Memory is for me
It turn the book over and over in my hands, having stopped reading on page 35 and just remembering the rest of the book as it unfolded.
The pages are yellowed and stained; the cover is soft and yields. It is not the crisp, bright paperback it once was when it lived in my knapsack and traveled around with me on the bus and in my trunk. I smells like a library now, not like calvin kleins 'Eternity' and its two partners are in no better shape when I pass them on the shelves. They look out at me as I move around the room and place this volume down on my desk.
In the early 90s a friend of a friend who had read these books once related them to us (the nerds that we were playing 'Shadowrun' in the private playpen,loft that head been built in the backyard of Andrews house) as an "adventure". We weren't the characters in the book; so when faced with the same choices and the same scenarios, we didn't sublimate the authors intent. We couldn't absorb the flow of it via osmosis, so we couldn't follow the story of a mad artificial intelligence and the girl who could surf the net with her mind. We just wanted to kill bad guys and make money so our characters could be cooler and more wealthy than we could ever be. So we didn't really meet Bobby or his Voodoo girlfriend. Slamhounds came, went and were disposed of.
So here I am; staring into the pages again, the first volume back on the shelf. Waiting for me to come around again once the Matrix becomes self aware and I can consign it all to memory again.
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Doing a bit of cleaning up on the blog
After a bit of blog drama this weekend I think I'm gonna find some blog religion and take down posts that slam individuals, especially in light of the seo work that keeps a post about me up there in the results to this day. So, if you find a post up here that directly offends you (and mentions you by name) please go ahead and comment on this post with a link to the offending post and I'll pull it on down. Thanks!
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Making the Bride Cry
If you know me; you know I have a deep-seated need to stir things up occasionally. I enjoy the odd wheeze, especially if a family member is the victim.
My sister married last weekend, the service was lovely and Dave (the new husbands) extended family were a joy to welcome to "The Bruce County Wardrops" LoL.
However, being a wedding and being one of those High-Stress occasions, the opportunity to torment my sister was ever elevated.
1) My daughter was the flower girl, her appearance and hair were super important.
2) I was the odd-jobber on the wedding, taking video and MC'ing providing music for the reception.
With that in mind, I used the phone to make the wedding march unforgettable.
About 8 weeks ago I called Kerry to talk about my Daughter's bad day at school. She had gotten gum in her hair, Kerry commiserated about how bad that can be with long hair. I then went on about how they had tried ice and other remedies but that the gum was so close to her scalp... at this point Kerry took firm notice of what I was saying. I went on that they (the school) had to cut the gum loose and that the patch was so large that we had to clip my daughter's hair to the scalp to match. Kerry was aghast, and became nearly ill over the matter, with only a couple of months until the wedding the flower girl would be sinead o'conner. I let the rope out for as long as I could stand it, admitting only when tears were flowing that it was all a wheeze.
Kerry will probably never forgive me for that; I know she won't forgive me for what i did last Thursday.
At about 3PM on Thursday My mother called wondering when I would get to Kincardine, I was already there. I was sitting in an easy chair in my Parents living room, waiting for My mother and sister to return from the shops. Taking the opportunity I announced that I would not in fact be coming, having been roped into something important at the office. Two days before the wedding and I wouldn't be able to come. Both my Mother and My Sister become hideously upset, how could this happen? Did they know what this would do to the wedding? You're the DJ, we need you here! This went on for ages, I kept them on the line for a good 10 minutes alternating between indignation and anger. When I let slip that I was instead at the house and already in Kincardine you could almost feel the pair of them gear their shoulders up to smack me when they came home.
Oh, I know these are cruel, but what kind of big brother would I be if I let the opportunity pass?
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Bash Script to read in a big text file and do something with it
At the office I often end up producing little scripts to do this and that and today I had to deal with a large file that was causing a custom app to bork. In short it needed to be read to the app in chunks; usually I have to do more prosaic stuff, but this is a neat little foundational app to get things done.
I needed this today to solve a very basic problem, maybe you can use it too
#!/bin/bash declare -i RESET=0 declare -i TOTAL=0 declare -i LINES=$(cat $1 | wc -l) echo -n > somefile while read LINE ; do RESET=$RESET+1 if [ $RESET -lt 1000 ]; then echo $LINE >> somefile else RESET=0 somecommand -file somefile | mail -s "Output from somecommand" 2someguy@somewhere.koo echo -n > somefile TOTAL=$TOTAL+1000; fi declare -i REMAINS=$LINES-$TOTAL if [ $REMAINS -lt 0 ]; then tail -$REMAINS $1 > somefile somecommand -file somefile | mail -s "Final Run of somecomand" someguy@somewhere.kooo fi done < $1
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Housecleaning and Housecleaning and housecleaning
Ah bloggy; it's been a dog's age.
When I'm doing nothing at home I think I'm wasting my time; and when I think I have spare time I waste it on podcasts and video games. I've passed up inspiration a couple of times recently simply because I didn't feel like committing more time to putting pen to pad (as it were).
Yesterday I moved my photography work off of www.nitemayr.com and over to photography.nitemayr.com hosted on my rack here in London; rather than leaving it in Virginia. That way my images stay on my hard drives; I should be doing a daily mirror of my site over to here too ... hmm. Maybe I'll set that up today.
As for housekeeping on the for reals; I still have to move a proper doorknob onto the Spawn's door (she has one but it doesn't close correctly and I have a "spare" knob in the basement that locks like a bathroom door which should give her the privacy a teenager deserves (when she IS a teen in a few months) and the ability to keep the dog out of her room which she needs.
Our plants are really out of control too. I cut a bunch of them back but I think I'll spend some of the coming weekend just cutting more and more of them back as they are blocking the AC and so on. This will be unpopular; c'est la vie. I had to cut down a bunch of roses this Saturday to make our front porch habitable; so I don't see any problem with just cutting back some greenery; it's not like there will be a shortage. I'll size it up this Saturday morning and get it done before noon I guess. Hmm, I need a better sprinkler too; I had better keep that in mind this week.
I think, save for a couple of patches where drainage is an issue; I have the back yard taking shape. There is grass on about 98% of it now; as opposed to about 95% at the beginning of the year when we had a massive bald mud patch under the big tree (where the squirrel house used to be, but no longer is). It took two runs with seed and coverings to get the grass to really take in the patch; especially with how shady it is. The front lawn however is dying, for lack of watering and just from being weak. I think I'll need to put way more into it in the spring. I'll seed it and cover it with straw before the first frost this fall and maybe I'll get lucky in the spring.
Who knows; maybe I'll finally get my hands on a ladder and get my damn eaves trough cleaned out before august?
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Taking Care of the house
It was a good weekend to get out and see London and the surroundings, which is why I spent the weekend poking around the house and looking where I could fix things and so on.
I didn't really get much done, what with spending Friday and Saturday fretting over a customer and the Sunday wondering if my basement was filling with gas after I *finally* managed to find the controls for the gas fireplace. I get light-headed with worry when I think about it; gas flooding my basement and killing us all. That thing is a hazard I just want rid of. I'll keep the one in the living room upstairs; but the basement one has to go.
Hung a few photos, realized that I have to dig out more of them to hang.
Our Yellow Roses have come and are going, fuchsia ones are growing along the path and Champagne and White are on the way.
On the other hand; it was a nice weekend for the sun. I had to pass on a lawn mower, 75 bucks for a toro is fine, but I couldn't swing it. Maybe some other time.
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When the mercury was hitting 80 I was in the yard
Spent a good deal of this weekend enjoying having a yard.
Watered and patched the front lawn a bit on Saturday; put down a ton of "shady blend" grass seed and covered it up with soil in hope that in about 2 weeks those bald patches will be covered in soft grass. Watered it all down and enjoyed the cool spray; it was already 75 in the shade by 10 AM Saturday and Sunday!
The back yard took a bit more, as the gardener (Jen) wouldn't leave her basement lair in the morning, so she ended up toiling in her dirt corner in the hot sun. I spent some of this time tearing down the squirrel house from the big tree out back. I've been spoiling to take it down since the day I noticed the squirrels in it; they alternated between it and our roof all winter and I'm tired of the the pitter patter of little feet, truth be told. So I pulled it down and found it full of three things; dirt, fur and BEES. GOD-DAMNED BEES!!! A whole colony of BEES!!! RUN AUGH! AHHH! BUZZZZ.
Yeah, I found a bee's nest in the thing as I tore it down and spent about 30 minutes trying to coax them into abandoning the furry confines they had built into. After poking and hoping failed, water and drowning appears to have won out. As they (thumb sized, no joke) bumble bees left the pile of fur and dirt for me to spread them over my new grass seeds on the south (shady) side of the yard.
Every time I go back there I see more crap that needs to be taken out of the yard and I get depressed at the sheer volume of stuff that needs to leave; the former owners left us with a literal ton of garbage and random bullcrap to clean up, not to mention a couple hundred dollars worth of basic repairs and painting to take on when we moved in.
Look; I love that when I wake up and look out my window I'm looking at my yard; but all the repairs (we still don't have a stove due to the broken glass there) and the garbage cut the sweetness pretty hard.
Yellow roses and fresh cherries aside.
Sunday was nice, more watering more relishing the spray. More beers in the heat of the evening. Pad Thai for supper.
Still...
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The house, the yard and stuff
Yesterday was one of those "get things in shape" days.
In short order Jen, Elizabeth and I
- Removed half of the boxes from the master bedroom that had been "hanging on" opening up another 15% of the floor space in there and making it look cleaner.
- Hung some pictures and set the stage for more to go up in the living room area at the front of the house
- Cleaned out the storm drains at the end of the yard
- Cleaned up the damn pine cones all over the yard
- Spiked a bunch of weeds
- Coiled the old holey Garden hose for tossing out... might take it back and bury it in the garden instead as an under-ground watering system... bears more thought really.
- Finally packed away the dining room table. We don't eat at it and we have a nice breakfast counter to eat at anyway. This opened up a ton of space in the livingroom/kitchen area too.
In terms of stuff to do I checked out Kijiji and Craigslist and found a bunch of lawn mowers for sale. I'll have to check on them but we should be able to get a simple gas powered one for under 60 bucks as opposed for 90 bucks for an electrical one. Our grass is too long for an underpowered one.....
We have crab grass where I laid the new seed. Was the new seed full of crab grass? Hmmm.
The new seed didn't really take universally so we still have a kind of patchy lawn. The back yard has really become this lush jungle of weeds though. We need a weed whacker.
I need to repair at least one plug and then get an electrician in to fix the spare bathroom's lights and power.
Paint needs touching up in places, but I bet a nice rub with a cloth will fix some of them instead.
Still no oven, coming up with 300 bucks for a repair seems less likely as the months come on.
Some outstanding bills to deal with too.
Perhaps it is time to sell off the comic collection if only to get some of this stuff done.
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Evolution Exists, of this I have no doubt….
But this does not provide proof of ongoing evolution:
But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. “What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,” Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.
In all likelihood what the farmers are seeing is the rapid population of a mutant breed of weeds that already existed but is now thriving in the absence of any non-roundup based weed control. It's nice to think that this is an example of macro-evolution in action, but I suspect that this is simply the proliferation of an existing species. Maybe not, but it's more likely.
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- Check this video out -- Cee Lo Green - FUCK YOU (Official Video) http://t.co/HSWsV1g via @youtube 7 hrs ago
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Shock to the System – Billy Idol and the LA riots
It's a heat wave here in London; the kind of Heat Wave that inspired the Predator to storm LA and take on Danny Glover and Gary Busey in a three knockout bout that took down about half the real estate Arnold Schwarzenegger did in Terminator 2. It's hot, humid and there is that Rain Forest, Semi-Tropical moistness in the air that either anesthetizes or inflames any long running grievances. It's a beer and a pound or it's time to throw down, if you will.
It's been about 2 weeks since the G20 summit kicked off in Toronto and the heat is still on there; there was damage and some looting and not a small amount of controversy surrounding the behavior of the police flown in to number into the thousands to protect Toronto from violence and protest that got out of hand.
In 1992, LA was simmering, boiling over and it was the subsequent acquittal of the police in the caught on video beating of Rodney King that proved to be to the catalyst to set things off:
Here in London and Toronto; there's a less imminent; less urgent current of unrest regarding what happened over in Toronto; there is going to be an inquiry...but like those before it (when Quebec Police were forced to admit that they had acted as agents provocateurs during protests in Quebec, I doubt anything will come of it. We have people herded up and thrown into cages for being out and about where the police didn't like it; thousands of police on hand who couldn't prevent wide-scale damage in Toronto. Something is up there.
So; why am I even thinking about all of this? Billy Idol.
Billy Idol released Shock to the System; a single about the Riots.
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