The temperature is rising, the snow is melting, the ice is breaking, we had an early April shower last night, there are crocuses in our garden and a flock of Canadian geese flew overhead as I walked to the train station this morning. Yes, I think spring has sprung.

That doesn’t mean we won’t get another big dump of snow before the end of the month, but it’s a start.

In other news, the fifth Skeptics’ Circle is now online over at Science and Politics.

Oh, and I just heard that they’re closing all the streets in the downtown core today to fix all the potholes, so leave your car at home!

Everyone talks to Jen. I’m not just talking about friends in social situations, I mean anywhere and everywhere. For example we went to the dep to get the Saturday paper at the weekend, and the guy behind the counter immediately launched into a conversation with Jen about the weather. If we’re in a bar and there’s an obnoxious drunk around, he will talk to Jen. We could be sitting in a restaurant eating a meal and someone at the next table will start talking to Jen. In line-ups, walking down the street, in shopping malls, on aeroplanes, at gas stations, in the cinema, in public bathrooms (so I’ve been told), in the doctor’s waiting room. Wherever we are, some random person will always talk to Jen.

Nobody talks to me.

So what’s that all about then? What makes Jen irresistably approachable and me so avoidable? Is it simply a gender thing? Does being female automatically make you more approachable? I think that might be partially true, but it’s not the whole story. I think Jen has an open and honest face. She smiles a lot and is completely non-threatening. She also probably maintains better eye contact than I do. When a conversation does start up, she has more to say than I do.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be like Jen, I think I would get annoyed very quickly if random people kept talking to me wherever I went. It would be nice though, occasionally, to be sitting somewhere and have someone strike up a conversation with me.

I’m an expert at projecting the “leave me alone, don’t talk to me” aura, which is very useful sometimes, but I’d also like to be able to project the “ok I’m a bit bored and wouldn’t mind a bit of a chat” aura. How does one do that?

The Kyoto Protocol came into effect today. If you’re in Canada, go take the One Tonne Challenge and see what you can do to be a greener consumer.

As the observant among you might have noticed from the sidebar, I’m reading The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore at the moment. Perusing his website I came across this quote in his blog which I liked so much I had to share.

Well, having done a whole bunch of research for a Jesus book that I wrote a few years ago, and therefore knowing that Christmas has nothing whatever to do with the historical birth of Christ, I’d have to say that the best way to honor the “meaning” of Christmas is with a spirit of peace, generosity, and forgiveness, because these are things the man for whom the holiday is named stood for. Of course that was before he became a Republican. Evidently now he just wants to bomb the bejeezus out of Iraq and keep Gay people from getting married.

It’s getting to the coldest part of the year now here in Montreal. Today we officially hit -40 with the wind chill. Wickedly cold; my dangly bits nearly froze off on the way to the train station this morning.

Even though I’ve been here for five years now, it still maintains some of the novelty value it had when I first arrived. It’s still bizarre to feel your snot freeze with the first intake of air through your nose. I still see how long I can go without blinking before my eyeballs start frosting over. The pain and numbness of my cheeks and toes still hold a certain fascination. Jen thinks I’m insane. Most Montrealers probably agree. Maybe I’ll be like them in another five years.

A follow-up to my previous post. This article illustrates my point perfectly:

A 10-year-old British schoolgirl saved the lives of hundreds of people in southern Asia by warning them a wall of water was about to strike after learning about tsunamis at school.

She learned the warning signs of an impending tsunami in her geography class. Predictions based on hard science leave the kooky stuff standing.

Jen and I don’t do new New Years Eve. No parties. No kissing and hugging a hundred people. No champagne. Instead we just stayed home, watched Regis (get well soon Dick!), drank tea, watched the ball drop, kissed each other, and went to bed. The perfect end to the year.

So what did we achieve in 2004? Well we had an amazing honeymoon. We painted the bathroom and survived. We got someone else to paint the rest of the house. We became bloggers. Jen became a blog addict. We gained a nephew. We made some new friends. We hosted a Lord of the Rings marathon. I cooked some new things. We bought new rugs (they really tie the rooms together) and new furniture. We hosted and played many pub quizzes but hardly won any. I managed to grow a few vegetables and Jen filled the garden with many pretty flowers. I wrote and implemented a web based purchasing card management system. Jen sold lots of cards. We did our bit to try to stop the re-election of war-mongering religious nutjobs. We failed. We gave as generously as we could to worthy causes. We arranged and executed a pretty damn good Christmas dinner.

Yep, that’s about it. Oh and we procrastinated about stuff. A lot.

Happy new year everyone. Let’s hope this one is a little more peaceful and enlightened.

My post the other day about what to call the winter solstice celebration got me thinking about all the other traditions I’ve grown up with at this time of year. How many of them have roots in Christianity? I dug around a bit and here’s what I found:

• December 25th – JC’s birthday? Well maybe, but the evidence seems to say probably not. That date was chosen to coincide with the pagan festivals happening in Germany and other places in Europe.
• Christmas Trees – The idea of hacking down a tree and putting it in your house also seems to come originally from those ubiquitous pagans, the only difference is the type of tree used. Regardless, the tree has no obvious Christian symbolism.
• Christmas lights – Edward Johnson, an employee of Thomas Edison, was the first person to put (electric) lights on a tree. He was an engineer, and therefore probably just did it because it was cool; symbolism be damned.
• Mistletoe – Yeah yeah, pagans again. Oh, and druids.
• Santa Claus – He has many aliases, but they all point back to Saint Nicholas. Yes he was sainted, but it seems to me he was just a nice guy who liked to give stuff to kids. That takes care of gift giving too.
• Holly – This one seems to be Christian; the leaves are the crown of thorns, the berries are JC’s blood. Oh well, we never had holly anyway.
• Rudolph – This one was invented by an advertiser in 1939. Advertisers don’t do symbolism.
• Yule Log – Burning the log gave eternal life to sun worshippers apparently. Maybe the ash had a high SPF.
• Mince Pies – No idea where these came from, but they taste good so I’m going to carry on making and eating them.

So apart from the holly, nothing inherently Christian there. I don’t see any problem with having nicely wrapped copies of The Origin of Species under your beautifully decorated tree, or a menorah next to it.

It’s December, so it’s time to get festive. I’ve created a garishly colourful theme for my blog, just click on holidays under switch themes on the right to use it. When the retina burn gets too much, you can switch back to the default.

Tonight at 5:30 the people of Canada are uniting against Gee Dubya Bush. In Montreal the gathering starts at Dominion (aka Dorchester) Square. If you disagree with his policies of intolerance, warmongering, restriction of freedom and religious fundamentalism then get out there and add your voice to the crowd.

Blork have announced the November Monkey, called “Border Stumbles”. I can’t decide which story to offer, so I’ll do both:

1) After a very eventful trip to Norway one December (which is another long and intriguing story in itself) we ended up in Calais, France, catching a ferry to Dover, England. We’d spent the past 10 days eating, sleeping, and smoking illicit substances in my friend Philip’s Golf GTI, so the inside of the car had an interesting aroma, and the two of us looked quite unkempt. Of course, arriving in Dover the customs man signalled us to pull over. As soon as I wound down the window, his nose wrinkled. He asked us where we’d been, and I reeled off a list of countries and cities. As soon as I said Amsterdam, he said “step out of the car please”. Four customs officers ripped our car apart, including tearing into a petrol soaked fruit cake (don’t ask) they found in the back. They then took us to separate rooms, and strip-searched us, with not quite the full rubber glove treatment, but close enough. After finding nothing they begrudgingly let us go.

2) Jen and I were driving down to Vermont for the weekend, and because I’m not a Canadian citizen, we had to stop at the border for me to get a visa waiver. The first weird thing to happen was when the customs officer discovered I was British and asked “Oh, do you like fox hunting?” Well of course, every Brit keeps a pack of hounds handy in case there’s a fox to tear apart. The second annoyance was that they had started charging $6 for the visa waiver. Neither of us had cash, so I had to walk back to Canada to get some from the duty free shop. Nobody stopped me from doing that by the way. The final oddity was while waiting for the one-finger-typist officer to enter my details (into an Excel spreadsheet no less), I noticed a small piece of paper by the keyboard with a list of words on it. I’m pretty sure it was a list of the passwords for their computer system…

Christmas has been on my mind lately, possibly because it’s less than a month away. I’ve been trying to decide what I want to call this time of year. In England this was never a problem, everyone called it Christmas and I never thought twice about it. We heard rumours that those silly Americans called it “the holidays” but that was dismissed as another one of those vulgar Americanisms.

Now though, I’m not so sure. Why should I keep calling it Christmas when I’m not a Christian? Why risk offending those with other belief systems? I’ve tried avoiding that by calling it Xmas, but Xmas comes from the Greek for Christ starting with X so that’s no good. I thought about referring to it as the Winter Solstice, but scientific as that might be, it has a definite new-age sound to it. So it looks like I’m stuck with “the holiday season” which is bland and ambiguous and has a similar effect on me as fingernails on a blackboard. Oh well.

Toilet paper manufacturer ShitBeGone (love that name) are refusing to sell their products to the red states, and giving discounts to blue staters (and I guess Canadians?). Here’s part of their statement:

We cannot in good conscience do business with states which have made an informed choice to actively sponsor war and terrorism. Nor can we support the Red States’ decision to affirm and expand policies of official bigotry and denial of human rights, up to and including false imprisonment and torture, against ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities in the Red and Blue States and abroad.

I think it’s wonderful to see companies like this backing up their beliefs with firm action, I hope more companies will follow this lead. Oh, and their toilet paper is made from 100% post-consumer recycled materials. I like this company.

As part of McGill’s Centraide campaign, there is a silent auction being held on the 6th floor of the Bronfman building (1001 Sherbrooke West) this afternoon from 4 until 6.

I went to this last year, and went a bit bid crazy, spending much more than I had planned to. I came away with:

• 1 year membership to the Morgan Arboretum
• A voucher for a local florist
• A Master and Commander book and poster set
• Schott’s Original Miscellany
• A gym locker bag
• A basket of girly smelly stuff

And that’s just the stuff I had the highest bid on, I can’t remember what else I placed bids on…

So come along, it’s fun, there is beer, you might pick up some Xmas/Hannukah/Other presents, and it’s for charity!

Some random bits and pieces:

I’m sick. Again. Two colds in less than a month is just a tad annoying. So I’m off work today, lazing around the house in my dressing gown and wooly socks. I’m blaming Sahfi, my evidence being that she hugged me. Twice.

Talking of Sahfi, the weekend was fun. We stayed up far too late on Thursday night when they arrived, talking about politics and toilet stuff (why do our conversations always come around to toilet stuff?) My first impression of Michael was “wow, he’s tall”. He’s very pleasant though and his music is quite cool. They disappeared for most of the rest of the weekend but on Sunday we watched Kill Bill V1 together, after which Jen had to rush out to the video store to get Kill Bill V2. In between the two we had a not bad dinner of fish and chips (my deep-frying skills need some fine-tuning). The movie (it’s one big movie really) is awesome, Quentin is a twisted genius.

Last night was a late one at the McKibbins quiz. The regular quizmaster Sean was sick so Steve handled it all on his own. We did meet up with the folks from CheeseOrgy and some of their friends including Procrasto, a very nice bunch of people who smoke too much. I was already starting to get sick, so I involved myself in conversation even less than I usually do. And I managed to knock over a pint of Guinness. Doh. And we sucked at the quiz. Doh.

The recent political tragedy got me thinking about the influences that have shaped my beliefs. What brought me to my current beliefs? Am I an independant thinker or just another member of the flock?

First I need to look at what I believe. Politically I’m somewhere around the centre, leaning slightly to the left on most issues except perhaps economy. I’m a skeptical rationalist and a strong atheist. I believe people should be free to marry or not marry whoever they choose regardless of gender. I’m not a racist or a homophobe. I’m a strong believer in free speech and freedom of expression. I’m pro-choice. I’m a pacifist and see peaceful negotiation as the primary solution to conflict, but accept that war is sometimes inevitable.

So where did all that come from? My parents? Well I never really had political conversations with them. To be honest I’m not entirely sure where they stand either politically or religiously. They chose to have me christened, probably more out of a sense of duty than any religious conviction. I have vague memories of being sent to Sunday school, but that was probably just to give my mum a morning off. So no, I don’t think I’ve been significantly influenced by my parents.

What about my peers? I grew up in a very white neighbourhood, mostly working to middle class. The norm there was racism, sexism and homophobia but somehow I managed to avoid most of that influence. None of my friends were overtly religious, but they weren’t overtly atheist either. Politics was rarely discussed at all. Throughout my life I’ve had friends spanning the full spectrum of political beliefs but none of them have had a dramatic influence on me. I married a lefty liberal, but her political beliefs are very low down on the list of reasons I’m with her.

Is it society in general? Society has certainly become more tolerant in recent years (although the past few days feel like things are going backwards again) so has that made me more tolerant? If I’d been born 400 years ago would I be a racist homophobic witch hunter? I’m sure I’ve been influenced by society, by the media, by societal norms but obviously only certain aspects of it have influenced me. I can choose which parts of society I want to accept.

I’ve certainly been influenced by the people around me in some way, but I like to think I’ve been able to make my own independant choices. I left a place rife with racism with a bit of residual racism in me but I knew how wrong that was and I made the effort to overcome it. I examined religion and decided it wasn’t for me. Nobody ever said to me “you must be an atheist, it’s the only way.” Nobody has ever spent time indoctrinating me into believing there is no creator; in fact the opposite has happened more often. I made my decision on my own using the information I had at my disposal.

The ongoing experiment this past few months has been my hair. It started from being too lazy to go to the hairdresser, then turned into “hey, let’s see what happens if I let it grow.” I decided to leave it over the winter, giving my head protection from the cold. Winter hasn’t started yet and it’s already getting annoying, so I’m not sure if I’m going to make it. It gets in my eyes, I’m constantly brushing it away from my face. I have to blow dry it in the morning so it doesn’t freeze on the way to the train station. Anyway, for those of you who haven’t seen me for a while, I’m the hippy on the left in that picture.

I’m sick. It started around Tuesday when the virus started gently scratching the back of my throat with a delicate fingernail. It stayed that way for a few days until yesterday when it launched itself into a full-blown mucus-fuelled sinus nightmare. Yuck. Oh well, at least I have a new toy to play with.

It’s autumn in Montreal, a beautiful time of year which has its good points and not so good points.

The leaves on the trees turn to dazzling shades of yellow, orange and red. In the forests it gives a kind of tapestry effect with the bright fall colours intermingled with the evergreens. Of course those leaves eventually fall, making crispy carpets on the ground which have to be raked up or otherwise dealt with by us home-owners else we get ostracized from our community.

Autumn is also the time of year when we get crisp clear skies which are stunningly blue, a perfect backdrop for those leaves I just talked about. Of course along with those clear skies comes lower temperatures and that hint of winter just around the corner.

I never really appreciated autumn until I came to Montreal but now it’s probably my favourite season. Apart from the raking.

I have to congratulate CBC who have made the very smart decision to start supporting streaming OGG Vorbis format for listening to CBC Radio from the website. Not only that, but they also have instructions on the listening page for listening from unix/linux systems!

Congratulations CBC for supporting open source, patent-free software solutions.

I drink tea. I drink it quite a lot. I never quite made the conversion to coffee. I enjoy a cup of coffee occasionally, but you can’t beat a good hot cup of tea. So, here are some tea facts for you:

Unpruned, a tea bush (actually a tree) can grow to 30 feet tall.

India is the worlds largest tea producer.

A wet teabag on an insect bite is said to relieve swelling and irritation.

Tea drinking has been shown to have cancer prevention properties, help fight cardiovascular disease, and regulate blood pressure.

The correct method for making tea (according to me): Warm a tea pot and put a spoonful of tea in for each cup, plus ‘one for the pot’. Pour on an appropriate amount of boiling (note boiling, not just hot, or even very hot, I mean boiling, meaning the kettle has just at that moment boiled, not a few minutes before). Put the lid on the pot, and a nice decorative tea cozy and let the tea steep for a few minutes. Finally, give the pot a quick stir and pour the tea into cups (fine china cups with handles you can’t fit your finger through on delicate saucers ideally). Add milk and sugar as desired.

Now, the quick method for making tea: Stick a teabag into a big mug that you can grip in a manly way, pour on boiling (yes it still has to be boiling) water, leave for a bit, stir for a bit, take out the teabag, add milk and sugar as desired.

If anybody in the UK wants to send me some McVities Digestives to enjoy with my tea I would be forever in their debt.

Went to the dentist for my six month checkup today. She poked around in my mouth, scraped away a bit of plaque, sand-blasted my teeth with pumice powder and declared my teeth a glory to behold.

Last time I visited her, she told me to hold my bottom lip down when I brush there because apparently I have strong lip muscles that try to push my toothbrush out (I always knew I had muscles somewhere). Apparently I’ve been doing it right.

This time she told me I’ve been missing a spot at the back of my bottom teeth. It seems because I’m right handed my toothbrush never reaches the back-bottom-right bit. I now have to hold my toothbrush upright in line with my nose to reach those hard to reach places.

I have a delightful, completely non-scary dentist, so if anyone needs a referral let me know, because I get a $25 gift voucher as a finders fee!

Blork Blog’s theme for this month’s monkey is “Pitch your life!”. Let’s see if I can do this:

Adolescence: A mixture of Grange Hill (Gripper Stebson was at my school) and Weird Science (if it was possible, we would’ve done it)

The middle years: A little bit of Bottom without the gratuitous violence, a touch of Sneakers without the lets-guess-the-password-on-the-2nd-try syndrome and a sprinkling of Men Behaving Badly, sadly without Leslie Ash.

Present day: The Good Life (no animals though) meets The Savages (no children though (yet))

Rand Corporation were obviously way ahead of their time when they came up with this. I really need to know what the steering wheel is for.

I forgot to pick up a movie on the way out the door this morning, and I’m glad I did because I might’ve missed the view.

Coming into Montreal the sky above us was filled with a thin layer of cloud, but it didn’t go all the way to the horizon. In the distance was a band of clear blue autumnal sky framed by the city below and the clouds above. The cloud edge was reflecting sunlight dazzlingly and even the small layer of smog over the city added colour to the scene. In the distance, the mountains to the south finished off the vista nicely. What made the scene perfect though was a hot-air balloon floating in the middle of the band of blue sky, silhouetted in the sunlight. I really wanted to be up in that balloon.

The blork blog wants weird musical stories, so here is mine:

I went to a Madness reunion concert a few years ago in London. After a day of drinking watered down beer out of plastic cups and watching support bands of dubious quality, the crowd was more than ready for the main act.

As Madness came on stage, there was a huge surge forward, and being the svelt person that I am I kind of got lifted and carried along in the sea of people. Unfortunately one of my shoes didn’t get lifted with me, and there was no way I was going back for it, so the other one got kicked off and I spent the rest of the concert barefoot in the mud. It was actually quite liberating.

The problems came at the end of the concert, when we had to walk the streets of London looking for a taxi. It’s amazing the variety of things you can tread on or nearly tread on just walking down the street.

I was just drifting off to sleep last night when Jen woke me up to give me this piece of insightful commentary on the book she was reading:

When writers describe something as ‘vanilla’ such as ‘He was wearing a vanilla coloured suit’ they generally mean white or cream when in fact vanilla pods and seeds are black or dark brown. I guess vanilla has been linked with ice cream for too long.

Oh and I just discovered that the word vanilla comes from the latin ‘vagina’. I’ll never look at ice cream the same way again.

There is often a strange black man dressed all in white and wearing shades hanging around outside the university gates, holding a large sign aloft which contains various rantings and ramblings about corruption at the Montreal Jewish Hospital. As far as I know these rantings are unsubstantiated anti-semitic delusions of a deranged mind, but freedom of expression rules.

This week may have been too much for the poor guy though. It’s orientation week on campus so the place is swarming with new and excitable students. Some of them decided to surround him and generally ridicule him yesterday, including one guy standing right next to him with another big sign that simply stated ‘This Guy Sucks!’. Nice.

On a completely unrelated note, I joined Tyler and Mike last night for my initiation into the world of Magic: The Gathering. It’s a fun game, and I think I picked things up fairly quickly. Didn’t win though, maybe next time.