Ten Things In My Neighbourhood

Arson.



A construction tunnel.



An optical shop.



Sex toys.



A shopping mall.



An escalator.



A retreating hail storm.



A post hail storm puddle.



A cyclist who was very apologetic when he nearly drove into me through said puddle mere seconds after I took this photo.



Giant rabbits.

Sloth

I am liking the blog biggerhand. So will you.

The homeless are moving into the suburbs. It was bound to happen. The suburbs could not remain the isolated, bedroom communities idealized in the 1950s.

The United States has one war going on overseas and one at home – “The Battle Over Same-Sex Marriage”. In the meantime, same-sex couples from the U.S. have been crossing over to Canada to say their marriage vows.

I am trying very hard today to be responsible like grown-ups are supposed to be. I find it terribly difficult to do things like sweeping or doing the dishes or dusting or cleaning the bathroom. In order to coerce myself into performing such tasks, I have to spend a good deal of time working myself over with guilt and personal insults, and then maybe, if the guilt and self-loathing stick around for a few days, I might push myself into what has likely become a long overdue task. This morning, I walked through the living room on the way to the office, and the stench of rabbit urine filled my nostrils. I looked at Gordon lovingly, rubbed his wiggly white nose, assured him that he was not forgotten, and then went into the office, closing the door behind me. I needed to block the smell somehow! Now, before you all think that I am a neglectful rabbit owner who leaves her bunny to sit in his own refuse, I am not. His cage gets at least a cursory cleaning every day and a thorough scrubbing once a week. He just happens to be a rabbit who can create the most amount of stink in the shortest amount of time. Several times, I had to walk through the living room to go to the bathroom (mucho coffee is being consumed this grey Sunday morning), and each time the stink was heavier and more ammoniac, and Gordon looked more and more impatient every time I skirted his cage. Finally, I had to buckle. The Fiery One, who has not yet gotten out of bed, was going to be horrified with the smell permeating our apartment if I did not fix it tout de suite, and Gordon is alive, poor fellow, and deserves fresh wood shavings and a romp about the apartment and clumps of his beloved alfalfa. So, I have cleaned his cage thoroughly, and the rabbit is peeking at me over the makeshift no-bunnies-in-the-office fence as we speak. The sweeping around his cage where he likes to kick out half his shavings and little turd balls has yet to be accomplished. Back to the guilt, I guess.

Google has grown into a staple of internet travelling, but are we outgrowing it? What’s next?

M&Ms are good for more than candy lovers. They are good for breakthroughs in physics, too.

While pushing to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in other nations, the United States government’s agenda is to acquire new nuclear weapons, anti-missile systems, and space weapons. The nuclear black market may be more extensive than what was once imagined. Can the world be saved?

Women are allowed to serve in the armed forces now, but it might still be a man’s army.

This story amazes me, because if I unknowingly had a dead body in my home for six months to a year, the smell would likely bring it to my attention at some point, if not to my neighbours.

Britain has decided that its children should study non-religious beliefs such as atheism alongside major faiths in their religious education classes. If I was a parent, and I lived in Britain, I would be thrilled right now.

Take a brief look at the 20 worst companies of 2003.

Although soaring world population rates have been forecasted, some say an energy crisis would limit those numbers.

Think twice before using the word “bitch”.

Russian oil producers and shippers are expecting the volume of crude oil and petroleum products to more than double this year, despite the United States’ decade-long and ongoing efforts to steer the export of Caspian-region crude oil away from Russia.

The music industry is trying to crack down on Canadian file sharers now. I wish they would just fuck off. I let a friend borrow one of my CDs last week. Is that a punishable offense?

Fussy is a good blog to read, and she links to some good sites, such as The Invisible Library, a site that is a catalogue of books that exist only inside other books.

Read this article to find out just how overboard you can go on Valentine’s Day if you are rich enough.

Wal-Mart is too aggressive for my tastes.

The Fiery One Returns, A Reality Blog, An Illusion, Gordon, Wellingtons In Particular, and Rubber Boots Generally

The Fiery One returned! It happened two days ago. During my whole day at work on Thursday, I tried to stay away from the coffee, because my excitement and tension levels were already peaking at a level just below manic. I kept updating my coworkers on the hours left until his plane touched down on home turf, which I am sure they were needing to know. When I arrived home, he was already waiting for me in the apartment. He looked radiant. It’s funny how twenty-two days apart can make your mate so incredibly, intoxicatingly good-looking to you. (I know, I know. This is drivelly mush, to say the least, because the whole world is not nearly so in love with the Fiery One as I am. It’s just that his return has been the most exciting thing to happen to me for nearly a month, and so I must share it). So now I am no longer living single with all the hours of my free time available for the obsessive learning of html. The semblance of a more balanced and coupled life can return with all the book-reading, beer-swilling, and sex-having that it has to offer.

An interesting reason for a blog, but not surprising in this day of reality television. It’s a little gross, at least to me, because I hate the fact of other people’s bodies and their horrible growths and whatnot.

You have got to check this out. Remember to wait until the animation is done, because it is a little slow, but the proof is in the pudding.

Gordon, the rabbit, was introduced to the greater portion of our apartment last night, the living room. When I first lifted the top of his cage away, he stood in the bottom portion of his cage looking over the brim as though there was no sense to be made of this turn of events. It took him about ten minutes to figure out that, yes, he could step over the edge, and then it took another good hour before he screwed up his courage to venture more than five feet away along the living room’s perimeter. Everything touching the ground was suspect as a possible predator, and so was approached with extreme caution. His huge feet would be stretched out behind him, and he would strain his super-twitchy nose forward, trying vainly to maintain distance while still being close enough to taste each object. When I put him back in his cage for the night, he thumped his foot rather soundly and became nasty for a few minutes, which of course threw me into feelings of terrible guilt. I know that’s stupid, but I am used to cats as pets, and they do not show a whole hell of a lot of emotions, aside from feed-me, pet-me, and I-think-I’ll-kill-you.

Here is another sexual fetish thing that I was completely unaware of until I recently stumbled across it quite accidentally during a googling adventure – rubber Wellingtons. There are Wellington slaves, Pat has a love/hate relationship with her rubber Wellingtons, and you can start a beautiful thing with your own pair here.

Rubber Boot Facts and Links:
* Wellington rubber boots are called such presumably because they look like the high boots worn by the famed Duke of Wellington (1769 - 1852), although his boots were not made of rubber.
* Rubber is a highly elastic substance polymerized by the drying and coagulation of the milky juices or latex of various plants, especially the tropical rubber plant.
* The first rubber boots were made by South American Indians, who used to pour latex, from the Hevea brasiliensis (rubber tree), over their legs and feet to form water-resistant footwear.
* Take a look at some good vintage fire boots from American fire departments.
* These Japanese rubber boots claim to be different from their American cousins, but there is only a slight difference in style that I can see.
* The decomposition rate of rubber boot soles is fifty to eighty years.
* “Leather vs. Rubber Boots: The Scientific Difference”
* This is just a small example of the horrible clothing we inflict upon children.