Kev

Since we’re about to get bombarded with a whole bunch of promises that’ll never be kept, here’s a little election humour to kick things off:

A company of Canadian troops were on patrol north of Khandahar and came upon a Taliban insurgent badly injured and unconscious. Nearby, on the opposite side of the road was a Canadian soldier in a similar but less serious condition. The soldier was conscious and alert. As first aid was given to both men, the soldier was asked what had happened.

The soldier reported: “I was heavily armed and moving north along this highway and coming south was that heavily armed Taliban insurgent. We saw each other and immediately took cover. I called out to him that Osama bin Laden was a miserable low-life, scumbag, and he yelled back that Paul Martin was a rich, good-for-nothing, lying, Liberal windbag and a thief.”

“We were standing there shaking hands when a truck hit us.”

Well, I almost had a shot at the money this year in FFL. I was pretty sure I was going to get my ass kicked this weekend, as my running game has been, well… suspect (a nice way to say “craptacular”). Mike beat me by a point, and it would’ve been nice to see Hines have an average day, but it just wasn’t to be.

Strangely, I’m dissapointed. This is the first year I had made the playoffs since our inaugral season in the late nineties, and it would’ve been nice to at least have a shot at some cash. Ah well, next year.

While I was looking for the correct spelling of Hanukkah earlier, I noticed that Google has added a decorative touch to certain searches. Normally the vertical line between search results on the left and ads on the right is thin and blue. On certain keywords, however, the line is replaced with a graphic divider.

Search on Chanukah or Hanukkah and you get white candles from the menorah.

Search on Christmas and you get a candy cane border.

Search on Kwanzaa and you get red, black, and green candles.

A little touch, but it’s kinda cool.

—

Update: Just so you know I’m not completely crazy, here’s screenies of the Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa searches with the results described. A few folks have mentioned they still see the thin blue line.

Yes, I will be there at Christmas. The only reason I won’t be is if there’s a brutal storm which makes getting to Kirkland Lake by car unsafe.

Now, stop asking me the same question.

kthxbye

Ya, so… I’ve been a slacker. Well, maybe not a slacker, just running around enough to make updating a chore more than anything else. I managed to make four trips to the left coast in the month of November, and have been feeling the effects. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

So, the point form update of the last couple weeks is as follows:

• Finished deployment in Oakland (sorry yehyeh, all my time there was working 🙁 ), which has some of the best Asian food in North America.
• Visited with my sis and her fam. Kieran is awesome, and is taking his first steps (although after 5 or 6 he gets so excited he falls down – it’s quite entertaining).
• Drove from Calgary through the Rockies mit kj and littleto Kelowna to see some parentals and wineries, and then on to Vancouver to kidnap me
• Had excellent Thai food, and visited with axe, Ryan, and the kids. Tempest was even nice to me.
• Cursed my new cel phone repeatedly for needing a driver to charge from my PC. Honestly. Plug in, suck power. That’s all I wanted to do.
• Found a very cool robot art shop on Main Street in Van. I wanna go back and buy something.
• Drove down with kj, little, and me to see Stevo, Terina, and the kids (all four of them)
• Had the best. yams. evur. as well as a kick-ass Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, and we killed a jug of Crown by 4:30am
• Lost my camera and all the pics taken (including some great ones of the rockies, and a really cool pic of a jet out our window on the way out to Calgary 🙁 ) somewhere between Kelowna and Seattle.
• Made Gabby cry. I didn’t mean to. She started off smiling, then realised mom wasn’t around, so it was all over
• Stayed undefeated at NHL2k6 the entire weekend.
• Watched kj run his first marathon at the start, mid-point, and finish. I was only slightly jealous, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone enjoy a pink coconut donut more.
• Drove back to Calgary via Spokane, stopping off at the uber-WalMart for Disney Princess cereal, Star Wars cereal (with marshmallow Yodas), and other junk food. It was a long time to be in the car.
• Hung with my sister and fam for another day and a half, and enjoyed my first -16C weather of the season.
• Flew back home to Ottawa. WestJet rocks. When it’s my money, I’ll fly WestJet pretty much any time I can.

So there ya have it, you’re caught up. Now I’m at home getting back into the work mode. I’ll be off to Philadelphia on Friday for a week, and am going to swing up to Cranford on Saturday to see les Trottas. Somewhere in there I’ll do Christmas shopping, as well.

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, that’s two vacations I’ve taken in one calendar year. That’s some kind of record for me.