Somewhere there’s an air intake for the building my office is in. I think when the weather cools off, whoever runs the ventilation must open some vents somewhere to bring fresh air inside. Judging from the smell in my office, those vents must be somewhere that smokers congregate. Either that or someone in this building is smoking where they shouldn’t be. The last few days there’s been that old, trashy second-hand smoky smell all over the place. Ick.
I think I’m going to have to get one of those air freshener things or cover up this vent in my office.
My desk is all aglow
The USB Christmas trees came in yesterday after a bit of a UPS misdirect. Not sure if they’re worth the $13 each (maybe $10 or so might be a more appropriate price). They are kind of neat though and will look fun on my desk when the holiday season starts.
11 cm (4.25″) tall and maybe about 8 cm diameter (3.25″) it’s small enough to fit just about anywhere without taking up too much space. The cord is a decent length and uses some of the 500 mA provided by the USB port to power the LED light. It cycles through 6 different colours about every 5 seconds. The red isn’t nearly as bright as the other 5 colours though.
It’s just a fun silly geeky little toy. Definitely would have been cooler if the star lit up too.
3/5 stars for this one.
It’s a Great Pumpkin Thanksgiving Christmas Charlie Brown!
I saw the Peanuts Holiday Collection and just had to have it for my collection.
It’s a 3 DVD set containing 6 cartoons, all of which are classics and familiar to anyone who’s grown up watching them on TV as a kid. It’s not chock full of extras or anything, just two half-hour cartoons on each disk. No matter how old you are, they will be a delight to watch. Big kids can watch and enjoy them and can introduce their little kids to the Peanuts gang.
Definitely a must-have item for any Peanuts fan.
It’s the cool season
It’s mid-October, which means the weather is cooling down. Back home, this is about the time it starts snowing, and that means that all those people who’ve forgotten how to drive in snow are getting into accidents all over the place.
It’s really stupid you know. Hello, it’s October. It’s going to snow soon! Time to get ready! Every year it snows. Every year, the first snow of the season brings accidents all over the place because people aren’t paying attention. You’d think they’d see the snow and think “Ok, time to take it easy now”. Same thing happened in Detroit too. Go figure. It’s that time of year again though.
Here, the cool season means oysters. Oysters by the bucket and bushel. Oysters and oyster roasts. It’s a big thing here, and just about every organization out there will have some kind of fund-raising oyster roast.
I have to admit I’ve only been to one oyster roast in the 5 years I’ve been here. That was about 4 years ago and was put on by the department the wife was working in at the time. Oysters were plentiful and tasty, and there were hot dogs for the kids and non-oyster eating people. It was on the cool side, nothing extreme for me. The oysters were hot and tasty and there was lots of socializing and fat-chewing going on.
Figuring out the magic trick to opening an oyster without getting shell fragments all over the place was a challenge, but with the help of a few friendly oyster eaters I managed to pick it up pretty quick. Just find that tinly little opening, wiggle the oyster-opening knife in and twist. Inside you’ll find a little mound of oystery goodness waiting to be slurped down. Straight up or on a cracker with a dash of hot sauce. Chew or let it slide straight down. Eating methods are about as varied as the people eating them.
Maybe it’s time to go to another one.
I can watch CBC news online!
I don’t know why I didn’t look for this before, but discovering that CBC Edmonton and CBC have Canada Now and The National available as RealPlayer feeds has me just happy as a clam. I’m sure they’ve been around for a while now. I just never thought to look for them.
So now in the mornings, while I’m working away I can plug in the headphones, fire up the feeds and watch/listen away to the news going on back home. It’s definitely a very different perspective on the news than you get from the local news here, or even on CNN.
I love it 🙂