Funny, I don’t feel 43

As many of you know, I have little time for christmas. For one thing, I’m not a christian. For another, the stampede of consumer frenzy that takes place all around me – starting in October these days – leaves me feeling considerably less than spiritual. I choose to honour the spirit of the solstice that [...]

Winter photo of the week

Since it doesn’t snow much in Vancouver, half the city is out taking pictures: 1,000,000 icicles will probably be photographed this week.
I didn’t even have to leave the house to take my icicle picture. It’s orange because the sunset is behind it. I scaled down the size of the image, but otherwise it is, er… [...]

Idle blather on a frosty Tuesday evening

Perhaps it’s simply because I’m in possession of a plane ticket to the tropics, but I am feeling a little more sensitive to the cold this year than usual. Actually, I think it has more to do with the fact that I’m living in a house for the first time in many years. Most houses, [...]

My backpack is getting a little restless

I’m shocked that it’s mid-November already – it seems like just last week it was 1987. How the time does accelerate as we age. Where’s the justice in this? It just reinforces my opinion that intelligent design was at best an ability of Le Corbusier and that the Darwin-deniers in Arkansas (or Red Deer?) have [...]

I’ll bet I’m happier than than Joseph Kabila

In yet another clever technique to avoid homework, I found a website – The Happy Planet Index – that calculates happiness as a co-relative of environmental footprint. In other words: which country’s citizens derive the highest amount of satisfaction at the lowest environmental cost. Canada, it seems, is ranked 111. The United States is 150. [...]

Another new way to waste time!

Remember when we were young and in school, and how they told us about how the future was likely to be? Space-age automobiles and the productivity of the computer age are two things that spring to mind.
Ha! Instead of sleek looking cars that look like they were invented on Mars, we end up with things [...]

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If you’re tired of checking this site to see if I’ve finally posted something, relief has arrived. I’ve added a ‘mailing list’, so that you can now sign up to receive an e-mail if I add something new. Just follow the “Subscribe” link on the top menu bar to sign up.

Is there a ‘manslaughter’ badge?

Facing the unrelenting assault of door-to-door privacy invaders.

Ah, school!

One might think that sitting on a library chair in which the padding surely disintegrated decades before might have the effect of keeping one’s attention focused, but no. I finally dismembered my backpack, removing from its spine the foam insert that protects my back. It is now placed on my chair, where it protects my [...]

Vacation wrap-up

I’m back in Vancouver now, but having failed to do so while travelling, I will briefly summarise the rest of the trip.
I managed to walk many kilometres in and around Quebec City which, having discovered in Montreal that my walking-specific shoes are not suitable for walking, resulted in rather sore arches. On the final two [...]

The silver cloud has a dark lining

I’ve long heard nothing but good things about Quebec City, and certainly, I can understand the basis for the enthusiasm, to some extent. Physically it is very appealing; it is the only walled city north of Mexico, as all the brochures will tell you; the upper town is generally well preserved; and there are opportunities [...]

Quebec City

I am now in Quebec City, having arrived here by train this evening. Although I’ve heard many good things about it, I wasn’t particularly in the mood for Montreal, I found. Except perhaps for better art, I’m not sure that it was all that different from downtown any-where-else-in-Canada. I suppose if I had a knowledgeable [...]

Voeux de Montreal!

Well, once again, I am unemployed-by-choice, and on the road. I finished work on Friday, August 18th, got on my bike and rode out to Ruskin for a little farmwork. I rode back Monday, and then flew to Montreal on Tuesday, having decided that I needed a little vacation before school starts on September 6th. [...]

I’m back!

Well, the great server meltdown has concluded, and I am back in action.
The odds are good that no one even noticed, but this site (and my e-mail) was down for a week. It seems that the hosting company had it’s servers in a commercial collocation (as is standard practise), but the collocation went bankrupt and [...]

Ever wish you were a bicycle seat?

Last week was the World Naked Bike Ride, the annual world-wide protest against oil dependency and car culture, opposing indecent exposure to automobile emissions and celebrating the power and individuality of our bodies. Naturally, I was there.
We covered much of the downtown core: the West End, Robson Street, Gastown, and Granville Street, as well as [...]

Why I Am an Optimist

Aren’t self-described optimists being a little pessimistic when they criticise my kind of optimism?

This and That: Catching Up

“D” in Houston, Texas, one of my loyal readers (server stats show that there are at least four of you on the planet) , has passed a message through the grapevine suggesting that I have been negligent in posting entries in a timely manner. As my last entry – a cynical diatribe on the subject [...]

A Saturday morning ritual

For years, Saturday mornings for me have centred around my reading chair, a nice cup of tea, and the Globe and Mail. Even while I was on my bike trip across Canada last summer, I persisted in this ritual. Of course, I sometimes had to adjust it to compensate for the fact that I often [...]

College Life

Sitting in the cafeteria of Langara College, I often find myself asking, no one in particular, “What am I doing here?” It’s a good question, and I’ve asked it of myself every single day since I became a student here five months ago. My left shoe is stuck to a patch of browning-grey matter [...]

No, Dick, George is the tall guy with the dumb look

Despite the horror of a grown man trying to gun down innocent avifauna as if they were only Iraqi civilians, there’s something I find mildly amusing about this. US Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a fellow hunter in Texas yesterday. Apparently, Cheney thought the hunter, 78 year old Harry Whittington, was a [...]

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