You know you're making a fashion statement when...

...the 4 year old in the room looks at your feet and proclaims 'You're wearing monkey shoes!' And then proceeds to be utterly fascinated by your footwear for the next 5 minutes (which is a very long time for any little person under the age of 5).

What can I say? They're ridiculously comfortable. Plus, they have passed the 'running around and kicking a soccer ball' test.

(Photo credit to some dude with a travel blog and keen sense of footwear)

As for the effects of these shoes (Vibram Fivefinger) on global warming, umm... I can't really imagine they help reverse global warming, what with being made in China, then shipped to the UK, then to BC, then to me...  Shipping alone probably burned enough fossil fuels to do significant damage to the atmosphere.
Did I mention how ridiculously comfy they are?

Dog nothing; I want a DRAGON!!

I saw 'How to Tame Your Dragon' the other night... now I would like to have a dragon of my own.

This movie gets ONE MILLION stars! (out of ten)

Go see it. Now.

...And if you get the kid's combo at the concession stand, you'll get a dragon too!

Alice and the Jabberwocky

Apparently I'm not a very well rounded literary being as I have not spent anytime in my life studying the works of Lewis Carroll.  I had no idea that the vaguly familiar (although I have no idea why) 'famous' poem of the Jabberwocky was part of Alice in Wonderland.

In fact, after seeing the movie, I can safely say that not in my entire life have I had any idea what Alice in Wonderland was about.  I distinctly remember as a child thinking that Alice in Wonderland was creepy and wanted nothing to do with it.  It's still pretty creepy.

Oh, sure, I've always been familiar with some of the characters - Alice, and the white rabbit in the waistcoat, and the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts, and the Cheshire Cat.  But I had no idea of the actual plot of the story!  There's a White Queen?  And Alice is supposed to kill the Jabberwocky?  I don't know... at times I really thought the whole thing seemed a little too 'Wizard of Oz' for me.  The whole idea of a girl trying to figure out her life crisis by entering some sort of dream world filled with likenesses of characters from the real world... meh....   Yes, I realize that Alice Through the Looking Glass was written before the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, so, who was copying who? Does it really matter?  I really don't love either of the stories.

As for this new 'Johnny Depp stars in' Alice in Wonderland movie.... So many people said it was great; I had to go see for myself.  I just didn't love it, and I probably won't go out of my way to watch it again - ever.  Movie-wise, it was good enough, I guess - But I still don't like the story.  The most entertaining part of the movie was listening to the two little boys one row back laughing and yelling at every semi-violent thing, and you can't forget the stunning sound effects of the poor sap throwing up about a gallon of pop in the back row!  Shared incidences like that really bond a crowd of people together like nothing else can - it really is special!

This pretty much sums up my feelings of the movie:



In summary: Alice in Wonderland, 3 stars.

Black Screen of Death

Three years ago I made a purchase which I thought would last me a really, really long time.  It was supposed to be a quality purchase.  It was not a cheap purchase.

My laptop; my baby.  It was top of the line (for at least a week)!  The 200gig hard drive was the largest hard drive you could get in a laptop at the time; Vista was brand-spankin' new; and the 17" monitor was practically unheard of in the world of portable computers!  It was new, and shiny, and awesome; I had made an investment in my future.  The bee's knees, the cat's meow, this puppy was meant to last through years and years of hassle-free computing!  Or so I thought.

Almost a year ago I wrote a blog about a single blue vertical line that had appeared on the monitor.  I received some suggestions about what might be wrong with it, but didn't bother to do anything about it because quite honestly, I didn't have the cash for an unforeseen expensive fix.  Besides, it's always easier to put up with the problem than to do anything about it - it's the way of the procrastinator.  Well... now, there's probably about 100 vertical lines afflicting the right side of my monitor - it's starting to become ever so slightly annoying.

And then things got interesting.  One day about a month ago I was watching a video stream of my favourite show on the CTV website and my monitor just went black!  Not only that, but the sound died too, and the whole computer just sort of crashed.  A quick re-boot and things seemed fine, for awhile anyway.  Now, using my laptop is like playing a computer version of Russian roulette - I never know when it's going to crash!  Sometimes it's a week between crashes, sometimes it's five minutes.  It's more than a little bit annoying.

The worst thing is that there is no clear reason for the black screen of death.  It might be something as simple as a loose connection.  It might be a failing inverter (which powers the backlight in the monitor).  It might be a broken video cable.  It might be that my LCD monitor is just garbage and needs replacing.  It might be that my fan isn't working well enough anymore which is causing my video card to overheat and crash.  It might be a driver that lost it's ability to ... drive.  It might be that Microsoft released an automatic update for Windows 7 that has completely messed with tens of thousands of people's computers - thank you Microsoft.  It might be a virus.  OR it could be any combination of any of those things.  I don't know how to fix any of those things.  And some of those things cost a significant amount of money to fix.  And suddenly, my spiffy, shiny, never-need-replacing laptop is looking a little... well... let's just say that I did a Google search yesterday on the '10 best ways to destroy a laptop'.

What do you do?  Do you spend the money to fix an otherwise decent laptop and hope to God that nothing else goes wrong with it.  Or, do you throw a little bit more money at the situation and just go buy a brand new laptop?

Gah

Don't question the fortune....

And here I thought H2O was just water.  Silly me.

The BF and I eat Chinese food a lot (like, too much to be healthy, a lot); I think I'm going to start saving the fortunes because I'm pretty sure they were written by 1000 monkeys at 1000 typewriters.

Post 200! Woo!

Analyze this

So I've been busy with a new project this week (it gives me an excuse to forget about all the other half finished projects I should be working on).

We have had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad website for the church ever since the first computer-savy priest we had decided that it would be a good idea to have an online presence.  It was functional, but... less than attractive.  We've been talking about rebuilding it for 2 years.  But talk is cheap and doesn't get you very far.

So I decided to get things rolling, and created a site with Google Sites.  You should be able to find it here (as long as our DNS is mapped properly, or some computer geek gibberish like that):  www.stmarysandthemissions.ca  Careful about the rickroll though...

At the same time, I decided that maybe it's time to put Google Analytics to work on my blog - it'll give me a much more accurate count of who exactly is watching me, instead of that silly hit counter over there to the right that says there have been over 10,000 visits to this site (8,000 of which have been me!).  I've had Analytics running for two days now, so it hasn't given me much information yet.  But in time, I should be able to collect enough data to decide if its worthwhile to install Google Ads so I can start earning advertising revenue.  (haha.. .just kidding)

Anyhue, apparently, over the past two days, I've had 12 unique visitors to my blog and yesterday I received a visit from someone living in Kealakekua, Hawaii.  HAWAII!!

...it's kinda humbling being 'world famous'.

:P

FiveFingers

Now, here's the part of the blog where even my boyfriend is going to think I've jumped off the crazy cliff and landed in a pile of hand-smack-forehead 'what were you thinking??' ridiculousness.

About a year ago, somebody was trying to explain to me this cool new footwear that mimics callouses on your feet so that you can essentially walk around barefoot.  I got this silly mental image of some sort of silicon sock, which might be really comfortable, but would probably also get really slimy with sweat.  Left to my own devices, my imagination is usually way out in left field somewhere.  But the idea of the callouses didn't go away, and in fact reappeared last week when this person actually went and purchased a pair.  This stirred up a bit of excitement in me, so I did a little more research.

I distinctly remember as a child thinking about how I had really long and straight toes, and most adults had really short and gnarled up twisted toes, and how I hoped my toes never got to be like that.  I mean, I used to practise holding pencils and drawing pictures with my toes! That's just how awesome my toes were!  But now, as I get older, I'm starting to see that twisted, bent-out-of-shape, toe mutilation happening on my own feet.  It's sad, because it's pretty obvious what's doing it: shoes.

I also remember as a child spending practically entire summers with no shoes on and having absolutely no trouble taking short sprints across gravel driveways in my bare feet.  One particular summer, wanting to 'build up my callouses' on my tender feet,  I made myself a pair of sandals out of thin cardboard and yarn (and probably a little bit of duct tape) - all in the hopes of having a little something to protect my feet, but still feeling that bare-foot freedom.

And then I grew up, and started confining my poor tired feet to shoes all day long.  Pure silliness.  All last summer, I wore sandals.  Last fall when the weather started to get cold, I started wearing shoes again - and my shoes felt tight, and too small, and restrictive, and sort of like a jail for my feet.  And now, those same shoes fit just fine, but my feet look like my shoes!  FEET AREN'T SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE SHOES!!!

I found these black & white pictures the other day from a study done in the 1930's about barefoot vs shod feet. In a person who always walks barefoot (so we're talking mostly 3rd world and/or tribal people), you can draw a straight line from the heel, through the large knuckle of the big toe, to the pad of the big toe.  Their feet are wide, and their toes are spread apart.  On a shod person, you can't draw that line; their toes are cramped together, their feet are narrow.  Also, their balance is poorer, their posture is poorer, their running abilities are poorer, they experience more fatigue and more chronic pain.

People were not born with shoes.  Our natural state is shoe-less.  Now, I do realize the need for shoes.  We live in a climate where shoes are a necessity lest we end up with hypothermia, and in a culture where it's just not safe to walk down the street with nothing protecting the bottoms of our feet.

Enter: Vibram FiveFinger.  The shoe that fits like a glove, for your foot!  Toe-socks have been around for decades - THIS is the toe-SHOE!  The next best thing to barefootedness.  No, it is not some sort of crazy silicone dream sock for your foot, it's more like a sandal with a separate little sole for each of your toes and allows your feet full range of motion.

After a significant amount of research, and finding nothing more than praise for the product, and knowing that I needed a new pair of sandals for the summer anyway, I went out on a limb and decided to try something a little different.

My FiveFingers arrived in the mail from MEC today.  And I am wearing them right now.  And they are extremely comfortable.  My feet look mildly gorilla-like; however, I also own no less than 3 pairs of Crocs, and nothing looks more ridiculous than those hideous things!

I'm hoping that they'll help me build up some foot and ankle muscle, and maybe straighten out a couple toes in the process.  At the very least, they should get me lots of attention!  Plus... it's the next best thing to being barefoot all the time!

Geekery

I dropped a wad of cash on my car today.  Had that nasty gas pedal recall done (I actually think it was a placebo fix, but now if anything does go wrong, at least my insurance company can't go saying that I should have had something fixed and I didn't so they won't cover me), and 'got the computer recalibrated' whatever that means - I wonder if they could recalibrate my laptop too; maybe it would quit shutting off on me for no good reason.  Anyway, the computer thing was because my engine light came on yesterday.  99% of the time its just a sensor or a computer error, but it's not something you want to mess with.  They're also going to order me a new door panel because apparently I have a heavy elbow and have broken the plastic under the fabric of the arm rest.  The break recall (yes, there are 2 recalls on the Corolla), will have to wait for another day because the parts are back ordered; but like the guy at Toyota said, that won't be a problem unless I plan on driving to the Arctic in January.  Now, all of that stuff, ALL OF IT, didn't cost me a thing - I love warranties!  But where they get ya is the dog-gone regular maintenance and servicing!  You know, the oil change and 10,000 point inspection, and fluid refills, and valve stem replacement therapy, and gizmo re-alignment, and do-hickey boondoggling or something etc, etc.  Friggin cost me about $1000 bucks.  (Ok, not really, but still!)

----------------
And on a completely different subject:

Once upon a time, a 6'7" man named Fr Steve built a website for St Mary's.  It... well, it was lacking some character, BUT, at least it was a website presence for the church.  Fr Steve, unfortunately, was the only one who had the computer knowhow to do anything with it.  And then he moved.  Enter a long lineup of people who said they could probably figure it out, but never bothered to, and two years later, we once again have no website presence.  Now, maybe it's not entirely necessary - I mean, the Roman Catholic church is a bit of a dinosaur anyway... I mean... um... gee, I hope I don't get fired for that...

But seriously, a website, a GOOD website, has its uses.  But I don't know how to code HTML.  Enter: Google Sites.  So much fun!  Google practically has a 50% stake in my life now anyway what with Calendar, Reader, Blogger, Documents, Picasa, Youtube - all of which I use on a regular basis.  So I figured, hey! Why not let them host a website for me too!   (Google does have an ambitious goal of collecting and cataloging ALL of the WORLD's data, so I might as well help them out.  They figure it'll take them roughly 300 years.  Note to self: buy Google stock.)

If all goes well, maybe I'll have a new website to share with you soon.

Manditory Laundromat Blog

It seems that I always have something to blog about after a trip to the laundromat.  That's JUST how exciting my life is.

I was the only one in the laundromat tonight as it was about to close, so I was making small talk with the owner.  Things were fine, just folding up the last of my laundry and talking about the weather and such.  And then I made a critical error - I had noticed a Hydro One smart meter flyer taped to the change machine, so I asked the owner if Smart Meters were going to affect his business.

*sigh* Small business owners are typically very opinionated people, and I sure did get an earful!  Not that his opinions were off-base or anything, just that I felt a little trapped and all I wanted to do was go home.

"Smart Meters" of course are those delightful little things that Hydro One is going to start turning on over the next few months to 'help us all conserve more energy'.  You know, that energy that we've got a larger surplus of now than we have ever had before because 75% of our energy-sucking factories have closed down or moved to Mexico.  Yeah, apparently we need to conserve that energy, so Hydro is helping us do this by implementing a timed system of peak and off-demand periods so that the price you pay for your power will be based on what time of day you consume energy.  For example, doing laundry at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon will cost you 8.8 cents/kilowatt hour but doing your laundry at 4am will only cost you 4.4 cents/kilowatt hour.

See what the laundromat dude did to me?? He got me all annoyed about Smart Meters.  And, oooh!  Don't even get me started about wind turbines or debt retirement charges!  And all I really wanted to know was if the cost of drying my clothes was going to increase.

I'm all for environmental stewardship and energy conservation and reducing greenhouse emissions and all that jazz, but the fact is, the power is being produced whether we're using it or not.  And way more of it is being produced than we're using.  In the world of economics, when supply outnumbers demand, the price falls, not the other way around!

Smart meters are not going to change the average joe's power consuming habits because the average joe simply is not going to go out of his way to do laundry at 4am!  Smart meters are however going to make somebody a buttload of money even though the demand does not justify the cost.  Talk about a case of wolves dressed in sheeps' clothing - there are a bunch of sly, shifty muckity-mucks out there disgusing their money making schemes as 'energy conservation' and 'going green', and it is wrong.  Way, way, way wrong.

Jeez.  I think I'll just go pitch a tent in the woods.