Well, on my last night in Stratford I went out to see New Moon. You may have read a previous post about how I am on Team Bella stays single and grows a personality, and so going to see the movie might be a bit frustrating.
It was.
I can't remember the book that well, but if possible, her epic sulking was even more epic. However, the one redeeming factor for me in this movie was the wolf pack. The effects were great, the transformations and chases were fantastic and the relationship between Bella and Jacob had all the warmth lacking in her relationship with Edward (which only consisted of them intensely staring at each other and blah blah blah I can't live without you blah blah blah now tell me what to think and do).
I think Bells and Bella are fantastic shortenings of her name but one would never want to name a girl that now because of the horrible legacy (who would want their daughter in such an abusive and controlling relationship).
And horray! Today I leave for Switzerland!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Ottawa - the final chapter (and Toronto)
So the final Saturday of Ottawa was action packed. First, we headed out to Gatineau park to check out factory ruins.
There were waterfalls and tons of people.
We walked a bit further and then turned around. It was the luck of good timing, shortly after we got back to the car it started to rain. Next up was the King estate (everything was closed) and so we headed to a nearby village and drank tea, read the newspaper and watched the rain fall on the river.
Dinner was at a fantastic french restaurant in the woods (I'm currently eating all the food I will not be able to afford in Switzerland - this summer even a street-food donair was $14). Our good luck with timing continued as a table became available just when we showed up.
Back in Ottawa we went to this fantastic Karaoke (first time for me!) at this chinese restaurant hosted by a drag queen called China Doll. It was apparently this family business, parents used to run the place and when the kids took over, they made it more hip and started Karaoke night. The daughters ran the bar and the sons ran the Karaoke and one of them does the drag thing (only for Karaoke night). The place was packed and the night that I was there, the parents were sitting at the back taking it all in. It had a fantastic vibe and it was a great evening, plus with our excellent timing we got the best seat in the packed house because a table cleared just as we got in.
Then I was on my way to Toronto. That Sunday evening I stayed with Carey and watched her band The Liquidaires play at "Mitzi’s Sister, which is on Queen St. In Parkdale just past Landsdown"
Yeah, the picture is really fuzzy. I will claim a) dark room and b) captures the energy of the style of music anyway and claim artsy.
Anyway, if you are in Toronto I highly recommend checking them out, I had a lot of fun listening. Plus, the show at Mitzi's Sister was from 5-7pm. Now that's my kind of show time! They have a band webpage that is down, and I can't play samples from their cbc page but apparently they have a mailing list.
Then it was the train ride home to Stratford. Wildlife sighting - a hawk flying over the train carrying some poor struggling rodent in its claws. I don't know what the rodent was, it had a bit of a fuzzy pom-pom on the end of its tail (spelling mistake still works, the end of its tale).
Next on the agenda - wild packing and crazy paperwork and then.... homeless!!!
There were waterfalls and tons of people.
We walked a bit further and then turned around. It was the luck of good timing, shortly after we got back to the car it started to rain. Next up was the King estate (everything was closed) and so we headed to a nearby village and drank tea, read the newspaper and watched the rain fall on the river.Dinner was at a fantastic french restaurant in the woods (I'm currently eating all the food I will not be able to afford in Switzerland - this summer even a street-food donair was $14). Our good luck with timing continued as a table became available just when we showed up.
Back in Ottawa we went to this fantastic Karaoke (first time for me!) at this chinese restaurant hosted by a drag queen called China Doll. It was apparently this family business, parents used to run the place and when the kids took over, they made it more hip and started Karaoke night. The daughters ran the bar and the sons ran the Karaoke and one of them does the drag thing (only for Karaoke night). The place was packed and the night that I was there, the parents were sitting at the back taking it all in. It had a fantastic vibe and it was a great evening, plus with our excellent timing we got the best seat in the packed house because a table cleared just as we got in.
Then I was on my way to Toronto. That Sunday evening I stayed with Carey and watched her band The Liquidaires play at "Mitzi’s Sister, which is on Queen St. In Parkdale just past Landsdown"
Yeah, the picture is really fuzzy. I will claim a) dark room and b) captures the energy of the style of music anyway and claim artsy.Anyway, if you are in Toronto I highly recommend checking them out, I had a lot of fun listening. Plus, the show at Mitzi's Sister was from 5-7pm. Now that's my kind of show time! They have a band webpage that is down, and I can't play samples from their cbc page but apparently they have a mailing list.
Then it was the train ride home to Stratford. Wildlife sighting - a hawk flying over the train carrying some poor struggling rodent in its claws. I don't know what the rodent was, it had a bit of a fuzzy pom-pom on the end of its tail (spelling mistake still works, the end of its tale).
Next on the agenda - wild packing and crazy paperwork and then.... homeless!!!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Ottawa - more days
So on Emily's second day off, we went all around town. First off was the Scone Witch for breakfast, a futile trip to MEC and then along the Ottawa River,
past the Rideau canal and on to the Byward market.
After that, we headed on to the National Art Gallery. It is no longer free like I remember it. However, it was huge and had some interesting pieces. One was this art installation which consisted of dioramas where projected onto glass pieces in the diorama was a video. It created the illusion of people walking around inside the dioramas and it was very creative. There was also considerably less Jesus in this art gallery compared to Europe. My favorite piece was of these naked sea ladies in the surf and there was a misty rainbow and it was this large mish mash painting. Too bad we weren't allowed to take any photos. Darn, I don't know the title or who painted it so I'll never be able to find it.
Anyway, after all the art, we went out for an early Mexican food dinner. Man, I am just eating and eating on this trip! Finally I have someone to go out to weird restaurants with (not that the food we are eating is all that weird, but Stratford is rather limiting). And I won't be able to afford eating out in Switzerland!
Speaking of which Horray! My contract came in, I now feel confident to say I am officially employed by EPFL!
Anyway, after the art, since it was Thursday, we had free entry to other museums so we went to the museum of civilisation. I haven't been to this museum in probably 10 years. We rushed through it which is probably the right pace for it. It is an immersive museum where they recreate different scenes in the history of Canada. I hadn't seen a lot of the later ones which included a Chinese laundromat and they even had one of the terminals from the Vancouver airport in the 60's. They also had a whole section on native Canadians including the very impressive grand room set up to look like the ocean and west coast native dwellings on the shore.
What was also very fantastic is we were able to see artefacts that were rescued from Afghanistan before the Taliban could destroy them. There was a lot of gold and I was surprised about how many of the older pottery pieces were related to greek myth.
Then it was a walk home in the dark along the river on the Quebec side.
And here's a view looking back at the gallery (the red lights).
The next day I went on my own to the museum of Science and Technology. I'll really need to remember in the future that Science and Tech museums usually means tons of small children running around banging on all the exhibits. I learned later there is a reason for this, the science museums in Ottawa and Toronto were initially started during the space race to encourage young people to take an interest in science.
One of the neat things they had on display was an electronic Sackbut. I read in the wikipedia article that none were ever produced commercially which explains the state of the museum piece!
I looked for the dial marked 11 but couldn't find one.
There weren't too many children running around screaming around the Sackbut. Also not surrounded by many children was the first Canadian and worlds oldest remaining (non-working) nuclear reactor. It can produce enough power to light a lightbulb and was used for research purposes. You can see in the picture here the mirror at the top of the display showing where the fuel rods would be put in.
On the other side of the display was Canada's fusion reactor where they made plasma and tried out nuclear fusion. I found a guide and asked if it really was the original nuclear reactor, we got to talking and I asked if there was a way to find an adult tour of the facility and he said he trains the guides and would show me around.
So for the next hour I got a personal tour of the museum and all kinds of stories about different artefacts, it was all very interesting. He took me through the space section and about how some were engineering models to test features, or that the design of early soviet rockets was to stick a bunch of old V-2 engines together because when the scientists at the end of the war surrendered they didn't want to go to the Soviets who were harsher than the Americans. So the soviets had people who were experience putting the stuff together, but not the scientists who invented rockets so they didn't have revolutionary adaptations that the Americans had until later.
I also learned about the sting operations to recover moon rocks and that all the heavy water in the displays is only borrowed from atomic energy Canada and it will need to be returned.
Finally, here is Canada's moon rock:
And then it was back to Emily's for even more food (Sri Lanka this time).
past the Rideau canal and on to the Byward market.
After that, we headed on to the National Art Gallery. It is no longer free like I remember it. However, it was huge and had some interesting pieces. One was this art installation which consisted of dioramas where projected onto glass pieces in the diorama was a video. It created the illusion of people walking around inside the dioramas and it was very creative. There was also considerably less Jesus in this art gallery compared to Europe. My favorite piece was of these naked sea ladies in the surf and there was a misty rainbow and it was this large mish mash painting. Too bad we weren't allowed to take any photos. Darn, I don't know the title or who painted it so I'll never be able to find it.Anyway, after all the art, we went out for an early Mexican food dinner. Man, I am just eating and eating on this trip! Finally I have someone to go out to weird restaurants with (not that the food we are eating is all that weird, but Stratford is rather limiting). And I won't be able to afford eating out in Switzerland!
Speaking of which Horray! My contract came in, I now feel confident to say I am officially employed by EPFL!
Anyway, after the art, since it was Thursday, we had free entry to other museums so we went to the museum of civilisation. I haven't been to this museum in probably 10 years. We rushed through it which is probably the right pace for it. It is an immersive museum where they recreate different scenes in the history of Canada. I hadn't seen a lot of the later ones which included a Chinese laundromat and they even had one of the terminals from the Vancouver airport in the 60's. They also had a whole section on native Canadians including the very impressive grand room set up to look like the ocean and west coast native dwellings on the shore.
What was also very fantastic is we were able to see artefacts that were rescued from Afghanistan before the Taliban could destroy them. There was a lot of gold and I was surprised about how many of the older pottery pieces were related to greek myth.Then it was a walk home in the dark along the river on the Quebec side.
And here's a view looking back at the gallery (the red lights).
The next day I went on my own to the museum of Science and Technology. I'll really need to remember in the future that Science and Tech museums usually means tons of small children running around banging on all the exhibits. I learned later there is a reason for this, the science museums in Ottawa and Toronto were initially started during the space race to encourage young people to take an interest in science.
One of the neat things they had on display was an electronic Sackbut. I read in the wikipedia article that none were ever produced commercially which explains the state of the museum piece!
I looked for the dial marked 11 but couldn't find one.There weren't too many children running around screaming around the Sackbut. Also not surrounded by many children was the first Canadian and worlds oldest remaining (non-working) nuclear reactor. It can produce enough power to light a lightbulb and was used for research purposes. You can see in the picture here the mirror at the top of the display showing where the fuel rods would be put in.
On the other side of the display was Canada's fusion reactor where they made plasma and tried out nuclear fusion. I found a guide and asked if it really was the original nuclear reactor, we got to talking and I asked if there was a way to find an adult tour of the facility and he said he trains the guides and would show me around.So for the next hour I got a personal tour of the museum and all kinds of stories about different artefacts, it was all very interesting. He took me through the space section and about how some were engineering models to test features, or that the design of early soviet rockets was to stick a bunch of old V-2 engines together because when the scientists at the end of the war surrendered they didn't want to go to the Soviets who were harsher than the Americans. So the soviets had people who were experience putting the stuff together, but not the scientists who invented rockets so they didn't have revolutionary adaptations that the Americans had until later.
I also learned about the sting operations to recover moon rocks and that all the heavy water in the displays is only borrowed from atomic energy Canada and it will need to be returned.
Finally, here is Canada's moon rock:
And then it was back to Emily's for even more food (Sri Lanka this time).
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Ottawa - the beginning
I took the Via rail to Ottawa. First off, Canadian rail is unimpressive compared to what I travelled on in Europe. It was late (ok, I am spoiled by Switzerland) and slow and expensive.
Anyway, from the train I saw one paper bee/wasp nest, two beaver lodges, two hunters sitting in a blind and a whole bunch of hawks. The train past Toronto goes through a lot brush.
Anyway, the weather in Ottawa is quite lovely but a little cold.
On my second day in Ottawa I went to the war museum. It was better than expected and I really enjoyed reading the displays. I spent about 6 hours in the museum and left with a headache and I kinda glossed over the later wars. However, I was glad to spend time on the world wars and the wars leading up to 1812.
However, one of the really cool things they had in the display was an E-meter. The description is fantastic:
On Remembrance Day, I attended the official ceremony. It started out not too cold but by the end I was *freezing*! And apparently this year the weather was really nice!
Anyway, when it started, we had gotten there early enough that we had a decent view of the grounds. It was going to be pretty exciting because Harper and the Prince (Charles) were going to be there.
However, when all the parading was done, the cadets(?) in the big hats were standing in front of us and we could see nothing of the ceremony, we could only observe on the jumbotron, which you could watch from home and it would have been a lot warmer!
You can see in our view of the ceremony that there are some St. John's Ambulance people in the scene. The big hatted cadets were dropping like flies, and another (there were two in front of us) had passed out and had to be carried/escorted from the ceremony.
Later, when the crowds had thinned out after a few hours (we went home for lunch), I went back and placed Emily's poppy on the grave of the unknown soldier. I couldn't put my poppy on because I had already placed it on the grave of the unknown sidewalk block somewhere in downtown Ottawa (as had many other people like myself).
I checked out the wreaths. Man, amongst all the wreaths with the elaborate (and standard) gold letters on purple, there was Stephen Harper's (Prime Minister), his was printed on a piece of paper and stapled to the wreath.
Well, you can't blame the man, maybe they needed more time as they were too busy handing out large novelty checks or something.
Anyway, that was the remembrance day ceremony. They had a large gun salute (a piece of artillery) and a 'missing man formation' flyby of 4 fighter jets. And the trumpeter kacked on the the Last Post. Then we bicycled along the canal to the research farm.
Apparently at this farm, they no longer do research but they have educational school programs and a museum etc. It was free since it was winter and we checked out the animal barns. They had stallions and a large bull which I haven't seen too often. And they had a fully operational dairy barn where they milked about 40 cows and owned quota and everything. I was amazed at how close we could get, we just couldn't walk between the milking stalls, but you could walk along the fronts of the animals as they were in their pens. I learned that the bull stud book was referred to as the "Whose Your Daddy" book.
All in all, it has been an eventful week so far!
Anyway, from the train I saw one paper bee/wasp nest, two beaver lodges, two hunters sitting in a blind and a whole bunch of hawks. The train past Toronto goes through a lot brush.
Anyway, the weather in Ottawa is quite lovely but a little cold.
On my second day in Ottawa I went to the war museum. It was better than expected and I really enjoyed reading the displays. I spent about 6 hours in the museum and left with a headache and I kinda glossed over the later wars. However, I was glad to spend time on the world wars and the wars leading up to 1812.
However, one of the really cool things they had in the display was an E-meter. The description is fantastic:
Home Front Paranoia
Security officials used this device, the electropsycometer or E-meter), in the 1950's and 1960's to help ascertain people's sexual orientation, assuming that homosexuality made individuals more susceptible to blackmail by enemy agents. Data from the so-called 'fruit machine' cost more than 100 civil servants their jobs. The Church of Scientology still uses such machines to assess the mental state of its parishioners.
On Remembrance Day, I attended the official ceremony. It started out not too cold but by the end I was *freezing*! And apparently this year the weather was really nice!
Anyway, when it started, we had gotten there early enough that we had a decent view of the grounds. It was going to be pretty exciting because Harper and the Prince (Charles) were going to be there.
However, when all the parading was done, the cadets(?) in the big hats were standing in front of us and we could see nothing of the ceremony, we could only observe on the jumbotron, which you could watch from home and it would have been a lot warmer!
You can see in our view of the ceremony that there are some St. John's Ambulance people in the scene. The big hatted cadets were dropping like flies, and another (there were two in front of us) had passed out and had to be carried/escorted from the ceremony.
Later, when the crowds had thinned out after a few hours (we went home for lunch), I went back and placed Emily's poppy on the grave of the unknown soldier. I couldn't put my poppy on because I had already placed it on the grave of the unknown sidewalk block somewhere in downtown Ottawa (as had many other people like myself).
I checked out the wreaths. Man, amongst all the wreaths with the elaborate (and standard) gold letters on purple, there was Stephen Harper's (Prime Minister), his was printed on a piece of paper and stapled to the wreath.
Well, you can't blame the man, maybe they needed more time as they were too busy handing out large novelty checks or something.
Anyway, that was the remembrance day ceremony. They had a large gun salute (a piece of artillery) and a 'missing man formation' flyby of 4 fighter jets. And the trumpeter kacked on the the Last Post. Then we bicycled along the canal to the research farm.
Apparently at this farm, they no longer do research but they have educational school programs and a museum etc. It was free since it was winter and we checked out the animal barns. They had stallions and a large bull which I haven't seen too often. And they had a fully operational dairy barn where they milked about 40 cows and owned quota and everything. I was amazed at how close we could get, we just couldn't walk between the milking stalls, but you could walk along the fronts of the animals as they were in their pens. I learned that the bull stud book was referred to as the "Whose Your Daddy" book.All in all, it has been an eventful week so far!
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
Vista and Ubuntu
Hurray, new version of Ubuntu has just come out and this one is better than ever. It is already installed on Mr. Eee. Sound has always been a bit touch and go with linux but this time there were no problems. Standby power worked great and so did wifi and skype, both for my laptop and Mr. Eee.
I'm also running Vista on my laptop (a dual boot system). I realize everyone hates Vista but it hasn't been too bad for me. I am not used to doing things in windows anymore so I'm not frustrated by the changes. And even though the laptop is rather gutless, it is still late in the Vista release cycle and able to run decently. Unlike the pile of poop Sony Viao I used to have which was too gutless to run even XP.
The other computer stuff of interest is disk images. My Ubuntu install only took about 20 minutes (including installing office programs), Vista took over three hours. Once I had my system completely set up I cloned it using Clonezilla to make an image of the install. So, when Vista becomes a virus loaded piece of poop, I can just clone it back from the disk image and not have to go through all the manual installing, crap program removal and addition of useful programs just to get it usable. I'm very excited about the disk image stuff, although the system clone took just over 2 hours. However, I didn't have to babysit it which is nice. Getting clonezilla to run was pretty easy, I just had to try a bunch of combinations to get the clone to save to my samba server because I'm rather poor with samba.
So Carly, why is Vista going to become virus ridden? No, I'm not using an antivirus program. Watching my parents struggle with viruses (and do rather well, my mom at least is pretty computer literate) it takes so much work! No thanks, I'll stick with Ubuntu, boot into windows when I need to and clone it whenever there are problems. I just got too used to not worrying about viruses over the last few years.
Finally, anyone know anything about PGP for stuff like e-mail encryption and authentication? I'm reading up on GnuPG.
So yup, a pretty boring post. I'm doing all those tidying things that you always intend to do when you get more time.
I'm also running Vista on my laptop (a dual boot system). I realize everyone hates Vista but it hasn't been too bad for me. I am not used to doing things in windows anymore so I'm not frustrated by the changes. And even though the laptop is rather gutless, it is still late in the Vista release cycle and able to run decently. Unlike the pile of poop Sony Viao I used to have which was too gutless to run even XP.
The other computer stuff of interest is disk images. My Ubuntu install only took about 20 minutes (including installing office programs), Vista took over three hours. Once I had my system completely set up I cloned it using Clonezilla to make an image of the install. So, when Vista becomes a virus loaded piece of poop, I can just clone it back from the disk image and not have to go through all the manual installing, crap program removal and addition of useful programs just to get it usable. I'm very excited about the disk image stuff, although the system clone took just over 2 hours. However, I didn't have to babysit it which is nice. Getting clonezilla to run was pretty easy, I just had to try a bunch of combinations to get the clone to save to my samba server because I'm rather poor with samba.
So Carly, why is Vista going to become virus ridden? No, I'm not using an antivirus program. Watching my parents struggle with viruses (and do rather well, my mom at least is pretty computer literate) it takes so much work! No thanks, I'll stick with Ubuntu, boot into windows when I need to and clone it whenever there are problems. I just got too used to not worrying about viruses over the last few years.
Finally, anyone know anything about PGP for stuff like e-mail encryption and authentication? I'm reading up on GnuPG.
So yup, a pretty boring post. I'm doing all those tidying things that you always intend to do when you get more time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)