Newsreel Theatres

During late 1929, the Embassy Theatre in New York started a phenomenon: "The Newsreel Theatre." It was a massive hit, other theatres followed suit, and The New Yorker reporters -- though writing in their usual cynical way -- were obviously quite enchanted.

Whereas other theatres only played newsreels in between films, The Newsreel Theatre played them ALL DAY. They collected newsreels from all available sources and just kept playing them, morning and night, in ever-updated one-hour loops.

Radio had already been providing up-to-date news to listeners for several years, but this somehow struck a chord. Maybe it was the visual aspect, or the community feeling, or maybe it was the fact that it was the ONLY venue devoted entirely to news. The New Yorker, however, often mentions the simple joy of just dropping in at any time and never knowing what will come next: adventure stories, politics, opinion, debate, all put together without any logic whatsoever.

Interestingly, it wasn't long before smaller companies began shooting newsreels SPECIFICALLY for the theatres.

Anyway, in the December 28, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, here's a wonderful poem called "Recommendation" by Parke Cummings.

Shots of Mr. Hoover trouting,
Shots of weasels on an outing,
Speech by Czar of cruller-bakers,
Tricks employed by corset-makers,
Sounds of Bossy Gillis talking,
Sounds of albatrosses squawking,
Butterfly weighs sixty ounces,
Men in Denver take to flounces,
Crooning chants by Rudy Vallée,
Felines battle in an alley,
Clerk consumes, in South Dakota,
Twenty pies--his daily quota--
Kafir belles go in for blouses--
Here's to better newsreel houses.

If you're interested in learning more, Time Magazine wrote up The Newsreel Theatre here.

Lazy Blogger Flush

Just a bunch of things that don't deserve separate entries (or do but require more time and thought than I can spare at the moment).

• Every spring I am amazed at the way robins really DO go bob-bob-bobbin'.
• Speaking of the animal kingdom, yesterday was "flying ant day" here at the Muffy Household. I killed at least thirty of them as they went copulating across my front window. When you crush them, they release a very strong chemical odour which smells a lot like cotton candy.
• They have arrested two people for the murder of Tori Stafford, and the police say they're looking for her body...and yet most of the forum comments say things like "Please God let her be alright!" This makes me wonder just how carefully people read the news.
• I've been exploring the '60s lately. I read a book by Abe Peck about the underground press, and this got me wondering about the social movements of the time. In particular I wondered why Woodstock turned out so well and Altamont was a complete disaster. Having watched both "Woodstock" and "Gimme Shelter," it seems apparent that part of the trouble was having 30,000 people pressed up against a stage that was only four feet high. Another problem was a bunch of stoned and rabid fans. A third problem was a bunch of drunk bikers being expected to deal gently with people.
• So I bought "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane" and I have to say they were pretty cool. Now I'm finishing off "The Kids Are Alright," and next up is "The Doors."
• I'm seriously considering buying a condo, and if things work out during the next month or so then I really, really will. Hopefully it won't burst into flame.
• This weekend I'll be timing the "sin bin" at the season opener for our local Roller Derby teams. That's excitement!
• Next weekend I'll be at Guelph Pride's "circus" event.
• A second squirrel family has moved into the attic. They fight all the time. The ones in the northwest corner always lose.

Blossom Dearie

Rest in peace, Blossom Dearie. You were hip, but not weird, and I notice you never wore a beard.

Coalition Crisis, Yarrgh

I have to admit I'm getting a real kick out of Canada's sudden "coalition crisis." It's not just that I'm hoping to see Stephen Harper get trounced, or that I believe it really IS time for Liberals and NDPs to join up and stop splitting the vote...I'm mainly excited because stuff like this doesn't HAPPEN very often in Canadian politics.

First off you've got Harper's lackey presenting a preliminary budget and an economic statement that is both ridiculous AND a punch in the progressive nose. Rather than nurse their sore noses and let Harper get away with it, the three opposition parties ganged up and utilized a totally bizarre -- but also totally legal -- parliamentary move which allows them to simply kick Harper out of power and replace him...with themselves!

As if that weren't fun enough, everybody's screaming at everybody else because this tricky maneuver requires the cooperation of the Bloc Québécois, the stinkiest party in Ottawa. Every few years it is necessary for somebody to cozy up with the Bloc, which prompts a firestorm of insults from everybody else: "Your party is in bed with the SEPARATISTS, and therefore you HATE CANADA!" What's amusing is that few people outside of the parliamentary chamber actually believe this rhetoric, especially since the people yelling those insults had no doubt cozied up to the Bloc just a year or two before. That's the case now, and it was also the case the last three times this happened.

It's hard not to view Canadian parliament as childish. They're no more cynical and immature than other governments, I'm sure, but they also tend to secretly WANT TO GET ALONG. So even when they scream and shout at each other, you know that deep down inside they hope it'll all blow over and they can all be friends.

But this time, it's like one of the babies in Parliament pushed the other babies down...and then they all pulled out GUNS! It's like, wow, you guys MEAN it this time! You really HATE each other! This is SO COOL!

I can say this with an air of amused detachment because I have no doubt that things will work out just fine. It's easy to get outraged about the microscopic elements of Canadian politics, but when I view it from a two- or three-year distance it all looks pretty much the same. That's good for unity, but bad for engagement.

I like it the way it is.

A Good Morning

We've gotten so used to instant-gratification that, when following a news story, we often expect a New Explosive Revelation at every click of the mouse. That's how I felt last night while pursuing the American election returns.

I'd click on CNN to see their somewhat unadventurous statistics, then I'd jump to MSNBC and FOX for the "out on a limb" predictions (which turned out to be correct). I'd then immediately go to Daily Kos and see which predictions they'd decided to pick up, and also get results about the house and senate races. Then I'd go to Townhall's blog and derive a certain glee from their glazed incomprehension and prophesies of conspiracy and doom...

...and by then enough time had passed for me to go back to CNN for the latest update. Repeat ad nauseum.

Sadly, after Pennsylvania was called there just weren't any big revelations until a few hours later. So I took a gravol and went to bed, and woke up this morning to a landslide Obama victory (and the defeat of most of the noxious ballot propositions). So nice to see Florida blue. In fact, every state I've ever visited ended up siding with Obama. He can thank me later for my inadvertent campaigning!

I followed this race much closer than I did the Canadian elections. Why? Because none of the leaders had a really good OR bad spark to them. I mistrust Stephen Harper, but I could only judge his opponents in varying degrees of amorphous apathy. You didn't have an Obama out there rallying the troops, and you also didn't have a Sarah Palin making a mockery of the whole situation.

RIP Richard Wright, Too

What a weekend. We lost Richard Wright as well. Now that's REALLY sad.

David Foster Wallace...

...apparently killed himself on Friday. This is awful.

I admit that I haven't much cared for his later work, and I was getting the sense that he was a one trick pony, but I figured he was working on some new novel that would blow us all away again. I guess not.

Bye, DFW.

New EP By Andy Prieboy

More interesting than Halley's Comet and nearly as rare, Andy Prieboy has quietly released a new EP.

My love and admiration for brilliant artists ranges across a pretty wide spectrum, but Prieboy is at the top of the list. I can honestly say he is my All-Time Favourite Musician.

You can preview and buy the songs on his sparse and suddenly-active website. Meanwhile, somebody has made a surprisingly engaging independent video for one of the songs, "Bands," which I suspect is from his as-yet unreleased musical "White Trash Wins Lotto."

Parking in Uptown Waterloo

Personally, I'm thrilled that they're putting a small park in front of Waterloo Town Square. There are certainly other parks in the area, but none of them are adjacent to food or shopping so they have never attained "central meeting place status." I want a place where I can sit and read, surrounded by lots of other people who are socializing and eating and having a break between shopping sprees.

I can also tell you that when things get really hot in town, a park is a blessing and a parking lot a terrible curse.

But you see, the park will replace a certain number of parking spots around the shopping mall, and a lot of people are outraged by this. They say that it's hard enough to find parking in uptown Waterloo as it is, so replacing that parking lot with green space will drive people away from uptown businesses.

Now, I walk through uptown Waterloo every day so I get a pretty good sense of where people are parking. I agree that cars are constantly cruising around the entrances to Waterloo Town Square, getting frustrated because they can't find a spot...A SPOT WITHIN THIRTY FEET OF THE DOORS.

Maybe I'm just particularly able-bodied, but there is a huge free lot next to the mall -- right across Willis Way -- that is NEVER more than 1/3 full. That lot is literally a minute's walk away from Waterloo Town Square -- and by extension the rest of the uptown shops -- but most people would rather drive their cars around the entrances than walk for more than a few seconds at a stretch.

I have only recently begun driving again so perhaps I'm missing something, but I simply don't see a "parking for shoppers" problem in uptown Waterloo. There certainly seems to be a logjam of city workers who need to park in the garage adjacent to the bank -- something needs to be tweaked there during rush hour, for sure -- but if you want to park within walking distance of the shopping, YOU CAN.

I made the mistake of asking one of the nice employees in the mall when the new park would be built, and she went off on a surprising tirade about it all. Strangely, her objection was NOT to the removal of the parking spots. She said the new park would "attract all the bums, bring in more alcohol, become dangerous..."

And I was like, "the bums are already IN uptown, and the park is going to be tiny and full of businessmen on their lunch." It had never even OCCURRED to me that the park could somehow be a "safety issue," being as you'll be able to walk from one end to the other in fifteen seconds.

I can only assume that this bizarre "dangerous park" thing is a fallback complaint after somebody deflated complaint number one ("not enough parking") by monitoring the mostly-empty lot next door and presenting their results.

Sometimes I jump to conclusions without having all the facts. But until somebody can explain to me why they can't park within walking distance of uptown -- with or without the new park -- I can only assume that those folks are lazy bums who'll be surprised to learn they actually have feet.

Zsa Zsa Becomes Famous for Her Strength and Her Bum

I always knew that Zsa Zsa was destined for super-stardom, but I wasn't quite sure how until now:

News article with Zsa Zsa picture.

(I'm not sure how NowPublic works exactly, so the picture of Zsa Zsa's butt might not be the secondary image when YOU look at the page).

"The Original of Laura" by Vladimir Nabokov

Yesterday -- a gloomy, cold Monday morning -- I got the happiest surprise possible: Dimitri Nabokov has finally decided to publish his father's final, unfinished manuscript, "The Original of Laura."

Since I didn't start reading Nabokov's books until long after he'd died, I've missed the sweet anticipation of waiting for one of his books. Now -- thanks apparently to Vladimir appearing in his son's dream -- I get to enjoy the last book with the rest of the world...

...and we'll probably all think it sucks. But still!

Neil Shubin Celebrates the Fish

During the past few years American scientists have been bemoaning the lack of accessible science literature, particularly in the field of biology. And they have a right to worry about this.

While biologists and paleontologists are going off and doing important things like researching, teaching, and studying, a group of other people are engaging skilled PR to convince the American public that evolution is somehow a "theory in crisis." Creationists (often camouflaged as "Intelligent Design Theorists") ARE churning out accessible literature about their theories, basically because their theories are so empty that they don't even BOTHER spending time to research them.

I suspect that this was the real motivation behind Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish" -- an attempt to quickly get an entertaining layperson's guide to evolution into the marketplace. By quietly revealing the mountain of evidence behind common descent, and by exposing the positively UNDESIGNED aspects of our bodies -- nobody would EVER deliberately build us this way, but it all makes sense if you go back and look at our fish ancestors -- Shubin fires a friendly salvo in a way that anybody can come along and appreciate.

And the book IS lots of fun. He draws on particularly bizarre aspects of our bodies to show why things sometimes go wrong -- hiccups, bed-spins, hemorrhoids -- interspersed with the "human element" of his personal thoughts while dissecting cadavers or searching for transitional fossils. His examples are clear-cut and the illustrations excellent. I've no doubt that this book will fulfill its intent as ammunition for countering the more prevalent creationist propaganda.

But Shubin isn't a fantastic writer, and the book has a hurried quality to it: occasional grammatical and word-usage errors ("jerry-rigged" keeps being used, and others have criticized the books usage of the loaded term "primitive" to describe anything pre-mammal) and often Shubin's prose sounds a bit TOO informal to my ears. Plus, no doubt due to the intended audience of total science newbies, he tends to over-explain the things the rest of us already know, and then gloss over the more technical details that we'd really enjoy reading about. The section on the Bozo family was particularly gaggy.

So basically, "Your Inner Fish" is not intended to be read by anybody who is already -- say -- avidly reading Panda's Thumb and its offshoot blogs, though it does have some interesting new twists and turns, and it CERTAINLY gives a clear (though sort of flippant) description of its subjects. If you'd like a primer on common descent and evidence for evolution, however, this book is certainly for you.

Death of the CD

I'm starting to see the signs and I'm dusting off my widow's weeds: the compact disc is in its last throes.

I'm not exactly a luddite but this still makes me sad, and it surprises me a bit. I love my CDs and I don't see anything wrong with them...though I admit that my iPod and I spend most of our time together, with the caveat that the music ON the iPod is pretty much FROM my CDs.

Will CDs go the way of vinyl, that is, disappearing for a few years and then coming back as a sort of "nostalgia," available at high prices on ebay? At first I thought so, but part of the vinyl-mania was because certain things had yet to appear on CD. CDs can simply be ripped and file-shared, so chances are there will be little pain just because you can't find a song on iTunes.

I admit I'm not a huge fan of massive file-sharing. I can't see how it doesn't impact the artists (though I'm not sad to see the big labels get shafted). I'll hold out as long as I can, and I'll continue to cherish my collection as the rest of the world moves on to "something else," and eventually I'll embrace that "something else" when I no longer have a choice.

The BusWalk Tour Gets a Boost!

This weekend's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has a nice article about the BusWalk Tour. It makes me sound a little goofy, but I suppose that I really do sound that way, and kudos to Colin Hunter for working in the "drag" variable without being too sensationalistic OR serious.

I was a bit nervous because I know how easy it is to be misquoted (through the power of editing, selective listening, selective memory, and "sexing up"), and I was afraid I'd see something out-of-context that would make me cringe. Nope! I feel no need to write an annotated version of the article.

For visitors who are curious about the tour itself (and not my vain worries about appearance and representation), click here to read all references to the tour in this blog, and rest assured that more are coming. My walkin' shoes have actually disintegrated and I hope to get some more today; maybe there'll be another trip tomorrow?

You can stay tuned and read other things, though...I think this blog is an interesting enough place to hold your attention, and it's also "work friendly." Please feel free to comment, critique, and suggest.

Thank Goodness for Missed Experiences

The collapse of this bridge inspires awe. We just don’t expect structures to behave like that. And obviously commuters don’t expect to find themselves suddenly dropping sixty feet into the Mississippi.

I was in Minneapolis in May but I never went over that bridge. This, fortunately, removes me from the ranks of the armchair pundits and prophets. If I want attention, however, I’ll have to change my story so I can become a sort of long-distance victim/expert, the “jeez, good thing I didn’t go there in JULY!” or “I drove over that thing and it seemed so UNSTABLE!” sort of person.

We haven't had a nice vicarious long-distance suffering since the last school shooting.

It's That Simple ("Marriage")

Okay, this one isn't as nasty, I can live with it. Be sure to read this post first to understand the context behind this "editorial."

Tragically, "Enshrine Marriage Canada" is no longer online. Neither is the Michael Coren column (from September 17, 2004), which was a real gem about how a lesbian couple made a "bloody sacrifice on the altar of selfishness" by deciding to have children.

Childless “Marriage” – Time To Speak Up!

Just like the first bird of spring, a U-Haul truck is cause for celebration for me. It means a new family is moving onto Maple Street! As much as I abhor change of any kind – especially in my undergarments -- I admit that I get a thrill out of meeting new people, as long as they’re not godless or poor. Meeting a new neighbour is an opportunity to share cleaning tips and recipes with folk from distant, exotic lands (sometimes as far away as Timmons!)

This week, however, the U-Haul didn’t bring new friends. It brought two people who gleefully partake in a lifestyle that no right-thinking Realerwoman can condone: the unnatural, barren social experiment of the Childless “Marriage.”

Since people don’t wear any form of identification to mark them as deviants, upstanding folks like myself sometimes treat them as equals before we realize what who we’re talking to. Let’s just say that I’ve been burned before. I’ll have to start being more careful, at least until we get a Conservative politician in power, one who understands the need for immediate stigmatization.

In any case I didn’t know that the Andersons were childless when I arrived at their front door, bearing pastries and wearing my best bonnet. The two of them were a bit flustered with their move but they were happy to take a break and share their sofa with me.

“Gosh,” said Mr. Anderson, “these cherry-filled things are great!”

“They’re ‘Passion Flakies,’” I replied, flattered.

“Why do you call them that?” asked Mrs. Anderson, giving the plate a curious look.

“Because they remind me of the humiliation of Christ.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Anderson. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

After this strategic injection of religion into our first meeting (“scoring points with God,” my husband likes to call it), our conversation turned to the rigors of moving, which I said was always difficult and never fails to remind me of the humiliation of Christ. “Not to say that I have ever suffered as much as he did, of course. I mean, he was scourged, and scourged, and scourged some more! But gosh, moving can be tough too!” I paused to let my “lesson of the day” sink in, then said something I assumed was inconsequential: “Fortunately we have children to help us with the chores. Two of them. Well, three, if you count the one we never talk about.”

Mr. Anderson glanced at his wife and made a nervous gesture with his Passion Flakey. Unaware of their unholy secret, I barreled on.

“I hope you two have plenty of little ones on the way…Lisa and Zipporah could use some new playmates!”

That was when Mr. Anderson dropped his bombshell. With deceptive tenderness and mock regret, he said “Actually, we can’t have children…I had a…”

“What my husband means is…”

“…an accident with a waffle iron…”

And then they were both crying on the sofa in their empty livingroom – its barrenness reflecting both the state of Mr. Anderson’s genitals…and the state of their immortal souls! They were a childless couple! And they’d had the nerve to get MARRIED!

All of us know that marriage is centered on children…this is rule number three in the “Declaration On Marriage,” a pastiche of seven marriage rules invented last week by Enshrine Marriage Canada. If you’re not going to have children, your marriage is a sham…in fact, it’s not even a marriage, it’s just the word “marriage” with quotes around it!

How dare these people defy the sanctity of marriage by breaking rule number three! And to think that I’d come over here to welcome them.

But Mr. Anderson hadn’t finished trying to indoctrinate me – have you noticed that these deviants never shut up about their misguided beliefs? Crying crocodile tears, he told me that they were pinning their hopes for children on artificial insemination. He said this as though I should APPROVE!

Far from this making a childless “marriage” alright, artificial insemination just makes it worse! As Michael Coren said, the procreative nature of marriage is paramount, and “if love is excluded from the original act” (as it is in artificial insemination), “it is likely to be discarded from the outcome.” In other words you can’t LOVE a child that you didn’t produce sexually…it’s that simple! By getting married and choosing this artificial means of producing a child, infertile couples have “made a bloody sacrifice of children’s happiness on the altar of selfishness” (Mr. Coren has such a way with words! This phrase is just CRYING OUT to be hung on the wall!)

We all know that a REAL marriage can only involve two people who are capable of having children with each other. This is one of the primary reasons why we say homosexuals can’t be married, and what’s bad for them is bad for the rest of us. But defenders of Traditional Marriage seem to forget that there is another enemy out there besides homosexuals, a group of deviants already sanctioned by our liberal society: these sterile couples! By choosing to marry, they are contributing to the destruction of Traditional Marriage, an institution which has ALWAYS required children in order to legitimize it. A marriage without children is like a Passion Flakey without the cherries: AN ABOMINATION WHICH MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!

As always, I urge true conservatives to speak up. When you meet people like the Andersons, tell them that you do not recognize their marriages as legitimate. After all, we have invented the rules for marriage and we must not allow ANYBODY to break them. I am disturbed that conservative organizations – like Enshrine Marriage – have yet to speak out against the fronts in the Marriage War which DON’T involve homosexuals. I hope this editorial wakes them up.

I’m not a coward. I stick to my guns. And if enough of us get together we might be able to start a constitutional amendment. We must write into the constitution a clause stating that marriages MUST produce children, and that those children MUST be biological descendents of BOTH parents. Otherwise it’s only a “marriage” (with quotes), and a selfish, “adult-centered” one at that!

It's That Simple! (Spanking)

Nothing politicized me more than the 2004/2005 same-sex marriage debates. It wasn't same-sex marriage per se that got me going, it was the increasingly contradictory and bankrupt arguments against it that made me realize what was happening: the social conservatives had motives under the surface of the debate that they dared not state explicitly. Extreme bigotry was hiding behind a string of bizarre and stupid debating points.

So JP and I decided to infiltrate the Canadian right-wing noise machine by forming our own social conservative group: "The Realer Women of Canada." A spoof of "REAL Women of Canada," we decided to pretend to agree with all of their premises, and then take those premises to their "logical" (and more extreme) conclusions, in order to expose what we believed were the rotten underpinnings of the movement. We found some sympathetic webmasters and began our secret plan: to say all the vile stuff that the social conservatives WANTED to say, and then clasp those people to our bosoms. Sort of like abortion clinic bombers publically cozying up with the American Family Association. We wanted to embarass them by making them explain why OUR stances differed from THEIRS, which (we predicted) they'd be unable to do. If they were REAL women, we were REALER women!

We started writing topical "editorials" as the headwomen of "The Realer Women of Canada." My section of the site was called "It's That Simple!" and I wrote as a suburban housewife from somewhere in Calgary. I seem to remember that JP's character was more of an understated, embittered ex-scholar.
Even though the site went online and our editorials and mission statements were posted, we quietly took it down a few months later without ever publicizing it. I think the idea behind it was sound, but we'd been completely unable to find any actual women to write for it, and it seemed wrong for us to condemn bigoted women when we didn't actually have any women on our team. More importantly, though, writing these editorials made me feel emotionally drained and terrible; I didn't enjoy stepping into the shoes of somebody so reprehensible, and I couldn't see myself going beyond the four pieces I eventually wrote.

I thought this stuff was lost forever, but I stumbled upon the rough drafts today, and I figured I'd post them for posterity. They're nasty, offensive, small-minded, and brutish, but I think they really do peel back some of the layers of civility that barely cover the bigoted mind (with some satirical embellishments to make them more entertaining).

(I was originally going to post them in this blog, but somebody is bound to think I'm endorsing these ideas and report me to Blogger. Years ago, in response to rampant and ongoing anti-semitism in a chat room, I made a website called "Jewish People Eat Worms and Ride the Lochness Monster." Whenever somebody started ranting about the sinister "Jewish Conspiracy," I'd say "yeah, I agree, look at this site, it proves it!" But somebody thought I was serious, and I was promptly banned for violating the server's terms of service. I don't want that to happen again).

(So I had a link to my site, and I realized the articles were so reprehensible that I didn't want to be associated with them, so I wimped out and took away the links. Sorry!)

No More Limbo

In the 21st century it's still a monumental statement to say that unbaptized babies DON'T go to their own personalized hell? Were people actually concerned about this? In a world full of so many important issues which must be tackled, the release of a 41-page "we were wrong about limbo" document ranks up there with press releases about the brand of God's hair gel.

I find it amusing that Popes seem to catch up with society two hundred years after the issues stopped being important. I'm eagerly awaiting the 2207 proclamation that homosexuality is not actually a sin, long after the human race has been sterilized by the new, genital-scrambling strain of Morgellons Disease.

Horrifying Taser Video

This is the video of police officers repeatedly tasering Mostafa Tabatabainejad in the UCLA library on Tuesday night. The story (so far) is that he didn't have library ID and refused to leave, the police arrived, he started to leave, they grabbed him, he told them to let go of him, and they tased him. That's when the video starts.

It's horrifying. It really makes me physically ill. You probably don't want to watch it.



UPDATE: This has agitated me enough to finish off "Bethsheba 2006," a song about people who become collateral damage.

A Day in the Life: Monday

Contrary to popular belief, I only go on self-destructive drinking binges in my spare time. So what do I do during the rest of the week?

For my edification and perhaps yours:

7:00am - I awaken from the usual dream of running from a namess evil. The cat's food has almost run out, and so has her litter. I promise myself that I'll be a good parent and stock up on my way home from work. I feel horrible. I need to shave and wash my hair but I decide I can survive another day. Read the New Yorker from 7:15 to 7:45 while eating Golden Grahams cereal, wondering why it doesn't taste as good as it did when I was a child. Set the clocks back that didn't automatically do it for themselves. Wonder what's going to happen to all these automatic clocks next year, when Daylight Savings Time changes. Pet the cat, dress, and go.

7:45 - 8:30 - Walk to work. Since my clocks are always set incorrectly, my walk only takes half an hour but it appears to take 45 minutes.

8:30 - 9:00 - I read the news today, oh boy. Google news keeps me updated all day, actually. Some idiot in England is saying that humans should use their ingenuity to "adapt" to increased global temperatures, which is so stupid that it will probably catch on as a talking point. Dick Cheney says that violence is "spiking" in Iraq because the insurgents want the Democrats to win, which is so stupid that it has already caught on as a talking point. I pray for a shift of power in the USA.

9:30 - Eat peanut butter and greet the new employee in my department. Am given a pep talk about Hallowe'en. I consider dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow for work, which is a large enough investment to be daunting without alcohol.

8:30 - 12:00 Noon - Hefty work, which -- due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed today -- I am even less able to tell you about. Not that you want to know anyway.

12:00 - 12:30 - Eat lunch at Subway. One of the women who works there annoys me to no end: she's cocky, subnormal, useless, and ugly. Don't get me started. I read about threshing, maple sugar, quilting bees, butchering day, and racoon hunting -- among other things -- in "Pen Pictures of Early Pioneer Life in Upper Canada," written by "A Canuck" in 1905. I pause to reflect that these are my ancestors.

12:30 - I return to work and receive an email from the CKMS Station Manager, wondering if I can come in at 6pm to review applicants for the Administrative Assistant position. So much for getting the cat food and kitty litter.

12:30 - 4:30pm - Keep working. I'm glad to note that the folks who like to play Go have found themselves a table to play on. The Go pieces look like candy.

4:30 - 5:00 - Walk to University Plaza en route to CKMS. I get a soaker walking through Waterloo Park, and I'm dismayed by the mass defoliation to make way for a new sewage system. As if the trees didn't have enough problem dealing with this creepy leaf fungus.

5:00 - 5:30 - Eat at Curry In a Hurry, which is tasty but ridiculously overpriced for microwaved leftovers. Lamb Vindaloo, hot. Mango Lassi. I read about hunting, fishing, country dances, tarring & feathering, spelling bees, and early country courtship. I notice that the waitress is acting like I'm somehow there to serve her.

5:30 - 6:00 - Walk to CKMS. Gosh it's getting dark. I see a majestic blue heron standing in the wake of the setting sun. Actually he's slowly pushing his way across the horrid man-made lake in the new Industrial Park. He looks like the Loch Ness Monster, or a farming implement. A man rides past me on a stinky scooter that keeps stalling.

6:00 - 7:00 - At CKMS, drop off tomorrow's episode of "Repeater" and sit down to go through the applicants for Administrative Assistant. I consider this a delicate issue so I'll leave it at that. The Station Manager is ill, I sit in an unventilated room with her and then use her pen.

7:00 - 7:30 - Walk home in the dark. It isn't the best place to be walking, muggings are not unheard of. Halfway home I start seeing darting shadows and smelling smoke: it's Devil's Night, I totally forgot. Fortunately the moon is only half full. The smoke gets stronger, something is definitely burning which shouldn't be burning. To me this always means that my apartment is on fire and my cat is dead, though fortunately there's no visible smoke in any direction. I start hearing sirens but I never find out what the fire is, it smells like tires burning. I live close to a rubber factory of some kind. Passing the Bauer Lofts, I note that they've put up another pumping station on the last stretch of unclaimed sidewalk.

7:30 - 8:00 - It's definitely too late to buy cat food. I contemplate dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow. Just in case, I decide to shave my legs. This is not a comfortable thing because I just shaved them on Saturday. The cat drinks water out of the bathtub, and as always I'm amazed that she doesn't fall in. She's just happy that I haven't poisoned the water with bath oil or bubbles or something. I decide to do a quick check of my Hallowe'en costume, to make sure I haven't lost it in the train wreck that is my apartment post-weekend. Thank goodness I do, because when I find the skirt I see that there's dirt all over it. Then I remember, all in a flash: I fell really badly when I got out of the cab, partly because I was seeing double but mostly because my heel broke as I was climbing out. This explains why my left arm and left leg are sore.

8:00 - 8:30 - Write this!