Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Attack of the Albino Brain Chiggers**

**Joke shamelessly stolen from Third Rock From the Sun.

Oh, my goodness.

That last snowfall warning I told you about dumped up to 70 cm on my city, although it packed down to about a foot in most places, and we got a thaw Monday afternoon that made the roads passable. However, now it's blanketing down again.

I'll reiterate that I live in the one magical little corner of Canada that doesn't get snow. Supposedly.

Yesterday, I saw a car with a mohawk (the driver tried to swipe the roof clear, but couldn't reach the middle, so: snow mohawk), and today I can't see anything; the buildings are grey shadows with white static falling in front of them and an erased world behind them.

Nothing is going to move today; not buses, not cars, not planes, and probably not even pedestrians. I feel so sorry for the people who had planned to travel for the holidays. If you're one of those, please have an internet hug and a virtual rum toddy from me.

~~~~~~~

What it looks like right now:


A more typical winter day:


The Albino Brain Chiggers have eaten the cars:

Saturday, December 20, 2008

*sings* It's beginning to look a lot like hypothermia...

El Husbando's computer wallpaper shows a composite satellite image of the Earth with the current weather superimposed over it. A few days ago, clouds obscured most of North America. Basically, the whole continent had a snowstorm.

I live in the one small corner of Canada that consistently doesn't get snow, but we've had it for a week now, and it shows no signs of going away. The temperature is currently about -10 C (14 F).

I happen to be a very efficient heat exchanger when it comes to my environment, i.e. I'm a cold wimp. While most of Canada considers -10 C a laughably balmy winter temperature, it's freakin' freezing to me. At least I grew up on the prairies, and even spent four years of my childhood in Yellowknife, so I know I'm just a wimp.

I'm in good company, in that regard. In the snow, my city entertains. We just don't have the tools to deal with this invasion of angel dandruff. We haven't ice scrapers for windshields, snow shovels for sidewalks, winter tires, proper clothing, or nearly enough snowplows in the city.

Traffic becomes a ballet of pirouetting cars. The tires sing every morning, sounding like herds of drunken sleeping bags unzipping themselves. Every hill peers down its nose at little clusters of vehicles, watching as the drivers whir bravely toward its summit, only to slalom down backward again. One bus driver had to ask his passengers to cluster over the rear axle so he could finish his route.

In the snow, My usually-trendy city loses its fashion mind. High-heeled leather boots are paired with bobble hats and mittens. Long formal coats strain and bulge over the lumps created by four layers of sweaters. People hustle down the street, their hands knotted over their nose or slapping their ears flat to their skull.

Yup. It's a winter wonderland.

The thing that's most amusing is while the locals struggle with the snow, they also find it genuinely exciting. Snow is rare, and pretty, and they associate it with skiing, which is fun. I'm an old grump about the white stuff, but I'm certain they enjoy these little blasts of "real" winter.

My family teases me about my long-lost tolerance for cold, of course. My parents live on the prairies, where -40 C (-40 F) might not be nice, but they can deal with it. My brother is in Iceland, which tends to not get much below 0 C (32 F) but has a wind chill that can freeze-dry your eyeballs. My sister lives in Georgia, and she misses the snow.

Especially around this time of year. It'll be a rare white Christmas for me, and only a few years ago, that was the standard for her.

On El Husbando's weather map right now? More clouds. Apparently we've another big dump of snow on the way, and the city is still crippled from the last one. I'm going to dash out (swaddled like baby Jesus; very festive, n'est pas?) and stock up on food and chocolate, because I intend to hibernate this cold snap out.

El Husbando, loony snow-loving local boy that he is, keeps trying to convince me we need to go for a walk.

(PS - Sarflin, I'm wearing that Icelandic wool sweater/coat you bought right now. It's awesome!)

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Crack the WIP | Crack the whip | How do I make it stop? | I'm a geer!

Drive-by blog entry!

Chapter 0001: Writing news
I am over 20,000 words into my current WIP. Hurray for 6 AM!

Chapter 0010: Holiday news
HohohohMyGoodnessWhyHaven'tIStartedMyShoppingYet?

Chapter 0011: Blog news
In desperation, I've gone back to my R0bert Pattins0n entries and removed both his photo and the "o"s in his name (they're zeroes now; the font camouflages this), because until I stop getting traffic for the hunka-hunka, my stat counter is useless.

Darn it, I wanna know about the 10 people here to listen to me yammer! Not the 2000 giving Mr. Drool-Worthy his due. Never again shall I underestimate the preternatural power of that man's unholy hair. *shudder*

Chapter 0100: Work news
They want me to teach an engineering lab next semester. Woe and gnash-gnash-gnashing of toothies. My students are gonna be so much smarter than me it'll be painful.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Terror in the Land of Freaky Follicles

My friend Chris prompted me, via his recent blog post regarding the phenomenon of "viral" success on the internet, to go check my website statistics tonight. I hardly ever do this, and it was good that Chris convinced me to, because getting the pants scared off you is great for the circulation.

I average about 10 hits a day, generally. Before I went on blog hiatus a few months back, I got more, but not much more.

Now...remember that silly post about R0bert Pattins0n's hair? *points downward*

That got 853 hits today.

This is in comparison to 63 hits yesterday, and given the post is internet-old (i.e. it was published last Wednesday), you know something freaky just happened.

It turns out a huge majority of the visitors got here via a Google image search for R0bert Pattins0n, so the abrupt success of OxyJen is likely due to my post getting picked up by a web crawler.

Thank my frickin' stars. Who wants to be famous for making fun of someone's hair?

Pageloads since 01/01/2009: