As is an occasional tradition at our house, this year we did a “mystery hunt”, where I prepare a series of clues, each pointing to the location of the next. The final clue identifies the location of the prize. The ladies work together to decipher these clues and outsmart “Mr. E”. In order to complete this year’s hunt, some of… Read more →
Category: Storytime
It’s Really Not Plausible
I find it highly unlikely that something this cute could share a significant portion of genes with me. (Of course, if you talk with her for a while, and find out that she’s full to the brim with the good crazy, then you might start to believe she’s actually my kid, all appearances to the contrary…) Read more →
Golden Books 2: Mindplayers
A while back I wrote something about Steven Brust’s The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars—an entry discussing how it was one of those books that I read at the exactly correct time, and literally had the way I see the world changed (and to some extent shaped) by the experience of reading it. That experience is probably something that… Read more →
A Man And His Pipe
I noticed today that I seem to have missed International Pipe Smoking Day a couple of weeks back. I had meant to observe it this year, as an excuse to use the pipe I acquired a few years back, that’s been sitting unused ever since… but I guess I’m just not a pipe type guy (or possibly just not a… Read more →
Birthday Present
Well, my big birthday present actually materialized today, so I guess I have to finally draw this year’s festivities to a close–I managed to stretch it out pretty well, but didn’t quite make it to a week. And what was that “big present” you may be asking–well, it’s the result of a collaboration between Dr. Wife and my best pal.… Read more →
“Without music life would be a mistake”
(photo credit: www.iliaphotography.com) In the weeks (well, at this point I guess I could say “months” although it doesn’t feel like it) that I’ve been back in Ontario, I’ve had a number of encounters with things that were once regular parts of my life before my near-decade out East, and some have been shocking and jarring, others kind of like… Read more →
Paperback Alley
I mentioned that I’ve started the process of unpacking my books in the new house. I began with the mass-market paperbacks, for a few reasons: they’re the smallest bit of the collection, so they present a relatively undaunting place to start The place where I wanted to put them was ready–unlike the room that will be the “main” library, which… Read more →
Reports of my demise…
Yeah, still alive. I kind of fell off the Internet there for a couple of weeks. Not blogging, barely making use of any other communications tech. Still reading a lot of stuff, but all input, no output. This was not a planned thing, I just found that my real life was taking up too much time for me to support… Read more →
What’s a “bricht chaulmer”?
Since moving to Ontario, I’ve been buying my comics at The Beguiling. This, obviously, means that from time to time I have to take a run into Toronto to actually, you know, pick up the comics. So far I’ve managed to work these trips either into other shopping outings I’m taking to the city, or to pick up a beer… Read more →
Aside
When Trish suggested the name Sarah for our kid, I was happy to go along. I had four reasons, two public ones and two ulterior ones. The public ones were liking the name and being amused at the notion of using a biblical name, especially one with the meaning “princess”. One ulterior motive was all about Thin Lizzy. One was about gypsies and Kali. Maybe some July I should take Sarah to Sainte Anne de Beaupre for the Romani gathering…
You can learn something new every day
I followed a stay Twitter link today that lead to this short discussion of how to deal with someone acting racist: I found that interesting enough that I spent some time looking at other vlogs from the same dude, which lead me to this one, East Coast Cats and Christopher Street Boys, which I particularly liked: I’m pretty New York… Read more →
Religion, Geography, Scenery
I’ve spent some time thinking about religion today–primarily as part of working on my argument that Christmas as practiced in North America is essentially a secular holiday…with more pagan trappings than Christian ones among the commonly observed rituals, etc., and thus something I can celebrate non-hypocritcally. So I was already primed to appreciate the new map at Lapham’s Quaterly (for… Read more →
Aside
I shall very shortly have to get Ontario plates to replace the NS ones. I’m thinking it’s time for personalized plates. I have a couple of ideas for things that might be unused, but I should have some backups just in case. Suggestions?
Anything interesting happen today?
Well, how about this: I quit my job. Actually, that’s not strictly speaking true–last Thursday I gave my two weeks notice, and while I am technically employed (and getting paid) through the end of that period, today I was “released”. In corporate-speak this means: don’t come in any more–now that you’re not on the team, we don’t want you to… Read more →
Still Alive
Apologies for the lack of content over the last little while, and the last week particularly–the preparations for The Big Move have just destroyed whatever slim shards of free time I can normally wrest from my schedule. Since everything is now on the truck and on its way, and I’ll be spending the next three days doing a very gentle… Read more →
