Wednesday, July 09, 2008

VERDICT










The building remains intact. I arrived to the townhouse this evening heavily sedated with a grande Calm tea from Starbucks and my blood sugar somewhere around my toes. I was a little woozy. Shouldn't have had the caffeine rush of Ceylon and China tea blend with a twist of Madagascar vanilla at breakfast. Phantasms of architectural ruin haunted me during the day with thoughts of the wall crumbled and my kitchen in ruins.


I feared for my Corelle dishes which the company now does not manufacture. They are a beige colour with petite blue flowers circling the edge. Very lovely. The white Pottery Barn dishes that I own I could have set quite cheerfully in the slab's path. The set was a gift from my relative and that, with the Fiesta ware of searing red and orange (again Pottery Barn) which was another gift from same relative, could have been "an unfortunate accident" if I had the cojones to do away with the lot. Oops.


There is not anything more depressing than brightly tinted dinnerware for a night-owl with sombre literary preferences. Our choice of dinnerware show the personality differences between my relative and me. She is urban professional to the tips of her manicured fingernails and likes the hues of sunny climes. I, in contrast, am a struggling neo-Victorian gothic writer whose favourite ankle length dress is a dark Aesthetic indigo sprinkled with early Spring morning blue forget-me-nots or a pair of army green khaki pants from Value Village where I shop not due to any lack of funds but it is the only place on the island I can find thus far that carries a size 3 or 4 trousers. They're comfortable in their slim fit and so am I.


I am also very, very much less frenetic in my imagination than I was before my arrival to the townhouse.

My fears were not realized. The plates are without damage. The house is what it is , simply a way-stop. I did not stay for the excision of the concrete with the consideration it would be better not to have my youngest in the line of danger. The only scars that remain are exposed boards where the concrete had a precarious hitch. There are no prises for the contest and I am an extremely less anxious writer.

I suppose I should offer some consolation prises. These are:

1. My unfailing devotion and eternal friendship. You can't cash it at a bank but it's there forever.

2. A promise not to blog Britney Spears or Paris Hilton or whatever media created bimbo next arrives on the tabloid scene.

3. A promise to blog off the liberal mainstream. I don't know about you, but I think everyone has heard about "climate change".

4. A friendly Public Service Announcement from yours dearly at least once a year.

5. To keep my sense of humour even when I read and comment on the most difficult subjects.

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MY LIFE













This is a slab of concrete that fell from a wall at my rented townhouse. This was a privacy partition
that dropped off the wall a few feet from where we live. There is one close to us that hasn't fallen yet and we can't use our front door to go in or out for fear of dislodging the nearby slab which weighs about 1000 pounds. The owners were warned a year ago that this was a problem but did nothing.

Luckily, no one was hurt. The man that lives near the dropped slab usually sits outside on his porch. The load hit and flipped over the fence. It rained and our neighbour was inside.

Okay, here's the deal. The staff at the complex is coming today at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. This big baby is on a wall held by nothing but a few nails. They are taking this off with a crane that they will situate on the roof. Winners who bet on the wall, the roof, or the fence going out will have a chance to be the guest columnist for one of my blogs free. There's a 30% chance the concrete slab will take out some building structure.


The rules are nothing smutty (keep it G to PG rated, please) and relevant to the topic on each blog. One is a political blog,Radio Free Canada and the other is a blog about the writing trade, The Writer's Home.

Furthermore, all considered prises are null and void if there is death or major injury to the workers, bystanders, writer of the contest, or any of her family or friends during the take down of the wall.

Place your bets in my in-box.

Anne

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Friday, July 04, 2008

WE REMEMBER



A memorial has been set up for four Mounties that were slain in the line of duty.
The

memorial in Mayerthorpe, Alberta for constables Brock Myrol, Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon and Leo Johnston has generated controversy from some family members that did not approve of the statues.

I respect the families that feel grief at the memorial. The government should have listened to all those concerned in the decision. However, it is also a time to honour once again those that have died in the line of duty in their capacities as police, firefighters, and emergency personnel.

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IT'S NOT THAT HARD, EH?









Google did not have a logo for Canada Day this year despite it being British Columbia's 150th birthday and Quebec's 400th (girlfriends. you don't look a day over sixty, just like her Maj the Queen).

Google, instead of creating an apology, had some whinging PR shill explain that it rotates logos.

How difficult would it be to make a logo? The graphic that you see on your screen took me about 25 minutes tops in GIMP. Cheese off, you hosers.

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

YOM HULEDET SAME'ACH!





Taking time out of my still manic schedule of homeschooling, kids' birthday parties, gardening, Girl Guiding, kid's ear infections, classes in sustainable agriculture et cetera, looking for freelance work, and novel writing.

At least I don't have to deal with the Yorkshire brat. I saw the tartette briefly this weekend and it was all I could do to not grab an onion bulb from the fridge (we didn't have garlic) and turn the plastic chopsticks from the utensil drawer into impromptu crosses. She did not stay. The Goddess has little mercies.

Let me take a deep breath here and get to the point after a week with children and teens and teaching the arcane mysteries of double-digit addition and subtraction to an eight-year-old or discussing static electricity with an almost fifteen-year-old.

Just a pause to wish comedian Billy Crystal
Yom Huledet Same'ach! Happy 60th Birthday!


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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

THE HERO FIELDS




Dith Pran



September 27,1942 - March 30,2008



This obituary was written at the request of
a journalist friend. I am thankful to the person in question for pointing out
the story.



Dith Pran was a photojournalist who

survived the cruel regime of Pol Pot. The movie The Killing Fields was about his experience. He was a brave soul
among horrible circumstances. Dith Pran died of pancreatic cancer at the age of
sixty-five.


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Friday, March 28, 2008

A TRUE BIRTH DEFECT



Secretary of State Condi Rice has said that slavery existed in America because of a moral birth defect.

Nonsense.


Slavery existed (and still exists) because people are greedy for power and money. The Bush administration knows about this particular ethical failing. There is no end, with over 4,000 soldiers dead in Iraq and thousands more Iraqis slaughtered, to the disaster created in Iraq in the Bush Administration's rush for oil.

I read the article about the Secretary of State with horror, and a lucky sense of irony. When I clicked through to the story, a banner ad appeared of a young girl with a cleft palate. I grabbed the picture with the Print Screen function of my computer. After excising the browser frame from the image, this is the talk back to Condi's lazy metaphor.


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Sunday, March 23, 2008

TRIBUTE TO A WIZARD



"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night."



My daughter and I watched a video about Terry Pratchett and his diagnosis of Alzheimer's.

The dialogue is as follows:

Eldest daughter: "Why couldn't this have happened to George Bush?"

Me: "You mean it hasn't?"

Eldest daughter: "Nice..."

High fives.

Terry Pratchett is not only fighting his own demons but the creatures of bureaucracy. The beloved novelist is challenging the United Kingdom National Health Service to provide Aricept for early Alzheimer's disease instead of its use in the more severe cases. Haven't these eejits heard of preventative medicine? I have relatives in the medical profession and they have always told me that treating a disease early is better than waiting for it to degenerate into something more cumbersome or lethal.

Okay, penny pincers are stupid. They want to go for the most "cost-effective" remedy even though the "inexpensive" solution will cost more later...

Take them down, Terry. We're cheerleading you.



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Friday, March 21, 2008

WONDERS NEVER CEASE

Scientists have found strange and wonderful creatures in the Antarctic's Ross Sea. Some of the creatures include two foot starfish and large sea spiders. The finds are part of a year-long study to catalogue and protect the biological diversity of the Antarctic.



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Thursday, February 21, 2008

HAPPY, HAPPY!










Okay, so I am homeschooling my youngest. Long story about her being bullied that will take a while to explain. Suffice to write that some Brit girls vie for fishwife status in their tender elementary school years
. I call the monster Alisoun for the Chaucer character although she comes from Yorkshire,not Bath. Almost needless to report, but germane to the situation,the school my daughter attended does not understand the unhappy situation. They had retained my daughter in the same classroom with the tarty thugette. I am searching for alternatives for my daughter's education

While this has all evolved, I have become a Girl Guide co-leader, am still looking for work as a freelance writer, and struggling through a second novel even though the first remains unpublished.

I am tired but pause to take time out of my manic schedule of writing, homeschooling, and (pointless) meetings with the school, to wish Alan Rickman HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

GIVE US BACK OUR BOOKS!



The Greater Victoria Public Library Board (GVPLB) has decided to lock-out the librarians from their workplace. This is an escalation of a pay dispute ongoing for five months.
Librarians cannot make a living wage in Victoria due to the high cost of housing, food and other goods. They provide a valuable service to the people of this city. Victoria (or should it be Victorian?) librarians create a hub for education, knowledge, and simply an inexpensively safe place to take the kids on a rainy day. Here I must assure the librarians that, at least my youngest, has supervision at all times. The teen simply wanders off, mp3 player headphones hardwired, into the manga section. Librarians are not babysitters or mere book jockeys or shelvers of books. The librarians I know are very patient when treated with respect, eager to assist, and competent guides to the library's resources.

The GVPLB, despite the professional work of Victoria's librarians, have denied these knowledge workers a raise after ten years of broken promises to remedy the situation
.

Please send a message of support to the librarians. Thank you!

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

CHOICES

My preferences for president are Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Fight it out among yourselves.

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Monday, February 04, 2008

WE MISS MARPLE

Actress Geraldine McEwan is retiring from her role as Miss Marple. After three glorious years as the knitting sleuth, McEwan has decided to hand the role over to another yet unnamed actress.

We hardly knew ye, ma'am. We will regret not seeing your sparky eyes and mischievous smile. Cheers for the memories.

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MICROYA WHO?



Microsoft has made a bid for search engine company Yahoo! to the tune of $44.6 billion. While that is pocket change for Bill Gates, why? Yahoo is just a portal. It doesn't have the applications that Google has such as spreadsheets, documents, notebooks, e-mail, and --- by the way --- a search engine. The Yahoo! MyWeb can't compete with Reader in terms of cross-functionality with other Google apps. Bill and company are too little, too very late in buying a company that hasn't understood how to use the Internet for socialization, information, and business. I don't understand the logic behind Congress and the European Union scrutinizing Microsoft for the purchase as possible monopoly. Whoever thought of this purposed merger was shy five pixels off the screen.

To place the idiocy of the merger in perspective, I Googled not Yahooed or Live Searched for the information for this post. And, yeah, it's an article on Blogger. 'Nuff said.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

CLOSE THE GAP











The Virginia Legislature recently voted against
S.B 109, legistlation that would have closed a loophole that allowed private sales without background checks at unregulated gun shows. The defeat came after the National Rifle Association and the Virginia Citizens' Defence League lobbied to torpedo the bill.

The defeat of the bill occurs after family members of students killed in the Virginia Tech Massacre staged a "die-in" on the lawn of the Virginia capitol to support S.B. 109. During the protest and support of the legistlation, pro-gun lobbyists heckled and taunted those who suffered the loss of their family and friends.

My sympathies are with those who supported closing the gun show loophole. I champion their cause not only for the common sense of requiring background checks on gun buyers and dealers but also for their civility. It is trashy to heckle and taunt someone whose family or friend was murdered in a horrible event such as happened at Virginia Tech. The NRA and the Virginia Citizens' Defence League are what is commonly referred to, regardless of skin colour, as "white trash" and "patterollers". Yes, those are loaded terms. The obscene behaviour of taunting someone whose family or friend has died in gun violence warrants harsh words of condemnation.


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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

AWAY UNTIL FEBRUARY


I'm away from blogging until early February.I have a paying gig writing web reviews. More on that when I return.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

WHY NOT SUE STARBUCKS?

There is ballot proposition in Colorado and five other states that would define a fertilized egg as a human being with the full rights of a human being. Well, chickies, why not sue Starbucks for selling a abortificant because caffeine in coffee can cause miscarriage? That's the thought. Let's go on a pro-life rampage and burn down every coffee or tea shop in America to protect the unborn fertilized eggs. The church ladies will have to give up their freeze-dried coffee in tins after Sunday service. Destroy all the soft drink factories for the pre-born. No more Coca-Cola or Pepsi for women. Why stop there? No caffeine for men either. Every sperm is sacred.

Where's my torch and hammer?

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RIP HEATH LEDGER

April 4, 1979 to January 22, 2008

Drugs are stupid.
Painkillers: oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Antihistamine: doxylamine
Sleeping Medication: temazepam
Anti-anxiety Drugs: diazepam and alprazolam

Screw the pharmaceutical companies.

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Friday, January 11, 2008

OBIT: CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN



Sir Edmund Hillary is dead at the age of 88. The first man to climb Mount Everest, he called himself a "no-hoper at university". After his famous climb to the top, he raised and donated millions of dollars for the Sherpas to build clinics, schools, hospitals, roads, and bridges. A staunch conservationist, he badgered climbers into keeping Mount Everest clean from trash.

From nothing, a man who called himself "no great shakes at Auckland Grammar" [high school,]he made several mountains out of the molehill of his life. The world needs more people like Sir Hillary to inspire and challenge us to be greater in what we can do with the little that we think of ourselves.

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