Happy New Year

We are old. We are very, very old We are so old that we drank our New Year's champagne toast at 6 PM whilst watching the "special features" included in the deluxe version of season two of the TV series 24.

It gets worse.

The champagne has been sitting in our fridge since June. We meant to drink it in celebration of our anniversary, but we somehow forgot.

We have been invited out to play poker and make merry with our next door neighbours. They are lovely people. The other folks they invited are also lovely. We are too old for that, too.

Usually we feel positively sprightly, but not this year. We are only in our mid 50s, so there really isn't any reason at all to feel this way, but we do. It's been that kind of year.

At this point, I guess I should find a way to turn this entry around so I sound cheerful, hopeful, and maybe even funny. I can usually pull that off. Well, I might have been able to do it at 5:45, but now, after a single glass of champagne, I am feeling not just old, but also shnockered.

Yes, shnockered. I first learned that word from a woman friend of my mother's named Wanda. She drank something called an Old Fashioned. Her husband drank beer. She got tipsy. He got shnockered. My dad got plain old drunk, but we kids weren't supposed to know that.

In any case, I have had my one and only drink of the year, and I am ready to go to bed. I'll probably snore. I will also cuddle with the old guy I'm married to while I think about the good things that are no doubt ahead of us in the New Year. Before I close my eyes, I'll say a prayer or two.

There are so many people in this world that need to have a prayer said for them tonight. 

Happy New Year.

 

posted by taming at 18:55 | link | comments (5)|
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It's No Secret

I don't have any big secrets. I have no hidden past. I have no newsworthy, or in any other way exceptional, plans for the future. That being said, I still value my privacy.

Unfortunately, I seem to have less of that this year than last.

Last week, Privacy International released The 2007 International Privacy Ranking. It seems that whilst in Canada we still have some degree of privacy, we have dropped in the ratings over the past year from "Adequate safeguards against abuse" to "Some safeguards but weakened protections."

Out of 47 countries surveyed, only 12 shared this ranking, and only one, Greece, scored higher. The US and the UK both were ranked as being "Endemic surveillance societies." They colour that black on their privacy map, and there sure seems like a whole lot of that colour these days. The areas of the map that are gray were not surveyed.

 

The Canadian report can be found here. The highlights Privacy International identifies are:

• Privacy not mentioned in Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but courts have recognised the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy
• Statutory rules at the federal level (public and private sectors) and provincial laws apply to sectors and governments
• Federal commission is widely recognised as lacking in powers such as order-marking powers, and ability to regulate trans-border data flows
• Variety of provincial privacy commissioners have made privacy-enhancing decisions and taken cases through the courts over the past year (particularly Ontario)
• Court orders required for interception and there is no reasonable alternative method of investigation
• Video surveillance is spreading despite guidelines from privacy commissioners
• Highly controversial no-fly list, lacking legal mandate
• Continues to threaten new policy on online surveillance
• Increased calls for biometric documents to cater for U.S. pressure, while plans are still unclear for biometric passports

The US report is scarier. It can be found here.

I have no intention of ending 2007 on such a negative note, so you'll just have to check back sometime around midnight for a happier me. I promise, it won't be cupping notes on my latest coffee find.

 

posted by taming at 05:51 | link | comments |
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Spidey Nonsence

In the comments from yesterday's entry, Treshell included a link to a study that looked at how various chemical substances affect the way spiders spin webs. Web spinning and caffeine are apparently not a good combination.

I mentioned it to a friend, who sent me to a YouTube video, which although it does not match up with the serious scientific shtuff, is definitely a hoot.

Oh, and of course it is Canadian.

 

posted by taming at 14:15 | link | comments |
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Sneaky Time

It's early in the morning. I call this my sneaky time because it's just me, the cats, some tunes, and the first cup of coffee of the morning.

The music this morning is Patty Griffin, who recently received a well deserved Grammy nomination in the Americana category (which sure seems rockish-folkish to me). The coffee of the day is Nicaragua Matagalpa - Pacamara Peaberry, a wonderful bean that expands so much during roasting that I use 15% less, by weight, when I brew. It also seems to get stuck in my grinder, making me very glad I have removed the finger guard from my Rocky, and very careful about making sure that the power to it is off when I stick my mitts in it to get it going again.

Who knew that the simple act of drinking good coffee could be fraught with danger?

If the sun ever comes up again, you'll find me roasting in the garage today. Work has been so busy, and I am so tired by the time I get home, that I have taken to roasting just once a week. I do two roasts in a row, with the first one a bean that I like without much rest and the second a bean that comes into its own after three or four days sitting in its mason jar home.

A couple of friends have asked for coffee this week, so I may be doing some extra roasting. Actually, they didn't come right out and ask for it. After all, these are good friends and they know that roasting in my garage at -25 C/ -13 F is not the dancing in the grass activity that characterizes the act of turning green beans brown in the summer. They are also Canadian, and Canadians hint, but they do not ask.

It's cold enough that my friend Scott will not be receiving homeroast as a gift next week. He came out of the closet ( in his Macleans blog, no less) as a coffee hater recently. Normally, I would take that as a personal challenge and bombard him with vacuum packed bundles of various beans, but that will have to wait until spring.

On second thought, I may roast up a bit and send it to his mum, dad, and sister Jenny with strict instructions not so share it with the beastly boy. Gag, my ass.

 

posted by taming at 05:45 | link | comments (4)|
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My (very short) Life of Crime

When I was very, very little, I went into McLeans department store with my mother at Christmas time. When she wasn't looking, I took Baby Jesus. I also took a chocolate bar from the neighbourhood store at around that age, but as Baby Jesus didn't leave a tell-tale brown ring around my mouth, I almost got away with it.

I think it was my grandmother who first noticed that Baby Jesus was sitting on the shelf next to Poor Pitiful Pearl and turned me in to my parents.

Now, when I took the chocolate bar, my folks made it into a great moral lesson and I had to apologize to the store owner and pay for the stolen candy from my birthday money. I also had to swear to never, ever take anything that didn't belong to me.

Clearly this did not work. After all, I ended up stealing Baby Jesus.

In this instance, there was no family parade into the store manager's office. I think my family feared the small town newsworthiness of a five year old Jewish girl stealing the saviour. Instead my grandfather, who was known far and wide for his magic tricks, was pushed into sneaking Baby Jesus back into the crèche.

He was successful, and that was the end of my life of crime.

I hear that these days they are equipping some of the Baby Jesus figures with GPS devices. It's probably a good idea. Apparently not everyone who takes them is a sticky fingered little girl.

I wonder if she will get a spanking. I know I did.

 

posted by taming at 05:05 | link | comments (3)|
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