The Tricked-Out Travel Mug

This summer I saw an elaborately decorated travel mug at one of the shoppes in Westboro. This mug had gold trim and gems and looked great. But it made me think, if you're going to add stuff to a mug, why not add useful stuff?

Naturally, I had plenty of useful stuff in my collection and everything else I needed was at the dollar stores. I bought the actual mug at Zellers because dollar store mugs aren't really built for being tricked-out.

My first TOTM became a gift for Jimmi Jettz even before I started putting it together because Jimmi loves coffee and he loves gadgets.

If you can't see the embedded google doc presentation, maybe you can see it by clicking on this link.

The Holidays

Time to get ready for New Years Eve. I guess, I can't go as a pirate again.

Soweto Gospel Choir and Dominion Chalmers

The Soweto Gospel Choir performed in Ottawa the Friday before Christmas and Manon and I managed to go. I have a series of disjointed comments.

• You can click one of the photos to get to my Flickr set that has larger versions and many more shots.
• Before they started, a voice said "photographs are not allowed". I like going along with reasonable requests, but unless a no-photograph policy is clearly identified when I buy a ticket to an event, I'm under no obligation to go along with the policy.
• There are two nations that produce choirs and choral music that is guaranteed to move me: Wales and South Africa.
• The Soweto Gospel Choir has terrific art direction. The costumes and dancing give the eyes as much pleasure as the music gives the ears.
• If I had to choose on a given night to see either the Cirque de Soleil or the Soweto Gospel Choir with no price difference, I'd go to the Soweto Gospel Choir show. It's just as awe-inspiring, plus you get all these skin-tingling moments.
• Dominion Chalmers is a good venue for a concert, if you don't have special tickets for one of the front rows, the balcony seats are the place to head. Arrive really early, because other people know this.
• Also, if a Dominion-Chalmers show is sold out, you can always score tickets by arriving early. This is because old people (like me and older) like going to concerts at D-C. Being old, they prudently buy tickets in advance, but being old, they get sick on concert days, or they don't go out in inclement weather. Because their friends are also old and prudent, they bring the unused tickets to the show and try to get the purchase price back. Because it is a general admission venue, you can buy single tickets from different people and sit together.
• If you ever find yourself in a position to choose the songs that a South African choir will sing in concert here in Ottawa, your audience will probably be entirely happy if you only go with South African pieces. Or at least with arrangements that have a heavy South African choral style. While you might want to show how well your choir can do North American and European musical styles, we hear that stuff all the time. Not as well as you do it, but it's the South African pieces that moisten our eyes and tingle our skin.

Re-using Broken Glass

Did you know that with a blow torch you can heat little pieces of glass so that they melt into each other and form abstract shapes? And that you can hang the new creations from pieces of wire? Or even melt the glass around a piece of wire?

I recently discovered that you can.

I also observed the following:

• Thin pieces of glass are less likely to shatter and fly around than thick pieces of glass.
• Starting with a slow even heat might prevent some shattering.
• Heating the glass in a bowl made from bricks will cause your housemates less concern than if you use the fondue pot.
• Putting bits of glass in an aluminum can in a fireplace over night does not produce melted glass ornaments.
• Not even if you make a brick kiln for the container.
• A blow torch will burn right through an aluminum can before glass melts.
• If you wear thick work gloves, you can put bits of glass that fly off back on the glass pile before they cool down.
• Safety goggles don't interfere with your ability to see what's going on.

Big Moons and Big Snows

Did you know that we had a full moon two weeks ago that was 12% bigger than usual?

I was walking down Somerset that night and thought the moon looked big. Bigger than usual, even for being low in the sky. But I figured it must be just my mind playing tricks on me because it was low in the sky.

I took lots of photos trying to get a good shot of it, but I had no tripod and hadn't figured out the manual zoom.

Later that night, Craig Ferguson talked about how the moon was bigger than normal.

First I was pleased that my perception had been accurate. But then, I was puzzled. I do everything I can to keep up. There's a ridiculous number of feeds on my Google Reader. But I didn't know about the big moon before it happened!

Then, on the way to work last Friday, I see the word "snowmaggedon" on one of the free newspapers. Later, a coworker mentions that there was a bad storm on the way, but it is going to miss us and just hit Kingston and Toronto. "We're going to miss snowpocalypse," she tells me.

I'm confused. Is it snowpocalypse or snowmaggedon? And how much snow does it take to kill everybody. I did some googling, but found basiclly nothing, except there are more hits for snowmaggedon. I'm not going to be out of the know this time. I used the comment form on the Environment Canada Website to ask:

Do you have official criteria for how a weather event will qualify as Snowmaggedon?

What about a Snowpocalypse?

or Snowlocaust?

I will let you know what I learn.

Speaking of lots of snow, from last Friday:

The City of Ottawa has opened its 50 approved sledding hills, including the reopening of Carlington Hill. Outdoor enthusiasts are invited to sled while weather and hill conditions permit, and to keep personal safety in mind while sledding.

Approved sledding hill locations and safety tips are available on the City’s Web site at ottawa.ca.

Remember: Don't use your brains for brakes!

The Gladstone Avenue Mirror

Two weeks ago I spotted a broken mirror on Gladstone Avenue. I wanted to take it home, but I thought about all the stuff here that I have to do something with. I'll take a picture of it! I decided remembering one of my decluttering tips.

As soon as I took one picture, I noticed it was kind of an artsy effect. So I took a bunch of photos.

Outlook for Regular Reminders

Because I have a desk job and can easily become absorbed by my work, I don't remember to stand up and move around unless something prompts me. There are various places you can go on the web to get little alarm clock programs that will remind you at specified intervals, but my workplace doesn't trust me to run programs they don't supply me with.

I was stumped until I realized I can do this with Outlook. I set an appointment called "standup" one day for 5pm. I told it to remind me 8 hours in advance. When the reminder popped onto my screen, I stood up, stretched, then sat down and told it to snooze for 30 minutes.

Every 30 minutes, I tell it to snooze for another 30.

In other news, it looks like winter is coming.