Simple things amuse my simple mind

The best thing I heard today: "Some people are like a Slinky: not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs."

Just because

THE PIGEON HAS FEELINGS, TOO!

complete credit to Mo Willems

The End

Eating the Profit

So apparently there is a coin shortage in India caused by the razor-blade companies buying coins to make razor blades, which is having a sweet side-effect: the provision of a chocolate bar as change in lieu of a half rupee coin.

Yay barter.

Coo coo for cocoa stuffs

In Cornwall, police are searching for two men who attempted to rob a gas station, but got away with only chocolate bars.

I for one am glad to see that the police in Cornwall have their priorities straight: chocolate above all else. Clearly the aim here is either to recover the missing chocolate or to secure restitution for its loss and has nothing to do with attempted robbery. (I mean really, what's with attempted crimes? No one gets a gold at the Olympics for attempted bobsledding.)

What I want to know is what sort of chocolate bars were stolen. After all, perhaps the chocolate bars were the real target of the hold-up.

I think that the sentences given to these chocoholic shoplifters should be proportional to the type of chocolate with which they absconded. The better the chocolate bar, the lesser the sentence; I reckon that there is nothing unjust about punishing people for bad taste (clearly I'm going to do well in sentencing).

For example, if they went for the UK equivalent of Oh Henry bars, they deserve life imprisonment with a 5-7 year parole ineligibility. Anyone that really likes peanuts perverting their chocolate needs to be removed from the public because they pose a danger to society. If, on the other hand, these five-finger discount fiends were targeting toblerone bars, that should be a mitigating factor, resulting in a slap on the wrist.

Regardless, let's just hope that any judgment rendered in this case does not suggest that the lack of bonnets and crinoline at this petrol station meant that the chocolate was asking for it. After all, there were no wooden carvings.

Cyberslacking, Cyberloafing, or Cyberbludging

Today, I was introduced to the word 'Goldbricking', which refers to the practice of using one's internet access for personal use, while maintaining the appearance of working.

In tribute to my newly enriched vocabulary, I thought I'd share a means of internet procrastinating that I came across somewhere.

Step 1: Go to google,
Step 2: put your name followed by the words 'likes to' in quotation marks (for example "Bismarck likes to"),
Step 3: share the first ten results.

Here are mine (spot the references to Ariel Sharon, Sharon Osborne, and elementary material):

1. "An award winning speaker, Sharon likes to combine reading excerpts from her book with a dynamic presentation comparing the traditional "war model" for communicating with the new, Powerful Non-Defensive Communication model she has created."
2. "Sharon likes to read, listen to music, and run."
3. "Sharon likes to pose as a caring, maternal mentor."
4. "Sharon likes to say that he stands up to terrorists to show he is not afraid. In fact, his policies are driven by fear."
5. "Sharon likes to say she's “lived 50 lives in 50 years” and it sounds a fairly conservative estimate."
6. "Sharon likes to play with her blocks and her drum but she doesn't like to share."
7. "Sharon likes to draw. Hector is good at spelling. They like different things. They are both special."
8. "Sharon likes to talk.. .so I let her do all the talking."
9. "Sharon likes to cook, can’t you tell!"
10. "Sharon likes to sew or iron while Stan does the budget on the computer."

My favourites are numbers 6, 8, 9, and 3.

The site from which number 6 is from gave me this comic:

Debra, did you make this comic?

Cannibals are the only people that use 100% of the brain

It's that time of year again when squirrels are collecting acorns and nuts.

"Well of course, Sharon," one might say, "that's how nature works."

Throw in a head shake or an eye-roll and that's how one might respond to my statement. But there's more. On campus, this fairly regular - and some might even say mundane process - is far more compelling. See when the squirrels collect their acorns, they often chew them off and let them fall from the tree to the ground, from where they will collected at a later time.

"Yes Sharon," one might add, "that's how squirrels collect acorns. Squirrels are all efficient like that."

But wait, there's still more. As the squirrels do this on campus, the meandering students become walking bulls-eyes. I saw two different students nearly get hit. It was awesome.

I wonder if the squirrels get 10 points for students and 15 for faculty. Bonus points for anyone on skateboards.

Wasted Manhours

There is a dearth of trash receptacles in the arrivals lounge in terminal three of the London Heathrow Airport. In fact, I saw more people engaging in bicycling (you know, where two people lay on their backs, put their feet in the air, and pedal against each other - as opposed to the type pictured to the left) than garbage cans.

I do understand the reasons for the lack of litter bins, but I have no idea about the bicycling.

Oh and the whole arrivals sequence in the movie Love Actually is only part rubbish.

Living by Analogy

As I sat there shaking my fist and yelling consensus ad idem out my car window, I knew I was going into the correct profession. It was a timely confirmation, having just endured articling week, secured future employment, and realized that I’ll be married to my profession.

Articling week is an interesting experience. It’s like the biological clocks of most second year law students begin ticking and they are all start dating with the intent to wed, with the added reality TV show feel of contrived junior high-like rules that everyone has to follow. If it were a Discovery Channel special it would be called “Legal Mating Rituals.”

First, firms post openings much like personal ads in the classified section. Some firms prefer long walks on the beach, others prefer a good intimate conversation, and yet others prefer to make you slave away for them while they crush your soul and dampen your spirits. Next, upon seeing the postings, law students send in their application packages to the firms they like (or all of them, for those using the shotgun approach) in hopes of getting asked on a first date. First dates are awkward. Both the firms and the students are trying to figure out if they like the other party and if the other party likes them (a “good fit” if you will), all while operating under strict timelines and with numerous third parties. Some students play hard to get, others are quite forward about their feelings, while others embody desperation.

In the end, the firms ask a subset of the students it dated on second dates. These second dates vary from an interview over a classy dinner, to an interview over coffee, to an interview over dinner with several of the other potential students being pitted against each other.
Then comes the suspense. Students wonder if their favourite firm will propose to them and firms wonder if their choice students will say yes.

Now enter the contrived rules. No firm can propose before a set date and time. Firms can express interest in students, but they cannot pressure students to divulge what they will say to a proposal. There can even be a blackout time during which the firms cannot contact the students.

Finally it’s 8am. Phone calls go out and firms propose to students. Students that accept a proposal are engaged. Their marriage will take place just over a year later, barring any unforeseen circumstances (of course, they all stay motivated during the next year). As of 8:04, the grapevine gets going; who’s engaged? To whom? And who received numerous proposals?

The dating analogy continues; some marriages are happy and long-lasting, while others end divorce – an associate may be courted and wooed by another firm, or choose to go in-house, or because the associate no longer wants to practice law. I wonder how a firm feels if it thinks that it was the reason that a student was turned off of the legal profession.

Now in lieu of an actual wrap-up of my post: in London, I heard a TV announcer refer to toilet paper as loo-roll.

Your face better taste like candy

If giants existed, I wonder if they would play dominoes with flat screen TVs.

It is interesting to discover what one ponders whilst chasing a distant red dot along miles of Alberta highway on the return from an adventure.

Some realizations I have reached during long stretches of highway driving:

• Veal is cute
• Alberta is a beautiful province, big, but beautiful
• There are lots of trees and cows and sheep
• Some trucks do not like being passed
• Nicole has interesting ways of trying to invoke jealousy
• It is not good to drive whilst feeling stuffed like a gopher in Torrington
• Em can climb up the side of mountains
• Candy Mountain is not a funny allusion to someone that has not seen it
• Erin makes funny noises when poked
• Cotton Candy can melt
• Nick Tam remembers the giant dinosaur
• Bugs like windshields
• Lightning is pretty

I'm Suddenly Malignant

The number of Mute Swans in the Thames is declining, and a few years ago, a British Tabloid accused asylum-seekers of trapping and barbecuing the Queen's swans. While the accusations turned out to be baseless, the Queen's ownership over the swans is a true, albeit curious, anachronism.

Based on a statute from 1324, The Queen technically still owns all the sturgeons, whales, porpoises, and dolphins within three miles of UK shores. In the 12th century, the English monarch was also granted ownership over all the mute swans in England (swans were a good source of food, and common people had to turn to Turkeys for their dinners instead).

In the 15th century, the crown gave ownership rights in the swans to others, including the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies, both of whom still share ownership of the swans in the Thames with the Seigneur of the Swans - the Queen herself. There is still an annual practice of Swan Upping, where mute swans on the River Thames are rounded up, caught, marked, and then released to keep a census of the swan population and to establish ownership rights over the cygnets.

The morals of the story are three-fold:

• Being the Queen of England carries with it a lot of added duties;
• the British are very traditional; and
• the Queen can have all the sturgeons, dolphins, porpoises, whales, and swans she wants, I just want a pet duck.

Don't panic, I'm mostly harmless

My goals for this post:
1) Use my favourite Daily Show quote for the week
2) Divulge a highly entertaining story without breaking any promises or betraying any confidences
3) Make an allusion to Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

I used to respect a certain individual, until last week he cut a cheque and accidently made it out to himself instead of the intended recipient and all the [respect] I had disappeared like a horse in a jello factory.

Yay. Three for three.

Duck Duck Goose Cookie Crane

I think that this Cigarro & Cerveja comic sums up my outlook on life perfectly:
This particular comic was even entitled quack.

Speaking of which, I was given the most amazing Chanukah gift (yes I know it was over two months ago): I received a set of rubber duckies that glow or light up when they are placed in water. I now want to have a dinner party so that I can use them in a centre piece. I cannot wait until the ducks fly north for the summer.

On a related note, today I was told that over 20% of the world's cranes are in Dubai. I thought that the statistic was referring to the bird variety of cranes, but it turns out that the statistic refers to the fact that about a quarter of the world's construction cranes (~30,000 of ~125,000) are opperating in Dubai. That's somewhat disturbing.

Right now they're building a coffin your size

I desperately want to feed bread to a duck

Being irreplaceable means you can't get promoted

Girl 1: Boys are good for carrying heavy things, reaching high shelves, and opening jars.

Girl 2: Actually I have this metal device that you can use to loosen the pressure on jars to make them easier to open.

Girl 1: Yet another handheld device that can be used to replace men.