Book tag! Ow my head.

Oh, not that kind of book tag. Look to Daorcey's post below to see the instructions. Here's my contribution.

He looked at Bear for a long time. They had pressurized the lander's cabin, and all wore skinsuits with the facemasks off. Bear's face was pinched, narrow and the eyes stragely vacant; but his symbiot had kept him clean and healthy all this time.

-Karl Schroeder, The Cold Convergence, The Engine of Recall

If you'd like to find out more about this story, go here. I've been reading more of Schroeder's stuff and finding it interesting. His latest book, Sun of Suns, takes inside of a 3000 km wide inflated spherical structure that floats in space.

From Publishers Weekly
The swashbuckling space settlers of Schroeder's fantastical novel (after 2005's Lady of Mazes) inhabit warring nation-states inside a planet-sized balloon called Virga. This adventure-filled tale of sword fights and naval battles stars young Hayden Griffin of the nation of Aerie, orphaned by an attack on the artificial sun that his parents tried to build. He grows up to seek vengeance against the man who led it, Adm. Chaison Fanning of the nation Slipstream. Getting close to Fanning, though, entails infiltrating the flagship Rook and interfering in the schemes of the admiral's wife, the devious Venera. Schroeder layers in scientific rationales for his air-filled, gravity-poor world—with its spinning cylinder towns and miles-long icebergs—but the real fun of this coming-of-age tale includes a pirate treasure hunt and grand scale naval invasions set in the cold, far reaches of space. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Although pirate battles are always good, the fun is in imagining who created this balloon and are its inhabitants aware of the outside world? And like all good sci fi, it's a trilogy.

Our toilet has turned rabid

We came upon this scene of horror Saturday afternoon. We think that someone was doing laundry and there was a plug in the plumbing so the laundry waste water came up to visit us. We spent the rest of Saturday cleaning the floor, tub and toilet with a lot of Mr. Clean.

The plumber, who's named Mario (seriously) is coming soon, to check things out and clean out the clogs.

Tag back at ya!

Mary just introduced us to a new game of tag that is quite instructional about ourselves and our friends. It's kind of book-tag that involves, well, here are the rules:

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag 5 people

So, while sitting at the kitchen computer (yes, that's what we call it... I guess we could call it the forces-us-to-never-eat-at-a-table-like-civilized-people computer) Natalie and I were forced to discuss what is a book and what is not. According to Natalie, who seems to have given more thought to this, the game instruction manual for Empire at War is not a book. Neither are the liner notes for K-Os' Atlantis.

I need to swivel in my chair for this one. To my right is a book shelf full of Tolkien, Lucas and Lewis. They're all pretty close, but the largest book (and, therefore, closest) is Tolkien's illustrated The Hobbit. Page 123:

So they all went to breakfast with him. Beorn was most jolly for a change; indeed he seemed to be in a splendidly good humour and set them all laughing with his funny stories; nor did they have to wonder long where he had been or why he was so nice to them, for he had told them himself. He had been over the river and right back up into the mountains--from which you can guess that he could travel quickly, in bear's shape at any rate.

I tag: Will, Ryan, Karissa, James and Arone. If you have no blog, you can comment here... If you haven't been tagged, feel free to play along anyway.

I wouldn't mind reading this book again. Hmmm... I do have a few hours this morning...

In other news, I watched the first 3 minutes of this today. Can't watch much more.

New Glasses or the Post that was the 148th

Thanks to my health plan, we got new glasses. Here they are. However, my health plan is not extensive enough so Daorcey cannot get those eye-opening treatments he so desperately needs.



Daorcey says about my new glasses, "They make you look more Asian."

Kitten thinks of murder all day long...

Natalie and I once watched a cat being shaved at a pet store. The poor thing was garbed in what appeared to be an execution hood and kitty manacles.

I'm sure there's a good reason for doing this that would make one feel quite objective about watching a cat being shaved. (Un)Fortunately for me, I don't know that reason. Instead my emotions flitter between humour, pity, horror and plain confusion at being confronted with such an odd image. How should I feel about this semi-hairless cat? Is it cute or ugly? Does it feel sad or angry? I suspect we won't really know until it one day drops a dead rat on us while we're bathing...

We caught this on the interweb today. You decide how it makes you feel.

Courtesy Photo-Reports

DarNat Ginger Ale: The UnPop

When last we tuned in...

In short the ale fell flat. We pulled it out of the fridge after 24 hours of chilling and open the lid. With most new bottles of pop, when you open the cap, there is a large whooshing of escaping carbon dioxide. Our bottle merely wheezed some carbon dioxide.

Upon first tasting, we were also disappointed. It was faintly gingery. Daorcey said it had a "yeasty taste."

Our learnings? Ferment the thing in a warm place. We keep the thermostat quite low and it may not have been enough for the yeast to grow.

We did take photos but they were just as exciting as the pop.

Introducing DarNat Ginger Ale (TM)

We made, well, it's more correct to say we have assembled the ingredients for homemade ginger ale.

If you want to make your own, go here. The professor also has recipes for root beer and various cheeses.

Let's hope our experiment doesn't end up exploding. We've encased it in a big black garbage bag in case the sticky mess does decide to blow up.

I'll be back in 24 hours or so to inform you of our success or our adventures in cleaning sticky sweet water off our walls.

Some may be wondering why. And to them I say "why not?"

The assembled implements of creation

You can see the ginger

New haircut

I am now sporting a snazzy new haircut made popular by 10-year-olds, convicts and military men.

Who knew my head was so large and round?

It's like an orange on a toothpick. My head is cold.

*UPDATE:

Natalie thinks the new hair makes me monkey-like. I say it's the pulled out ears and face-making. Photo courtesy Anna Chan. Thanks, Anna, for regularly capturing my ugly moments.

You can't see me

For those of you who don't now me in an office setting, I suffer from a debilitating affliction: Boardroom Invisibility Disease.

Buck up. I'm not looking for pity. I'll be ok.

BID isn't an obvious problem. Some might even say I look like a normal human being. But, as soon as I get into a meeting environment with more than two people, the suffering begins.

I like meetings. I really do. I enjoy the social aspect of sharing information in a physical space. So, don't start uninviting me.

It's just that BID causes me to assume a slight invisibility that only I can sense in most meetings.

"Everyone else is clearly so involved in the current topic that they won't notice if I'm not intently nodding along," I think to myself.

That's why, halfway through this morning's meeting I suddenly became engrossed in my finger nails. Yes, at the specific moment where you're talking global corporate strategy, I assume you won't notice if I start scratching away at an odd bump I'm feeling on my elbow.

You can't see me as I become aware of the weird fold on the inside of my jacket's breast pocket and start putting my hand in the pocket to make the material smooth again. I don't exist in your field of vision as my finger makes its way to my ear to get at a deep itch. No one hears me cracking all of my knuckles under the table.

In fact, I bet you weren't even conscious when I scratched my forehead so, um, vigourously, that I started bleeding--

"So, Daorcey, given your experience, how would you approach this problem?"

And suddenly, I'm visible again with blood on my hands and the echo of a cracked knuckle in the room.

Good thing nobody saw that.