a wolf angel is not a good angel

I’m a little behind on work, so I”m trying to get as much done as possible. This is made difficult by (a) how straight boring the task is right now and (b) how tired and achy I feel. It’s exacerbated by the realisation that I need to work in the evening this evening, and all weekend, too.

Coffee helps a bit, but also hurts, because then I break to pee regularly. I grant myself breaks every so often to read a bit more of The System of the World: it’s due Dec. 1, and I am only on page 99 (of ~900), and it’s not light reading. (In other words, I regularly put the book down to read a mystery or two.)

I also am not on my computer (sniff — though now my AC adapter is making weird noises when I plug it in, figuring that hey, it will suddenly magically work! It doesn’t), and the room I’m working in is freezing. So I have more coffee, and . . . well, I’ve done this part.

On the other hand, I’ve got myself a new way of defining terms: if it’s not in google (with more than 10 hits), then it’s not a real term! Google is the arbitrer of my language.

Petite anglaise talks about the closing of M&S in Paris, and how sometimes she craves English food, despite living in France. And, yeah, sometimes I want something greasy and less than good for me, and I have great sympathy for anyone who can’t get good Indian food (the world! it ends!).

And though one can take a good pain au chocolat for granted (just move somewhere you can’t: never again will I think, oh, a light and buttery fresh croissant, I can get that any time! Of course now I can, but . . . ), you can’t ever really tire of them.

It makes me think of how much I held onto my Canadian identity while in the US, more than I ever had before. I think I am more leftwing for living somewhere rightwing; I know I use more Canadianisms, and that I raise vowels more. Apparently my French is much better (how?). I appreciate articles that explain how selling alcohol is a public service so we need to end the strike soon. I appreciate bread that goes bad in 3 days instead of 3 months. (I don’t eat much bread. Mostly I lived on the dozens of bagels I stored in my freezer. If you don’t prefer Montreal bagels to any other bagel, then you’re wrong and I don’t want to know about it anyhow.)

I don’t watch Rick Mercer because it’s on at the same time as something else and I keep forgetting to tape it, but maybe next week. I love Rick Mercer too. (I’ve made people watch his special.)

Oh well. Back to work. Since everyone else is on holiday, I’ll probably post 87 times to keep myself entertained.

Laptop’s AC adapter is dead. I’m getting a new one sent. It may be here Friday (please) or maybe not until next week. I need to work! (Luckily I need to work in Excel and the internet, so I can work on various other computers around the house. But no TV-watching, and not on my computer.)

On the other hand, I have nothing but good to say about Dell support, especially compared to HP/Compaq.

Still. I hate when irritating things like this happen. I have just under 3h battery life left: with luck that will be sufficient for any emergencies.

I made the scones, and though they were very good (warm scone with a bit of butter and some jam, mmmm), I elected not to take photos of them. Instead, photos of the pies I made a week or two ago (long long long since eaten).

Flour everywhere!

One is a little too golden, one not quite golden enough, but both were delicious.

Pie crust: 1/2c butter, 1 c flour, cut together; add cold water until it’s the right consistency (each pie here takes 2 crusts).

Fill it with apples — about 8 per pie. I like them cut small enough they get a bit mushy. Sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar (quite a bit of each, I suspect 1/4 cup, but mostly when it looks right). Put on the top crust and cut holes in it. Bake! Yum!

There are 6 living in our backyard. Maybe more. They’re awfully cute.

Profgrrrl — Laura Secord still makes those chocolate bars. (At least two I noticed, the French mint and the caramel marshmallow thing. They also still sell their marshmallow Santas.)

Not sure how in luck you are about finding a Laura Secord in a part of the city you want to spend any time in, but their ice cream isn’t too bad.

I never quite know what my relationship with my ex is. Are we friends? What are the limits of this relationship? When we’re friends, he’s a very good friend to me, one of my best, but when we fight — oh, do we ever fight. Still — we broke up about 4 years ago, and still we have all those sorts of fights. Our discussions sometimes skirt things — I’m not even sure how to describe it.

Part of it is that I’m not sure what I want, and I don’t know what he wants. I’d like to be friends, but sometimes I find it too difficult, not worth it. And then sometimes it is.

Probably we’ll keep on with the on & off relationship indefinitely. I guess.

A new email about my class reunion! I’m going to go, because I’m SO CURIOUS, but I often tend very antsy about it. I’ve done, um, nothing, and Hello! Big! Issues! Which I need to, oh, say, figure out.

Now I’m going to see Finding Neverland because Johnny Depp.

Okay, so obviously I’m missing something about what people think the passive voice is. Yet *another* person has used something that *isn’t the passive* as an example of passive voice.

I’m totally cool with the use of passive voice, tho. Or, at least, I have been.

This could be the beginning of a passive sentence — I have been killed — but it’s not: it’s just “I have been cool with this construction” plus minus some ellipsis.

The response to it (in a discussion about how much we hate passive voice and don’t allow it in papers) is just another person not getting why it’s not passive.

OMGIKILLYOUNOW. *smites*

There are all sorts of misconceptions: “It is known . . . ” is a sentence with a subject (it). It’s generally terrible to use in writing, but it has a subject. It’s an expletive subject, but a subject.

So we have spoof quizzes about how to apply for Canadian citizenship. But shouldn’t there be some sort of rule that you need to get the quizzes *right* when you’re talking about Canada?

Translate the following statement: “Cripes, grade thirteen! Here’s a loonie — buy a Coffee Crisp, eh?”

I got this via Geoff Pullum, who informs me that Bruce McCall wrote it: it seems that McCall is a Canadian who’s been living in the US for quite some time.

So we have “cripes” which, like most slang you remember from your childhood, is fairly outdated (though occasionally used: I know what it means, anyhow). We had grade 13 (in Ontario), which was gotten rid of (my sources tell me) in 1984 to make way for the OAC, which was gotten rid of in 2003 for the standard in ROC : 12 years. (Quebec has 11, but then Cegep.)

The loonie was introduced in 1987. Even the toonie was introduced in 1996. (And if you didn’t know the geeks who figured out how to heat the coin so that it would separate — or even the non-geeks who just whacked it until it separated — then you missed out.)

A Coffee Crisp just isn’t as good as a Caramilk.