Out of The PIT

I've been selling stuff on Kijiji and Craig's List for quite some time now, but recently have had a couple of strange responses. One asked to pay by Paypal, which raised alarm bells. Right on the Kijiji response e-mail it mentioned that you should always make all transactions in person and in cash, so I looked up the name and found an interesting post online. I think I'll be ignoring any responses from this point on..

Okay now this is getting silly, I haven't been at 152 since university. But my spare tire was much smaller then as well. Where did all that weight disappear from? My head?

So it is Christmas and I have spent the entire day at home. I am still sick, although not as bad as yesterday, or the day before, or etc. Since Friday I have had the flu. I felt better on Monday morning, but mistakenly went to work and over the course of the day got worse until I headed home early. Now another byproduct of this illness was first my loss of appetite, and in addition to that I had to bow out of all but one Christmas banquet so far this season. So a byproduct of this byproduct was that I have lost fifteen pounds in the past month . I'm not sure how much of that was from the flu since I hadn't weighed myself in a while but I'm guessing most of that was muscle mass. Staying in bed does wonders (the negative type) on your muscles. Now that MJNL is sick, I will be staying home a little longer. Hopefully things will get better tomorrow.

My mom came up to me with her iPhone and asked me how she could call somebody with it. What a strange question! She has had the phone for several months now, but I guess never tried dialing with it. Anyhoo, she saw the phone icon, and picked out the number to call. Then while the call was being made, he'd the phone in front of her face and asked if it was working. It was. Then why is it so quiet? It's because you're not using the speaker phone, otherwise you can use it like a regular phone. But why is it so quiet? I am paraphrasing here but the conversation was taking many minutes to play out. I had to physicallly move the phone to her ear and even the she was confused asking if she was supposed to speak into the speaker, all the while my aunt was on the other end of the call listening in. I guess saying "use it like a phone" is lost on people who only use non-smart phones?

I remember watching part of Why Man Creates in my grade 7 or 8 science class. I have been meaning to look it up for many years now but each time I remember to look for it, I never write it down and it drops out of my memory. The last trigger was when MJNL was talking about Pasteur's Quadrant and that brought to mind the line "I'm a bug, I'm a germ, I'm a bug, I'm a germ... [indrawn breath] Louis Pasteur . I'm not a bug, I'm not a germ..." I actually was meaning to write it down right then and there but there were other things on the go and I forgot. Last night while I was sleeping I recalled that I wanted to remember something that I've been trying to remember for a while. The moment that quote came to mind, I quickly wrote it down, and I was able to look it up this morning. Finally!

The afternoon rush does not look much better. Still slow in the snow in Toronto. And so I go.

MJNL found some interesting tea last month. Oh yeah! She did not purchase any. Also, I found something really interesting on the container for my fuel stabilizer. The instructions are in metric, but the measuring part of the container is in imperial. mL or oz? So one must either know the conversion rates or guess?

For the second major storm for the city, we have a bit of a slowdown in traffic. It was slow with snow in Toronto. I'm sure that it could have been worse.

I was cooking some pork chops on Tuesday by using a maple glaze to give the meat a bit more flavour. Since we had some extra pork chops, I decided to use the remaining maple syrup (that we had used for marinating the salmon) and added some soy and garlic to see how well it ends up marinating the meat. I didn't know where the fresh garlic was, but I found a bottle of garlic powder in the cupboard. I had trouble pouring out the garlic powder as it had solidified into a giant lump at the bottom of the bottle. After scraping out the powder from the bottle with a spoon, I looked for a best before date. I could not find one. However, I did find the copyright notice on the label. The copyright date was 1981. Well, it still good right? *dumps rest of bottle contents into marinade*

I have been thinking about the events of last week when I found that someone had gotten into my car and messed around with my stuff. I was wondering why the vehicle seemed fairly untouched apart from the scattering of the contents of my glove compartment. Maybe they were able to get my car keys to get in to the car and it was just a prank? Otherwise, having the keys would be more than enough to just take the car, unless they couldn't drive stick.

I wonder where it's been? This past Saturday I took my bike out to my dental appointment for one last ride this season. It was literally freezing cold and I was very glad I was not actually riding on the highway. Winds at 60kph where more than enough to cut through my gloves (and pants) and freeze my fingers numb after just a few minutes. I spent the rest of the morning winterizing my bike, making sure that the fuel stabilizer was in, taking out the battery, and putting the bike on the stand. Too bad I had to leave it outside this year. Hopefully it will survive the winter. Prior years had the bike nicely stored in an underground (and heated) garage, so those years of pampering are over. It was also a little more annoying to perform those tasks outside in the cold. My fingers felt like limp sausages trying to work my tools to get the battery out. At least it was dry and calm. Any later and I would have had to do all of this with snow on the ground, more potential wind, and mu

My car was broken into today. I sat in the driver's seat and noticed that the glove compartment and the other compartments were left open, with wires and bags left strewen on the passenger seat. I do recall locking my car and turning on the alarm, so I am a little surprised but it is an old car so there are probably ways to work around the security. I don't actually have anything of value in the car, so I'm not sure what they were looking for, but I haven't seen anything actually taken from the car, but I should take a closer look..

I have a small tube of Glysomed on my desk, left over by a former employee who did not seem like the type of person who would would have cared about chapped knuckles. As I applied what little lotion was left from the tube onto the dry cracked skin on the back of my hands, I recalled that last week I had held in my hand the skin of one younger and newer than I. Even after exposure to the rough sand, bruising ball, and the burning sun her skin was still warm, soft and fair. Much like the skin that I once wore when I was young and insecure yet more care free. As I look back down at the dark and rough skin covering my now moistened fingers, I am reminded by the undeniable truth: The hands of time will catch up to us all.

I got my hair cut two weeks ago. A week ago, people at work started to notice. "Nice haircut." They would say. The first several times this happened, I mentioned that I had my hair cut the week before. But eventually I stopped bothering. What's the point ?

I thought driving to Montreal was going to be the most tiring part of the day. I was wrong.

I got to work today and was welcomed by the office alarm. Normally someone from the office will have been in by the time I got in. Now, I was early by fifteen minutes today, but even so, someone is normally in the office way before then. I believe a junction of vacations for most of the early arrivals plus a bit of tardiness from the remaining ones resulted in an office breach by the normally-not-the-first-ones to arrive. Unfortunately, I did not have the security code memorized, I've used it a handful of times in the past decade. Fortunately, I did have the security code on me. Unfortunately, it was on my laptop. Fortunately, it usually starts up quickly because I put the laptop on standby. Unfortunately, last night I actually shut the computer down. Fortunately, someone else in the office had called security. Unfortunately, they still needed the access number or they'd send the cops. Fortunately, that gave me ten minutes to turn on my laptop. Unfortunately, the re

So I came home and my dad tells me that there is no running water. What? Apparently there was some sort of leak in the piping, and when he got some plumber to fix it, the guy said he was going to pick up a part and never came back.. So, we stocked up on water from our neighbors and tried to conserve. We North Americans use quite a lot of water during the day! Most of it seems to be for sanitary purposes. I still wanted to go to the first broomball game of the year, so I showered at the arena. The place was.. open. For some reason they leave all the doors open there, so.. yeah. In any case, cleanliness > modesty, so I took a nice long shower.

I just got back from my MRI and I found it to be an interesting experience. Having to hold still and not swallow for minutes at a time was a bit more annoying than holding my (empty) breath for 5-15 seconds at a time. I can see how being in the device, especially with the coils over your head could be a problem for anyone who is claustrophobic. The noises from the machine though were rather curious. I didn't spend a lot of time in the NMR labs so I was never exposed to the sounds from the machines when they were running. Hearing them from within the device, even through the ear plugs, made me wonder what each particular hum or click represented. It sounded like some sort of mechanical symphony. A symphony of magnets. Such are the thoughts of one trying to hold their saliva.

I am surprised that I did not come across this earlier considering that I have been keeping up with xkcd.

I'm not sure if this was related to my recent flat, or my recent rear-ender, but I was dreaming that I was driving my car or some sort of dirt path that was on an embankment. The embankment was sloped so that going up the path had the embankment sloping down to the left. I drove up the embankment to the top and turned around, waited for another car to come up and started to drive back down. Unfortunately, the driver side wheels slipped off the path and the car rolled over to the left, again, and again. I dragged the car back upright but the fuel tank was hanging out and loose and I knew that I would not be able to drive the car without some serious repairs. I looked back at the path on the embankment and saw how steep the drop off was from the path and wondered how I ended up damaging the car so much after I had recently got the bumper fixed. Annoying!

I was ready to ride to work yesterday despite the cool temperatures. When I got on my bike, it refused to budge. I tried rocking it back and forth but move it did not. Even after starting the engine I couldn't get the bike to move much so I got off and checked the tires. The rear tire was flat. I was pretty annoyed, as I would have to spend time pumping the tire before I went to work. I noticed a stone that was lodged in the tread so I tried knocking it out. It was no stone. On closer inspection I noticed that the object was metallic. It was a nail. Crap. I must've picked it up during my ride on Saturday. I had no time to worry about it so I just drove to work instead. I called around to find out if there was anyone who would plug a tubeless tire and a number of places flatly refused or did not get back to me. I eventually found a place (for a relatively good price) but they closed at six, so I had to rush back home and across town to make it. I figured that I might as well

Today was a very busy day for me. I was to visit some people up in Lindsay, then head downtown to try out some Bollywood dancing for a birthday party, then have dinner and then rush back up town for hockey. All of this while avoiding the rain on by bike! Little Britain Well, the morning started off fairly well. I left the house at a reasonable time and so took my time visiting some places I wanted to see on the way to Lindsay. I swung by the Lakeridge Ski Resort (which was closed obviously), then rode through Port Perry, took a route through Little Britain, stopped at Jennings Creek Church, and then made it to the house. Jennings Creek Church I spent a few hours in Lindsay, having lunch at the Pantry Shelf, before bombing it down the highway to downtown Toronto to join up with a birthday party for a Bollywood dance lesson. We were told to show up before four since the lesson would start at four. I got stuck in traffic and arrived just at four. I was the second person there.

How much food could a food truck truck if a food truck could truck food? A food truck could truck as much food as a food truck could truck if a food truck could truck food.

I biked to work yesterday. I had been wanting to bike to work for years. Unfortunately I never got a chance to from our condo. From the house it was only a distence of ten kilometers which, according to Google maps, was only a half-hour ride. Well, it, and I, did not take into account the wind or the temperature. I figured that a half-hour ride would be a cinch and I would not even break a sweat so I didn't bring a spare shirt. That was my first mistake. Let's just say that my shirt had some dark spots that took a while to go away.I was also winded afterward and felt so out of shape! This is what happens to you when you stop working out. The ride back home started slow. My legs had not recovered from the morn ing's ride and I certainly felt the stiffness. But I made it back despite the few drops of rain that started to fall as I approached the house. I really need to do this more often! Tonight I rode to London to see MJNL. I wanted to ride out before it got too cold to

I had to use the handicap washroom this afternoon and this is what I saw: I think they want us to press this button. Apparently people on our floor cannot follow simple instructions.

I got rear ended again this afternoon on my way to the condo. From the driver side.  I took some photos of the damage to my bumper. From the passenger side. Fortunately the damage was not too bad and nobody was hurt.

MJNL has gone back to school and I have gone back to work. The past couple of weeks of mostly rest, and some relaxation was a nice change of pace, and allowed me to think about an idea I've had for a little while. I started jotting down some notes and then started writing some dialogue. A writer I am not, but I would like to put together a plausible scenario for my little world that builds upon the knowledge that we have now, and possible directions we can be going. Also, writing is hard. That and to top it off there are a plethora of other projects that I have on the back burner which I need to bring back and complete now that I am on my own. Jobs to do, games to play, movies to watch, stories to write. Bah, and so much stuff going on..

There was a box of left over donuts that were sitting in the kitchen at the office today. I normally am not a donut eater, but free donuts are hard to resist, and I was thinking of putting together a worthy Ig Nobel study to determine what donuts are eaten last so I opened the box. Inside, I was disappointed to find that one of the donuts was actually a flavour that I would have eaten, but the maple dip had attached itself to the top of the box. Eww. This of course was not very appetizing, but it did bring to light something that I have seen often enough in my lifetime: Donut boxes where all the flavour coating gets stuck to the top of the box. This happens often on hot summer days or when donuts are thicker than the box height. I wondered why nobody had ever tackled this problem. Probably because nobody thinks it is a problem. But seeing that it is lunch time, I gave it a minute of thought and came up with this idea: Curved box covers. There would be no need to change the bo

The kitchen at my workplace has a drawer full of utensils. I should say "utensils" loosely as they are all knives. Not a single spoon or fork can be seen, but any manner of knife (cutting knife, butter knife, paring knife, etc.) is available but not a single spoon nor fork. This is an annoying fact when you are trying to eat soup. (Chunky or not.) Fortunately I keep my own stash of plastic utensils in my desk for just this type of scenario.

We're trying to rent out our place for the next year while MJNL is in London, but we have both been pretty lax about getting our property on the market. While I am here I'll post a link to Duolingo which I first heard about from a TED talk. There is also The Container which I would be interested in seeing, although it seems to be on a very short run.

MJNL and I spent some time this weekend enjoying some of the Pride events taking place downtown. On Saturday night, we hung around Harbourfront after dinner at Momofuku. The ramen was tasty, although a bit on the expensive side. The late night cabaret was a bit of a bust, but we were able to enjoy a bit of a midnight dessert uptown. We got out Sunday afternoon to Yonge-Dundas square to enjoy part of the pride parade and the closing ceremonies. We ended up standing down in the square a few more hours than anticipated. The show did not end until eleven! Five hours of standing can be really hard on the soles. Something else to remember for next time: When ordering from Popeye's chicken, make sure you ask how long the nuggets will take - I stood around for half an hour waiting for them to finish my order. I think we would have been able to finish a meal at the Vietnamese restaurant next door in that time!

Strange how sometimes you bump into people in the strangest places. I ran into JK at Galleria on Friday night, then KL at Toshi today.

I was telling myself that the chances of being stuck in a traffic jam both ways on the same day for daily commute was nigh impossible. Well it certainly has never happened before. Well, it happened. On the way back home yesterday, the moment I got on the highway, I was stuck. I should have taken a detour once I saw the parking lot I was riding in to, but I figured that statistics doesn't work that way does it? Well, I think that I have to relearn statistics. So, I spent the better part of half an hour walking my bike again, turning off my motorcycle so that I could coast down the valley without the heat of the bike compounding the heat from the sun and my own body radiation. By the time I got to the bottom I knew that I would be releasing a pool of my own sweat when I got home and took a detour off the highway. The side roads were better, but it was still hot nonetheless. This morning I left home ten minutes early and got to work thirty minutes early. Everything balances out in

So I have been pretty bad at making any posts here on anything but a monthlyish basis. We have been busy, and we have had time to relax. But we still feel awfully tired by the end, middle, and beginning of the day. I've reintroduced beef to my diet, and it doesn't feel like much has changed. I still feel tired, but I did come down with something Friday night but my symptoms were just a lack of appetite and a need for sleep. A good night's rest seemed to cure me of my ails. I have some projects on the go. A few are board game related, but they have been put on hold until I finish another project for my cousin, which is actually quite an interesting diversion from my other distractions. We also have been binge watching "Orange is the New Black" and "House of Cards". Well, MJNL has been watching the former more than I, while the latter does perk my interest. Netflix is really doing well on some of their new shows. I really should be writing more.

There was an accident on the highway on the way to work. If I had taken the car I would have been able to avoid it. Unfortunately, the accident occurred after I left my place and before the backup got to my intersection. I was given a choice however: The express lanes looked awfully busy and plugged for the most part, while the collector lanes was very empty. However, past the transfer point the express lanes were at least moving. I should've went with my gut (to take the express lanes) because every time I did (except for once) I came out on top. Well, I went on the collectors and ended stuck in traffic. Traffic was so slow for so long that I started duck walking instead of using gas. One trucker who pulled up next to me mentioned how quiet my bike was. It was quiet because I turned it off! He also mentioned that there was an accident ahead and it was being cleared out. Oh hurrah. I only spent half an hour walking my bike down the highway..

I had a strange dream this morning. I recall running around with MJNL inside a game. It felt like an enclosed area, except I couldn't see the ceiling and to my right were boxes that reminded me of Minecraft. To my left it looked like a curved wall that looked like the night sky except it had text being displayed repeatedly in large block letters. There was an announcement that the game was changing and those that were still inside would need to get out, or bad things would happen. MJNL and I were running to find some sort of shelter and came across furniture and other box like objects that were stacked in various large orderly piles and I directed MJNL to climb up on the tallest one. I was hoping that we'd be able to keep ourselves save at the top by having the high ground. Unfortunately, as we hopped from box to cushioned crate, I realized how unstable the structure was, as it wobbled and shook with every step we took. I tried my best not to have the whole pile topple from

AI sent me a link for a new puzzle game for those Nuclear Physics geeks who felt left out of the 2048 wave.

Okay, I found out about this on Vsauce3. The 10 Minute Mail site is very useful for places that require an e-mail address and you don't want to give them one.

So we are heading back today just in time to miss the (probably) last snowfall of the season. I am glad to have enjoyed a taste of summer while winter was making a last pass at home but I am still not looking forward to those hot hazy humid days..

Huh, some lady just ran into the conference room and threw something at HRC. Still don't know what it was but she missed.

I'm on an Air Canada Rouge flight and the entire boarding period was punctuated by frequent dings from the assistance buttons. They placed the buttons at elbow positions on the arm rests! Who the heck designed these seats? I have not accidentally hit my assistance button.. yet.

I heard about the Rob Ford's Words in the Mouth of a Child video from Metro Morning yesterday. In addition, they talked about deep brain stimulation to help treat Parkinson's disease the day before.

I had given printed copies of some of my wedding photos to the company which were put up in the lunch room while I was away on my honeymoon. They finally took them down today.

I was brought to the attention of the issue with time of death and how it affects organ transplants. There was a Fifth Estate episode about it, and I decided to post this link from the CBC.

MJNL sent me a link first about the infrared view of the Milky Way using images from the Spitzer Space Telescope .

I got this link for a free open source planetarium for your computer from AI.

I missed out on pie time today, but I did get a cookie though!

I have been pretty bad with updates, but we have been pretty busy of late. I should do a recap, but for now, I'd like to mention that I bought and finished Antichamber last weekend. AI suggested it to me since he knew that I liked puzzle games, and I liked Portal . Antichamber is very similar, but without a real antagonist. Some of the puzzles were challenging too, although there were a few that were quite annoying. Oh, and I accidentally deleted a third of my laptop this morning. That would put a crimp in my productivity..

So this year MJNL wanted to participate in the CN Tower climb, so I dusted off my old WWF CN Tower climb login, and lo and behold, it still works! Actually, that is kinda scary that they still have it on hand even after ten years.. In any case, I have signed up for two events this year and if you want, you can sponsor me for the Becel Heart&Stroke Ride for Heart and/or the WWF CN Tower Climb .

I found this article about house destroying boulders from a Facebook post from RH.

While I was driving up my main street to work, I noticed a Tesla in the lane next to me. I recognized the emblem and then noticed the green license plate before it drove away. It was going on the highway on the opposite direction so I did not expect to see it again. Mind you, I have been seeing more and more Teslas on the road so I'm not as taken aback when I do see one on the road. Driving back on the same artery road on my way home, lo and behold would you have thought that the same Tesla would pull up next to me? Reminds me of that motorcyclist I ran into twice in the same day.

AI sent me a link for a newish first person puzzle type game that looks worth trying out!

I was driving on the highway, on my way home from badminton, and noticed some bright blue flashes in the sky. It was well into the evening, and there were clouds in the sky, but I could clearly make out some bright blue flashes. I counted several pulses before they stopped. I thought that it could have been lightning, but it did not look quite right. I also considered that it might have been a transformer explosion, but it seemed too high in the sky for that. Well, I got a call on my phone, which I was not able to pick up just after the flashes stopped. I found out later that it was MJNL calling me to tell me that the power was out. I discovered that for myself as I drove into my neighborhood. On the block just before I got to my place, the whole neighborhood was pitch black. So it WAS a transformer explosion! How unfortunate that it had to be us. Fortunately enough, the power came back soon after I got into the apartment.

So I just got some allergy test results back and it looks like I am allergic to all dairy, eggs, soybeans and almonds. All dairy. Yes, like yogurt, goat and cow milk, cheese, everything. Oh yeah, and beef. What the whey? I mean, come on! Soy beans?!? That is like in all eastern Asian foods!

Last night I had my first real hiccup with my HTC one. Apps stopped opening and eventually some stuff crashed. A simple reboot fixed things but crashes in the first week aren't a good sign.. Also, right afterwards MJNL purchased something with an pay wave device. The device reading failed and she was forced to insert the card. After two strange bird chirps, the device returned a message indicating that it had crashed. I have never seen that happen!

I finally ditched my old Sony Ericsson C510 and picked up a HTC One. My old phone was slowly dying on me, as the battery life on the device left a fair bit to be desired, especially when using the bluetooth. I ran out of power soon after picking up MJO from the airport, after a total of fifteen minutes of talk time, which sucked because that was the day after the ice storm and we had no power at the condo. So if there actually was an emergency, I would have been pretty hosed. (I also did not have a car charger for the device.) With the new phone I had to change my package to include data. I could have tried for a non-smart phone, but the pickings are mighty slim. Well, I guess I will be working on setting up my phone this weekend and learning to use the Android OS.