Archive for July, 2004

We all love Google. We all hate Google. We all love making Google do silly things. I found a neat site today that uses Google to complete your sentences and then start new sentences of it’s own. You enter a few words — whatever words you want — and it sets off, one word at a time to make sentences.

I started with “t’was brillig and” and now Google is churning out Lewis Carol’s Jabberwoky one word at a time. I’m curious to see what it comes up with when it reaches the end of the poem though and has to start making stuff up on it’s own.

Hmm, seems like it’s not able to make it to the fight and started stuttering on the word “did.” Still, it’s fun. I’m trying some hymns now.

It must be summer because Ottawa is getting hot and humid — scorching heat in the day, torrential downpours at night. Yesterday as I was driving my VW Bora TDI down Main St. on my way to pick up Jenn from work, I decided to beat the heat by turning on the old air conditioning. I’m not a huge fan, I’d rather open all the windows and the sunroof, but I thought it would be nice for Jenn to get into a nice cool car.

So, I turned it on and started to close the windows. My front driver’s side window made a squeak and then a snap and stopped going up (they’re automatic windows.) I had a feeling that I knew what had happened and sure enough, as I fiddled the switch again, the window dropped into the door. No worries, it’s under warranty I thought.

When I got home I called the nearby Bytek VW but they couldn’t book an appointment but gave me the voice mail of someone who would call me in the morning. Hmm, no good considering the approaching thunderstorms. So I called Citiwest VW and told me I could have it taken care of first thing in the morning and would I like to have it stay the night in the garage? Oh, so much more helpful. Fortunately we are babysitting the car of a friend from church this week so we had no problem dropping it off and getting Jenn to work this morning.

Citiwest called at 9:30 this morning to tell me the car was ready to go, what the problem was and that they made the changes on the other windows so that I won’t experience it again, oh and can we come pick you up? It’s looking a little dark out there, but I think I’m going to hit the trails and ride out to Kanata (25 – 30 kms) and pick it up before lunch. And that’s the end of that chapter.

Just in time for Monday, a few links to check out…

• :: Giant Bullfrogs in BC
• :: Bubble Tea in Ottawa
• :: How to Draw the Simpsons
• :: The Encyclopedia of Arda
• :: Aerial Map of Thunder Bay

Now, if only we can have a cloudy day without rain so I can wax my car!

Jenn remembered what the third worst prayer ever that Scary Tot Taylor told at the concert on Friday was. Ed McTaggart had been suffering from the dreaded hemorrhoids and the fellow who was praying said, “Let’s lift Ed’s hemorrhoids to the Lord.

In other news, what’s up with Mr. Schibler’s MSN handle today? Blurt it out, if you know.

Yesterday afternoon I rode down to the Glebe House where The Lost Dogs are playing tonight. I was hoping to see them unloading or something and maybe offer them a hand. They weren’t around, but they did show up for their show in the evening.

The opening band was called Grace Over Donuts and they reminded me (in a look towards the future kind of way) of what I could see myself doing in ten years. Jenn noted that the drummer looked a bit like Cowboy Chuck — but isn’t there a little bit of Cowboy Chuck in all of us?

The Dogs played for a couple of hours. They told us that a lot of their songs were from their new CD Mutt which is a collection of a bunch of their old songs re-recorded. Mike Roe (who I found the most personable of the three) broke a string tuning for the second song. Apparently it was the first string he broke on tour. Mike and Terry bantered back and forth a whole lot during the show, telling stories, doing impressions, and making jokes. At one point near the beginning Mike delivered the old “We’re all outstanding… in our field” line to which the crowd responded with groans and laughs. Terry was surprised that we reacted at all to it, but Mike responded with a smile, “See, this is Canada. The rules are different up here.”

Derri was shorter and rounder than I expected, but played and sung very well. All three have great voices and each one is very distinct from the others. Derri had a couple of teal coloured electrics (including what looked like a Danolectric guitar) that he played for most of the songs, often using them to play “bass.” He didn’t talk as much as the others, which I thought was a shame, because he had some witty things to say on the live Choir album.

Steve (Skinny) Hindalong had a vast collection of junk on stage including a big snare drum on a box. He of course used it all to provide appropriate percussion to all the songs.

Terry had us all whistling to provide the “wall of sound” that they couldn’t bring on tour with them as they yodeled. He also told us of the three worst prayers he’s heard before a concert. They were the time a surfer-dude youth pastor asked for “oodles and oodles of grace“ (not too bad), the time another fellow suggested “let’s all close our eyes, bow our heads and pretend that Jesus is with us.” I can’t remember the other one now. But after that he broke into his Dr. Daniel Edward Taylor persona and started his own little revival.

It was a great time. Only about sixty people were there. Jenn enjoyed herself but felt bad for the guys because they couldn’t have made any money as the tickets were only $10 a pop. For their encore, they did a nice long medley of all the classic Lost Dogs tunes including, Pray Were You Are, Bullet Train, and scads more I don’t recall at the moment. Anyways, it was fun, and I’m glad I was able to see them.

Jenn and I went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban again last night — she had a free coupon. I think we both liked it better the second time around — at least Jenn did. We got to the theater early to make sure we could get seats and so that we could run out for a quick supper before the show. We ate across the parking lot at Montana’s. I like the crayons there and we both draw all over the paper tablecloth. I brought home last night’s masterpiece, Cowboy Chuck.

Okay, I want a script that will go through a given directory searching for gifs or jpegs and output a bit of HTML to display the pictures on a webpage. I want this so I can simply add photos to the directory and have the page dynamicly update itself the next time it’s loaded. Let me know if you can help. In the mean time, I’m off to the ‘net!

I often think as the day is drawing to a close about all the fun things I’ve done and can blog about the next day. Then, in the morning, I can’t remember what excited me about yesterday. I do know that I ate chicken wings last night with Jenn and suffered bad dreams as a result. I can just remember the second of four dreams.

I was in Thunder Bay in a new house that my parents built on their current lot. I’ve had dreams taking place in this altered-neighbourhood before, so I know it well. There where these new neighbourhood kids that were awful though. It was as if they had no sense of right or wrong, nor social manners. I made the mistake of leaving the front door unlocked at night, they came riding around on their bikes (and they couldn’t be more than 13 or 14 years old) and let themselves into our house. I pushed them out and locked the door on them, but then they started reaching under the walls to pull telephone and other cables and wires out.

I called the police, but this dumb police woman didn’t care. She told me there was nothing they could do because they were children and I should tell the kids’ parents. So, I asked to speak to someone else. They at least sent a patrol car to the neighbourhood. I was most bothered that there was no recourse for me in this situation other than “taking the law into my own hands” and that would have involved breaking the law on my part. So, it was a bad dream that was also a frustrating dream.

Why the title “Bible Study at the Flanderses’ Home?” After going bowling with our small group last night (it’s the summer and we’re doing less Bible study and more fun things — that’s right, Bible study isn’t fun) we were discussing (over a plate of said chicken wings) the punctuation of possessive pluralized nouns, like Foulds. Here’s one for the gamaticians out there: Michel and Ninon Proulx are having a pool party at their house, fill in the blank, “Party at the            pool.”

Robin was mentioning in his blog this weekend that he’s qualified for a new video game patch and was wondering if Ron or I had ever qualified for our Pitfall patch. I did, and I’ve got a scan to prove it. I keep my patch safely stored along with my passport, marriage certificate and other important documents.

After a weekend full of activity, it’s hard to know exactly how to go about blogging it. Should I break it into little posts (as it would be if I was blogging all along) or just dump it all out into one? I could get more focused with the smaller posts, or I could just get it out there.

Dump away!

Jenn and I headed down to London this weekend with two stops in Toronto. On the way down we stopped (along with everyone else on the 401) three times and pulled off because of the deluge poring from the sky. There was quite a lot of rain in quite a short amount of time and there was hail too.

By the time we got to Toronto, it was a hot muggy afternoon. We took the subways down to “Greek Town” to meet two of Jenn’s friends for supper. We ate at the restaurant across the street from the Big Fat Greek Wedding movie restaurant — apparently a very touristy thing to do, but the lamb was great! Oh, and a funny thing when we popped up out of the subway station, the Danforth was totally blocked off and overrun by people beating drums, blowing horn and whistles, waving Greek flags and having a good time. Something about a soccer game?

We spent the next two full days in London at Jenn’s sister’s house. She and her family were in Florida, so it was nice for them and us. Jenn’s parents and her sister from Ottawa stayed there too. Friday was a do-nothing, no plan kind of day. I went to the Christian bookstore with Jenn’s dad, washed the car and played snooker. Jenn’s dad (who until recently lived in London) took me over to his friend, Mr. Sumner’s house to play. He’s taken me there before and Mr. Sumner is a very friendly guy and not so much of a shark that I’m embarrassed to play. We finished the day with a barbecue in the evening — the first time I’ve been at the grill since I moved from Thunder Bay.

Saturday was another relaxed day. We ate breakfast on the patio and I found an electric train store in the phone book to make a visit to. In the late afternoon we attended Jenn’s cousin/brother’s wedding and reception in the evening. For those of you who don’t know, Jenn is the youngest of four sisters, but when Jenn was a little girl, her aunt and uncle passed away and her three cousins (two boys and a girl) came to live with her family. So, technically they are her cousins, but they are also like siblings.

Was the highlight of the reception the red headed, mutant, duck, colossus waiting at the bus stop, the three car accident on the street outside the hall or getting to hack with one of the ushers? Nope, I think it was learning that compromising with my wife still let’s me wear shorts and sandals to the reception.

Sunday morning we skipped out on church an met another of Jenn’s friends, this time for breakfast — and so Jenn could be asked to be an attendant at her wedding next spring. Then we packed up and hit the road for our last stop on the way home. We made our way through the wild jungles of Scarborough to visit my good friend Ron (who I get to see twice a year if I’m lucky) and Mark, his parents and Ken Trevisan and Adam VanSickle. We hung about the lush garden paradise that is Aunt Toini’s backyard for a few hours. We broached topics ranging from double vs triple bladed razors, Teddy Ruxpin cartoons, university projects, Wild K.A.R.D. Beer and giant fighting robots. Ron cooked up burgers and sausages and Mark shared beverages left over from FamilyFest 2004.

On the drive home, the Bora rolled over 60,000 kms and we enjoyed another 1000+km tank on a road trip. We still had between an eighth and a quarter of a tank when we filled up (at 64.9/l) and I’m confident we could have bettered 1300 km for a 47l tank of diesel on that trip.