Learning French on Dalhousie Street

Tonight I was walking along Dalhousie Street and I noticed the sign for this bedding store: "mon lit mon lit mon lit". I repeated it (in my head, I think).

Then across the street, I saw the gift store called "Mon Cadeau".

And two doors further south, the kitchen store at Dalhousie and Murray, "Ma Cuisine". What's going on here? I wondered. Some new branding thing?

Then I realized what was really going on and I felt much better. Some influential person in the Market area has decided to help us Anglophones learn the genders of common nouns.

(Maybe this could go on the Best New Idea for the City ballot up against the count-down walk lights.)

New Product: Ginger Concord Cubes

Remember Ginger Concord Tea? I've been thinking about it a lot. Thinking about how to make it with less effort and how to make it when the grapes are long gone from the vine outside the house.

Happily, the lab has come up with an answer:

1. Fill a blender with grapes and small chunks of ginger.
2. Add a little bit of water.
3. Blend to a mush.
4. Pour the mush into ice cube trays.
5. When the mush is frozen, transfer to a container.
6. Put the cubes in the deep freezer.
7. When you want a pot of Ginger Concord Tea, put two cubes in enough water to fill your pot.
8. Bring to a boil.
9. Strain into your teapot or directly into cups.

My Mojo Scarf

Yesterday I mentioned that Manon is excellent at choosing gifts. Actually, "excellent" is an inadequate word in this case. "Inspired" is a better word. Last winter, she decided she would knit me a scarf for my birthday. In the set of all gifts, there isn't much that is better than a piece of clothing that someone has knit for you. (Of course there are wonderful things of a similar rank, like a crocheted afghan for instance.)

But, here's where the inspired part came in and Manon took it beyond excellent: She rounded up items from a whole bunch of my friends and knitted them into the scarf.

Now, anywhere I go with the scarf, I have something from about 20 of my favourite people (including cats). That is why I call it my Mojo Scarf.

I do not knit, but if you do, and you want to bowl someone over, or as the French say, make them all ému, a mojo scarf is just the ticket.

Uses for Binder Clips - Gift Cases

Manon is excellent at choosing gifts and excellent at packaging them. Here is the clever packaging she came up with for a mixed cd. Two 12cm x 12cm cards advertising art shows at Gallerie La Petite Mort and 4 binder clips.

Clever, I say

Japanese Guys who are working to save us

Yesterday's post may have given you the idea that the Japanese are unified in a desire for the extinction of humanity.

I must assure you that this is not true. For example, Hiroko Yoda, Matt Alt (possibly not Japanese) and Tatsuya Morina have just published Yokai Attack: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. I have not read it yet, but it claims to be a guide for surviving attacks from Japanese monsters.

I've never seen statistics on this, but I suspect that more monsters come from Japan than from any other country in the world. This makes Yokai Attack! much more valuable than a guide book on how to survive Canadian monsters.^{[Note 1]}

You can learn more about it here.

Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide
by Hiroko Yoda (Author), Matt Alt (Author), Tatsuya Morino (Illustrator)

Format: Trade Paperback
Published: October 1, 2008
Dimensions: 192 Pages, 5.25 x 7.5 x 1 in
Publisher: Kodansha International
Associated ISBNs: 10:4770030703; 13:9784770030702

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^{Note 1:} Although maybe someone should write the Guide to Surviving Canadian Monsters, it would only take about 30 minutes, most of that for the illustrations.

• Ogopogo: Pull out a camera and it vanishes.
• Loup-Garou: (a) Figure out who the Loup-Garou used to be, then (b) draw blood from it.
• Sasquatch: see Ogopogo.
• Windigo: (a) To avoid becoming one, don't eat human flesh. (b) To keep them away, perform an Assiniboine, Cree or Ojibwa Wendigo Ceremony.

3 Ways Humans are Hastening the Apocalypse

I'm grateful to all of you working against global warming, the massive extinction of species, and the threat of pandemics. I know you could use more help from me, but I have at least three other dangers out there that nobody else seems to be concerned about.

1. Cyberdyne and their Evil Beginning

The Terminator series got it wrong. Cyberdyne did not start the evil robot rebellion in California, they are starting it in Japan. They have announced they will soon be mass-producing a robot suit called Human Assistive Limb (or HAL) designed to help people with physical disabilities. They don't mention if HAL has vocal capacity, but it's not hard to imagine myself in my 70s and confined to the suit:

"Open the bathroom door, HAL"

"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that."

Many news sites and blogs are reporting that Cyberdyne is also behind the creepy Repliee R-1 android series, yet oddly, Cyberdyne's official website says nothing about the R-1. [For example, The Sun: Boffins unveil life-like robogirl]

Have They Not Seen Conquest?

Reuters reports today that a tavern in Japan is using monkeys to serve customers.

The Kayabukiya tavern, a traditional "sake house" north of Tokyo employs a pair of Japanese macaque called Yat-chan and Fuku-chan to serve patrons.

The younger of the two monkeys, Fuku-chan, hands out customers a hot towel to clean their hands before they order their drinks, as is the custom in Japan.

Yat-chan, who is about 12 years old, also hand out towels but serves drinks as well.

Anyone familiar with the Planet of the Apes canon knows this is how it starts. First, monkey waiters. Then chimpanzees helping out as personal servants. Orangutan babysitters. Gorrilla soldiers. Then they rebel, some of us survive in the wild to be hunted as slaves, others survive in the tunnels below New York until they blow up a doomsday bomb and it is all over.

Don't be fooled by the cuteness!

3. Messing with the Sacred

While I'm sure the Japanese are doing plenty of other things to endanger our future, item 3 is being done by a misguided coalition of experts from the UK, Germany, Sinai and Russia.

What are these dangerous scholars, conservators and curators up to? They are reuniting the entire manuscript of the Codex Sinaiticus in digital form and "making it accessible to a global audience".

As you know, dating from the mid-300s, the Codex Sinaiticus contains the oldest known complete copy of the New Testament. However, this version has marked differences from any version now in use by established religions.

If you are familiar with conspiracy literature, such as Robert Ludlum's the Gemini Contenders, you know that if the wrong people get ahold of an ancient version of the Bible that has something unexpected, like say no mention of the resurrection of Christ, chaos will ensue. Religious war, armageddon, all that stuff.

How can you keep it out of the wrong hands if it's on the frickin' internet?

Accidental Typewriter Art

I thought I had just found a practical way to get three of my typewriters off the floor last week by hanging them on the wall. (I have four typewriters. I know. It's crazy. I am not accepting any more.)

By reading Mae Callen's blog, I learned today that my practical decluttering technique is evocative of Blue Monday Strip by famous kinetic sculpture artist Rebecca Horn.