Swiss Music

Swiss folk music is pretty high-spirited... last night Christa downloaded some from Kazaa Lite, so my music folder is a bit of a mixed bag today. I've got AC/DC's "Hells Bells" followed by acid jazz, Eric Clapton next to Moloko...

Back to Swiss music. One of the songs is called "Alperose" or "Alpine Flower." In fact, you can certainly tell when you're in Switzerland, because everything is alpe-something. It's the Swiss prefix! Alpeflower, alpebitter chocolate, you get the idea... (I can't be bothered to go over to the fridge to check out the wrapper on the Swiss chocolate for the Swiss-German spelling.) Well, this alpe-music, or folk-music, is lively, and not just the oom-pah-pah polka stuff you expect from the German-speaking regions of Europe, although yes, there's some of that too.


Last year as I was bombing around Switzerland in my rather conspicuous rental car with the bright orange easyCar.com logo (see left), I was constantly switching between stations to hear the different music styles between the German, French, and Italian-speaking regions. This year, I spent most of the time in the German-speaking area in the east, so except for passing through the Italian canton of Ticino after our camping stint in Northern Italy to drive to St. Gallen (where Christa is from), there wasn't as much station-switching. We had to listen to Christa's music all the way! How much of CCR can I take!?!! I shot some video in the car one night driving from Lecco to Bergamo when Iris was protesting very loudly about how painful Swiss music was to her ears -- she made a dive for the console, trying to eject the CD out of the player and almost made Christa go off the road! I'd share that video with you, except she'd probably kill me... she's howling like a wolf!

One thing I should mention about these Mercedes A-class cars -- they are pretty spacious, but they have all kinds of crappy blind spots and a terrible turning circle!

Sushi, Anyone?

Octopuses can get erections, US researchers have discovered. They are the first soft-bodied animal found to have erectile tissue.

Just thought I'd share this from my current issue of Nature Science Update. Believe me, most of the updates I get aren't quite this suggestive. I just thought, in the general scheme of things, how strange to imagine a gelatinous creature achieve something that's totally foreign to the rest of his body! (The term inflatable organ made me laugh!)

You won't think of octopus quite the same way again...

My Hospital Experience

No, I wasn't hospitalized. I went to Burnaby Hospital this afternoon because I was on a little mission for my friend Berit in Hamburg. She's in PR for Draeger Medical, a giant medical supply company that just recently became a 65:35 Joint Venture with Siemens, an even larger corporate giant. Berit is producing the company's first magazine for their clientele, which spans the globe, and she wanted to know if I personally knew any doctors or nurses who were resident in a hospital. I didn't, but I didn't think it would be difficult to track one down through one of my friends. I could also ask an aunt or go through any of my relatives -- 90% or more of the Filipinos I know work in health care, mostly as nurses. This doctor or nurse would answer one question: Happiness is... ? and provide a photo.

On Friday, I ended up phoning May, and she phoned up a nurse she knew, a girl named Natalie. I forwarded the e-mail on Friday night so she could read it over, and we arranged to meet today so I could take some photos of her, get her to sign the disclaimer, and get the answer to the happiness question.

I could finally use my U-PASS, since I left my car in Sechelt for a week so the mechanics could do a thorough inspection. The U-PASS is an unlimited use of the Translink public transit system voted on by referenda of UBC and SFU students. I've only used the U-PASS twice since its advent earlier this month because I have a car, but despite the fact I don't think I will ever use $92 worth of transit per term, I am behind its premise 100%. In fact, I don't mind leaving the car in Sechelt, because I want to use it less. All of my courses this term are by Distance Ed., so I don't attend any classes. Everything I need in day-to-day life is within easy walking distance, and anything else is accessible by transit. The only reason I need the car is to get to the office, which requires a ferry and the remainder of the route is very transit-challenged, and ferrying the kids around when I'm taking them places. I think if my Volvo ever completely dies, I would opt either for a car in a co-op network, or if I really used a car often I would buy a hybrid, such as the Toyota Prius or Honda Civic or Insight. To find out more about auto co-operatives, some benefits are outlined in this 2001 BC Institute for Co-operative Studies write-up.

It was Sunday, so I wasn't expecting to get to Burnaby Hospital that fast, but after two buses and the Skytrain, I was still there in about half an hour. I was rather impressed. I think public transit has improved greatly over the time I've been here in Vancouver. When I first moved here in 1995 and depended on it every day, it really pissed me off... constant delays and lots of waiting. Now that they've expanded the Skytrain with the Millennium Line, it seems to be much more efficient. I noticed in December while at JFK Airport in New York that they were building a Skytrain -- or ART (Advanced Rapid Transit) as Bombardier calls it -- into Manhattan, so it looks like the Kuala Lumpur project completed in 1998 was a success.

Once I arrived at Burnaby Hospital, which is located in a residential area only a few streets east of Boundary, I was reminded of how rarely I ever set foot on hospital grounds. No matter how you look at it, hospitals are pretty bleak places, whether they're for people or animals. Thankfully, nearly all the times I've been to a hospital in recent years were for more joyous occasions -- Melissa, Michael, and Madeleine. Knock on wood, I've never had visit a hospital for personal reasons, only to see other people. Maybe it's a combination of things -- the distinct hospital smell, the fluorescent lighting, the waxed floors, the cold colours, the unemotional double doors that you could swear emit whiffs of pain and suffering... there is definitely that institutional feeling. If I had the means to be a career philanthropist, I would get interior decorators to do hospital make-overs and deliver flowers every single day to every single hospital room and reception area. Hospitals are always in need of money, so aesthetics are at the bottom of the priority list, I can understand that.

The Sun Sets Over the Rantings of a Heretic

It was a gorgeous day in Vancouver, and I watched it end while waiting for the Aquabus across the street. Tom invited me to check out The Heretic -- one play in "The Pick of the Fringe" (The 19th Annual Vancouver Fringe Festival). It was playing at The Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island, so I didn't have far to go.

Just as I was getting on the Aquabus, a bunch of geese floated by in a little bird parade...

The Heretic was a one-man show, written by Christian O'Conner. The actor, John Murphy, was AMAZING! What a talent! He was all over the stage, playing God, Jesus Murphy, Tom, Tom's gay friend Gary (my favourite character), a professor, and more, in rapid succession without skipping a beat. The guy can sing, too!

As you might gather from the title of the play, the performance was centred around heresy. It would be easy to dismiss the act as a one-hour extended railing against the Catholic Church and The Powers That Be, but the sputterings and mutterings of Tom were actually well-articulated, rational musings about questions we've all asked ourselves from time to time: Why am I here? Am I just entertainment for God? Is there even a God, or is God a concept?

Here's a description of the show, from the Fringe's website:

Religion is a virus, fear is the illness, and Tom needs an antidote. Jesus Murphy, evangelical atheist, declares war on the Word of the Lord, to save Tom and the rest of the world from its evil grasp. It's no holds barred, nothing sacred, word on Word fight to the death. Performer - John Murphy. Director - Jonathan Ryder. Warning: Gunshots + Blasphemy!

Limo Ass

Ah, the folly of youth!

Last night, as Eliza and I were driving home on Georgia St., a bunch of very loud young girls in a limo decided to moon the traffic going by. There was a bit of a delay, so Eliza slowed down a bit, I whipped out my camera and took a photo! It was hilarious -- they saw the camera and started to scream! Unfortunately, I didn't use the flash, so it's pretty blurry, but they don't know that... they were probably more worried if their thongs could be ID'ed...

Where is a Makeup Artist When You Need One??

I haven't visited Smoking Gun for a long time, but some stream-of-conscious trigger made me go there, and I checked out their lovely celebrity mugshots page. You know, instead of seeing what trainer so-and-so is using, if you really want to look just as good as a celebrity, find out who does their makeup!

I've included some doozies for your mocking pleasure:

Nick Nolte
DUI, September 2002. Gee, what do you think tipped off the police??
I guess he won't be turning this into a Christmas card.


Yasmin Bleeth
Cocaine possession, September 2001. This should be in an ad for Say No to Drugs.

Notice Anything New?

This blog passed the 1,000 visits milestone in 38 days, so I thought we were all due for a change. Who wants the same old, same old? Not me.

I've been messing around with colour and CSS, and this is what I came up with! If it makes you go blind, just say so and I'll tweak it some more.

Eddie Murphy Gaffe

I am so easily amused...

I have this weekly thing for reading the Fashion Police section of E-Online, and on rare occasions get sucked in by the celebrity sightings section. Most sighting posts reek of banality ("she was soooo nice and soooo cute"), but once in a while you find one that just makes you want to have been a fly on the wall so you could laugh your little fly head off and no-one would notice:



Lauren (Jun 01, 2003, 02:26 PM)

My aunt was at a casino in Vegas, and she got into the elevator, holding her cup of money she won at the slot machines, when three black guys walked into the elevator. She is a little woman, so she felt intimidated. One of them went 'Hit the floor..' So she dropped to the ground, dropping all of her money. The one who spoke went 'Ma'am, I'm sorry, I meant hit the button for the floor you want to go to.' She was so embarassed, gathered what money she could, and left. The next morning, a dozen roses arrived at her door, each wrapped in a $100 bill. The note read 'Sorry for last night-Eddie Murphy'

Work Website Finally Live

You might notice on the left panel the links to my office and to SFU.... scroll wayyyy down. They've FINALLY approved the website to go live, and it has now replaced that horribly-designed site that Chris Hale made. Yuk, we've had to live with that for two years, and I've been too embarrassed to give out the URL.

Haloscan Operational Again

Now we're cooking with gas!

Blogger and Haloscan appear to be back up again, and I did some system tweaking this morning on my computer to fix some OS problems, so hopefully things will be relatively smooth again in electronic-land -- though I might be speaking too soon!

I've noticed that Darwin's Web is tracking a rather consistent number of visits per day to this blogsite. Currently there are over 975 visits and counting since August 18, so I can't help but wonder....who's reading this blog????? gimme me a sign! post a comment! I feel like a radio DJ, talking to air...