Remember last year?
This time last year we were in the throes of that horrible heat dome. Remember that? Remember how freaking terrible that was? Thankfully this summer (at least so far) has been much, much milder and way rainier. Hopefully that will help with the fire season later on in July and August. Hopefully BC won’t be one big blaze. Hopefully things will be relatively cool even in the later months of the season.
But I’m sure summers like last year will become more and more common…and that’s terrifying.
More Calgary Nonsense Posting
Check it, my dudes: Calgary has been ranked as one of the most livable cities in 2022.
Specifically, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has it ranked fourth. It’s the highest ranked of three Canadian cities on the list (the other two are Vancouver [BARF] and Toronto).
Edit: oops, it’s tied for third!
The Days are Getting Shorter Now
Ah, yes.
A whole ‘nother half-year of “each day my desire to die gets a little stronger.”
Flamin’ Moe’s
Me at the end of May: Hey, it’s finally warming up! I can’t wait for summer; it’s my favorite season. I’ll be sad when it’s winter again!
Me at the end of June: TURN THE FUCKING SUN OFF
True story.
(Also, joke’s on them – I’m sad every season.)
STROM
OH GOD IT’S STORMY HERE and I have to go for a run.
We’re on like maximum flood alert because there’s a chance the Bow might get a mega-surge of water from the mountains and from surrounding rainstorms.
Edit from later: that was a super windy run, but no Bow overflow!
‘Screen Time
Man, we can’t do anything without harming the planet, can we?
Here’s a list of some of the safer sunscreens. I should switch to one of these; I use a LOT of sunscreen.
Très bien!
Holy freaking crap, Duolingo is addictive. I wasn’t sure if I’d get into it, but I’m super invested, haha.
I know it’s not exactly the same as a language class, but it’s the best I can do right now. Maybe I’ll see if there are any free university-offered intro French classes anywhere.
WOO!
Ultimate Canadian Coins
I don’t care how exceedingly extravagant this is, these coins are beautiful.
My dad used to collect coins. He obviously couldn’t afford these, haha, but I wonder if he still pays attention to this kind of thing.
END!
CHIP
So the Bill Chipman Palouse Trail (the part of the pathway that connects Moscow and Pullman) is super boring to walk on. Whenever I come back to Moscow and need to get my walking miles, walking on the trail gets old pretty fast.
However, I am now back in Moscow for the first time since picking up running, and running on the trail is SO MUCH BETTER.
It’s flat, it’s smooth, and there are like five people on it at a time, which makes it way less busy than any trail up here. My current running distance doesn’t quite get me to Pullman from my mom’s house, but pretty close.
WOO!
Why do I do this?
Check these out:
What are they? They are 36 EMPTY parmesan cheese containers.
“But Claudia,” I hear you asking. “Why do you keep them if they’re empty?”
WHO
FUCKING
KNOWS
???
I just do. When I finish a container, I put just put it in the corner of the counter instead of washing it out and putting it in the recycling.
Because I’m that lazy.
But today I cleaned out all of these bros and threw them in the recycling bin because I am a GROWN ADULT.
Will I wait until there are another 36 of them to recycle? Probably. Because I am a GROWN ADULT who can make her own bad life decisions, thank you very much.
A LIST TO END ALL LISTS
(Not really.)
- Look at how good the color of these pants and the colors of these shoes go together. I dig it.
- I CANNOT WAIT TO GO BACK TO MOSCOW WLKERFJALFHFLHSDFLKDFJGDFLHG
- I’m also nervous about it. Mainly about the border. At least I’m not flying, eh?
- Ancestry now claims to be able to determine your “ethnicity inheritance,” showing which ethnicities come from which parent. My mom is so freaking European, haha.
- What is this and why is it hilarious?
- I’m glad I’m teaching in the summer this year and not the spring. I think it’s nicer to get a bit of a break directly after the winter semester as opposed to right before the fall semester.
END!
Quake and the world Quakes with you
So as you may know, I’ve gone back and forth about getting a tattoo, mainly because my interests are hard to tattoo and because I’d want to make sure it was something I really wanted to be permanently etched on my body.
I think, though, I’ve finally decided on what I would get: a tiny little Quake logo. Probably on my ankle.
Why?
- It’s easy to tattoo.
- On that part of my body, I could either cover it up or show it off, depending on how I was feeling.
- Quake is a very meaningful game to me for many reasons. It was one of the very first computer games I played as a kid and I continue to get tons of enjoyment from it even though I’ve played through it thousands of times.
- The game brings back a lot of memories.
- My little gaming nickname, Nailpit, comes from Quake. My favorite weapon was the Super Nailgun and so my little seven-year-old self thought Nailpit was a good derivative of that.
- With a tattoo, I’d always worry that the thing I’d get tattooed would eventually lose its meaning. I’ve enjoyed Quake for such a significant portion of my life that I don’t think such a worry applies.
Anyway.
GROW
So remember Captain Planet, my succulent? Remember how he looked like this back in July of last year?
Here he is now:
He’s so freaking big! I need to get him a bigger pot.
Brrrrrr
I got snowed on while running this morning and OH MY GOD I got so wet and cold.
You’d think we’d be snow-free near the end of April, right?
WRONG
Ugh.
Lean On Me, Dear Pine Tree
COOL TREE ALERT, COOL TREE ALERT!
Have you ever heard of Cook pines? While native to New Caledonia, these trees are now planted pretty much everywhere. One thing of interest about them is that they tend to have tilted trunks. I guess no one really thought too much about this until fairly recently (2017) when it was discovered that the tilt was actually rather specific. Namely, the trees tend to tilt towards the equator, leaning south in the northern hemisphere and leaning north in the southern hemisphere.
According to data collected by Dr. Matthew Ritter, a professor at California Polytechnic State University, the trees have an estimated average tilt of 8.55 degrees, which is approximately double the tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
That’s a steep tilt.
And it gets steeper the further away the trees are from the equator.
While other vegetation exhibits this tilting (such as cacti tilting towards the sun or flowers of Joshua trees pointing south, this is apparently the first documented case of an entire tree actively tilting. Some think it’s an adaptation for the trees to catch more sunlight at those more extreme latitudes (like the Joshua tree flowers).
Pretty cool, huh? Picture:
(Source)
RIP Good Winter Coat
So y’all know that orange coat that I brought way back when I moved here in 2014? The one that cost like $5 at Goodwill but has gotten me through eight hellish Canadian winters?
Yeah, he dead.
The zipper finally decided to BE FREE and, in my haste to repair it (since it’s still hella cold here), I made it so it couldn’t be anything BUT free and now it doesn’t zip at all.
So that blows.
But hey…eight years is a long time for me to have an article of clothing in which I walk. I am SUPER destructive with my walking clothes. You can see how bleached out this coat is. And it’s got a big hole in the back from thousands of miles of rubbing against my backpack.
RIP buddy, you were my warm winter friend.
Now I have to get a new coat before next winter, haha.
Y’ALL LIKE FLAGS????
I DO!!!!
I love this kind of stuff.
For some reason, I’d always thought that Canada had one of the rarer aspect ratios for flags, but I guess the US’s is rarer.
Nepal’s like “fuk yo rectangles.”
El Salvador’s like “fuk yo common denominators.”
Ankle Pankle
I think we’ve finally found a style that’s even more obnoxious than yoga pants: pants that are too short!
I get that there are certain pant styles that are designed to not go down past (or even to) your ankles. Culottes. Flood pants. Capris.
But holy hell, since we’ve gotten back to in-person classes, it seems like EVERYONE is wearing pants that just aren’t quite long enough. And half the time it doesn’t seem like an intentional pants style – they’re just too freaking short.
It looks terrible, in my opinion. I know everyone has their own style and all, but ew. It also seems incredibly uncomfortable. Calgary is cold; why do you want to have cold ankles?
Yes, this is me with my horrible fashion making fashion judgments. Fight me. AT LEAST MY ANKLES ARE WARM YOU SONS OF BITCHES
*deranged screeching*
That is all.
Angels We Have Feared on High
We all need more nightmare fuel, and what better nightmare fuel than BIBLICAL HORRORZ
I love the take that ophanim are just fuckin’ wheels. That’s great. No better way to pimp your ride than with angel wheels.
So this is still a thing
The Brick Testament was a website I frequented a lot back in…high school? I thought Bible + Legos was the best thing ever.
Turns out the site is still around (though with a slightly different name).
So if you want Bible stories delivered via Legos, check it out!
Stupid Claudia Stuff:
Do y’all ever feel bad for packaging designers? As in, the people/groups/committees in charge of creating the packaging for a product? In most cases, I suspect that people don’t pay much attention (if any) to the packaging and just want the thing inside it.
I mean, I get that much of the impact of an item’s packaging design is probably sub-conscious, but still…how would you feel if the thing you spent each of your working days conceptualizing, creating, and fine-tuning was often just torn asunder without a second thought or glance?
Think of something as mundane as batteries. What do we do when we buy a pack of batteries? We rip open that back slot thingy, grab however many batteries we need, and then we’re good.
Do we ever really look at the packaging itself?
Someone (or a group of someones) designed this. Someone sat down and conceptualized this design, then probably had it approved by one or more other people. Someone had to choose not only how the logo would be placed on the packaging but all the “vital” info as well, such as the battery size, bar code, and all of the safety/other info on the back.
Thought was put into it. Effort was put into it.
And how much do we consciously pay attention?
It makes me kinda sad.
Next time you buy a thing, take a moment to appreciate the packaging. Appreciate that effort and the human touch behind something that we often discard without a second thought.
Y’know what?
It’d be nice if it was WARM during any of my breaks.
Hell, it doesn’t even have to be warm. Just be above -20, please. That’s all I want.
Seriously. I was stuck inside for the WHOLE WINTER BREAK because it was consistently below -30 for like an entire month.
And now? It’s Reading Week and it’s ONCE AGAIN freezing cold out there.
Ugh. I just wanna run/walk outside while I don’t have to worry about getting back in time for lectures.
Rant over.
Eigenblogger 