Earlier this year, I gave myself permission to post whatever I wanted to this blog–no more filters, no more forbidden topics. If I wanted to say it, I’d say it.
I’ve noticed lately that a lot of what I’ve been writing seems kind of cranky, and I don’t want to come across as a cranky person. I have had a terrible flu bug recently, and am still getting past the last bits of it and this has certainly soured my overall mood, but I just seem to be taking on lots of negative stuff–mostly on the web–then spewing bile here because of it. Some of the targets are pretty easy, admittedly. And I really believe grocery stores are gouging customers and that makes me angry, because food isn’t optional, and it rankles me that these people will get away with it because our federal government is ultimately too spineless to do anything about it.
But see, there I go again! Cranky! Angry!
I will still feel the way I feel, but there’s no need to project it to the Large Language Models scraping this site to help some future 14-yewar-old write their book report.
This is my way of saying I am going to try to focus on more creative, whimsical and/or entertaining stuff to post. And kittens, of course.
But first, a nice shot I took today of Burnaby Lake (it’s there under all the lily pads):
Today is July 13. This means Save On Foods is guaranteeing they won’t raise prices on a select number of items for (hold onto your hats) one entire week!
What a truly wondrous offering from our food supplying overlords.
This seems like a good spot for some internet links. These links are good until July 19…and beyond!
When Amazon started its “Prime Day” deal a few hundred internet years ago, it was obvious what would happen if it became a success:
Amazon would expand it to be more than just a single day to better milk it. (Done. It’s now spread over two days.)
Other stores/sites would shamelessly copy it and cleverly call their versions something different (“48-Hour Sales Event”, “Black Friday in July”) but you totally know it’s their version of “Prime Day.” (Done. Two-day sales are everywhere now during Amazon’s event.)
Amazon would start to make the deals worse because now they have the inertia and know people are going to look and buy, anyway. They’d also start making it harder to get good deals by making them time-limited (even within the two days of the sale) or require you to reserve a spot to qualify to give them your money. (Done and done.)
Every tech (and many other) sites would report on “Prime Day” as if it were legitimate news. It is not legitimate news. (Done x1 billion.)
A lot of those same tech (and other sites) would be filled with articles on the “best deals” for the entire two days, crowding out more interesting content. Or just any content. (Done. My favourite punching bag, engadget, has 17 hits for “prime day” on its main page–which actually seems on the low side!) EDIT: Just for fun, The Verge has 10 hits, Ars Technica has 2.
I would complain about “Prime Day” in a blog post and refuse to write it without surrounding it with quotation marks, implying I’m saying it with sarcasm. (Boy howdy, done!)
Here is an image of a prime cat for your viewing pleasure:
The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and Murmur (1983) are two albums I own and enjoy, but neither of which I listened to when they were new. As they turn 40 (!) and 50 (!!) years old, I thought I’d reflect a bit on each.
When The Dark Side of the Moon came out in 1973, I was only nine years old and didn’t listen to any specific music or bands yet. I was gravitating toward The Beatles and The Beach Boys, though (in 1973 The Beatles had only been split up for three years). I came across this album years later, getting it first on CD in the mid-80s. The transfer was so bad (or good, depending on your perspective) that you could hear the analog hiss during quieter parts of the album.
Of the two, DSOTM is more famous, of course, but I feel it’s more dated or, to be more generous, of its time. In particular, the instrumental “Any Colour You Like” sounds very early 70s to my ears. That said, the rest of the album is sleeker and more timeless, and while it isn’t a concept album in the purist sense, all the songs connect together through themes and sound collages in a way that makes it feel like a single piece, a real album album (kids, ask your parents what an “album” is!)
DSOTM is also the sound of a band coming into its own with confidence and newfound maturity. It was Pink Floyd’s eighth album and was one of the last where all the band members fully participated.
Murmur, by contrast, was R.E.M.’s debut. Listening to it now, 40 years later, it still has a weird kind of freshness to it. I mean, it doesn’t sound anything like what you hear in contemporary pop music (which I can’t address without jumping straight into “old man yells at cloud” territory), but if you sought other albums with a similar sound recorded today, Murmur would effortlessly fit in with them, because Stipe’s vocals (not as murky as legend would have it) and the band’s early experimentation in style, going from jangly pop to simple acoustic numbers, remains vibrant and clear. It’s a fun album, an early adventure, and a great example of a group that fired on all cylinders right from the start.
Although I could have picked up Murmur when it was new (I was 19), like many others, I didn’t discover it until after getting brought in to R.E.M.’s music by a later album, in this case Document (1987) and specifically, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)”. In retrospect, I wish R.E.M. had done more zany songs or lighter songs. Some of the best on Murmur are these, like the appropriately propellant “Catapult”. Ah, well.
Some dreams I had last night, or what I remember of them:
The first seemed to be taking place in some kind of high fantasy world reminiscent of The Elder Scrolls games. I’m not sure if I was actually human, but recall moving between different groups as I traversed the countryside, some of them being undead or skeletons. None if it was threatening or scary. This segued to me being in some kind of building–possibly a hotel, so this might have been a transition point to another dream. It felt 19th century, at least in decor. There were two women in old-timey dresses and one was frantic because someone or something was on the loose and likely coming for them, someone who seemed like a UBG–an Ultimate Bad Guy. I got the sense they’d be in big trouble if he found them. They ran into a room and hid in a large walk-in closet. Apparently in this dream I was a complete idiot, because I was in the hallway when the UBG appeared and very obviously went into the hotel room with the two women. Further, as he came in behind me, I very obviously went into the walk-in closet, and only shut the door on my half, leaving the women fully exposed. Maybe I was the UBG’s assistant.
The last thing I remember was thinking I should do something, so I tensed up like I was going to punch someone. Then the dream ended.
The next one started on a ship, which was being controlled by bad guys. I was being forced up top on deck to look for something or to do a thing. I remember climbing ladders and at one point someone fired a gun to remind me not to try anything funny, like trying to escape. There was also a horse involved, somehow. After some tense spy movie-like action, the scene transitioned to land and to what seemed to be the entrance to the old Moose Lodge in Duncan (it is no longer Moose-affiliated, as I found out recently via the interweb) where many people were milling about. I had either escaped or been released and had important information for my dad, who was apparently there (he died in 1991), but due to murky conditions, I had a hard time finding him, so I was calling out for him. The horse was there, off to the side, and appeared to have a large chunk missing from its middle in a way that is too weird to properly describe. The horse, unsurprisingly, seemed unwell, and sat down. Somehow what I did was tied to the horse and saving it, probably, but again I woke up before any closure.
Then my Garmin sleep report said I didn’t get enough deep sleep. REM sleep was good, though. I’ve been having piles of dreams lately, and have no idea why. I like remembering them, though!
Brunette River, as seen from Lower Hume Park, partway through the first walk
I decided to go for a walk today to see how my right knee would fare.
Good news: It was fine, no issues even as I walked at a very brisk pace at times. This is not to say the knee is better, as it is clearly not, but it does hold some promise for doing a run tomorrow, maybe. Possibly.
I actually split the run in two. When I got to Burnaby Lake, I puttered around for a few minutes, getting a drink at the fountain, and taking some photos. I then headed back on Walk #2. They were very similar.
Unlike yesterday, it was pleasantly warm and sunny. It was nice, and no dogs misbehaved, despite several being off-leash.
Stats:
Walk 98/99Average pace: 9:12/km and 9:11/km
Location: Brunette River trail/Burnaby Lake
Distance: 4.47 and 4.29 km
Time: 41:05 and 39:21
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 25 °C
Humidity: 58%
Wind: light
BPM: 118 and 119
Weight: 165.6 pounds
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255
Total distance to date: 738.63 km
This dream came before almost meeting Indiana Jones and was more ominous.
In it, something had happened that was probably bad, as there was thick black smoke belching out of downtown Vancouver–enough to suggest a large section of the downtown core was affected. And the smoke stretched in tendrils across the sky, to where you could see other places that had been struck by…something. As I looked around, I could see multiple of these pillars of black smoke everywhere, all of them connected in a way that seemed unnatural.
It was never revealed, but in the dream I felt some kind of meteor was likely, because I was totally a pseudo-scientist. I also recall most people never found out what happened, because whatever it was knocked out all communications at the same time, so maybe hostile aliens. I was helping someone who looked just like the archaeologist on Curse of Oak Island sort through a box of tiny snails that were apparently being distributed as food. I was helping because of my scientist stature, I think. I didn’t actually do anything else in the dream that I can recall, just snail duty. And the archaeologist may have actually been one of the coop students I worked with at the college, because he looked a lot like Laird Niven now that I think about it.
I was in some desert plaza with a few other people, apparently waiting for Indiana Jones to show up. I was playing as some 20-something (I remember this–I was clearly playing a role, I was not meeting Indy as myself) and apparently got on the wrong side of the villain, who was in attendance. He came over to intimidate me and I made some move on his ample villainous neck, claiming that I thought he was going to fall over my chair and was saving him. Then I got up to pee, which I announced to everyone for some reason. I was called back before I left because Indy was arriving. Then I woke up. I’m pretty sure it was the 1930s Indy, and not the 100-year-old one. I was also the 20-something version of me, not the 100-year-old one.
I’m pretty sure I had the dream because I’d read an article about the game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis earlier in the evening.
And now I’ll never know why we were meeting Indy. :sadtrombone:
It’s cloudy and slightly cooler than normal. Yay! It’s better than a heat dome, I guess.
However, the 10-day forecast currently1It’s still June for nine more days, so I assume nothing here has no precipitation in it. Could this be the start of our allegedly hot ‘n dry summer? Let’s find out!
On the third and final day, we had an open agenda and only a few things to do:
Check out of the hotel before noon
Get home before dark (neither of us has great night vision for driving)
First, we tidied up our hotel room and checked out. One thing I forgot to mention in the previous posts is that while the shower was very strong and the water was nice ‘n hot, the drain could not come close to keeping up with the water flow, so showers were more like combo shower/baths because you’d be standing in ankle-deep water by the end. Not optimal, but better than not enough water pressure, I suppose.
We once again dined at McD’s and I had another Sausage and Egg McMuffin. I don’t know what they put in those things, other than the parts in the name, but I have a disturbingly powerful hankering for them.
After breakfast, we decided to return to disc golf–but first we would get some bug spray to fend off the mosquitoes. This led to another debacle using the in-car navigation and just weird bad luck (the Pharmasave we first went to was closed on Sundays. Sorry, people who need prescriptions, you’ll just have to deal!) but I eventually got a can of Deep Woods Off! at a Save-On Foods. Speaking of weird, the guy ahead of me was buying two nags of Tim Hortons coffee (this is such a Canadian entry) and asked if I was just buying the one item. I said yes, and he let me go ahead of him. This was nice, but I mean, unless he was expecting some horrible complication with the coffee, I wouldn’t have had long to wait. Maybe people in Kamloops are just that nice.
With the bug spray secured, we returned to the course, sprayed ourselves liberally (spoiler: It worked!) and set out to play 9 of the 18 holes, cleverly using the app to make sure we played in the right direction and everything. At several points, multiple marmots would gather on the fairway ahead of us, apparently knowing we couldn’t throw far enough to imperil them. And they were right.
I started…poorly (7 shots on one hole) and this let Jeff cruise to a win of 41 to 44. We were 13 and 16 shots over par, so not quite tournament-ready (Kamloops is the “tournament capital of Canada” as noted on multiple signs all over the place). Jeff also won the bonus award of “most discs in the water” at three discs! His were very clean by the end of our round. I put a few in the weeds and one over a fence but managed to stay out of the water. With just a few hundred hours of practise, I could probably get pretty good at this!
Jeff got par once! I almost got par…five times!
I only took a few quick shots on my phone this time, Here’s one looking over the South Thompson River.
After wrapping up the disc golf, we began the trip back. It started to rain shortly after we started up the Coquihalla, but fortunately the rain didn’t persist, and it was partly sunny the rest of the way. The rest of the trip broke down1This phrase becomes relevant, as you’ll soon find out like so:
A brief stop at a Dairy Queen in Merritt, for ice cream cones. This is another example of fast food that was strangely yummy. I haven’t had a DQ cone in probably ten years or so.
Another stop to let Jeff rest at the Coquihalla Summit (elevation around 4000 feet or 1200 meters). Jeff reminded me again how nice it would be if I had my driver’s license again. The pressure is on! I made a vague promise of sorts.
A stop in Hope just past 4 p.m. to have an early dinner at Home (but not home). Jeff had schnitzel, I opted for the turkey dinner. I ate almost everything before remembering to get a photo of my food. Sorry, Instagram, you’re out of luck this time!
Traffic moved better than expected once we got out of the mountains, but slowed then stopped outside Langley. It turned out two pickups got into a pretty good fender bender (more like a “whole front end bender” for the one that hit the back of the other), but we got past the accident just after RCMP arrived and before the fire truck, so the delay was minimal.
Jeff quizzed me extensively about getting cats nearly the entire drive from Hope to home
We arrived home at 7 p.m. with plenty of daylight left. I unpacked. Jeff immediately went to the deck. 😛
And that was it!
Although the trip started not-great, and the various map tools all let us down, often in spectacular fashion, it was nice to get out of New West for a few days and there’s something about the look of the area around Kamloops I find strangely compelling. Maybe it’s just that it’s so visually distinct from the coast, where I’ve lived all my life. I’ll have some shots in the gallery soon™.
