Things they should invent: What'sTheDifferenceBetween.com

A website where you can enter two word and it will tell you the difference
between them. It will come pre-programmed with pairs of similar words (for
example, stuttering and stammering, or continuous and continual, or highway
and freeway) and will tell you the difference between those words. If you
enter words that aren't a pre-programmed pair, it will provide dictionary
definitions. If the dictionary definitions don't help, you can "submit"
that pair and trained terminologists will determine the difference and add
it to the database.

My IP address currently starts with 70. For the entire 2-ish years I've been with this ISP, my IP address has always started with 65. Weird.

A comment by someone named Don Meredith, in today's Globe and Mail,
regarding the Jane bus incident:

"A child is shot and there's no outrage?"

Um, there is outrage. From all sides. Who do you know that isn't outraged?

I'm tired and had a bad day. I hate how I can't function as well if I don't exercise and eat breakfast. I HATE that. I LOATHE and DETEST having to take time to take care of myself properly.

According to a sticker on my pill package, oral contraceptives may make contact lenses difficult to wear. I've been on the pill for years and I had no idea!

Thought of the moment: are there little black mousies living under the tracks of the Sheppard subway line too? Or is the line too new?

I've watched my POA DVD three times already since it first arrived on my doorstep last Thursday! It's definitely the best movie so far, which is good because it's definitely my favourite book so far. You can tell Cuaron is having fun with the material instead of just jumping from plot point to plot point.

However, there are a few changes I'd make. First, I'd shorten the following scenes:

1. Aunt Marge inflating and floating away (I'd make her inflate faster)
2. Harry flying around on Buckbeat
3. Harry and Hermione getting tossed around by the Whomping Willow

They're all fun CGI scenes and they do have their place, but I'd shorten them and use the space saved to communicate the following plot points:

1. Show the Wolfsbane Potion
2. Explicitly say that MWPP are Remus, Peter, Sirius and James
3. Tell the story of WHY WPP chose to become Animagi!
4. Explain that Harry's Patronus is, in fact, his father!

It's one thing to assume the viewer is familiar with the backstory of the first two books/movies, it's quite another to assume they're familiar with the backstory of the current story. It's more important to make everyone's motivation clear than to have cool CGI effects.

I'd have also enjoyed a longer Boggart scene, and the Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw Quidditch match (which is one of my favourite scenes in the book).

And for any Canadian Potter fans reading this, am I the only one who is reminded of Wormtail every time I see the name of Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierre Pettigrew?

On MASH, they're all wearing their dress uniforms. Col. Potter has a sort
of cropped jacket that ends before the top of his hips, but the other
officers all have longer jackets that fall mid-hip. I wonder why?

Thought of the moment: what is the single most embarrassing purchase or combination of purchases that you can make at a drugstore without including items related to sex or sexual health (and the related body parts) or bodily waste (and the related body parts)?

Discuss.

And also, my left armpit has been sore since I got my flu shot. Same thing happened last year. WTF?

No rent increase for next year! YAY!

I've said several times in the past that they should have weather forecasts that tell you what to wear. Well, now they do.

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

A story of Japan and Hong Kong shortly after World War II. A strange book,
kind of floaty and dream-like, in the way that what happens in a dream is
beyond one's control. It's like the characters feel that things are just
happening to them, which is quite likely given the muddled state of life
when everyone is recovering from a war. It's also a love story, but kind of
a strange love story. The characters seem to just suddenly and mutually
decide that they're in love with each other, but since the narrator doesn't
really talk about his feelings we don't actually see it happen. It also
seems to be trying to make some kind of commentary on age and youth, but
that's strange too. The male protagonist is in his late 20s/early 30s and
seems to feel that his youth is behind him, which is a strange thing to be
feeling because really he's still young. The woman he falls for is in her
late teens, and it seems like the book is trying to present this as a
midlife crisis thing, except he's too young to be having a midlife crisis,
and it's hardly the type of physical lust that one associates with a midlife
crisis. And it seem doubly strange since the author is in her 70s, so she
should certainly realize that 30 is not old. It's all slightly surreal
without intending to be so.

The two candidates in Ukraine are named Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor
Yanukovich.

They need more variety there.

SNOW!!!!!!!!!

You know how some people give their babies formula instead of nursing them? When the baby starts crying for food and the formula needs to be prepared, what do they do with the baby while preparing the formula? I'd assume that parental instincts would tell you to pick up the crying baby and soothe it, but I'd also assume that the formula can be prepared faster when you don't have a crying baby in your arms...

In September I ordered an item from Amazon. It was a special-order item, so they said it would take 6-8 weeks to ship. I therefore decided to order it together with my Harry Potter DVD (which was released today) so I could use a coupon and get free shipping.

Today I got an email informing me that they could not obtain the special-order item for me. They then added:

Please note, if you took advantage of a promotional offer when placing this order, this cancellation can affect your order's eligibility for that offer.

That is not so very cool. If they're going to keep me waiting for two months expecting that I can get this particular item, they could at least have the decency to let me save a lousy $5 on my DVD! They were good enough not to charge me for shipping the DVD, but you'd think that good customer service requires that they let me use the promotional offers too...

This is me attempting to be optimistic about stuff a la Jimmy.

They've started showing my exercise shows on weekends too. This is good, because on a normal weekend day I can wake up early, exercise, then go back to sleep for as long as I need. This means that I'll get at least 2 days of exercise in no matter how bad my week is.

MASH is now on at 8 pm, so I get some nice comfort food television to relax me before bed. Plus I can do my dishes painlessly during the commercial breaks, and I'm fully justified in playing computer games for an hour in the evening (because I can't POSSIBLY be expected to study/read/do complicated housework while watching TV!) I'm particularly happy since the current MASH episodes feature the Potter/Hunnicutt/Burns line-up, which is my favourite.

And once I get one short annoying text out of the way, my work is good and happy. As long as I don't think too far in the future.

BEST. WEBSITE. EVER!!!

I just had an enlightenment:

The reason why it's so valuable to me to sleep until I wake up naturally is because it calms me down. When I wake up naturally after a complete sleep, my mind is blank and I'm not worrying about anything that does not need to be addressed immediately. When I have not had enough sleep, I find myself fretting about things that are beyond my immediate control and/or inevitable. So the reason I often wake up mornings craving more sleep is not so much because I'm tired, but because I want to be calmed.

Look at the paintings on the outside walls of this Sim house. They don't rotate properly! On the left wall, the yellow square is on the bottom right and the red fruit is on the bottom left. On the right wall, the yellow square is on the bottom left and the red fruit is on the bottom right!

One thing I've always found terribly annoying in every language class I've
ever taken is the whole asking for/giving directions unit. I'm not sure
why, but it really annoys me. Maybe because it's so repetitive. Maybe
because it requires more creativity (I have to think of places to give
directions to and think of how to get there). Maybe it's because I so
rarely ask for or give directions IRL. At any rate, it annoys me in any
language.

Half-formed theory:

We have to expect (not accept, expect) a certain degree of
corruption/hypocrisy from any political leader, because the personal
characteristics that make a person inclined to want to be leader of their
country are also the characteristics that make a person inclined to be
corrupt or a hypocrite. Slytherin qualities.

I had a dream last night that I was in class asking my classmates what I missed last Thursday. It seems we covered the life of Glenn Gould. As I was copying a classmate's notes, I mentioned that Glenn Gould was dead. They all gasped, got mad at me for ruining the story, then started to mock me for having read ahead in the book.

For future reference, good shirazes:

1. Vendange
2. Goundrey Homestead
3. Domaine Paul Mas Que Sera Sirah Syrah

In the tunnel that goes under the street to Eglinton Station, there was a large piece of black tissue paper lying on the floor. The peculiar wind currents in the tunnel were causing the paper to glide along the floor like a hovercraft. It was perfectly flat and moving along the floor instead of blowing through the air, but it was gliding along quite quickly and smoothly.

It reminded me of a Lethifold.

Update on the doctor situation:

I called today, and they were able to get me an appointment to renew my prescription for a week Monday. The question just remains of whether the doctor will be willing to actually do so.

The next mystery is why on earth they want me to fast for 12 hours before I have my physical???

In the Globe and Mail today I happened to get an advertisement for one of the condos I was considering buying at some point in the future. It included a layout for the two bedroom plus den suite, which is the size I have in mind for matrimonial life, so we can each have an office.

I HATE the layout! The one den isn't really a den, it's just a random corner wide in the open, the livingroom is crouwded, there's a lot of wasted floor space that isn't conducive to furniture, and apparently all the 2+den units face north! I am not going to pay nearly $300,000 to spend the rest of my life without any direct sunlight through my windows! (Although, interestingly enough, they've drawn the layout with generous quantities of sunlight flooding through the windows).

I hope they'll build some better 2+den units in this neighbourhood!

This morning I inadvertently shaved only one armpit. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until I had already put deo on that armpit, (aside: why do we put deo only on our armpits?) and I was already running late so I didn't have time to de-deo myself, shave that armpit, re-deo, and continue getting dressed. It's amazing how much it can throw off your day just KNOWING your armpits don't match!

I realized today I don't actively like coffee. I find it hot, comforting,
caffeinated, and socially convenient, but the desiccating, diuretic effect
isn't my very favourite thing in the world (except on those very rare
occasions when I'm constipated). I can appreciate good coffee over bad, and
I actively enjoy the taste of some lattes and other fancy coffee beverages,
but I would never classify a cup of coffee as "refreshing", which is a label
I would put on most other beverages (even tea, under some circumstances.)

However, I will continue to drink coffee because there's nothing like a cup
of Second Cup Early Edition to chase away the morning gallicisms.

The Shadow of the Wind (La sombra del viento) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is one of
the best books I've ever read! I can't believe it didn't make Amazon.ca's
"Best of 2004". (And I can't believe Muriella Pent of all things was #1!)
The Shadow of the Wind one of the few mysteries (it's not a traditional
mystery in the sense of detectives and stuff, but it's definitely a
mystery!) I've read recently where you actually don't know "whodunit" until
the end. And even if you do manage to guess who, there's the whole tragic
tale of why.

I ended up reading this in English because the library didn't appear to have
the Spanish version (which is surprising, considering how popular the
Spanish version is). However, I'm glad I did read it in English because it
was such a page turner - I wanted to badly to know what happened next - and
I read faster in English than in Spanish. I will definitely be reading it
again, and maybe even in Spanish.

Highly recommended!

What does "I resemble that remark" mean?

I saw the BEST DOGGIE EVER! It was a little wiener dog puppy - only 11 months old. Its body (minus head and tail) was about the size of my foot, and the whole dog was shorter than my boot (ankle boots with 2-inch heels). It got all excited and tried to jump up on me, but it couldn't even make it to my knee. And because it was only a baby, its floppy ears and waggily tail were disproportionately large. SO CUTE!!!

In other news, there's a sign on 7-Eleven saying "1300+ hot drink creations". 1300+? How? Do they count a double double and a double double with milk as different drinks?

Some blogs have a "next blog" button at the top. Sometimes a random passer-by clicks on this button and ends up at my blog. My Sitemeter tells me what page they came from. Sometimes I go back and look at those pages just out of curiosity.

I've noticed that in these pages, there are quite a few blogs with a title like "John Doe's Blog" and an address like "johndoe.blogspot.com". But instead of being a proper blog, the content appears to be links to every page that appears as search engine results for a particular keyword, like the name of a city or a disease. Every page that is like this has that template with pale green dots in the background.

I wonder what they're trying to achieve?

I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow. I hate the part of my job that requires me to impose on my co-workers. And I'm not looking forward to being promoted because then that aspect of my job will feel like even more of an imposition. Logically I know I should just be a grown-up about this, but I just can't flick that switch and make that happen.

And I just realized something else that I can't blog here.

Things They Should Do A Study On: Which religion produces the greatest
proportion of atheists?

Study children who are born into each religion and are raised to be actively
religious, and look at how many of them end up being atheist, how many end
up being agnostic, how many end up lapsing, and how many end up converting.

They could also find out which religion causes the most crises in faith, and
in which religion the most people have crises in faith and ultimately decide
to go back to the religion.

One thing I really do not understand is the "technical quality uber alles" approach to media. I read a review of a DVD, and they go on and on about sound and picture quality. But how's the movie itself? People rave about the quality of graphics in videogames. That can certainly be interesting, but is the game itself fun? I even once heard someone say that he decides which radio stations to listen to based on the signal quality. While I know it can be annoying to listen to poor reception, doesn't he care about the content?

I just have no interest in watching a movie that I don't enjoy in impeccable surround sound, playing a boring or too-complex-to-relax videogame with amazing graphics, or listening to dull or infuriating radio with a crystal clear signal. I'd much rather watch a great movie with mediocre picture quality, play a fun, relaxable DOS game, or listen to informative or entertaining radio in mono. I just can't understand why some people would rather do the opposite.

I wonder how often people who want to commit suicide by jumping think to
jump headfirst? It never would have occurred to me until I recently heard
about a case where the guy must have jumped headfirst.

Kitchen Stuff Plus has a shotglass checkers game! It's a checkerboard with as many shotglasses as you have checkers pieces, and when you jump a piece you get to drink the shot - just like on MASH! I am highly impressed.

Did the US actually declare war on Iraq, or did they just wander in with a
bunch of soldier and tanks and stuff?

Seen in Dominion:

An older couple, both in electric wheelchairs with baskets on the front, with two small dogs in the basket of each wheelchair.

In re: a person's chance of being struck by lightning:

Is the number they use when comparing it ("You'd have a better chance of
being struck by lightning") like your chance of it happening at all during
your life, or your chance of it happening while standing outside in a
thunderstorm?

MASH today was the one where Col. Blake died.

I wonder if that's for Remembrance Day, or if it's just because that was the
next one scheduled to play in the series.

I've noticed that since I started working full-time I never take naps any more. The only exceptions are on days when I don't have to work, when I wake up early to exercise then go back to bed (but that's more a deliberate sleep plan), and the occassional day when I nod off on the subway on the way to class. But I never get grumpy and cold, snuggle up in a cocoon of my covers, and sleep until I'm not grumpy any more like I used to do in university.

One of the strangest (as in "most foreign to me") attitudes that I've seen
among adolescents (i.e.. my younger classmates and people online) is the
thought that people are unattractive unless they are tanned. I mean
actively tanned - like it is essential to regularly spend time in a tanning
bed. I've never seen people impose that attitude on other people before.
Among people my age, I have occasionally seen someone make disparaging
comments about the pallor of their own skin, but never about other people -
everyone just seemed to accept that people come in different degrees of tan.
One of my grandmothers has this attitude (and she seems to think I'm wasting
my potential by not tanning), but I never thought I'd see it among young
people in the 21st century.

I am so relaxed today. I was kind of resentful about being on call on a holiday, but I like it because being on call makes me not feel obligated to do anything else. If this were just a normal day off, I'd feel obligated to do certain errands and household chores and studying right now. But instead I'm just like "I'm on call. See, I'm being productive!" and I don't feel obligated to do anything else.

Why I am pissed off: I called my doctor this morning to schedule my annual physical.

They aren't booking any appointments until January.

In what world is that acceptable? I'm on my last pack of pills, and I never thought to call earlier because I have never, not even for busy clinics, had to wait more than three weeks for an appointment.

Tomorrow I am calling them back and emphasizing the time-sensitivity of the whole thing. If they can't come up with some way for me to have a prescription in hand by the end of the month, then I will have to look for a new doctor. This completely defeats the purpose of having a family doctor.

And if they can't come up with some way for me to have a prescription in hand by the end of the month, I am blogging my doctor's name so other people can be warned away.

Seen in Bloor station: a little 5-year-old girl, gleefully dancing to the music played by a nearby busker, oblivious to the rush of commuters all around her.

If my life were a movie, that would be a significant symbol of something.

Ethical dilemma: should I get a flu shot?

There aren't enough flu shots in North America. There are enough in
Ontario, somewhere, in my doctor's office or at Toronto Public Health, there
is a flu shot with my name on it. Later on in the flu season, leftover flu
shots may be donated to other jurisdictions that have a shortage, but I have
no way of knowing for certain that my flu shot will be donated if I don't
use it.

For several years didn't get a flu shot and didn't have the flu. I am not
in contact with high-risk people myself, but I am in contact with many
people who are in contact with high-risk people. The powers that be are
marketing it as being my duty to get a flu shot. If I did get the flu, it
wouldn't be too severe for me, comparatively speaking - I am healthy and
strong and could afford the time off work and school, and can plausibly
quarantine myself without too much difficulty.

So I don't absolutely need it, I am being instructed to get it, I am
entitled to get it, there are other people who need it more than me, and if
I forgo it my dose may go to someone who needs it more than me, but I don't
know that for sure.

I've noticed quite a few articles lately to the effect that the Left is alienating people (this isn't the best article ever because it's from ID, but it gives the general gist of the argument).

The bit I don't understand is that the Right is doing all the things mentioned in this article too, just reverse some things, change some names and places. So why isn't it a problem for them?

On MASH, why is going to the stockade undesireable? It would get them out of the war, and the conditions can't be worse than their camp. So why not just desert or something so they can get court-martialed?