good weekend

other than the chest cold :-)

Saturday we arose long before dawn to get the boy up and dressed for his soccer tournament. Dropped him off at the school bus, spun past Tim Hortons, and watched the sun rise somewhere around the QEW and Ford Drive. Fortunately, the day was sunny and warm. The kids played four awesome games, and BVG ended up winning the first ever Under 10 “C” tournament! This was the first year they had enough “C” teams for a tournament; in previous years they’ve had to mix the “C” and “B” teams into a single tournament. Naturally the kids were very excited…

After that, we dropped by the Dyments farm near Dundas to select pumpkins. Of course we had to ride the haywagon, and play in the hay fort, and run through the corn maze… fun was had by all.

As if that wasn’t enough to cram into a single day, we then flew home to Fairview Mall to watch Wallace and Grommit (and yes, the adults laughed at all of the adult-only jokes. “May contain nuts” indeed :-).

Unfortunately, all of that running around left us tired and grumpy, and we had a group fight before bed. Other than that, a perfect day…

Today was pumpkin carving, and a spot of laundry, and lawn mowing, as October continues to be unseasonably warm. And with the time change, I hope we won’t have trouble getting out of bed on Monday, for a change!

posted at 6:59 pm on Sunday, October 30, 2005 in Personal | Comments Off on good weekend

car update

So the car wasn’t stolen after all.

The night guy at the parking lot realized that he still had a key and a car, so he locked the key in the little safe in the booth, called his boss, and headed home.

The boss concluded that while nobody was at the lot, Michaela would have arrived at her car, found no key, and headed for home some other way. In an unusual display of customer service, he came downtown, retrieved the car key, and parked our car in an underground lot across the street so that it would not get broken into or stolen. (Oh, the irony :-)

He fetched the car this morning, so when Michaela drove up in her rental car she found our missing car right where she had left it…

It could be argued that the parking attendant should have left a note or something. However, his intentions were good, and apart from some _panic_ on our part, nothing is damaged or broken; all in all, a happy ending.

posted at 3:32 pm on Thursday, October 27, 2005 in Personal | Comments (3)
  1. David Brake says:

    Glad to hear you caught a break after all. Yay!

  2. Debbie says:

    Eek, glad the car wasn’t stolen after all. What about the bogus Visa charges? Were you able to get them reversed?

  3. Harald Koch says:

    The Visa charges were reversed; the onus is now on the merchant to prove that the charges were legitimate. Apparently they’ve agreed that fraud was involved, but I haven’t been able to track down any more details.

standing out from the herd

Apparently we’ve been Noticed.

Last month a bunch of fraudulent charges showed up on my Visa card, and I was forced to replace it.

Last night, one of our cars was stolen from a downtown parking lot.

Where is my herd, and how can I go hide back in the center?

posted at 11:02 am on Thursday, October 27, 2005 in Personal | Comments (1)
  1. Jeff K says:

    You can do something about this. We write software to prevent this sort of thing. We are expanding — encourage some developers not to move to a cesspit of deficits and paranoia, come here and starve trolls instead.

combover

Did you know that in 1977, a U.S. Patent was issued for the combover? Yes, it’s true, “Patent 4,022,227 – Method of concealing partial baldness”:http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,022,227.WKU.&OS=PN/4,022,227&RS=PN/4,022,227 was issued to Frank and Donald Smith, of Orlando, FL.

I read about it at Damien Katz: Combover where there’s also a link to Combover: The Movie…

posted at 9:15 pm on Monday, October 17, 2005 in Humour, Links | Comments Off on combover

Damien Katz: Who moved my Hasselhoff?

Who knew that the fortunes and misfortunes of America were directly tied to the television career of David Hasselhoff?

Now you too can read all about it at Damien Katz: Who moved my Hasselhoff?

posted at 9:09 pm on Monday, October 17, 2005 in Humour, Links | Comments Off on Damien Katz: Who moved my Hasselhoff?

EBEs

bq. I’m sure if there’s something out there they’re wise enough to stay away from us.

— Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime Lab

posted at 2:53 pm on Monday, October 17, 2005 in Miscellaneous | Comments Off on EBEs

change

bq. Change is mandatory, survival is optional; choose wisely!

atrributed to François Tavenas, but I think it’s actually older…

posted at 2:40 pm on Monday, October 17, 2005 in Miscellaneous | Comments Off on change

life imitates art

In a wonderful parody of art, an expert conman has disappeared with more than €5 million by persuading banks that he was a secret service agent investigating terrorist money-laundering:

Banks caught by €5m spy sting

posted at 3:09 pm on Friday, October 14, 2005 in Current Events | Comments Off on life imitates art

they killed jack-fm?

What happened to jack-fm? Since Friday there’s been nothing but music, commercials, and those inane “we play what we want” snips. What happened to the personalities? What happened to the *news, weather, and traffic*, for goodness sake?

Grr.

posted at 2:44 pm on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 in Personal | Comments Off on they killed jack-fm?

how to wave your arms around a lot

tremble.com: we clap on the downbeat

posted at 12:07 pm on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 in Humour, Links | Comments Off on how to wave your arms around a lot

7 Habits of Highly Successful People.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.

posted at 12:06 pm on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 in Humour, Links | Comments Off on 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.

How to Sell a Bulldozer

Andrei Zmievski: How to Sell a Bulldozer

posted at 12:05 pm on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 in Links | Comments Off on How to Sell a Bulldozer

WordPress 1.5

The upgrade to WordPress 1.5 was painless. I had to:

* backup :-)
* install the new version
* run the database upgrade script
* get a new version of the textile 2 plugin
* copy my old index.php etc. files into a theme directory, edit them, and activate the theme

That last step took most of the time, but it now seems that the old blog and the new blog look the same, so…

tah-dah!

posted at 6:01 pm on Monday, October 03, 2005 in Site News | Comments Off on WordPress 1.5

Timeline for Unfolding Crisis of Mankind

Interesting description of near-future events:

deconsumption: Timeline for Unfolding Crisis of Mankind

via “How to Save the (World”:http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/10/01.html#a1290)

posted at 10:46 am on Monday, October 03, 2005 in Links | Comments (2)
  1. Greg says:

    Have you read Diamond’s “Collapse” yet?

  2. Jeff K says:

    Well the one thing he said about northern residents perhaps migrating south caught my eye. I’ve been wondering how the average household will deal with doubled natural gas prices this coming winter. The ideas that come with the gas bill are all really lame.