Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Blue Flowers in Glass


14 comments:

  1. Howard is still first.
    Backaches are last. Made me cut karaoke a bit short tonight. But at least Demetrius was able to come with me this time.

    My kitten, Madonna, is turning a year old in just two weeks. She and Perkins seem to have come to some sort of understanding. I think they genuinely want to be friends, but it's hard to figure out how to play together safely.

    Winnie has responded just *beautifully* to the anti-itch medicines the vet gave her. She still has the arthritis to deal with, but at least she isn't constantly biting and "snorgling" at herself long into the night.

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    1. Ugh! Backaches are definitely last! Glad other things seem to be going pretty well though.

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  2. Warmish this afternoon, which is actually kind of nice. I still am having trouble getting warm most days.

    The kitties got a box of catnip-filled toys Monday, and everybody loves them. Vivie seems perkier. She still sleeps a lot, but when she's awake she seems much more cheerful and alert with nice, new, lovely-smelling toys around her. I must say, it is a nice aroma. I'll have to keep checking back to see when the catnip mist comes back into stock.Got some cleaning liquid too, which I'm looking forward to trying. According to the Cat Faeries web site, it's pretty much miracle cleanser. But first I need to read very carefully all the sheets of instructions and tips. You know you're, er, grownup when you get excited about cleaning products.

    I now have fifteen quizzes online at Fun Trivia. Twelve of them are on Engelbert's music an career, but I'm working on diversifying. Can't remember if I posted the link to my most recent, so here it is: All You Need Is the Girl. Got a whole lot more in the works too. Currently, I'm concentrating on finishing one that will let me move on to the next step of Adventures in Authoring, a sort of adventure/quest game where you have to complete specific tasks (successfully do certain quizzes, create a quiz to specific specs and the like) to proceed. My current task is create a quiz with Black, Dark or Night in the title. My first impulse was to write a quiz on The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, but there already ar a few, and I didn't want to bring coles to Newcastle. so I retreated to my fallback position, Pop Music to do one on songs dealing with one night stands. It's coming along very well. Should be finished by the time I hear about my current submission, an introductory quiz on The Twelve Houses, a Fantasy series by Sharon Shin. As with Engelbert, I found there were no quizzes on this series, and have set out to fill the need, at least with one offering.

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    1. [sign] So many books, so little time. I read the opening chapters of the first two books, liked them, but never found time to finish.

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    2. Which? The Long Dark Teat ime of the Soul or the Shinn series?

      BTW Shinn is the correct spelling. *sigh*

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  3. We're spending the night in Belleville, on Lake Ontario between Kingston and Toronto; drove down from Ottawa today. So far the weather is holding. There is a possibility of rain in the next several days they say, but a week ago they said the same thing about the days we have seen very nice weather. We shall see what we shall see. The corn we have seen has been stunted; I suppose the farmers were hit by the same lack of rain that hit the Midwest. The most interesting roadside exposure of rock so far was in Quebec, on the north side of the Ottawa River. It was a mixed group of granites (differing colors and crystal sizes) together with some steaks of quartz, and of all things a layer of slate. But come to think of it, I recall a slate quarry in the Sierra Nevada, which is basically granite.

    Tomorrow at the museum in Markham Ontario, looking for records of my ancestors from 1792 to 1850. I shouldn't be surprised if I find at least something new to me, but even if I don't it will be worthwhile.

    TTFN

    Alan

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    1. The reports are that the corn yield per acre in Ontario this year is high; but the fields we saw were pretty pathetic looking compared to what I am used to in central California. It doesn't seem the plants could be so small and the grain harvest large.

      --Alan

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    2. My experience in the Midwest is that the farmer's plant dwarf corn -- about half the height of what we had in our garden when I was a kid -- because the yields are better. Energy goes into the grain rather than stalks and leaves. Seems surprising the same wouldn't be true in central California.

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  4. Obamacare vs. Canada: Five key differences
    ANTONIA MAIONI
    Special to The Globe and Mail
    Published Wednesday, Oct. 02 2013
    [Click]

    Very condensed version:

    Not single-payer
    Not universal coverage
    Not national health insurance
    Not equal access
    Not cost containment

    --Alan

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    1. What precisely do they mean by "cost containment?" There are cost-containment aspects to Obamacare, including Accountable Care Organizations, but the words may have a more specific meaning in Canada.

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  5. Going to get some ice cream (B&J's Karemel Sutra) and read for a while. Currently rereading Stephenie Meyer's The Host for the umpteenth time. Have library books I need to get on with, but there's something so comforting about a favorite book, an old friend.

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  6. Alan! Any chance you saw the amazing Northern Lights last night up there? Be sure to look tonight, though not as powerful.

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