Finally a break! And perhaps not a sinister one.

After yesterday's whine, I really want to try this - make your own yarn from shopping bags!. I certainly have enough of the raw material waiting to be recycled (curbside recycling is finally coming to Cowtown in 2009 btw). It would make some neat bags for sure. I even wonder if it would be good in the ol' Knifty Knitter.

I'm thinking too, I have lots of nice jewel-tone colour bags in green and gold - although I usually recycle these at craft shows. I could still cut some shapes out of them and run them through the Xyron to make them stickers.

I wish I had a composting toilet, because I figure when you have a composting toilet, no one can knock you off your eco-moral high ground. I was chided by a sales clerk today for asking for a plastic bag as my reusable one was full. "You're not saving the environment!" she scolded me. Well, geez! I don't have to justify my awesome recycling/reusing prowess, the composter or grasscycling to that dame. But it would have been nice to make a snappy comeback like "Pff! Screw reusable bags. Do you have a composting toilet? Are you recycling 100% of your waste? I didn't think so, nyah!"

I went not once, but twice to the Stampede this year, an institution I usually shun, but occasionally wins me over with SuperDogs, mini donuts and Native frybread. This year for some reason, the sheer consumption that went on was more apparent than previous years, but maybe it was because the cheapest birthday game was $2 and $3 bottled water was the norm!

We bought not one, not two, not three, but four "amazing!" products from the marketplace. The marketplace always seems like a bad idea - there's the hucksterism, the vague awareness of being manipulated, the slicing and dicing! There's little chance for comparison shopping or fact checking and the urge to buy is oddly strong. My usual skepticism fell like a cheap fence!

( But wait! There's more! )

mimicking an ambulance wail.

How could I not resist?

( The Big Read )

Earlier this evening I went out to feed the new composter and surprised a baby robin sitting on the steps of our deck. He went "Peep!", pooped and fluttered down into the tall grass on the side of the house were the rabbits like to hide. As far as hiding places go, it wasn't a bad one, but I could have very well stepped on him!

Half an hour later, he was gone, although given the way an adult robin was chasing starlings around our backyard, he was probably still close by.

I have really had enough encounters with nature as of late. My parents came over on Sunday and helped out with the annual trimming of the wild rose bush. Wild rose bushes are such a great symbol for Alberta - they are extremely hardy and extremely th-ornery :-) I said good bye to one of two bushes under the window last summer, but believe it or, it was still sending out suckers to propagate. Rain,dead mice and a lack of a hoe had made me reluctant to trim the bush earlier and explore it's dank depths, but Mom approached it with gusto, and after an hour there were two huge piles of branches on the lawn. The bush really is denuded now, but it was gross underneath - nothing was growing except an anthill in its shade :\

This morning I was filling the bird feeder when something large, gray and furry ran out from under one of the branch piles. I shook in place until it disappeared from my field of vision - it was really larger than a mouse. Maybe it was a mole. Or a vole. Whatever it was, I wish it had picked someone else's yard this time!

Ah, the breadmaker. It always seems like a good idea at the time of purchase, with visions and hopes of fresh baked bread. After the first few loaves though, it's soon forgotten and lives the rest of its sad life between the panini press and food processor.

( Read more... )

especially if you like John Lennon

In the spirit of Passive Agressive Notes I want to make a sign for the circle that connects to our street. It will say "Crappy little white car owner, please get a muffler!" but that isn't passive aggressive enough though, hmm...

My penpal sent me The Soul of a Horse and I enjoyed it very much. If you like horse books, or animal stories in general, you can't go wrong. The only thing that really wore on me was author Joe Camp's extremely folksy style, but I think he writes the way he talks, and I'm guessing he talks with lots of pauses. Joe is actually the writer, director and producer of the Benji movies.

What makes this book particularly interesting is that Joe came to own horses later in life than most people do. He and his wife, Kathleen, set out to learn as much about horses as possible, and were surprised by how much there was to learn, particularly when it came to natural horsemanship methods. They were really inspired by Monty Roberts. Some of the horsey techniques he writes about could easily apply to birds as well. For example, what truly makes a horse happy is not being under stress, which is tied to their flight instinct. Joe also reasons that horses have had millions of years of instinct to build on, whereas humans have only been intereacting with horses for a fraction of that time, and that horses must know what they're doing. One of the most eye opening chapters was about the wild horse hoof trim, and why horseshoes can be bad for hooves.

Joe believes that when you give a horse the choice to be with you, amazing things can happen. It's always delightful when an animal does something because they like you, not out of fear. That's no fun, you might as well amuse yourself with a wind up toy. Of course, Joe's lessons translate to the human world as well - no one likes to be pushed around after all. If a workplace really trusts in its employees, it will have happier employees and be successful...success at the cost of bullying people around just results in higher turnover ;-)

Mr. Pigeon seems to have a new spouse, or at least a new friend. I love how they land on the neighbour's roof, look around, then sail down. Then seconds later, I hear the budgies go "Doo doo doo!" in surprise. Yup, those are big birdies to little birdies :-)

nyrchicky likes Where's George, and now I like this money tracker site :-). I got a $20 on holidays with a stamp on it and it was so hard not to spend it by accident. I entered the serial code and got a hit! Now I can send it back into circulation :-)

EDIT: Whew!

-----------
Just a couple days after the fifth one!

I wonder how common it is for bodies to wash ashore on the BC coast. Maybe these bodies are getting caught in something and just the feet are being found because they're floating in sneakers - everything else would just sink to the bottom I guess.

I was bemused at this blog post about how Webkinz should teach financial responsibility. I have tens of thousands of KinzCash that I'm in no hurry to blow on Clover the Clydesdale. She already everything a virtual pet could want, even a blender and a sandwich maker, but it got me thinking...

The most painful part in most RPGs is when you start out with jack squat. You can only afford the base weapons, base armor, the cheapest potions. If you're especialy thrifty, you'll have fun looting things and then fencing them. Then you get to that part of the game where you have too much money, even after buying the best weapons, best armor and best potions. When you go rummaging through bodies, you groan...not another [insert name of common gem here] and then soon you don't even need to loot the bodies. How is it that this never happens in real life (ahem, aside from looting bodies)? Why I have I not reached the point where I'm flush with cash? Why are game economies so darn perfect? ;-)

This innocuous looking game proved to be a lot of fun! It may have less replayability than other games, but I could see playing it again down the road. It's good to play with two people, or a young person, or when you have an ear infection!

A slim storyline about a man trapped in a magical puzzle book connects 10 chapters with 8 games each. Naturally the games get progressively harder, and if you run out of time, you have to replay the whole chapter. There are old favourites such as the Towers of Hanoi (up to six disks even!), a tile game, matching games, puzzles, tanagrams and math puzzlers. There's even a symbol Sudoku. My favourite game was one called "Round and Round" where blocks had to be rotated into squares, but moving one square into place often knocked another out!

Each chapter had one or two pictures puzzles as well, where you had to find objects in a scene and use the objects to unlock the page. Some of these were very intriguing, although at other times the logic broke down. For example, in "The Private Eye" picture, one had to tape a magnet from a telephone headset to a catnip mouse and poke the mouse through a mousehole to find the key. Ugh! Fortunately hints were available at a cost of 5 minutes of game time. Sample it at Big Fish Games.

Koodo mobile is just Telus :-P It bugs me how Canada just appears to have competition among cell phone providers, but Fido is owned by Rogers and Solo is owned by Bell.

( Yoinked from taeha )

Apparently these are the movies I'm supposed to like. I can only find 3 on the list that I've seen, but only because I'm not a huge movie watcher.