Terrible, terrible things

Do you want a nice shiny red star beside your blog (in the list over to the right, there) every time you write something new? Here's what to do if you use Blogspot.


Sign in to your account and click on the little gear icon beside your blog name.

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Click on "Publishing."

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Select "Yes" from the drop-down beside "Ping Weblogs.com" and then save your settings.

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That's it. All the cool kids are doing it.

If you see a star beside your name (CynLynn) and you don't know if you set it up that way, it's because I manually entered your address into the Weblogs.com database once to see how it worked. It worked once, but you've still got to set it up yourself manually. If you want to, I mean.

Oh my god, I am so sorry, Tiddly. She was in town and I let it slip my mind. I completely forgot about it. I wanted to get you some pictures.



There's a doctor in town who has a white leather couch in his waiting room. If you want, I can ask him if he'll let me set up my camera there. Let me know.

Same crap, but in a new bland package!

yay

(Click it!)


Thanks for the link, MMM.

Don't mistake U.S. criticism for contempt (David Suzuki).

I love this guy.

...right?

Here's the transcript of his resignation announcement (washingtonpost.com).

You can read it all, or you can just read this quote: "And after we had had a chance to have good and fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement that it would be appropriate for me to leave at this time."

That's the word I would have chosen, too. Nice and ambiguous. I wonder if that was intentional. :D

If there's anyone in the Cabinet who actually struck me as worth more than the skin they were made from, it was Powell. Welcome back from the Dark Side, Colin. Here's hoping you can sleep better now.

ps. i'll find my frog

Anna-Kaisa Piiroinen, shown here stopping the puck, was not the driver of the offending truck.

Scientists used monkeys' immune system to make them infertile

Next step: Trying it out on monkeys.

Florida is still funny.

I was joking with Mrs. G about the election, saying that the one sure-fire way to tell who's going to win is to ask me for a prediction, then say the opposite.

It's true! I've been alive for ten elections now, and able to form a coherent opinion for eight of them (zip it, you).

I predicted Ford would beat Carter in 76. Wrong.
I predicted Carter would beat Reagan in 80. Wrong.
I predicted Reagan would beat Mondale in 84. Right!!
I predicted Bush would beat Dukakis in 88. Right!!
I predicted Bush would beat Clinton in 92. Wrong.
I predicted Clinton would beat Dole in 96. Right!!
I predicted Gore would beat Bush in 00. Wrong.
I predicted Kerry would beat Bush in 04. Looks pretty wrong at this point.

That's 3/8, or a score of 38%. D!

There. Forget polling, you newspaper people. Just ask me and print the opposite of what I say.

How accurate have your predictions been over the years? Who'd you guess wrong about? Here are the results from earlier elections if you can't remember.

Last night, while pretending not to watch the news, I stepped out for another cigarette. Now the bears don't even wait for the town to go to sleep. It was bloody nine o'clock! Sheesh! Right there, a block away, a bear ambled across the street from one yard to the next.

They're getting bolder, coming out that early. That's six now.

For all I know it's just one or two bears that happen to like my neighborhood, but I'm betting there are close to a dozen in town now for me to be seeing them this often.

Poor bears. This is a logging community and their habitat is shrinking more every year. They're in town because there's not enough food in the hills to keep them going. The local animal control guy has had to take one down already this year. I wouldn't be surprised to see two or three more shot before the end of their scrounging season. Last year only one got it.

:(

You'd think I was obsessed with bears, I write about them so much.

Oct 22, 2004: I walk to the Esso at 2:30 AM to buy a pack of cigarettes. The gas station is about 15 minutes away by foot, and I love walking alone in the middle of the night because it's so peaceful. It's very, very foggy out and I can't see further than 30 feet, and the fog muffles what little noise there is in town. It's like holding your ears under water in the tub. Just "shhhhhhhhhhh." I get to the Esso, do my thing and turn back toward home. The road runs along a small forest preserve with a trail that pops out at the road's edge. I'm fifteen feet away from the trail when I hear a branch snap. Looking up, I see a bear lumber out of the woods. He spots me and we both freeze, looking each other over. I avert my gaze, not wanting to threaten it. Then I start talking to it. "Howdy bear. I'm not a salmon. I'm not a big ripe apple, either. See? I've got arms." I wave my arms. "I'll just go on about my business and you go on over to wherever you were headed, and we'll just pretend we never met. I won't kiss and tell, I swear." Meanwhile, I'm slowly backing up toward a parked car, hoping to be able to roll under it if the thing decides I look like a threat. He groans at me and shuffles off across the street. I just stand there for a bit watching until he disappears into the fog. Then I go home.

Oct 24, 2004: Jr. came home from college for our daughter's 12th birthday. Tonight at dusk I'm driving him back to Nanaimo. We just get on the highway, I've not even accelerated to cruising speed yet, when a big black bear lumbers slowly into the middle of my lane. I slowed down to let him cross. The timing was right and there was no other traffic.

Oct 26, 2004: In this town you're allowed two bags of garbage a week. If you're making more than that, you have to pay extra to get it hauled away. Anyway, it's the day after garbage pick-up, so the can is empty. But it still smells like food. And cat shit. We'd just finished cleaning the litter boxes. I wake up in the morning and step outside for some air. I notice the garbage can has been knocked over. The lid is about ten feet away from the can, and it's got claw punctures in it. I know a bear did it because that plastic is tough! No normal dog could bite through the lid. Poor bear. The pizza smell from a day earlier attracted him, but all he got for his trouble was a Safeway bag full of dirty cat litter.

Oct 30, 2004: It's the day before Halloween and the local pot grower... oops! The local party guy is holding his annual outdoor bash 1 1/2 blocks from where we live. I don't go to his parties. He's an asshole. Anyway, I step outside for a smoke at about 10:00 PM and see yet another bear crossing the intersection toward his place. This one is about 150 feet from me and walking away. But there are bright lights and loud music emanating from this guy's yard, so I'm confused about why Mr. Bear would be heading toward the place rather than away from there. It's unnatural, so I'm even warier about this bear than the last. If some fool tosses a firecracker or cranks up the stereo, that bear will turn tail and run toward me. That's a scary thought. I watch closely until I'm done my cigarette, then head back inside.

Nov 01, 2004: Scott, our dog, is just a little guy, so he doesn't need much of a dog pen. Just some 2x4s pounded into the ground with stucco wire stapled to them to act as a barrier. He can't get through that for the short time we let him out there to do his business. Unfortunately, such a lightweight fence is invisible in the dark. You can see the posts, but you can't see the wire. The only way you'd notice it is if you were, say... a bear trying to get from the front yard to the back yard via that side of the house. Then you'd lumber right into it and just keep pushing until it registered in your brain that you weren't getting as far as you should be getting for the effort you've expended. So you'd give up and just gnaw on a pumpkin in the front yard instead. The guy who built the fence would discover the bent-over 2x4s and stretched and bowed-in stucco wire fence the next morning when he got up to take the dog out.

That's five personal encounters in less than ten days. Youngest Boy has seen one so far, and Mrs. G met one on the road a few weeks ago. So, seven for the family.

Last year we had two bear encounters between October and March.

Something tells me it's going to be an unusual winter.