2 Nov
I
haven't posted for a while,
mostly because I haven't had
anything worthwhile to
report, and nothing witty to
say. But then I realized
that this is more than just
a journal to entertain
y'all. It's a somewhat
skewed record of my life,
dating back to Jan 00. So,
here goes:
Almost two years ago now,
Coyote Moon Publications
accepted my story HARBINGER for its
ShadowSword anthology.
My story was to appear in
the first issue of
ShadowSword, and they'd
accepted stories for at
least 5 other issues. The
first issue was supposed to
come out last fall, then
this spring, then this
summer, and finally
"Sometime in October." I
received an email yesterday
announcing that the
publication is folding, and
that they are releasing all
rights to stories they've
contracted. I think the
Universe is trying to tell
me something.
Note: Why is phonetically
spelled with a PH?
Note 2:
Happy Birthday
Marsha!!!
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) msisolak
3 Nov
My wife, Pen, is a Shopping
Savant.
Not only does she manage
to get me to spend most
weekends (Saturday and
Sunday) shopping with her,
normally driving at least 60
miles into Toronto, but:
Last weekend we were in
Danier's and she saw this
pair of gloves she liked. I
told her to pick them up,
but she decided to wait.
Tuesday she went shopping
with our daughter in Vaughn
Mills, where she found this
leather coat that she loved
at the Danier's there. (Even
the daughter approved.) Did
she buy it? Nooooooo. She
comes home that night and
raves about it, but says she
didn't want to put it on her
credit card, and blah blah
blah....
So I offer to buy it for
her for Christmas--which
means the both of us driving
back to Vaughn Mills after
work the next day (60 miles)
to buy the coat--because
with our luck if she waited
for the weekend they'd sell
out, in her size only, of
course.
As luck would have it, we
bought the coat, and it came
with a 20% discount coupon
on--*gasp*--gloves. So I
bought her the gloves she
was looking at the weekend
before, because, hey, she
saved 20%. (Actually she
saved 100%, because I bought
them, not her.)
And here's the beauty
part--the gloves don't even
match the new coat. They're
for one of her old coats.
Is she a genius, or what?
6 Nov
Why is it that my camouflage
combat clothing is the
easiest thing to find in my
closet?
8 Nov
So
my boss asked me if I'd like
an appointment with my
Career Manager, who happens
to be visiting today. I
said, "Sure, as long as I
get a high powered rifle, a
scope, and one round of
ammo." He said no, which
makes things difficult. I
mean, it's a little harder
to cover your tracks when
you off the Career Manger
with your bare hands, during
your appointment. It really
mucks with the alibi.
Oh, yeah.
Happy Birthday
retrobabble!!!
9 Nov
WTF??? Somehow I made the
merit list. It doesn't mean
I'll be promoted, but at
least I made the list
to be promoted.
It must be the new Career
Manager's fault. Obviously
he doesn't know me yet (and
hasn't read the highlighted
note in my file that says,
"Screw 'em.")
Anyway, if I'm a good
boy, I might get promoted in
a year or two. (Ha!) He said
he doesn't plan on posting
me until I'm promoted, so
I'm good here until at least
2016.
11 Nov
I wrote this for the Base
paper a few years agao. I
think it's still relevant.
Priorities: A Remembrance
Day Message
By S.K.S. Perry
I was walking through the
mall yesterday and couldn’t
help but notice that they
were already geared up for
the Christmas Holiday
season. That’s right, no
sooner does the last goblin,
spook or pokeman shout,
“Trick or Treat,” when the
Halloween decorations come
down and the Christmas hype
begins. Not that this
surprised me. Christmas
season seems to come earlier
and last longer every year.
It occurred to me,
however, that between
Halloween and Christmas we
were ignoring an important
holiday - Remembrance Day.
We celebrate the Queen’s
birthday with fireworks,
even though she’s really not
our queen any more. We
celebrate Thanksgiving Day
with family and feasting
(although it’s really an
American holiday - I don’t
recall studying Canadian
pilgrims in history class.)
And of course there’s Easter
and the Easter bunny (where
the real meaning of the
holiday seems to be as lost
as Christmas), St. Patrick’s
day and green beer, New
Years Eve and more beer (colour
optional), and the odd
assortment of Mother’s Day,
Father’s Day, Grandparent’s
Day, ad infinitem.
Doesn’t it seem odd that
the day to celebrate the end
of the “War to end all wars”
is observed, by the majority
of Canadians, with only a
brief minute of silence?
Remembrance Day is a
celebration of not only the
end of a global conflict (as
if that in itself weren’t
reason enough to celebrate),
but a celebration of the end
of the wars that
unfortunately came after.
Even more so, it is a way to
pay our respect for the
millions who gave their
lives in those conflicts.
We create such a fuss
over some monarch’s
birthday, or the fact that
pilgrims a few hundred years
ago managed to survive their
first winter, but when it
comes to celebrating the
fact that a power bent on
world domination was finally
thwarted at the cost of
millions of lives, how do we
choose to remember this? A
moment’s silence.
Perhaps it is because
Remembrance Day has proven
to be a failure in many
ways. After all, the “War to
end all wars”, wasn’t. It
was followed only a few
decades later by another
World War, then by Vietnam,
Korea, Kuwait, and the score
of conflicts we have so
recently found ourselves
embroiled in. Maybe it’s
fitting that Remembrance Day
is solemnly observed, and
almost ignored except for
those who still bear the
physical and psychological
scars of battle. If
anything, it has been spared
the crass commercialism that
has buried the true meaning
of holidays like Christmas
and Easter.
Still, I think that as
the new Millennium dawns,
and we realise that
hopefully the 1900’s will be
the last century to witness
a World War, that
Remembrance Day deserves a
little more respect. Respect
for the event that it
celebrates, and for those
who gave their lives.
Be Well, Live Well.
16 Nov
I haven't posted to LJ much
lately because I haven't
really had anything to say,
which really worries me. I
mean, that's never stopped
me before. Maybe there's
some Russian Mind Beam
sucking all the creativity
out of my head.
If so, I wonder what
they're doing with it? Let's
face it--what possible use
could the Russians put my
inane thoughts too. Okay,
maybe psychological warfare,
but that's it.
Anyway, it's been
overcast all day today, so
hopefully it'll block the
Suck Beam and I'll get back
to my regularly scheduled
posting nonsense.
P.S. - To those of
you who only read this here,
and not at LJ, posting has
been even more sporadic as
Sympatico has been acting up
lately and not allowing me
to upload changes to my
website.
17 Nov
Has anyone ever personally
experienced an Out-of-body
experience?
20 Nov
My daughter became engaged
this weekend. Her fiancé,
Dan, came by and did the
traditional "ask for your
daughter's hand in marriage"
thing. I asked him what he'd
do if I said no, which
really threw him for a bit.
(Let's face it, any guy who
doesn't marry my daughter
just because I said no
doesn't deserve her.)
I finally acquiesced, but
told him he wasn't getting
any goats. Dan was good with
that.
(It must have been rough
back in the day--not only
did you lose your daughter
when she married, but odds
are you lost your favorite
goats too.)
P.S.--Okay, we don't
have
any goats. But if we did, he
wasn't getting any. (Neener
neener.)
21 Nov
We're going to see Chicago
tomorrow night. No, not the
city, or the band--the stage
play. It's playing in T.O.,
and Pen decided I should
take a days leave so we
could see it--even though it
doesn't start until 8 PM.
You know what that means?
Right--a day of shopping in
T.O.
This is just generic
shopping, too. Pen already
has all of her Christmas
shopping done. I think she
finished it last month.
(Yes, you can all hate her
now.)
Still, I'm looking
forward to December 10th,
when we're going to see
Wicked. (And probably do
some more shopping.)
You know I wouldn't mind
all this shopping so much if
we actually did some buying. (Okay, let me
clarify--buying for me.)
23 Nov
So Chicago was fantastic.
Bianca Marroquin was
incredible as Roxie Hart,
and we had great seats. The
only awkward moment of the
night came when Pen rushed
off to the restroom to fix a
contact during intermission
and left me surrounded by a
bunch of gay men. (Hey,
according to the gay clerks
at Holts-Renfrew I'm hot--so
I've got that going for me.)
We got home around
midnight to find that the
woman who comes to tidy up
every two weeks accidentally
locked herself out of the
house in the middle of
cleaning. The furniture was
all pulled out from the
walls, dust piles
everywhere, and cleaning
supplies scattered around.
(Luckily she still had her
car keys so she could go
home.)
Not only that, but
apparently our furnace
stopped working--and it's
not the old fashioned kind
where you just light the
pilot light either. It's
some new fangled electronic
thingy with really
complicated
instructions--and as I
didn't want to risk
breaching the warp core I
decided to let Base Housing
handle it. (They're still
not here yet.)
24 Nov
My son was told to report
for his Hero Shot yesterday.
That's the picture the
military puts in the paper
after they send you
somewhere horrible and you
get killed. The photographer
asked him to smile, to which
Ryan replied, "If you're
showing this picture to
anyone it means I'm dead, so
what have I got to be so
happy about. If I had my
way, I'd be mooning you."
Yep, he's a chip off the
old block all right.
Happy Birthdaylotusice!!!
27 Nov
Apparently one of the
complaints that people have
about Daniel Craig as James
Bond is that he's only 5'11"
tall. Damn! I was hoping to
be the next Bond, but I
guess that puts me out of
the running.
Hmm...maybe I can be in
Happy Feet 2. "Okay, ju can
adore me now. I bask in ju
love."
28 Nov
I don't usually discuss
politics here, but...
PM Harper won a
parliamentary vote on his
motion stating that the
Quebecois form a nation
within a united Canada. The
motion was all driven by the
hope of short-term political
gain for Harper--10 seats
from Quebec that he stands
to lose in the next
election.
"Canadians across the
country said 'yes' to
Quebec, 'yes' to Quebecers,
and Quebecers said 'yes' to
Canada."
Um...no, we didn't. A
bunch of Members of
Parliament did. I'm sure if
you had asked 90% of the
Canadians living outside of
Quebec they would have said
"no!"
It's not like those MPs
even bother to vote the
wishes of their
constituents. Conservatives
were ordered not to oppose
the government motion, as
usual.
Even Harper's Minister of
Intergovernmental Affairs,
Michael Chong, resigned,
saying, "I believe in this
great country of ours and I
believe in one nation,
undivided, called Canada,
based on civic and not
ethnic nationalism."
We're so screwed, eh?
29 Nov
So I was at a parade this morning. Notice I said
at, not on. Even though I was only
a spectator I still had show up in full dress
uniform. Still, sitting in the stands beats
standing on parade any day.
This was a medals and
awards parade. Most of the medals were CDs--for
time served in the military. Then came the
awards--The Wing Commander's Commendations and
such. It used to be you had to take at least two
bullets in the chest for the queen before you'd
get an award; now apparently they give them out
for anything. They gave one to a guy for
teaching a lot--in French and English.
(Remember, I work at a school.) A bunch
of guys got an award for moving their office
from one building to another. One guy got an
award for organising a Meet and Greet, and
another group got one for supervising the
guys that actually did the work of polishing an
aircraft.
Once the Wing Commander
and CO finished giving out those awards, they
started giving them to each other.
I told my boss obviously
he'd been slack and idle in not writing me up
for an award. I suggested Miss Congeniality.
30 Nov
I didn't win the lottery again! What
gives? I mean, how do they expect me to live in
the lifestyle that I could so easily become
accustomed to if they don't give me gobs of free
money that I in no way earned?
Obviously I would make a
very good rich person--I already have an
inflated sense of entitlement. I'm almost
positive I'm lazy enough to qualify, and I
promise to waste tons of cash on frivolous
purchases like diamond encrusted nose-hair
tweezers, silver plated gold bricks, moon
rock hide-a-keys, and a pushme-pullyou car
shammy.
Sure, I fall down
slightly in the greed department as I have this
penchant for wanting to share my wealth with
friends and family, but that's just a minor
oversight, right? Oh, and I have lots of
imagination, so I doubt I would ever become
bored by my wealth. Hmmm...that's two strikes
against me. I wonder if the lottery people know?
Well, you know what they
say: "You can tell what God thinks of money by
the people He gives it to."
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