This, my friends, is a Cadillac Escalade hybrid. “Green by design!”

It is still a car, likely to carry only one person and a box of kleenex from point A to point B.

It is still the size of a small moon, taking up an unreasonable share of common space.

It is only 25% more fuel-efficient than a normal Escalade — so it gets a rollicking 17-18mpg based on fuel-efficiency estimates from non-hybrid Escalades, vs. say a garden-variety Yaris at ~40mpg or a Civic Hybrid at 60mpg — and yet it is being marketed as “green”.

It costs about $100k, which buys a whole lot of very nice bicycles AND a Civic Hybrid should you find your life requires a car.

It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in quite some time.

A week or two ago we were sitting around debating what form of libation this election might require. Tequila, suggested D. Hmm, maybe. A novel idea, because La Fin du Monde, while entirely appropriate, tastes like licking an ashtray and hey! you can do all kinds of fun stuff with tequila. But then we happened across something from our current Tidings magazine:

The next day, I woke with the taste of the evil liquor in my mouth, a head full of jackhammers and the realization, to my horror and agony, that I was, unfortunately, still alive.

and we remembered aaaallll about tequila. So no.

Fizzy? — nah, could jinx things.

Plain old wine? — nah, too boring.

Scotch? — nah, gives me migraines*. But whiskey generally sounded like a solid, non-presumptuous drink which could lend itself to either celebrations or the drowning of sorrows, so we settled on Irish whiskey which does not (in moderation) give me migraines. Our local LCBO had a grand selection of Bushmills or Jameson’s, so Bushmills it is. The garden-variety Bushmills, not the fancy-froufy stuff. Serious but fiscally sound whiskey** for a serious and (we hope) fiscally sound election.

And so we sit back and wait for the ice cubes to freeze and the polls to close.

GO VOTE! You still have an hour.

–
* I still blame this fact on Mel Lastman, because it is his victory speech (complete with drunken wife swanning through the frame in the background until, between cuts, someone took the drink out of her hand) that last incited me to drink scotch and realize it was a massive migraine trigger.

**D calls it “cooking whiskey” but he is snobby like that.

Quotation of the Day for November 3, 2007

“Beware of those who argue the loudest. The truth does not care if it is questioned; the truth can always stand up to questioning. I have found that only the false fights back, retaliates, and attacks. The truth might defend itself, though it does not really need to. But liars trying to defend their lies get mean and dirty.”

- Larry Winget, “Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life”.

On that note, GO VOTE. Questions about where and how? Elections Canada. Questions about who? Vote your conscience.

Scary concept

Originally uploaded by morecoffeeplease.

Me, I am thankful that I have wonderful friends like Tom and Anne who fed us on (non-ice-cream) turkey and eighteen billion fabulous sides until we all slid happily into tryptophan comas. Mmmmmmm.

Quotation of the Day for October 10, 2008

“You can clean files and other equipment, but there is just no way to sanitize live fish.”

- Christine Anthony, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Licensing explaining why “pedicures by fish” are now illegal in the state.

[http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/381596_FishFeet03.html]

Wired points out that YouTube itself has installed a button to do exactly this:

The placement of the button is interesting. It’s exactly where the post message button used to be, meaning quick commenters will discover it only when they accidentally click the new button. Hopefully they’ll do this with their speakers up at work.

I logged in to YouTube and checked — yep, there it is! Should be interesting. Not quite the StupidFilter, but getting there… and there’s no place quite as prone to excesses of stupid as YouTube, so every little bit helps…

These are great words! It would be a shame to lose them, even if they are obscure.

Abstergent: Cleansing
Agrestic: Rural
Apodeictic: Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration
Caducity: Perishableness
Caliginosity: Dimness
Compossible: Possible in coexistence with something else
Embrangle: To confuse
Exuviate: To shed
Fatidical: Prophetic
Fubsy: Squat
Griseous: Somewhat grey
Malison: A curse
Mansuetude: Gentleness
Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman
Niddering: Cowardly
Nitid: Bright
Olid: Foul-smelling
Oppugnant: Combative
Periapt: An amulet
Recrement: Refuse
Roborant: Tending to fortify
Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight
Vaticinate: Prophesy
Vilipend: To treat with contempt

I particuarly like compossible, fubsy, niddering and the especially onomatopoeic skirr.

Quotation of the Day for September 24, 2008

“Why then, if not to steal food, would a cat go up on the counter? Why did George Mallory try to go up on Mount Everest, which was quite a lot more trouble? Because it is there. Because of the view from the kitchen window. To lick the drips from the tap in the sink. To try to pry open the cupboards and see what’s inside them, maybe to squeeze among the glassware. Or, on a rainy day, to look for small objects to knock onto the floor and see if they roll.”

- Barbara Holland

“What, us? We NEVER go on the counter.

…um, when you’re watching, anyway, but never mind that. See how cute we are?”

In our house jeans are required to be “pretty” before M will wear them. I figure it’s less effort to make jeans “pretty” than to buy n-billion pairs of $10 tights which last maybe 2 wearings before M manages to rip the knees out of them, so we chat about what she wants on the jeans (this time she drew me a picture of morning glories and vines) and I embroider them.

My latest effort, modelled by M along with tap shoes* and a pink hoodie:

*: No, I am not insane enough to actually buy tap shoes. They were gifted to her by her friend S who had outgrown them.

People’s toes and tummies! A iPod on the carpet! Some odd self-portraits! Click the picture to see the whole set:

Sarah Palin was de-witched by nutball pastor? What a shame

As for Palin, turns out Muthee laid on some hands, delivered a garbled serpents n’ brimstone prayer designed not merely to help her leap from Mayor of Nowheresville to perky gubernatorial fireplug … but also to protect her from that same silly/terrifying witchcraft I imagined in my youth.

…

Really, the irony of this whole affair is just too tasty to pass up. Because real witches are, of course, all about self-determination, complete spiritual freedom, and are often practiced in the innate magic of the earth, the body, the self. Most follow no particular deity or dogma, though that’s entirely optional (you can be a witch and a Christian, for example). Truth is, it’s too bad Palin’s not a witch herself. She’d be so much more interesting. And, you know, useful.

Hell, I know a number of happy, accomplished, practicing witches at work and play in the normal world right this very minute, running errands and playing with their kids and texting their boyfriends, not a single one of whom is currently indulging in a ritualistic blood-drenched sex orgy at the feet of Lucifer. Wait, let me check Facebook … nope, all normal.

I should always read Mark Morford first thing in the morning instead of letting my RSS feed randomly insert his columns in the middle of my scan. The bit about Facebook made me giggle hopelessly.