hear here hare wharf

That a train traveling at 265 kph sold Melba toast to only the passengers sitting on odd-numbered seats for a discounted price tells little about the agency with which a rank smudge gets ranked as a byproduct of equine felines belching much like a canine rodent would.

Being listless is not exactly equal to not having lists whereas being hairless is pretty much equal to not having hair.

So when adding up terms like 'lonely', 'alone', 'depression' and 'social isolation'; how many of these can be directly related to the advanced usage of social media?

I do not know of sufficient evidence to point the finger, but then, I have spent only a fraction of a pico-second looking for it.

If I stay healthy long enough, I may get to witness a singularity that changes dramatically, civilization as we know it to exist today. Some figure that this singularity may be to the detriment of humanity; I prefer to keep an open mind.

I haven't felt lonely or depressed in a really long time. I have been alone more since I have moved into an apartment. I can see that I may become more socially isolated unless I make some very purposeful decisions on an ongoing basis.

Though I missed the Book Group meeting for 'How to be Good' (Nick Hornby) I did end up reading it. It has really focused my thoughts on the idea of taking up sailing to eventually buy a Quidnon. If I structure my life in such a way as to be able to afford sailing and eventually buying a Quidnon; all of the time and expense of doing the sailing and buying all of the stuff associated with sailing could have been spent doing more for others. This has me really quite torn as I am rather enamoured by the idea of sailing and living on the Quidnon; in the Carribean during the winter, and back to here in the summer. One idea I had, once I would have the Quidnon, since it has as much space as it does, would be, that while I am here during the summer, I could get in touch with various community groups and churches to find out if there are any families that they could recommend that would enjoy a day trip on a sail boat. In winter, I would have an open invite to anyone still living here to come south for a week or more where I would take care of everything from transiting from the flight to the Quidnon and providing food and drink.

Thinking further of the sailing; unless I can have others join me on the Quidnon for extended durations, I would then more likely become socially isolated. I've read that there have been studies that show that social interaction is one of the key ingredients to a healthy long life. So this would be another reason to not get into the sailing.

Nothing will advance until the house I currently own with the wife I am currently separated from gets sold. So that is really the first step; to get that house sold.

That a bus traveling at 103 kph sold evasive manoevres to only the passengers sitting in the back half of the bus for an augmented price speaks little to the quickness that a sordid elocutionist depends on Depends.

Being reminded of a bruise left unburdended

There is a place that is known only to a handful of people; well, it isn't so much of a place as it is a 'state of mind'. Well, not a state like Wyoming or South Carolina, but rather, a state of occupational obfuscation. By this I mean that the occupation is to confuse others. I am somewhat adept at this, though I am working harder at getting other people to do the obfuscating by presenting very carefully pointed questions.

Questions are something that I enjoy asking; particularly as compared to ice skate laces, which I do not enjoy asking at all. I Googled 'great questions to ask' and came up with a plethora of pages with lists of questions. Some of these questions may have answers.

I do not believe I have ever owned or worn a cardigan.

The velvet incandescence of a digital scrolling sign that displays top ten lists of dental floss products reminds very few people of whether or not, for lunch, three years and two months ago, the meal consumption participants would have discussed low impact climatological events in localities whose names were palindromes. I could predict with a rather low level of certainty what I had for lunch three years and two months ago; but I won't bother as I don't think it would serve a purpose.

If I was one of those fictional reindeers who really only worked one night a year; I wonder if having a vegan diet on Tuesdays and Fridays would result in a market crash of the shares of an inconsequential aglet manufacturing company. Okay, you've got me, I don't really wonder about such things.

There is something to be said about promoting entropy when, in fact, entropy promotes itself. Of course, when it does it itself, its rate is what could be called 'natural'. When I do it (promote entropy) I tend to slow it down. It shows how bad I am at promotion. This comes up in questionnaires, some times; I'll get asked if I would recommend the product or service to others. I do not generally make any recommendations to anyone about anything, so I find this question doesn't apply to me. Generally there is no 'N/A' option for that question, so I pick the middle one.

I have never performed the Heimlich Manoeuvre on anyone, not even in pretend.

I have been mesmerized. This has happened to me, on perhaps a few dozen occasions in the last four or five thousand days. I do not have the strongest recollection of when exactly this has happened, but it seems to me it probably happened while taking public transit. There is something about vehicular motion while not being involved at all of the control of the vehicle that allows for this. I guess it would be bad if the driver became mesmerized.

I wonder how often people try to discern how selfish they are. For sure there is a scale that we all fall on; with some people being extremely selfish while others are somewhat or significantly less so. I tend to think about my own selfishness in particular when I notice other people behaving in an obviously selfish way. This awareness of my own selfishness level tends (I believe) to lower it; as I do not think selfishness is a good thing.

It is 18h22 as I write this sentence and I still have not left work. In my team we have a rotation for employees to stay until 18h, and today it was my turn. As I approached the penultimate minute I thought I would start a blog post. It appears that thus far I have not yet completed it.

Garrulous is not a word that has really ever been used to describe me. I am perfectly content with this situation as this leaves plenty of room for those who are garrulous to be garrulous. If you've been reading this blog for an extended duration this next item is a bit of a repeat - I am usually impressed by the garrulous, in their ability to continue incessantly about inanities. It is a good thing that the world is made up of all sorts of different personality types.

Do people occasionally think of gaining wisdom? Is this an attribute that is generally sought after? I think we could all benefit if we were all more wise, but how does one go about doing so? I googled 'how to gain wisdom' and at the top found this as the first three items:
Be Humble in new situations
Think before acting
Act on your values

The first one is rather straight forward; in new situations I tend to hang back anyhow.
For the second one, I think I'm doing okay; I should just be mindful more of the time.
For the third one; I would really need to pin down precisely what my values are. At the moment I seem to only have a vague sense of this. This is definitely something I could spend considerable time thinking about.

I wonder why it is that when people put shoelaces in their shoes, by far, the shoelaces are identical in colour and length.

One of the streets that my office borders on has a bike path that is clearly marked and heavily used. Out of the window that I am facing there is a truck that is having to back out of an alley where the driver has rather poor visibility of:
a. any pedestrians that are walking on the sidewalk which is adjacent to the building
b. any cyclists that are cycling on the bike path adjacent to the sidewalk, and
c. any cars on the road that are driving adjacent to the bike path
The way the driver did it, I suppose the only way, is to back up extremely slowly and trust that with the slow movement, the pedestrians, cyclists and drivers will give way to him. This is what happened.

I'm thinking of this post as a sin wave where the profundity goes up and down; though, it is not as evenly spaced as a proper sin wave. If I was to go back and reorder paragraphs based on their profundity.

This weekend my family and I are going to the Auberge du Lac Taureau for the wedding of my wife's cousin. My wife has taken the day off; I will come to work in the morning; she will drive C-Ling and V-8 to come and pick me up, then we'll drive to pick up G-bot at the camp where he is working, and then the five of us will head further north to the Auberge. It looks like it will be a fun time; hopefully the weather turns out.

Regular readers of mine should not be surprised that I would include an incomplete sentence in this post. It isn't the first time this happens, and it certainly won't be the last. If you've read this far; it means that you have read this far. Congratulations!

It is 18h39 now as I write this sentence. Probably I should end this post soon.

I should thank Deb who has been a fairly constant visible (by her comments) reader of my blog these last few months. Apart from her I am not certain that anyone else is reading. I'm a little torn about the extremely low evident readership. On the one hand, I really like to write and would probably write even if I had exactly zero confirmed followers or lurkers. On the other, I find it gratifying to know that at least someone happens to check this blog out. I am curious now to try to understand what are the motivations that underlie my sense of gratification. Is it pride that drives this motivation? Is it social, that I seek camaraderie or community? Is it approval I seek? What is it that any of us seeks by putting our words out into the world? These are all questions that can have answers of varying quality.

Last week, as you know, I was in Louisville, and apart from the conference time where I helped customers with issues, I got to have three or four really good personal conversations with different people. I haven't really told anyone this; but I think these three or four conversations I had were the highlight of the conference for me. Some are arguing that the place we had the conference (the same place it has been for the last four years) needs to change. I am mostly indifferent to the place that the conference takes place; it is the people at the conference that make it work. If I got those great conversations there; what is stopping me from having great conversations here? I get that being at a conference can be surreal, whereas back at home existence can be mundane. I ought to learn how to reach out of the mundane; not so much to enter the surreal, but to gain the same lift. Perhaps those pages of questions I referred to earlier can come in handy.

It is a tip, top, tup, tep and fish that is left of the right, the rite or the write, so sell your doughnut holes whole to the two's too. Remind yourself that not all sarcophagi play Tetris after 3PM.

Yes, the ceiling is moderately high

It is Super Tuesday in the United States of America today.

What that means for those of us who do not live there is very little.

It looks like Donald Trump will do well today, given what many of the political analysts have written in the last day or two.

It is less clear to me who between Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton will do better today. I suppose I will know tomorrow.

I watched the first half of The Oscars on Sunday night and then came back to it part way through to see Lady Gaga sing her song. I was impressed that Mad Max did as well as it did. I enjoyed the movie but didn't think of it as Oscar worthy compared to others in the past that have won. As for Lady Gaga's performance, I thought it was fairly abhorrent. She sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl earlier this year and I thought that that performance was light years better.

Though I haven't an official diagnosis, it looks like I have a moderate case of Schizoid Personality Disorder instead of being on the Autism spectrum. It was a mental health nurse that suggested this based on an interview I had with her yesterday morning. To get a proper diagnosis I'd need to go through a very detailed and costly evaluation. It doesn't look like there is a purpose to this so it won't happen - having an official diagnosis is of no use to me.

If work isn't too busy today, I will be going to give blood. I was eligible to give again on February 22nd (last week on Monday) but didn't manage to go then, but today it should be good.

We're getting a storm here over night tonight with between 15 and 25cm's of snow falling starting in the evening, and then heavily over night and then continuing into the morning tomorrow. Right now it is sunny and -14C.

The Canadiens lost to the San Jose Sharks last night. I just read an article stating that the Habs haven't won in that arena since 1999. They started off this season with an amazing run, but have been mediocre ever since.