LMFAO

I really needed this.

The google people have mapped the moon, when you zoom in you can see where the lunar landings were, it is awesome http://moon.google.com/

Be sure to zoom all the way in.

Typical!

I am just reading up on the bird flu because I am bored. I found a site that has a load of information on, especially what the risks really are. So I have made notes on the things that I need to do to protect myself, including keeping my cat indoors. Hmm wait, I don't have a cat! Anyway, also about whether or not the face masks will actually afford any protection or not. The jury is still out on that one. Most importantly about what to stock up on in case the government puts us all in quarantine. Well we have already thought about this, and decided to stock up on tinned foods, and dried stuff like pasta. Stuff we eat anyway. We had thought a months worth would be about right. Well the WHO say only 7 days worth! 7 days? Man I will be holed up for the duration I can tell you that for nothing! Anyway, I was there reading the site, and saw a link to maps of the spread of the disease. So I thought, cool. I like maps. I click on the map of the human cases since 2003. Mostly in China, Indonesia, Vietnam etc. Ok none even close to North America. Then I clicked on the map of the wild and domestic birds that have been infected since 2003. North American isn't even on there! Now is that ever typical of the Americans? This is a US based site. I mean honestly, do they really think that because the US isn't on the map that people will not panic? Or are Americans so dumb that they will think, 'oh the US isn't on the map, therefore we have no bird flu, therefore we don't need to worry.' Will they? Oh boy. Well I know we have had cases here in Manitoba. A swan that died up north was found to be infected with the HN51 strain. It wasn't infected in MB, how they know that I don't know. Perhaps they found the swan's passport and saw that it had only arrived in MB the day before it died. I don't know. But back to my point. How can you produce a map of the distribution of bird flu in the world, and miss off one whole continent??????

Another of the Shrub's great ideas eh?

This really pisses me off

Some damned redneck American hunter has killed another bear in Canada. This might not seem like a huge issue, but polar bears are close to extinction! This moron, with his guide!, shot and killed a white bear, that on closer inspection had brown spots and may have been a grizzly polar hybrid. Why the hell was he out there shooting at polar bears anyway?????? This really pisses me off. Why can't Paul McCartney get mad about this? Polar bears are facing extinction because their habitat is being eroded by the stupidity of mankind, global warming means that the ice flows are getting smaller each year, and hence the polar bears feeding grounds are also diminishing. Leave the poor things alone! How dare you come and shoot at our bears? I bet if a Canuck wanted to cross into the US with a damn great gun in his hand luggage he would be arrested and held in prison for two years before being released without even an apology. Why are we letting these idiots in? And why the hell was he shooting at polar bears?????????????????
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4766217.stm
ARGH! A bad way to start a Saturday morning.

Billa Slack

OMG I just listened to 'R Cilla singing you are my world. What a voice!! How the hell did she ever make it as a singer?? If she was on American Idol now she wouldn't even make it through the first round! Oh my god. LMAO! I don't think I have actually heard her singing before, it was really quite bizarre. Well I have heard her singing Surprise Surprise, but that is a bit different.

Back to work.

IT's Thursday again

I have said it before and I will say it again. I hate Thursdays. Today I am staying home to work, I am reviewing grants for the Institute I work at, and it is actually easier for me to work here than at my office. Especially as it is cold and raining outside. 1 degree ffs, what is that? Anyway, what I really need is some motivation to get going. I have none, so I am catching up on my email. In doing so I found that a good friend of mine has her own blog, http://drainblogger.blogspot.com/, she is a good writer too, so if you feel like browsing over to her blog feel free, she hasn't been at it long though.
Now I am thinking that I am hungry, but there is nothing in the house that I feel like eating. I am also thirsty, and I haven't taken my pills yet this morning, so I need a drink, but I don't want water and other than water, there is only tea or coffee, and it is too early for tea, so it will have to be coffee. See? So many decisions to make, and I can't even get my head around what to drink because I hate Thursdays so much. Argh.

Onwards and upward

First impressions

A while ago I advertised for a student research assistant to work in the lab. I had one application that impressed me, but the guy's hours were not suitable so I had to put him aside. Well I got some funding, and he emailed me the same day I found out that I had the money available, so he got a job for the summer. Well he said he was a first year, with loads of volunteer experience, and an interest in neuroscience because of his dad, etc. and a few other geeky things. I assumed therefore that he was a young, geeky, skinny blonde kid with zits and glasses, who would be keen and enthusiastic. He just showed up in my office to talk about the summer. He is about 6'2, 250 lbs, long hair in a pony tail, raggy old sweatshirt and long shorts, with leather (worn out) flip flops, further to that he is probably in his mid-thirties! LOL I nearly laughed when I saw him because he was so totally not what I was expecting. I am sure he will be great though, he asked the right questions, made the right comments, and obviously has a sense of humor too which is essential in my lab. But the one thing I liked about him most is that he is confident and has a strong sense of work ethic. I hope he works out, I would like to have been able to offer him more, and perhaps at a later date will be able to, but we will see. He obviously wants to succeed too, which is a great thing. Looks like I will have a great productive summer with some excellent students. Meanwhile, the potential grad student is still lurking on the sidelines, might be best to sub him off before the game starts.

Every now and then

I fall apart. In the words of Bonnie Tyler. Why is it that from time to time the world shifts on its axis and everything you think and do becomes questionable? So today I am worried that I have done something to upset someone, I have no idea what I did, or who I upset, but I am still worried. Part of me says to not care that I have upset someone, but that is a defense mechanism, an old one that goes way back to the days when people were mad at me for no reason. Another part of me says, find out what you did and fix it. I am sitting on the fence inbetween the two thoughts, wondering which side to fall on, and wondering if it really matters in the long run. You see I am tired. I am tired of trying to make it work. Why can't it just work? The problem? The toastmasters club that I am president of. We were doing really well, going great guns, 16 members, and growing steadily, then all of a sudden we lost 8 members. Just like that. No warning, so nothing. One member even decided the day after telling me she would bring her dues this week that she didn't want to rejoin. Now I am not going to get mad at people for not rejoining. I am not going to yell, stamp and swear. But I would like to know why. You didn't suddenly find that you didn't have time, so there must be something else going on. That is where the thoughts that I am doing something wrong are coming from. I don't want to pressure anyone into something they don't want to do, as long as it isn't something that I am doing that is making them not want to do it. If that is the case, then tell me, I will change my behaviour and fix the problem! I guess it is that I hate it when people don't tell me what is going on. And yes there is someone I can talk to within the club, but all she will say is we should talk. Which makes me think that there really is something. So just damned well tell me ok? Or am I just being paranoid? I don't know anymore. So someone, please, just push the world back onto its regular pivot, and let me get back to feeling ok, and not worrying.
Thanks.

Some words should be removed from the English language

I am busy reading a scientific paper and suddenly am stopped in my tracks by the inappropriate use of a word. That word is milieu. I hate that word when it is used in the scientific context. I am not keen on it in other places either, but it is just not in context in a scientific article! Any more than repertoire is. It seems that scientists are more and more trying to add floral language to their publications, just stick to the ordinary words that fit the subject and don't fanny around adding fancy words to the sentences. Another one I hate is ameliorate, when it is used in the wrong way. I recently read a paper where they talked about ameliorating the culture media that they were using. ARGH!!! It is a clinical word, used when the quack, I mean, consultant, has made the patient better. They are deemed to be ameliorated. It was originally a French word, but I digress. Just don't use floral language when you are trying to be scientific, it doesn't make you look more intelligent, in fact quite the opposite.

So, I should get back to it, I am in the middle of a grant application, trying to ameliorate my ideas into a fundable project, a large repertoire of ideas floating in the milieu of my brain.

There you go.

p.s.

Even though it is snowing, well it was this morning, I still feel cheated! It is nearly the end of January, we haven't got more than about a foot of snow on the ground, and the temperature is warm enough to go without gloves! Bah humbug! I want 6 feet of snow and -40 degree temperatures! That is a real Winter, none of this slushing about in the brown and black stuff that is piled up in the gutter pretending to be snow. But at least we got a sunny day today, it has been a long time since we saw much sun.

But LET IT SNOW!

Please.

Exquisite Loneliness

I was just sitting listening to Barbra Streisand singing something from her Guilty album, and it reminded me of when I first moved to the US. When I first moved I had only a CD player and a few CD's to listen to. When I say a few I mean about 20. I also had a few Patricia Cornwell books to read. So I spent all my evenings, and every weekend, reading and listening to music. As a result, certain CD's evoke memories from that time.

The Barbra CD's in particular evoke a strange feeling in me that I have been at a loss to describe. It is a feeling that I enjoyed very much, but isn't one that I would want to revisit. Today I realised what that feeling was. It was Exquisite Loneliness! It was the first time in my life that I had felt truly alone. That no one was watching me, or even interested in what I was doing. I felt anonymous, insignificant, and completely free. Unless you know what it is like to live your life in the shadow of overbearing parents, who know more people in the town that you live in, than you can ever hope to know, you have no idea how wonderful it was to be that much alone.

I would never want to revisit that time because it was very difficult for many reasons, not least K and I were separated, and struggling to build our embryonic partnership that had very shaky foundations. In addition I had many many life lessons yet to learn. But I wouldn't change a thing, and now when I listen to Guilty, and remember how I felt for those first few months in the US, I appreciate how far I have come. I appreciate the lessons I learned, and most of all I appreciate that I was able to make the move away from the UK. A move that meant that although I was lonely and alone, I was always moving on towards today.

Thursday morning blues

I really don't like Thursdays. I realised this several years ago when I was working for the b*tch from h*ll. I was walking in to work, I had to walk about a mile from the nearest bus stop to the lab, but that was ok it was through a park. It was a Thursday, about 11.30am, and I was completely exhausted. I needed to sleep in to catch up on my lack of sleep from having to get up early to get to work, but I couldn't sleep in because I had to go to work. Anyway, I am rambling, but that is when I realised that I don't like Thursdays. They are a non-day. You can't start anything in the lab on a Thursday because tomorrow is Friday and then it is the weekend! In the days when I worked 7 days a week I guess it didn't matter, but now I don't work weekends, so Thursdays suck. So I am sitting here, knowing I have to iron my shirt, and technically I should make my lunch, but I am not going to today. It is 8am and I should be in the shower already! but it is Thursday. So I am reading blogs and wondering what makes someone think that what they have to say is going to be remotely interesting to another person, then I think hmm I should write in my blog. But no one will be interested. So what they hey.

Now I am worrying about the icicles that are hanging off the gutter, I guess I should shovel my way around the side of the house to knock them down. Maybe on the weekend. K and Bunty are both still asleep, although Bunty has at least been outside for her morning toilet. She hasn't had any food yet, but she hasn't been nagging for it so I will leave that to K. Ok now I am realdy to get in the shower. Oh wait, I should iron my shirt first. I will just check the news in case something has happened since I checked 10 minutes ago............

Happy New Year

How is everyone enjoying the new year? I ave never really been one of those people who makes a big thing of the new year. When I was a kid I used to sit and watch the Old Greay Whistle Test on the BBC, they would play a selection of the best of the previous year. Then at midnight I would go to bed. My parents and sister would be out partying, but I just never saw the point. It is only another day. Bah humbug? Probably yes. I don't bother with resolutions either. They always get broken within days if not weeks. But the last couple of years I have tried to make a list of things that I wish to accomplish over the next 12 months. I don't write it down though. So this time I have decided, now that I have a blog, that I will write it down for posterity. And so that I can come back and check up on my progress. So here goes. By the end of 2006 I would like to have another grant (for my work), I would like to have finished decorating the house, we still have 3 rooms to go, sorry 4 if you count the porch, but that is nearly done. I would like to have got rid of all the make-do furniture that we have. We are down to a sofa and some shelving in the bedroom, so that shouldn't be too difficult to achieve. And I would like to have made a difference to at least one person's life. Hmm, now I look at my list it seems that this stuff is all pretty much what I *should* be doing, rather than something that I wouldn't achieve in a year anyway. Hmm. I will have to try to think of something else to do that is more significant.

In the meantime I will go back to the wallpaper books that we have borrowed, and try to decide whether to go for red monkey wall paper, or green ferns, or cream monkey wall paper. Big decisions!

Be happy.

Bunty Speaks

Hi all, Bunty here. My people are sitting watching the box in the corner of the room. I have had a great day. First off I got breakfast without having to beg too much, which is a good thing because all that begging is tiresome. Then, and this was the best, I found a bag of treats on the floor. I don't think my people knew it was there because they didn't stop me from eating all the treats out of it! So I got to eat 5 Bonio's and 6 Good Boys, and one of those weird star shaped things that tastes really good. Then I got a new toy, which was all hairy, but I managed to pull all the hair off it. It is now bald, but it still makes a weird growly noise when I pick it up. I suspect that if I manage to pull its tail off it will stop making that noise. That is my current challenge and I am working on it in between sleeps. The people ate lots of food, they ate all day long actually, which I found rather annoying because that is what I would like to do but they won't let me! Anyway, I did get a rather lovely dinner of turkey and sweet potatoes, it came out of a can so I know it was cooked, and I didn't have to scrape the meat off the bones like the people did.

Anyway, I am going to sit by the door and hope they notice that I want to go for a walk. Then I will chew some more hair off the growly toy and then go to sleep. It is all go I tell you!

Signed, Bunty.

Old friends and gall bladders

Isn't is weird how sometimes you can think, hmm I haven't heard from so-and-so recently, and then an email from them pops into your inbox? Well just such a thing happened today. I got an email from an old friend of mine from back in the YUK. She and I used to be good friends, but for some reason we lost touch, I think it was mainly because she decided that I was too weird. But then about two months ago she emailed me to say that she didn't know why we lost touch, but that she wanted to get in touch again. Today she emailed me a long catch-up on her life. It was nice to read that she is ok.

On another cheery note, an old friend of mine from back in 1982 is coming to stay for a couple of days. He and I were at college together, he is an engineer and does some secret work for the government now. Last time I saw him we were in our early 20's and he had just got engaged to his now wife. They have two great kids, and are still happy together which is really nice. And I have to say, pretty unusual LOL! I am not sure what we will talk about though, mostly reminising probably.

K won't be able to join us as we galavant around town though, she had her gall bladder removed on Thursday, and is recuperating in bed. She is a really bad patient too, always needing things and complaining of being bored. Then last night, when everything was going well, she decided to get up without my assistance and hurt one of her incisions, so now she is in pain. And won't take medication because she doesn't like to ARGH! I hope she is able to get up and about by Monday, then she can come along with Andy and I as we go places. He leaves on Tuesday.

Weirdly enough my horoscope for today said "A friend you haven't seen for a while makes a reappearance. "

Spooky.

What's this? A new post?

I knew that would happen. I got out of the habit of posting. Now I am busy, working (yipee it all came through) and spending time with my family. Bunty is still great fun, she has the boudoir coming today, so she will be all princess like and proud by the time I get home. K has surgery scheduled for her gall bladder, next week, so that will be a worry, and in the meantime it is -22 degrees and I forgot to plug the block heater in last night. SO I will do it on my way to the bus, and hope that it is ok for this afternoon when I take the car to get its federal inspection done. Which is a joke. I had to get a "child restraint kit", had to be ordered from Toyota Canada. I picked it up yesterday, cost me 8 bucks and is a metal thing about the size of a business card, that is supposed to be bolted to the back shelf of your car. I tell you, it wouldn't hold down most kids *I* know! Good thing is it doesn't need to be installed, just there in the car. So it is off to Crappy Tire to get the inspection done, then we can finally register and insure the car, and all will be well in Snowy Peg.

Happy jumbling.

What is normal anyway?

Everyone assumes that their lives are normal. You assume that they way you were brought up was normal, whilst you are living your childhood anyway. I agree that some people come to the realisation at some point, that their childhood wasn't normal. But I digress briefly. Today K and I will attend a wedding. I will be wearing a cream suit with a red shirt and a red sequined cowboy hat. K will be wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit with a red camsole, no hat. So she commented that she wished she had some red shoes, and I agreed, that red shoes would go well with my outfit too. I then went on to say that my father had some red sequined stiletto heels that I could have worn with my outfit. What is wrong with that? She laughed and left the room. Well? That for me was normal! My father was an actor, and from time to time dragged up for music hall performances. So he owned dresses, wigs and stillies! And one pair of those stillies were red sequined. Normal. It got me thinking about normality, and I realise that my upbringing was anything but normal, but I wonder what normal is. Because there are things that I remember doing that I look back on now and thing how awful that was to have to do, like stealing food from the cupboard because I was hungry and too scared to ask for food. My sister and I got really good at taking small enough pieces of stuff that no one would notice some gone. And then when we were older (early teens) we could just blame my father, who by then was losing his mind, the fact that my mother hated him and was happy to blame him for anything was an added bonus. But that is terrible, to have to steal food! We also lived in fear of my mother's anger. It seemed to me that she was permanently in a bad mood, probably brought on by my father's increasingly antisocial behaviour, but not a great atmosphere when you are a kid. But it was normal, and you adapt and learn to avoid confrontation. But I get back to the shoes. There must be thousands of kids out there who know about their fathers stash of ladies clothes, who think that all dads dress up in ladies clothes when no one else is about, who think that it is normal.

I still don't have any red sequined stillies to wear with my red sequined cowboy hat. But I will enjoy the wedding anyway. I hope.

Later

p.s.

Just thought I should add, my step daughter has just landed a really amazing job! She will be working for one of the largest Marketing Companies in the world, and she is really buzzed as you can imagine. K is on the phone to her now talking it through, she is really jazzed.

Now Bunty has come in again, no doubt she will nag some more about going out.

Hotter than DC, bread baking

So here I am, sitting at my computer, at 8.32pm, and it is 41 degrees!!!! When I lived in DC it wasn't this hot, to my recollection anyway. We don't have A/C which is probably part of the reason. But that aside, my bread worked today as per normal!! So there you go, all those people who say you can't bake bread when it is hot outside ner ner ner ner ner. The only thing, and if anyone has any ideas about this I would love to hear them, the dough I make makes fabulous rolls, but the loaves are always too dry and a little dusty. Now according to a web site that I went to that was all about bread, that is because I let the dough rise for too long. I could buy that except that the loaves and the rolls rise for the same amount of time. I also, on the batch before this last one, put the loaf in the oven before the rolls, so that it didn't rise for as long. Yet it was still dry. It isn't inedible, it is just that it falls apart when you eat your sandwiches. So like I say, it you have any ideas on that, I would love to hear them.

Now Bunty is scratching at the door trying to get me to take her for a walk. Which I will do of course, whilst K is washing the dishes, but I am not ready to go yet. Give it another 20 minutes or so. Hopefully it will have cooled down somewhat by then.

Yeah dream on.

Shocking and sad news from the UK.

................................
BBC NEWS
................................
TOP STORIES

* Man shot dead by police on Tube *
A man is shot dead by armed officers at Stockwell station in south London, as police hunt four would-be bombers.
Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm

I am deeply saddened by this story. While I appreciate that the Police have to do whatever they can to maintain the safety of the public, the news that they have shot someone to death is like a punch in the stomach. I suppose I always felt that the British Police would do whatever they could to avoid using fire arms to apprehend someone. Now it seems that line has been crossed. I really hope that the country doesn't plummet in a downward spiral where the public are afraid of the police the way so many people are in the US.

Dragonflies vs mosiquitos

I took the Buntster for a walk yesterday, it was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and there was a nice cooling breeze. I coated myself with deet before leaving the house to be sure, but I still expected to be attacked by mozzies as soon as I walked out of the house. I was not disappointed. Anyway, Bunty and I went up to Churchill park, the river has burst its banks there, and last time we were there large areas of the park were under water. Well yesterday the river had receeded probably by about 3 feet. So although there were still lots of large areas of water on the grass, there were also large areas of muddy grass. To be quite honest, the park stank of rotting vegetation, but Bunty didn't seem to mind.

I let her off the leash (illegal in Winnipeg I know, but I thought what the hell, everyone else lets their dog off the leash) and she headed off into the bushes. Well of course she picks up the trail of a bunny and off she went, disregarding my whistling and calling, until eventually she lost track of the rabbit. I wasn't too worried, except she was right by the river, and I was worried she might fall in. The current is very swift with the extra water, and I was worried she might get washed away. She didn't and we soon settled in to a routine of her running head and then running back to where I was.

By the time we got past the bridge to the larger areas of grass Bunty was having a whale of a time. And I was being bombarded by dragonflies! Thousands of them. It reminded me of last summer in Maryland when the cicadas came out (the ones that come out every 17 years), and there were so many of them that they swarmed around and you had to wave them away from your face. I had to wave the dragonflies away from my face. But sadly there were still not enough to keep the mozzie population down to a tolerable level. I was attacked by mozzies constantly, unless I was in the direct sun. It is a great shame, but the Province has now ordered the city to fog the entire metropolitan area. This means that the dragonflies and fireflies, and probably a lot of the small song birds, will also be killed off. As much as I admire the attempts of the city to treat the mozzie plague with biological predators, clearly it didn't work this time around. I wonder how much the rain, that we have had so much of, had to do with that.

So even though there are thousands upon thousands of dragonflies flying around the area, they are still not a match for the mozzies.

Meanwhile, Bunty got to run, play in the grass, and splash through the water left behind by the over flowing river. Suffice it to say that she still wanted to go out for a walk last night.