Oct 15 2024 - Dog News Today

 

Yes, there is are google headlines for "dog news today".  It isn't all good news - but we won't dwell on that.  And it is today's news.   I don't know if dog news is a recent regular item. Pet ownership is up almost 20% over pre-pandemic levels.  The increase in the US is from 38% to 45% of households.  Cats are more popular as well.  In Canada 77% of Canadians have a pet - that includes cats and dogs.  In Canada 33% own dogs.  In Britain it is 36%. So I guess that's a sizeable audience for dog news.  I get the sense that Britain does more fun things with their dogs.  The BBC has a few articles on the dog event in Sandford Parks Lido (that's British for a public, open-air swimming pool or beach). This is swimming pool is open for the last two weekends of the season to dogs. Then the pool is drained for the winter.  Lots of pictures of Australian Shepards, Labs, and Retrievers.  More than 1,000 dogs took part.  I guess that accounts for the multiple articles - very cute pictures.  Millie hasn't shown interest in swimming pools - she goes to the edge.  Spaniels are supposed to love the water and swimming.    I haven't found out if she might like Lake Ontario - as we haven't gone for a walk at Charles Daley Park in the summer. That's prime time for the Watering can where she gets the hundred hugs from all the customers. And I doubt Millie would be interested in the Lake in winter.  I could find out if she's a swimming dog -   our own Horseshoe area has dog swimming pools.  K9 Fun Zone looks like an excellent choice as it has pictures of dogs in the pool. Lots of dogs and lots of pictures.  They are always cute. This is my idea of a pool - perfect for abstract aqua photographs.

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Oct 14 2024 - Snowbird Burdens and Blues

 

It is the season of Snowbird Sob Stories. There are up to 500,000 such stories - that's the number of Canadian homeowners in Florida.   The Friday CBC call in show at noon had the topic of snowbirds and Florida after the hurricane. I wanted to boo-hoo for them and the increase in costs of insurance and house repair.  There is a sense of people living in a fantasy realm where things should be as they want them to be.  Perhaps there is some kind of  snowbird mental freeze.  Like eating ice cream too quickly.  But wait.  The Globe and Mail pops up with a story today that gives me a formal term that might apply here - Kayfabe.  What is kayfabe?  It is a professional wrestling term for staged performances that are combined with real wrestling to give an illusion that everything is real.  It is compared with the "fourth wall" in acting.  As in the "suspension of disbelief".  Maybe Kayfabe applies to quite a few things. Here's the headline that backs me up: "Kayfabe in Postmodernist Heterotopic Society" "Postmodernism challenges traditional narratives and structures, emphasizing the fluidity of meaning and the constructed nature of reality. Heterotopia, a concept introduced by Michel Foucault, refers to spaces that exist outside of regular societal norms, where alternate realities or truths coexist. In today’s postmodernist heterotopic society, kayfabe becomes increasingly relevant as the lines between reality and fiction blur." I think this is a word that is going to get a lot of use.     I found this picture of Niagara-on-the-Lake in Autumn.  I can see the street sign - Gage Street.  This is one of the pretty streets there.  I had to remove all the poles, etc.  And in doing that we can live in the illusion of an old-fashioned town, where things are simpler and calmer.

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Oct 13 2024 - Pumpkin Pie Wars

 

Who would guess that even Thanksgiving can give way to wars?  Yes, there are Pumpkin Pie Wars. What makes for Pumpkin Pie Wars?  There was a so-called pie war in 2014 between two bakeries in Cincinnati over billboards and their placement right next to each other.   Then there's a TV move in 2016 named Pumpkin Pie Wars - that's a Hallmark moment, so don't expect any fighting.  Maybe a pie fight.   Historically, the Civil Qar had a stand-off between South and North over pumpkin pie. There was no pumpkin pie in the South and they considered this a cultural domination.  Making Thanksgiving a permanent holiday was seen by prominent Southerners as a culture war - that was in the 19th century.  When it comes to dominance, there's no argument over the largest pumpkin pie in the world - 3,699 pounds in New Bremen, Ohio.  It was 20 feet in diameter.  What did their recipe have?  Canned pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin spice. Looks like a traditional pumpkin pie.   In relation to the largest pie records, this pumpkin pie is far behind.  The world's largest meat pie weighed 23,237 pounds, made in Stratford-up-Avon College in the UK.  And the world's largest cherry pie, in 1990, came in at 37,713 pounds and a diameter of 20 feet.  That was in B.C.  Shouldn't the largest pie be an apple one?  Yes - 40,000 pounds in 1997 in Wenatchee Valley in Washington.  Given these are foods to be eaten, you can imagine what they taste like.  Even participants involved in "building" the pies said they tasted poor.    This is a silly Millie puppy image. Just popped in a new background so we can have a Happy Thanksgiving card.

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Oct 12 2024 - Famous Last Lines

 

We know quite a few great first lines of books.  They are often repeated in articles I read. What are the great last lines? We all know this one - so often quoted - ''It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."  That's Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities. And of course this one from A Christmas Carol - perhaps the most famous last one in our time: Tiny Tim's prayer, “God bless us everyone.” I went looking for more famous last lines and found an outstanding Washington Post article HERE.  The article's author, Ron Charles, provides an insightful paragraph about each novel and its last line. Here is what I've selected: “I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,”  by Mark Twain (1884) “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” “The Great Gatsby,”  by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) “Are there any questions?” “The Handmaid’s Tale,”  by Margaret Atwood (1985) “After all, tomorrow is another day.” “Gone With the Wind,”  by Margaret Mitchell (1936) “He loved Big Brother.” “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” by George Orwell (1949)   Remember this?  Found it at Brock University's Performing Arts School and turned it into this black dn white woodcut.

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Oct 11 2024 - More Beef Feet

 

As we know, our every search and click is being tracked.  We may have special filters and blocks, but that doesn't seem to matter. What more perfect and hilarious a way to have this brought home  than this picture below - an ad on Bing yesterday morning, after I sent out the photo of the day on the topic of dwindling cow numbers in the future. I hope they are padded so that people can see these clearly.  Walking around the meat department in the grocery store. I am calling these beef feet? Then I find out that beef feet are a food dish: "Rich in zinc and magnesium, cow trotters stew helps boost the immune system to fight illness. Phosphorus helps the body build healthy bones and teeth, while selenium is a powerful antioxidant that helps boost the immune system." "Cattle hoof and feet (trotters). Cow's trotters do not contain any muscles or meat; other than bones and toe hoof, it mainly consists of skin, tendons and cartilage." Do you think the ground beef socks are slightly less shocking?  And what about those moo socks at the bottom?   So on we go... crossing that bridge as we come to it.   What will Bing tell me about today on this meat theme?    It wants me to know the surprising way chefs know when stake is done cooking.  That's the beef story of the day.  No wait here's another:  "Is bringing meat to room temperature before cooking - myth or a mus..." But today's best story in the crazy category is this: the Globe and Mail has a story of a woman outside of Seattle who called 911 because her yard had been invaded by almost 100 raccoons.  She had been feeding them, and they seemed to accumulate in numbers and aggressiveness, causing her "to flee."

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