Sat, 24 Dec 2005
Home for a rest?
After a few days of hurried preparations for Christmas, I finally managed to leave town and head to London to see the family. I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing Christmas break.
Except, of course that the family now includes my six-year-old nephew, and my three-year-old niece.
It's obviously been a while since I've seen them. My niece especially is so much more expressive, and is talking in complete sentences and everything. The nephew is his usual effusive self. Between the two of them, I've been running back and forth since I got here.
They finally settled down. Their aunt got them Castle in the Sky for the nephew's birthday in September, so we're watching that now.
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope that you all find time to spend with those special to you too.
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Sun, 18 Dec 2005
I feel unlucky.
My sister pointed out that if you search for "elbie" on Google that my blog is in fact not the first link that is returned. Oh well. I shouldn't be surprised. In fact, I'm impressed that I'm (currently) the second link there. Considering there are a lot of real Elbies out there. Or, at least, their houses.
I had another run of scratch and win lottery tickets, but my luck ran out there finally. I think, this time, I won four times in a row, and my net gain was $11. I'm sure that the Ontario Lottery Commission still has taken more of my money then they've given to me, but it always seems amazing when I have these streaks. Though it's not as good as the last one.
Christmas is once again approaching far too quickly. I've finally started to get my act together a bit this year. The cards are mostly done. And more importantly, I've taken care of travel arrangements, and making sure the cats are taken care of. Still, I've done little to no shopping, and it's a bit late now to buy off of people's wish lists from Amazon. Well, it's probably fine for Amazon.ca, but ordering from the US? Forget it. *sigh*
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Mon, 12 Dec 2005
Once upon a time, there was a little bladder elf.
This is not to be
confused with an elf bladder, something different, though not
necessarily altogether different, as the elf bladder could be the
bladder of a bladder elf.
No, a bladder elf is, in a similar vein to other professional elves,
the shoemaker's elves, the wood elves, the Keebler elves, etc, an elf
who steals into your bedroom late at night, and fills your bladder, so
that when you wake up in the morning, you can have that refreshing mad
dash to the bathroom for your morning pee. Less prestigious than the
other elven professions, to be sure, but still fraught with dangers and
hazards.
This particular bladder elf was unhappy with his lot in life. Sighing
wistfully one evening, while filling a particularly large bladder, a
passing by bladder elf noticed him, and talked to him of Herr
Christopher Hoffe's farm, where there was little work to be done, and
there were always large bowls of porridge for the happy bladder elves
to eat.
And so, the little bladder elf happily took off for the farm, where
life was good for a while, until the Bladder Elf Union, who had gotten
wind of his unauthorised assignment change caught up with him and had
him disbarred and expelled from the union.
Humiliated and jobless, the bladder elf wandered aimlessly for days,
until he found himself in Madagascar where he was promptly eaten alive
by a rare and endangered species of carnivorous primate.
THE END
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Tue, 06 Dec 2005
Like a record baby.
On Friday, I celebrated my vinyl birthday, turning 33 1/3. It was not a grand event really. More importantly, it was Dr. Thingo's 33rd birthday, and so I graciously acquiesce the importance of the day to those with integer birthdays. Really, when you think about it, it's the rational thing to do.
I'm sitting in the UW IT conference, at a relatively dry talk, to be frank. I get to get away from my desk today though, which is a nice break.
The conference swag was interesting. Among other things, there was a fridge magnet in the bag, which I thought was odd. I can't actually keep them anywhere convenient while here, as they'll likely be right next to something that's rather sensitive to magnetic fields. But on the cool side, there was a little pack of garlic tobasco sauce. Neat!
Not much else has been going on. Dare got me a 14-day trial pass to City of Heroes, so I've been playing that a fair bit.
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