Raccoons—they are not your friends

No matter how cute and cuddly they look—do not approach these rabid beasts. Why you may ask? Because they will eff you up and take your garbage too.

I was convinced a few months ago that they might make a good backyard pet. I saw some curled up on one of the ledges of the college roof and the little raccoon fam were curled up like a clan of large house cats. They had long white whiskers, much like my snuggle cat, Cookie and longish flowing fur, also similar to my cat. They had black, long non-retractable razor sharp claws and rabies. Cookie, however, has never given me rabies.

I thought me and these beasts had a good thing going. I didn’t know they existed and I was happy. I often wondered if leaving my bagged garbage would be a problem, but I was merely too lazy or sleepy to do much else other than leave it there to pile up. Garbage day on the North Van is a Monday morning. Who the heck is still sober enough to gather all of their garbage Sunday night and drag it out in pajamas and all to the curb at 7am on Monday? That is bananas! I am waiting for one of these silly statutory holidays to screw things up and move it to a much better day like Saturday afternoon.

To illustrate my point of how deceiving these rabid beasts can be, I thought I would demonstrate in a series of wonderful photos.

This is my idea of a raccoon:

This is what came at my garbage:

 

This is what Google thinks a raccoon is:

 

This is what Cookie thinks a raccoon is:

A wine of many tastes

For this post I thought I would write about something other than being a  big deal because apparently it has been overdone.

Of the many things that I enjoy (Costco and my cat, Cookie) I also enjoy a mean glass of wine. Today I am drinking California’s Bear Flag (delicious by the way). The other good thing about it is that it has a screw cap, which means no fumbling with a corkscrew. I am prone to white, but if I am having a rib eye or a prime rib then I will lean toward red (Bin 999?)

The best way to blog about something is when you have done it recently or are doing it now. I drank wine last night and pondered Naked Grape’s idea of being “unoaked.” How can a white wine be unoaked?” I asked myself. Apparently, this actually makes sense.

According to Wikipedia (my university professors would just die knowing I am quoting this site) that wood taste (that some really enjoy–I myself am not a fan) is apparently something that wineries do to allow “phenols within the wood [to] interact with the wine to produce vanilla type flavors and can give the impression of tea notes or sweetness. The degree of ‘toast’ on the barrel can also impart different properties affecting the tannin levels of the wine as well as the aggressive wood flavours.”

Regardless of the tannins, it makes the wine taste gross.

I began drinking wine a few years ago when tequila and beer stopped doing it for me. I also wanted to look like I knew what I was doing so I ventured on over to the BC wine section to find myself finding a cheap (under $10) wine.

The only unfortunate thing about living in Vancouver is that the liquor is government regulated, which means no Superstore or Costco liquor store and means my $8 budget has been increased to $10. If it is a special occasion I could see myself spending $15.

Now don’t even get me started with boxed wine, right Reija…

Take that, Douglas

When I took a gander at the Langara and Douglas websites, they had a few things that I liked and a few that I would prefer not to see. Despite being a Douglas student, I really do like the looks of the Langara site.

I think the biggest thing is that draws me into the Langara page is the orange colour. Yeah I know, that isn’t exactly rocket science, but come on, the colour is pretty. I also prefer the site layout of the Langara page because as an outsider (who’s not familiar even with the college) I am able to navigate the site. I am also not a huge fan of the Douglas logo. Maybe I expect more from Douglas being a writing student or maybe it is just that I am highly critical of things.

What I think is a bit funny is that the advertising that I see for Douglas and Langara are so similar that it is oddly creepy. Are the same people behind each ad? It sure looks like it, either that or we have a copycat on our hands.

Who is Tim Berners-Lee?

Of the many dreams I have, one of them is to be considered a big deal. I am a bit jealous because Tim Berners-Lee’s “fifteen minutes of fame” has lasted since 1989. So we could say that Berners-Lee qualifies as a pretty big deal.

Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web! That in itself is something to be proud of. He is also the Director of the W3C (see below) and the World Wide Web Foundation, the latter focuses on improving the benefit of the Web on humanity.

Contrary to popular belief, Berners-Lee did not invent the Internet. I myself thought the World Wide Web and the Internet were synonymous, but boy, I was wrong. The Web is basically the language spoken over the Internet (HTTP, HTML, URLs etc.) whereas the Internet is a series of networks. To make this a bit easier to understand, I have come up with a nifty little analogy.

Think of the Internet as a telephone landline. You have to call the phone people to come over and install it. Once you get a phone, you call someone up and speak to them, let’s say in English or in this case the Web. You cannot call someone that does not have a phone. You cannot speak to someone in a language that they don’t understand. So the Web needs the Internet and the Internet needs the Web to communicate to one another.

The invention of the Web was key in popularizing the Internet and according to the TED it “brought about a massive cultural shift ushered in by the new tech and content it made possible: AOL, eBay, Wikipedia…” Time is also a fan of Berners-Lee: “it’s hard to overstate the impact of the global system he created. It’s almost Gutenbergian.”

 

Who is Jakob Nielsen?

Up until a few days ago, I had never heard of Jakob Nielsen or W3C and I consider myself to be pretty savvy. So through some not-so-scholarly research I found out the following fun facts:

Mr. Nielsen is the founding father of “discount usability engineering,” which according to Wikipedia (the obvious source for correct information) “is a movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation.”

What I took from the research was that Nielsen works on the usability of the web, making sites more user friendly. Ironically, I found Nielsen’s useit website to be rather ugly, which I think relates more to function rather than a beautiful layout. When I googled Nielsen a link appeared with his top 10 common mistakes in web design. Some I could relate to and find annoying myself (reading pdf’s online—I don’t think so).

Nielsen is important in terms of how people use the web and what people like us struggling writers can do to keep people on our websites, without annoying them with a myriad of design problems.

What is W3C?

W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium, a group that has many members that works together to make the web better and more accessible to the public by developing “web standards.” The organization has worked to make blogs possible and make the web available to all people. It allows people to submit ideas to the W3C for improvements for the web. It is also interesting as the W3C understands that the role of the internet is in constant motion. It is more than just a way to access information, it has a social function as well (social networking, online dating etc.).

Ode to snow

When I was living on the coldest place on the planet, (Alberta) I always hated when it snowed. It usually meant that it was freezing cold outside, made driving impossible and made me completely miserable. But today, I have come to the realization that snow in Vancouver should be cherished. Here, when it snows, the temperatures are usually tropical. It happens so rarely, that when it does appear, it causes complete chaos. Buses suddenly are not running, people forget how to drive and schools are closed.

So thank you climate change/global warming/the apocalypse for once again allowing me to stay in bed. If I lived anywhere else, this just wouldn’t be possible.

My favourite blog

My favourite blog is Hyperbole and a Half. All of the posts are based on things that have happened (the time the author had to mercy kill her fish or re-enact the story of Jesus). There is no way that I could ever come up with the hilarious situations that she blogs about. I most often find myself reading the blog when I am supposed to be doing work (writing essays, creating presentations etc.)

The blog post, The Alot, got me hooked. I found myself laughing loudly (in a quiet workroom) until I cried. The Alot describes the author’s ability to repress certain grammatical and spelling errors by creating imaginary situations that would allow for that kind of behaviour. Obviously, if people decide to leave out necessary punctuation and capital letters, it is because “they actually are an eagle typing with their talons.” That is the only logical explanation!

The blogger, Allie, describes herself as “heroic, caring, alert and flammable” and then drew a picture of a unicorn. Pure genius.

So read it! Trust me! You will never be the same.

Hyperbole and a Half