Here's a dirty word for you: verschmutzt. According to Google Translate, it's German for dirty. Earlier today I had no idea what it meant, and it was stressing me out a little. I worked overtime today, Sunday you know, twice the pay and all that, but I came in to run shovel which I haven't done for quite a while. They threw me on shovel 11, which is the rental shovel we got to replace shovel 8 and is identical to shovel 9. More or less. A few key differences, such as shovel 11 only comes in German for some reason. So the komputerschmitzen was telling me my somethingsomething was verschmutzt. What are you supposed to do with that? "Uh, dispatch, this is shovel 11. Can you send up a mechanic with a deverschmutzter? Yeah my luftwaffens are reading a little high on the verschmutzty scale. Ach du lieber!" But thanks to Google Translate I know it was just telling me my air filters were dirty. Which is the coal mining equivalent of saying your battleship is wet.
It was Daddy/Daughter Date Day so Pallas and I went to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D. She did pretty good- she was engaged in the movie, and definitely engaged in the popcorn (hopcorn) and "special drink" aka Sprite. Sometimes she preferred to stand, and that's alright. The glasses didn't seem to bother her either. The Broadways touring show is coming to Edmonton soonly, though to be honest it looks like a not-as-good version compared to the local Citadel version Michelle and I saw a few years ago. Definitely would take her to that if it comes back! Speaking of local culture, Michelle and I are going to the Symphony next week for her birthday! Sweet! It's been ages. Ever hear of Rachmaninoff? If I am not mistaken, the Consul in Dan Simmons' Hyperion is playing some Rachmaninoff in the opening scene of that book, one of my favourites ever. Also this piece was in the movie Shine which I should watch one of these days.
Motorcycle show! Because Edmonton riders gotta be getting antsy by now eh? What else are you gonna do but watch Sons of Anarchy and Long Way Round and wait for spring?
By the way if you wanted to buy me a bike but weren't sure which one to get me I would take one of these- and get the sidecar too so I can put Pallas in there:
But also I would take one of these for touring around with:
Actually it's just as well I have no money, I woulda bought one of each.
Remember my old car, the one I used to write love poetry to, the one I gave away at 360,000 kms because I thought it was getting a little unreliable for my trips to Hinton and back? The guy I gave it to tells me he just rolled over 500,000 kms and still gets 800 kms on a tank of gas. Meanwhile, my Saturn Ion has given me trouble since day one, literally. The first day I had it I almost got stranded at the Safeway when it wouldn't start. Took a couple years but I figured out that little issue. Other minor things here and there went wrong, plus through no fault of its own a deer slammed right into my passenger-side mirror and tore it off. It does get beat up quite badly, driving to work and stuff. Anyways, yesterday it gave me a valuable reminder of why it's important to change spark plugs every 90,000 kms or so. Ah well, that's fine. Cost me some money and I had to leave it in Hinton, and then find alternate transportation home. Since it's me, I used the greenest method of all- my green thumb! And since it was Hinton, the guy who picked me up was my old pumpman cross-shift from work. Oddly, we spent no time at all reminiscing about those good old days. Mainly we talked about how great our new jobs are now that we are no longer on pumps. Well. There's still the matter of getting back to Hinton. Maybe three magic words- kijiji and honda and civic . . .
While washing the dishes Pallas asked me about a stirring fork thing, obviously too big to eat with. "Whose fork is this?" "Well, it wasn't mine, and it wasn't yours, and it definitely wasn't Naia's, so it must be mommy's." "Mommy?" "Yup. You know what we call that?" "Mommy?" "That's an example of deductive reasoning." "Deguckive weasoning?" "Exactly. That's when we take all the evidence available to us and use it to draw a reasonable conclusion for questions we don't know the answer to." Incredulously: "Is that possible?"
The headline said "Lost World" and Antarctica so naturally I thought they had finally discovered the location of the Savage Land with Zabu and Sauron but this lost world is under the sea, complete with new kinds of yeti crabs, so almost as good! More photos please! You don't care about yeti crabs you say? Why do you even read this blog? But for you there is always the painting squirrel. Or the lion that plays football. Well, soccer as we call it in North America. When are we gonna see animals playing Canadian (or American if you insist) style football? A lion throwing a perfect spiral would probably garner a few views.
And then at midnight shovel 9 honked its horn, not so much to indicate that it was the new year as to tell me I was loaded so I could go to the dump. Woo! Anyways happy new year to you! I'm off to work.
Night shift! Except, that should read Night shift! with one of those upside down exclamation points the Spanish language has which means the opposite of ascited. I'm sure in Spanish it means something else but only being half-Mexican I can only be half sure about such things. Tomorrow night, New Year's Eve, is not a statutory holiday so I am required to go to work! All night long! Think of me when you're having some bubbly! (where the !s are all understood to be upside down)
I keep meaning to do this experiment, but for logistical and lazinal reasons I haven't yet- I want to turn on my two iMacs at the same time and see which one gets on the internet faster. I truly suspect my circa 2007 17" 512 MB of RAM clunker that's still working off of whatever came before Snow Leopard (Housecat?) would win the race over my brand new 27 incher with 8 gigs of RAM running Lyin. I mean, Lion. I know, there's me with the anti-Apple negativity again, right? But I love Apple, as much as I can say I love any corporation. You should see all the Apple hardware I have in this house. That ancient iMac I mentioned? Pallas uses it as her personal DVD player and it works great for that. My getting-to-be-ancient iPod Touch still works great, though it is too old to accept iOS 5. It's because the expectations are that much higher. Apples aren't supposed to suck! So when they kind of do first you have a bit of defensive denial and then you're kind of gobsmacked. Each update comes and you think it'll get better. Not so far though. Wouldn't bother me if these updates weren't more or less forced down your throat if you want to keep updated with all your iOS stuff. (But I showed them- my iPad is still running iOS 3! Heehee!) Is it too soon to joke about praying to Steve? Maybe, eh? Well, here's a wish list for the next round of bug fixes and whatever: Faster please. You know that little icon that shows you when your iPod is done charging in your iTunes sidebar? Bring it back! Why you would take that away is a little baffling. It was there just last week. That "fix" that was supposed to take care of webpages flashing white every now and then? Didn't work. Is there any way to make the computer itself run cooler just by tweaking software? I doubt it but if so, make it so. Make google stop changing gmail. Oh, right, enemies now, I forgot. Sorry.
8 Skeins of Danger tagged me and seeing as how he was instrumental in getting that meme I started going (ie he recognized the memetic potential and turned it into one) I thought I should play along. I did a similar one some years ago with Metallica so I thought I would do my other favorite band, The PIxies. Back in 1991, a bemulleted Homie Bear sat next to this really cute proto-goth in grade 11 English. We talked bands and though she didn't care for Sepultura and Death and Obituary as I did, she managed to turn me onto this cool band called The Pixies. Possibly on the very day they broke up, who knows. Though to be fair I think they broke up in 1993. The ticket stub held up by FX-7s is for one of their first shows after reforming. And I saw them again earlier this year performing Doolittle start to finish! Anyways:
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.
Are you a male or female: Here Comes Your Man
Describe yourself: Gigantic
How do you feel: Where is My Mind?
Describe where you currently live: Planet of Sound
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Isla de Encanta
Your favorite form of transportation: Levitate Me
Your best friend is: Crackity Jones
You and your best friends are: Dancing the Manta Ray
What's the weather like: Stormy Weather
Favorite time of day: Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons (so like, 6:35)
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Debaser
What is life to you: Blown Away
Your relationship: Monkey Gone to Heaven
Your fear: Break My Body
What is the best advice you have to give: Distance Equals Rate Times Time
I'm gonna be ascited!!!!! That's how Pallas says she's eagerly anticipating Xmas. And this year has been absolutely magical watching her truly get into the spirit for the first time. She sprinted to sit on Santa's lap when it was finally her turn. And what did she ask him for? Presents! I tried explaining to her the naughty/nice concept as a subtle way of hopefully influencing her behavior for the next few days. She listened solemnly and when I asked her if she thought she had been naughty or nice, she without hesitation asked, "But how Santa can come out from our chimney?" This is her biggest concern, of course, since our fireplace is one of those sealed gas ones that doesn't have an actual chimney. Even at not quite 3yo, Pallas can plainly see there's no way for the fat guy to pull that one off. "Well, you know, Santa Magic." And that's the heartbreaking aspect of all this Santa magic- that we are telling her these egregious lies, all in good fun, that she is wholeheartedly believing. I always thought I would be the parent who wouldn't teach his kids about Santa and all that, but somehow we just did almost by osmosis. Yeah, it's magical and soooo cute, but part of me really feels actually guilty. I wish there was actual magic in this world that I could give you, little girl. I do. At least I have something even better to give you- love.
Yesterday was Naia's first birthday. It's crazy how fast the time goes. We had a small family gathering in her honor. Though for Pallas's first birthday we made bookmarks and magnets and graven invitaitons . . . well, Naia doesn't care, she liked her cupcake just fine.
Speaking of babies, earlier this week my sister gave birth to a cute little boy so I have a nephew now. He came over yesterday for the birthday party and he's pretty stinking cute.
All material, unless otherwise noted, is © 2002-2011 Nathan Waddell. nwaddell at gmail (dot) com to contact me.
The Origin of Homie Bear.
Bear art by Sarah How, © 2005. Unless it's the pirate bear, which was drawn for me by Karen Ellis. Robot bear created by Shane Cheffins
