Category: Miscellaneous babble

15 years ago on Dec 6, 1989 14 women were killed and another 13 injured by a gunman in a terrible incident at École Polytechnique in Montreal.
On Dec 7 1989, schools and universities across the country were unusually quiet and muted as word of the tragedy spread.
I remember the day very well. I was in my third year and had been busy studying the previous night so I didn’t watch any news that night or the next morning. Got onto campus and noticed everything was strangely quiet. There wasn’t the hustle and bustle or the regular chatting you hear on a normal day. And just about every woman I knew (even my friends) gave me a nasty cold stare or looked kind of sad. Still had no idea what had happened but there were a lot of sad, bitter and angry women around and I wasn’t about to do or say anything else to set them off.
It wasn’t until I made my way to the Physics Common Room later that morning after classes that I learned about the events at École Polytechnique. And then it all became clear. It was a sad time everywhere. Some guys joined in the sadness and remembrances, some stayed clear for their own safety, and others like me weren’t quite sure what to do. I wanted to be supportive of my friends, but didn’t want to get pounced on just for being a guy. And for several weeks afterwards, it seemed like just about every guy on campus was stepping on eggshells.
Eventually everything got back to normal, but nobody ever forgot what happened that day.

From the National Hurricane Center come word that a possible tropical system may be brewing out in the Atlantic on the last official day of the season. It might even become a tropical storm later today.

THE AREA OF LOW PRESSURE LOCATED ABOUT 800 MILES EAST OF BERMUDA CONTINUES TO ACQUIRE TROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY HAS BECOME MORE CONCENTRATED NEAR THE CENTER. IF THIS TREND CONTINUES…SUBTROPICAL OR TROPICAL STORM ADVISORIES MAY BE ISSUED LATER THIS MORNING.

Reading the newspaper really is educational! And I’m not talking about for just current events. No, you can learn all sorts of trivia from newspapers. In today’s paper, I learned that there’s a whole ‘ology’ devoted to studying flags. It’s called vexillology, and from the quick little Google search I did on it, it’s a Big Thing. There are whole associations devoted to studying flags of various types.
Never would have thought people would be so interested in flags to spend their time studying them.

It’s probably a sign that people’s lifestyles have become overly hectic and busy, when convenience reaches the produce in the grocery store. That or people have just become really lazy.
There are all kinds of convenience foods in the store already. Frozen foods you just stick in the microwave for a near instant meal and canned stuff you pop open for an instant snack or meal. Cookies, chips, pop and all sorts of other crap to stuff in our faces.
Now you can find convenience in the produce section. Containers full of pre-sliced fruits perfect for snacking on. And then came the veggies. If you’re too lazy to slice your own onions or tomatoes, no problem! They come pre-sliced now! Just go to the store and pick some up. Carrots too! They come sliced or in sticks.
I expect pre-digested food will be next. Oh, wait, they have that already! It’s called baby food.

After unpacking our little Roomba and letting it juice up for a few hours, it’s scurrying around vacuuming up stuff. The first thing it did was a spiral pattern to do it’s room check, then after moving around a while, promptly got stuck under our couch. Not Roomba’s fault though. Our couch is old and has raggedy fabric hanging down and it got tangled up in that. After extricating it, we set it back on it’s merry way.
It’s not going to get deep into the carpet and suck out ground in dirt though but it actually works remarkably well at picking up surface stuff. And it’s very agile too. It was able to get itself out of a few tight corners in our apartment. And it has this funny Cartman waddle as it runs along a wall. It’s kind of funny to watch I think.
We spent a good part of the evening just watching it run around, bumping into things and seeing where it would go next.
Now I’m wondering if I should give it a name or something.