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Friday, May 27, 2022
Small things 27 May
In England, 'booster shot' is spelled 'borchestershire shot'.- Form a letter C with your left hand and a backward C with your right. Hold them together so they're almost touching. What's missing? A Burger!
- Don't keep trying to please people who already don't like you. Embrace the joy of being the most annoying person in their life.
- Steel: "And who would you be?" Platinum: "I'm platinum. I'm a precious metal." Steel: [mocking voice] "I'm a precious metal..."
- Borg tribbles. Why wasn't that a Star Trek episode?
- I'm so close to our YYC digital TV transmitter towers that I get crystal clear digital TV on major networks. Bye bye Shaw cable.....
- Tall burgers nullify the benefits of burgers. A good burger is the perfect portable food. It should be edible using only your hands without dislocating your jaw. It doesn't require a salad bar between the buns. Meat. Condiments. Cheese and bacon optional if you're in the mood. Stop. (Pictured is a Rocky's Burger Bus burger)
- 'Season to taste' is horrible advice for someone with no taste....
- You know you're drunk when you use the flashlight on your phone to try and find your phone.
New towel warmer
Got a new towel warmer.
It warms at its convenience and judges you at the same time.
Rent
Military bases in Canada typically have PMQs, or Private Married Quarters. PMQs, now called Residential Housing Units (RHUs), consists of apartments, row houses, duplex or detached houses. Family size and availability dictate what type of housing is allocated. Military base housing is helpful because military members are forced to move frequently. So, members who live in RHUs do not have to be concerned with constantly selling and buying a house, they only need to pay rent and utilities. RHUs also help with the fact that many military bases are located within hot real estate markets, or worse, non-existent real estate markets in more isolated posts. Living in PMQs/RHUs is also convenient since personnel are typically close to work.
The nature of the PMQ/RHU neighborhood is such that there is social support. Children of military personnel (base brats) also have a bond because of what they have in common.
Currently the Canadian Forces Housing Agency (CFHA) houses only 17% of eligible Canadian Forces members in RHUs. Accommodation in the private sector is popular when rents and home costs are competitive. Many service personnel like to develop equity in their homes. The issue is that in many markets in close proximity, real estate markets have priced homes far beyond a military member's salary. Most PMQs were built in the 1950s with bare bones construction, minimal insulation and single pane windows, although many have been renovated. Most RHUs do not have garages. No new RHUs have been built on military bases, even those whose populations have tripled over the decades.
Lately, a senior Air Force officer told members that they should consider contacting Habitat for Humanity if they were finding it difficult to secure affordable housing.
Things I learned lately 27 May
- There is a newly identified risk in being able to log into Facebook using another account, like Gmail. It is recommended that you disable any such 'connected experiences' in FB. it is possible to unlink them from Facebook. Navigate to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Accounts Center button > Accounts & Profiles. The same vulnerability exists with any online service you use another account to log into.
- Sandwich bread is engineered to withstand fast processing, be strong enough to spread stuff like peanut butter and jam on it without falling apart, flexible enough to bend, soft enough to bite through it without compressing the contents and squeezing them out the sides. And it needs to not get stale quickly and not get moldy. It's literally nothing at all like normal, home-made bread.
Passenger car manufacturers in China: SAIC; FAW Group; Dongfeng; BAIC Group; GAC Group; Geely; Changan Group; Brilliance Auto; BYD; Chery; Great Wall Motors; JAC Motors; Fujian Motors; Hongqi; WEY; Lynk.- Tony Roma's is no more, at least in YYC. Oh well, we still have Big T's BBQ.
- Yellowstone National Park is celebrating its 150th anniversary. One event of the year is a special $1500 "Inheritance Pass" that won't be usable for 150 years! The owner of such a pass will have unlimited access to the park in the year 2172. No one buying this pass will live to use it, but it can be bequeathed to someone in your will. The point of the pass is to raise funds so that Yellowstone can survive into the future.
- Lake Michigan is the only great lake that doesn't border Ontario, and Lake Ontario is the only great lake that doesn't border Michigan.
- Apple doesn't let movie villains use an iPhone on camera. So if a movie character is using an iPhone, they're not the bad guy/girl.
- The Greek philosophers from the Epicurean period believed that there had to be other worlds with life in the universe.
Friday, May 20, 2022
Small things 20 May
- I'm pretty sure 'great replacement' is not a theory, and it should rightfully rest solely within the domain of first nations people.
- You know how Twitter has a limit of 280 characters in a post? I sometimes wish Facebook had a character minimum of 18 or 24 characters to eliminate the posts containing one word that have no context or meaning.
- Great. Now we have to worry about monkeypox?
- I watch a lot of YouTube videos of people driving various cars (mostly EVs) and giving their impressions. I am amused by how many of them insist on critiquing other drivers on the road during their reviews.
- We can make pop that tastes like a birch tree and chips that taste like roast chicken. Why can't we make stamps that taste good when you lick them?
- Ask a current McDonalds employee who Grimace is. Or the Hamburglar. Or Mayor McCheese.
- There's no word that contains all the vowels in the proper order, I said, facetiously...
- You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.
- Steampunk. What happens when goth kids discover brown.
- "Chunky peanut butter. That's not peanut butter. That's work in progress." ~Lewis Black
Kids in the Hall are back!!! OMG
The kids are back.
On Amazon Prime Video no less.
Tell the whole world.
Songs that turn 50 in 2022
Cat Stevens - Morning has broken
Neil Young - Heart of gold
Argent - Hold your head up
Gilbert O’Sullivan - Alone Again (Naturally)
Jackson Browne - Doctor My Eyes
David Bowie - Changes
Bill Withers - Lean on Me
Elton John - Rocket Man
The Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice
Neil Diamond - Song Sung Blue
Alice Cooper - School’s Out
Eagles - Take It Easy
Looking Glass - Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)
Gary Glitter - Rock and Roll (Parts 1 and 2)
The Hollies - Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)
Chicago - Saturday in the Park
Elton John - Honky Cat
Mott the Hoople - All the Young Dudes
The Doobie Brothers - Listen to the Music
Seals and Crofts - Summer Breeze
Billy Paul - Me and Mrs. Jones
Steely Dan - Do It Again
Stevie Wonder - Superstition
John Denver - Rocky Mountain High
Carly Simon - You’re So Vain
Things I learned lately 20 May
In a Google Trends comparison, America is more interested in Johnny Depp than abortion.- One year ago, the national average price for regular gasoline in Canada was $1.291/L. Now it is $2.00/L. The highest average prices for regular gas are $2.254/L in Newfoundland, $2.205/L in BC and $2.145/L in Quebec. There are 3.78541 litres in a US gallon, so $2.205/L equals CAD$8.346 per US gallon or USD$6.55 per US gallon.
- A research team have figured out how to generate 'solar' electricity at night. Using infrared. That's hot. [snort]
- On the mild Sunday afternoon of May 8th, 2022, California set a historic milestone in the quest for clean energy. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and the state produced enough renewable electricity to meet 103% of consumer demand. That broke a record set a week earlier of 99.9%.
- There are over 100 high rises under construction in Toronto, with 300 more planned. There are over 220 construction cranes doing their thing in Toronto, more than any North American city.
- A retired Indian couple is suing their son and daughter-in-law, demanding that they produce a grandchild within a year or pay them 50 million rupees ($675,000). His son, a pilot, was married six years ago. The 61 year-old wannabe grandfather said he wants a grandchild within a year or compensation, because he spent his life's earnings ($47,000) on his son's pilot training. his son's pilot training in the United States.
- Tesla cars are in such great demand right now that delivery is likely more than a year away if you were to order right now. The wait time is so long and Tesla makes improvements to their cars so often, that the car you end up getting quite likely will have features and improvements that did not exist when you put in your order.
- There's a difference between cars that require high octane gas and cars that are recommended to use high octane gas.
- Also, using high octane gas in a car designed for regular fuel is a waste of money. Any benefit you seem to notice is purely circumstantial.
- China manufactures more cars than the US, Japan, Korea and India combined.
Friday, May 13, 2022
Small things 13 May
- Abortion isn't birth control. I agree. But vasectomies are.
- Someone gave birth in their car on the way to the hospital and the father named the kid Carson. Best. Dad. Joke. Ever.
- You can tell that Monopoly is a very old game. There's a luxury tax and rich people can go to jail.
- I share the road just fine. They can have the part behind me...
- When your mom walks into the room and says, "Who wants hot dogs for supper?" what she's really saying is, "We're having hot dogs for supper."
- Overheard probably: "Trust my gut? My gut can't even handle milk!"
- It's not illegal to scream really loud for no apparent reason. Just sayin'.
- What sucks about Netflix and other streaming services is that when you watch a few minutes of something and give up, it still stays there in the 'continue watching' pile.
- The purpose of a bayonet is to bring a knife to a gun fight.
Apparently none of the cereal companies have ever heard of Ziploc before. I mean, come on, even the cheese slices are resealable now.- Not sure who needs to hear this, but you can re-park your car if you didn't get it right the first time. I do it all the time.
- I bought some Babybels in case there's ever a cheese rolling competition nearby.
- The great thing about rock is you also get roll. They throw it in for free.
Bird's eye YYC
What amazing shots.
Things I learned lately 13 May
The sound we make when we sneeze isn't universal, but culturally conditioned. A person in the United States or Britain might make an "ah-choo!" sound when they sneeze, while a person in the Philippines might say "ha-ching!". People who have been deaf since birth don't add in any extra sounds at all, leaving only the sounds associated with the movement of air a sneeze represents.- Cooking eggs actually makes 91% more protein available (almost 6g of digestible protein versus 3g from a raw egg).
- If you're planning on digging a tunnel to the other side of the world, be prepared for disappointment. Only 15% of the land area of the Earth is antipodal (directly opposite via a straight line through the center of the planet) to other land areas. 85% of the time, your tunnel would open out into a body of water.
- Apple was still making the iPod touch until very recently. Think iPhone but with no phone. It still has internet, a camera, apps, sensors, and the ability to pay with NFC. They start at $250 and top out at $500 for one with 256GB of memory. You won't find it on Apple's web site unless you search for it specifically, and soon, you won't find it at all, as Apple stopped production after 20 years and now they're selling out fast. There are probably a lot of young folks who got by just fine with an iPhone with no phone. You still get Messages and Facetime after all. The only stumbling block would be reliance on wifi access.
- Bacon and pork belly are the same thing. The difference between them is the curing process. Bacon is cured with salt and spices, pork belly is not cured.
- The peanut butter and banana sandwich has been referred to as a favorite of Elvis Presley, who was renowned for his food cravings such as the Fool's Gold Loaf, a loaf of French white bread filled with a pound each of bacon, peanut butter, and grape jelly.
- Sheryl Crow is 60 (2022).
Friday, May 06, 2022
Small things 6 May
- When you thought you went mute-fart-unmute but you were already muted, so you actually went unmute-fart-mute, and all they heard was silence, a fart, then silence again.
- Shouldn't toxic people come with a WHMIS safety data sheet so you can be prepared? (You're never going to look at WHMIS/GHS symbols the same way ever again) LOL
- You can only have a 'train of thought' until a certain age. Then you basically start having 'Roombas of thought'. Your thought moves straight ahead, but as soon as it bumps into something, it turns around and moves in a new, random direction.
- "Can't Man." Anxiety is his superpower.
- One time the light turned green and the car in front of me didn't immediately go, but instead of honking I waited two seconds and they went.
- Imagine if people knocked on your door to talk to you about science.
- Remember when you were young and you couldn't go anywhere because you didn't have any gas money? Bet you never saw that coming back later in life, did you?
- It seems like every person who thinks something they bought is on sale gets told that they picked the wrong item or the sale doesn't start until tomorrow. Grocery store checkout drama. Am I right? Also, how about express lanes for people who just want to buy their stuff and leave? No dickering.
- What happens to a house during a full moon? It becomes a werehouse. [Dad joke]
- They put music from the 50s and 60s in medicine ads to appeal to the older generation. In the future, Despacito will play in an ad for laxatives.
Songs that turn 40 in 2022
Journey - Open arms
The Go-Go's - We Got the Beat
Joan Jett - I Love Rock 'n' Roll
A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran
Roxy Music - More Than This
Yazoo - Only You
The Motels - Only the Lonely
ABC - The Look of Love
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
Human League - Mirror Man
The Clash - Rock the Casbah
Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out
Culture Club - Do You Really Want to Hurt me
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey
Pretenders - Back on the chain gang
Steve Winwood - Valerie
Don Henley - Dirty Laundry
Prince - 1999
Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me with Science
Eurythmics - Love Is a Stranger
Travel health theatre
You know that Covid test you need to take before you hop on a plane to the US? The one you pay out of pocket for to prove you're not infected? They probably won't even ask to see it at the airport. Random checks at best.
When you land in the US, you may be told that the locale you're landing at requires masks to be worn inside the airport. But the moment you step into the terminal you'll see very few wearing a mask. It might be at best a great Canadian tourist detector.
You know that ArriveCAN app they make a big deal out of completing before you arrive back in Canada? The one you load your passport, vaccine proof and symptom declaration into? You probably won't even be asked for it.
Talk about anti-climatic.
[Update: It turns out that the reason CBSA agents don't ask for your ArriveCAN receipt is because it's electronically linked to your passport, so they see all the data from the form when you scan your passport on re-entry.]
Things I learned lately 6 May
- Interstate 19, which goes from the Mexican border to Tucson Arizona, shows distances on its signs only in metric (kilometres instead of miles).
- Ukrainian refugees took matters into their own hands and have cleaned up the countries that have taken them in and provided them homes, necessities and jobs after they fled their country. Places like Prague, Czech Republic, Antalya, Turkey, and cities in Romania and Poland have been beautified by the kind and voluntary acts of service from the Ukrainians, as a gesture of gratitude to those that helped them during a time of great need and struggle.
- In 1818, the US began building a fort near the New York - Quebec border to defend against invasions from Canada. After two years of construction, they realized the fort was actually on the Canadian side. They abandoned it and it became known as Fort Blunder.
- Beaver College changed its name to Arcadia in 2001 partly because anti-porn filters were blocking access to the school's website.
- Consuming Brussels sprouts in excess may not be suitable for people taking anticoagulants, such as warfarin, since they contain vitamin K, a blood-clotting factor.
- Blind football (what we call soccer) is a thing. The crowd must be silent. The ball makes noise. A guide speaks instructions to the blindfolded players. Only the goaltender can see. YouTube it!
- The city of Redondo Beach in California has the Goodyear Blimp as its official bird.
- Ismail al-jazari wrote the "Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices" where he described 50 mechanical devices along with instructions on creating them. He has been described as the father of robotics and modern day engineering. His Wikipedia entry is a fascinating read.
- The great cheese riot of 1766 was a thing.
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