I've met Peter Kinjo of Kinjo Sushi before -- he was performing at the Calgary Stampede this summer at the Kitchen Stadium area. While he may be many things, I don't think he's gay, nor mormon.
It's rare that you see such a gaffe in google anything, so I found this surprising when we looked it up in google maps.
So we seemed to have survived our first week with our puppy Lizzie. Being a first-time dog owner, I have a lot more sympathy for other dog owners and especially parents -- the amount of work required to keep our little Lizzie happy and productive was far more than I was expecting. I can only imagine what actual parents go through. This is certainly good preparation for parenthood however. Here are my thoughts on dog ownership.
I was not expecting the sheer amount of pooping and peeing that a puppy does. She came "sort-of" housebroken -- she knows to poop and pee outside, but (at least at the start) didn't have much of a bladder. We have since become pretty good at reading the pee- or poo- signs so there aren't that many accidents. They still happen occasionally though. Thank goodness for laminate and lino on the main floor!
When she's not peeing or pooing, she's sleeping, which she does quite a bit during the day. Including night time, I'd say she sleeps about 12 hours a day.
When she's not doing those, she's eating or chewing something. She's teething which means that she chews on anything... she even tries to chew the floor! We are doing our best to substitute bad things for good things but it's sometimes hard. We got a bottle of spray we put on stuff we don't want her to chew on cause it makes it taste terrible. Seems to work for some baseboards that were getting lots of abuse.
The one thing I was not prepared for is that, at this age, she needs a lot of attention from us, and it's continuous... not many breaks (save when she's sleeping.) Soon we're going to have to train her to stay at home without us since at the moment we feel that it's not a good idea for both of us to leave the house at the same time. I sleep lightly now, keeping one ear open for trouble. All the books say the next 3 months are critical to teach her right from wrong, and I've been feeling the pressure to make sure she's a good pup! I think I've broken into tears three times the first week just from feeling that Lizzie doesn't actually care what I say and that I'm doing a rubbish job at the whole thing! I've gotten more relaxed the last couple days fortunately and things have improved, I'd say.
She's already grown since last week by quite a bit! I wonder how big she's going to be in a month or two? She is also very cute, 99% of the time :)
Anyways, those are my thoughts. We'll see how week 2 goes..
A few days ago, we decided that it was about time to look into getting a dog. We had discussed various breeds but I had an interest in Corgis, probably originally rooted in Ein from Cowboy Bebop, but has extended into discovering that they are fun, interesting dogs with a lot of character!
Anyways, looking and inquiring about puppies, we discovered that a breeder in Stettler had puppies in April and the remaining puppies not already sold would become available this weekend! The only other litter within 2500 km wouldn't become available until about August or September, so we headed to Stettler this morning with the plan to find ourselves a new family member!
We met the breeders who were very nice people and spent about an hour and a half with the remaining two dogs. It was a really tough decision but we had our hearts finally set on this girl. We packed her up in a crate we got last night and headed home today with our new family member in tow!
We named her Lizzie because our friend Nathan, who got himself a Nintendog, had a corgi pup named Lizzie in the game, named after Queen Elisabeth II, who owns many Corgis. The name seemed to work so we went with it. Thanks Nathan!
I've never actually owned a dog so the experience is very interesting -- unlike cats, puppies need some training and support to learn how to live with people, since there's no litter box. Since I can take her to work with me, we're going to get her housebroken pretty quickly. Fortunately she is a very smart puppy! She is responding to her name and she understands the word "no" (maybe just the serious tone of it, but still... after owning cats for most of my life, having an animal take my "no" seriously is pretty thrilling)
The most important thing is that we already feel a connection with her and we love having her with us. Every experience is exciting for us as well for her (bathing her today was pretty crazy!) and we're looking forward to years of quality time with our new dog.
It is official -- we have purchased a house! (click on the picture to see our Flickr gallery!)
There's not much to say beyond we are SUPER HAPPY and totally excited. The process to get our mortgage was painful but it's done now and everything looks great. We take possession April 28th and move in April 29th!
The house was a showhome so it's got some cool features -- modern wiring, for one -- It has speakers on both floors to play music through the house and has network cable everywhere; the house has a great paint job throughout (chartreuse and cream) and an built-in vacuum and a nicely-shaped basement, etc., etc. No garage and the basement's unfinished but once we get settled in we will probably take care of those each in turn.
I'm also as happy just to get on the property ladder here in Calgary with a crazy, crazy housing market and no longer need to worry about throwing money into rent. Speaking of which, we better tidy up our apartment... :O
I've been listening to a bunch of podcasts from Japanese Pod 101, a Tokyo based Japanese learning website that posts (seemingly) daily podcasts on various subject. Many podcasts are accompanied by PDFs of the dialogues and vocabulary used, and also links to further material and kanji recognition.
There's a particularly good series for people heading to Japan called the Survival japanese series which teaches a few essential phrases that make the trip easier, particularly discussions of food and such. I recommend checking them out.
Whilst browsing John Kricfalusi's blog, I came across this link to a fantastic Warner Brothers WWII cartoon called "Russian Rhapsody," posted by Brian Romero. The cartoon entails Adolf Hitler flying a bomber over Russia and suffer at Russian Gremlins who rip the plane apart ultimately resulting in Hitler's demise. Check it out!
It seems that the entire Muslim world's getting very upset at the political cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper a couple months ago. In fact, three embassies were burnt down in Damascus, Syria today in protest.
My only question is: When the cartoons suggest a link between Islam and violence, why are muslims burning and killing as the stereotype suggests, instead of renouncing the claims and saying "No, Islam is a religion of peace and we are very upset"?
Yes, creating an image of Mohammed is taboo. However, in the Western world the freedom of expression transcends all religion and belief. Everyone has the right to say what they believe in, even if it is despicable and can incite hatred and anger -- the idea behind it is that these voices will be faced with the voices of those who disagree and that people can make their own decisions based on the discourse in society. Unfortunately, that means that all religions -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and so on -- will have to suffer from critics. The flip side is that they can also make their case in support of their beliefs.
The only way that freedom of expression can survive is to prevent people, newspapers and governments from being bullied and strongarmed by these religious groups that believe that their core beliefs are above free speech. Sorry, it can't happen. It just isn't going to happen.
If we take away the rights of those who drew these cartoons, then we have to take away the rights of any religious person to say, "My religion is right and others are wrong." The Qu'ran, the Bible, these will be considered hate literature and banned. No discourse will occur and the many advancements of society and the optimism for humanity's future endeavours will essentially stagnate and die.
One's freedom to believe is the same freedom as someone else's freedom to not believe. You can't have one without the other in a global context, and if the muslims who commit these evil deeds, burning embassies and killing journalists, want to participate in the global conversation then they must be prepared to live and get along with neighbours with very different beliefs.
Here in Canada, there are a lot of muslims who have come here for a better live and to live in peace. The overwhelming majority understand that yes, there are muslims, but this country also contains christians, jews, hindus, buddhists, natives, agnostics, atheists, shintoists and a hundred other faiths, and as part of living here, you have to respect those other religions if you want yours to be respected. You have to allow people to criticize if you want to have a voice.
Now, if all the extremists in the world would get a freaking clue and realize that ultimately all humanity is looking for is to live in peace and find meaning in their lives through their beliefs and the people around them, then perhaps I can go to sleep at night not worrying about the possibility of a global conflict destroying this beautiful world of ours. Based on what I'm seeing out of the middle east these days though, I won't hold my breath.
While I appreciate your interest in taking a left turn off 11th Street onto Bow Trail, I have to inform you of a problem ... you are stopped on me. I am "The Giant X."
You aren't supposed to stop on "The Giant X" because nice people need to take left turns and if your stupid ass is sitting on me, these people need to veer around you in an awkward fashion and it ends up making you look like a dumbass.
Am I not clear enough? I, "The Giant X," am not only Giant, but also an X. That's a double attack you should not be able to ignore! However, your skills at ignoring basic traffic rules seem to make yourself invulnerable to my charms. I was not expecting this.
Well, anyways, just thought I'd write you a note in case you were interested... well, see you...
- The Giant X at the corner of 11 Street W and 6 Avenue S
Lately, we've been watching George Stroumboulopoulos' news program, "The Hour" which plays from 9 to 10 on CBC Newsworld. It can be really interesting, and I think George has lots of good things to say. Indeed, this is a far more meatier subject than interviewing the likes of Hillary Duff as a VJ on MuchMusic. Mannie thinks he's cute (grr!) but I think the program has a lot to offer. It should also be pointed out that ZeD continues late at night Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I wish it started earlier because it's really late at night...
I'm clearly becoming a proto-Torontonian or something. I enjoy reading "Maclean's", I watch Peter Mansbridge and like the CBC... so strange.
So the Honda is still alive and kicking, by the way. The engine likes to rev, the steering wheel controls are fantastic and in general is a pretty terrific automobile. As I mentioned on the DAI-CAST a couple weeks ago the fit and finish is fantastic and everything is wonderful.
... so why do I drive it INTO THINGS?!
Backing up in a parkade in downtown Calgary. I was angle parked at a corner in the parkade. As I back up, I am of the belief that I am backing into the corner and thus there are no cars behind me. Had my car been South about 2 inches, then this would have been correct. Since my car was where it was, I rubbed bumpers, scratching up the back left corner of the Civic! It looks like I may be able to use a touchup pen to get it cleaned up (mostly) but nonetheless I am kicking myself repeatedly. In the end, the worst case scenario is spending a few hundred dollars for a repainted bumper. Sure beats the $2300 we coughed up for the Focus almost exactly a year ago, but a little troubling when we're trying to save up for a house.
The long and short, I guess, is "Doh." I wonder if there's any places that can just fix the corner instead of the whole bumper..?
I ended up spending most of last night watching intently the results of the election. I wasn't amazingly surprised by the results of the election -- I think we all expected that the Liberals were going to be punished for not only the corruption and hidden dealings of their party (particularly in Québec) and also for running a pretty lousy campaign that spent more time going "boo, scary conservatives!" and not enough talking about the issues -- heck, Harper seemed cheerful and charismatic in comparison! I disgress... In the last week of the election I think a Conservative government became apparent. However, there were some surprises that I wasn't expecting:
What happened in Québec?! Who would have expected that the Conservatives would take ten ridings in a province that completely ignored them in the previous election? I'm a stern federalist so it filled me with a measure of happiness to see the Bloc find themselves against an opponent that they don't have a lot of weapons against -- the Conservatives don't have any scandals to wave around and if they follow their mandate, then it may take some air out of the Bloc's sails if Québec finds a federalist party who will try to meet their demands in a new and interesting way.
I was expecting that the NDP would chew into the Liberal's stronghold more than it did. Toronto is looking like a sea of red (with a few orange bits and surrounded by blue) and even Vancouver went mostly Liberal. I mean, yes, I understand that Harper scares you but come on... of course, the provincial NDP party nearly sunk British Columbia so maybe they have a good reason. That being said, I voted for NDP this year and happy to see a larger NDP caucus in parliament. That being said, are they going to be able to align with the Conservatives? This might be strange...
But in the end, I think I like what I see. The Liberals can sit in the corner and regroup, the Conservatives are in but need to play nice which should provide incentive for Harper's government to stick to the program (which I do feel comfortable with -- it's the unsaid bits that worry me) and finally, I think that this may alleviate the feeling of alienation between the West and the East -- we have a party that has seats in all provinces (save Prince Edward Island) and does, currently, represent our federal majority.
We'll see how it goes, hopefully we won't be going to the polls for at least another 18 months...
P.S. Mannie's cousin John Chan was running for NDP in Calgary Centre-North. He fought in an extremely difficult riding and garnered about 10,000 votes in his region. I admire his dedication in running here and getting his message out in a place that frankly isn't particularly receptive to the NDP message! This is a big improvement for the party here in town and I hope he continues to fight the good fight for what he believes in.
Since I got the Civic, I've been mainly driving to and from work, usually at most about a 25 minute drive, usually only about 15 minutes. However, this weekend we drove to Red Deer for my cousin Sarah's wedding, which was my first time sitting in the car in one shot for more than an hour.
It was on these drives I started to feel... awkward. It was as if on this long drive that I didn't have quite enough room for my legs, and my knee started feeling weird, and my foot was at a strange angle. When we got to our final destination, I was glad to get out of the car.
What gives? This car has as much room, if not more than the Focus. The day I picked it up, I moved the seat all the way back, so I can't get more room, right? Maybe Japanese people don't need as much room or something.
The drive back from Red Deer was the same way. I got off the highway at Country Hills boulevard just to start moving my leg around because it was getting rather uncomfortable.
As a result, I was starting to question my choice of car. Sure, it's beautiful, with a nice interior and great manners on the road. However, the fact that my right leg was uncomfortable was eating away at me, and also the fact that it seemed that getting in and out was harder than I remembered. Since I know I tend to pick at details on anything I own after the inital glow of buying something new wears off I realized that maybe the following were true:
1) I was too damn big. I even started making comments to Mannie that I wish I was a few inches shorter and whatnot. 2) This car just won't be suitable for long road trips. If my leg hurts after 90 minutes, how can I drive to Vancouver in this thing?
So yeah, this is something I've been thinking about for the last while and has been sort of unconsciously been bumming me out, since I was so excited about the awesomeness of my Civic.
Cut to this evening. I'm driving home from work, and thinking about the size problem, I decide just to reach down and grab the seat-slider bar, and pulled it up... and the seat slides back almost 4 inches!!
Stunned, I realized that when I was showing my co-workers my new car, someone slid the seat up to see if they were comfortable with the seating arrangements. Me, only haven driven the car for a few days now, hadn't realized they did this!
Now, the pedals are far away. Egads, they are TOO far away! Why is the shifter way over there?!!!
(sigh.) I'm a retard. The problem magically solved itself, it seems. I pull the seat forward until everything's comfortable. My leg feels great. Everything is good. I take a deep breath, feeling a lot better about it all, but in the end realizing that I should have checked this in the first place.
In the end, the car's great and that's all that matters. I must be less dumb in the future...
The driver often talks to himself, and he explained the incident by saying, 'My voice got loud when I was talking to myself. I don't remember what I said,'" a railway official said.
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