Hey Look, It’s Last Year’s NaNoWriMo
Well. That story wasn’t supposed to be non-fiction! Luckily this virus seems a lot less dangerous than the illness in my story. In my story, no one knows exactly what this illness is, how it spreads, or how it’s related to any other illnesses, which really gives them no way to treat it. Also, it’s got a 100% mortality rate, so…
Edit: I just realized it’s the same freaking ship as the one in my story, too. Fantastic.
Edit 2: holy hell, this became a thing.
02022020
Hey fartbags, it’s my birthday today!
(I use “fartbags” as a term of endearment, I promise.)
It’s also the birthday of a whole bunch of other people who are way cooler than me, including Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, writer James Joyce, and writer Thomas Disch (author of The Brave Little Toaster).
So, y’know, special.
But this year, February 2nd is an especially special day. Why? Because it’s 02/02/2020 – the first true* palindrome date since 11/11/1111. The next one won’t be until 12/12/2121.
February 2nd is also the 33rd day of the year and, since it’s a leap year this year, has 333 days following it in the year.
So yeah, super special.
*It’s a “true” palindrome date because it’s the same in DD/MM/YYYY format and MM/DD/YYYY format.
Early Christmas!
Since I’m flying out to Moscow on Christmas and since all of BC is in Snowpocalypse Mode meaning we can’t get down to Nate’s parents’ house, we had our little mini Christmas this evening. Here are a few of the things I got from Nate:
Another book on Leibniz! YAY
I’ve mentioned to him that I find the Chernobyl disaster very interesting and that I was wanting to see the HBO miniseries on it at some point (we don’t have TV, let alone the HBO channel, so that wasn’t going to happen), so he got me the series and a book!
And then, from my dad:
He got one for Nate as well! It’ll be interesting to compare/contrast the results of this with the 23andMe results.
WOO!
Disasters
Uh oh, I found a YouTube channel called “Mega Disasters” and now I’m hooked.
I like learning about past human disasters. I suppose it’s a morbid curiosity that a lot of people have (hence channels like these) – almost like a guilty pleasure kind of thing.
I think one of the biggest disasters that has stuck with me ever since I first learned about it is the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City. Until the World Trade Center towers fell in 2001, the collapse was the deadliest structural collapse in US history.
I originally learned about it from my Advanced Fiction class in 2013, actually. Someone in the class wrote a story from the perspective of someone involved in the incident, and it sounded so incredibly horrific and terrible that I had to look it up and read about it.
The Mega Disasters channel has a video on it, but here are parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of a longer documentary on it. It’s terrifying but really interesting as well.
If you watch it, be prepared to never feel safe in a building again.
Fear of Fire
Fire is probably my biggest fear. I guess I should be more specific: the thought of the house catching on fire and threatening the people/animals/things I love is probably my biggest fear.
The worst outcome would be if a fire broke out and no one was home. Who would save Jazzy? That’s a terrifying thought: her being trapped in a flaming condo that is up on the third floor. I’ve read that cats are actually pretty good at escaping house fires, but unless the balcony door and/or the windows blew out, she’d be trapped in there. And the fall/jump is a long one. That’s hard to even think about.
If I was home, a fire would still (of course) be terrifying, but I feel like I’d at least have some sort of control. I keep my “essentials” next to me when I sleep; at minimum, this is my hard drive that has all my important documents/pictures/music/etc. on it. That would be easily saved, as I could shove it down my bra or something if I needed both hands free to get out with Nate and Jazzy.
If a fire was threatening from a distance (like in the CNN article), I’m not sure what we would end up taking with us when we fled. Jazzy, of course, and Jazzy provisions. Human provisions. I would take my laptop and a few of my books that I deem irreplaceable. Maybe some of my special trinkets from my trinket shelf?
I don’t consider myself a materialistic person, but I do feel like what we consider “inanimate objects” to still hold a degree of “consciousness,” even if that consciousness is a lot more loosely defined than the way we define it in humans and other living things (this view is very similar to panpsychism). I don’t like the idea of my things burning up in a fire mainly because I feel like they would “know” that they were left behind to be destroyed, if that makes any sense. I know that probably sounds crazy, but that’s how I feel about material things.
Anyway. The fear of fire is on my mind more than is probably healthy, but I always consider it any time I leave the house. It’s why I have three copies of all my important computer stuff and why I try to keep at least one of those copies in a different place than the others (or with me in my backpack) in case something disastrous happens.
Spin Cycle
I should not be laughing at this, but oh my god, I am.
I am a bad person. I hope she’s okay.
Yikes
The Chernobyl disaster has always been something that’s been really interesting to me. It’s absolutely terrifying what happened, but the fact that it could have been much worse is even more terrifying.
I’ve heard good things about HBO’s mini-series, but I’ve never really seen one and don’t know how accurate they are. But the trailer is sufficiently terrifying, for sure.
This is the best documentary I’ve seen on it so far:
I fought the law, and the LAW LOST
Haha, so this happened on campus today.
(vid by wailard)
I didn’t see it in person, but everyone was talking about it in my STAT 213 class.
And of course the r/ucalgary subreddit had a lot of fun with it: 1 2
A random flood in the middle of the school is always a good thing in -35 weather.
IT’S A BIRTHDAY!
It was also 0℉ with a wind chill of -19℉ outside today, but I still walked because, much like a salmon that autopilots its way back to where it was hatched in order to lay its own eggs because that’s what it does, I go on autopilot and just do my walk because that’s what I do.
Tomorrow, though?
LOL NOPE
It’s Anytime Fitness time tomorrow.
I got a perm(anent resident card)
I am now an official permanent resident of Canada!
WOO!
It sounds like this means I can do everything that Canadians can do except 1) vote and 2) hold high-level security clearance jobs.
It also means that the next step is applying for citizenship.
ONWARD!
A Song for Y’all
HEYOOOOOOO so I’ve mentioned in the past a few times the idea of re-writing Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to “update” it for current events.
Well, I just turned 30, so I figured why not try to re-write it so that it covers the past 30 years?
So I gave it a shot. A few things worth noting:
- Joel had 40 years’ worth of stuff in his song; I have 30. Does that make a difference? Dunno.
- The biggest, most impactful event in Joel’s original timeline (at least as far as the song is structured) is JFK’s assassination (“JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?”). The biggest, most impactful event in my timeline is definitely 9/11. Unfortunately, it does not fit into the song’s timeline very nicely. It’s a whole verse before the JFK line and the way the verses are structured (I tried to give each verse a set number of years), it kind of just falls in the middle of one of them. So not as good.
- Did I miss some major events? Surely. I tried to get a decent variety, but I suspect I missed a few things that would be obvious to include for other people.
- I tried to stay true to his cadence for all of the lines, but a decent number of mine are different than the original.
- This version absolutely sucks compared to the original.
OKAY, HERE WE GO. And as if it needs to be said, this is sung to the tune of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Berlin Wall, Gorbachev, Syringe Tide, World Wide Web
Roger Rabbit, Cold War, Freddie Mercury
Reno, Nafta, Rodney King, World Trade Center Bombing
NAFTA, Exxon, Windows, united Germany
Chunnel, Hubble, Desert Storm, war on drugs, Morris Worm
Seinfeld, Waco siege, Space Shuttle Discovery
Friends, Game Boy, dino “Sue,” Hurricane Andrew
Clarence Thomas, GPS, a fatwa for Rushdie
(CHORUS)
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
O.J. Simpson, Amazon, Oklahoma City Bomb
Hale-Bopp, boy band pop, Dolly the sheep
Harry Potter, Princess Di, Toy Story, Columbine
Napster, Euro, Ted Kaczynski
ExxonMobil, Sarajevo, Mark McGwire, Galileo
Nunavut, Albright, Titanic, baseball strike,
AOL, Deep Blue, Mad Cow, Google
Bill Gates, Y2K, Clinton and Lewinsky
(CHORUS)
Bush beats Gore, hanging chads, iPods are the new fad
Airplanes hijacked, 9/11 attacks
War on Terror, Taliban, U.S. invades Afghanistan
Homeland, anthrax, and the Patriot Act
Iraq War, Saddam Hussein, Stock exchange, Bush again
Columbia, protests, North Korea nuke test,
SARS, Mir, YouTube, Muhammed, Pluto,
Facebook, Wikipedia, Hurricane Katrina
(CHORUS)
Michael Jackson, Avatar, Large Hadron Collider
H1N1, Sully on the Hudson
Mars Curiosity, Europe gets some record heat
Arab Spring, Bin Laden, Flash Crash, Horizon
Bitcoin, iPhone, exoplanets, Eurozone
Obama, WikiLeaks, Occupy Wall St.
(CHORUS)
Sandy Hook, Michael Brown, Baumgartner faster than sound
Water crisis down in Flint, Donald Trump is president
Higgs Boson, CharlieHebdo, Martian liquid H20
Putin, Snowden, Zika virus, Cubs win
ISIS, Brexit, Harambe, Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
Ebola, eclipse, Vegas shooting, Space X
Record-breaking hurricanes, government shutdown again
Anti-vaxxers, climate change, the whole world has gone insane
(CHORUS)
OH SHIT I’M THIRTY
Today was a garbage bag of a day, but LET’S NOT FOCUS ON THAT, shall we?
I turned 30 years old today, which is pretty wild. Never thought I’d make it. I certainly don’t feel 30…I feel like I’m in my early 20s physically (except for the damn legs) and probably in my mid-20s mentally. Though I still sometimes start my age with a “1” when entering into form fields, which is kinda weird.
Anyway.
I also realized that I have my entire 20s logged in this blog, which is pretty badass. My 20s were pretty eventful.
Then again, I bet most peoples’ 20s are.
Whatev.
Here’s to being old and useless, I guess.
Election!
YAY, Nenshi got elected as Mayor again. Badass.
I was worried Calgary would pull a “U.S. Voters” move on themselves and have more people voting for Nenshi’s opponent than the polls had suggested, but that wasn’t the case.
Too bad I couldn’t have voted.
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN
Heeeeeeeey, so just like every other human being in North America today, let’s obsess about the eclipse!
I can’t report too much. Calgary was at like 80% coverage, but the sun being the sun, you couldn’t really tell too much. It got dim, but it certainly didn’t get dark.
I did risk the life of my phone camera, though, to bring you this:
There’s that 80%!
The good news for Calgary? The total solar eclipse on August 22, 2044, will pass right through Alberta. Assuming it’s not cloudy (and we’re still living in the same place), Nate and I will have a balcony view of it. Pretty snazzy!
Shake shake shake…shake shake shake…shake Montana…shake Montana!
Holy crap, we felt that Montana earthquake way up here!
Well, it sounds like some of us did, at least, according to r/Calgary.
I felt it.
I was sitting at my desk when I felt this very faint little tremble. At first I thought it was just the people downstairs and their freakishly loud/vibrating bathroom fan. Or a large truck in the parking lot. But the shaking was a little bit different than anything I’d felt before. I also noticed that the floor lamp next to the desk swayed ever so slightly for a few seconds.
I thought it felt like an earthquake tremor, even though I’d never felt one before.
But I didn’t think of it being from an earthquake so far away. In fact, I just Googled “Calgary earthquake” and “Alberta earthquake” about 10 minutes after it stopped to see if there had been any reports of a local earthquake.
Then I checked Facebook a few minutes later and noticed that one of my Moscow friends posted about feeling a tremor around that same time as well, which seemed really weird to me until I learned there was actually that big earthquake in Montana.
Strange.
First time feeling earthquake tremors!
HAPPY ‘MURICA DAY!
You know, say what you want about the United States, but its patriotic music is the best.
American Patrol by Frank W. Meacham
El Capitan by John Philip Sousa
The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa
The Star Spangled Banner performed by Whitney Houston
YAY USA!
Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t ca—OH GOD NOW HE’S MURDERING PEOPLE
An Ode to Garbage Weather and My Recently Deceased Umbrella
(to the tune of this part of the Pirates of the Caribbean music)
What in the fuck
is all this rain
It’s like it’s GODDAMN VANCOUVER
I’m not a duck
I hate the wet
I just want to be dry.
I should get home
but I cannot
Cause I just LOST MY UMBRELLA
It caught the wind
It flew away
It’s gone forever, goodbye.
True story.
Let’s Taco ‘Bout Love
Hi.
SO.
I mentioned this to Nate a while back, but I figured I’d put it on here, too, just so that I’d maybe actually follow through with it.
I’m going to be 30 next year, which is…weird.* But anyway, I thought it would be kind of a cool thing to take Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and re-write it so that it covers the events of the last 30 years. Partially because the original song covers about 40 years and I don’t want to wait another decade, and partially because I’d like the challenge of rhyming “fuck, we elected Trump” with something.
So yeah, I’m going to try to do that by this time next year! Hopefully we won’t get Trump’d in the meantime.
*It’s not bad, just weird. I don’t mind the idea of aging, I just don’t feel like I’ve lived for almost 3 decades. I feel like I’m still 19 or something.
Election Reaction: Day 2
Ugh.
So.
I had Trump’s victory speech on mute last night because I was trying not to flip out, but apparently it wasn’t the awful “I’m your dictator now, burn Hillary, burn the immigrants, launch nukes at Australia because an Aussie called me a bad name in a Tweet” type of speech that I was expecting.
And I know it’s not much, and I know it probably means absolutely nothing in the long run, but for now, I’m going to cling to that as a possible beacon of hope that this presidency isn’t going to be the train wreck that we all suspect.
Edit: NOPE nope NOPE nope NOPE nope NOPE nope NOPE nope NOPE nope NOPE nope
What the hell did we just do?
An accurate representation of what I was like as this calamity of a Presidential election unfolded:
Seriously though. I honestly didn’t think Trump had a chance in hell, and now it’s like 2 AM and he’s giving his little victory speech and I’m literally shaking.
What the hell is wrong with the United States?
(Sorry I don’t have more of a reaction. I’m just…shocked.)
Absent
ABSENTEE BALLOT, BITCHES!!
I know I can’t post a picture of the actual filled-out ballot, but surely this is okay, right?
Just doing my part in a very important election. Even though my vote won’t count because Idaho.
Wedding Pictures!
We got our official wedding pictures yesterday, so for those of you who aren’t on Facebook, have some pics of Nate and me getting married! (I didn’t include any with his family, ’cause I didn’t know if they’d feel comfortable being on some random blog.)
WEDDING
Guess who just got married?!
(Technically I’m writing this on the 1st, since I didn’t want to spend our wedding night blogging, but I’m totally counting it as my July 31st blog post. Fight me.)
It was a very wonderful day. The weather was being iffy, so we decided to just have the ceremony at the hotel rather than at the park as originally planned, but I think it was better this way. No hauling families to and from the park, no burning sun and/or thunderous storms, no people wandering through the ceremony while playing Pokemon Go.
The ceremony itself was awesome. My dad was super nervous walking me down the aisle, but he managed my veil without incident and didn’t pass out. Yay for dad!
The reception was nice, too. We had really good sorbet and super chocolatey wedding cake, then got a bunch of cool presents (and a whole ton of money).
Then Nate and I spent the night at the Kensington Riverside Inn, courtesy of my mom. It was super fancy.
I can’t believe how lucky I am to be married to such an amazing person. We are just right for each other, and I’m excited about spending the rest of our lives together.
(Wedding pictures will be posted on here once we get them from the photographer.)
Eigenblogger 