Tag: Weather, Holidays and Seasons

The Earth Turns Again And All Of A Sudden…

Previous celebrations: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,2014 and
2015. Unlike last year, this March comes in after a soft winter. Plenty of warm stretches and only one heavy dump of snow in mid-February. No viral plagues. In the furnace room, weights were lifted and planks were even planked. The season’s seeds have been in hand for weeks with the package of parsnips showing up just yesterday, last year’s crop a few weeks from harvest once the thaw comes. Maple soon.

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Thank God It Has Come And The Frost’s Going

Previous celebrations: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. This March comes with the first day to hit -2C in weeks. Snows and deep freezes. Norwalk visited last week and another bug two weeks before. Exam marks came back with praises earned. And Scotland again.

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Again, The Most Wonderful Day Of Every Year

Previous celebrations: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. The snow lays about in dirty lumps congesting into ice before it melts. Baseball is close now. SO close I can watch spring games on the iPhone. 450 onion seeds have sprouted in my basement. Under a grow lamp. One sole celeriac has sprouted, too. Hope lives in my edible basement grow op.

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Friday Bullets For A Week Of Actual Winter

What a funny season. Thaws, rains, freezes, winds, blackouts and snow with thunder. Reminds me more of the east cost than the center of the continent. OK, the eastern edge of the center. The debates go on for the GOP. Seems like every candidate is a bit sketchy but each distinctly so. Newt said that the media made it harder to attract good people to public office. Is the contest proving the point? Romney is still the most interesting character as his life has been so complex and alt. Mormonism, corporate savior and undertaker, the last man to buy Brylcreem.

♦ Loners and geeks outraged at outrageous slur against their lifestyle.

♦ I am pretty sure I met this man at college but had no idea that he had a life so well spent.

♦ I love the Soviet style use of anti-hero in this article.

♦ It boggles my mind that Ontario pays HST / GST to Ottawa and Alberta does not. Looks like 1 billion or so too much into the Federation. Can we get a rebate?

♦ Andrew Coyne really is a simplistic thick numbskull sometimes. Rather than discriminating all that is needed is an oath of office that manages the loyalty aspect. No need to create a huge class of second class citizens. But thanks for suggesting it.

♦ Framing one’s politics as conservative and being in favour of marriage is in direct opposition to swinger life style. Choose one or the other and stand by your decisions. But don’t pretend it’s not a core question of integrity.

There. Was this a big week? Who knows? Maybe next week will be really big. Or is that something we’d like, err, just to avoid.

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You Fest Of Linky Goodness For Nameless Week

So what do you call the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve? I don’t think of them as the holidays. They are the weeks before the 24th when you spend and spend and spend and spend and spend as if you were in some sort of Bacchanalian cult… oh, well there is that. These days are the days of foreboding. Not of the New Year. But of the New Year’s Eve party. The dark night. Evening of the lost… of the damned. Speaking of the lost and the damned, how unholy a thing it would be to be a journalist this week. Nothing happens, like this:

♦ Who caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaares! Yet it’s is the Glob’s #1 sports story Thursday evening under the heading “The Game Changer.”

♦ Tribe? Remember when the tribes of reel-to-reel rumbled against thos of the 8 track? That’s what this will be like in 25 years.

♦ zzzzzzz…

♦ Even God is getting bored with this person in the news. Sweet touch with the allegation that Ron Paul is corrupt. God’s response: “…of all the things I made Ron Paul to be, you think I needed to throw in corrupt?”

♦ And then there are the Jays. At least the Sox are making trades that I might understand one day.

OK. That’ll do. That’s what you can say about 2011. That’ll do for now.

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Your Friday Bullety Links For Fall 2011

Glad that’s over. Summer? What was that all about? Reality is back baby and the stock market is falling along as the space hardware. [Remember. It’s wrong to wish on space hardware… even when it’s aimed at you.] Speaking of collapses, what about the Red Sox? For a fan like me, it’s a taste of the old days. To be fair, they sucked in April and in interleague play, too. so it is really a bit weird that they are still in the running. The Yankees have an opportunity to drive a wooden stake through the heart of their arch enemies this weekend – and at Yankee stadium, too. I say the Angels take the wild card. Ah, autumn. The time of tears.

⇒ One of the better kottke hat tips ever – but what now can I ever believe you are actually saying?

⇒ More old TV schedules from my life. On this Saturday when I was ten and a half I know I watched Joe 90 as well as Davey and Goliath. I can confirm that I do not own the complete DVD set of Davey and Goliath.

⇒ Once in a while the overrated Christie Blatchford writes a column actually worth attention.

⇒ Where will you be for the Ontario election leadership debate?

⇒ There’s no racist like a hockey fan racist from the boonies!

Well, really. You can’t want more than that. How much more could you need? There’s still a workday to get through, you know.

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Your Friday Bullets For The First Frost Warnings

We have had a good crop of tomatoes and basil this year but there is a fair nip in the air so that may be drawing to a close. I don’t mind. I picked up a copy of FutureSex/LoveSounds to keep me warm. I may start doing reviews of my new funky collection but suffice it to say that I never imagined thinking an album could remind me of punk, Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury. I thought the internet was affected by the cold this morning as it was 1995 sorta sluggish. I thought someone forgot to turn a switch somewhere. Maybe a key router froze up north.

⇒ Did I mention this one before? Such a weenie. Likes his own chair by the TV, too. Don’t you think of sitting in his chair. Contrast: our top soldier loves to travel. On us.
⇒ Admit it. This is useful.
⇒ Great article: : “Dubya and Me.” Another sort of great writing.
⇒ I am pretty sure I worked with Vic Gupta back in 1992 in a pub / restaruant in London, Ontario. Great guy. I would be hard pressed not to vote for the guy if he was in my riding… and he a Tory. One to watch. The vintage base ball team’s second base woman and (let’s be honest) best player, however, is a local NDP leader so the universe is balanced.
⇒ This building faced the old Gingers on lower Hollis Street, home of the original Granite Brewery where the makers of beer experimented on us college kids as we learned how to play snooker watched and jeered by a crowd of hard luck cases whose shakes kept them from the table. I had no idea that we were looking at a 1760s building as we left the place.
⇒ Good that the RCMP has been called into PEI. A cool and untraceable $400 million enters an economy of 135,000 people, citizenships are given away and no body know nuttin. Classic. I was disgusted back in 2009. Related: best headline ever. If you have to say that, you know they are screwed.
⇒ Unbelievable that the parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister doesn’t know that you do not make kissy face with journalists from dictatorships.

There. That should hold you.

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Friday Bullets For Your Labour Day Weekend

You better be meditating on the benefits we all share from the labour union movement this weekend. “Sure, I’ll take the day off but don’t you dare think for a minute that I like unions.” I can hear you. You hypocritical holidaying ingrates. Me, I will be singing “The International” and all my Billy Bragg 45s and calling everyone I meet comrade or maybe even Leonid.

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WATCH OUT! SPACE JUNK!!!

⇒ Glad that’s cleared up. Italians are now “ethnics” under the rural overlords world view. Next, Scots and Irish and soon New Brunswickers.

⇒ Ernie Eves busts out against those Ontario Tea Party Tory bastards: “I don’t think it was fair and I don’t think it was loyal and I don’t think it was compassionate and I don’t think it’s honest.” Crime: voting for someone. Now, that’s a Tory: anti-democratic and proud of it.

⇒ I have no idea how sad it must be to be a Blue Jays fan. I mean, it’s like they think the team doesn’t suck. See, being a Leafs fan, I know they suck.

⇒ Do we now feel a twinge of guilt for reveling in Conrad’s fall? I will give him this – there is no one else reporting honestly on the state of the back end of the justice system like he is.

Ahh… long weekend. I needed it. I earned it. Really did. Didn’t I. I didn’t? Who says?

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