Forbidden Planet

"My dear chap, I can't wait to find out." Exchange between the Brigadier and the Doctor, in "The Daemons" Image nabbed from here .

Over the Christmas holidays, we were playing rock, paper, scissors with Jason and having a pretty good time. At some point Jason decided to up the ante and make it Rock, Paper, Scissors - Gun, with Gun beating everything. Image nabbed from here .

While shopping today, I saw this delightfully exotic looking fruit, with the delightfully exotic name of Buddha's Hand. Even thought it was $7.99 (Canadian), I still bought it. After researching it on the internet, I realize that I have bought a rather large and expensive lemon rind. Apparently, Buddha's Hand is a citrus fruit with almost no pulp or juice primarily used for its zest. It is still definitely worth a look. Photo credits: Richard of Forbidden Planet

My mother died today at 01:10 Eastern Standard Time. She died in her home, with my sister present at the time of death. She was a good mother and wife and person all round and we will all miss her. Her name was Helena. The picture was taken 3-1/2 years ago and features my mom and her two grandchildren. Photo credit: Richard of Forbidden Planet [Updated 28-January-2007 to add photo credit.]

A while back I listened to a talk given by Albert Koopman and he said, "Who are you? If you do not know who you are then you become what you do." Earlier I had heard Dr. Alan Weiss saying that the people who describe themselves by the function they perform (I am an accountant. I am a programmer. I am a librarian. etc.) are most devastated by being laid off because they have lost their identity. Who are you? Are you what you do or do you do what you do because of who you are?

Today my mother is 63 years old. Since today is a weekday, we visited her yesterday (my parents live about midway between Ottawa and Montreal, near Cornwall, Ontario). Unfortunately, she is not really doing terribly well. She is extremely weak, barely eats and has lost a fair bit of weight these past two weeks. She has run a fever of about 39C (102F) for the past two weeks and there is nothing to relieve it. For the first time in the two years since she was diagnosed with cancer, she looked to me like she was dying. A person’s life can be in danger because of external threat, or the need for constant vigilance until strength returns. But this time there is no danger she can run away from or simply rest and wait until she gets stronger - her body is losing to the cancer. Sitting with her, observing her, I could not help but feel she is close to death - despite being remarkably strong and active during the Christmas / New Year season. We saw her two weeks ago, just before she fell ill, ...

You Are Romanticism You are likely to see the world as it should be, not as it is. You prefer to celebrate the great things people do... not the horrors they're capable of. For you, there is nothing more inspiring than a great hero. You believe that great art reflects the artist's imagination and true ideals. What Art Movement Are You?

"Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long." - Seneca

I submitted an application to register a trademark with the Canadian Government today. It was painless and quickly done over the Internet. The total time was less than 15 minutes. I then submitted the application to the US Patent and Trademark Office . This took about 45 minutes - and I am not sure I did it correctly. It also cost more than double the Canadian application. One thing I did not like was that to finish a rather long section you had to press a button labeled "Exit" - it was not clear that this would lead you forward in the application process (since all the pages leading up to this had a button labeled "Continue"). After much brow furrowing, I decided that the only way off out was to "exit". A principle difference between the two applications processes is that for the Canadian application, I simply describe in words what wares and services the trademark applies to. So it was a simple, open ended sentence for each. For the US application, you ...

It looked like an ambulance as I passed it on the highway, but clearly written on it was Patient Transport Vehicle . Image nabbed from here .

While here in Ottawa and Montreal we are having a fairly mild Winter - indeed, news reports are saying that 2006 was the warmest Winter on record in North America - this is not universally true. I wrote my friend in Hong Kong and asked if her Winter has been as nice and mild as ours. She replied, "nono..it is freezing here, so cold! i have to put on long coat and a lot of hot stuff to keep me warm!" I know that fellow bloggers Renny (Norway) and Matt (Sweden. sniff, his blog is gone) are having a milder Winter. I am curious, is this Winter or Summer season (depending on your part of the world) warmer or cooler than usual? Or is it pretty much normal. (Yes, this is an active solicitation question, please don't be shy. Don’t forget to include the part of the world you are from and what season you are in). When I grew up in England in the late 60s, I don’t recall snow (my first recollection of snow was the snowstorm of the century that occurred in Montreal in March, 1971, s...

I have devoured a number of books on writing over the past few months (my personal pick is "The First Five Pages" by Noah Lukeman – it gives you everything you need to know in under 200 pages) and they all say the same thing about dialogue (or speaker) tags - use the simple said instead of a more colourful verb or adverb-verb combination. The reason is that you don't want the tag detracting from the dialogue. Alternatively, the dialogue belongs to the characters and the reader and does not require the author being obtrusive with a hollered, bellowed, screeched, whispered, or panted line of dialogue. I think a little hint in the way of dialogue can't hurt, but ok, I'll accept that the use of said is less invasive and allows the reader to remain in the story. Except ... when it obviously should be something other than said . When I read to the kids, I find it extremely annoying to read something like: "Are you all right?" he said. Why are authors afraid ...

cried out Jason this morning as he looked outside at the bright sunny day, the green grass and the total absence of snow. All that snow from a few weeks ago is gone. I am pretty sure this is going to go down as the warmest winter (in thses parts anyway). [Updated at 17:21, 08-January-2007 to fix broken link. Thanks Renny.]

Back in 2002, I was looking for niche ideas that would break me out of working (and hopefully make me independent). One of the ideas I hit upon (though have not researched in any great detail) is ubiquitous power generation. People (well, politicians and organizations with vested interest) always talk about huge energy producing projects (whether hydro, wind, nuclear, or some sort of fired plant), they never really talk about conservation and reducing the energy footprint (except after that power outage we had in 2003). However, it seems to me, that no one ever focuses on generating power during our everyday activities. Granted, it is not as sexy to generate 5mW of power as it is to have a 25MW nuclear reactor, but enough small (let's call them nano-generators) could be useful for generating power. The first thing I thought of was doors (actually revolving doors, but regular swinging doors would work just as well). The doors are stiff because there is a damper installed (which take...

Unfortunately, it gets a little out of sync.

Sofia celebrates yet another indeterminate birthday today. Unfortunately, I am in Ottawa (because I have to work), however, we agreed to postponse the celebration until Saturday. There are things I'd like to say to you my love on your special day: I am forever thankful God sent you my way. Like a gift from up above, you showed me how it is to feel real love. I know many mountains we've had to climb and sometimes forever has seemed like a very long time. Yes, we've endured our share of pain, but together we have so much to gain. Bigger mountains may lie ahead, but together there is no hill we can not tread. So always remember my love for you, and there is nothing together we can not do. I'll be here forever - my love is true. The person beside me, that would be you. Poem was nabbed from here .