The Guardian has an interesting story today about research into the effects of very high ecstasy use. Perhaps not surprisingly, given a guy to study who has taken over 40,000 pills in his lifetime, they find that he may have suffered some permanent damage to his ability to concentrate and to his memory. Perhaps the more surprising thing is that… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
Fundamental differences
I’m not sure I can generalize this to all men and all women, but I’m sure that this will at least illustrate one of the fundamental differences between my wife and I. Were my wife to look at this: I bet her reaction would be something along the lines of a cross between “Get that away from me!” and “My… Read more →
Neologism
A lovely neologism that I had my first encounter with today: Pajamahadeen Read more →
Practical applications of fluid mechanics
We actually learned this important lesson in my undergraduate fluid mechanics class: For those of you who didn’t have the benefit of my exciting engineering education, the full technical explanation is online. Read more →
Bachelor Weekend Over: Final beers
Family is home. All is well. Apparently they are keeping me as husband and father, at least for a while longer. As for the beer sampling: Flying Dog Road Dog Porter turned out to be really rather good, and I’ll probably pick up a case for the poker tournament this weekend. Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale was OK, but… Read more →
What’s the worst that could happen?
Want to know how far I’ll go for a cheap joke? One of the boards I hang out on has a game each week where you get to write up a little something in response to the topic of the week. Last week the “assignment” was to come up with a “what’s the worst that could happen” for a specified… Read more →
The glorious day has come!
Sometime this weekend a new Kleptones release made it’s way into the Intarweeb. This makes me so happy. And it’s a double album! I’ve had a chance to spin the first half, and it’s pretty awesome. I’m hoping to get a chance to check out the second half tonight. Of course it will be some time before I can determine… Read more →
Colour me unsurprised. Atheist, and unsurprised.
Hm. Apparently I am deeply distrusted by most Americans just because I don’t need mythology to get through the day. American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology. From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households,… Read more →
Bachelor Weekend continues
Bachelor Saturday kind of disappeared: I stretched out Saturday afternoon for a short nap, and then woke up at 2AM. Apparently I needed an 11 hour nap. I rattled around the house for a bit, watching a couple of decent flicks (The Big Empty which was weird but fun, and Layer Cake which I quite enjoyed) and then went back… Read more →
Bachelor Weekend
Tomorrow at 7AM Trish and Sarah are headed off to Ontario to visit Sarah’s grandparents until Tuesday. That means I’ll be bachelor-man for four days. It is a sign of my advanced adulthood that what I am most excited about is not the potential for sloppy drunkeness, or rowdy behaviour, but rather the notion that I will be able to… Read more →
I am not making this up
I had no idea what was happening. I had come home from poker Tuesday night around half an hour after midnight, and had puttered around for a while, finally going to sleep around 1:30, and the next thing I knew Trish was screaming at me. I kind of expected Trish to wake me up on Wednesday, as she does each… Read more →
No Virus Keeps Me Down.
Instead of resting and recovering tonight, I opted to instead go into town and be a part of the Halifax comic scene. At one point, if I had been carrying a video camera, I could have shot a 15 minute short feature, in one take, that would have won awards. Awards, I say. I would have titled this feature “The… Read more →
I Can Shoot Fire From My Hands!
You know who really talks with his hands? Donald Rumsfeld. It’s like he’s doing some kind of hand jive in every picture you see of him. And the one’s I’ve been seeing lately show a disturbing trend. First, he’s got this kind of “Look, nothing up my sleeve” pose, that just makes me think he’s trying to misdirect us from… Read more →
I need to write something SERIOUS with that…
The good news Friday, which was somewhat overshadowed temporarily by my illness, is that my birthday gift from Ralph arrived. This year, he made me a gorgeous fountain pen, turning some box elder (a.k.a. “Manitoba Maple“) to produce a really wonderful item. The pen’s cap is threaded, so you can screw it on to the pen (I assume this is… Read more →
“Celebrating” St. Patrick’s Day
This year was pretty clearly the worst St. Paddy’s Day of the decade for me. I was already mocking myself on Thursday night because my plans for celebrating were basically: 1) dress Sarah in a green shirt 2) go see V For Vendetta which is a much less rambunctious celebration than it has been for most of the last decade.… Read more →
