And I will be taking the month of September off as it happens. ITunes has 41 hours worth of podcasts waiting for my attention. I’m a month behind on my online magazine subscriptions. I just caught up on 5 days-worth of journal entries. My dishwasher is full as are the counters, my laundry basket overflows, the fridge is looking bare, the kitchen floor is icky, there’s dust on everything, mail to be opened and read, paperwork to be filed, piles of magazines I may never get to, books to be read, DVD’s to be watched, CD’s to be listened to, recyclables to be taken out, and floors to be vacuumed. I did manage to archive my E-mail client so at least that programme loads quickly and I’m reasonably up to date with it. And I haven’t blogged in a week.
It may be mid-morning as I write this but the sky is overcast and grey, the fog so thick—even at this hour—that I can barely see across the street. Guess I have an excuse for being holed up in this apartment. I’ve found a new means of wasting time:
http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com/web/homepage/homepage.jsp
If you can get your browser and the various protocols to co-operate you can actually watch old Bugs Bunny cartoons here. If you want to check out just how foggy it is here check out the Oakville Harbour web cam:
http://www.lakevision.com/lakecam.php?ses=060602FBCUwQbh&cam=5
Click on Toronto on Lake Ontario, the camera is mounted on the TOWARF Building in Oakville Harbour. In case you’re interested that acronym stands for Town Of Oakville Water Air Rescue Force—guess they named that one before the Police Force became the Police Service. As I write there are two hardy cyclists standing beneath the Lighthouse whose light is working—actually I’m glad I’m not there to have to put up with the electronic fog horn.
So what have I been doing to keep myself occupied? Finally got around to actually launching Google Desktop and spent considerable time adding and configuring the various available plug-ins. The jury is still out on whether or not I’ll continue to use it. Indexing my documents took it considerable time and I’ve yet to find cause to search that database—my own filing system seems to work for me most of the time. Sometime in the last week Netscape converted my online mail there to AIM mail—I’m not sure how long they’ll redirect mail but yesterday I finally got around to configuring my E-mail client to download IMAP mail which is now possible with that service. I don’t actually use that address for many things but found it useful in the past to have an online account I could access anywhere I was if I traveled. Sympatico has since made that more practical with their new hotmail service. AIM, of course, also offers an online calendar—I’m just not sure how much personal data I want to store in an AOL Server especially in light of recent news. I’d say the same about Google Desktop; many of whose functions depend on a Google Account which stores your data online.
Outside my window the balcony window is dripping away so I don’t expect I’ll be rushing off to the local Postal Station—RPO—to pick up the parcel that’s stored there. In fact I may wait until I get notice of the order I just received word from Amazon was shipped last night. With online tracking my employer—Canada Post just doesn’t stand a chance—the customer knows more about where their parcel is than we do when they call to complain about why they haven’t got it yet. It is annoying though how many callers play dumb and don’t bother to clue us in on the details they already know. It’s also incredible how many people express shock that a missing apartment number or incorrect postal code can cause their mail to be returned to sender or delayed weeks. People also seem to believe we employ entire office towers of psychics who do nothing else but search their crystal balls to divine where in the system a single letter is among the 10’s of millions of other pieces handled daily. The latest round of calls involve where the latest GAINS Cheque—GST Rebate—is; as if we’d know when Tunney’s Pasture Division is going to release them. A sore point that one as I’ve never gotten one of those stipends. It would seem most people have the thing spent before it’s ever issued.
There, that’s my rant for the day. Don’t know that I feel any better for having vented all that spleen. In the last few months I’ve given up on listening to newscasts—I never have watched TV News. Somehow I can live without hearing about the latest Canadian casualties in Afghanistan—do we really think we can succeed where the Russians failed; the latest shaky ceasefire in the Middle East; the latest famine or plague in Africa; the latest earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption in the Pacific; the latest tropical storm in the Caribbean; the latest yo-yo in the price of gasoline; the latest political scandal…. At least Slobodan Milošević had the grace to die and spare us more of his war-crimes trial—it would seem we’ll be hearing about the Wacky Iraqi for the foreseeable future. Locally we have the rehearing of the Steven Truscot case; Ipperwash; the Cornwall, Ontario sexual exploitation ring; the Caledonia First Nations Blockade; and here in Oakville we’ll soon have the mud-slinging attendent upon a three-way race for the Mayor’s seat in the November Municipal Election. Maybe I should enter a monastery for a couple weeks and live under a vow of silence. The rest might do me some good.
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