This amuses me greatly

Rejected chemical weapon ideas from the Pentagon

Perhaps it isn't proper to be amused by chemical weapons, but these are totally the kinds of things I'd think of when I'm in one of my can't-sleep-being-silly moods.

A solution for the Union Station bus terminal

A couple of years ago, they built a bus terminal across Bay St. from the rest of Union Station. Despite signage and warnings to the contrary, many commuters (myself included) cut across Bay St. instead of walking up to Front St. to cross at the lights. They built an overhead walkway across Bay St., but that didn't help because it was still faster to go outside and cut straight across. Recently, they've put in metal barricades on either side of Bay (and on the median too?), but commuters just keep going over, under, around or through these barricades.

I have a simple solution: just lock the Bay St. doors of Union Station. Make sure they can't be opened from the inside or the outside. Perhaps install a system where they can be opened if a fire alarm is going off (or make an alarm go off when they are opened?), but don't let them be opened during normal operation. That way, people will only be able to get in and out of Union through the overhead walkway or at Front St., so they will have no reason to cross in the middle of Bay. After all, you wouldn't cross a street in the middle of the street if your destination was not directly opposite your current location, would you?

Jackson-Triggs Proprietor's Reserve Chardonnay

I read an article not too long ago about how Ontario growers had a bad year recently and are therefore allowed to mix other grapes into their non-VQA wines. The article postulated that we should therefore buy only VQA Ontario wines for the next season or so. Now my palate is not refined enough to tell that there's something particularly wrong with non-VQA wines, but tasting J-T Proprietor's Reserve reminded me of why VQA can be so much better.

Basically, this wine has everything I like in a chardonnay, all perfectly balanced, wtih nothing that I don't like in a chardonnay. On a quick gulp it is smooth and buttery and extremely easy to drink. On a slow, deliberate taste it has apples and pears and all those lovely green fruit tastes along with toastiness and vanilla and creaminess and all those things that make chardonnay comfy. I'm not entirely sure and I don't have any popcorn on hand to check, but I think this would go marvelously with buttered popcorn. (As well as most fish, but I don't care about that).

This one has now rocketed to the top of my "to bring as a hostess gift" list.

The most brilliant idea ever: pet medical insurance as employment benefit

Su and I just thought of the most brilliant idea ever: pet medical insurance as an employment benefit! If you have less than the average number of dependents, or perhaps for add-on to the basic employment benefits, you can get medical insurance to cover your pets' veterinary needs. Employers must implement this NOW!

Potterverse Ponderings

I got thinking about the Sorting Hat. We know that what House the student wants to be in influences the Sorting process. For example, it put Harry in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin because he was vehemently opposed to being in Slytherin, and it is implied (although I think it may not be said outright) that it put Hermione in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw because she wanted to be in Gryffindor.

The problem is that the students being sorted are only 11, and they might not have the insight to realize which house would really be best for them. For example, when taken alone I am a Ravenclaw, but I'd do better in a Hufflepuff environment. If the Sorting Hat suggested to my 11-year-old self that I might do well in Hufflepuff, I would mentally shout back "No, no! Not Hufflepuff! Ravenclaw!" My 11-year-old self would feel this way because she would probably have heard that Hufflepuffs are "duffers", and would know that she is the intellectual type. However, because Wizarding children are home-schooled, she would be completely unequipped to consider what type of social environment would be best for her in to live in over the next seven years. If the Hat made the decision between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff based on her insistence, she would have a miserable seven years in a competitive House like Ravenclaw. But my 11-year-old self was nowhere near developing the self-awareness needed to determine that she might do well in Hufflepuff. Would the Hat be able to dig this out of her mind anyway and put her in Hufflepuff despite her protestations? Or is the student's request the deal-maker?

Village of the Small Houses by Ian Ferguson

This book is a fictionalized autobiography ("a memoir of sorts") of the author Ian Ferguson's (of How to Be a Canadian fame) childhood growing up in Fort Vermillion, in northern Alberta just below the Arctic Circle. It's a sweet, sometimes poignant, always funny account of the vagaries of life In The North.

This is an extremely enjoyable book with a brilliant cast of characters! You'll laugh, you'll go "awww!", you'll keep reading on to see what happens next. This book stops when the author/protagonist is 15, and I think if Ferguson can keep up this tone as he leaves childhood, there is definitely room for a sequel!

Jacob's Creek Chardonnay Pinot Noir

This wine was recommended a while back and I put it on my "to try" list just to see what a white/red blend is like, but I could never find it in-store. Today I happened to notice it while looking for something else - turns out it's a sparkling wine, so it was in the champagne section, not the Australian wines section!

It's corked like a champagne bottle, so there are the same difficulties with opening it. The wine itself is golden in colour - you can see the chardonnay, but there's no visual hint of the pinot noir. The taste is kind of like sparkling apple cider, richer and fruitier than shampagne. If you concentrate, you can taste the pinot noir undertones, but I think if someone had handed me a glass of this without telling me what it is, I wouldn't think of that particular taste as a red wine taste. I'm not sure how I feel about it being bubbly though. The taste is kind of incongruous with the bubbles, and I don't know if the bubble were a necessary part of the process, or if they thought the bubbles would add to the experience. I suppose I could let a glass go flat and see how that affects the taste, but that would require time and planning.

This would probably be good if you want a sparkling wine but don't like the dry taste of most bruts, or if you want a cheap alternative sparkling wine. I've never had real champagne, so I can't tell you how that compares, but I'd imagine it's not intended to compare.

So you take a dead tooth, you see, and you put it under your pillow...

You know what's fun? Find someone from a culture that doesn't have the tooth fairy - preferably from a culture where baby teeth aren't special at all. Then try to explain teh concept of the tooth fairy to them.

Meanwhile, it was summer today! When I left work, it was 18 degrees! Unfortunately, by the time I got home from class, it was 4 with a wind chill of -2. And my umbrella was totally destroyed by the wind. Anyone know where you can get an umbrella that doesn't get completely destroyed when it's blown inside out?

Green?

My blog looks green to me right now. I don't know why - I didn't intentionally do anything to make it green. I don't know if it looks green to anyone else. But I might like this template better, although I think the body font size is a bit big, so I might keep it. I don't know.

Another strange job dream

Last night I had a dream where, in addition to my current (fulltime, professional) job, I still had my first job (parttime, fast food) because I had forgotten to quit. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't been in to work for 18 months since I started my current job, so I went in to the fast-food restaurant to straighten things out. I walked in and started counting out my float - still in civies, without changing into my uniform - and the employees (who were all new people because of the high turnover) kept asking me who I was. Then the owner came up, greeted me brightly, and started showing me all these new ways of doing things, with no mention of my absence. I went to the back and looked at the schedule, and it was in some code I didn't understand, and didn't explicitly mention the times that people were scheduled. Surprisingly, I was still on the schedule. I asked the owner how to read the new schedule, and she mentioned in passing that I hadn't been in for quite a while. I decided to be honest, and admitted that, while this is really stupid of me, I had gotten another job and completely forgotten that I had this one. The owner was super nice about it, saying "You know, my brother did the exact same thing!" (which is totally out of character for her). I then began considering giving my two weeks notice, since I didn't really need this job any more and the commute was a bit excessive. But I was hesitant to do so because you don't just quit jobs!

When I woke up it took me a moment to get my bearings and remember that I had, in fact, quit that job 4.5 years ago when I moved to Toronto.

This is at least the second dream I've had in the past month where I've had an extremely entry-level job in addition to my current job, and while I was tempted to quit it there was a lot of pressure not it. I'm kind of concerned about what this might mean...

Yoga is evilly addictive!

The problem with yoga is it's addictive. Not a fun happy addictive like The Sims or Lays Salt & Vinegar chips. It's an evil, life-destroying addictive like tobacco and cocaine. I started doing yoga because I heard people talking about it, and it seemed like it could be fun and might have some nice positive side-effects. I continued with it because I enjoyed how it made me feel. But now, if I don't get my daily yoga fix, my body goes into withdrawal. My tendons scream at me and nasty thoughts float around in my head and I can't function properly until I do a surya namaskar and a couple of nice, slow triangle poses. Then my tendons calm down and my evil thoughts get locked away into my little zen box and I can get on with my day. And I'm not even into the hard stuff - I just do the postures, not the meditations, and I slack on my breathing, and I'm not at all into the spiritual aspect of it!

The moral of the story is, unless you need it for medical purposes, just say no to yoga!

Things they should invent for MS Word

Word really needs a "Select All, including headers, footers and text boxes"
feature.

Oyster Bay Chardonnay

I recently got up the nerve to go into Vintages. Contrary to my expectations, there weren't any big intimidating bouncer-like sommeliers there just waiting to be all snooty and disapproving and intimidate me into leaving. It turns out that you're free to just browse around however you like, and there are some reasonably-priced wines in there. It's not the most user-friendly setup though, and while I would unhesitatingly go in there to pick out a specific wine, I don't find it conducive to browsing. Kind of like major department stores.

So anyway, in Vintages I found Oyster Bay Chardonnay, which I had heard good things about, but had never been able to find before. I assumed that it would have a whimsical label since a) it is from New Zealand, b) it has the name of an animal in its name, and c) it rhymes. But instead it has a classy, subdued blue and white label, which may be why I had trouble finding it before.

As for the wine itself, it's fruity and smooth. The fruit is a bit different than you usually taste in wine - a bit more appley and less grape/pear/citrus I think - and it's also kind of buttery. There's a certain aspect of chardonnay that I find slightly unpleasant (but can't name) and this wine is missing this aspect. The result is something that is so yummy that I want to drink it in big gulps instead of sipping in a dignified manner. I think it could be easily overpowered by food, but it would make a lovely aperitif as long as you don't want to make it last a long time.

Jeans that don't gap in the back!

I have found jeans that don't gap in the back! They are called Point Zero, and they are available at Sears and The Bay. No, I don't know where they are available outside of Canada. And for people who got here by Google and aren't following along my quest for non-gapping jeans, Lee One True Fit jeans DO gap in the back on me, but Point Zeros don't.

The tricky bit about these pants is that the sizes are different for different styles. I bought two pairs in different styles. In one style I wear a size 34, and it's the smallest it could possibly be without being uncomfortable to sit down in. In the other style I bought a size 33, but it's a bit big and I could probably comfortably wear a 32 (but they didn't have any 32s). So make sure you try on each style anew rather than just buying the same size in every style.

Just messing with my fonts

I think it might look better with a slightly smaller font.

Things They Should Invent

Someone should create a perfectly legitimate store called The Black Market.
To up the irony quotient, this name should be applied to a government-owned
and -operated store.

"Miss"?

One thing I don't understand is why some young men (generally athletic types) would use "Miss" to refer to a woman, especially an older woman, in a position of authority. Particularly when her position of authority confers upon her a ready-made title.

For example, one of my classmates, who can't be older than 20, calls our prof "Miss", even though she is definitely over 30, and most likely around 40. Why not call her "Professor?" (She is, in fact, an official professor, albeit a visiting professor, with a doctorate and everything). And once when I was in 4th year there were some police officers on our campus (long irrelevant story). One of my co-workers, who was probably 23/24 at the time, went up to one of the officers (I don't know how old she was) and addressed her as "Miss". Whatever happened to "Officer"? I thought that was the standard way to address police officers.

They seem to be attempting to use it as a sign of respect, because I have seen instances where people who address women in authority as "Miss" would address a strange woman they perceive as an equal without calling her anything - just like you'd address a casual acquaintance or a random classmate. It's also strange in that it seems to come from younger men. Ever since I started dressing in office clothes and walking around with an official security clearance badge, older men who need to at least go through the motions of perceiving me to be in authority (i.e. situations where I'm the customer, or random citizens coming into the building asking for directions) always address me as "Ma'am". I still get "Miss" sometimes when I'm dressed casually, low-rise jeans with my hair long, but that's what I get for dressing like a teenager. However, it doesn't feel like a sign of respect when it's said to me - it feels like a socially acceptable substitute for "Random girl whose name I don't know and upon whom I don't care to confer any more respect than strictly necessary". So I wonder what led this certain demographic of young men to believe that "Miss" is an acceptable way to address a woman in authority?

New Template

I am experimenting with a new template. I have also enabled Blogger comments instead of Blogback - people should be allowed to post anonymously, but I would politely ask that anonymous posters provide a name or alias and use it consistently. I may yet choose to revert to the old look. Any thoughts on the matter are welcome.

Crossing California by Adam Langer

Despite the title Crossing California, it is not about California. It's about three Jewish families in Chicago during the Iranian hostage crisis (which is used as a timeline for the book, but has very little to do with the plot itself).

I really enjoyed this book because of its realism. Although all the characters go through major life changes as the story progresses, they have also gone through major changes before the beginning of the book, and more major changes are on their way after the end of the book. It isn't some magical year where all the drama in everyone's life occurs and then resolves itself.

The characters are complex - they all have some flaws, and they all have some elements that make them sympathetic. All the characters are sort of making up life as they go along - trying to be the person they want other people to think they are, even though they're not quite sure what they're doing. Although the lives of the three key families are intertwined, they aren't thoroughly enmeshed like a happy little sitcom cast; it's just the level of connection that comes from growing up in the same neighbourhood and belonging to the same temple.

There's just one thing that made this book feel less than perfectly realistic to me, and that's the fact that all the teenage characters (who range in age from 13-17) can leave their homes and wander the streets of Chicago in the middle of the night and their parents don't care. And then there's the unfortunate plot device where a single father has sex with his girlfriend in the one-bedroom apartment he shares with his two daughters, instead of in the house she has all to herself just a couple of blocks away. These things did take away from it, but on the whole it's a beautifully crafted book and refreshing in its realism.