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Category: With Thoughts Like These

And on the sixty fifth day, He said, Oh – Lord, I have finished reading the last book in the series, and was at once, both elated, and forlorn.

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For it was a good series, of both length and depth, but now it is over, and where there used to stand a long winding road full of opportunities there is now only the hard cold truth of the back cover, closed and defined. Like a stone rolled over the door to seal in the freshness. I am sad. I do however have a new book to read, a part of another series I enjoy, plus next month John Scalzi’s new book will drop and I’ll likely enjoy that one too.

I wasn’t going to talk about books, I had something else on my mind which I was gearing up for today, but now that the power has been out since 2:00am, school is cancelled, it’s going to rain like cats and dogs all day, I had to change gear. I imagine power will be back some time between 9:00am and 12:00pm, so it won’t be an entirely lost work day, but with the kiddos home it’ll be a wash. No tv, no microwave, no toaster or fridge, no dvd player, and no furnace. Could potentially be a trying day for us. Oh joy.

Happy I managed to get through so much work on Monday through Wednesday. Could have been a disaster if I’d left it until later in the week.

Now that I think on it, I can’t recall – at all, what I was going to lead with today. Not even a scintilla of an idea of what it was. I know that yesterday afternoon I thought it was funny. But it totally escapes me now.

Oh, to be fair I was reading the Expanse book series, if anyone wanted to know. Book nine finished it all off. Although I did see that they have collected some peripheral short stories from the universe into a book, so perhaps we’re not quite done yet. We’ll see. I liked how it came together, so maybe I’ll leave well enough alone? Or not. I don’t have any other science fiction series that I have been following along with besides Matha Wells’ Murder Bot Diaries (which is also fantastic) oh and Mary Robinette Kowals alternate history A Lady Astronaut Novel series.

I have done some considerable thinking about my next few chapters. Was planning to write one today, but – kids home all day due to inclement weather. Stay tuned, things should get interesting!

I read somewhere once that a man could eat sixty four chicken nuggets before dying.

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Obviously that’s not true!, we’ve all been horrified watching a hot dog or pie eating contest where they gorge themselves something awful. I can’t imagine how awful those last seven hot dogs must feel going in. I imagine the expulsion process afterward would be lengthy and unpleasant. A real sight to behold if you like horrible, terrible, nasty no good things. Blargh! I wonder what sort of mental prep you have to do in order to be able to do that to yourself on a consistent basis. You know leading up to it they have to practice. You couldn’t go months on end in between competitions and not train at all. Your body wouldn’t be able to take the stress. Relax this, hold that, bend at the hips, don’t do x, y or z up to two days before hand. It must be a whole regimen involved in hurting yourself that badly. Boggles the mind.

I just sent off another round of tweaks so I expect an hour or so before I hear back, potentially. So I thought I’d write up a quick how do you do, grab some breakfast then take a load of stuff out to my shop for a quick task. Whether or not I can finish the quick task as quickly as I think I can remains to be seen. Time will tell.

Are you people out there watching Summer House at all? What a mess. The people that is. The house they all share is lovely. Each season it seems to get bigger and bigger. I remember the first season when they all drank Twisted Tea like it was water. Would not want to feel like they do the day after they raged well into the wee hours of the morning. I feel hung over if I’m up too late just watching a movie, let alone drinking a 2-4 worth of alcoholic beverages. I can’t party like I used too. Even then, back in the day, I wouldn’t do a 2-4 in a day. Yikes! Red flag, red flag.

Sixty three thousand four hundred eighty seven minutes…

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Or however the song goes. Another busy one today ladies, gents and those whom wish to remain nameless. Have been going non stop since eight am. Got a few more PSD’s to build and place and my last instore project for the day can go off for review. Had to call in to a supplier to figure out a tricky die line today. I just can’t seem to figure out how they do it, given the amount of material we have to use. My spatial awareness is usually pretty good, but this one feels as though it needs to fold through another dimension in order to work. Maybe I’ve brained to hard this weekend and I’m feeling foggy or dim witted today. The vendor will ship a hard copy to me so I can assemble it first hand and see what’s what. That should help out alot. I have seen a fair number of odd shapes but I can usually figure them out in my head. I even took to cutting one out of construction paper, and I still can’t see how they are doing it. But one straight from the source may correct for any of my errors.

Another beauty of a day outside, with lots of sunshine. Nice to have it, as tomorrow and the day after the temperature will sky rocket and it’ll absolutely piss down for two days. Just you watch, it’ll snow a few days later, and we’ll be right back to where we are, but with 100% more ice!

Wish I had more to tell on my book, but worked hard on Sunday, and now have paid projects to keep me busy for a while.

**Added note : worked right through until 5:00pm for the first time in a while. Had to stop for an hour for school pick up, but otherwise a full day’er. Woah! With phone calls and mail drop I was having office job flash backs. Except for almost no interruptions when at home. Not even a single delivery today either! A text from a neighbour and one from my mum, but otherwise laser focused today.

Also it is Taco Tuesday, so I have that to look forward to this evening. Even if I am craving pizza for one reason or another. Hard to go wrong with a zesty taco! Which reminds me, it has been far too long since I have been able to indulge in a hefty chimmichonga from ‘Made in Mexico’ out of Newmarket. Damn they make a fine Chimmy! So good. You could club a man to death with it, they are so voluptuous!

Sixty two: Microns versus thousandths of an inch.

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Welcome back to Monday! New week new me, am I right!?! I’m positive but I’m not that optimistic. Pragmatic might suit me better. Looking for the hidden surprise while allowing myself to enjoy things as they are. Like – expect the worst, but enjoy what comes to you.

Anyway, I’ve just gone and sprung an appointment on myself for early today so I’ll need to keep this short.

Hey! Did you see that I wrote about 3000 words of short stories yesterday? Nice. Haven’t had that kind of output for a single day in more than a year. Had a bit of umph to try a third but got caught out with a possible Cinderella Story for the Cincinnati Bengals. But – they botched it, so. Whatever. Had a great bowl of chili though. So good!

Why spend the money when they just want to play with the box.

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This is a lesson learned from every single Christmas, birthday and gift giving holiday that we’ve ever had over the last near decade. Kids love toys, certainly. But they are also consumed by the need to hang on to card board boxes to colour, decorate, modify and play around with for weeks after the toy has lost parts, fallen out of favour, or been ignored. You think you will remember this revelation, but it will hit you anew, every time. Luckily marketplace can get you some great presents at drastically reduced prices, so you don’t care as much if their initial excitement is about the box and not it’s contents. Let them have at it. They’re happy, giggling and playing well together, so that’s all I can ask for.

I couldn’t wait for Monday to celebrate Valentine’s day. Also the present I gave my kids this morning is to help them to ignore how much football my wife will watch today. Pre-game coverage, Cinderella stories on the Bengals, theory and strategy with pundits from all over the USA, the game itself, the commercials, the endless speeches at the trophy ceremony. It’ll take up the whole afternoon and well into the evening. I like the spectacle for the new movie trailers, and any funny one off product commercials that we catch here in Canada. But they always go up on YouTube, so I could easily give The Superbowl a miss if I wanted to.

Day 61 is here, and looking sunny, with blue skies and sub zero temperatures- again. I don’t have any data on this, but stick with me here. I ‘feel’ like this particular winter has had more blue sky sunny days than most winters I can recall. That’s not a scientific fact, but it feels true. Which means very little to anyone else I’m sure. I’m willing to bet that because of the Pandemic making business a fair bit slower, I’ve just been able to have the time and the desire to notice when the sky is blue and the sun is shining while it’s bitterly cold outside. Could be that the weather is mostly the same percentage of sunny vs. Cloudy year over year but my wistful glances out the window this season has noticed the ice blue and registered it, and forgotten about any drab grey I’ve seen. Not forgotten, that’s the wrong word. Taken no notice of, ignored? Ignored seems like the right frame of mind for what I’m talking about.

In other news we have family that have finally, after two years of complaining about it, gone to Florida for some R & R. I get it, we’ve been stuck in, mostly at home for two years, soon to start year three, and people with disposable income are getting antsy to get out and about. In October I made it to a single movie, which felt like a morsel of normalcy. Mask and everything while I watched. I was just happy to get to have that back, briefly. Different than international travel, sure, but I understand the desire.

Did you catch the story recap I posted a few days ago? Can you guess how things are going to end? I hope not, but if you’ve read all four sub sections of book one you might have an inkling for how things will turn out. I hope not, but you very well could. Which leads me to another question for those of you who write. If you thought people might guess at your initial ending would you feel pressured in any way to add in additional twists, or go an entirely different route to end it? I guess I’ll see how close to what I’m aiming for I get when the characters start to act up and act out! Happy Sunday Feb 13th of the year 2022.

Bread you can believe in, and other silly tag lines.

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Having worked in marketing departments for some multinational corporations you really start to see just how much BS there is out in the world regarding your average product. From bread to deodorant, to wine and beer. A tonne of the marketing jargon is bunk made up my pedantic people playing at semantics. It’s all geared towards garnering the cash of not only the staple consumer, but the fickle and flighty “experiential” consumer who is looking for an ‘experience or ritual’ attached to their product. What your average person considers to be just opening a can or bottle, they call a cherished pause in the day to listen to the crisp pop of the bottle cap, and the decanting of the golden liquid, etc etc… copy writers just describe opening a bottle in fancy terms and a select few people gobble that shit up.

You can really see it if you have kids ages four through ten. When those endless commercials for toys come on inbetween the endless stream of shows geared towards showcasing those self same toys. The colours, the tone of voice, the offer of something you JUST CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT. Ugh. It’s a thing.

So Day 60 is here and it is once again cold, icy and snowing. Winter in Canada, what more is there to say? Going to enjoy some breakfast while watching Rock Solid Builds out of Newfoundland. Praise be to HGTV and the kids actually playing well together for a change. I need to eat.

How much blood does this Blood god need?

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Can you satiate a blood god with a bucket of blood? Does he need gallons of the stuff? Would a barrel suffice? Or are we talking like lakes or oceans worth? Where is the power derived from? The iron content, the plasma or the red blood cells themselves? What happens if some of your offerings have sickle cell anemia or blood poisoning? Can you substitute any blood? Like does a bull count as several people due to the quantity, or is it the quality of the blood? Like… is a singular virgin’s blood better than, say an entire herd of cattle? Does the blood god have a preference of species or is it just the amount in the offering that matters. How does the blood god keep all that blood from coagulating into a rock solid mass? Does it exude chemicals or treatments to keep it flowing in liquid form? Would working for a slaughter house be considered cheating? Like do meat packing plants with their waste blood pools out back hold a sweet spot in the blood gods ruined heart? How could you compete with the quantity spilt by these industries. Can you just sort of splash it on the ground. Do you have to get all of it to wash over an altar? Like what’s the practicality of the donation process? Do you just shout the name of your given blood god and let’er rip? Can multiple people involved claim the same massive offering or do you have to divide it into shares or percentages? Could you just farm it like a living blood bank, or can an offering only be made in death? Could you resuscitate an offering to make it again? Asking the big questions here, folks.

Just a thought. Any who – so tomorrow is day 60. I guess I could write about the impending spectacle of The Superbowl. I’m not entirely sure I remember who is going to be in it, beyond the Cincinnati Bengals. I do recall there being a lot of shouting and whooping regarding them not having a Superbowl showing since 1992* or something along those lines. (*I really could just google this to look up the correct answer, but I don’t care enough to double check this sports factoid.)

We will most likely indulge in some pizza and wings to watch the game, and all of the new tent pole movie commercials, and the half time show. Although I’m not aware of who is performing. Prince is dead, so not him. And some of my current favourites don’t have a large enough following to play the Superbowl. I’d love to see Wolfmother or The Blue Stones or even Big Wreck play the half time show, but that’ll never happen. I wonder if we will get any meme worthy material like “the left shark” or Janet Jackson’s boob.

Speaking of meme worthy performances do you remember a few winters ago when Mariah Carrey was to do New Year’s eve and she Diva’d her way out of the sound check, then frog croaked her way into like one song of her set and flubbed the whole thing, looking ridiculously unprofessional the whole time. Yeah – that was good, like watching a slow rolling car crash great, not this is actually great, kind of way. It was pretty cringeworthy.

Alas, today is Friday, so that means more snow and unbearably cold weather for the weekend. Of course – of course. Valentine’s day is on Monday, so if you need to do so, go pick something up for your wife or kids. Not like a Lexus or anything that fucking dumb, but like a book on a topic you know they like, or a movie you know they want to see. Something small but personal. Like you actually love them, or some such. Wow – that sounds preachy. You do you. Do whatever it is you do that shows people near and dear to you that you love them.

Watching the Winter Olympics

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And feeling rather blah about it. Not that I get all dressed up in red and white face paint and shake a flag around for two weeks at the best of times, but really not feeling it this year. We watched a few moments of Alpine skiing, half pipe, freestyle snowboarding and some speed skating. Not for very long, and with only passing interest. I remember years were we would wake up super early, or stay up late to catch stuff live, and to watch the over tired tv personalities wrangle with sports figures and get drunk on set and act up. It was hilarious and entertaining and fun. But this Winter Olympics feels like it has this massive black cloud looming over it, because we all know about the Uighurs, and the Human Rights issues going on there, but we are to what? Forget it for two weeks, forgive it for the sake of some live sports on tv 24/7. It feels off. Hard to shake even with all the pomp and ceremony surrounding the events. Doesn’t help that Covid has the stands bare, and it looks as hollow as it feels. But before we get all Righteous and sanctimonious, let us remember how many other countries are participating in Apartheid like occupations, and are actively producing human rights abuses against members of their own populations. So – yeah. Now that that has been said. On to something else.

After last weeks school covid exposure we have tested clear again today, thankfully. Our friends whose child fell ill from Covid from that same classroom has since passed covid along to three of the four members of the family. Three of them seem to be mild, but one is in tough shape. The little one who brought it home is now on the up & up.

Did anyone out there watch the new Ghostbusters? Was it any good? I kind of want to see it, but I’ve had a slew of bad luck watching reboots and things like that. I don’t want to buy it, as the cgi looked suspect. More cartoony than I had hoped for. Although now that I’m a middle aged man I realize that most franchise stuff is geared towards 8-12 year olds to garner life long fans. Trying to revisit movies you loved as a kid will deflate you fairly quickly. The rose coloured glasses of misunderstood jokes, or being enthralled by bright colours and slapstick comedy while missing the point of the film itself comes home to roost when you finally have more to bring to the viewing than the enthusiasm of child-like wonder.

Hold on, I’ve just been asked to make a pumpkin out of blue and yellow pipe cleaners. A father’s work is never done.

The sorry state of Ontario education at this precise moment in time.

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How can it be that the week prior to Christmas break, one child having a perceived exposure was enough to disband my youngest kid’s entire class for a week, and force them online, but now two (2) open and active Covid cases within her class room, actual students this time, isn’t enough of a concern? And why, while we isolate watching for symptoms can’t we access the Hybrid elearning that is currently in use while we watch our unvaccinated youngest child for signs of illness from a weeks worth of exposure from inside the classroom? It’s infuriating.

Not only that, but instead of a quiet informative email at the end of the day to inform us that they don’t qualify under the new rules they called out our kids infront of the whole class and then dropped them unceremoniously from their google classroom calls. That’s unprofessional at best. When I tell you that I was angry enough to want to hurt somebody yesterday, that would be an understatement. You don’t fuck about with my kids.

I had a huge additional rant here calling out several teachers, but I’ll not do it. I will say my eldest child’s teacher is amazing, and she deserves all the credit in the world for being firm but lovely. Really a credit to the school. She is wonderful.

Yeah, so day 57 am I right? I broke down last night and ordered some small Valentine’s day gifts for the whole family. I wasn’t going to, but eh! I’m a sucker for doing something nice every now and again. Plus I need the karma after how awfully mad I felt all day yesterday.

But I will say this though, if that’s how awful some of them act when they know they are being broadcast into your home unfiltered, how terrible are they in private to our kids when we’re not listening in? Ugh. I could boil a coffee pot in my hands I get so heated thinking about it. But I digress. Now we’re thinking about, hearts and poetry and kids giggling with chocolates and little hand made cards.

Spring can’t come soon enough. Sunshine, warmer weather, green grass, leaves on the trees. Gorgeous. And a shit tonne of rain in late March and most of April. Wash away the snow and bring on the warm sun. We can get outdoors biking, roller blaring, skate boarding and hiking again. The swings no longer make your butt go numb! Positively delightful.

Don’t mind me, just over here reliving the same day again.

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Can deja vu cover huge portions of a two year span? Or am I just going a little stir crazy at home, in a cold February? We had a few short weeks of something different, but we are back to the online elearning space to shuffle through our book matched days again. Not too awful for short preventative spurts, but draining and awful when they drag on for months without end. On the bright side, kids are safe and sound, after a narrow escape from a close Covid encounter in the classroom. I am also not as busy, and can afford to lend my computer to my child for class time for four days.

Well, we say four days, but after such a close call, a brush up against potential calamity do I keep them home for another few weeks? I’d feel so much better if we’d be able to vaccinate my youngest who isn’t quite five yet. Her little friend from play group is one of two currently out with Covid. Poor little munchkin. A fellow junior, and totally unvaccinated due to the age restrictions. We have our fingers crossed for mild/minor illness, since we know they aren’t asymptomatic.

All the best to other struggling families out there.