I've Been Meme'd!

Thanks Jason, I owe you one. No wait, you owe me five.

# of Books I Own:

You will not get an exact number. Or any number. I have a couple of boxes full of books as I'm currently in the process of moving (and have been in this process since June), and the total number rises and falls as I find and buy good and/or cheap books to read, and as I release finished books into the wild.

Last Book I Bought:

Aw jeez.. Ummmm.. Hmmmm.. Oh yeah. I bought two at the same time. The Boomer by no one of consequence, and The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams of hitchhiking the galaxy fame. Haven't yet read the latter, and do not recommend the former.

5 Books That Mean(t) A Lot To Me:

Here's a list that I compiled rather quickly. It may or may not be accurate.

I quite enjoyed Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. Many many short stories that play with the concept of time. Is it linear? Is it circular? Is it like a merry-go-round where the speed at which time passes varies based on where you are standing? Perhaps it doesn't exist at all, things just happen when they happen. I highly recommend this book. I might even lend it to you if you ask nicely. It will not be wild released, only loaned to those I know.

Polaroids from the Dead was the first book I read by Douglas Coupland. It is perhaps for that reason that it is the one book of his that stands out. A mix of fiction and non-fiction, with some stories based in and around the Vancouver area, I was drawn in by his writing style and insight into various cultural events.

Ball Four was an excellent read. If you are a baseball player or fan then I highly recommend this book, and if you are neither a baseball player nor fan then I recommend this book highly. RHP Jim Bouton recorded his thoughts, and the events of his team behind closed doors, over the course of a season or two. Probably the funniest book I have ever read. I'd like to give a quote from the book, but that wouldn't do the book justice. Better to just read it and all its glory.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Four Parts. What a writer Douglas Adams is. This is a long saga that has drama, romance, humor, devastation, and lots and lots of wit. I will keep it and read it again soon. Actually not too soon. It's been six years since I read it and it will be another few years. This one is also available for loans. All the books on this list are available for loans. The movie came out recently and I saw it and thought, 'enh'. Wasn't terrible, but wasn't great. Then I thought, well how could they possibly get all the greatness of the book into a two hour movie. They did the best they could.

Pavel Bure: The Riddle Of The Russian Rocket. I became a hockey fan in the early nineties mostly because of him. This is a look at how he came to play in Vancouver and at the many suspicions that people had of his personal life, which can be summed up in one word: shady. I miss you Pavel and your full-speed end-to-end rushes.

Five People I Now Name As 'Tagged':

I think the people I tag are supposed to have blogs with which to continue the meme tradition. As you can see by looking to the right, I know not many people with blogs. Therefore, I give one name. If he reads this, he must consider himself tagged. The name: Brad (surprise!)

Wild Animals

I don't get it. Humans have been demolishing forests, which serve as habitats for many species, in order to make housing. There are lots of places to build housing in the world without destroying someone's lifelong home, but hey, let's build a little further up the mountains of the north shore. And hey, since we live here now, let's shoot and kill any being that dares to come close to us. You're attracted to our garbage can, well then, you must die. And it's not 'putting them to sleep' or 'laying them to rest' or 'sending them off to aunt Maggie's farm', it's 'having them destroyed'. It's as if these living breathing animals are asteroids coming towards earth. 'The bear has since been destroyed'. Nice. Recently a man near Prince George was driving alone on a logging road when his car broke down. Rather than walk to town on the road, he attempted to shortcut through the woods. He was ultimately found dead, killed by a bear. Authorities say that he came upon a bear and two cubs. If it's found that the man startled the bears and was killed in self-defensive, the bears will get to live. That's nice of us. BUT, if the bears killed him in a predatory manner, then they will have to be 'destroyed'. Why? WTF? This guy walks through their home, gets killed by a wild frickin' bear, and so now we must go and kill the bears. I don't agree.

While I'm on this topic, coyotes have been visible in Vancouver parks, and on the streets, for a little while. There have been a few incidents of coyote/human conflict. One such case was a coyote 'nipping' at a little girl in, if memory serves me correct, Vanier Park. I believe the coyote only got clothing, no skin. However, if the guilty coyote could be figured out, the guilty coyote would be destroyed. So a human being could do much worse, so much worse, to this little girl and have very little happen to him, but this coyote, with natural instincts, nips her clothing and must die. I believe the girl was about 6 years young. Where were her parents/guardians?

In related news, Biscotti's Morgan was the second person destroyed on Survivor. She has since jumped onto the Judd bandwagon.

Survivor & Amazing Race Pools

Survivor

Biscotti and I joined a survivor pool. I got Judd, a 35-year-old hotel doorman from New York City. He scared me during the premiere when he was first out of the canoe and ended up flopping around like a beached whale in a pool of mud. He then did nothing but lie around camp feeling quite sick, so, when our tribe Nakum (yes, our tribe) lost the immunity challenge, I wasn't feeling too confident. Luckily, all the males on his tribe also lay around feeling sick, so he was spared. Turns out the oldest male on Nakum not only felt sick, but had disfigured his arm during the challenge. We live to see another day. Click here for more on Judd Sergeant. His favorite movie? The Jerk.

Biscotti got Morgan, who happens to be on the other tribe, Yaxha. Morgan is a 21-year-old model/entertainer. She flew under the radar during the premiere, and was on the team that one immunity so not much drama there. So every episode will have either my life, I mean five bucks, or Biscotti's life, I mean five bucks, on the line. Wish us luck. Click here for more on Morgan McDevitt (take note, "Occupation: model" is a link..). Her favorite board game? Chess.

Amazing Race

Biscotti and I started an Amazing Race pool. Two actually. In the first pool we've been paired up with The Bransen Family, made up of a father and his three twenty-something daughters who, get this, once appeared together in a Pert shampoo commercial several years ago.

In the second pool we got The Aiello Family, a 57-year-old and his three son-in-laws. Nothing titillating there. This is, CBS says, their first official trip without their wives by their sides. Official? They've taken unofficial trips? Now it's official because it's a race? Good luck boys.

Word Verification

After all the spam following my Clijsters post, I decided to refresh my blog right after the Bush post, and waddaya know, two spam comments immediately posted. Therefore, I have enabled word verification.

Word verification? What's that? I'll let blogger explain..

What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to your blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam. A lot of this is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.

So, the luck key readers, it will take one small additional step to post a comment on my blog, but we (primarily I) will be forever free of spam. I look forward to reading your many wanted comments..

Bush

I just came across this quote while randomly browsing the internet in a bored stupor.

Electing Bush was seen by the world as a mistake. Re-electing will be seen as a hostile act.
- Graydon Carter, What We've Lost

10is ne1

I've been watching a lot of the US Open and there have been a remarkable number of compelling matches, most notably Sanguinetti vs Srichaphan and Clijsters vs Venus.

However, last night's incredible Agassi vs Blake showdown takes the cake. During Agassi's comeback from two sets down, one of the commentators was talking about the fans not knowing who to cheer for. Then said that Agassi was aware that the fans were pulling for Blake because of all he's been through the past two years. How to get the fans on Agassi's side? Drop the first two sets of course! Go Agassi!

I hope Clijsters wins her first slam this weekend.

Group Phone Messages

I have an idea. You know how you can type one email and send it to as many people as your heart desires? I'd like the same type of option with phone messages. I know of, and have used several times, a number you can dial where you can ultimately leave a message on someone's answering machine without the phone ringing. (No, I haven't done that to you!) I believe this can only be done on a landline number with call answer. If that feature was available for all existing phone numbers, then my idea couldn't be too hard could it? It would undoubtedly require that those clunky answering machines become obsolete, with everyone adopting call answer. What do you think? There are often times when I just want to say a short something, the same short something, to a bunch of people, and it takes sooooooo much time calling everyone.. Soooooooo, group phone messages, yay or nay? Have I made my idea clear?

Tildy

I moved out recently. I miss my cat.

A list of things...

...that make me go hmmm.

Movie times. Went to see War of the Worlds the other night, which was officially listed as a 7:50 start time. After ads and previews galore, the words "Feature Presentation" appeared on the screen at 8:28. Thirty-eight frickin' minutes after the "start time". Where else does this happen? Anywhere? Go see a baseball game that starts at 7:05pm, and they do the pregame stuff, such as the anthem(s), earlier than 7:05pm, so that the game can actually start at 7:05pm. An art gallery says it opens at 10am, the doors are open at, gasp, 10am. WTF. I know it's been bad for a while at movies with the previews and ads, but thirty-eight minutes? For more on this, click here, and then check out nomovieads.com.

Cigarette smoke. Went to the Sunshine Diner for breakfast on Saturday, their new location. It was a beautiful morning so when given the option of inside or patio, we didn't hesitate. Pancakes in the sun! Freshly squeezed OJ was delicious, sun was hot, Biscotti looked sexy, all was good. The server brought our orders and just as we started to dig in, I inhaled a lungfull of cigarette smoke. We were blinded by the sun, we didn't think about the smokers using the patio for different reasons. I was back-to-back with one of the smokers and was, unfortunately, downwind. Nothing else could have happened to have ruined the meal more. There were attempts though. The patio being right on Broadway, there was an obnoxious motorcyclist who started up his hog and revved for longer than necessary, before maxing out as he pulled away. It was loud enough that Biscotti had to stop talking mid-sentence until he was gone. One of the smokers then asked the server, "Do they really think that's cool?".

Misunderstandings. I once acknowledged the receipt of a book that was mailed to me by writing, "Arrived the day after yesterday." The sender thought I meant the day before yesterday. But before and after don't mean the same thing. (Reminds me: why do "slim chance" and "fat chance" mean the same thing?)

New Zealand traffic rule. There is a law in NZ that states that drivers wishing to turn left must yield to oncoming drivers who wish to turn right. Seems mundane until you remember that in NZ traffic is opposite from North America; you drive on the left side of the road. So, this law is equivalent to NA drivers, when turning right, yielding to oncoming left-turners. Of course, it wouldn't be practical here. It is in NZ, where roads are often one lane each way, so having this law keeps vehicles moving, instead of being stuck behind a right-turner.

Dog shit. It's not dog shit itself that makes me go hmmm, as that would be stupid. It's the inconsiderate owners of dogs that don't pick up after their dog has crapped, especially in areas of high pedestrian volume, that makes me go hmmm. I took two kids to a neighborhood playground yesterday. Right there in plain view, in very close proximity to the playground structure, was a pile of turds. It was quite clear that this feces de canine was produced by a larger-than-average dog. Dog owners, please pick up after your dogs.

Sold!

On Tuesday, might've been Monday, I was elegantly riding the #25 bus eastbound. As we, the relaxed passengers and focused driver, passed Fraser and headed towards Knight, I looked out of a south-facing window. In front of one of the houses was a 'for sale' sign that I had seen many times in the past 3 weeks. Only this time it was different. There was now a 'sold' sticker attached near the top. That's when it really hit home. Biscotti and I bought that house. That house is ours.