I missed the Winter Solstice by a few days, but since Christmas has all but replaced it in modern Roman Empire times, this seems a good a day as any to wish one and all well at the end of the Gregorian year.
No tree or branches this year, but a stainless steel photo holder does the job when strung with lights.
But I’ll have a warm, green Christmas… 1
With P away, I wasn’t planning to the do the Xmas thing this year. But my hand was forced; there are several people in my megalab who aren’t going home or have any relatives in the US. Well, neither do I, but after three decades of commemorating an event I don’t even believe happened, it could have gone by without my being bothered. Ach well. It’s going to be an anti-Martha Stewart Christmas lunch from me. A last minute decision to have the lunch was sealed by the availability of one last honey-baked ham at… HoneyBake. It still amazes me that there’s a shop that specialises in honey-baked ham. It’s such an easy thing to do. Anyway, I’ll take the cop-out this year and not roast any ducks or geese. It’s just not cold enough to justify a full-on coma-inducing spread2.
I used to enjoy Christmas the most in Scotland. It was the jollility that started winter for me; an excuse to buy new gloves and scarves or add to the winter coat collection. But it’s not quite the same when you’re not marking the change of the seasons.
Also, I’m tired. I’m bone tired. I’ve had insomnia for a couple of months now. The sleep deprivation was not helped by the stress of getting P ready to go home. And now, chores that used to be shared by two have to be done on my ownsome. And the dog developed weird behavioural and gastrointestinal problems due to “separation anxiety”. Blimey, she’s definitely an LA dog. So, it’s understandable why I’m not feeling the festive cheer.
Also, the city is busy and yet deserted at the holidays. Whole Foods was absolutely mobbed with stressed-looking people. My cart and I were bumper car-ed all over the shop. What’s with the crazed food shopping before Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway? It’s not even like the supermarkets shut for the holidays. I can understand buying a crap load of potatoes and stashes of brussels sprouts to feed the army, but why the gallons of milk? Half of it will probably get poured down the drain. The whole wasteful nature of Christmas makes me very humbuggy. Bah.
I often wonder where all these people come from. Westwood is bereft of all its students. My neighbourhood of young couples is also empty; they’ve all gone to parents’ or in-laws’ for the holidays. The dog and I have met fewer people on the street since last week. It feels like a scene from I Am Legend, with a deserted city whose inhabitants come out only to… shop.
Incidentally, it’s nice to know I’m not alone. Happy Humbugs one and all.
1 Sorry Elvis…
2 Question on etiquette: Should I give presents to all my guests? I know some better than others and would rather avoid going down the box of chocolates route.
Why the sudden interest in air guitar? Is it a geek thing? Ah, no. It’s that bloody Guitar Hero game. That episode of South Park was hilarious1. And I thought this would be a geeky teenager sort of thing, but no… A couple of 30-something friends recently informed me that the game is awesome and a lot of fun. Next thing I know, the boss will be inviting us round to play Guitar Hero after the Christmas do. Blimey.
At any rate, I’ve been thinking of getting a real-live guitar for a while now. Or some other instrument to fill the small hole in my life that used to be plugged by bashing badly through some Mozart. It’s all very well going to concerts and enjoying listening to the truly talented. Somehow, that’s not as satisfying as playing your own crap, however sub-standard2. As much as I love the tinkle of the piano, it’s getting ridiculous: I have two pianos on two different continents. Do I seriously want a third that I can’t ship to wherever my next job is?
So, I’m thinking quite seriously of getting a slightly more portable instrument. In half-seriousness, I suggested a tuba to Mr P, but he has so far failed to respond positively. Don’t know why… Having spent an evening watching Evelyn Glennie’s mastery of the marimba, I was very tempted to give up science so I could play that beautiful instrument all day long instead. But cold logic prevailed. No marimbas3. Also left off the list are violins, violas, cellos and basses. Can’t do the circular breathing required for woodwinds and brasses4. Bongo drums might drive the neighbours bonkers. I would LOVE to play the timpani, but it only works in an orchestral setting. The current targets are the geetar and perhaps harmonica/s. Both can be fairly melodic and hopefully idiot-proof enough to entertain ourselves with. I’m planning to steal my dad’s new harmonica next time I see him. He doesn’t like it; says it’s too fancy, expensive and painful compared to the cheap ones of his childhood. So, assuming I see him in Bahrain in the next few months, that’s one instrument for the D&P band down. We’ll need another, slightly more rhythmic, sound-producer. The frontrunner is still the guitar.
Which leaves us with the dilemma of: acoustic or electric? Electric has one awesome advantage: less finger pain… And amps. I can finally own an amp. I’ve always wanted my own amp. Well. Somewhere on my long list of things I want anyway. Imagine the neighbours. Think of the poor neighbourhood dogs. Somehow, I think Mr P is going to sit on that idea for the sake of his sanity.
1 One of the few count-on-one-hand TV shows I’ve seen since the dog replaced TV in our lives. Watched it inna hotel-with-a-windmill in Solvang-the-fake-Danish-Californian-town, of all places. Weird life I lead.
2 A bashed-out Chopin or Mozart gives me a certain perverse pleasure. In fact, many of my happy music moments as a child were bastardising whatever music I’d been set to practice and rocking out on Mozart. Clearly, there was a rock/pop-deficiency that my subconscious was trying hard to fill.
3 Nobody tell Mr P, but his Xmas pressie, stuffed lovingly into his already overflowing suitcase is somewhat related. No fear of him reading this blog. In its entire life, he’s not even read a word. He doesn’t even look at the Flickr photos. That man really lives on his own island…
4 And yet I would like to try the tuba….
[to the tune of the jingle bells chorus]1
Is it cold, in the snow?
Have yer balls dropped off?
What is the temp’rature outside,
Are cow pats all frozen?
Hey!
It looks like, it will be
The warmest winter yet
In thirty years of history
You might not need a hat!2
2 Mr P informs me that it’s -5ºC and dropping. And how would he know that? Because Ms Awesome bought his parents a fanxy wireless weather station 3 years back…
There’s one day left to enter the raffle for this year’s Menu for Hope. $10 to obtain one raffle ticket with all proceeds will be going to a school lunch program in Lesotho.
My nearest “outpost” is posted at Rasa Malaysia1: West Coast of the USA.
It all looks really good, but I can’t decide which raffle to enter. Better get a move on though; less than 24 hours left!!
Update: Went the wine route… Figured since I spent so much on wine over the summer, I might as well continue the trend.
One minor quibble about the latest thing-that-used-to-be-thought-of-as-bad-for-you is actually good for you report. Since I can’t find the abstract online, the following quote will have to do:
A pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as an aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks.
Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from University of Wisconsin told a conference in the US.
So, they compared a pint of guinness to a pint of lager. First off, that’s already misleading because goodness knows what sort of effect lager has compared to say, water, or wine, or tea. Well, maybe somebody does know; I’m just too lazy to do the citation search right now. But to give them credit where it’s due, people are probably more interested in knowing the comparison in health benefits of the category of drink (although you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who swings between lagers and stouts that often).
Thinking some more1, it occurred to me that Guinness has an alcohol composition of anywhere from 4% to 7.5%, and lager, depending on brand, has the same range of alcohol content. Alcohol has known blood “thinning” effects. For the study to have been well-controlled, they would hopefully have used two drinks with the same alcohol content.
On the back of that, curiosity about sugar content (or calorie count) entered my mind, which led me to debunk my lifelong prejudice against Guinness. There’s very little difference in caloric content between Guinness and say, an American Budweiser2 of the same volume. If anything, draught Guinness has fewer calories than Budweiser per volume. The prevailing thought throughout Uni years was that a pint of Guinness was the equivalent of a Mars bar at nearly 300 kcal per regular sized bar. Turns out it’s only just over half of that at 170 kcal/pint.
Quibbles about the research aside, this report at least opened my eyes to one of my ill-conceived objections to Guinness. Now, if only they could do something about that nasty taste…
1 Yes, I’m work-avoiding again.
2 Not that I admit to drinking that insipid excuse for a beer.
The Trumptown saga continues.
What bothers me the most about the whole affair is the speed with which the Scottish government involved itself. The “call in” happened just a bit too fast to be due process. Surely some pressure was placed on them.
Having been in the US for a couple of years now, I think I can safely accuse the Americans of the bad practice of wanting everything done yesterday. Everything has to happen as fast as possible. Delays are always the fault of someone else slowing the process down. If the job is not done at superhuman speed, then someone must be deliberately sabotaging the process so the competitors can get ahead. Corners can be cut willy nilly to get the job done fast. And that’s in academia – historically one of the slowest fields. Imagine the speed of things in the heady world of property development. The Trump team will probably be a prime example of doing whatever it takes to close the deal asap. That’s not a surprise.
What is surprising is that the Scottish government feels the need to circumvent the usual appeals process and deal with the rejected plan so soon. It is surprising that they feel the need to accommodate the Trump team to the extent of not following procedure. The council must have rejected the property plan for good reasons. While I’ve not had a chance to find out what those are yet, if I were the Scottish government, I’d look into that first and ignore outside lobbying until they’ve had some impartial advice. In particular, the hurrying by the Trump team should not be heeded; Donald Trump’s spokesperson was quoted as saying:
“These attacks are more than misguided; they are malicious, inaccurate and potentially destructive and they threaten to once again endanger a £1 billion project which has the overwhelming backing of the North-east of Scotland.”
A cynic would read between the lines and translate their statement as a threat: “If you keep interfering with our deal, we’re taking it off the table and screw you silly Scots for not wanting our easy money.”
I say: ignore them. We expect our politicians to make their decisions:
“steadily, sensibly, never too quickly, never too slowly”
Q: When you go on a trip away from your family, do you:
B..bb..b..but I’ve only just watched The Runaway Bride!
Attempts to pace ourselves at one episode a week to eke the third series DVDs out failed miserably and we succumbed to watching Freema Ageyaman’s first episode.
Opening the book for bets on how many episodes I end up watching while Mr P is away home for 3 weeks while I’m stuck here doing crapass experiments. Starting bids?
Update: I see they were only having a laugh. Ha bloody ha.
Holyrood’s Donorgate has been superseded by the Trumptown affair . But that shouldn’t stop us from enjoying this montage tri(al)bute to Labour’s buck-stopper at Holyrood. (via Tartan Hero)
