I must warn you that I’m going on about forty-five minutes of sleep since two days ago, have consumed nothing but caffeinated beverages, a turkey sandwich, two oranges and a bag of chocolate chip cookies today, and have another blog post to do over at Ayyyy before I crash, so this could get weird.
Oh yeah, and I worked on the election all day, as a polling clerk in a mobile poll. And it’s a full moon tonight, Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon.
I was absolutely crushed not to be in charge of the polling place at the city jail, but oh well, you can’t have everything! How would you keep it fresh? Polling at two assisted-living communities and a women’s shelter were interesting enough to fill the day. It’s not every day you meet a fellow who was in the Normandy invasion (not the one in 1066, the later one, going in the other direction).
Not in the women’s shelter.
Category Archives: Historical
Pic o’ the Day: Montreal Dairy Cows
Okay, so this isn’t going to be the most SEO-pimped-out post I’ve ever made. Still, it’s an amazing pic and everyone should see it and hear the backstory from WalkingTurcotYards, backstory which is both poignant and amazing:

Empire, or Humanity? What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me About the American Empire, by Howard Zinn
Passed along from NagOnTheLake by Metro, here is a thoughtful autobiographical essay by Howard Zinn, a former soldier and current thought leader (what we used to call philosopher, before we decided that old words were old-fashioned).
Lydia Purple
So yesterday, there I was surfing around the Net and posting fun stuff to Facebook (and why wasn’t I posting to my blog more than an amusing, if mindlessly felonious, internet quiz? you ask, for lo you are very perceptive. Because a blog post takes between 1.5 and 7 hours on this computer, depending on how it’s behaving, and clicking Share On Facebook takes about ninety to 180 seconds instead, and BTW the PressIt bookmarklet won’t work with this Windows 98 setup so I can’t post it to WordPress instead, that’s why thanks for asking) when I ran across this.
From the comments on the YouTube it appears that the Collectors later lost their lead singer and morphed into Chilliwack, or maybe their singer left and he fronted Chilliwack or something; all I know is, going from Kits Beach to Chilliwack is what’s generally thought of as a comedown, at least to those who’ve been in both locations. I mean, Chilliwack is very nice for a small town with condo metastises on the fringes, but one of these things smells like cow shit and one of them smells like ckOne if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
In any event (the pole vault? beaver eating? three day?) there I was…well, HERE I was, right here behind the keyboard, and I was wearing my purple sweatshirt. The one Lydia gave me. The one with Lydia on it, only Lydia‘s not purple (neither in person nor on the sweatshirt except in the spots where the transfer didn’t cover) Lydia is generally rather pale pinkish except on the sweatshirt, where she is white and green (which she never is, even after a heavy-duty Bacchanal not that I’d know anything about that) and, yes, a bit of purple.
So (t)here I was wearing my purple Lydia sweatshirt, watching Lydia Purple. I wasn’t actually sweating, but it would have been nice for narrative symmetry purposes I suppose.
And here it is, a Wet Coast version of Eleanor Rigby:
Spot the Vancouver locations: Kits Beach, the West End, the Pacific Centre atrium (who knew it was that old?), Planetarium, English Bay, and is that not Spanish Banks?
Lyrics and additional details below the jump: Continue reading
The Forgotten Man
Some of the discussions I’ve been having recently have got me a bit touchy on certain subjects, which some of the quicker on the draw of you may have noticed. This relates to one of them, and William Powell says things so much better than I could that I figure I should just stand back and let him have at it.
From My Man Godfrey, and as true now as it was then. Skip ahead to 2:30-4:00 to watch the real fun:
