Dolls and a Mayor

Cedric, meet my Peruvian dolls. They are over 45 years old, hand knit and stuffed with llama wool.

Knitters, click on the image to enlarge and take note of the incredible workmanship and attention to detail.

On a completely different note, I stood a few inches away from our Mayor today. He is definitely not prettier in person. Aggie asked me what he smells like...

On the llama

Sometimes the best way to get over one's fears is to confront them directly. Cedric's longstanding trepidation about llamas, not to mention alpacas, has led us to Lima, Peru.

That and the little gnome's love of salsa dancing, pisco sours and the general hustle and bustle of urban South America.

We have not yet spotted one of the four-legged woolly creatures that give Cedric the night sweats. But I have assured the small one, we most certainly soon will...

Your turn: Things that are OUT that I wish were IN...

Over at my blog, I've beaten the In and Out series like a dead horse. I thought I'd eke out just one more post, this time soliciting audience participation. I know XUP will be critical of the lameness of this. And, I know that Milan will question why we would wish things out to be in in the first place. I don't care. This is a contest, folks! Contestants are being asked to submit two things that are OUT that he/she wishes were IN. The winner will be chosen by an ESI sub-committee at a special Emergency Meeting. Hence, no ESI submissions will be considered. The criteria: originality, wit, charm.

The winner can choose one prize among the following items: 1) the winner can post a favourite recipe on our blog*;2) the winner can select a blog that he/she would like the ESI team to metablog for a week**; 3) the winner can select a blogging theme or issue for the ESIs for one week***.

*as long as it passes the ESI ethics committee
**as long as it passes the ESI ethics committee
***as long as it passes the ESI ethics committee

In and Out Revisited

"You're so in, and I'm so out!"

Aggie's brilliant In and Out posts reminded me of something a boy wrote in my year book ages ago.

Dear Woodsy,

When you're in, we're out.

See 'ya around,

(signed) Tall, Brawny Guy

For years I have been perplexed by what he meant. Was he being crude? Or, was he being dismissive? Maybe he saying I was cool and he was passé.

What do you think he meant?

What Next?

Suppose one day I finish the revolutionary new dating paradigm.

What would you like me to study next?

Overtaxed: coyote's late post

When I was a younger, dumber doggy, I mistakenly signed up for a Social Insurance Number.

Imagine my complete disappointment when I found that I'd misheard the pitch (an old inner-ear problem, exacerbated by an unfortunate one-track mind...) and realized that I now had to deal with tax returns rather than cat returns.

Imagine my further chagrin when I found out that SINs indeed condemn you to Hell. In Revenue Canada's eyes, once you're in, you fry forever. No matter if you're a semimythical coyote with no visible means of support barring fast paws and a larcenous soul. One youthful moment of misguided drooliness dooms you to file annual tax forms in perpetuity.

I want to make it clear that I have no objection to income taxes themselves. (This places me firmly in the minority back my old Alberta stomping grounds. I digress.) But aside from the fact that I don't actually pay them, I believe the social safety net and other services that they finance make this a far better country than the alternative.

No, it's the diabolical forms. Every year, those twisted <redacteds> at Revenue Canada change them. The net result is always pretty much the same, but those annual new and ummm, interesting, calculation methods to arrive there, drive me freakin' crazy.

No hackneyed comments, please, about what a short trip that is. I shall nap now. Awaken me in refund season.

Good habits

This was passed to me by a friend:

Sisters Mary Catherine, Maria Theresa, Katherine Marie, Rose Frances & Mary Kathleen left the Convent on a trip to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and were sightseeing on a Tuesday in July.

It was hot and humid in town and their traditional garb was making them so uncomfortable, they decided to stop in at Patty McGuire's Pub for a cold soft drink.

Patty had recently added special legs to her barstools, which were the talk of the fashionable eastside neighbourhood. All five nuns sat up at the bar and were enjoying their Cokes when Monsignor Riley and Father McGinty entered the place through the front door.

They, too, came for a cold drink and were scandalized by what they saw.

A Woody for You

Dear Zoom and GC,

The first one of you to contact me and offer me a bribe gets to know the secret location of this temporarily parked* Woody.

It's a Grand Slam just waiting to happen!

*It's for sale - only $4900

Emergency Meeting Minutes, April 7, 2009

Emergency Meeting Minutes, April 7th, 7:30 p.m. Usual Spot

In attendance: Aggie, Woodsy, IO, Coyote

Absent: Conch Shell (occupied); the Chair (occupied); 4th Dwarf (down with the bubonic plague)

Aggie arrives first, on time. No one is there. She calls 4th Dwarf, but he is so ill, he cannot respond. Woodsy struts in. The IO saunters in, followed by Coyote, sporting a new jacket he is really proud of.

The conversation begins with sock monkeys. Woodsy discusses her plans to go on a date with the sock monkey workshop lady who is apparently delightful.

Aggie brings order to the meeting and directs the group to the agenda and issues of blogging. Aggie first makes it all about her and talks about the challenges of maintaining 3 blogs. The IO doesn’t seem to know about Aggie’s new crafting blog and asks “How is this different from Aggie’s blog?” Aggie takes offense to the question and gets all insecure and demands encouragement, because, after all, she is doing WAY more than some other team members. Things get negative, and then positive again when people acknowledge the strengths and qualities of team members. Aggie asks team members to offer one-word for each absent team member:

4th Dwarf: “bossy” (Coyote), “insouciant (the IO), “cutting edge” (Aggie, who realizing that that was two words, reduces it to “cutting”, "REDACTED" (Woodsy).

Conch Shell: “salty” (Coyote), “engaging” (IO), “(delightfully) complex” (Aggie), "REDACTED" (Woodsy).

The Chair: “masculine” (Woodsy), “meshy” (Aggie), “overstuffed” (Coyote), “indestructible” (IO).

Then, the conversation moves to the Fifth Muse, who some still view as the “absent” team member.

Woodsy: “unknown”
Aggie: “enigmatic”
IO: “Is she still reading us?”
Coyote: “fierce”

Aggie asks Coyote if he is flirting with the 5M with this “fierce” comment, to which he answers, “always”.

The real question on the agenda, though is “why so few Emergency meetings?” The IO complains that some ESI members have gone all domestic. Aggie responds badly to this. Others offer other one-word explanations: “busy” “full” “adrift” “fragmented”. A few complaints are made about the Usual Spot, but the group is ultimately unable to come to agreement on the reason so few meetings have been happening.

Woodsy and Aggie take a time out.

The question of the Emergency meetings gets abandoned and there is a creative burst of energy and blog ideas:
1) ESI Anniversary Celebrations which includes a banner change
2) Best of ESIs series
3) Research assignments
4) Viable plans for the economic disaster
5) Never released “backchannel emails”
6) ESI gala at the Usual Spot.
7) a garden party
8) a garden gnome party
9) stealing good ideas from other blogs
10) more “breaking news”

Finally, there is a motion to hang 4th Dwarf out to dry. Woodsy seconds. Then, a motion to bring Conch Shell and the Chair together at the Usual Spot for a private shaming session. Coyote seconds that emotion.

Recessionomony 101

According the latest stats, it's not only a recession we are facing, it's a he-cession. More men are losing jobs in this downturn than women. To clarify public policy for headline writers, I'll throw the following taxonomy into the fold:


We-cession: your work section gets the boot but the rest of your company keeps going; or, what your 4 year-old calls the recession

Me-cession: you get laid off but everyone else at your office gets promoted

Pre-cession: period before the recession; some called it the economic boom but now we know the glass was half-empty

Free-cession: the economy is so bad you can't even afford stuff they give away for nothing

Pee-cession: people don't even have a pot to piss in

G-session: men can't find jobs nor can they find their partners g-spot --- bad, very bad

e-session: the downturn has reduced bloggers' output to the point where they employ cheap tactics to solicit comments on otherwise pointless blog entries

Getting a handle on economic disaster

This week, StatsCan jobless figures and the parliamentary budget officer's new economic report suggest that we're even more totally screwed, despite the prime minister's consistently cheery "don't worry be happy" mantra. Imagine that.

So, previous stellar efforts of our own Audrey and Fourth Dwarf notwithstanding, obviously it is time again for the ESIs to step into the economy. Yuck! It's all over my paws now, and it smells, like, ummm, bad! I digress.

At the ESI Institute for Tax-Deductible Thinktankage, we are all over putting a face on the true extent of this economic mess, with our specialty, the all-important nomenclature. For now, we'll leave the actual fixing-up stuff to trained economists like the PM. Who unfortunately has never actually worked as an economist. Oops.

Now where was I? Oh, right: Economy. Doom. Disaster. Etymology.* Terminology. Coinage.

"Ecopalypse" had the nicest ring, but a quick paw-over of Google shows those freakin' pesky environmentalists have already tagged it. Bastards. And why is it that their cosmic antimatter, all those smart develop-at-any-cost business types, still haven't noticed that economy and ecology look, even to a casual observer, to be so closely related? Not a coincidence, surely. I digress again.

"Econalypse" made our fallback list, but it turns out some lousy blogger beat us to it by months. Bastard. Besides, it sounds too much like "Econo-Lips". Which in turn sounds too much like the kind of big, red wax lips that Stephen Harper would buy at a dollar store, and wear to lighten up those hinterland news conferences where he keeps insisting that the country's economic fundamentals are great. That kidder.

Then, in homage to the epic Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that finally overbalanced the global economy's already-sideways tilt, we thought "Eponzilypse". We were really graspin' at straws on that one...

Crap! We need ideas. What to do, what to do? I know! How 'bout a contest...?

* Memo to Traci, perky but inexperienced new summer intern in the ESI graphics department: Kid, etymology is about words. Entomology is about bugs. Take a note for next time, please...

A tiger in your tank

OK, so everyone's tired of stuffed suits and even stuffier royals. Exalted kudos will rain upon the one who pens the best caption for this photo.

Sorry Charlie...

... but the last caption contest was a 12-way tie for first. Let's have a go at this one as the bonus round.

Dreaming in Style

Credit: Joan of Arc / KGWA http://kgwa.deviantart.com

I dreamed that I had my hair cut short and dyed black (in real life I would go for red). It was too straight and it spiked in all directions, and I was unhappy about it.

The hairdresser insisted that that was not a problem. All I had to do was wander the streets looking for the cutest young man that I could spot, and he would know exactly how to style my hair.

I walked down Elgin street, and before long I came to a dandy young fellow. I walked up to him, and he looked at my hair, pulled out gel, a comb, and a mirror and styled my hair perfectly. All was accomplished in absolute silence.

I looked boyishly handsome as I walked off humming a gay tune.

(Interpretations of my dream are encouraged)

RNDP 24: The Never-Ending Story?

Q: What's the difference between the Never-Ending Story and my quest for a Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm (RNDP)?

A: The Never-Ending Story actually ended.

New Research Results relevant to daters:

"Dating culture is dead - instead, young New Zealand women are regularly getting drunk and cruising around in packs looking for men to have sex with. " [4D: This must be true because it was on TV.]

Fidelity is all about chemistry? "Males in some species of pair-bonding mammals have their lifelong attachment triggered by vasopressin release, and studies of men in monogamous relationships find a correlation between low vasopressin levels and high levels of marital strife." [4D: Only on the radio. Best to take this with a grain of salt-peter.]

New Resources for Daters:

Cosmopolitan's Experts say you can learn 55 things about a man in 10 minutes. The only hitch is that it will be a very busy 10 minutes. To learn the 55 things, along with observing his speaking patterns and hair style, you'll have to:

• Learn his favourite sports and TV shows;
• Find out how long he's been hanging with his friends,
• See what he does when it's time to pay,
• Find out if he drinks, smokes or gambles;
• Learn his online communication preferences;
• See how he behaves at a party;
• Observe his driving style;
• Determine when and how often he likes to have sex and what his pattern is on who initiates it;
• See what he orders in a restaurant;
• Learn whether he is tidy or messy;
• See his underwear; and
  
• Have sex with him several times.

Red Flag Deals provides a useful grid to help you choose a dating site.

A Dinosaur Shows the Way?

It might not be what I've been looking for, but T-Rex has an honest-to-goodness new dating paradigm that may well be revolutionary.

p.s. A big shout-out to JE. Thanks for the support!

A Wellington Street view

I best know local uber-partisan Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre for an endless series of rabid political cheap shots that seem to me to be firmly rooted in a deeply considered intellectual process involving either cartoon logic or clinical insanity. Come to think of it, his parliamentary question period antics probably give rabies a bad name. He regards John Baird (or possibly Baird's hair) as his political mentor, for cripes' sakes...

So, earlier this week when PP, a member of the federal access to information, privacy and ethics committee, took a, ummm, principled stand against Google Street View in Ottawa, I immediately began looking for the guy's ummm, well-reasoned angle. There has to be one. There always is.

PP claimed that he had concerns about the service's potential for invading privacy. Since he backs a law 'n order agenda, which can occasionally involve stuff like, oh, ubiquitous closed circuit TV cameras aimed at the general populace for no particular reason, I hadda kinda wonder.

Now, suddenly he has flipflopped, (assuming foursquare, steadfastly antiflipflop Tories can ever be said to flipflop. I'm sure they call it something else among themselves. I digress.) musing that a "useful and popular service" like Street View could fall victim to Canada's privacy laws vis-a-vis public surveillance. Which, unlike earlier this week, are now apparently too strong. And so must be modified to make them weaker. To allow, ummm, useful and popular services. To whom, exactly, other as yet unspecified services might also be useful and popular with, remains an open question for now.

Oh. Now I get it... and I'm torn. And perhaps slightly more paranoid than usual. Tooling around virtual versions of the great cities of the world amuses me. Pretending Ottawa is a great city of the world would amuse me even more. I like Street View. But if a little git like PP supports it...

Amused? An ESI Caption Contest

Prime Minister Stephen Harper met The Queen today at Buckingham Palace. Whatever could they be talking about?