600-h/verizon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_BGyoOuwBk8Y/RYaMBYeE9dI/AAAAAAAAAAM/kDIbbCO3NMc/s320/verizon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5009845590872618450" border="0" /></a>If you remember math from first and second years, you might notice that it's all just 0.002.<br /><br />WHAT NOW, BITCHES?<br /><br />Hah that still gets me! Next post I'll have some other amusing pics from around the web.<br /><br />I'm going home on Thursday, my flights aren't actually as complicated as I'd thought (I only change at Regina and Toronto), and I get in earlier than I'd thought as well (8pm instead of 10). Since getting this laptop flying has become way more fun than before; watching TV and movies helps me forget about the horrendous lack of legroom and the inevitable cramps and bruised knees. I just wish that people on 1 hour midday hops would refrain from reclining their seat, or at least do it gently so I get enough time to rescue my screen from being crushed between the underside of the tray and my legs. I swear that on every single flight I've been on (5 days of travel) since my first-class return from europe last year, the old person in front of me has reclined their seat for the whole flight, regardless of the time of day. I don't do that. I'm considerate.<br /><br />I actually feel a touch of guilt when I recline my chair. Think about it: here in Canada we have loads of space, and individuals' personal space can be fairly large. In a plane it's already reduced to a woefully minimal space. You have to wage intense battles of wits against sweaty overweight guys for your armrest, and you don't even own the space 10cm under your ass - that belongs to the bags or feet of the person behind you (sometimes even your window-side armrest belongs to their now unclad and reeking foot). So reclining your chair is a sudden and blatant encroachment on the personal space of the person behind you (although if their foot's on your armrest your best bet is to try and sever some tendons by reclining). Assuming it isn't some sort of intentional retaliatory strike, you must consider that by reclining you're removing a sizeable chunk of their already tiny space volume. On night flights it's usually fine because everyone puts their chair back (except the poor bastard in the last row against the bulkhead) but if it's a day flight, it's possible that the person behind you can't recline to reclaim their space because of the terrible ergonomic situation they'd be in for watching illegally acquired tv shows (i.e. ME). So Dear T.S. Bundy*, I know you'll be sitting in front of me, so if you must recline, please give me some warning so my incomprehensible new-fangled adding machine isn't damaged. Thank you.<br /><br />I did enjoy ranting on like that for so long. Tedious though it may be to you, just think that it's all for a good cause. I've wasted nearly another hour writing this pathetic blog entry. And now I suppose I should actually do some work - I'm supposed to present my summer's worth of fieldwork accomplishments to my supervisor today, so it would be nice if I actually knew what I've done. Well, I do know, but I want it to look at least somewhat organised. Hence fixing up the base map and stuff.<br /><br />See you in Fredericton (those who'll be there); give me a call at home (or the cell, but that'll still be long distance) on Friday, preferably not the morning. Who's up for market Saturday?<br /><br />Cheers, minions.<br /><br />* I bet only Joe gets that.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-85545331507492442222006-12-12T11:49:00.000-07:002006-12-12T13:07:05.933-07:00slacking, drinking, skiing, Bond, and squirrels.Hello, vast readership of approximately three.<br /><br />My term is complete! I took my 30 minute oral exam and proudly handed in my paper (18 days late, a new personal best) on Friday. Celebration began immediately, as I went to the grad lounge to pre-drink before the departmental Christmas party booze-up, which was excellent. I had about a dozen beers over the evening, and failed to drink enough water that night. I was drunk enough to forget if I made a complete ass of myself (which is likely), which is fine by me: I don't even want to know. The hangover on Saturday was not quite bad enough to prevent me from joining friends going to Sunshine Village for skiing, but was bad enough that I had to insist that Jason pull over and stop as quickly as he could at one point on the drive there. Powerade at lunchtime saved the day.<br /><br />The skiing was fantastic. The mountain was virtually empty, the snow was 'decent' quality (counts as excellent quality back east) and the weatherwas perfect. It was between 0 and +5 or so all day, glorious! Plus the mountainous view is more impressive at Sunshine than any other ski hill I have ever been to; and the light through the thin clouds was incredible. I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera. I had rental skis which were virtually untouched because they replace them all at the beginning of each season, and were terrific. They carved like you wouldn't believe and I was amazed every time at their ability to turn sharply.<br /><br />The most unexpected part of the day was on the last run, the ski-out to the parking lot, when against all odds I struck a small squirrel. The crazy creature basically fell down a tree on the right and bolted across the thin trail. It was most of the way across then doubled back. It would have made it back again too, but when almost off the trail it doubled back again. It froze just in front of me, then doubled back again, right into my left ski. I lifted it quickly but the impact was distinctly audible. Either not seriously injured or on adrenaline, it ran off in the other direction across the trail and into the woods, cutting across the woman behind me. She and I looked at each other, absolutely shocked. We were both lost for words. As I waited for my friends on the next rise I wondered if it was some sort of omen. Don't we have a deal with the squirrels?<br /><br />Next day I got a much needed haircut and then went for roast-beef dinner with a (now graduated) doctoral student of my father's. There were five people there and the meal was excellent, although I felt conspicuously young by at least 10 years.<br /><br />Then yesterday (Monday) I went to see Casino Royale. It is excellent, I've read the book (it's the first one Fleming wrote) and the film sticks fairly well to the plot in the book, with changes made to reflect that the Cold War is over. Craig's Bond fits much better with Fleming's decription of how he should look and behave than any prior Bond: much more cold, serious, and gritty than the suave pun-spewing Bonds of earlier films. He's like Timothy Dalton, although I wasn't a fan of Dalton. <br /><br />They've rebooted the series (it's Bond's first mission as a double-O agent); and they're starting over with modern film technology and a revised concept of who Bond is and how he operates. It is actually rather refreshing, and it all seemed believable and tangible so long as you understand the departure from continuity in the series. I can't say I'm going to miss the cartoonish exploits of some prior Bond films, as I always found the more reasonable plots more entertaining (eg Goldfinger, Octopussy). <br /><br />I think Craig works well as Bond, although his flappy ears are at times amusing to behold. He's also the most athletic Bond since Connery (although they didn't "show off" Connery like they have done with Craig; it's not obvious in those early films how built Connery was, he was in contention for Mr. Universe in 1953). I think I miss the flippancy and wit shown by the Bonds of Connery, Moore, and Brosnan, but regardless I think this is the best Bond since Goldeneye, and very possibly better.<br /><br />The car (2007 Aston Martin DBS) is utterly amazing, and they do feature an iconic DB5 as well. But in a nice departure from the recent films, there are no missiles, machineguns, mortars, or howitzers in the car. Nor does it go invisible, although with no Q we don't get a rundown on the gadgetry, we only see the medkit including a portable defibrillator. The sound of the DBS engine was like hearing God himself. I can't wait till the Top Gear guys get their hands on one!<br /><br />A couple of weeks here to organise my desk, book my probe time next term, and select what parts of what thin sections to zap with electrons. Home on the 21st (evening), but leaving for England on Christmas day (~9 pm from Halifax) and not back until the 3rd. Then I return to cowtown on the 7th. Hopefully this will be enough time to meet up with most of you at some point. Book now to avoid the rush!Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-422050368019288702006-11-30T17:10:00.000-07:002006-11-30T19:40:55.873-07:00worst possible dateA friend of mine was recently on a bad date. This is dedicated to her.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Humourous Ways to Completely Ruin a Date (guy's perspective).**</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In the Car</span><br /><br />Obviously, when picking her up, stay in the car and honk obnoxiously. This demonstrates to her and whoever else lives with her (roommates, parents, etc) what kind of a man you are. When she gets in and says 'hey', don't even respond.<br /><br />In the car play loud angry music at a painful volume. Shout above the music about your car and sound system. Drive very poorly, paying little attention to the road (and even less to her) and swearing at everyone else on the road as you cut them off. For best results, roll down the window and holler obscenities when they honk at you. Squeal your tires often.<br /><br />Your destination should be cheap but a step up from fast food. This allows for more time to ramble on about yourself and your car while waiting for your meals. Park in a handicapped spot, hang a handicapped sign from the rearview if you like. The point is to show you're an ass. Park so your door is closest to the restaurant door, and just get out and walk straight in without even looking at her. If she hasn't closed her door by the time you hit your remote lock get annoyed (it's best to do this deliberately). If you don't have a remote key, get out quickly and stand waiting to lock it as she gets out. Tap impatiently with something as you wait.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dinner</span><br /><br />Be rude to the employees who greet you and take your order. Snicker as they leave, and be sure to mock any speech impediment or other handicap. Joke that hopefully you took their parking spot. Use this as a jumping board to get back onto the topic of your car.<br /><br />Before the food arrives, sit half-sideways with one leg out into the aisle. Give people dirty looks when they trip on it. As you ramble on about yourself and your car, be sure to keep your eyes glued to her chest. Ignore her comments, and if she tries to steer the conversation away from you, casually dismiss whatever she's yapping about and leap back onto the topics dearest to your heart.<br /><br />Order a meal at least 5 times as big as you can eat. Force yourself to eat half of that, and leave the rest (be sure to have picked at everything). Then ask "are you going to finish that?" whether she is still eating or not. Talk loudly and with your mouth full, and make some effort to spit food onto her and her plate. Conversation should again revolve around you and your car. If talking about your car isn't your thing, talk about your other awesome possessions. But remember, we're trying to look pathetic: insecure doesn't go far enough. <br /><br />Make up as many anecdotes as you can. These should be clearly false, and should focus on your terrific capacity for drinking, and your prolific sexual exploits (it's best if you can combine the two). Provide embarrassingly nauseating detail (but don't get embarrassed yourself). Your car should be a recurring character in these stories. Other subjects may include your complete lack of sympathy for mistreated animals, or your personal thoughts on the effectiveness of medieval torture and execution practices. Again, link the subjects if you can.<br /><br />When the main part of the meal is over, order a large "dessert-for-two." Offer her none and greedily hog the whole thing. Eat about a third of it, but make enough of a mess for the rest to be inedible. Ask for it all on one bill.<br /><br />Obviously you are not going to pay for her meal, and if all goes according to plan, you aren't going to pay for yours either. Leave the bill on the table. If the waiter put it near to you, subtly push it towards her. With luck she'll eventually be forced to pick up the bill just to get out of there. Use this extra time to continue to expound about yourself. Mention your car frequently. Mock the food quality of the restaurant loudly and with comments like "man, those meatballs had the texture of cockroaches!" or "the beer was the only decent part of this meal. Fuck I love bud." If she demands that you at least pay for your part, say you forgot your wallet.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">At the Movies</span><br /><br />If she's still around, or if you're starting here, here's how to ruin the movie for her. <br /><br />First, order massive amounts of popcorn and two drinks, to imply that you're buying for her too. Hoard it all throughout the movie and do everything possible to prevent her from getting any. Get annoyed and tell her to go buy her own if she succeeds. If you told her you forgot your wallet to make her pay for dinner, use it now to pay for your snacks. Otherwise you can ask to borrow some cash for food (if she refuses, get it anyway to show that you did have enough cash anyway).<br /><br />Before you get there, research the movie online and memorize the plot. Give away the plot loudly during the movie; however, you must make it appear that she is quietly telling you these things: "So you're saying that the killer is Mary, not Mr. Perkins?" This effectively gets the whole theatre pissed off at her as well as at you.<br /><br />In addition, talk loudly about things unrelated to the movie, such as your car. Especially if you see a car on the screen. Make a loud and thorough comparative analysis, concluding that they should have used your car instead.*<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Drive Home</span><br /><br />Observe the same guidelines for driving as above. However, on the way to drop her off at home pull into some empty parking lot (or better yet a known car-sex location) as if you expect sex. This would be the only time you pay any attention to her, but it must be slimy and lascivious. Completely fail to understand that she's not interested, but you should get confused, not angry. If you apologise and try to reconcile for this (and succeed) it makes the next part much more funny (despite how unnatural it may seem to 'apologise' for anything).<br /><br />When dropping her off back home, drop her at the end of her street or court, citing your gas budget. Demand gas money. Alternatively, stating that it's to "keep the mileage down" is even more effective, implying that you don't think she's worth another 3 tenths of a km on your odometer. Urge her to "hurry up while there's nobody behind us," regardless of the likelihood that another car will appear. <br /><br />Another way to do it, if you're really feeling up to the challenge, would be to actually abandon her somewhere to find her own way home. Do tell her you're going, though. Then when she asks how she's supposed to get home, say "Yeah it was alright. I'll call you." then leave.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In Conclusion</span><br /><br />The absolute key things to remember are:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Never</span> compliment her, unless it's subtly insulting, or outright sarcastic.<br /></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Never</span> get pulled into an actual conversation. Be sure to talk about things she doesn't know much about.</li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Never</span> hold a door for her, or do anything remotely chivalrous.</li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Never</span> make excuses for yourself. You know you're the perfect man and she's lucky to have this shot at a night of hot sex and car talk.<br /></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Always</span> be insulting, degrading, disgusting, and rude. Crush her spirit so yours seems all the greater.</li></ul>Will it work in reverse? <br />Generally guys are so happy to be on a date in the first place and also (certainly in my case) so unobservant that for this to work in reverse, the signals would have to be far more blatant. Like throwing a drink all over him and kicking him in unhappy places, then stabbing him with a dessert fork, wrapping him in plastic, and throwing him in a dumpster. For me, this might imply that she isn't entirely enthralled by the prospect of more dates.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Here are a few things to keep in mind as you discuss your car.</span><br /><ul><li>Do not talk about safety features, except to mock them or describe how you plan to rip them out to save weight.</li><li>Never mention practicality.</li><li>Frequently talk about how you plan to mod it. Your plans for purple fluorescent lights underneath, once you get the cash, are sure to make her want you.</li><li>Invent ridiculous drag-racing episodes with vastly superior cars, all of which you have won.</li><li>Your car should be a '93 Taurus, or perhaps a k-car. Describe it's beauty nonetheless; try to make the contrast with how little you've complimented hers painfully obvious.<br /></li></ul>*I cannot be held responsible if you get lynched.<br />**I cannot be held responsible if you are splashed with a beverage, kicked in the nuts, stabbed, wrapped in plastic, and thrown in a dumpster.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1163722715626128642006-11-16T17:02:00.000-07:002006-11-16T17:18:35.650-07:00I cannot tear my eyes away<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_BD_WBg9aA">ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD</a><br /><br />must... resist... ...close window.... ....mouse... too... heavy.... ...alt+F4.... ...ahhh thank god.<br /><br />I've been overwhelmed by a veritable torrent of no response to the last post. In case you find those too difficult, here are a couple more options, also featuring Blair. You can still caption the others.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/CFA%203.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/CFA%203.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/ublview.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/ublview.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1163242884737123072006-11-10T22:13:00.000-07:002006-11-11T04:01:24.880-07:00contest results, Blair contest, other fascinating things<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/blair.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/blair.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>This is gonna be a hell of a long post. This is because I have lots to mention, and it's all you'll have from me for at least another week, since this is such a busy time right now. Since I know few of you have attention spans long enough to read it all in one go, I'll spread the stuff of least general interest out to force you to at least skim it. However, do bear in mind that I wouldn't be "publishing" it here if I didn't think you'd find it at least somewhat scintillating. Also you could just read it in installments, to tide you over until next time.<br /><br />First the good news: apparently Bush's grip on the US and its policy is loosening. As you know the Republicans lost control of both houses to the Democrats this week, and also Rumsfeld is stepping down. I thought I'd take this opportunity to say goodbye to him. <br /><br />Dear Mr. Rumsfeld,<br /> I see that you are stepping down. I for one am disappointed, but only because this means I won't be able to marvel anymore at how immensely evil you appear on TV. I always half expected you to pull out a Nalgene bottle full of crude, or perhaps goat's blood, and start chugging during a press conference. <br /> Likely, you aren't actually an evil person, and I paid little attention to what you actually did while you were around, but your appearance, at least, gives me ideas for Hallowe'en costumes. That and the fact that you held a position of obscene and ungodly power over the world while looking like that.<br /> Toodles! G.<br /><br />For some reason I keep having intensely vivid and physically realistic dreams about driving very powerful cars with standard transmissions. Last night it was a bright yellow amalgamation of a Ford GT40 (the old one) and a Ferrari F40. The point was that I wasn't racing or anything, just trying to drive it normally to the racetrack in Geary from home in Fredericton. The engine was deafeningly loud and high pitched, and generated so much torque that it was almost impossible to keep the rear wheels from spinning every time I touched the pedal, no matter what gear I was in. I don't know why I've been having these dreams just recently, as opposed to all my life, but I hope it continues, and that I get retro-paid for all the car dreams I should have been having for the last 22 years.<br /><br />Today <a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Elukas/pdf/mots2.pdf">this</a> caught my interest, and had me in stitches for literally several seconds. It's a book (album insert for a band?) with French phonetic translations of English nursery rhymes. For instance the name of it: <span style="font-style: italic;">Mots d'Heures: Gousses, </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Rames</span> (literally: Words of Hours: Pods, Oars), can be roughly pronounced "Mother Goose Rhymes." As a more full example, try saying this, the phonetic translation of Hickory Dickory Dock:<br /><br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">Et qui rit des curés d’Oc?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> De Meuse raines, houp! de cloques.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> De quelles loques ce turque coin.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Et ne d’ânes ni rennes,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Écuries des curés d’Oc.</span><br /><br />I took the French phonetic versions and ran them through some online translators, and got some great lyrical poetry, such as the following from parts of the French phonetic translation of "Monday's Child is full of grace":<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /> Beg for this shawl and this iron with the buttocks.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> is this demarcating two clog-makers?</span><br /><br />And this fascinating translation of "Mary had a little lamb":<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /> myraids avoid blades,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> and harm smooth fires.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Where sat and ring high.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> In the trough, debts annoint town hall,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> two blue blades of Iago.<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></span><br />Hickory Dickory Dock is also quite hilarious:<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> And who laughs at the priests of Oc?<br /> From Meuse groove, houp! blisters.<br /> Of who wrecks this Turkish corner.<br /> And of neither donkeys nor reindeers,<br /> Stables of the priests of Oc.</span><br /><br />Funnily enough it's all far superior to any of the lyrics I've ever come up with for my own tunes. Also it should be abundantly clear that I took way more than a 'few seconds' to amuse myself with this. Anything (especially blogging) to avoid doing actual work.<br /><br />Thanks to advice and files from Joe, I've been listening to the Now Show, a BBC radio 4 comedy show, sorta like 22 minutes. It's hilarious, including jokes like "what do you get if you cross an NHS manager with a pig? Nothing, there are some things even a pig won't do." (from a monologue mocking the National Health Service, the UK equivalent of our Healthcare system) and, from the same monologue, quoting graffiti on the wall of a men's room stall in the Department of Health "There are a thousand people who work in this building, and at this precise moment you're the only one who knows what he's doing." That absolutely kills me... I'm tempted to graffiti it in a bathroom in the teaching hospital on campus.<br /><br />Anyway these guys made a mock 'synopsis' of Lord of the Rings, skipping some 'twiddly bits'. I've added a few appropriate links (most for non-Brits, some for fun). It's spoken in a highly derisive tone:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Scene: </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletubbies">Tubby Hill</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/gallery/2001/11/14/bilbo.jpg">Offensive leprechaun midget</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> gives </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_wood">face-like-a-slapped-arse midget</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> a little ring that he nicked off a mentalist in a cave. </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Slapped-face-Elijah-Wooden takes ring to elves, all of whom look suspiciously like former members of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_Quo">Status Quo</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. More midgets, dwarves, and people with longer names than </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Railway_stations_in_Gwynedd">Welsh</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.llangollen-railway.co.uk/hist/glyn.html">railway</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfair_PG">stations</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> decide to take ring via longest most mental route, back to ringmaker's at hot mountain, and throw it away. Or possibly exchange it, if they can find the receipt. On the way pissed-wizard fights with camp dracula wizard, loses,</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">then fights</span> <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.lyrics.com/j/jamiroquai/emergency.on.planet.earth.jpg">acid-jazz hero</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.thelandofshadow.com/mordorgate/darkdownloads/desktops/balrog-moria1280.jpg">breathing fire</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, loses again and falls down a hole; Sean Bean gets shot</span> four times <span style="font-style: italic;">before he finally stops milking it and dies; and the ring is taken off by slappy-faced big-eyed midget Frodo Baggins and his idiot friend, Middle Earth's answer to Forrest Gump. Brief irritating pause of </span>two years<span style="font-style: italic;">, and then finally throws the ring in the hot mountain by mistake.</span><br /><br />On a sidenote, how does one pronounce "Glyndyfrdwy"? Depending on which faction of syntax fanatics you adhere to, there are no vowels. And how do you pronounce the "frdw" part without inadvertently inserting your own vowels? In Welsh, any time you see two L's together (eg Llangollen, Llwyngwril), it's pronounced as a hacking sound, as though you were assembling a mass of phlegm at the back of your mouth, in readiness for the rest of the name to cause you to disperse it liberally onto your interlocutor. It seems to me that most Welsh names and words are created by doing an impersonation of grinding the gears of a car, then attempting to transcribe your sound effects; or perhaps by dragging an enraged, chained goblin through a knee-deep pool of boiling oil in a trench lined with shards of glass, and then writing down his blubbering curses and shrieks. Of course Glyndyfrdwy is as nothing compared to that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch_station_sign_%28cropped_version_1%29.jpg">long one</a>, in which there are four l's in a row at one point. Note that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorsafawddacha%27idraigodanheddogleddoll%C3%B4npenrhynareurdraethceredigion">incredibly long one</a> was made up just to surpass Llanfair-(etc).<br /><br />On to some rather frightening global warming stuff. Today in my 707 grad class we had a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary">quaternary</a> geologist, who gave us an introduction to late glacial activity around the Calgary area, and ended the class with some quite shocking material related to climate change. Recent research into ice cores in Greenland and the Antarctic has shown strong evidence that very rapid climate change has occurred in the past, with sudden spikes into very cold temperatures during interglacials (warm periods) and spikes into temperatures like today in the middle of very cold periods (these spikes are superimposed on the 50-100 thousand year glacial-interglacial cycles). For instance, the latest such spike (called the Younger Dryas) occurred about 11,500 years ago, as temperatures were well on their way to recovery from the Wisconsinan glacial period (last major ice age). According to oxygen isotopes in the ice cores (it's reliable), there were dramatic temperature plunges from nice and warm (like the present), to 2/3rds of the way to a full-on glaciation in <span style="font-weight: bold;">less than ten years</span>. Possibly as little as 3. And they're not entirely sure what sets these things off. Frankly this makes the frenzy about 6 degrees and a metre rise in sea levels over the next 90 years rather pointless. There is no way that current infrastructure could handle this sort of climate shift. It's thought that these shifts are caused by massive changes to the thermohaline cirulation in the oceans (currents), which distribute warmth around the world. Some of the "alarmist camp" (as the prof referred to them) have claimed that this could be caused by the destabilisation of the environment, say, by the influx of billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere per year, though this hasn't been shown.<br /><br />In case you were wondering, the movie <span style="font-style: italic;">The Day After Tomorrow</span> was partially based on the earlier stages of this work, although the two week change is just a touch faster than the predicted rate. Oh, and a normal transition from interglacial to glacial takes many tens of thousands of years, and (ignoring anthropogenic influences) isn't projected to start naturally for another 8 to 20 thousand years.<br /><br />Anyway I could ramble on and on about climate change. I'll just say this: I don't believe there's enough data to form strong opinions one way or another, plus there are more worrying things around, which we can actually help to fix. The main one is pollution; of air, rivers, lakes, and groundwater. This we can change, and the conservatives' "clean air" plan actually addresses this instead of placing so much emphasis on climate change. Therefore I support it in principle, but it's useless, because it's (a) not aggressive enough and (b) won't pass anyway.<br /><br />Okay that's enough soapboxing for today. It's time for Contest Results!<br /><br />Joe wins; any comparison of Harper to a freeloading hitchhiker is excellent. But I gotta apologize to Jenn and Shannon, as it occured to me that since Joe and I have a similar sense of humour I'm inclined to find his suggestions more amusing. But you have to admit he is very witty. I would have suggested "Hey Stevie-boy, I heard you guys have some oil! So where can we park our tanker trucks?" "Parking lot of the Fort McMurray Walmart, but first just dump your nuclear waste in Ontario somewhere."<br /><br />And now the New Contest!!! This time, and next time, it's the antics of British PM Tony Blair. Three shots to mock, including the one up top that got your attention.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/_38288444_blairhaddock_pa_300.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/_38288444_blairhaddock_pa_300.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/_done_0714harpblair_330.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/_done_0714harpblair_330.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Mock away. Just so you know, parallels have been drawn between Blair and our own Harper, as the puppets of a certain Texan and his (collapsing it seems) regime. Also "Number Ten" is 10 Downing Street, residence of Brit PM. Just like 24 Sussex Drive here.<br /><br />That's all folks.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1162501396657900592006-11-02T12:59:00.000-07:002006-11-02T14:03:16.796-07:00new contest and headlines.It's been longer than usual. To make up for it this is an interesting one. First headlines.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/H_3224_25.2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/H_3224_25.2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/H_3229_42.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/H_3229_42.1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>So apparently even the sand people are getting desperate for cash these days.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/H_3200_45.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/H_3200_45.1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/H_3224_48.2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/H_3224_48.2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Here's the new contest. Caption away.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/0330bushharp2209.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/0330bushharp2209.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Not too much else to say, so I'll summarize the normal drivel that everyone loves. I have a lot of work to do, and have a slight cold. The weather here is cold and snowy. Now I am going in to the uni to send off some more samples to be made into probe sections. I am truly very excited about the ones I've already got back, there are fantastic microstructures and some strange minerals I haven't been able to identify yet.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1161634200656255762006-10-23T12:08:00.000-06:002006-10-23T14:12:12.846-06:00super excitement, including contest results and technoscience.I said I was excited about Tintin, well that's nothing compared to my excitement regarding <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/19/invisibility-cloak.html">this</a>. Yes, as you may have seen in the news last Friday, they've developed a device that hides objects from microwaves, and this is expandable to the whole EM spectrum, including visible light. In other words, within a couple of decades we may have true 'cloaking' devices. Remember all those pranks you wanted to pull as a kid, if you were invisible? The time has come. As Shaggz said, even if we're old men by the time it's commercially available, we'll go to school invisible and empty trash cans over teachers' heads.<br /><br />In other exciting news, they're getting closer to a viable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Elevator">space tether</a> every year. There's an <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/20/tech-spaceelevator-061020.html">"X-prize" for tether technology</a>. At present the biggest obstacles are the high tensile strength required of tether material, and in how you power an elevator (since hundreds of thousands of km of electrical wires are going to add prohibitive weight to the system). It is the cheapest conceivable way to get things into orbit.<br /><br />Another neat scientific advancement is this <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/11/nano-bleed.html">nano-gel</a> they've developed that stops bleeding near-instantly. Could cut surgery times in half. It's neat to see this sort of advancement taking place, and to think we might one day tell our grandchildren that we grew up in a world without cloaking devices, space tethers, or nano-gel. And whatever else gets invented between now and then.<br /><br />Anyway, here's what you really read this for. Photo contest results!! We had Harper musing about something that makes him smile, and good ol' Stockwell being an idiot, as usual. Like that time he arrived at a press conference in a wetsuit, on a jetski. How can you vote for such a man?!<br /><br />I personally would have suggested:<br />harper: "I bet I could save a lot of cash by switching to Geico."<br />day: "Day's touchdown victory dance led him to runway 36L, where he was finally taken out by flight 354 from Edmonton."<br /><br />However, I'm inelegible.<br /><br />For the Harper one, I like how he's kinda having a "Stephen" moment up there. To me it looks like he's gazing into space absent mindedly. You may disagree, but it's my contest. And with that in mind, Shannon wins, Sarah second. I prefer to think he's not mentally capable of orchestrating the demise of the premier of NL, even if it's as simple as "Hello, my personal elite guard? Go eliminate Mr. Williams". Shannon's comment for "<a href="http://grumball.blogspot.com/2006/09/tales-of-treachery-evil-and-deceit.html">Klein pic 1</a>" a few contests ago would work equally well, I think.<br /><br />For the Day one, Shaggz wins. Although I like Jenn's and Sarah's, which are on the same theme, so you two tie for second. While it is funny to think of him as a whiny little boy, him being ejected for showboating is even better.<br /><br />Okay a post full of links, with no photos and few jokes. So we'll end with:<br />Q: Why don't blind people skydive?<br />A: It scares the heck out of the dog.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1161370890896124672006-10-20T12:49:00.000-06:002006-10-20T13:01:31.026-06:00what's new in my worldNot much is new, really. Except that I am currently more excited about a download than I have ever been, except maybe for the Top Gear episode in which they reviewed the Mazdaspeed 6... I am downloading the complete Tintin TV series!!! It was on CTV (or sthg) like ten years ago, produced by Nelvana. I loved Tintin as a kid... I hope this series lives up to my memory!<br /><br />Don't forget to do the caption thing for the photos from the previous post!Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1161103943003858432006-10-17T09:27:00.000-06:002006-10-17T18:49:12.723-06:00end of no-internet hiatusIt'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.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/65149-premier-kanady-stephen-harper.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/65149-premier-kanady-stephen-harper.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/stockwellday-701088.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/stockwellday-701088.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Historically I get such dreams when sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, but now I really don't know anymore. They seem to come in waves.<br /><br />Warning: car rant imminent. To avoid skip this next paragraph.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I am now extremely hungry, and must go home. Good day, loyal minions.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1160325411316597562006-10-08T09:38:00.000-06:002006-10-08T15:16:37.203-06:00good timesSaw the Trailer Park Boys movie on Friday night. It was, as expected, hilarious. I haven't decided yet if it was more like one long episode or one short season, but either way it was terrific. I recommend you see it, if you are even remotely a TPB fan.<br /><br />Then Saturday. Saturday night is usually seen as a night to go to bars/clubs, worry about your appearance, and try to pick up by dancing badly to intolerably loud pounding beats. Despite the possibility, however slim, of successfully picking up, this is not my favourite scene, since I don't like to be in the same place as all the insecure posers who are attempting to woo the ditzy 17 year olds populating the premises. Last night, however, was a different sort of Saturday night. A true "man's night". There were only four of us, but there was also, in no particular order:<br /> 1) Beer, and other "drinks of a refreshing nature"<br /> 2) Cigars<br /> 3) Poker<br /> 4) Hockey<br /> 5) $60 worth of KFC Chicken<br /><br />You cannot go wrong with that much chicken.<br /><br />I'm in facebook now, with a nice display of photos from the Monashees over two summers of digital photography there. Funny how people here and there from my past and present found me within one day of signing up, on a Saturday.<br /><br />Today I went golfing for the first time ever. I'd been to a driving range once before, when I was about 12, and was probably worse today. I had a couple of decent shots towards the end, when I started to understand that swinging harder generally causes crappy shots, and also that I was lifting back when I swung. Also I only lost 4 balls over 9 holes, so that was good (my excuse: leaves are everywhere and it was easy to lose 'em). <br /><br />I can totally see how it's addictive, and even feel a little tempted to head to a driving range to practice the swing. The other guys weren't too much better than me, so it wasn't terrible. Will, ostensibly the best of us, hit a house. I hit four trees, chopping branches off three of them. Andrew lost more balls than me. Rich had a pretty good day, with few major catastrophes, but Will still won in the end. I didn't keep score, being around 7 or 8 hits a hole.<br /><br />In other news, down in the States they're in mid-term elections and things are getting a bit, errr, heated. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaSQ-LNp9Nk">This TV ad</a> is for Republican candidate Vernon Robinson, and is not intended as a joke. Frankly it's disturbing.<br /><br />Photo contest returns next time, I promise.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1160070939148900242006-10-05T11:43:00.000-06:002006-10-05T11:59:24.126-06:00what tune is this?Results of last Caption Contest:<br /><br />Anonymous wins, as the only entry. He/she may pick up his/her prize of $678,000 at my office anytime within the next two hours, so long as they have two valid pieces of identification.<br /><br />I'm not doing a contest this time, as I don't have the time to go looking for a good picture. But I have a question for all: who is this by (click for bigger)?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/what%20tune%20is%20this.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/what%20tune%20is%20this.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>I guess you need some musical background to play it. I suspect it's smashing pumpkins. It's that kind of style anyway. That part is for E guitar and bass together, bass an octave lower. Don't forget the Bb. I wrote it in D because that's the key I can do perfect pitch in without thinking about it. To do other keys, I write based in D and then transpose, although I can generally do any key so long as the chords aren't too complicated.<br /><br />If you know it let me know. If you can tell me, and if the song is the one I am thinking of, you'll get a prize. Much like the one anonymous now has 1hr 50 minutes left to pick up, only the negative reciprocal of it.<br /><br />In auto blog news, I'm still gradually building the glossary. It's turned into a mammoth task. I've also found that much of what I want to say is already in Wikipedia, although often missing some stuff or outright incorrect. I might just write up the first couple of posts anyway, although I don't think I'll have much of a readership. If you want to review a car, any car, I can put your review up on the blog.<br /><br />Cheers.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1159571380850276222006-09-29T16:21:00.000-06:002006-09-29T17:09:40.943-06:00people like bandwagons<span style="font-weight: bold;">In this issue:</span> besides me acting like this is a newsletter or magazine: contest results, a new contest, I'm no longer a geologist, and a brief bit about bandwagons. It's amusing, you'll like it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Contest results</span>:<br />A strong showing from all this time, probably inspired by my provision of many photos to play with. Joe submitted this to me via e-mail:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/HealthCareAgreement091504.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/HealthCareAgreement091504.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>I especially like how Martin's forehead is cracking open. And he's like "what the hell, guys?"<br /><br />I should have said that you're all more than welcome to alter the photos with photoshop, or just with 'paint' as Joe has done. Very nice. <br /><br />Anyway the winners for each photo. Every winner was a unanimous agreement, i.e. all of me agreed with myself.<br /><br />Shannon wins the Martin/Lord/Other Guy shot, cause it really does look like a standoff between Martin and the Other Guy, with Lord as a kindof onlooker. Joe gets lots of merit for effort, and Steve's "inner mind" battle of Lord's is very good... especially the last line "Yessir, I will do that".<br /><br />First Klien pic; I gotta say Shannon again wins with "since when did they start putting girls in these podiums?", although Steve's first suggestion is a close second, as "You know, I could really eat a banana right about know...." is about the extent of Klien's thought processes.<br /><br />Second Klein pic win goes to Steve with "There's life outside Alberta??????", but Shannon gets points for noticing that he does indeed resemble R. Dangerfield in that pic.<br /><br />Nobody commented on the last one, but I'd like to suggest that Steve's second suggestion for Klein pic 2 works equally well if not better in the last one (i.e. no equalization payments).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">New Contest:<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><br />Here are the new contest pics. They are not political this time, and are inherently amusing to begin with. Note they share a theme.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/in-stupid-captain.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/in-stupid-captain.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/4wd.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/4wd.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I am no longer a Geologist:</span><br />The department is looking at changing its name from "Geology and Geophysics" to the less cumbersome "Geosciences". I for one am fully in support of this, and will start referring to myself as a "geoscientist" rather than a "geologist" from now on. Despite that the term makes me sounds more like a pale-faced snivelling lab-rat than the strapping, rugged, burly mountaineer that I totally perceive myself to be, the term does make me sound more like an actual scientist and less like I just have a collection of assorted pebbles from ditches. <br /><br />I also like it because it's vague enough to make me sound like an expert scientist in any field beginning with "geo-". This includes geology, geophysics, geochemistry, geography, geomorphology, geodesy, geolocation, geometry, and geopolitics. Therefore I can now speak with authority about such wideranging topics as oil and gas production, environmental issues, roadbuilding and other construction, map making, GPS systems, archipelagos, Mayan culture, Pythagoras, and UN "imperialism" as viewed by particular countries, in addition to the stuff I actually know a bit about.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bandwagons:</span><br />A note on my global-warming rant from Wednesday... I find this quote from Nietzsche to be particularly applicable: "men believe in the truth of all that is seen to be strongly believed in." In other words, people like bandwagons. If lots and lots of people believe something, they must have a good reason, right? Therefore I personally won't bother to look for reasons or evidence for my believing it too. And if anyone questions me I'll give them dirty looks and no research money.<br /><br />"I'm not loquacious - I'm articulate!" "Yeah, like a lorry."<br />-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porridge_%28TV_series%29">Porridge</a>Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19729444.post-1159294964143331632006-09-26T12:16:00.000-06:002006-09-26T23:01:01.810-06:00Things that annoy me.This post is rather angry at times. There's more things I could mention, but the list goes on. I've been bombarded recently by too much stuff by ignorant, insecure people about equally ignorant, insecure people. There's also some more lighthearted ones in there.<br /><br />The Two-Moron Principle adopted by most radio pop music programmes. Instead of employing one moronic DJ per show as in the past, they now give us two in a moronic crosstalk act. (Also the music content of such radio programmes.)<br /><br />Frivolous artwork by self-important, talentless half-wits, erroneously touted as "unique" or "revolutionary" by pompous idiots (ostensibly "critics"). This applies as much to music, theatre, and film work as it does to painting, sculpture, etc.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/1600/buyshit.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6396/1958/320/buyshit.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>(sketch by <a href="http://www.banksy.co.uk/">banksy</a>, who has some amazing artwork on his website)<br /><br />"Celebrity" chefs who invent perversely inedible dishes such as escargot pie and haddock-flavoured ice cream – and then charge gullible customers an additional fortune for having their plates dotted with spots of foam.<br /><br />Houses with paranoid security lights that switch themselves on accusingly as you pass their front gates.<br /><br />Newspaper or website writers who talk about their "mailbag".<br /><br />PA announcements about delayed/cancelled flights that apologise for any inconvenience they "may" have caused.<br /><br />The way police officers and chiefs always look and sound like idiots by trying to use big professional words in TV interviews.<br /><br />Characters in Victorian TV/movie dramas who, when elated, punch the air and go "Yesssss!".<br /><br />Guys in rusty '88 Supras or Trans Ams projecting a thudding beat from a sound system with more power than the engine.<br /><br />Reality TV.<br /><br />Shallow materialistic celebrities, and the desire most youth have to emulate them.<br /><br />False experts who sound intelligent, but in reality are armed only with thesauruses and strong opinions. People who spout so knowingly about global warming exemplify the group. At least read the fucking literature before attempting to pass yourself off as an expert.<br /><br />Speaking of which, the entire global warming panic. If you're on this bandwagon, open your mind and read some actual research (request it and I'll compile a comprehensive list of references). If you're helping to push the wagon, take a hard look at why, at who you're really supporting. Environmental interest groups are big money. Whether you realise it or not, you are using scare tactics to support a frenzy with little serious scientific backing, and it's frankly dangerous to society (for historical precedent, <a href="http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/fear_main.shtml">read about eugenics before WW2</a>). The media, politicians, environmental groups, activists, and general public (for allowing ourselves to be swept along) alike are all to blame. See above for ways to remedy a lack of comprehension of environmental science and how it's in its infancy.<br /><br />I guess it comes down to me being annoyed by shallow, materialistic, irrational, intolerant, stupid, change-fearing, money-grubbing, insecure people in general. Good God.<br /><br />Thats the rant. Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow (or Friday). Including a new awesome photo contest and results from the last one. You'll love it.Grumballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09537599391131470447noreply@blogger.com8