Friday Link Round Up

General

From some of my fave blogs/sites/internet crash zones:

What happens when you re-upload a video to YouTube a 1000 times? A watery blob yells at you! (via Gizmodo)

Good Show Sir has the cover for a book called Plunder. My comment: “After the American channel AMC released the rights to The Prisoner, the only buyer was the economically challenged lizardoid people of planet Gleebanx.”

BoingBoing brings me a link for Stormtrooper Action Figures 365. A shot a day of troopers getting into serious predicaments? I like. I may steal…

Via @TorontoPolice on Twitter: “ LRAD is NOT a use of force option for police-it is communication tool-Public Order Unit S/Insp Bill Neadle” A communications tool? That’s like saying a hand gun can be used for a hammer!

Water, Pancreas and Goo

Personal Bits, The Bad

Yesterday was a long day.

My iPhone pinged with an incoming email, right by my head, on my nightstand, waking me / not waking me enough to get my mind working at 4am. I thought “Well, I better look at it!” I grabbed the phone and opened my emails…

Da sent out an message saying he had just called 911 to take him to a hospital. He wasn’t sure which one but he’d let us know. His pancreas cysts were acting up again and he had been in pain for two days.

This thing again, I thought. I rolled over onto my back and laid there wondering if I should get up and try to hunt down which hospital he was in. After 30 min of alternating between being the good son (yelling at myself to get up and get on the phone) or being the bad son (trying to get back to sleep), my bowels won out. I hoofed it to the loo.

While sitting on the throne, one of the cats groggily came into the bathroom and mew-ed at me as if to say “Look. I’m going into the tub to drink some water!” (the cats demand a slow dripping tap to drink from – take THAT environment!). George Hamilton jumps into the tub and from behind the shower curtain, lets loose with louder meows. I crane my neck around the wall to see that the tap wasn’t dripping. I finish my biz and stand and flush. The horror commences. The sound from the toilet tank was like a inter-dimensional mucus monster materializing through a swamp. The toilet roared and kakked and the bowl didn’t refill with water (thankfully the biz was gone though). I try opening the tub tap which resulted in chest-wound sucking sounds. The rest of the sinks in the apartment responded in kind.

I poured the cat a bowl of water. Best I could do, George Hamilton, sorry.

Bad son won out. I got back into bed and manage to catch another 15 min of sleep. When we both woke, I told SharkBoy of both problems. As we shuffled around the apartment trying to decide what we should do, one of the taps gasped a horrific gasp and then started to sputter water like a drag queen asked to check her mink stole. But it wasn’t actually water…

Sandy

From the faucet came this orangey brown liquid that deposited sand like granules all over the tub. The other sinks were spewing out the same sludge. At least we had water! We ran it for a while with no reprieve from the brown.

Gross

After a while, SharkBoy discovered that there was clean water coming from the hot water tap, probably from the hot water tank that was unaffected by the pipes that delivered us this goo. We quickly hopped into the tub and took fast showers. Whore’s Baths, really.

After a while the cold water came back to it’s clear state but I made the mistake in brushing my teeth in it too soon. My mouth still tastes like swamp today.

The resulting day of an early trip to the hospital, Apple store visit (to sign my work contract) revisit to the hospital, trip to Da’s to get supplies/books/toiletries and back to the hospital, left me utterly wiped.

When we came home from hospital last night, we immediately turned on the kitchen sink to see if all was better. For some reason was only running at less than half pressure and had this coming out of it:

Milky

It ran like this for about 15 minutes then went clear. Seems ok this morning but still very slow.

Dad is ok. He’s bored but had a bad night sleeping but he looks a lot better than he did yesterday. Doctors will be keeping him until Monday and will be poking and prodding his gut on a regular basis. News as it happens.

Probably The Last I’ll Speak Of This

Distractions, Personal Bits

I have just received via email my acceptance into the wonderful world of Apple retail. I will be pulling part time hours (while still doing my current career stuff) as one of their many Specialists here in town. I start training right away – this weekend – where I am sure I will have to sign some sort of confidentiality contract. I have a feeling I will not be able to blog about incidents or events happening within the crystal box known as the Apple Stores.

I say that because when I asked a few direct questions regarding operations, I was given a standard answer from a couple people: “As you know, Apple is a fairly secretive company. I’m unable to answer that…”

And speaking of the hiring process – it’s been like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Not in a bad way, either. It’s been fun, curious and eye opening.

No. I will not get you a staff discount on an iPad.

Me first.

The Game Is Afoot!

Personal Bits

Eep Eep!

On my dresser, I have two coin banks – one for loonies and twonies, the other for the rest of the change. SharkBoy and I have a tradition of as soon as we decide on a vacation, we start putting loose change into our coin boxes. We hoard change right up to a few days before our plane leaves and go to one of those robot counting machines in the grocery store and thus we can afford the limo to and from the airport (and maybe a $10 bagel before the flight).

This morning I emptied my pants of their change into the monkey box and could see that there were coins really close to the top of the box, light glinting off them through the slot. I was instantly excited – I didn’t think I had spent that much since emptying it out last February, but who cared? The monkey coin box was nearly full!

“Look! It’s nearly full!” I say with excitement. Any bit of news about a vacation is always welcome conversation.

SharkBoy produces a smile that reminds me of the Cheshire Cat at the Red Queen’s awkward croquette tournament. “Got. You.” he says.

GAWDDAMMNIT!! Damn, he got me good!

Damn You

The End of the Shuttle

Tech

I can’t help but feel a bit saddened by the last of the shuttle missions. NASA says they’ll be using Ares rockets in the five year gap between the old Bessies being phased out and the next generation of orbiters. The Ares are basically the solid rocket boosters you see on the side of the massive fuel tank when the shuttle takes off, but in bigger form. To my futurists sensibilities, this seems like a step back and wish that Steve Jobs was presiding over their design teams. I think the extended and long history of the shuttle program has proven that re-using a multiform vehicle is much more practical than “reusable” rockets that crash back to earth for inevitable repair.

Listen to me, all rocket scientist.

Regardless, the gap is there and not pointing any fingers at anyone, NASA has to fill it if the US wants to stay viable in commercial space development. Meanwhile, the US military allegedly is testing a reusable shuttle of their own, but it’s purportedly a drone, unmanned robot that flies very high and very stealthily for surveillance. It looks like a Red Bull can with tiny wings. Renderings suggest it’s perfect Space Shuttle 2.0 but it’s a long time coming, like the second generation of Microsoft’s Zune. Too late!

As things play out, Faking Hoaxer has just released a new video of “Shuttle Scenarios” which are creepily foreboding as the last of the aging shuttles come home.

I Want To Tell You Hebbo!

Distractions, Personal Bits

Lately I’ve been …incomplete. I have to admit that my life has been rather empty and lost. Oh sure I had a loving husband and two wonderful cats and lots of electronic gadgets to keep me occupied but I found that my soul lacked that soul-like thing that makes all of us full of souls. I was a shell of a person with a shell around them. I was empty inside but with guts and things inside.

Then I got a brochure.

I am a better person today because of it! I’ve learned the 313 secrets of Tarvu and I know how to talk to an octopus!

Tarvuism is the world’s fastest growing religion and it’s so EASY to join! ™

I’m not sure what the good book of Tarvuism says about homosexuality but I’m sure it will be word-like!

I encourage you to join! It’s so EASY to join!

Bebbo!

Open Sores 2010

Toronto, You Stupid Dick

Once a year someone in Toronto convinces various heritage buildings (and other interesting sites) to open their doors to the public (See? See the title? Yeah). Last year, SharkBoy and I nearly died of heat exhaustion while waiting 4 hours for a glimpse inside the Don Jail. This year, we decided to play it cool. If there was a wait more than 5 min, we moved on. Which worked well, especially when we saw that the CityTV building (Who wants to see a design-by-committee-boondoggle building?!?) had an hour long line and we decided to hoof it to the movies instead. Thankfully we chose correctly.

We did get to see the rooftop garden at City Hall and that was beautiful. I was mauled by bush people. Seriously – Bush People. We went up into the 14 floor deck of the Canada Life building and got some great shots. We also saw the inside of the Trinity Church, where the band The Cowboy Junkies recorded The Trinity Sessions. I do have to say that this year was a bit of a snoozefest. When we went into the MaRS building on College Street, we were treated like marketing/science lab rats. If we weren’t asked to fill out questionnaires on computers in the lobby, we were asked to leave stickers on questionnaire plaques all around the building, that had leading questions like “If we could read your genes to discover if you had a defect, and treat it, would you want your genes read?” Uh… DUH! One office we had access to on the 4th floor was the centre for observing prosperity world wide (or some such high concept). Big brain think tank stuff. We were lead around the beautiful Victorian Hospital – converted to office space – by the office manager herself who boasted to us “You know Roger XXX? From the University of Toronto?” Blank stares from us “He’s a big name in academia…” which resulted in us nodding politely. When the office manager asked if we wanted to leave our emails for updates on their upcoming projects, I stifled the comment “Maybe you can tell me exactly how Roger can afford all this?” This summed up my Open Doors vibe this year. Not much interesting.