Sitting here not quite knowing what to blog about but feeling I should blog.
The worst kind of blogging feeling...
End of the weekend except it's not, as I have a day off tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, I have an interview.
With a doctor.
I kid you not.
Here in Canada, we have the world famous Medicare, which means you don't have to pay for a doctor.
Which is great.
Except that it means there aren't enough doctors.
Apparently, there are five million Canadians without a family doctor.
Queenie, Himself and Kitty are three of those people.
So when I drove past the Spryfield Family Medical Centre and saw the sign saying lady doctor accepting patients, I was on the phone quicker than you could say 'take your clothes off and get up on the bed there love'.
So I had to make an appointment to meet the doctor.
I'm not quite sure what I should do.
Apart from bring the lashings of private medical insurance we have with me in an attempt to bribe her...
Oh yes, didn't you know, Canada, home of Medicare, has lots and lots of private medical insurance.
Himself and I pay out approximately $200 a month for coverage that includes pharmacare, massage, naturopathy, accupuncture, physiotherapy, counselling, dentist, medical emergency, etc. etc.
Of course, because everyone who has medical insurance pays so much for it, you tend to use it up as much as possible - hence the trips to the dentist, the massages, etc.
Which puts the cost of medical insurance up...
So it goes.
Anyways, I hope Lady Doctor takes us on. That will take a load off my mind.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Passchendaele should have been called Passiondale
Christ almighty, I managed to delete the entire post and now I have to write it out again.
I thought auto save had a function.
SOOOOO, Himself and I went to see Passchendaele last night.
The movie.
The new Canadian movie, written, directed by and starring Paul Gross, who you will all remember as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South, the weird Canadian cop show of the nineties.
This movie is being plugged as the great new interpretation of Canada's coming of age as a nation during World War I.
Himself was very excited about it, being one of those (millions of) Canadians who has a deep interest in the subject. He even remembered the date we had to go to the cinema. Usually, Queenie gets to remember this kind of stuff on his behalf as part of her high end personal assistant role, the one with added benefits such as cooking and doing laundry tagged on.
Anyways, enough of that nasty sarcasm.
We remembered.
And we went.
We stopped into It's all Greek to me first for a stomach-stretching gastro-fest of Greek yumminess. We had the platter for starters which meant of course that we couldn't eat the main course, but we did our best and Himself did a lot better than me.
Himself and I are on a mission to check out the best restaurants in Halifax for the visitors who will be here next year, to ensure the euro-dollars go to the best places. Like I say regularly, we are dealing with the big issues before the big day.
Anyways, we were a little concerned the food would put us to sleep, but then we figured the film would be so good it wouldn't.
As it turned out, we didn't go to sleep, but we should've.
Yawn.
As one of the cinema reviewers in this town said, the movie is Saving Private Ryan meets Titanic.
I would add the scenery from Brokeback Mountain to that mix. And there you have it.
As we left the cinema to walk home (and get rid of some of the greekfest), I overheard someone say 'shit story, terrible plot, but that's what you get when the Tories fund culture.'
I thought auto save had a function.
SOOOOO, Himself and I went to see Passchendaele last night.
The movie.
The new Canadian movie, written, directed by and starring Paul Gross, who you will all remember as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South, the weird Canadian cop show of the nineties.
This movie is being plugged as the great new interpretation of Canada's coming of age as a nation during World War I.
Himself was very excited about it, being one of those (millions of) Canadians who has a deep interest in the subject. He even remembered the date we had to go to the cinema. Usually, Queenie gets to remember this kind of stuff on his behalf as part of her high end personal assistant role, the one with added benefits such as cooking and doing laundry tagged on.
Anyways, enough of that nasty sarcasm.
We remembered.
And we went.
We stopped into It's all Greek to me first for a stomach-stretching gastro-fest of Greek yumminess. We had the platter for starters which meant of course that we couldn't eat the main course, but we did our best and Himself did a lot better than me.
Himself and I are on a mission to check out the best restaurants in Halifax for the visitors who will be here next year, to ensure the euro-dollars go to the best places. Like I say regularly, we are dealing with the big issues before the big day.
Anyways, we were a little concerned the food would put us to sleep, but then we figured the film would be so good it wouldn't.
As it turned out, we didn't go to sleep, but we should've.
Yawn.
As one of the cinema reviewers in this town said, the movie is Saving Private Ryan meets Titanic.
I would add the scenery from Brokeback Mountain to that mix. And there you have it.
As we left the cinema to walk home (and get rid of some of the greekfest), I overheard someone say 'shit story, terrible plot, but that's what you get when the Tories fund culture.'
Monday, October 13, 2008
It must be chilly in hell tonight
If anyone had told me two years ago that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would save the stock market by nationalising the banks on the day that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics I would have laughed.
I would have.
And remember boys and girls, Queenie and at least four of her New Canadian friends can't vote tomorrow, so please, if you have one, use it for us, if not for yourself.
I don't think any of the four would go blue, if you're interested.
I would have.
And remember boys and girls, Queenie and at least four of her New Canadian friends can't vote tomorrow, so please, if you have one, use it for us, if not for yourself.
I don't think any of the four would go blue, if you're interested.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Being Thankful is difficult in the current world paradigm
No, I'm not going to talk about the world economic crisis.
Charlie Brooker wrote the piece I was going to write, so I don't need to do it now.
He of course wrote it much better than I would ever have done.
He of course doesn't have to weave tales of domestic bliss and gardening into everything he publishes, which makes it easier.
But still...
... I know when I'm in the presence of writing genius.
geneflects sortof...
I had to look up the spelling of that word. I don't often have to do that, but when I do, I always find I'm trying to put a U in the word somewhere.
I wonder why that is?
You'd think I'd be trying to put an I into the word.
I'm not going to talk about reality television either.
When did you change to accentmonkey.com? How posh!!! I'm all jealous now...
Even though I love So you think you can dance?, which is what we watch over here in Canader.
It's too early in the season to have an opinion on it, apart from the obvious one which is why are all the contestants from Ontario? Which I'm not going to address because the answer is that Ontario is where all the funding for extra-curricular youth activities is spent, because Ontario decides the government.
And I don't want to get into politics tonight.
Apart from one thing I need to say: the Canadian election is actually very interesting this time around, because we get to choose between:
the Tories: who are bastards according to everyone you talk to, even Tories, but who did actually did foresee some of this mess and tightened some, possibly relevant, banking rules just in time - not difficult in banking-conservative Canada though (it costs $3 to take money out of your bank account with another bank's ATM here, I kid you not) - so no big kudos for the grey eyed robot and his lackeys out there,
the Liberals: who have a John Bruton type geek leading them, but have a very interesting Green Shift policy that would shift the economy's taxation system to a carbon tax based one with reductions in income tax and investment in green jobs. Which is a great idea as far as I can make out, but which of course is really scary now because no one knows whether they'll have a job in a year's time. Unfortunately, the policy is incomprehensible when explained in a thick Quebec accent so nobody understands it except its author, Stephan Dion, soon to be former leader of the Liberal party (although this man won the leadership against Bob Rae and Ignatieff, so who knows....)
the NDP, which is doing pretty well right now touting their usual business bashing stuff. People are getting it this time round of course. But they have a strange and inevitably pro-business take on energy, i.e a cap and trade approach, which is obviously a curved ball thrown in to demand blind obedience from the intelligent yet committed NDP voter (or else the outcome of the Canadian Auto Workers' union having five seats on a four seat energy policy committee),
the Bloc, who were supposed to die this election, but who are having far too much fun picking on Harper for cutting cultural funding just before the election to leave the party on time (and of course, where would they go, now that money to spend on good parties has been withdrawn),
and the Greens, who were on 13 per cent last time I checked, which means they are going to fuck the numbers up for everyone else in their version of the Nader approach to saving the planet. Why don't Greens just vote for other people? Instead of trying to be in charge? It would work. Honest.
Results on Wednesday morning with your oatmeal for all you international political junkies. Will Canada be a weathervane for the lumpen prols worldwide? Probably. Will the prols save us? Probably not.
Not a lot to be thankful yet.
Charlie Brooker wrote the piece I was going to write, so I don't need to do it now.
He of course wrote it much better than I would ever have done.
He of course doesn't have to weave tales of domestic bliss and gardening into everything he publishes, which makes it easier.
But still...
... I know when I'm in the presence of writing genius.
geneflects sortof...
I had to look up the spelling of that word. I don't often have to do that, but when I do, I always find I'm trying to put a U in the word somewhere.
I wonder why that is?
You'd think I'd be trying to put an I into the word.
I'm not going to talk about reality television either.
When did you change to accentmonkey.com? How posh!!! I'm all jealous now...
Even though I love So you think you can dance?, which is what we watch over here in Canader.
It's too early in the season to have an opinion on it, apart from the obvious one which is why are all the contestants from Ontario? Which I'm not going to address because the answer is that Ontario is where all the funding for extra-curricular youth activities is spent, because Ontario decides the government.
And I don't want to get into politics tonight.
Apart from one thing I need to say: the Canadian election is actually very interesting this time around, because we get to choose between:
the Tories: who are bastards according to everyone you talk to, even Tories, but who did actually did foresee some of this mess and tightened some, possibly relevant, banking rules just in time - not difficult in banking-conservative Canada though (it costs $3 to take money out of your bank account with another bank's ATM here, I kid you not) - so no big kudos for the grey eyed robot and his lackeys out there,
the Liberals: who have a John Bruton type geek leading them, but have a very interesting Green Shift policy that would shift the economy's taxation system to a carbon tax based one with reductions in income tax and investment in green jobs. Which is a great idea as far as I can make out, but which of course is really scary now because no one knows whether they'll have a job in a year's time. Unfortunately, the policy is incomprehensible when explained in a thick Quebec accent so nobody understands it except its author, Stephan Dion, soon to be former leader of the Liberal party (although this man won the leadership against Bob Rae and Ignatieff, so who knows....)
the NDP, which is doing pretty well right now touting their usual business bashing stuff. People are getting it this time round of course. But they have a strange and inevitably pro-business take on energy, i.e a cap and trade approach, which is obviously a curved ball thrown in to demand blind obedience from the intelligent yet committed NDP voter (or else the outcome of the Canadian Auto Workers' union having five seats on a four seat energy policy committee),
the Bloc, who were supposed to die this election, but who are having far too much fun picking on Harper for cutting cultural funding just before the election to leave the party on time (and of course, where would they go, now that money to spend on good parties has been withdrawn),
and the Greens, who were on 13 per cent last time I checked, which means they are going to fuck the numbers up for everyone else in their version of the Nader approach to saving the planet. Why don't Greens just vote for other people? Instead of trying to be in charge? It would work. Honest.
Results on Wednesday morning with your oatmeal for all you international political junkies. Will Canada be a weathervane for the lumpen prols worldwide? Probably. Will the prols save us? Probably not.
Not a lot to be thankful yet.
Thankfully, by the time you read this....
... it will be Canadian Thanksgiving.
This year, most of us here in Canada are thankful that we are not American.
Yet.
This year, we are also thankful we are not Icelandic, although we have started going there on holidays as a nation, because of the special offer flights.
Me, I'm currently thankful I like to cook.
Up until last Thursday, I was going to my out-laws for Thanksgiving, which is what I normally do (unless I am lugging a canoe around a lake, which is what I did last year). Then, Himself's work took a swerve towards winter hours. So for the last three nights and the next seven, Himself is working a twelve hour shift from 7pm - 7am.
So not only do I have to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I have to have it on the table by four pm.
Bah.
I figured I would just not do it.
I told Himself we'd just have pork chops or something, because I don't like turkey and I didn't feel particularly thankful this year anyways.
Oh, he said.
Oh...
Himself, being a youngest child, has said family member's innate ability to pull THE SAH-DED-EST FACE IN DEH WOR-ALD EHV-HER when he needs to.
Oh, he said, with his sad face on.
I held my ground for a bit.
Then I heard him telling Kitty on the phone that he would do a meal for everyone on Sunday .... if he wasn't too tired.
Or sad, I assume.
Or dead from the H2S levels.
I don't actually know if Kitty was on the phone or this was just a ploy of course.
Anyways, it worked.
Christ almighty, I can't be one of those women who sends her bloke off to work a twelve hour shift in a place where the H2S levels are higher than the highest H2S levels ever recorded in the world ever, forcing him to be extremely BRAVE and RESOURCEFUL and CAREFUL and SUCCESSFULL at STAYING ALIVE and then forces him to take a shower as soon as he gets home from the FREEZING COLD and DANGEROUS oil rig bilge barge pumping whatever the fuck it is he's gotten Himself into doing now thingummy.
Just so he can cook a nice supper for her.
Without even asking about the H2S levels that day.
Well, I could be that kind of woman, but I choose not to be.
Actually, I'd quite like to freak out about the H2S levels, but I'm not allowed. Because it's not an issue. Because Himself is TOO CAREFUL TO DIE.
Phew.
Why am I living with a danger junkie?
Oh that's right, everyone else bored me to death eventually.
Maybe Himself will scare me to death eventually.
Or H2S me to death. According to Wiki, a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere could have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago.
There you go.
Okay, how did we get here from Thanksgiving?
Get back to the point, please.
Yes, anyways, I'm thankful I can cook. Because that means I don't have to cook a turkey.
I hate turkey.
I worked on a turkey farm once, long long time ago.
Some of my readers will know why.
It wasn't for the glamorous surroundings or the wages I can tell you.
My job was to get the plucked turkeys, cut out all the oozing scabs from the fighting that goes on in a turkey barn, and sew the skin together like new with white thread.
So, I don't like turkey.
So we're having rib of beef instead.
With a Dijon mustard and cumin crust.
And Yorkshire pudding.
With mashed and sweet potatoes, butternut squash (roasted, with brown sugar and butter) and turnip.
Because you can't have too many Fall colours on a plate in our house.
It will be preceded by a nourishing barley and lentil soup.
And followed by pumpkin pie, of course.
With lashings of cream.
A careful blend of Old and New World autumnal cooking.
It's all prepped so I don't have to do anything until 2pm and can spend the morning in the garden.
I texted the dinner menu to Himself at work.
To cheer him up.
And distract him from his H2S monitor.
Which beeps constantly, such is the danger that man puts Himself in in order to put prime rib of beef on the small pine dining table in our apartment.
(I'm not taking the piss out of Himself, by the way, I am dealing with the slight, scratching the back of my brain dread I am feeling about this job by using my lifelong friend and ally, sarcasm.)
He texted me back with the standard text I get when he's getting what he wanted all along.
UR the best babe.
Yes, I know I am.
You're completely spoiled is what it is, I texted him back.
So now we're actually having Thanksgiving, I guess I should be thinking about what I'm thankful for.
I'm so going to make everyone at the table tell each other what they're thankful for this year.
Just to make a point.
About gratitude.
This year, most of us here in Canada are thankful that we are not American.
Yet.
This year, we are also thankful we are not Icelandic, although we have started going there on holidays as a nation, because of the special offer flights.
Me, I'm currently thankful I like to cook.
Up until last Thursday, I was going to my out-laws for Thanksgiving, which is what I normally do (unless I am lugging a canoe around a lake, which is what I did last year). Then, Himself's work took a swerve towards winter hours. So for the last three nights and the next seven, Himself is working a twelve hour shift from 7pm - 7am.
So not only do I have to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I have to have it on the table by four pm.
Bah.
I figured I would just not do it.
I told Himself we'd just have pork chops or something, because I don't like turkey and I didn't feel particularly thankful this year anyways.
Oh, he said.
Oh...
Himself, being a youngest child, has said family member's innate ability to pull THE SAH-DED-EST FACE IN DEH WOR-ALD EHV-HER when he needs to.
Oh, he said, with his sad face on.
I held my ground for a bit.
Then I heard him telling Kitty on the phone that he would do a meal for everyone on Sunday .... if he wasn't too tired.
Or sad, I assume.
Or dead from the H2S levels.
I don't actually know if Kitty was on the phone or this was just a ploy of course.
Anyways, it worked.
Christ almighty, I can't be one of those women who sends her bloke off to work a twelve hour shift in a place where the H2S levels are higher than the highest H2S levels ever recorded in the world ever, forcing him to be extremely BRAVE and RESOURCEFUL and CAREFUL and SUCCESSFULL at STAYING ALIVE and then forces him to take a shower as soon as he gets home from the FREEZING COLD and DANGEROUS oil rig bilge barge pumping whatever the fuck it is he's gotten Himself into doing now thingummy.
Just so he can cook a nice supper for her.
Without even asking about the H2S levels that day.
Well, I could be that kind of woman, but I choose not to be.
Actually, I'd quite like to freak out about the H2S levels, but I'm not allowed. Because it's not an issue. Because Himself is TOO CAREFUL TO DIE.
Phew.
Why am I living with a danger junkie?
Oh that's right, everyone else bored me to death eventually.
Maybe Himself will scare me to death eventually.
Or H2S me to death. According to Wiki, a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere could have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago.
There you go.
Okay, how did we get here from Thanksgiving?
Get back to the point, please.
Yes, anyways, I'm thankful I can cook. Because that means I don't have to cook a turkey.
I hate turkey.
I worked on a turkey farm once, long long time ago.
Some of my readers will know why.
It wasn't for the glamorous surroundings or the wages I can tell you.
My job was to get the plucked turkeys, cut out all the oozing scabs from the fighting that goes on in a turkey barn, and sew the skin together like new with white thread.
So, I don't like turkey.
So we're having rib of beef instead.
With a Dijon mustard and cumin crust.
And Yorkshire pudding.
With mashed and sweet potatoes, butternut squash (roasted, with brown sugar and butter) and turnip.
Because you can't have too many Fall colours on a plate in our house.
It will be preceded by a nourishing barley and lentil soup.
And followed by pumpkin pie, of course.
With lashings of cream.
A careful blend of Old and New World autumnal cooking.
It's all prepped so I don't have to do anything until 2pm and can spend the morning in the garden.
I texted the dinner menu to Himself at work.
To cheer him up.
And distract him from his H2S monitor.
Which beeps constantly, such is the danger that man puts Himself in in order to put prime rib of beef on the small pine dining table in our apartment.
(I'm not taking the piss out of Himself, by the way, I am dealing with the slight, scratching the back of my brain dread I am feeling about this job by using my lifelong friend and ally, sarcasm.)
He texted me back with the standard text I get when he's getting what he wanted all along.
UR the best babe.
Yes, I know I am.
You're completely spoiled is what it is, I texted him back.
So now we're actually having Thanksgiving, I guess I should be thinking about what I'm thankful for.
I'm so going to make everyone at the table tell each other what they're thankful for this year.
Just to make a point.
About gratitude.
Charlie tells us it's over, so it must be over.
The inimitable Mr. Charlie Brooker, from the Guardian today... the only person who was more scared reading The Road than I was, for which I will love him forever.
Great. I go on holiday, turn my back for a few weeks, come back and what has happened? The banks are on fire and we're at war with Iceland. As I type these words (on a Friday morning, fact fans), Sky News is zooming in on a screen full of red flashing numbers, apparently willing them to fall yet lower. The problem is a lack of confidence, they keep saying, cutting away every so often to show a big plunging downward arrow or a shot of a City trader holding his head in despair.
I'm a bit sick of that whole holding-his-head-in-despair schtick, to be honest. It's about time they tried something more spectacular. Surely it's time for a revival of that great cliche of the 1930s, the ruined City whizzkid hurling himself out of the window? The credit crunch high dive.
Extra points if you manage to pull a backflip on the way down, or crack your jaw on a window cleaner's cradle somewhere around floor 35. The ultimate high score goes to the first one who manages to successfully update his Facebook status using an iPhone seconds before slamming into the pavement. "Danny is plummeting to his doom." Click here to tag him in a photo.
Is this the end of the world? If so, it's a bit more boring than I'd imagined. So far, it's been an invisible apocalypse. Poke your head out the window and there's little evidence of charred debris. Perhaps that's yet to come. Like I say, I'm writing this on Friday morning. By the time you read it, it'll be Monday. Maybe we're already bartering with coloured pebbles or fighting over water or something.
Still, there's no point in worrying. If we're going to be plunged into some kind of barbaric medieval dark age, I might as well be philosophical about it, because there's no way I'll survive more than a month. I'd be hopeless at fighting over basic resources and don't have any essential manual skills, such as the ability to hunt and skin rats. Perhaps I can learn the lute and become a minstrel, or perform bawdy jigs in exchange for pennies. Assuming there are any pennies. Hey, maybe just before all currency is finally declared worthless we'll get to experience the whole wheelbarrows-full-of-worthless-banknotes thing, like they did in Germany just before the war. That'd be a blast.
It all seems particularly bizarre, because just over a week ago I was in Las Vegas, as part of a US road trip I'm writing up for the Travel section. The casino put me up in an outrageous suite the size of a millionaire's bachelor pad. It had a pool table, a butler, and a shower in the lounge with a lapdancing pole in the middle of it. The windows looked out over the Las Vegas strip; specifically over the multimillion-dollar fountain show at the front of Bellagio. I visited a nightclub full of pricks who danced around tossing banknotes in the air, then returned to the suite, which alongside a pool table and a butler, also came equipped with about six gigantic, wall-mounted HD plasma TVs, every single one of which was screaming bad news about the economy. I felt like I was trapped inside a terrifying satirical sci-fi flick.
And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you're going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you've got a nice kitchen. Maybe that'll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you're about it. You can't afford fruit any more. It's tap water at best from now on. It's good for you! Really, it is.
All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years - none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living
Great. I go on holiday, turn my back for a few weeks, come back and what has happened? The banks are on fire and we're at war with Iceland. As I type these words (on a Friday morning, fact fans), Sky News is zooming in on a screen full of red flashing numbers, apparently willing them to fall yet lower. The problem is a lack of confidence, they keep saying, cutting away every so often to show a big plunging downward arrow or a shot of a City trader holding his head in despair.
I'm a bit sick of that whole holding-his-head-in-despair schtick, to be honest. It's about time they tried something more spectacular. Surely it's time for a revival of that great cliche of the 1930s, the ruined City whizzkid hurling himself out of the window? The credit crunch high dive.
Extra points if you manage to pull a backflip on the way down, or crack your jaw on a window cleaner's cradle somewhere around floor 35. The ultimate high score goes to the first one who manages to successfully update his Facebook status using an iPhone seconds before slamming into the pavement. "Danny is plummeting to his doom." Click here to tag him in a photo.
Is this the end of the world? If so, it's a bit more boring than I'd imagined. So far, it's been an invisible apocalypse. Poke your head out the window and there's little evidence of charred debris. Perhaps that's yet to come. Like I say, I'm writing this on Friday morning. By the time you read it, it'll be Monday. Maybe we're already bartering with coloured pebbles or fighting over water or something.
Still, there's no point in worrying. If we're going to be plunged into some kind of barbaric medieval dark age, I might as well be philosophical about it, because there's no way I'll survive more than a month. I'd be hopeless at fighting over basic resources and don't have any essential manual skills, such as the ability to hunt and skin rats. Perhaps I can learn the lute and become a minstrel, or perform bawdy jigs in exchange for pennies. Assuming there are any pennies. Hey, maybe just before all currency is finally declared worthless we'll get to experience the whole wheelbarrows-full-of-worthless-banknotes thing, like they did in Germany just before the war. That'd be a blast.
It all seems particularly bizarre, because just over a week ago I was in Las Vegas, as part of a US road trip I'm writing up for the Travel section. The casino put me up in an outrageous suite the size of a millionaire's bachelor pad. It had a pool table, a butler, and a shower in the lounge with a lapdancing pole in the middle of it. The windows looked out over the Las Vegas strip; specifically over the multimillion-dollar fountain show at the front of Bellagio. I visited a nightclub full of pricks who danced around tossing banknotes in the air, then returned to the suite, which alongside a pool table and a butler, also came equipped with about six gigantic, wall-mounted HD plasma TVs, every single one of which was screaming bad news about the economy. I felt like I was trapped inside a terrifying satirical sci-fi flick.
And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you're going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you've got a nice kitchen. Maybe that'll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you're about it. You can't afford fruit any more. It's tap water at best from now on. It's good for you! Really, it is.
All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years - none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living
Why do we insist on leaving a vaporous vapour trail?
We are truly the generation that won't allow ourselves to get drunk in peace, aren't we.
First of all, there was drunk behaviour.
Which was frowned on, but forgettable mainly due to the fleeting nature of it (unless there was a video camera in evidence). Or photos. But they could be lost in the move, couldn't they.
Then there was drunk telephoning.
Bad.
Then we invented drunk texting.
Pretty bad.
And now there's drunk Facebooking.
Two types.
Actual Facebooking when drunk. Well, not drunk so much as slightly tipsy so that you can't remember what stellar thought was in your head at the time you wrote the thing.
And then there's the really scary Facebooking of the past through image and sound.
Why do we leave this vaporous vapour trail behind us constantly?
We should have one day a year when there's no technology and we all just have a party or a debate or whatever we want, in peace, with no phones or Interweb.
I hereby command that August 8th be that day from now on.
I'll organize the party next year, howzat?!
Sitting here waiting for the breadmaker to finish making the bread.
When you peer inside, the weirdly contorting dough looks like the beginnings of a clone or something equally nasty.
First of all, there was drunk behaviour.
Which was frowned on, but forgettable mainly due to the fleeting nature of it (unless there was a video camera in evidence). Or photos. But they could be lost in the move, couldn't they.
Then there was drunk telephoning.
Bad.
Then we invented drunk texting.
Pretty bad.
And now there's drunk Facebooking.
Two types.
Actual Facebooking when drunk. Well, not drunk so much as slightly tipsy so that you can't remember what stellar thought was in your head at the time you wrote the thing.
And then there's the really scary Facebooking of the past through image and sound.
Why do we leave this vaporous vapour trail behind us constantly?
We should have one day a year when there's no technology and we all just have a party or a debate or whatever we want, in peace, with no phones or Interweb.
I hereby command that August 8th be that day from now on.
I'll organize the party next year, howzat?!
Sitting here waiting for the breadmaker to finish making the bread.
When you peer inside, the weirdly contorting dough looks like the beginnings of a clone or something equally nasty.
So if I didn't do it, and your dad didn't do it, and you didn't do it, then who did it? The fuck-up fairy?
'Utter carnage' is how one trader described events as he caught the train home from Canary Wharf on Friday
Yeah whatever, go on...
More than £600bn has been wiped from the value of shares of companies listed on the FTSE 100 since it climbed to 6,732 on 15 June 2007. Now the index is trading at around 4,000, a 40 per cent slump in 12 months,
By my calculations that is 4.553 to the power of -7. Of course, I don't know what that means. I think it means that every point of the FTSE was worth 4.5 Billion before. So the FTSE used to be worth 30,294 billion. So now the FTSE is worth 18,000 billion.
Yep. They're right.
59.4177.
I thought you rounded it down if it was less than five?
That will have a big impact on the value of pensions
Yes, they told us that at work.
Mark Otswald, an analyst at Monument Securities, describes the last few days as 'sheer, bloody panic. The Western financial system is breaking down.'
They didn't tell us that.
Apocalypse now? 'Let's hope not,' says Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered
Hear hear, Gerard...
they don't know how bad things are going to get, so the temptation is to dump assets, no matter what.'
They always trot out that line, don't they. I always wonder who 'they' are.
The first priority is to free up the money markets where banks lend to each other to ensure there is sufficient credit around to lend to businesses and mortgage borrowers. Ominously, that isn't happening,
I wonder where the money is ending up.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says: Companies are being squeezed and capital expenditure will be cut
Oh well, that's all right then. Capital expenditure is planned for and paid for in advance, by the government sometimes, isn't it.
Many businesses are already low on cash because of higher costs - such as fuel bills - and weakening consumer demand
Aaah, is that so.
(I saw three Hummers in the carpark at the superstore in Spryfield today... I swear to god I did).
The bank also charged £35,000 in fees. Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, says: 'The banks are trying to hoard cash and squeezing everyone down the chain
Aha. The banks are hoarding cash are they? There's a surprise.
September, there was a net outflow of $72bn from American mutual funds, and the figure for this month could be even higher.
In Britain, retail investors have held their nerve, although there was a £500m outflow in August
I have no idea what this means. But it sounds important.
But hedge funds are major sellers. That is happening for one of two reasons: either because banks are making margin calls, where they ask for more security as debt becomes dearer to service, or because investors are taking fright and cashing in their chips.
This is where I started to get interested. Why does the journalist not know why this is happening? He's already pointed out that the banks are hoarding cash.
Rich individuals, including Russian oligarchs, are also selling, in particular where loans are secured against equity stakes in companies under their control. As stock prices fall, banks are demanding more security from tycoons, many of whom have tied up their wealth in shares
If I were the banks, and I had totally fucked things up, and broken all the rules, and destroyed the meaning of the word trust, and been cast out in the street, and had to break back in and sit in the corner snivelling and begging, until I got the shrug that meant you had gotten away with it for about fifteen minutes, I would be hoarding too, obviously,
Ukrainian oligarch and iron ore miner Kostyantin Zhevago was forced to sell a 20 per cent stake in metal company Ferrexpo last week because of the steep fall in the price of commodities. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sold 20 per cent of Canadian car parts maker Magna
To whom have these people had to sell their said to be one time ill-gotten gains?
who bought 20 per cent of Magna?
and why was it not on the news?
Or did I miss it?
When the world's wealthy elites are forced to sell shares, it not only adds to the downward pressure on financial markets, but also takes spending power out of the economy, with spin-off effects for sectors as diverse as luxury goods, property and investment in jobs
Why? Do the people that buy them not have any fun ever? Do they just sit and count their money?
Who could these people be?
Who doesn't like to have fun?
The Depression of 80 years ago was compounded by the fact that wealth was controlled by an even narrower spectrum of society than today; the effect of wealth destruction for a few was felt disproportionately by the rest of the population. Nevertheless, a version of that nexus exists today
What does this mean? It is counter-intuitive to me? Surely if a wider range of people have money the risk is spread? Am I missing something important about percentages here?
I was never any good at gambling.
Oh no!! I get it now. It's the same as I think, it's just too academic for me to understand it.
the insurance companies have escaped relatively unscathed, and fears that they might have to sell shares to increase their solvency ratios to make good a decline in equity prices appear overdone.
In 2001-02, British insurers such as Standard Life were forced to sell equities to meet capital adequacy requirements, but today insurers are less vulnerable.
Ahaaa!!!! This has happened before.
But not to the banks.
That's why it's terrible this time.
Of more concern are the potential liabilities hanging over credit default swaps, a huge unregulated sector that few people know about or understand.
Does anyone know what a credit default swap is?
Over the last 12 years, the value of the CDS market, where these contracts are traded like other derivatives, has grown to $55 trillion. CDSs have been used to insure risky mortgage bonds, as well as the debt of collapsed institutions such as Lehman Brothers. The worry is that insurers and banks that underwrote these instruments will not be able to meet their liabilities.
And they are?
With judgement, and perhaps a little luck, the financial crisis that has enveloped the world can be brought under control via a global rescue plan, but the aftershock will almost certainly be with us for years to come.
Yes, boys and girls, that's the end of the article. I swear to god it is. And there are no comments.
Investopedia says that a credit default swap is
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap. For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.
So in the case of Lehman Bros, they sold 'toxic something or others' and then they did a credit swap with someone else. The someone else gets the insurance. And then the insurance company can sue Lehman Bros for the pay out costs when the 'toxic something or other' collapses.
So the government is buying the toxic something or others so that means the government will have to guarantee the creditworthyness of the product.
So how will the government do that? Does it have to guarantee it to itself and just take the hit?
Why on earth would anyone do any of this?
If I am reading this article right, somebody has done this to the tune of $55 trillion.
This is the teenage equivalent of being in so much trouble that it's worse than the time that despite your best efforts at being sorry the cops rang the house in the middle of the night after they'd picked you up when you were puking up on the street purely to wake your parents up straight after they'd finally gone to sleep right after they had had an argument.
You'd think someone would fucking understand the pain they're all in, wouldn't you.
I do.
he he he
What has to happen now is that trust has to be re-established.
How many times have I heard that this month.
And now I finally understand
Who do YOU trust?
With the greatest respect to Richard Wachman and Tim Webb.
Yeah whatever, go on...
More than £600bn has been wiped from the value of shares of companies listed on the FTSE 100 since it climbed to 6,732 on 15 June 2007. Now the index is trading at around 4,000, a 40 per cent slump in 12 months,
By my calculations that is 4.553 to the power of -7. Of course, I don't know what that means. I think it means that every point of the FTSE was worth 4.5 Billion before. So the FTSE used to be worth 30,294 billion. So now the FTSE is worth 18,000 billion.
Yep. They're right.
59.4177.
I thought you rounded it down if it was less than five?
That will have a big impact on the value of pensions
Yes, they told us that at work.
Mark Otswald, an analyst at Monument Securities, describes the last few days as 'sheer, bloody panic. The Western financial system is breaking down.'
They didn't tell us that.
Apocalypse now? 'Let's hope not,' says Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered
Hear hear, Gerard...
they don't know how bad things are going to get, so the temptation is to dump assets, no matter what.'
They always trot out that line, don't they. I always wonder who 'they' are.
The first priority is to free up the money markets where banks lend to each other to ensure there is sufficient credit around to lend to businesses and mortgage borrowers. Ominously, that isn't happening,
I wonder where the money is ending up.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says: Companies are being squeezed and capital expenditure will be cut
Oh well, that's all right then. Capital expenditure is planned for and paid for in advance, by the government sometimes, isn't it.
Many businesses are already low on cash because of higher costs - such as fuel bills - and weakening consumer demand
Aaah, is that so.
(I saw three Hummers in the carpark at the superstore in Spryfield today... I swear to god I did).
The bank also charged £35,000 in fees. Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, says: 'The banks are trying to hoard cash and squeezing everyone down the chain
Aha. The banks are hoarding cash are they? There's a surprise.
September, there was a net outflow of $72bn from American mutual funds, and the figure for this month could be even higher.
In Britain, retail investors have held their nerve, although there was a £500m outflow in August
I have no idea what this means. But it sounds important.
But hedge funds are major sellers. That is happening for one of two reasons: either because banks are making margin calls, where they ask for more security as debt becomes dearer to service, or because investors are taking fright and cashing in their chips.
This is where I started to get interested. Why does the journalist not know why this is happening? He's already pointed out that the banks are hoarding cash.
Rich individuals, including Russian oligarchs, are also selling, in particular where loans are secured against equity stakes in companies under their control. As stock prices fall, banks are demanding more security from tycoons, many of whom have tied up their wealth in shares
If I were the banks, and I had totally fucked things up, and broken all the rules, and destroyed the meaning of the word trust, and been cast out in the street, and had to break back in and sit in the corner snivelling and begging, until I got the shrug that meant you had gotten away with it for about fifteen minutes, I would be hoarding too, obviously,
Ukrainian oligarch and iron ore miner Kostyantin Zhevago was forced to sell a 20 per cent stake in metal company Ferrexpo last week because of the steep fall in the price of commodities. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sold 20 per cent of Canadian car parts maker Magna
To whom have these people had to sell their said to be one time ill-gotten gains?
who bought 20 per cent of Magna?
and why was it not on the news?
Or did I miss it?
When the world's wealthy elites are forced to sell shares, it not only adds to the downward pressure on financial markets, but also takes spending power out of the economy, with spin-off effects for sectors as diverse as luxury goods, property and investment in jobs
Why? Do the people that buy them not have any fun ever? Do they just sit and count their money?
Who could these people be?
Who doesn't like to have fun?
The Depression of 80 years ago was compounded by the fact that wealth was controlled by an even narrower spectrum of society than today; the effect of wealth destruction for a few was felt disproportionately by the rest of the population. Nevertheless, a version of that nexus exists today
What does this mean? It is counter-intuitive to me? Surely if a wider range of people have money the risk is spread? Am I missing something important about percentages here?
I was never any good at gambling.
Oh no!! I get it now. It's the same as I think, it's just too academic for me to understand it.
the insurance companies have escaped relatively unscathed, and fears that they might have to sell shares to increase their solvency ratios to make good a decline in equity prices appear overdone.
In 2001-02, British insurers such as Standard Life were forced to sell equities to meet capital adequacy requirements, but today insurers are less vulnerable.
Ahaaa!!!! This has happened before.
But not to the banks.
That's why it's terrible this time.
Of more concern are the potential liabilities hanging over credit default swaps, a huge unregulated sector that few people know about or understand.
Does anyone know what a credit default swap is?
Over the last 12 years, the value of the CDS market, where these contracts are traded like other derivatives, has grown to $55 trillion. CDSs have been used to insure risky mortgage bonds, as well as the debt of collapsed institutions such as Lehman Brothers. The worry is that insurers and banks that underwrote these instruments will not be able to meet their liabilities.
And they are?
With judgement, and perhaps a little luck, the financial crisis that has enveloped the world can be brought under control via a global rescue plan, but the aftershock will almost certainly be with us for years to come.
Yes, boys and girls, that's the end of the article. I swear to god it is. And there are no comments.
Investopedia says that a credit default swap is
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap. For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.
So in the case of Lehman Bros, they sold 'toxic something or others' and then they did a credit swap with someone else. The someone else gets the insurance. And then the insurance company can sue Lehman Bros for the pay out costs when the 'toxic something or other' collapses.
So the government is buying the toxic something or others so that means the government will have to guarantee the creditworthyness of the product.
So how will the government do that? Does it have to guarantee it to itself and just take the hit?
Why on earth would anyone do any of this?
If I am reading this article right, somebody has done this to the tune of $55 trillion.
This is the teenage equivalent of being in so much trouble that it's worse than the time that despite your best efforts at being sorry the cops rang the house in the middle of the night after they'd picked you up when you were puking up on the street purely to wake your parents up straight after they'd finally gone to sleep right after they had had an argument.
You'd think someone would fucking understand the pain they're all in, wouldn't you.
I do.
he he he
What has to happen now is that trust has to be re-established.
How many times have I heard that this month.
And now I finally understand
Who do YOU trust?
With the greatest respect to Richard Wachman and Tim Webb.
Cross-posting from the Farm
Farmer Brown found an article in The Washington Monthly that I loved.
Here it is:
There are some great comments on this article, isn't it funny that already, online newspapers have found a way to tap into the great forum that is the human need to hours every day in the schoolrooms of their childhood...
The McCain/Palin ticket is "historical" on several levels.
First POW/First Sow (with lipstick even.)
First pill popping, beer heiress, trophy wife/First Dude.
Oldest ever/Dumbest ever.
Fought for the U.S/Wants to secede from the U.S.
Air jockey dad/Hockey mom.
Joe 12 homes/Joe Six pack.
Maverick/Moose hunter
That's all I can think of, I invite others to come up with more
You suck too.
You do.
If you haven't already realised, this is an article about the McCain/ Palin ticket.
I wonder if they have an article about the banking crisis?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php
I do link, but I'm not going to do it before I explain why.
Here it is:
There are some great comments on this article, isn't it funny that already, online newspapers have found a way to tap into the great forum that is the human need to hours every day in the schoolrooms of their childhood...
The McCain/Palin ticket is "historical" on several levels.
First POW/First Sow (with lipstick even.)
First pill popping, beer heiress, trophy wife/First Dude.
Oldest ever/Dumbest ever.
Fought for the U.S/Wants to secede from the U.S.
Air jockey dad/Hockey mom.
Joe 12 homes/Joe Six pack.
Maverick/Moose hunter
That's all I can think of, I invite others to come up with more
You suck too.
You do.
If you haven't already realised, this is an article about the McCain/ Palin ticket.
I wonder if they have an article about the banking crisis?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php
I do link, but I'm not going to do it before I explain why.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tonight
I was going to stay in and blog tonight.
But I got invited out.
So I have put on a dress.
Yes, I have.
And now I am going to put my make up on prop'ly.
And go out.
HURRAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy 18th Birthday Kitty.
You look so grown up in your new purple killer-sex-kitten boots.
The Queenie Knows about Boots.
Oh yes, she does.
May the next 18 years be what you want them to be.
But I got invited out.
So I have put on a dress.
Yes, I have.
And now I am going to put my make up on prop'ly.
And go out.
HURRAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy 18th Birthday Kitty.
You look so grown up in your new purple killer-sex-kitten boots.
The Queenie Knows about Boots.
Oh yes, she does.
May the next 18 years be what you want them to be.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Everything changes and everything stays the same
This from Miriam Lord's Irish Times' daily political sketch today:
Once there (in Irish Parliament building), they (Fine Gael front bench) will have come across a press release from Sinn Féin's Arthur Morgan, who is his party's spokesman on their latest relationship with the banks.
Sinn Féin has always enjoyed a unique relationship with banks.
"Morgan to set out minimum terms and conditions acceptable to Sinn Féin for deal with Irish banks," said the press release.
The financial institutions must have been agog. In their hour of need, were they going to get some of their money back?
hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
That's cheered me up no end.
That and the fact that Manolo Blahnik has opened a shop in Dublin.
And the fact that we in North America are soon to be joined by Mr. Charlie Bird for a spell.
What's that, Charlie?? I can't hear you!!
La plus ca change, la plus ca c'est la meme chose..... as they say in Paris Fashion Week.
Once there (in Irish Parliament building), they (Fine Gael front bench) will have come across a press release from Sinn Féin's Arthur Morgan, who is his party's spokesman on their latest relationship with the banks.
Sinn Féin has always enjoyed a unique relationship with banks.
"Morgan to set out minimum terms and conditions acceptable to Sinn Féin for deal with Irish banks," said the press release.
The financial institutions must have been agog. In their hour of need, were they going to get some of their money back?
hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
That's cheered me up no end.
That and the fact that Manolo Blahnik has opened a shop in Dublin.
And the fact that we in North America are soon to be joined by Mr. Charlie Bird for a spell.
What's that, Charlie?? I can't hear you!!
La plus ca change, la plus ca c'est la meme chose..... as they say in Paris Fashion Week.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Mellowed in Melwood
So we're home at last. The Great Ontario Moosehunt is over, with nary a moose to be seen, except for the ones on the front of the Moosehead beer bottles.
And we didn't even see very many of them.
Not a bear.
Not a moose.
Not a beaver.
Lots of deer though, and squirrels.
And trees of course.
We went horse riding. Or horseback riding as it's called in Canada.
To distinguish it from horse front riding???
WTF?
We found a horse farm that had a nice lady and her husband who got rid of the kids, sold the suburban detached, bought three hundred acres of the Canadian Shield and 22 horses, and built their own cabin out of their own lumber which they got from their own trees which they cut down and milled themselves.
Pretty impressive.
When I say 'got rid of the kids', I mean completed rearing them, not doing away with them of course.
So we had a nice three hour ride through their land, I was on Sass (of course) and Himself was on Doll, Sass' sister. It was his first time on a horse and he did very well.
Now of course, we have to add horses to the future plans (he doesn't understand the concept of feed bills yet, but he'll learn).
Then we had to go back to the hotel, sorry, resort, because I had to go back to work and attend Ontario's Digital Economy conference.
It was okay.
I am truly shocked at how far Canada is lagging behind countries such as Ireland in the digital economy.
Of course, if you have millions of acres of land with trees, and water, and oil, and potash, and copper, and uranium, etc., you don't really need to be up to speed on the new economy.
We watched the bloodbath that is the global financial meltdown on tv a bit and also the Canadian election debates. Which were fun in a sad political junkie kinda way.
Then we had to get back in the car and drive home.
It was the second time in my life I arrived in Nova Scotia at dawn. It is the best way to do it, even if it is exhausting and I am still so tired from the hours and hours in the car.
Twenty two hours later we pulled into Melwood to see the sun out and the neighbours in the yard.
Thankfully we had brought back wine for everyone so we sat in the yard in the sunshine and then we had a big bonfire when it got colder and everyone caught up with what everyone else has been up to in the last two weeks. Some of the previous occupants arrived too to liven things up, and we called Shelley in Manitoba, so nearly everyone was present in some way.
So, laundry, shopping and clean up today, and back to work tomorrow.
Sigh.
And we didn't even see very many of them.
Not a bear.
Not a moose.
Not a beaver.
Lots of deer though, and squirrels.
And trees of course.
We went horse riding. Or horseback riding as it's called in Canada.
To distinguish it from horse front riding???
WTF?
We found a horse farm that had a nice lady and her husband who got rid of the kids, sold the suburban detached, bought three hundred acres of the Canadian Shield and 22 horses, and built their own cabin out of their own lumber which they got from their own trees which they cut down and milled themselves.
Pretty impressive.
When I say 'got rid of the kids', I mean completed rearing them, not doing away with them of course.
So we had a nice three hour ride through their land, I was on Sass (of course) and Himself was on Doll, Sass' sister. It was his first time on a horse and he did very well.
Now of course, we have to add horses to the future plans (he doesn't understand the concept of feed bills yet, but he'll learn).
Then we had to go back to the hotel, sorry, resort, because I had to go back to work and attend Ontario's Digital Economy conference.
It was okay.
I am truly shocked at how far Canada is lagging behind countries such as Ireland in the digital economy.
Of course, if you have millions of acres of land with trees, and water, and oil, and potash, and copper, and uranium, etc., you don't really need to be up to speed on the new economy.
We watched the bloodbath that is the global financial meltdown on tv a bit and also the Canadian election debates. Which were fun in a sad political junkie kinda way.
Then we had to get back in the car and drive home.
It was the second time in my life I arrived in Nova Scotia at dawn. It is the best way to do it, even if it is exhausting and I am still so tired from the hours and hours in the car.
Twenty two hours later we pulled into Melwood to see the sun out and the neighbours in the yard.
Thankfully we had brought back wine for everyone so we sat in the yard in the sunshine and then we had a big bonfire when it got colder and everyone caught up with what everyone else has been up to in the last two weeks. Some of the previous occupants arrived too to liven things up, and we called Shelley in Manitoba, so nearly everyone was present in some way.
So, laundry, shopping and clean up today, and back to work tomorrow.
Sigh.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Great Ontario Moosehunt
So Himself and I have traversed Atlantic Canada and Quebec and are now in Ontario.
We're only in the south-eastern part of Ontario, but I still feel like I'm a long way away from home.
#1. Canada is very big. Very very very big. Particularly if you come from a little island on the west coast of Europe.
#2. There are a lot of trees in Canada. And most of them are varying shades of gold, red and orange right now, which makes for a very pretty drive. New Brunswick is just a big Irving tree farm, with the occasional strip of farmland along the St. John river. Himself's ancestor, Daniel, was one of the Loyalist soldiers that helped settle Loyalist refugees along that river in the mid-seventeen hundreds, so we spent most of the hours driving through New Brunswick imagining what it must have been like to fetch up there with a few hand tools and some supplies for the winter.
Not good.
Personally, if I had to live in interior New Brunswick, I would not be a happy camper. The coastal areas are much more interesting.
Having said that, we are on our Great Ontario Moosehunt (I have never seen a moose) and we saw one in New Brunswick.
A lady moose.
But not up close.
#3. For a country with as many trees and swamps and Danger, Moose Ahead signs as I've seen in the last few months, there aren't the dozens of moose lining the roads to ram the Beast as I expected.
The Danger, Moose Ahead signs are particularly funny.
In New Brunswick, the moose on the signs are just standing there, looking at the oncoming cars (note these are yellow road signs with black outlines of moose).
In Quebec, the moose has charged a car side on and squashed the car. Which is unusual because moose generally just loom out of the darkness and stand there while you hit them with your car. (they then fall off their spindly legs and fall through your window). This is a very aggressive and angry moose - perhaps he has lost his cultural funding and is looking for the Tory tour bus to ram?
Speaking of elections, the Liberals have just accused Stephen Harper of copying his homework from John Howard. Highly amusing pre-election mud-slinging stuff. I pity both the poor Liberal staffer who obviously has no life, other than searching the Net for right wing idealogue fuckups, and who stumbled onto the 2003 plagiarism, and the poor Tory staffer who obviously has no job now, who actually lifted the speech and put it into Harper's set-piece on Iraq.
The Great Game continues in the hearts and minds of the Canadian people.
The Great Ontario Moosehunt continues, unabated, in Ontario.
We made it through Montreal and drove to Ottawa in about two hours through flat farmland. Not so many trees. Many many cows and lots of slurry spreaders. As we headed west on the 60, the land became a little more rocky and the trees reappeared.
# 4. The 60 is a very nice highway. I recommend it as a way through Ontario, if you have time to meander along it.
We fetched up in Arnprior, near Ottawa on Sunday night, as our former neighbours seem to have disappeared.
Generally, there's a lot of Jesus worshipping going on in this part of Ontario. I'm not sure if this is the part of Ontario that Alice Munro wrote about, I have a feeling I'm pretty close to it.
Arnprior boasted thirteen churches, one of which has a big lit up-at-night cross on a hill.
We stayed in the Comfort Inn, which was the only hotel, and ate in the Elgin Restaurant, which handily enough was in the hotel.
The special was ribs.
They were so big that we didn't speak for twenty minutes while we ate them.
(I swear I am getting more like a Canadian/ like my paternal relations in my growing inability to eat and talk at the same time. Talking only slows down the eating, doesn't it, and the enjoyment of the food).
Then we staggered back upstairs and lay on the bed which was really not big enough for two people who are used to a king-sized and not used to eating that many ribs in one go.
Then it was 7am and time to get on the road again.
Thankfully, Monday was only a four hour hop through the Ottawa Valley and Algonquin Park to Huntsville where our hotel, sorry resort, is.
Algonquin Park is Canada's oldest provincial park and has been around for about 110 years. It was originally set aside so that logging barons such as JR Booth could log in peace without worrying about prospectors, settlers and the like either moving in, or just plain old setting fire to the trees they had bought at auction.
JR Booth, who was one of the richest men in North America at the time, owned the rights to most of the park. He built a railway through it which is totally overgrown now. In fact, we walked on a trail along the old railway and it was incomprehensible to us that it used to be a railway line.
Then we found an old sleeper under the moss.
Algonquin was lovely and the weather was great, so the railway track trail was a wonderful trek through maple stands and around lakes and more importantly hills (so the seniors couldn't get around it).
No, I'm not being ageist, it's just that having had to walk at funeral pace on a previous trek that promised black spruce bog and moose and gave us bog and moose tracks only, due to the plethora of seniors trundling along the track, we really needed to just stretch out leg muscles that had been in a car for four days.
However, in the Canadian version of the game Himself and I play when driving around Nova Scotia: Spot the Young Person, it would appear that NB, QUE and Ontario are as chock-a-block with seniors and as devoid of young people - apart from in crappy service jobs - as Nova Scotia seems to be.
Maybe rural depopulation is not a NS thing, maybe it's a Canada thing.
There are some lovely little towns in this part of Ontario though; it would be a real shame if they were to die off and people kept drifting towards the GTA.
Anyways, after about 10kms of walking, we still hadn't seen any moose or bear, so we headed back to the car and drove the rest of the way to Deerhurst Resort, near Huntsville.
Typical resort hotel. Overpriced, lots of airs and graces, vast quantities of add-on costs, and when you really get down to it, cheap towels.
I hate cheap towels.
Having said that, we have a lovely room overlooking the lake and the autumn colours are as vivid and bright as you can get here.
Today it has been raining, so we went into Huntsville for food and found the liquor store, which was much better than any Nova Scotia liquor store I have seen yet. It had a massive wine section, with rows of tetra pack wine (for camping) and a great South American section.
It also has a great International Bottled Beer selection - with beer from England, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Jamaica, US and many many other countries, some of which I've never seen before.
So we added to Himself's beer bottle collection.
I think it's stopped raining, so maybe we should drag ourselves back out to the car and head off on our moose hunt again this afternoon.
We're only in the south-eastern part of Ontario, but I still feel like I'm a long way away from home.
#1. Canada is very big. Very very very big. Particularly if you come from a little island on the west coast of Europe.
#2. There are a lot of trees in Canada. And most of them are varying shades of gold, red and orange right now, which makes for a very pretty drive. New Brunswick is just a big Irving tree farm, with the occasional strip of farmland along the St. John river. Himself's ancestor, Daniel, was one of the Loyalist soldiers that helped settle Loyalist refugees along that river in the mid-seventeen hundreds, so we spent most of the hours driving through New Brunswick imagining what it must have been like to fetch up there with a few hand tools and some supplies for the winter.
Not good.
Personally, if I had to live in interior New Brunswick, I would not be a happy camper. The coastal areas are much more interesting.
Having said that, we are on our Great Ontario Moosehunt (I have never seen a moose) and we saw one in New Brunswick.
A lady moose.
But not up close.
#3. For a country with as many trees and swamps and Danger, Moose Ahead signs as I've seen in the last few months, there aren't the dozens of moose lining the roads to ram the Beast as I expected.
The Danger, Moose Ahead signs are particularly funny.
In New Brunswick, the moose on the signs are just standing there, looking at the oncoming cars (note these are yellow road signs with black outlines of moose).
In Quebec, the moose has charged a car side on and squashed the car. Which is unusual because moose generally just loom out of the darkness and stand there while you hit them with your car. (they then fall off their spindly legs and fall through your window). This is a very aggressive and angry moose - perhaps he has lost his cultural funding and is looking for the Tory tour bus to ram?
Speaking of elections, the Liberals have just accused Stephen Harper of copying his homework from John Howard. Highly amusing pre-election mud-slinging stuff. I pity both the poor Liberal staffer who obviously has no life, other than searching the Net for right wing idealogue fuckups, and who stumbled onto the 2003 plagiarism, and the poor Tory staffer who obviously has no job now, who actually lifted the speech and put it into Harper's set-piece on Iraq.
The Great Game continues in the hearts and minds of the Canadian people.
The Great Ontario Moosehunt continues, unabated, in Ontario.
We made it through Montreal and drove to Ottawa in about two hours through flat farmland. Not so many trees. Many many cows and lots of slurry spreaders. As we headed west on the 60, the land became a little more rocky and the trees reappeared.
# 4. The 60 is a very nice highway. I recommend it as a way through Ontario, if you have time to meander along it.
We fetched up in Arnprior, near Ottawa on Sunday night, as our former neighbours seem to have disappeared.
Generally, there's a lot of Jesus worshipping going on in this part of Ontario. I'm not sure if this is the part of Ontario that Alice Munro wrote about, I have a feeling I'm pretty close to it.
Arnprior boasted thirteen churches, one of which has a big lit up-at-night cross on a hill.
We stayed in the Comfort Inn, which was the only hotel, and ate in the Elgin Restaurant, which handily enough was in the hotel.
The special was ribs.
They were so big that we didn't speak for twenty minutes while we ate them.
(I swear I am getting more like a Canadian/ like my paternal relations in my growing inability to eat and talk at the same time. Talking only slows down the eating, doesn't it, and the enjoyment of the food).
Then we staggered back upstairs and lay on the bed which was really not big enough for two people who are used to a king-sized and not used to eating that many ribs in one go.
Then it was 7am and time to get on the road again.
Thankfully, Monday was only a four hour hop through the Ottawa Valley and Algonquin Park to Huntsville where our hotel, sorry resort, is.
Algonquin Park is Canada's oldest provincial park and has been around for about 110 years. It was originally set aside so that logging barons such as JR Booth could log in peace without worrying about prospectors, settlers and the like either moving in, or just plain old setting fire to the trees they had bought at auction.
JR Booth, who was one of the richest men in North America at the time, owned the rights to most of the park. He built a railway through it which is totally overgrown now. In fact, we walked on a trail along the old railway and it was incomprehensible to us that it used to be a railway line.
Then we found an old sleeper under the moss.
Algonquin was lovely and the weather was great, so the railway track trail was a wonderful trek through maple stands and around lakes and more importantly hills (so the seniors couldn't get around it).
No, I'm not being ageist, it's just that having had to walk at funeral pace on a previous trek that promised black spruce bog and moose and gave us bog and moose tracks only, due to the plethora of seniors trundling along the track, we really needed to just stretch out leg muscles that had been in a car for four days.
However, in the Canadian version of the game Himself and I play when driving around Nova Scotia: Spot the Young Person, it would appear that NB, QUE and Ontario are as chock-a-block with seniors and as devoid of young people - apart from in crappy service jobs - as Nova Scotia seems to be.
Maybe rural depopulation is not a NS thing, maybe it's a Canada thing.
There are some lovely little towns in this part of Ontario though; it would be a real shame if they were to die off and people kept drifting towards the GTA.
Anyways, after about 10kms of walking, we still hadn't seen any moose or bear, so we headed back to the car and drove the rest of the way to Deerhurst Resort, near Huntsville.
Typical resort hotel. Overpriced, lots of airs and graces, vast quantities of add-on costs, and when you really get down to it, cheap towels.
I hate cheap towels.
Having said that, we have a lovely room overlooking the lake and the autumn colours are as vivid and bright as you can get here.
Today it has been raining, so we went into Huntsville for food and found the liquor store, which was much better than any Nova Scotia liquor store I have seen yet. It had a massive wine section, with rows of tetra pack wine (for camping) and a great South American section.
It also has a great International Bottled Beer selection - with beer from England, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Jamaica, US and many many other countries, some of which I've never seen before.
So we added to Himself's beer bottle collection.
I think it's stopped raining, so maybe we should drag ourselves back out to the car and head off on our moose hunt again this afternoon.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
New Brunswick and Quebec
We left Halifax about three pm on Friday and drove to Woodstock. Woodstock, New Brunswick.
Not the cool one.
We drove around a bit and found a Best Western and checked in and then we went to the PUB, the name of which I can't remember.... Himself thinks it may have been the Hometown Pub or something... just let's call it the Good Ole Boys pub... we were the only people in the pub not wearing a baseball cap.
But we had a nice steak each. And they had wine. Hurrah. And beer. The beer was on a special two for one, but the wine was not, no matter how hard I tried with the server who had a very sophisticated two way radio device in his ear, despite the fact that the pub was about the size of a normal pub with about twenty customers in it.
It had four enormous tv screens with the pre-season hockey on it.
I broke the news to Himself that I had decided to be a Canadien fan for the foreseeable.
Himself is a Maple Leaf fan.
He tried to explain that being a Habs fan was not allowed for people who intend to marry him, but I decided that that was stupid.
Like I said in a previous post, we are working our way through the major issues before we wed.
After the enormous steak, our tummies were too stretched to do more than have another couple of two for one beers and then trundle back to the BestWestern for telly and bed.
Up early next morning and onto Quebec city.
We liked Quebec City.
It's like a legoland Prague.
Or Paris, I suppose.
After seven pm, it pretty much shut down of course, being Canadian, but it was our single vacation night where we could let rip so we found a pub and then a restaurant, and then nicely full of (steak again) and beer and wine, we staggered down the Rue St Jean and found Les Yeux Bleues, which was recommended in the Lonely Planet.
It was a small, seedy bar a la Baggot Inn in the eighties, with a few live acts that consisted of French singer/ songwriters that sang two English songs to prove they understood the concept of rock music and then reverted to Quebec pop.
I'm sorry.
The French are great at movies.
They are great at art.
They are great at sculpture.
They are great at all forms of culture.
But put a guitar in their hands and all they can come up with is the effin' theme tune to the Teletubbies.
Everyone sang along raucously.
We met a pair of Boston gals who had driven out of the States for the first time in their lives that day.
We drank a pitcher of beer and staggered home through the drizzle to our dreadful little French hotel room that cost a fortune.
C'est Quebec.
Today, we drove to Montreal, then Ottawa, and now we are just three hours from our destination.
I'm too full of ribs and chocolate to say anything meaningful, so I'll just go to bed now.
1,454 kms and counting
So, we're in our room in our motel in Arnprior, Ontario.
We are lying on the bed groaning in agony because we just ate the best ribs ever followed by the best chocolate cake dessert ever in a little diner in a little town in Nowhere, ONT.
Well, Queenie has managed to drag herself off the bed to put photos up on Facebook and write in the blog.
Himself is still lying on the bed groaning and watching Hurricane Kyle destroy what's left of his house on the island.
Here's a photo from Quebec City, from the Salon de Chasse.
That's the closest to a bear I ever want to get.
WE SAW A MOOSE YESTERDAY.
It was a bit sad, really, we drove the entire length of the interior of New Brunswick, and saw one moose. Well, whizzed past it as I screamed MOOSE, MOOSE, MOOSE.
Hopefully we will see some more tomorrow.
In Algonquin Park.
Which I have wanted to go to since I was about 10 and I saw a documentary on it on the television.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Road Trip time of year
In a big 'screw you' to the forces of recession and oil panic, Queenie and Himself are going on a 4,000 km road trip today.
From Halifax to Quebec, then to Ottawa, hopefully, and down Route 60 through Algonquin Park to Huntsville, Ontario. Queenie has to go to a conference on the digital economy and Himself is going to lay around the posh hotel and go riding on the horses and canoeing in the lake and all sorts of exciting stuff.
He is very excited about being Queenie's 'conference spouse attendee'.
Then we're going to drive home.
The leaves will be turning and there's two ridges of high pressure meeting for a chat right about where we're headed so hopefully we'll have some nice views and some good photos when we're back.
I'm assuming the digital economy conference will be in a wifi hotspot, so maybe there'll even be a blog or two.
Road trip across (approximately one third of) Canada.
Happy happy squirming ensues.
As I said to the Queen Mother last night, we may not even turn the Beast around when the time comes - we may end up in BC - and go shrimp fishing with Justin for the winter.
Farmer Brown, you have been warned. If you see a dirty red car lurking around your street, it'll be us!!
Anyways, stay happy till we're back.
From Halifax to Quebec, then to Ottawa, hopefully, and down Route 60 through Algonquin Park to Huntsville, Ontario. Queenie has to go to a conference on the digital economy and Himself is going to lay around the posh hotel and go riding on the horses and canoeing in the lake and all sorts of exciting stuff.
He is very excited about being Queenie's 'conference spouse attendee'.
Then we're going to drive home.
The leaves will be turning and there's two ridges of high pressure meeting for a chat right about where we're headed so hopefully we'll have some nice views and some good photos when we're back.
I'm assuming the digital economy conference will be in a wifi hotspot, so maybe there'll even be a blog or two.
Road trip across (approximately one third of) Canada.
Happy happy squirming ensues.
As I said to the Queen Mother last night, we may not even turn the Beast around when the time comes - we may end up in BC - and go shrimp fishing with Justin for the winter.
Farmer Brown, you have been warned. If you see a dirty red car lurking around your street, it'll be us!!
Anyways, stay happy till we're back.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Waiting for the other shoe to drop
This has to be my favourite jargon phrase ever.
What the hell does it mean?
I mean, I know what it means. It means something bad yet salvageable has happened, but the likkelihood of an escalation is immense, so everyone is just hanging around not making any decisions about anything...
... because they are waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Before I research this, I am going to bet that it has something to do with hanging.
Time passes, while Queenie does the Google thing...
NOPE!! Queenie is wrong. People who are hanged don't have to endure their shoes falling off one by one, which is the visual image she had in her head for this phrase. It apparently has its roots in a vaudeville sketch. From Worldwide Words:
Its source would seem to be the following story. A man comes in late at night to a lodging house, rather the worse for wear. He sits on his bed, drags one shoe off and drops it on the floor. Guiltily remembering everyone around him trying to sleep, he takes the other one off much more carefully and quietly puts in on the floor. He then finishes undressing and gets into bed. Just as he is drifting off to sleep, a shout comes from the man in the room below: “Well, drop the other one then! I can’t sleep, waiting for you to drop the other shoe!”. This may come from music hall or vaudeville, though it would seem that nobody has been able to tie it down more precisely.
Anyways, that's what we're doing in our house, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fact that we live under the top flat means that that happens at least twice a day, but that's not the shoe I'm talking about.
You learn something every time you log on here, don't you.
What the hell does it mean?
I mean, I know what it means. It means something bad yet salvageable has happened, but the likkelihood of an escalation is immense, so everyone is just hanging around not making any decisions about anything...
... because they are waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Before I research this, I am going to bet that it has something to do with hanging.
Time passes, while Queenie does the Google thing...
NOPE!! Queenie is wrong. People who are hanged don't have to endure their shoes falling off one by one, which is the visual image she had in her head for this phrase. It apparently has its roots in a vaudeville sketch. From Worldwide Words:
Its source would seem to be the following story. A man comes in late at night to a lodging house, rather the worse for wear. He sits on his bed, drags one shoe off and drops it on the floor. Guiltily remembering everyone around him trying to sleep, he takes the other one off much more carefully and quietly puts in on the floor. He then finishes undressing and gets into bed. Just as he is drifting off to sleep, a shout comes from the man in the room below: “Well, drop the other one then! I can’t sleep, waiting for you to drop the other shoe!”. This may come from music hall or vaudeville, though it would seem that nobody has been able to tie it down more precisely.
Anyways, that's what we're doing in our house, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fact that we live under the top flat means that that happens at least twice a day, but that's not the shoe I'm talking about.
You learn something every time you log on here, don't you.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Hump Day, in more ways than one
Today is Wednesday, which means it's hump day of course.
Here's the urban dictionary definition of hump day:
Wednesday, or the hump of the week.
The absolute BEST day of the week, the day of maximum hope that maybe, you might make it out of this week alive. A particularly good hump day can last you the rest of the week, and by Doomday morning (Monday) you survive by anticipating hump day.
Nothing goes wrong on hump day.
Most other days can be defined by hump day.
Tuesday is the day before hump day. Thursday is one day after hump day. Except Friday is WOOOH!!! FREEDOM!!! Day, Saturday is Mostly Hungover day, and Sunday is PreDoom day.
'Xactly.
Today is also 16th September, which means it's hump day of the month too.
And today is the day the moon starts to decline again, which is another hump day.
I like the first one - Wednesday.
The other two, not so much.
I hate months going by. They make me feel old. Not that I feel old, particularly, I have hated months going by since I was a small little princess, not even a Queenie.
It's just one of my little pet hates. Like Sundays at teatime, and Good Friday, and the day after Hallowe'en.
And I'm always sad when the moon starts to die. It must be the primitive in me, afraid that it won't come back.
This month's moon was a wonderful, super-sized, pumpkin-shaped reddish-brown globe in the sky, which was clear for the three days or so it was full.
The harvest moon.
Unfortunately, it was mid-week so we were stuck in the city and didn't get a chance to enjoy it properly.
The one disadvantage of the Melwood garden is that the house blocks the moon. So you have to sit on the front doorstep to look at it.
This week, Dexter Construction is digging up our road, so it' s not very pleasant sitting out there, surrounded by mounds of gravel, and silent machinery, and dirty cars with the taste of dust in our mouths.
So we just waved at the moon as we went in and out of the house.
Hopefully next month's will be just as good.
It usually is.
And then she gets all skinny for the winter.
Here's the urban dictionary definition of hump day:
Wednesday, or the hump of the week.
The absolute BEST day of the week, the day of maximum hope that maybe, you might make it out of this week alive. A particularly good hump day can last you the rest of the week, and by Doomday morning (Monday) you survive by anticipating hump day.
Nothing goes wrong on hump day.
Most other days can be defined by hump day.
Tuesday is the day before hump day. Thursday is one day after hump day. Except Friday is WOOOH!!! FREEDOM!!! Day, Saturday is Mostly Hungover day, and Sunday is PreDoom day.
'Xactly.
Today is also 16th September, which means it's hump day of the month too.
And today is the day the moon starts to decline again, which is another hump day.
I like the first one - Wednesday.
The other two, not so much.
I hate months going by. They make me feel old. Not that I feel old, particularly, I have hated months going by since I was a small little princess, not even a Queenie.
It's just one of my little pet hates. Like Sundays at teatime, and Good Friday, and the day after Hallowe'en.
And I'm always sad when the moon starts to die. It must be the primitive in me, afraid that it won't come back.
This month's moon was a wonderful, super-sized, pumpkin-shaped reddish-brown globe in the sky, which was clear for the three days or so it was full.
The harvest moon.
Unfortunately, it was mid-week so we were stuck in the city and didn't get a chance to enjoy it properly.
The one disadvantage of the Melwood garden is that the house blocks the moon. So you have to sit on the front doorstep to look at it.
This week, Dexter Construction is digging up our road, so it' s not very pleasant sitting out there, surrounded by mounds of gravel, and silent machinery, and dirty cars with the taste of dust in our mouths.
So we just waved at the moon as we went in and out of the house.
Hopefully next month's will be just as good.
It usually is.
And then she gets all skinny for the winter.
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