arcane

The Mercenary sells jigs and stuff--he's a good friend of the manufacturer. Maybe you should talk.

{{{{hug}}}}

And that's what passes for entertainment in rural Quebec, folks

Then again, I live near a Vachon cake outlet where the things are sold for something like a buck a box, and near a Christie outlet that sells bulk Oreos.

And you all thought I was pregnant.

These reports are confusing me. One day Canada is rated the top place to live, another day there is a report that suggests canada is environmentally green, eventually another study will claim the exact opposite.

It doesn't confuse me at all. (tossing on the biochemical engineering hat) On the whole, the things that give us such a high standard of living are the same as the things that currently lay waste to the environment. Plastics and other petroleum products, computer chips, electricity, fast food, a meat-rich diet, big houses ...

As for the hypocrisy, that's an easy one to explain: There are many factors affecting a system that we barely understand. Part of the problem is in data collection, part of it is in understanding what's going on, part of it comes from ongoing changes to the system, part of it comes from long-term effects that we can't see right away, and part it comes from the fact that sometimes we just plain get it wrong and need to revise our opinions. Remember back in the '80s when nobody wanted to eat eggs because of the cholesterol? Now we have "good cholesterol" and "bad cholesterol" and cholesterol-reducing medication, and eggs are back on the menu again. Of course, the problem might just have been that people did and still do eat too much junk, but heaven forbid that the public accept that argument when they can have a scapegoat and a quick fix.

And sometimes--I'd say most of the time--people hear only what they want to hear, and that affects how news gets around.

"Hey Jude" is a dirge. "Yesterday" grates on my nerves.

Aas long as you don't get a Linda Gray thing happening instead, you're safe.

Reading patents on your birthday? Which god's cornflakes did *you* piss in this morning?

Happy Birthday!

I would guess that outsourcing the light rail staffing would put the headaches of having to deal with difference in technology at arms length. I don't know if this means dealing with a different union (I suspect so) or simply having to deal with teaching people how to drive trains.

It takes a lot of training to become an engineer, just like it takes a lot of boating to become a sailor.

And this is one of the many things I get paid to tell people Simple yet arcane, much like myself.

but in insurance, many of our terms are legal, and not on the words database....and lots of my point for points are being underlined green, which means grammer error....but i dont feel like hitting ignore on everything....

You can add industry-specific terms to your custom dictionary and turn off the grammar only. I'm guessing that your list points are being flagged for not starting with a capital letter. I believe that this can also be turned off, although I can't check it on my current machine.

My new machine arrives tomorrow. As much as I hate breaking in new machines, I'm looking forward to using a 19" flatscreen monitor (which is sooo last-year in my field, but it's far better than this electronic Etch-A-Sketch laptop display). AND I'll finally have access to a printer. I'm sick of writing out recipes on the backs of envelopes.

Yes, we made sure the thing will have a DVD burner

Being a Word almost-power-user (I'm still avoiding macros), normally I'd have been on this one lickety-split, but this !@$@%$^! laptop doesn't have ANYTHING on it except IE and Nethack, and I'll be damned if I'm going to remember menu sequences I can intuit from experience.

Don't go near tracking unless you're forced at gunpoint or by a senior VP of your company. I will personally come over to your house and beat you senseless.

Or start using an avatar that looks less like you.

Gotta wonder who lit the fuse on *her* tampon.

I don't remember that one. I'll have to look it up.

"A Boy and His Frog," written by Tom Smith when Jim Hensen died:

http://www.tomsmithonline.com/freestuff/oddio/BoyFrog.mp3

Tell me you can listen to this without getting the sniffles.

Get yourself elected.

I'm late for the party. I feel mangled.

I like those guys who tell you that they're from Scarborough and they're stranded (without money) at the bus station with some sort of emergency back home- a sick kid or something like that.

There's a creepy woman at the Montreal bus station who tries to pull the same scam on Anglos. If you stand up to her, she takes off down the street.

Man, I hate having to spend time at the bus station.

vibes vibes vibes

It's perfectly acceptable to ramble after someone tries to kill you with 3000 lbs of hurtling metal. Ramble away.

One I saw the other day on a pregnant woman:

"... it started with a kiss ..."

I have no idea what we're doing for Turkey Day. Normally I'd end up at my sister's house, but this year we're in different cities, I'm pregnant and she's had to deal with a death in the family. The Mercenary has injured himself, so we're not getting too ambitious.

Maybe we'll have a big bowl of Tonkinese soup (as if there is any other size of bowl of Tonkinese soup--they start at "huge" and range up to "bathtub with shrimp").

Two blogs, considering starting a third. I don't post to them regularly, though. Mostly they're anchor sites so I can leave comments in other people's blogs, which I do with greater frequency and volume.

Sharon, I like your blog You might want to take a look at this food-related blog:

http://www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/

Awesome!!

mangle mangle mangle