I'm very grumpy today because my morning yoga show spent the entire half-hour on breathing. I know breathing is an important part of yoga, but I do yoga to loosen up my joints so they don't get stiff from sitting at my desk all day, and to generally improve my flexibility. I already know proper diaphragm breathing from having played wind instruments all throughout high school. Plus, before the alarm went off, I was lying awake in bed, already doing savasana and proper breathing! So the whole getting out of bed thing was a terrible waste of time. :( This is not a good way to start the day.

Errazuriz Max Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon.

This is beautifully complex, with vanilla and berries and fruit and spices and all kinds of interesting flavours. The only problem is the tanin. It would be wonderful if it weren't for the tanin, but as it stands the tanin just distracts from the rest of the wine.

Have you ever noticed that whenever there's a magazine article about "X ways to Y" (12 ways to organize your life, 17 steps to financial security, 8 time-tested stressbusters), every single "tip" is something that you do already?

According to this test, I will have the dubious honour of living to the age of 103.5.

Last night I dreamed that I was reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince. It was a massive tome, about the size of Order of the Phoenix, and
J.K. Rowling spent the first half of the book writing a giant
preface/author's note in which she refuted all kinds of fandom rumours. I
didn't get very far into the actual story, and I was very disappointed when
I woke up before I finished the book.

"The problems in the Middle East won't be solved until we can get those
extremists to see reason."

My theory is that this statement reflects the opinion of at least 90% of the
population, as long as one doesn't further elaborate on what is meant by
"problems", "we", "extremist" or "reason".

Ethical dilemma:

You are in a public laundry room or a laundromat that has no attendant. You
have two loads of laundry. There are two washers free. One washer is in
perfectly acceptable condition, and you put one of your loads in this
washer. The tub of the other free washer is full of bits of yarn and other
unidentifiable matter, and the surface of the machine is covered in pieces
of hair of unknown origin. There is another machine that has just finished
its cycle, and there is no one around to collect the clothing from this
machine.

What do you do? Do you take the clothing out of the third machine right
away? Do you wait for an acceptable grace period and then take the clothing
out even though there is technically a washer free? Do you attempt to clean
the empty washer?

We have the expression "a mixed blessing": something positive that has
negative side-effects. We need an expression to communicate the opposite:
something negative that has positive side-effects. I propose "mixed curse".

I went to the dentist. I have a very chatty dentist. He also insists on watching reality television while working on me. So some stupid reality show was on, and he sticks about four different instruments in my mouth, and then, in response to something on the TV, asks me if I believe in love at first sight.

I wish I could blog from work. Then I could post whenever I think of something instead of coming home and churning out mishmash entries like this one:

1. "Restive" means "restless". I find this odd. It seems to me that it should mean "restful" or "resting".

2. Omnivores dislike vegetarians because vegetarians do not conform with society's consumerist tendencies. I think this is an interesting idea. It's a tad excessive and not at all helpful, but an interesting concept nonetheless.

3. Why is it that they clean every single bathroom in the building where I work at the same time? And why is it that they always do this just as my lunch has finished processing itself?

4. Why is it that whenever I have a bowel movement at work it's the kind that requires reading material and lots of toilet paper, and whenever I have a bowel movement at home it's the kind that takes 10 seconds and needs only one wipe?

5. If you were a 20-something female, and you worked in an office, and you had a chocolate brown shirt, what colour pants would you wear that shirt with?

6. Everything they're selling at Reitman's for the fall is in colours or styles that I can't tell if they look good on my or not. I need a fashion consultant!

7. Why is it that I think of opinions or ideas on highly political issues - opinions or ideas that I don't dare send from work email, even to myself - when I'm reading the newspaper on my breaks at work, and then when I get home where I can blog or to an environment where it's appropriate to discuss politically charged topics, I forget these thoughts?

8. Why is it that I can never find my supers when I want to talk to them in person, but when I want to just slip them a note and avoid the whole interpersonal communication thing, there's always someone in the office?

Things they should invent: "spoiler" HTML tags

Most of the time when someone wants to represent a spoiler, they do so either by typing "WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! LOOK OUT CAUTION!" then leaving about 16763 lines of spoiler space, or by making the text the same colour as the background so people have to highlight to read (which is of no help in text-only browsers).

The tag would be interpreted by most browsers as a quote box or code box containing text the same colour as the background, and would leave a screen's worth of spoiler space in text-only browsers. Maybe it could be construed in browsers for the blind as "The following contains spoilers. Do you want to proceed? (Y/N)" The specific attributes could be changed in the style sheets if desired.

I realize all this can already be done with existing HTML, but the spoiler tag would make it a bit easier for those who are not yet fluent in HTML.

Blankets by Craig Thompson.

I'm speechless. Read this. Read it now. It's amazing. It's a graphic
novel (definitely NOT a comic book, clocking in at almost 600 pages) that
tells the sweetest, most beautiful, most poignant story ever. It will warm
your heart and then it will break your heart. This is the perfect marriage
of plot and medium; despite the fact that it's a 600 page novel, I think the
graphic novel format tells the story far far better than a traditional novel
could.

The only possible caveat is that there is some mild sexual nudity in the
images. It is tasteful and completely appropriate and thoroughly necessary
to the plot, but it is sexual nude drawings, so there are parts that aren't
good for reading in public. So read it at home. But go read it now!

I typically wear my retainer while I shower and go through my morning
routine, then take it out to eat breakfast. This morning I was running
late, so I didn't have time to eat breakfast. When I got on the subway, I
realized I was still wearing my retainer! Since I only wear my retainer at
home, the case was still sitting on my bathroom counter, so I didn't have
anywhere to put it away once I removed it.
This is problematic because:
1. It's uncomfortable,
2. It makes me produce a lot of excess saliva,
3. I can't eat with it in,
4. I can't speak French with it in, and
5. Having a retainer makes me look like a teenager.

So I went to the bathroom, removed and rinsed my retainer, wrapped it in
twice as many wet paper towels as necessary, then wrapped it in twice as
many dry paper towels as necessary, then wrapped it in a plastic bag, then
put it in the safest-looking pocket of my purse.

Fortunately, this worked and I got it home safely! Good thing too, it would
be horribly embarrassing to have to explain to an orthodontist that I, a
grown adult, had had a retainer disaster.

Last night I had a dream where my eyes were brown instead of green. I wonder what that means?

Queen of the South (Reina del Sur) by Arturo Pérez-Reverte:

First of all, I should confess my laziness: I read the English translation
even though I can read Spanish. The translator chose to leave the profanity
in Spanish, so a side-effect of reading this book was that I managed to pick
up vernacular use of Spanish profanity. I think that's the best way to
teach foreign-language profanity: write an English text laced with
foreign-language profanity.

As for the book itself, meh. It covers the rise and fall of a female
druglord. In the author's attempt to portray the glamour and hedonism of the
drug world, he makes it look entirely unappealing and, well, squicky. I
didn't find myself caring about any of the characters, so I had no
motivation to read on, and working through the book was a chore. However,
reading this book has completely put me off the idea of indulging in illegal
drugs, because I don't want my money to support squicky people like I found
in this book.

Fun fact: if you take a brown egg and hardboil it, the inside of the shell is white. (I haven't opened a raw brown egg yet, so I can't tell you about that)

A situation in which it could be conceivable that Parliament has too much
power, even though they are elected:

Suppose the premiers meeting in Niagara-On-The-Lake come to a definitive
consensus about what should be done about health care. Suppose this
consensus entails more federal involvement. Suppose they take this to Paul
Martin in September and he agrees. Then suppose it can't pass through the
House because 50% of federal MPs are from parties that want less federal
involvement in provincial issues.

I just saw a Hinterland Who's Who! I didn't know they did that any more!

It was mentioned in passing in a stranger's LJ that you can't wear makeup or nail polish while giving birth or having a c-section. I'm curious as to why - it makes no sense to me. Google will only tell me that it's not allowed, not the reason why. Not that there are any new mothers reading this, but has anyone ever heard of this?