This particular gem absolutely NAILS the sentiment I hear around Ottawa about the possibility of a separate Quebec. These guys do a fantastic job, Quebec is absolutely the sexier and probably more stylish part of Canada, but nobody (to date) thinks that it could survive on its own….
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N5GzYhY2dk
I saw this shared on Facebook, very funny stuff.
So this is rather interesting, we are dying a lot less from violent crime. It seems that while there are actually more violent crimes, the ones that do happen are a lot less deadly since we more or less survive them now. This means that either we have become stupendous badasses, or medicine is more amazing than ever. I will lean towards the latter since in general I don’t feel any more badass than before.
Anyway there you are, some food for thought for the new year. Can’t decide if it’s a cup half full or half empty kind of thing, but fewer deaths is always a good thing.
Murder Rate Drops as more survive gunshots, stabbings
As an important part of any good upbringing, our kids are well-versed in the Chocolate holidays: Easter, Halloween, Labour Day (doesn’t everyone celebrate that one with chocolate union cards? huh). Anyway, as anyone knows, the very best part of the Easter Chocolate holiday is the finding of treats that have been hidden around the house. It’s way better than Halloween in that sense, since you don’t have to go and beg for your stuff from strangers with bags of candy, which on any other day of the year is a sure jail sentence for anyone trying to give other people’s kids candy, but I digress.
Our kids LOVE the Easter egg hunts, which if I do say so have been awesome in the past. Since the kids could all read we have er, The Bunny has left a very detailed note with riddles about the location of some of the things to be found around the house. The Bunny has good writers that can really be creative, one of them is called something that rhymes with Tricky and boy can she write a poem. Anyway, as the years passed we realized that the kids may need something a bit more challenging to maintain the fun, so I had a call with The Bunny and we decided that we would take the show on the road so to speak and hide things outside the house. At first this was modest, since the kids were young. I used a free app on my iPhone (which I had AT THE TIME, long before I saw the light, or rather the Lumia 920 that I really, honestly love more than I ever did my iPhone)** to get the GPS coordinates of where I was hiding the goodies, and then the kids could use the app to find the goodies again. It ends up being a simple compass and distance display for them, but of course anyone who has used a compass to navigate before knows that’s it’s rarely that easy, and it’s not perfectly accurate, so there is still at least a little bit of looking required. The hiding area became the green space behind the house. The kids loved it, it was way too much fun.
This year, since we had a newly licensed driver in the house, it was time to take it up a notch and the whole city of Kanata became part of the egg hunt, which was both hilarious and so much fun. Obviously Jordy couldn’t navigate and drive at the same time, so the boys took turns giving directions. Needless to say it was a good thing that it was early and there weren’t many folks on the road, as there was much sudden changing of direction. The first stop on the Eastercache was by a stunning serendipitous coincidence Starbucks, which was so handy, as Nik and I dearly needed a huge coffee…. Jordy wasn’t COMPLETELY jazzed by having the handsome barista hand her the bag of Easter goodies from behind the counter, but whatareyagonnado?
It’s price you pay for having absolutely cornball parents I guess. Maybe next year I can cook up a map of the GPS coordinates we used for you folks to laugh at.
** Update to clarify that I was using an iPhone 3G to do this years ago, just before “Thinking Different” became a joke.
As I contemplate just how cold the van likely is right now, and just how unpleasant my walk to it will be later (given the record breaking cold snap here at the moment), the thought of a roaring fire is enough to make me weep with happiness. Maybe even a nice hot snack. Fortunately Norway has our back on this one, since they recently had a truck load of cheese catch fire in a tunnel. Yep, 24 tons of goat’s milk cheese apparently burns with demonic urgency since it burned for FOUR DAYS before they were able to put it out. It will see the tunnel closed for a few weeks to clean up, cause we all know how hard it is to scrape burnt cheese off of stuff. I mean it’s not like they have a self-cleaning option on that tunnel, amirite? Apparently efforts to douse the fire were hampered by the long lines of mellowed out Norwegian people waiting patiently with fondue forks and wine glasses in hand.
Unrelated, Norwegian Tunnel Fondue is the name of my next band.
There’s a joke in there somewhere about not getting cheese in your Norwegian tunnel in the first place, but I’m a gentleman and I won’t go there. Not to Norway, I would totally go there, I mean the joke.
Son or Daughter… does not matter. I think my views on parenting are spot on with hers – minus the panic (so far… meditation goes a long way!). Well put IMHO, and if there was one thing I could add…
Appreciate everyone’s individuality. Grant your kids time to process information. Body language may indicate a dislike for your concerns, but when your point has been made respectfully…say nothing and wait. You may be surprised at how they come around. Some will see your concern/wisdom immediately… some will need to process… some will need to dole out attitude first. Time is a gift. Let them have it.
The fact that I spent ANY time reading a political blog this morning came as a huge shock to myself, let alone any of you. I have RELIGIOUSLY avoided politics for my entire life (now there’s a statement, eh?), but after I saw 24 Percent Majority plugged on Boing Boing last week I thought I would check it out, and I liked what I saw. Basically the whole site is critical of the Harper government, but it’s an enjoyable, rambling read. If you read nothing else, be sure to check out the wrap-up of the craziest crap the government has done this year. It’s almost enough to make me become a real grownup and pay attention to stuff like this. Almost. 🙂
Still, nice work over there, I like it. Definitely a lot of research and linking going into those posts, and a good engaging tone. You must be doing something right if you kept me reading to the end, and I even clicked on a few things to read more! My god. This fit of mature, civic responsibility will certainly pass soon. Or is this what my 40’s will be? A gradual awakening to the world at my doorstep, an ever increasing involvement in my civic duty as a voter and a participant in democracy?
Ha, probably not, and I’m sure this blog will soon revert to whatever stupidity I’m looking at on the Internets real soon now, never fear.