• The mean-girl advice of What To Expect When You’re Expecting. – Slate Magazine
  The mean-girl advice of What To Expect When You’re Expecting. – Slate Magazine:
  

  The questions are incessantly negative, in the voice of an unbearably whiny caricature of a pregnant woman. The answers are deceptively milquetoast in their language, but almost always include some sort of mean-girl slight, slowly chipping away at your instincts and confidence.

  The best present you can give a pregnant woman, especially a pregnant woman you like, is to remove all copies of this horrible book from her house.

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• Richer people break the law, take candy from children – Healthzone.ca
  Richer people break the law, take candy from children – Healthzone.ca:
  

  Well-off people consistently cut off pedestrians or other vehicles while driving, took candy intended for children, cheated in a game or skirted the truth when interviewing a job candidate, said the study published on Monday.

  “It’s remarkably consistent” as a pattern of behaviour, Stephane Coté of the Rotman School of Management, told the Star.

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• (via Pictures: Shark Swallows Another Shark Whole)
  

  (via Pictures: Shark Swallows Another Shark Whole)

• Finding an optimal seating chart (PDF)
  Finding an optimal seating chart (PDF):
  

  We found that the most important assignment was to place guests who arrived as dates to the wedding at the same table. This was done by giving those guests a very high weight (50) in the  connection matrix. From there, one could construct a level of weights for guests of the same immediate family, same extended family, etc. If one already has an idea of which guests should sit at the same table, but needs help filling out the tables, weights can be assigned based upon guests who should sit together. This is the method we imposed in our problems. Dates were given a weight of 50, guests  who should sit at the same table a weight of 10, guests who know  each other but do not necessarily need to sit at the same table a  weight of 1, and guests who do not know each other a weight of 0. Additionally, negative weights could be assigned to discourage the model from seating two people at the same table (for example, divorced parents).

  …

  Acknowledgments
  MLB gratefully acknowledges JDLP for still agreeing to marry her after writing this.

  (Or you could have the sort of wedding where there isn’t any need to seat people. It makes the math a lot easier.)

• BBC News – Equation predicts ponytail shape
  BBC News – Equation predicts ponytail shape:
  

  The new equation takes into account the stiffness of hairs, the effects of gravity and the presence of random curliness or waviness.

  …

  This will resonate with some in the computer graphics and animation industry, where a realistic representation of hair and fur has proven a tough challenge.

• PLoS ONE: Monitoring Gaseous CO2 and Ethanol above Champagne Glasses: Flute versus Coupe, and the Role of Temperature
  PLoS ONE: Monitoring Gaseous CO2 and Ethanol above Champagne Glasses: Flute versus Coupe, and the Role of Temperature:
  

  The concentration of gaseous CO2 was found to be significantly higher above the flute than above the coupe. Moreover, a recently developed gaseous CO2 visualization technique based on infrared imaging was performed, thus confirming this tendency. The influence of champagne temperature was also tested. As could have been expected, lowering the temperature of champagne was found to decrease ethanol vapor concentrations in the headspace of a glass. Nevertheless, and quite surprisingly, this temperature decrease had no impact on the level of gaseous CO2 found above the glass. Those results were discussed on the basis of a multiparameter model which describes fluxes of gaseous CO2 escaping the liquid phase into the form of bubbles.

• Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas, and the genius of his lyrics. – Slate Magazine
  Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas, and the genius of his lyrics. – Slate Magazine:
  

  If Cohen is the finest poet of our songwriters, he’s hardly a simple or a predictable one. You can never guess which direction a line is going to come from: cynical, surreal, earnest, bitter, exalted—no way to know. Eventually it adds up to a strange sense. Beside Dylan’s flights of fancy and rage, Cohen’s sentiments seem more immediate, more real. Or maybe I just have a touch more preference for Cohen’s familiar depression tinged with something like religion than for Dylan’s wit and wildness and biliousness.

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• Men behaving nicely: Selfless acts by men increase when attractive women are nearby
  Men behaving nicely: Selfless acts by men increase when attractive women are nearby:
  

  For the second experiment, groups of males were formed. Males were asked to make a number of public donations. These increased when observed by an attractive female, where they were found to actively compete with one another. When observed by another male, however, donations didn’t increase.

  Dr Iredale said: “The research shows that good deeds among men increase when presented with an opportunity to copulate. Theoretically, this suggests that a good deed is the human equivalent of the peacock’s tail. Practically, this research shows how societies can encourage selfless acts.”

• Sleep vs. cuddling: Study looks at what happens after sex
  Sleep vs. cuddling: Study looks at what happens after sex:
  

  According to a recent study by evolutionary psychologists at the University of Michigan and Albright College in Pennsylvania, the tendency to fall asleep first after sex is associated with greater partner desire for bonding and affection.

• PLoS ONE: A Spatial Cluster Analysis of Tractor Overturns in Kentucky from 1960 to 2002
  PLoS ONE: A Spatial Cluster Analysis of Tractor Overturns in Kentucky from 1960 to 2002:

  You want flatter land and a tractor over 40hp if you’d like to stay upright, apparently.

• Body location plays part in scratching pleasure
  Body location plays part in scratching pleasure:
  

  While previous studies by Yosipovitch have shown the pleasurability of itching, analysis of itch relief at different body sites and related pleasurability had not been performed until now.

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Me, 10am: I didn’t sleep well and I still have the headache I had last night and my nose is stuffy and I have cramps and a backache and I have skinless patches of psoriasis in spots where it’s very awkward not to have any skin and there’s a big pile of laundry and waaaaah, it’s too early to start drinking isn’t it?

Him: Yes.

[pause]

Him: But it’s not too early for drugs.

• Alice Bradley – Blog – On being an object, and then not being an object 
  Alice Bradley – Blog – On being an object, and then not being an object :
  

  There were other incidents, too; so many incidents. Every one underscored the message that I wasn’t safe, that I deserved whatever was coming to me, because I was young and a woman and that was how it was and also I should appreciate it. I tried to look unapproachable, but I don’t think my face works that way; I just looked sad and then men barked at me to cheer up, to give them a smile. I wanted to look hard and angry. Lord knows I wanted to be intimidating. It just didn’t work.

  These days I feel like I’m off the hook. Like I’m free. I still do want to be intimidating, though. There are days when I want to be terrifying.

• The Challenges of Burying the Dead in Urban Asia – Arts & Lifestyle – The Atlantic Cities
  The Challenges of Burying the Dead in Urban Asia – Arts & Lifestyle – The Atlantic Cities:
  

  What began as a physical problem has given rise to novel spiritual rituals in many Asian cities. In the February issue of Urban Studies, Lily Kong, a geographer at the National University of Singapore, describes how commemorative practices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China have changed in response to shrinking amounts of physical space for the dead.

• Neuroskeptic: Take Your Placebos, Or Die
  Neuroskeptic: Take Your Placebos, Or Die:
  

  Here’s the big finding: in the placebo group of 1174 patients, the people who took all of their placebo pills on time (the good adherers), were significantly less likely to die than the patients who missed lots of doses. People who took over 75% as directed were 40% less likely to die than those with less than 75% adherence:

• Sex Isn’t Going to Harm Most Heart Patients—But Avoid Having Affairs – Susan H. Scher – Health – The Atlantic
  Sex Isn’t Going to Harm Most Heart Patients—But Avoid Having Affairs – Susan H. Scher – Health – The Atlantic:
  

  In those very rare cases when sex-related cardiac death occurs, it’s almost always in men and mostly in those who are having extramarital sex, in most cases with a younger partner in an unfamiliar setting and/or after excessive food and alcohol consumption.

• "Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan."
  “Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan.”

  –

  Jonathan Coulton is wise.

  http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/

  (via neil-gaiman)

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• BBC Nature – In pictures: How elephants cool off overnight
  BBC Nature – In pictures: How elephants cool off overnight:
  

  Scientists from the University of Guelph, Canada have used thermal imaging cameras to record how Asian elephants at the Busch Gardens zoological park in Florida, US handle the heat

  Answer: at night they use their trunks to help disperse the heat.

• Which direction now? Just ask the north-facing map in your head
  Which direction now? Just ask the north-facing map in your head:
  

  26 residents of Tübingen (who had lived in Tübingen for at least two years) were put into a virtual-reality headset and seated in a chair that didn’t allow them to swivel. Participants found themselves in the virtual three-dimensional photorealistic model of their hometown, at locations familiar to them, surrounded by fog masking all but the near distance. Then they had to point to an invisible location — say, the main gate of the university or the fire station. The scenes changed, and so did the participant’s spatial orientation. After 60 three-location trials, participants were asked to draw a map of the town including all the locations they’d pointed to. The results: Although participants drew differently oriented maps, everyone performed most accurately when facing north and got worse the further they deviated from north. The only explanation the researchers could figure was that they’d all seen, and internalized, a map of Tübingen at some point, and Western maps are all oriented the same way — north on top.

• PLoS ONE: Behavioral Priming: It’s All in the Mind, but Whose Mind?
  PLoS ONE: Behavioral Priming: It’s All in the Mind, but Whose Mind?:
  

  The perspective that behavior is often driven by unconscious determinants has become widespread in social psychology. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows’ (1996) famous study, in which participants unwittingly exposed to the stereotype of age walked slower when exiting the laboratory, was instrumental in defining this perspective. Here, we present two experiments aimed at replicating the original study. Despite the use of automated timing methods and a larger sample, our first experiment failed to show priming. Our second experiment was aimed at manipulating the beliefs of the experimenters: Half were led to think that participants would walk slower when primed congruently, and the other half was led to expect the opposite. Strikingly, we obtained a walking speed effect, but only when experimenters believed participants would indeed walk slower. This suggests that both priming and experimenters’ expectations are instrumental in explaining the walking speed effect. Further, debriefing was suggestive of awareness of the primes. We conclude that unconscious behavioral priming is real, while real, involves mechanisms different from those typically assumed to cause the effect.

• Unknown Sixth Toe Discovered in Elephants | Wired Science | Wired.com
  Unknown Sixth Toe Discovered in Elephants | Wired Science | Wired.com:
  

  Three hundred years ago, a surgeon claimed elephants had six toes instead of the usual five, setting off a debate about whether an extra digit was really possible. Modern anatomists scoffed at the idea, insisting instead that the extra toe was really just a big lump of cartilage. Now a study of scores of elephant feet shows that the lump really does turn into bone. The digit is not a true toe — it’s more like a panda’s faux thumb. But it nonetheless helps support the pachyderm’s mighty girth.

• NCBI ROFL: Farts: an underappreciated threat to astronauts. Discover Magazine
  NCBI ROFL: Farts: an underappreciated threat to astronauts. Discover Magazine:
  

  One group of 6 men ate Gemini-type diet (S) and another received a bland formula (F), for 42 days. Breath and rectal gases were analyzed during the first and final weeks. Flatus gases varied widely within dietary groups but much more gas was generated with diet S than with F.

• Genetically engineered silkworms with spider genes spin super-strong silk | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine
  Genetically engineered silkworms with spider genes spin super-strong silk | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine:

  Very cool!

• The Physics of Great White Sharks Leaping Out of the Water to Catch Seals – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic
  The Physics of Great White Sharks Leaping Out of the Water to Catch Seals – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic:

  The diagram in this is wonderful.

• Santa’s Christmas Eve Workload, Calculated – Philip Bump – Technology – The Atlantic
  Santa’s Christmas Eve Workload, Calculated – Philip Bump – Technology – The Atlantic:
  

  Granted, it seems… impractical. Over the course of one night, St. Nick has to stop by the home of every Christian child in the world. Of which there are a lot – an indeterminately large number of kids waiting for their gifts.

  I decided to figure out how many, how big a task Mr. Claus faces as he races west across the face of the globe, staying ahead of the sun. And I did. Or, anyway, I came up with a pretty solid estimate.

• The Right (and Wrong) Way to Die When You Fall Into Lava | Wired Science | Wired.com
  The Right (and Wrong) Way to Die When You Fall Into Lava | Wired Science | Wired.com:
  

  You can try the experiment at home (without grievous bodily harm). Take your favorite motor oil (I prefer 5W30) at room temperature and fill a small pail. Motor oil at room temperature should have a density of ~920 kg/m³ and viscosity of ~1 Pa-s – this will be your lava. Cut a little fellow out of styrofoam. It has a density of ~300 kg/m³, so it is roughly 1/3 the density of the oil. Now, position your Styroguy on the edge and push him in. Does he sink instantly into the oil? No! So, neither should you in you fall into lava. Now, Stryoguy didn’t get the full effect by then proceeding into bursting into flames, which would be your bonus for falling into lava — remember, most of the red-hot lava pictures in movies like likely basaltic lava at ~1,100 to 1,200°C (for comparison, your oven on broil is ~275°C).  However, if you’re already in a position to fall into lava, you had it coming.

• Leonardo’s Formula Explains Why Trees Don’t Splinter | Wired Science | Wired.com
  Leonardo’s Formula Explains Why Trees Don’t Splinter | Wired Science | Wired.com:
  

  The rule says that when a tree’s trunk splits into two branches, the total cross section of those secondary branches will equal the cross section of the trunk. If those two branches in turn each split into two branches, the area of the cross sections of the four additional branches together will equal the area of the cross section of the trunk. And so on.

  The answer has to do with wind, apparently. Interesting!

• Beluga body scrub session filmed
  Beluga body scrub session filmed:

  Exfoliating belugas!

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Quotation of the Day for January 23, 2012

“‘No accident that _débâcle_ is a French word,’ observed my brother once…. The word _débâcle_ suggests the going-wrong of an elaborately conceived plan: a disaster that somehow leaves the principal parties not only having lost what they were aware that they were risking but much more besides, as if an attempt to charm the boss by inviting him to dinner and cooking an ambitious favourite dish of his were to result in the death by poisoning of his wife, the loss of one’s job, collapse of one’s marriage, one’s bankruptcy, turn to violent crime, and subsequent death in a shoot-out with police – when all one was worried about was the risk of curdling the hollandaise. Compare the implication of mismanagement, of organization going wrong, in the Gallic _débâcle_ with the candidly chaotic, intimate quality of the Italian _fiasco_, or the blokishly masculine and pragmatic (and I would suggest implicitly reversible and therefore, in its deep assumptions, optimistic) American _fuck-up_.”

- John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure.

Here we have an article exploring pedestrian-vehicle crashes “in which the pedestrian was using headphones“.

Results There were 116 reports of death or injury of pedestrians wearing headphones. The majority of victims were male (68%) and under the age of 30 (67%). The majority of vehicles involved in the crashes were trains (55%), and 89% of cases occurred in urban counties. 74% of case reports stated that the victim was wearing headphones at the time of the crash. Many cases (29%) mentioned that a warning was sounded before the crash.

This sounds a bit confused — were there 116 incidents, or 74% of 116? One wonders. Either way, 116 over seven years (16.6 fatalities a year) doesn’t seem like a lot to get excited about, given that the USA has over 30,000 fatalities annually from car crashes (did they have their car stereos on? Perhaps it’s the music that’s at fault).

One also wonders, if I count as “one”, why the headphones are being blamed here. Being a pedestrian is not in itself inherently dangerous. It’s hard to kill yourself just walking around; it’s the large vehicles with which one may suddenly come into contact that are the danger here. As a pedestrian walking around at 6km/h, I am not dangerous. A motor vehicle comprising a bunch of metal traveling at 50km/h or more is dangerous.

A train is also dangerous. If 55% of these crashes involved trains, mostly in urban areas, why is the focus not on decreasing pedestrian access to train tracks? And since when is 29% — where “a warning was sounded” — “many”?

This sort of blame-the-victim writing really ticks me off.

New Year’s Eve, 4pm

M: Can I sleep over at [friend]‘s tonight?

Me: Um, you don’t want to be here with us?

M: No. We’re cleaning [friend]‘s stuffed animals. We found if you put soap on the stains and let it set, the stains come out with the soap when we wash them!

Me: That’s true, but it’s easier just to put them in the washing machine. We’re going to have cheese and crackers with everybody probably around 7:30, why don’t you drop by for that?

M: No, we just want to play in the basement.

Me: OK then. Have fun! Happy New Year!

M leaves

D: So, just to be clear about this — we’re less fun than laundry.

Me: Yep.

And so — 2012.

As usual Neil Gaiman has the best wish, which has managed to condense thoughts that took me three pages to write for my niece into a few short lines. Well, that’s why Neil gets the big bucks and I don’t, isn’t it?

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

If one does fall prey to the most common New Year’s Eve mistake, there is this helpful guide from Slate to guide us through those first, often fraught, hours after waking: Drinking in the Morning After – The do’s and don’ts of imbibing in the a.m.

Drinking at breakfast is a rare pleasure with a noble heritage, and you need to show some decorum. If self-respect is beyond you at the moment in question, then settle for showing some respect for the institution. Treat this as a special occasion and dress to impress—a feat easily accomplished by waking up in or near your tuxedo. At the very least, affix a boutonniere to the lapel of your bathrobe.

Finally, while it’s still nice and quiet and we all have time to plan, I’ll remind everyone that I have declared January 2 to be Introvert Day — the only holiday that you celebrate by deliberately NOT gathering with beloved family and friends. Enjoy your precious solitude, and may 2012 bring you happiness.

Again it’s time for the holiday health curmudgeons to bleat at us, disregarding mental and emotional health and a warm feeling of togetherness and community in favour of carrot sticks and abstinence.

This year they’d like us to tell our relatives they’re fat.

‘Tell loved ones they are overweight this Christmas’

Christmas may be a time of indulging for many, but health experts believe it is the perfect time to tell a loved one they are overweight.

Right, because
1. They don’t know?
2. It’s any of your business?
3. There’s not an increasing body of evidence that the connection between health and body size is not as simple as “fat = bad”?

That’ll be a really merry Christmas for everyone.

Pff. If the “health experts” are worried about people’s health, perhaps they shouldn’t give people advice that will get them punched.

Today I was watching Twitter hashtags from two separate events. Both were notionally on a similar topic, but the difference in tone was striking and it clarified something for me.

There are two kinds of events that nonprofits tend to have.

In the first, a select or invited group of people who aren’t terribly conversant with the realities of the work get together to talk about how wonderful they all are and what great work they’re doing. They know they’re doing great work because they keep inviting each other to events, and they keep getting invited so they must be doing great work because that’s the point of the events, right?

In the second, a group of people who really grok the situation get together to talk about how they can work within awkward structures and systems (within reality, really) to make things incrementally better, or at least prevent them from getting worse. This group looks at who’s in the room, is delighted to recognize very few people, worries about who’s not there, and sees its main work as turning apparent answers into better questions.

The problem is that the people at the first kind of event really need to be at the second, and vice versa.

M, singing:

L, O, double-L I, P-O-P spells lollipop, lollipop
That’s the only decent kind of candy, candy
Man who made it musta been a dandy, dandy
L, O, double-L I, P-O-P spells lollipop, lollipop
It’s a lick on a stick guaranteed to make you sick
Lollipop for me!

C, A, SS E R, O-L-E spells casserole, casserole
That’s the only decent kind of medicine, medicine
Man who made it musta been an Edison, Edison
C, A, SS E R, O-L-E spells casserole, casserole
It’s a lick on a spoon guaranteed to make you swoon
Casserole for me!

Me: What? A casserole is dinner, not medicine!
M: I know, but that’s how the song goes!
Me: I think it’s supposed to be castor oil. C, A, S-T-O-R, O-I-L spells castor oil.
M: Oh.

This is a picture I did not take of a man in his late 50s in a beat-up burgundy car with all the windows down, driving down Bloor Street on a warm November afternoon belting out Rod Stewart’s Maggie May with great feeling and much volume, slightly out of tune.

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

As I was sitting on an Air Canada “Express” plane last night, waiting for a “ramp crew” to produce a nonexistent ramp — the plane was a turboprop about two feet off the ground; the built-in stairs did nicely, but apparently we needed three “ramp crew” to smile at us and point us into the terminal ten metres away before we were allowed to exit the damn plane — I was pondering how “Express” has somehow become a synonym for “inferior PITA version of what used to be”.

Ford Prefect: How are you feeling?
Arthur Dent: Like a military academy. Bits of me keep passing out. Ford? If I were to ask you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
Ford Prefect: We’re safe.
Arthur Dent: Ah. Good.
Ford Prefect: We’re in a cabin of one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Arthur Dent: Ah. This is obviously some strange usage of the word “safe” that I hadn’t previously been aware of.

Air Canada “Express”. Is this what Jazz has become? Except on Jazz you could get hot drinks, and you could gate-check your bags. Neither of these conveniences were available on this “Express” flight, so my perfectly legal carry on needed to be wedged very firmly under an empty seat across the aisle since they’ve apparently made both the overhead bins and the underseat area too small to fit normal carry-ons. And on a two-hour flight after five hours of meetings and a four-hour drive, we couldn’t have some tea, since they appear to have dispensed with all heating elements onboard. Then when we arrived we had to wait ten minutes before the “ramp crew” was able to supervise our descent of the three steps to the tarmac.

I’m fond of Holiday Inn Express hotels, but they’re inarguably the inferior, less nice version of Holiday Inns.

Lately my wine club has instituted an “Express” line for members. Before this line, I could walk up to the (enclosed, covered) warehouse loading dock, hand them my pick-up notice, wait three or five minutes then walk away with my wine. Now I have to go into an office, wait in line, have someone peruse my ID, wait for that someone to fuss about on the computer, and eventually be sent outside to a distant door far past the loading dock to wait outside in the rain for my wine. I have yet to spend less than twenty minutes on this “express” process.

“Express”. Feh.

I absentmindedly pick up and throw out loose elastic bands, thanks to my old cat Tigr, who ate them (elastic bands are not good for cats).

I never leave Swiss Chalet undefended on the kitchen counter, thanks to our old cat Oliver who was a fierce, fierce predator of all things Swiss Chalet.

I put my slippers on a high shelf when I take them off so Elwood can’t bite through the drawstrings, and I pick up plastic bags left on the floor so Elwood can’t pee on them (he had a serious fondness for piddling on plastic).

All these cats are gone, but I’ll probably be doing all these things until I’m 90.

We are, or at least I am, a creature of habit.

We lost one of our kitties last night. He had stones blocking his urethra that proved immovable and thus inoperable; we did the kind thing.

He was a very fine cat.

He came to us in December 2007 from a rescue, along with our other cat Jake. They thought he was from someplace near Keswick. Here’s the first picture we have of him, just when we brought him home. He was a little unsure and decided to sit by the front door, just in case.

He settled in quickly. He was a very sociable cat; if someone was home he was always in the same room with us, although I could never convince him to be a lap cat. He was loud and opinionated, especially about his food and his water dish (anyone who’s been to the bathroom in our house knows that Elwood would always come in with you and demand to have his water dish refilled), and could carry on long conversations. He was a Biter of Strings – no shoelace, window blind, jacket drawstring or other hanging cord was safe.

He would come running in the morning when he heard my alarm so he could stampede across my bladder, crawl up into my armpit and have some snuggles before the snooze alarm. He would lie on my head and purr when I had a migraine (believe it or not, this actually helps) and would nap with me when I was sick. He slept on his back with legs ridiculously askew, like an otter or a fossil.

He always ate first even though Jake was bigger. He would dig at the kitchen cupboard in which the food was kept before eating; we never figured out whether he was trying to cover or uncover his food (which was, after all, just sitting there in the open). He napped luxuriantly on the heated floor in the bathroom. He had funny little grey dots on the end of his nose. He loved lying in clean laundry and was a good sport about our house rule that if you don’t help fold, you have to wear a Cunning Hat.

He came running whenever I opened a particular desk drawer because he knew that’s where the treats are kept and quickly learned not to fight the claw-trimming that had the treats at its end. He’d always be there waiting at the front door when we came home, saying WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN and FEED ME.

He never minded being the dorkier Blues Brother.

Rest well, bud. We miss you already.

As usual, someone else has said what I wanted to say about Remembrance Day much better than I could:

The Evil That Walks By Night

There is an evil that walks by night, stalking a nurse just off the night shift, stomping a gay guy, snapping the crucifix from a headstone.

Unchecked and unchallenged, it becomes bolder, enjoying the ability to strike fear or cause pain or create suffering. Sometimes it finds like-minded companions and begins to feel safe in the daylight and to contemplate even larger evils.

When that happens, there have always been those willing to force the evil back into the night. Some of those brave men and women don’t come home, leaving families in need of help. Some return from the battles with scars it takes time to heal.

That’s where the money raised by Poppies goes. And wearing one designates you as one who understands that sometimes sacrifice is required and you respect those who chose to pay the price.

But it also marks you as one who knows that there is evil in the world and that you stand against it.