Photos + Snark

A Hamas Member or Parliament shortly before rising on a point of order.

I was debugging a web application when the server sent back a response that was exactly 666 bytes in length. It unerved me. A lot.

Minister of the Environment Rona Ambrose speaks in the House of Parliament. She looks very angry. Now that she's in government all that anger can finally be channeled into something really useful like killing the Kyoto Accord. I have this idea about Ronazilla bobble-heads...

When this painting first came out it caused a bit of controversy, but no embassy burnings, no riots, and no Danish Cheese makers forced out of business. I apologize I lost the painter's name for proper citation.

I use the Firefox browser and email client. Occasionally I get weird messages. Open Source programmers, what can you do.

I love this picture of Cohen and Bono and an unidentified women. Cohen radiates coolness while Bono has to work at it.

No...that plot line does'nt really work for me. How about Eugene goes off his meds and blows up the whole neighbourhood including that stupid little record store. And then the CBC will have to cancel that horrible horrible horrible show. Get Mel Gibson in as a guest director for the last episode.

C'mon Nigel, lick the Toad. Lick the Toad! C'mon it'll be really cool.

One of my favourite paintings, Le Naissance de Venus by William Adolphe Bouguereau. So now when someone says she's really really bouguereau you'll know what they mean.

So...the new look is wearing St. Louis Blues uniforms. Yeah the Oilers are a playoff team alright. Weirder things have happened.

The Phoenix Oilers? The CBC makes two hockey gaffes in a row. And then you have to listen to Brian Williams.

During the Siege of Troy Achilles, played woodenly by Brad Pitt, calls in a bit of air cover. Actually I think the photo is a fake, but still, a bit of bombing would have helped that movie.

Looks like the fitness standards of the Philippines anti-coup anti-riot police have slipped somewhat. Please recommend this post

A Night At The Doctors

I had to get an eye exam today which was not much fun. I lost my glasses somewhere in Red Deer when I stopped to make a phone call while on the way to Edmonton. I know I had them on when I pulled into the McDonalds in Red Deer because I got out of my truck and looked at a sign that said Jacuzzi Suites $99.00 on the Motel across the road. I thought that would be kind of cool if you had someone to go with. Sex in a Jacuzzi probably is not all that much fun anyway. It's just one of those things that sounds sexy. You're probably better off going alone and just relaxing with a book. Or take someone who can bring you a beer or some wine once in a while, so you don't pass out from the heat and drown. I'd like to have a personal jacuzzi assistant, but not in a Brokeback Mountain way. I was thinking more like an Anthony Hopkins Remains of the Day kind of way.

I went to an Optometrist I've never been to before because my Doctor left his wife and buggered off somewhere, and I don't have a clue about my prescription. And even though my Doctor's wife was also an Optometrist she would'nt see me. I think she's quite bitter. I was overdue for an exam anyway. My eyes are really not that bad except for distance which means I definitely need them for driving and at night. I failed the pressure test widely. This is the test where they blow air against your eye and measure the fluid pressure. I have one eye that has way too high pressure. Now I have to go to an Opthamologist and get more tests. They measured it four or five times on 3 different machines and kept getting different results. So much for scientific accuracy. I am glad they are not running a nuclear power plant. If the pressure does not go down on its own they might drill a small hole with a laser and this will fix the problem by draining some fluid. Science is so cool these days. If they don't fix it it will have a long term negative effects on my eyesite. If your thinking about making a joke about masturbation I think you should stop thinking about making that joke. I hate to think that my eye could explode while meeting somebody important. Please to meet you your excellency...sploink.

To examine my eyes in detail she put some drops in my eyes that freeze the eye muscles so they dilate and can't adjust to light. They told me to go walk around for a while while it took effect. Very bad advice. Out in the mall with the bright flourescents and neon everywhere I just about went nuts. The light was like jabby pokey things and It felt like I was stoned or had a hangover. My vision went totally blurry. It raised my anxiety level quite a bit which was already high to begin with because I'm not really good at going to Doctors. I was thinking about how interesting the Brain's way of processing vision is. (And Mel Brooks' movie High Anxiety.) Why would distorted vision raise your anxiety level? Do blind people have lower anxiety levels? Then I walked into some woman. I think she was good looking. Her head looked like a big Sunflower. A redhead I think. She sure smelled nice.

Then the cute Doctor Lady did the exam and shone some really really bright lights in my eyes. That hurt. Then she showed me the images of my eye insides. That was interesting but creepy.

I went next door to pick out a new set of glasses but I gave up after a while because I could not really see any of them and the sales person was church lady smarmyish. It is true that I did pick out a pair of pink-like woman's frames, and while she was good to steer me away from this choice, she could have been a bit less smarmy. And stop calling me sweety and honey. Driving was really cool. The red traffic lights looked like big Psychedelic poppies. So cool. I really wish they would come out with some recreational Psychedelic drugs that have no harmful effects. I only had a couple of blocks to go, but I really should not have been driving. I tried to do some work on my computer but with my eyes still dilated and lazy I could actually see the monitor refreshing and pulsing and it hurt my head and freaked me out. It was four or five hours before I got coherent eye site back and lost the headache.

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Remembering Charlie

Last week my step father Charles Creighton passed away unexpectedly at the age of 81. He passed away in the University of Alberta Hospital.

Charlie was born in North Dakota but his family came to Northern Alberta when he was quite young. They settled on a farm around the Hythe area. Their father died when the family was young and their mother had to raise 8 children by herself. Charlie occasionally told me a story about how poor they were. He left home when he was 13 or 14 to go work and I don't think he ever got to finish school.

In 1978 he met and married my Mother and they were always very happy together. I don't think they ever spent even a single day apart. They travelled all over the place together, in fact, I often had a hard time tracking them down. If they were not in their motor home camping somewhere they were flying someplace nice like Hawaii or Mexico. They spent a lot of time at North Buck Lake with my brother and sister. I'm very grateful for the time they spent together but I wish it could have been longer.

Before the funeral we were going through piles of photos. Charlie had a lot of grand-children and it was hard to find pictures where he did'nt have one or more of them sitting on his lap.

In all the time I knew Charlie he was always very kind to me, in spite of all the goofy things I did in my life. I'm still really in a state of shock. I realize that our family has lost someone irreplaceable, someone that was loved and respected by everyone who knew him.

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