Category: Journal

About time I jumped on the bandwagon, I guess:

1. Name five things in your refrigerator.

This one’s difficult, as I don’t keep much food around. Dill pickles, Gatorade, salami, rye bread, gruyere.

2. Name five things in your freezer.

Even harder — I had to get up and check: ice cubes, a couple frozen dinners, a frozen pizza, Breyer’s traditional vanilla ice cream, extra lean ground beef, some salmon filets.

3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.

Trash bags, paper towels, phone books, a bottle of parrafin, a touch-up paint pen for my car.

4. Name five things around your computer.

A mug with snowmen on it, a spider plant in the last stages of dying from thirst, a stack of tech books, VFR aviation charts for Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, a world atlas.

5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.

A comprehensive camping first-aid kit, extra band-aids, contact solution, nail clippers, Effexor XR.

A colleage of mine just signed up for the Canadian bone marrow registry. She reports that they need a blood sample. Thus the following:

Welcome, newly undead one, to your new, er, existence!

We thank you for having chosen Canada Blood Services (TM) as your new serum provider. You may have questions and/or apprehensions about various facets of your new lifestyle choice, including but not limited to:

• Photophobia: this is a common complaint of the newly hemoglobin-disadvantaged, but hey, you live in Vancouver, so you don’t have much to worry about. Consult your physician for recommended skin creams, etc.
• Prominent canines: while many savour the shock value, those who would give their eyeteeth to fit in with their living friends and relations may consult a qualified dental practitioner [1].
• Nutrition: maintaining your weight has never been easier, especially as you are limited to 1 liter/day of blood under the new rationing act, since existing supplies must be shared with those not yet fortunate enough to enjoy your new recuperative powers [2].
• Superhuman strength, fast healing, poison resistance, hypnotic gaze: please avoid frightening ordinary humans by showing off these new abilities. Some unfortunates are still offended by the sight of blood, open wounds, and mind control. And we all know what happened at the last Olympic Games.
• Religous relics: studies have shown that it is the faith of the believer that matters here, so be careful. The stockbroker who pulls out his wallet or the UFO abductee with Small Grays on her tee-shirt may inadvertently cause you as significant blindness and/or tissue damage as the traditional crosses, holy water and hexagrams of the I Ching.

Thank you for your attention, and once again, welcome to your new minority group [3]. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to call us at 1-888-555-VLAD.

[1] Please see a professional on this matter. Attempting self-modification with metal files or rasps is not recommended, though the resulting flow of life’s blood is so, so good. That warm, savoury boquet gently trickling down your chin, steaming slightly in the cool air . . . uh, where was I?

[2] Feeding on humans, pets or wildlife is, unfortunately, still a crime. Attached please find a list of qualified consellors to help you with those inconvenient appetites.

[3] Attempts to change the ‘minority’ to ‘majority’ by purely natural means are generally frowned on by the authorities.

The little plaster angel in the flowerbed outside my window is always the first thing I see in the morning, when I study Arabic. هل هذا كلب؟ لا, ليس كلب. هل هذه قطة؟ نعم, انها قطة صغيرة جميلة (Mozilla doesn’t render the punctuation quite right on this).

Yesterday morning the row of cedars outside my window were covered with glistening spiderwebs. They’re still there this morning, but it’s not as foggy, so they don’t stand out so much.

A cute nursing student mistook me for a better dancer Friday night. I quickly disabused her of that notion. I really must re-learn the Lindy… There’s a new Shim-Sham song.

I visited my friends Asheya and Eric — a combination housewarming and birthday — and played four-on-a-couch with about twenty people.

Mom graduated with a Master of Education from SFU the other day. The highlight was the pipe band, as always.

Heh.

Update: New York Times: “No WMD Found in Iraq”. Hmm. So what are the

• Clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
• Prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW
  agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections
  were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
• Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a
  scientist’s home, one of which can be used to produce biological
  weapons.

• New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean
  Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and
  aflatoxin [that] were not declared to the UN.
• Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists’ homes, that would
  have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and
  electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
• Line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production
  facility and an admission that they had tested one of their
  declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the
  permissible limit.
• Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant
  useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that
  was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating
  Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
• Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with
  ranges up to at least 1000 km – well beyond the 150 km range limit
  imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed
  Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including
  Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
• Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from
  North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles
  –probably the No Dong — 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles,
  and other prohibited military equipment.

(all from Andrew Sullivan)

chopped liver?