This post brought to you by the letters C, O, F, F, E and E
It is no longer a million and one below at my desk. It's a zillion and one below. That's okay though, because I actually really like sweaters (no, really -- come take a look at my closet), and it gives me an excuse to drink even MORE steaming hot coffee (well, steaming hot right up until "Coffee, meet Air Vent")... and I sit, web designin' away as I rock out to the tunes on Spinner, hopped up on the caffeine fix to end all caffeine fixes, having a great ol' time. :)
And it's Friday. Welcome to long weekend #seven-gazillion-and-twelve for the month of August. I'm not really sure how to count the 10-day weekend I had post-"baby, when the lights go out" so I decided that all together, it made seven-gazillion-and-ten. The other two (Civic and this one) make up the rest. Just so we're all clear on that. :) Cos if you're clear then I'm clear, and if I'm clear then you're clear... and wow, someone take my coffee away!
I love how when Rogers sends me notification of my online bill being available, the subject line of the e-mail is "Your Rogers Bill is Now Available!" Like the exclamation mark disguises it as a trip to Disneyland, or "A New Car!" I'm glad they're so excited, really I am. I would be too, if I was making that kind of profit margin. I would be adding at least THREE exclamation marks, then.
Let's break out the mittens and hot chocolate, people.
More and more reasons every day to re-embrace vegetarianism. (I'm close enough to it now, anyway... until yesterday I hadn't eaten meat in like a month, and then it was chicken, and then in the month before that, maybe once or twice, etc.) I forget why I stopped to begin with, after 6 years of it. I never feel like going all-out and cooking dishes with meat for dinner anyway. Well, that and lunch is my bigger meal of the day. (I tried reversing that yesterday, with chicken salad for dinner but yogourt and a cereal bar for lunch, and wow did my body ever not like that at ALL. It's too used to more food at the beginning of the day, less in the evening.) I'm thinkin', back to chicken sporadically (for the protein, and, well, meal variety), but otherwise... red meat doesn't appeal at all anyway and I so very rarely eat it, I have this rule about fish (not unless I pulled it out of the lake myself or I'm on the east coast), and I don't eat pork. So yeah, maybe this will happen again.
Why? Well, things like this have a lot to do with it, in addition to the lack of its appeal to me to start with. Why would anyone do that, though? Especially after finding one cow with BSE has left an industry in ruins, although I suspect there's various political agendas at work there regarding a certain other country not buying Canadian beef for such a long time. Ugh, though.
It has been a bizarre couple of days. Just really, really bizarre. Not in a bad way or anything, just very strange! And somewhere in that bizarreness I think I've managed to solve one of the great mysteries of the universe. Not intentionally, not necessarily willingly, but yeah. It's solved. That's all I've got to say about that, so everyone let me have some peace and quiet already, LOL.
Oh, and for the love of God, did the blackout wipe out everyone's memories, too? (Goes along with the week's... weirdness? Unpredictability? Again, I think bizarreness best sums it up here.) Do I like being vague much? Heh. Sometimes. :) Anyway...
Current conditions in Ottawa:
Outside: Sunny, 20°C
Inside my office: a million and one below and dropping. There is a good reason why I'm Sweater Girl!
Oh yeah, one more thing -- webstats tell me I've amassed somewhat of a Thunder Bay fan club/audience -- if you're visiting and I know you, drop me a line!
Welcome to the Dar-binge. I got The Beauty of the Rain on Friday and have listened to it many times over the last couple of days (hopefully not driving too many people nuts in the process :)). Wow. I know it's been out since February, but I didn't get it then -- not because I didn't want to, but there were some monetary, end-of-a-degree-and-into-the-"unknown" concerns then/other things going on demanding my full attention at the time. I think the thing with most of Dar's songs, at least in the context of the entire album, is it can't be downloaded via mp3 to sample and judge. The full, true effect of it is only known when you hear the album in its entirety.
It is a gorgeous album, there's no other way to describe it. It's very different from the Dar CD I started out on (End of the Summer) way back when, but in a very good way. I love all Dar albums in different ways. My faves thus far from TBR: Mercy of the Fallen (the chorus is haunting, and so, SO beautiful), Closer to Me (the lyrics and music on this one are pure perfection), and The World's Not Falling Apart ("the world's not falling apart because of me..." -- heh, how true). Have I mentioned that I love this CD yet?
Another great thing about it... this CD falls under the category of those that switch my mind over to writing mode. It helped me write a few scenes this weekend. Whenever I write, whether it be fiction, articles, and when I did essays for school (high school and onward), I need to listen to music. I remember a journalism prof once talking about this, how music can cause your brain to switch gears. Dar's music has this effect, and I have a collection of CDs that are great for this (other notable ones -- a Sarah McLachlan live bootleg, Martina Sorbara, and the first David Usher solo release).
There's the wind and the rain, and the mercy of the fallen,
Who say they have no claim to know what's right.
There's the weak and the strong, and the beds that have no answer,
And that's where I may rest my head tonight.
Happiness is a Dar Williams show. It was the perfect night to be outside, taking in a music festival. (Well, perfect until right now as I type this -- it's lightning something fierce out there and pretty windy. The lightning started during the Tegan and Sara set so we left the Folk Festival then.)
Dar's voice and music live are absolutely beautiful, just like on her albums. She played lots of my favourites -- Are You Out There, If I Wrote You, The Christians and the Pagans, When I Was a Boy, February, and Iowa, just to name a few -- and it made me realize and appreciate just how many great songs she really does have. Five albums of original material now plus a live release and some other collaborations, so she could have played the entire night and it all would have been amazing. I wish As Cool As I Am, What Do You Hear in These Sounds, The End of the Summer and The Baby-Sitter's Here had been included in the set, but she says she's coming back, so maybe then!
She did apologize for her country so quickly blaming Canada for the blackout. Something to the effect of "How typical of that administration, it's surprising they didn't send the army in across the border." Heh heh.
Re: Your power outage story from Aug. 18, with the following in the lead paragraph:
... But Premier Ernie Eves says the tight energy supply, in the wake of last week's historic power outage, will continue all week and people must continue to conserve energy.
To whom it may concern at the editorial desk:
I am writing to ask for your participation in my ongoing campaign to have the phrase "in the wake of" banished to the Journalism Hall of Hootieized, never to be seen in copy or heard from on a broadcast again.
Instead, I suggest using "after" or "following" -- one word to replace the four most overused words in the history of journalism, ever.
(But seriously... does "in the wake of" really apply to a power outage? Or, like, in a story about McDonald's getting sued for nutrition information? Or the stories about the Bank of Canada cutting interest rates? Or the...)
Along these lines, hehehe, another great article from The National Post: A lack of power -- but a surfeit of clichés. This is SatireWire for those who miss it since it went on hiatus.
Millions were left completely in the dark yesterday, as media organizations across the east attempted to come to grips with a paralyzing cliché shortage.
In scenes eerily reminiscent of major crises in the past, pundits groped for significance, struggling to produce some suitably portentous reflections on events that had occurred just hours before. Hundreds were left stranded in mid-sentence, forced to climb down from metaphors several paragraphs high...
Update: the long weekend extends into tomorrow. If it wasn't because of something not-funny, this would be almost comical. Thinking about a road trip to Kingston for the day.
Picked up our Folk Festival passes this afternoon, yay yay yay! ... We're going to see Dar Willlliiiiiaaaaammmmmmmssssss! :)
Who's excited? I'm excited! Thursday night singalong of mass proportions, baby. :) I would skip with joy if I wasn't 23 years old and pretending to be an adult. (The kind people at the Ottawa Folklore Centre tell me that you should never pretend to be an adult, though.)
Shmiser hears rumours that us gov't folk could be off all week... we could go visit Mike at the power plant and play "Which City Should Have Rolling Blackouts?" Talk about power. You think government has power? Oh no. It's all in the hands of the Hydro people. (No pun intended. Seriously.)
LOL, my mom (aka Bubble) cracks me up. I seriously think this belongs on Television Without Pity, under a special "News Recaps" section!
In an e-mail to a friend also affected by the blackout, Bubble (safe with a different power grid in Northwestern Ontario) recaps the first few hours of comical television coverage that 50 million North Americans did not get to see, as all things electrical took the night off and city-dwellers pretended like they'd gone camping:
NYC Mayor: It started in Canada, because it cascaded down here. Chrétien: A lightning bolt hit the Mohawk Niagara generating station NYC Govenor: It started in Canada Chrétien's Office: It started with a fire at the Con Edison plant in Manhattan Dubya: It started in Canada Canadian Minister of Defense: It started with an explosion at an Ohio Generating Station Yanks: There was a fire at Con Edison, nothing to worry about PM's office: It started with a lightning bolt at the Mohawk Niagara Generating station Bush: It started on the Canadian side of the Mohawk Niagara Generating station PM's Office: It started on the American side of Niagara Falls Her Majesty (as someone put it) Hillary Clinton: NO, definitely started in Canada.
It was probably the first time in a long time that I've seen the Federal Government pull together and work together, it was almost like Chrétien said "Look, I don't care if you say it started in Ben Affleck's Ass, just keep blaming the Yanks":)
Today's Headline: Blackout Probe Focuses On Cleveland Area.
Yanks: We shouldn't be focusing on whose fault it was or where it started, we should just focus on fixing the problem and upgrading power
grids.............LOLOLOL.
But the best part was that Peter Mansbridge was called back to work from vacation, scruffy beard and all and no one called in Queer Eye for the
Straight Guy during the commercials to shave him:):)
Dear CNN: Winnipeg is not in Ontario. Just so you know. You might want to ask the tourists to New York City you're interviewing what province Winnipeg is in, before you go on-air and say "Winnipeg, Ontario." Because despite what you may have been told, there are more provinces in Canada than Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, which sadly, seem to be the ones most known-about south of the 49th. There's also one called Manitoba. It's beside Ontario. To the west. And it's where Winnipeg is. Really. It's the capital city. And there was no power outage there.
Before I start this... if anyone from Ottawa is reading this and is looking for an open gas station, the Shell on Bank (between Billings Bridge and Heron Rd.) is open, with very cheerful and energetic employees! Most other gas stations on that stretch of Bank (Esso, Petro Can, Sunoco), as of about an hour ago, were not. I believe the MacEwan's (sp?) at Bank and Riverside is also open, one of its pumps was open last night as well.
So yes, yesterday afternoon here in Ottawa, the power went out as The Blackout of 2003 hit most of the province (not Thunder Bay, hehe, but I already knew that they were linked in with the Dakotas, not New York, etc. from a 1998 blackout I was there for), and a few states, including, of course, New York. Aside from the fact that, hey, there's no electricity and yes it's 31 C outside, but not too humid, it really didn't seem to be a huge deal to me except for the fact that millions of people were without power.
I think also, in Ottawa, people were pretty lucky because even if your car was out of gas, you could have hopped on an OC Transpo bus at any given time and been across the bridge in Gatineau, where there were little or no power problems. So if you needed food, or batteries, or anything really, just go across the bridge. And our population isn't anywhere near the size of NYC or even Toronto, and there were no public transit concerns on the scale of subways and streetcars that couldn't go anywhere. Other places were not so fortunate, I'm about to take a look at today's paper and read things I might not have heard on the radio all of last night or on the TV this morning.
The radio is kind of a funny story -- takes a power outage for me to realize that I don't HAVE a walkman anymore, and that my clock/radio radio isn't powered by batteries, but I did remember right after I got home from work yesterday afternoon that I have one of those pocket radios that I used to listen to when I took the bus. Found that, and only had my big headphones here -- the small earbud ones are at work! -- so that's how I stayed informed all night; that and talking to Bubble while she gave me updates from CNN and CBC.ca. So yeah. Think I'll be buying myself a battery-powered radio, or maybe one of those TVs you take camping!
I'm not really sure what time the power was restored to my neighbourhood. I know it was after 12:30 a.m. (when I went to sleep) and before 4:30 a.m. (when I woke up and flicked the switch on my reading lamp -- the only thing I'd left plugged in except the fridge and stove -- and it came on). I got up just after 6 and turned on the TV to see if they had any info about going to work on Breakfast @ The New RO; all I knew was we were under the province-wide advisory of only go if you're an essential service. A co-worker called me just before 7 to let me know not to go in; by that time I'd figured out that the web site servers were still down anyway, and I had no idea about any LANs at work, so I probably wouldn't have been able to do much even if it had been a work day. An unexpected long weekend! :)
It's a great day to be out and about, more so for walking than driving though. I went out to put gas in my car at 7:30, then came home, parked it, and took a walk over to Tim Horton's for a nice, extra-large coffee. :) When I went out for a walk last night, I noticed that Tim Horton's was still open, obviously not for coffee but it looked like they were selling juice and any kind of muffins, donuts, bagels, etc. that they had left. 7-Eleven is also open, so I may have to go take another walk and get milk later. Not too much that needs to be thrown out in the fridge or freezer, because I rarely eat any meat to begin with so there's not a heck of a lot of it in my freezer.
I have to say, it is a gorgeous and peaceful morning. There's this beautiful, cool breeze right now, makes me want to go back out and go for a longer walk, or even just sit with a book out on the porch. It's the perfect day for reading, or working on some writing -- that is all still going really well.
So that's about all from this end, although I should add that I now believe in cosmic justice, LOL (yes, apologies, this is a VERY inside joke). I've had power for hours, some parts of Bank still don't seem to have it, some other parts of the city too, but they say there could be rolling blackouts. I know some of my friends are still trying to figure out if they are working today, but I have plans to have a peaceful, relaxing day, enjoying an unexpected and rare day off. I hope everyone out there is safe and well.
Um, wow. You know when you discover things you'd entirely forgotten about, and it just blows you away? Yeah. That's the feeling going on, right now.
I have a pile of old floppy disks, untouched for years. I decided to look through a few of them tonight. So far I've discovered beginnings of a few stories (potential for novel length), a few pages written for each of them and various scenes, and plot outlines. And then the funny stuff, from when I was in high school. Totally forgot, so it's funny to go back and see it!
But it's amazing, all the things I'd started and then put on hold when I no longer had the time, overwhelmed and swamped by j-skool and the double major, all possible writing in me drained by articles, TV scripts, essays, etc. Way too cool to find all of this stuff.
The Weather Network: "We don't expect any precipitation from Sunday evening to Monday evening."
Environment Canada: "Severe thunderstorm warning for Ottawa North/Kanata/Orleans [in other words, all of the City of Ottawa] continued. Slow moving thunderstorms have developed over the above noted regions. Local heavy rainfall is the main threat of these thunderstorms which have the potential to drop 75 to 125 mm within 3 hours."
Someone remind me again why it is, exactly, that I can't be a meteorologist? Or just tell me which of those forecasts is lying? I'd like to know, so I can go for a walk now...
Grain elevator explosion rocks Halifax (CBC.ca) -- it felt somewhat surreal, when I saw this headline in this afternoon's CBC.ca e-mail headlines. I was transported back to last summer, being in Halifax at the harbour -- almost exactly one year ago (in a week and a bit) -- looking at pictures from the 1917 Halifax Harbour Explosion. Reading Barometer Rising had sparked my interest in that catastrophic event, so when I saw today's headline, the first words that popped into my head were, "Not again."
Sweet end to agony, it finally has a real title. ("It" being the WordPerfect file and pages upon pages of notebook scribblings formerly known as Leaving Hopewell.) The Notepad file with the stream-of-consciousness title attempts is really something to behold.
However.
I'm holding off on posting what exactly it is, publicly... will share with the people I know who aren't titling stories, books, albums, etc. at the moment.
Cottage was fun though, the fun beginning once I pointed out that we weren't looking for the Holiday Inn (I am going to be in so much trouble for writing that, hehehe). And Zoodles for breakfast is an interesting concept. ;)
Thanks to everyone for a great time! To those I met for the first time, I hope to see you all again sometime, and if someone could remind me who it was I was talking about the Dar show with on Friday night, that would be great, I'd like to send off an e-mail.
Hope you guys made it to the end of the railing, and that the rest of the long weekend rocks for all!
