Random w00tage.

[camwyn]

Considering that I'm not a Canadian and answered the questions based on what I know of the country, culture, and slang (partly from a list I saw once of Ten Reasons To Move To (insert province/territory name here) for each province/territory), I thought this was amusing. Esp. since the #1 answer turned out to be the part of Canada I was most enthralled with, anyway - or close to it, I don't think 'Vancouver Islander' was on the list.






Take the What Kind of Canadian are You? Test by lamaitresse!



Okay, so, quizfoo over... I have something else to w00t about. I got my birth certificate from New York City last week. It's a little unnerving how different it looks from the notarized photocopy I'd been using to get into and out of Canada/the States. They print them out on watermarked paper on computers now, and there's no raised documentary seal; genuineness is determined by the presence or absence of features like watermarking, certain colours, etc. I'm not sure I trust that, but I'm stuck with it. However, this one has an advantage over the old battered one... it's not a copy. It doesn't say 'copy' anywhere on it. It simply says 'certificate of birth, city of New York'. This means that I can take it to a passport office and use it as my documentation, since the last time I was at the county courthouse they said notarized copies were a no-go. Useful, I suppose; now I have to find out when I can get to the office and start the process. I'd rather not carry my birth certificate with me to Canada the next time I visit after this October trip.

My head's still stopped up and my eyes still burn, but I responded far better to the cold meds yesterday than to allergy meds. I do not think it means much, other than perhaps my body responds better to the active ingredients. Not counting powerful antivirals, there aren't any drugs that I know of that'll stomp a cold - dietary supplements may or may not be a different story as I am far too stubborn to swallow anything for a sickness until I am well past the stage of 'take at the first sign in order to shorten duration'.

Testing for yellow belt tonight after academic class is over. I am not fond of my Monday academic class as it reminds me powerfully of Dilbert - it's all about process reengineering with regards to the use of information technology. Everything that we've read in the books so far has been relentlessly mocked by Scott Adams, and so I find it very hard to believe that any of it is actually useful or helpful in any way, because I know so many people have claimed to employ the techniques but in fact are talking through their collective hats and hardly mean a word of it.

Had a tremendous amount of fun last night playing a new mortal character at Metro, even though all she did was get into a conversation about hockey at the local bar. Given my luck in the past I am on the alert for supernatural characters taking an interest; generally someone from one of the super communities finds my mortal characters and starts interacting with 'em within four days. My record is two hours on-grid with Signy Hammer before a boggan showed up and hired her sandblasting expertise to fix his chimerical dragon's skin rash. We'll see how this one does.

I left my 'frequent flyer' card at home, but I think I'm going to go for bubble tea at lunchtime anyway. I could use it, and I haven't had Starbucks today. (Personal rule: only one luxury drink per day, and no more than two per week unless absolute merry hell breaks loose in either work or school.) I'm probably going to get it at Top Quality instead of Emack and Bolio's, since that means I can go into the Scary Snack Food Isle and play my favourite Asian market shopping game, namely: What the Hell is This? Last round's winner turned out to be bright green candied mango, a fact which I only learned after I ran it past one of our accountants (she's from Shanghai), as the sole English on the label was nearly too small to see. I might look into the Scary Canned Drinks aisle, too, and the primary reason I use 'scary' to describe them even though I have no fear of them is because last time I went I saw something for sale called Pennywort Drink. I'm reasonably sure that stuff is growing wild in my lawn as a weed, and if pennywort is actually a water plant, then something that looks just like it is in my lawn... anyway.

Saw another red-tailed hawk this weekend - yesterday, actually, in South Mountain Reservation. He or she, I can't tell which, landed in a tree about twenty feet high and just sat there for a while, looking around and hanging out and (once) pooping. They don't normally come down that low around here. Beautiful birds, though.

Mom's birthday last night went pretty well. There was very little on the menu that I liked the look of - it was all northern Italian food, which I am not much fond of unless it is drowned in cream sauce, and what wasn't northern Italian was crusted in black pepper for some ungodly reason. Thankfully there were unprinted specials, which is how I had venison for dinner. I think I may be the only person who enjoyed everything about their dinner last night - Dad expected different noodles, my sister couldn't eat all of hers, Mom didn't eat the scallops in her Tuscan stew, and Ali's fiance's pasta was woefully undercooked. Me? I got to try fallow deer and some nice vegetables and mashed potatoes. 's good. Tastes like beef, only without the scary fatty bits.

I'm going to close this entry before I ramble any further, and instead of a pulp survival tip today, I'm going to leave you with a line from my Civ III instruction manual. Each of the civilization leaders gets a quote at the start of a chapter, usually about the game mechanics of that chapter. The one they had for Hiawatha of the Iroquois made me laugh...

"We do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we take it from those who inadequately defend it."

Comments

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Vancouver Island != Vancouver

Vancouver is Canada's version of Seattle, with all that implies.

Vancouver Island is several hundred square miles of land just off the coast of British Columbia. The southern tip, where the only city of note (Victoria) is, actually makes the top of Puget Sound and extends south of the ruler-straight line the US/Canadian border makes in this part of the world. The border ducks south to deal with this. Victoria is the provincial capital and, from what I saw, strives to provide the comforts of Victorian-era England with a slight Canadian twist (there are mountains and it's clean).

None of this should be taken as anything other than the ramblings of an arrogant American, of course, as I wasn't in either place very long -- those were just my first impressions. I do like BC, though.

Another couple .ca fact: corn syrup is Not Food, so all the sodas must use Real Sugar. Moreover, while you can add caffeine to products whose ingredients have it naturally (e.g. colas, as the kola nut has caffeine), you cannot add it to products whose ingredients don't naturally possess is. This leaves Canadian Mountain Dew profoundly unsatisfying (if you drink it, I don't), but I expect the Jolt would be all right (don't drink that either).

-- Lorrie

[camwyn]

Hey! Nanaimo's worthy of note! Where else can you see the annual Marine Festival climax in a three-hour Bathtub Race, preceded by the Coast Guard Precision Dinghy Drill Team, with the starting gun being a '50's-era howitzer and the most uncomfortable Mounties* in the world in attendance?

*The Festival is held towards the end of August. The Mounties wear full dress uniform. That red jacket is made of wool. Figure it out.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

But I've never been there, so I couldn't report.

You're probably right about the Mounties, though. 8-)

-- Lorrie