Misplaced good intentions, or dogmatic zealots?

Last week Greenpeace issued a "study" that made the alarming claim that "Pregnant women and children under the age of four should avoid living within 10 kilometres of nuclear power plants". A pretty strong statement. They also state that federal standards allow up to 7,000 Becquerels per litre of tritium in drinking water. This is true. A Becquerel is equivalent to one nuclear decay per second. Tritium is an unstable isotope of hydrogen. It has a half-life of 12.3 years, and decays by emitting a very weak beta particle (electron). It is only a hazard if taken into the body, usually in the form of water.
However their claim of the danger is alarmist and misleading. Here are a few facts that GP didn't make a lot of noise about:
1. Radioactive emissions of all types are closely monitored by the CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission). Failure to meet CNSC requirements can result in loss of a licence to operate. With revenues on the order of $1 million per day per reactor, does it seem likely that an operator with take chances on losing a licence? Not to mention the public relations disaster.
2. Industry standards (self imposed) are 70 Bq/l, not 7000. The place I work at maintains less than 20 Bq/l.
3. Drinking 250ml (1 cup) of water with 100 Bq/l would give you a dose of about 0.0004 mrem (milliRem). The same volume of milk: 0.0006 mrem from natural sources. By comparison, you receive 27 mrem per year from cosmic background radiation, 28 from the earth's crust, 50 from naturally occurring elements in your body, and if you smoke 1-2 packs a day you're getting a whopping 1300 mrem per year. In order to get an extra dose equivalent to what the average non-smoker receives in a year (about 250 mrem), you would have to drink about 39000 litres of tritiated water (at 100 Bq/l).

But, of course, they omit little details like this. Like the fact that eating bananas (chock full of that yummy potassium-40) is more dangerous than living around a nuclear plant. To put things in proper perspective would not be spectacular enough. And flashy scare-mongering is what brings in the donations, isn't it?
Don't get me wrong, I think Greenpeace is a good and useful group. They've done some good work in the past, but as far as their attitude to nuclear power goes, I simply believe they're wrong. So does GP founder Patrick Moore.

To be continued.

**In the interest of full disclosure, the facts quoted about are taken from AECL, UNSCEAR, and CNSC.

Musical Meme Thingy

Ok, I've been tagged by the spousal unit with this:
1. Go to www.popculturemadness.com
2. Pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs of the year
4. Write something about how the songs affected you

The trick is that I wasn't really much into music back then. We only had an old stereo receiver and an early '70s portable cassette recorder. But I still heard a few things on the radio and around school. Scanning the list...
Robert Palmer, Addicted to Love. Yep, a bunch of identical model types. Just the thing for an 18 year old male.
Bangles, Walk Like an Egyptian. Just something heard around school. Kind of liked it, actually.
Peter Gabriel, Sledge Hammer. Very cool video. Later on I got "introduced" to PG again by some friends. 'So' is still one of my all time fave albums.
Falco, Rock Me Amadeus. Thought is was kind of cool then. Now it just sounds like pretentious Eurotrash. Yes, I hate Kraftwerk too.
Dire Straights, Walk of Life. I've been a big DS fan for a very long time. I used to play a copy of Brothers in Arms in the old mono Sony with one earplug while playing games on my Atari 600XL. This is still a sing-along-in-the-car tune for me.
Anything by Wham! Hated them. I was more than a bit homophobic back then. Now I just hate it for being sickly sweet pop drivel.
I still absolutely despise Bon Jovi. I hate the sound, I hate the image. Pure commercial crap.
Other stuff I was hearing around that time, and still like: Police, Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs, Billy Idol.
I know this was supposed to be '86, but here are a few others: Men at Work's Business as Usual still takes me back to my first D&D games. Huey Lewis' Walking on a Thin Line was the tune for playing Pole Position, while Zenyatta Mondatta by the Police was for extended games of Archon.
Then there was Genesis: Take Me Home. Grade 11 field trip. This was played in the bus on the way back. Great song. Bruce Hornsby's The Way it Is, I still think of the cold, snowy December/January days when that came out.

Enough for now.

Making changes...

As we trudge towards the big relocation, now about a month away, and try to ensure we cover every last detail, I'm making one other small adjustment. As the area I'm moving to is one of the few places in Canada that the Rogers vast telecom octopus hasn't suckered onto, I will be moving to another service. This means losing the old e-mail address, and their Yahoo based browser. Not a huge loss in my opinion. So I've grabbed the opportunity to switch browsers to Firefox. I've just downloaded and installed it, without any trouble whatsoever. I was actually surprised how easy it was. So far I like it. A nice clean, neat, logical interface. The only hassle is going to be with bookmarks. Yahoo has a web-based bookmark thing, where the list was stored on some server somewhere, and not on my good ol' electric abacus. So there's no easy translation. This means the tedious, one-at-a-time, go-to-the-site-and-bookmark-it method. I also need to check out the security features before I try any banking. But, so far, so good.

Going down....

I just heard Jerry Falwell died today. And the world is a slightly better place. Nasty thing to say, I know, but I can't bring myself to shed a tear for that bloated bigot. The man represented what I consider many of the worst aspects of religion. He was an intolerant, self-righteous, arrogant slime. Ever since I heard him speak back in the 80's, he's made me cringe.
There is an animation in an episode of Monty Python which features a wide-faced pastor, grinning ear-to-ear, spouting some crap about how much his church loves you, bla bla... Then the grin spreads around his head and the top lifts off to reveal a devil swimming around the goo inside. He then tries to nail the top of his head back into place. I always thought of Falwell whenever I saw this.
Well, sir, enjoy the hell that you were so eager to condemn others to.

New stress

Ok, so we sold the house. Now I've got about 6 weeks left to find a new place near the atom mill, get all the legalities, money crap, and other junk done so I can move. The spousal unit has already found a place to stay while finishing school.
The problem is that the atom mill creates a pretty big demand for housing around here, so there isn't that much that fits the price range we're looking at. I'll be looking at a place in couple of days, and if it looks halfway decent for a reasonable price, I'll probably snap it up. Meanwhile, the fluttery insects are partying in the digestive tract.

Another Triumph for Science!

This is the kind of research to be doing:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070425164048.jxev9w4o&show_article=1&catnum=9

Mmmm....beer.

He who laughs last, thinks slowest? -or- "Funny, you don't smell like you fell in shit."

Ok, now that the last of the severance payments has been received and deposited, all ties back to the hell where I spent 7.5 mostly miserable years are now cut. As far as I'm concerned, me, and the assholes who fired me, are now completely through with each other. And good riddance to them.

So now I'm working at the ol' atom mill about 2 hours drive north of here, renting out a room and coming home on weekends. And I'm happy to report that I am enjoying this job a hell of a lot more. Actually, occasionally I feel I can look back at my previous employers and laugh, imagining that they expected my career to nose dive after this. Well, the trick was to dump a career that I hated. Perhaps the new job isn't engineering, but so what?; I'm not out the thrill anyone with titles. So I am now a "Radiation Protection Technician", or more commonly, "Rad Tech". That's ok with me.

So let's look at some of the advantages of this new vocation:
1. I am starting out at a base pay rate of about 85% of what I was making at my peak in the old job. And things are starting to look like this will go up rapidly. The potential is to earn up to 30 or 40% more than I was at! This doesn't include the annual bonus paid to everyone, dependant on company performance (last year it was $1500!), and overtime. Overtime is 2x. Sweet.
2. The benefits are top notch. My sister in law works for the benefits provider, and she says the package is one of the best around.
3. Straight day shift, except for overtime and such.
4. I'm in the union. Yep, that's right, this long time, white-collared, raise anti-unionist is now a card carrying brother worker, with a definite bluish tinge around the neck. At least I now have some defense against the whims of upper management.
5. Coolness factor is high. I'm working in a nuclear power plant! To me, that is a major tweaking of my inner tech geek side.
6. Related to the coolness factor, I'm learning tons of stuff about nuclear physics, various gizmos, and the like. Beats hell out of learning to meet the latest idiotic demand from some knob at GM or Ford.
7. I can relax a bit. The expectations are much more realistic. No more being responsible for things I have no control over.
8. A beautiful place to live, on the western shore of a large lake. The winters can be brutal, but I'm told the rest of the year more than compensates.
9. Working with some good folks. For the most part, all the folks in my department are very cool. Lots of joking around and good-natured ribbing, but also making sure the job gets done.
10. Lots of exercise. The size of the place, and the nature of the job result in lots of walking and stair climbing. I'm feeling better already.

So there it is. Last summer I fell in a pile of manure, and this spring I'm coming out smelling sweet. And I can now think of my previous employer and laugh.

Today I heard someone whistling the theme music for Chariots of Fire. You know, that slow, majestic tune that accompanies a bunch of guys running in slo-mo on a beach in the 1920's. And it reminded me of something that had occurred to me many years ago, when I first heard it played: this tune is "On Top of Spaghetti"! (or the original, "On Top of Old Smokey". Think about it. It's the same tune, just slowed down and softened. You can even sing along. It couldn't be a more blatant rip off.
Well, I guess if you're going to plagiarize, it's best to steal from the public domain so you don't get sued.

Mood music.

Something that was crawling around in my skull a few weeks ago:

For some unknown reason, I was in a bit of an odd mood today. I guess thinking about selling the house and all the upcoming changes have got me in an introspective way. A combination of the weather and some tunes reminded me of a time about 18 or so years ago, back when I was young and insane. Funny how the right music at the right time can take you back.
The music in question was Dire Straits Alchemy Live album. Way back when, I had this on cassette tape (remember those, kids?) and I played it in my car until the tape was stretched and the sound distorted. A gray day driving around town with this playing gave me a hint of how I felt back then. Kind of like a burp that reminds you of a past meal. But it was only a hint of the feeling; it was clear that I could never have more than that. It's like that meal was a delicious roast of some animal that is now extinct, and the belch just reinforces the fact that you'll never have it again.

Take this Meme and shove it.

A meme thingy stolen from the spousal unit.

How tall are you barefoot?
6' 1", more if I lie down.

Have you ever flown first-class?
Yes, on a business trip years ago. The secretary who booked my flight must have liked me. Nice. Bigger seats, better food, drinks, and in case of a nose first crash I'd be one of the first to die.

One of your favorite books when you were a child?
Define child. I don't remember much of what I read before high school. Then it was The Lord of the Rings. I actually almost cried at the end. After investing so much time in it, it felt like I was saying goodbye to good friends.

A good restaurant in your city?
The spousal unit introduced me to Bertoldi’s Italian trattoria. Awesome food, but a little pricey. All my old favourites are gone or sadly degenerated in quality.

What is your favorite small appliance?
The Amazing Ronco Turnip Twaddler! But seriously, it would have to be the microwave, as I am a lazy cook.

One person that never fails to make you laugh?
Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld books. Read any beyond the first two, and you'll see.

First LP you ever bought?
The soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back. I was such a little sci-fi nerd!

Do you do push-ups?
No, but I've recently re-started some weight lifting. A bench press is kind of an upside-down pushup, isn't it?

What was one of your favorite games as a child?
Again, define child. I started playing Dungeons & Dragons in grade 9 or so, and have loved the game ever since, though I never got to play as much as I would have liked. (still don't)

When you were twelve years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I never really thought about it back then. I was more concerned with my dad and helping him cope with his medical problems.

Your favorite Soup of the Day?
Spousal unit's spicy, bacon-cheeseburger soup. Great stuff. Even better the next day.

Have you ever met someone famous?
Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide series, at a book signing in university. He had just travelled from Toronto through a nasty blizzard and wasn't in a very talkative mood. However, I was near the front of the line and snagged a couple of autographs before his hand got tired.

Date Of Birth?
See the profile.

From what news source do you receive the bulk of your news?
Daily Show, Colbert Report, Fark, Boing-Boing, Slashdot, CBC Newsworld, CTV Newsnet.

Current worry?
That the new job will fall through.

Current hate?
My ex-boss still has a special, dark, cold, spider-infested place in my heart. I'm sure this will fade to a socially acceptable background level with time.

Favorite place to be?
At home with Spousal-unit and the cats, or out being silly with our friends.

Least favorite place to be?
Any of the various circles of Hell. But I guess that's the point.
Any place playing loud, crappy music.

Do you consider yourself well organized?
Reasonably, when given the time and quiet to concentrate.

Do you believe in an afterlife?
Rationally, no. Deep down gut feeling: I certainly hope so.

Where do you think you will be in 10 Yrs?
In the bustling metropolis of Kincardine, and still working at the ol' atom mill.

Do you burn or tan?
In the sun, I tan. When on fire, I burn.

Are you more optimistic or pessimistic about the future?
Optimistic, mostly.
"The glass is neither half full or half empty, it is simply twice as big as it needs to be."

What did you fear was going to get you at night as a kid?
Nuclear war. Seriously, during the 80's I figured I probably wouldn't live to adulthood.

What’s in your pockets right now?
A magic ring of power....why does it wants to know, precious?

Last thing that made you laugh?
The 8th episode of the Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Series, to which I was just listening.

Worst injury you’ve ever had?
I've never had anything really serious. I guess the nasty scrape down my ribs from the corner of a railing after slipping on ice.

How many TVs do you own?
One. But someday I hope to have a room with fifty or more, so I can watch everything at once.

Best compliment received?
Pass.

What leaves you speechless?
Lack of oxygen.

What is your favorite book?
I can’t choose just one.

Last meal you cooked for the opposite sex?
Hell, I don't remember the last meal I cooked for myself!

What were you doing at 12 midnight last night?
Stalking the streets in search of evildoers to thwart. I'm Batman!

Lousy Commies!

Well, I'm back. For a while I just didn't feel like writing. Then when I finally did, I realized I had forgotten my username and password. D'oh! I've been trying to remember too many other passwords of late.
Anyway, now I discover that I'm being forced to use the new version of Blogger (no longer in beta), which I had been intentionally avoiding. The spousal unit and others had complained about it after switching. I hate being forced to change to something that is not necessarily better. But now that the Google Empire has swallowed Blogger, we must comply. Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!

Well, life has been eventful over the last couple of months. I'm not ready to reveal all just yet, but here are a couple of thoughts:

1. I've had a painful revelation about my distant past. I'm still trying to digest it and will probably write some more about it later.

2. Q: Why do chicken coops have two doors? A: Because if they had four doors they would be chicken sedans!
Groan! So bad it's good.

3. "He who laughs last, thinks slowest." I'll be laughing last about something, which I will explain in about 4 weeks.

Now, let's see what this evil regime does with my post...

Terror idiots

Seems like you can't go one day without hearing about some mental midget blowing himself up and murdering a few dozen folks who were just out for the daily shopping. Now we all know that this is a horrible and evil act* But the thing that I just don't understand is this: "Mr. Terrorist/rebel/"freedom fighter", how does this vile act advance your cause one inch? You have a gripe with the government? With a religion? With the big, bad USA? So you kill a bunch of women, children, average people. Does the government suddenly say, "Oh, all right then. You guys take over, we give up!"? Nope. Does the other sect (whose view of the 'true faith' only differs from yours by the position of a comma on page 751, so they are heretics and must die!) suddenly realize their horrible error and convert? Nope. Does George the thickey agree that American-style hypercapitalism is a mistake and order all corporations to close down their foreign operations? As much chance as a snowball in a supernova.
And now the big question: HAS A SINGLE TERRORIST OPERATION IN THE LAST 50 YEARS ACTUALLY ACHEIVE THEIR GOALS BY KILLING PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THESE GOALS? Again, a resounding NO!
So, from a strictly practical point of view, it just doesn't work! The IRA finally figured that out after 75 years. To get what you want takes the real source of power: money. To paraphrase Tony Montana of Scarface, "First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get what you really want." Real political power takes money, and lots of it.
Strapping on a bomb and getting on the subway just won't do it.

That's my babbling rant for the day.

*I like to use the Terry Pratchett definition of evil: "Treating people like things". Treating them like vermin, cattle, expendable resources, etc. I think this can be found at the root of just about everything considered evil.

Scaredy Cat

Well, we picked up little Sir William last night and brought him home. He's been very quiet, hardly said a word. We had one of the spare bedrooms set up as his 'transitional room'. Yesterday I rented a carpet cleaner and did all the upstairs floors. Plus we had gone through a lot of stuff up there in pitch/pack/giveaway mode, both in preparation for Willy the Wonder Cat and for eventually moving.
We did some shopping yesterday for the little guy: food dish, litter box, catnip, feathery-thing-on-a-stick, water dish (electric, recirculating, dome gizmo). He came with his own bed, some toys, food, and a carpet covered furniture/climby thing.
He spend most of last night scared. I sat in the room for a couple of hours until he finally poked his head out of the carrier. After very cautiously surveying the room, he hid under my chair. Eventually, I left the room to give him a chance to check things out privately. I went downstairs to watch a little TV. Soon came the thumping sounds of cat playing. Later, when I checked on him, he had eaten, used the litter, and played with one of his toy mice, but was back hiding. We checked on him a couple of times more last night and left the blinds open for some light.
Today he's still nervous. Spousal unit is sitting in there with him now. Given time I'm sure he'll adapt. We may wait up to a week before introducing him to Mowgli.
Mo is very curious about who's in that room, but she does not seem upset. A good sign, I think.

Meet the Hairy Things

We have finally decided that our cat Mowgli needs a new friend. Her best buddy, Floyd, died almost 2 years ago at the age of 17 (we think). Since then she has lost much of her spark and energy. About all she does now is sleep. Now, this is typical of cats anyway, but she's sleeping even more than that. It's clear she is lonely and bored. So we figured this might be a good time to introduce a new critter to the household; give us some time to adjust before I head off to the new job, and some time to bond to Mo before we sell the house.
We contacted an organization called Animalert, which arranges foster homes and adoptions for animals. They look at each situation and try to pick animals whose personalities might be a good match. We were recommended two options: first is a pair of male cats who already know each other, and the other is an individual male whose friend was adopted a couple of months ago.
We met with the pair (Jay and Molson a.k.a. Carrot-Top) last Saturday. We liked them. Jay was quite energetic, and a bit friendly, while Molson was quiet and a bit timid. They were great, and I could certainly imagine them in our home.
Today we met the other cat, William. I have to say, I love this cat already. There is a chemistry there that I just didn't feel with the other two. For one thing he was very friendly and playful, and seemed to like me quite a bit, for a stranger he had just met. Initially I thought my reaction could be because he looks very similar to my lost pal Floyd. There were some superficial similarities in behaviour as well, but we was quite different in personality. I can't totally explain, but I had a strong gut-feeling that this was the cat for me (us). I think we will adapt well to Mo, and she will be able to get along with him as well.
So we came home and discussed it for maybe 5 minutes. But by this point, Sir William had won me over. There was no doubt. I liked Jay and Molson, but I really liked William. We'll be contacting Animalert tomorrow to let them know. We figure it will take about 3 weeks to determine if he'll fit in here with Mowgli.
Here's a picture of William:

Butthead of the Week Award...

...goes to the dork sitting in his vehicle in front of the grocery store last night. Spousal unit and I went to pick up a few items to keep us going for a few days, so we parked in one of the many open designated parking spaces, like good little shoppers. As we're walking up to the store we notice this week's number one bozo sitting in his idling vehicle, apparently waiting for someone to come out. We often see people parked along the front of the store like this. Apparently they are far too important to be bothered by parking with the lowly masses.
So, anyway, Captain Smeghead here is sitting there wasting gas and helping us to have no more white Christmases ever while waiting for someone else to finish shopping. Someone who can't stand to walk to 40 or 50 feet to the nearest, actual, designated parking spot. Fine. We've seen this kind of thing before. Shrug it off.
Twenty minutes later, we've complete our purchase and are making the horrid, grueling trek back to our car, and guess what, there's the man the dinosaurs died for, still sitting there with the engine running.
As far as I'm concerned, this knob is out of the game:
* Idling your vehicle unnecessarily for 20+ minutes, puking out some more greenhouse gases to fuck up the world some more. Strike 1!
* Blocking space in front of the store because he and/or his wife are too fucking lazy to walk from a regular parking spot! Strike 2!
* And Strike 3 is that jerkboy is doing this in an SUV that, I can almost guarantee, has never been off pavement.
* And Strike 4 (my game, I make the rules), is that the thing was a BMW X5 or whatever. A BMW, I might have known. I've observed over the years that approximately 90% of BMW drivers are total assholes. Somehow they figure that overpaying for some Nazi land yacht makes them into some kind of superior, Eurotrash, uber-pinhead. "This isn't a parking lot! This is my personal autobahn!"

Spousal unit and I drove away in our humble Honda Civic, with a mixture of disgust and smug superiority.

2006, I'm glad that's finally over!

I'll be blunt, for me 2006 royally sucked! Our reproductive attempts failed, succeeded, and failed. I was fired from a job I'd been at for 7.5 years (although, that may turn out to be a good thing in the longer term), by a drab little, no-nothing, Dilbert-level boss with a Napoleon complex. And the marriage thing got a bit of a shake up (in my mind, anyway). The year has been a roller-coaster ride of brutal ups and downs, mostly downs. I began to seriously question my sanity, and fear what the future would bring. However, the year ended with the bright note of a new job (almost certainly).

2007 will be difficult, but potentially rewarding. I've been doing a fair bit of daydreaming over the last while, imagining what life will be like:

1. The new job will take me away from this town and the Spousal Unit. She plans to stay and finish her university degree. This will take a couple of years. I understand why she wants to do this, but it won't be easy for either of us, and I worry about what it might do to our marriage. But, we've lasted more that 16 years together (13 married), through bad times and good, so I think we're strong enough to make it through this.
2. I'll be renting a room out temporarily until we can sell this house and get a place up there. Getting this place ready to sell, packing, and moving will be a serious annoyance. We'll probably buy a smaller place, possibly a condo, and use the equity money to finance Spousal Unit's schooling.
3. The time alone may actually be good for something. I'll have more time to concentrate on doing things myself. I can learn to cook (better). I'll spend more time exercising, reading, learning useful things, and less on stupid time wasting things like watching TV and playing games. Not to slag Spousal Unit, but often I find it hard to maintain the self discipline to avoid junk food and exercise regularly when she is around. I'm hoping a more regular schedule will help this.

Things I want to do while/after settling in:
1. Drop all but basic cable TV, or perhaps all TV. I'll keep the internet connection, of course.
2. Buy a new computer. I've been putting off upgrading for years because of money. The money freed up by getting a smaller home will clear off some debt, and allow us to make a few long wanted purchases. Yes, I'll get some new games, too. I won't go cold-turkey on those.
3. Buy Lego Mindstorms and start building robots and strange machines to irritate the cat.
4. Get another cat. Mo is lonely, and will be even moreso without Spousal Unit around. She needs someone to play with and keep her company when I'm at work.
5. Maybe set up a home gym. A power rack, a bench, a bar, a couple of dumbbell bars, and 3 or 4 hundred pounds of plates would set me up nicely. Until then, I may use the facilities at my new employer. I'll have to see what they have.
6. If possible, find a group in the new town that plays D&D or some other similar game. I'd like to get into a regular, reliable game.
7. Enjoy my new job. Enjoy the learning process. Keep a positive attitude. Study a few job-related self-improvement books, perhaps. I want to take a different approach than I had with the last job, which I had learned to hate.
8. Have the occasional visit with the Spouse. As much as possible. And, I hope, she will eventually want to join me in the new place permanently.

Anyway, that's my rough idea for 2007. We'll see.

Post Christmas Rambling, in which life is pretty darn decent, all things considered.

Well, here it is, Boxing day (that's the day after X-mas for those who don't know). Boxing day, from what I understand, started out way back in England as a day when folks gave gifts of cash or durable goods to those of lower classes (gifts between equals being given the day before). A simple google search thing will reveal more, I'm sure.
Anywho, the big day was fairly decent, I really must say. Lots of useful gift cards and cash, lots of chocolate (I'm an addict, but even now I feel bloated and ill just thinking of another piece of the heavenly brown stuff). Spousal unit gave me a DVD of The Maltese Falcon. Yes, I know it's an old movie, but one that I love; the dialog is classic film-noir-hard-boiled-detective patter. She also gave me a sketchbook and some pencils & sharpeners so I can practice my drawing skills. I had picked up a book on drawing technique a while back. It will be something to do while I'm away starting the new job. And I received two Neil Gaiman books. Awesome stuff. Anybody who likes fantasy and/or sci-fi must read some of his stuff. I recommend American Gods or Neverwhere. Or you could try the sampler with Smoke & Mirrors, a collection of short stories.

Ah, yes, the job. The medical check was completed and mailed off last week. As soon as the security check is done (assuming all is ok, and I'm not mistaken for a member of the Necrophiliac Liberation Army or something), they should let me know the start date. Then I can find a place to stay while the real-estate game begins. But at least I'm not worrying about the future and how I'll support myself and the spousal unit. That is the best gift of them all, in my mind.

The relocation thing is my only real worry at this point. I dread packing up and cleaning this place, and going through all the mess of selling it and buying another place, and re-doing the mortgage. Not because I have any particular sentimental attachment to this house (after moving so many times in the past 15 years, that just doesn't happen), but just because it will be a monstrous pain in the ass.

What? Good news? Again?!!

Al...most.....there........
Yesterday I went to the Atom Mill to fill out some paperwork for security checks, etc, and get the forms for my doctor to fill out for the health check. There was also a conditional offer of employment (pending the security and health things), which I promptly accepted. WOO-HOO!!!! It isn't confirmed yet, but I'd call it 95% done. I have no criminal record, or ties to disreputable types, and I'm in quite good health, despite being overweight. The other job I was up for may still be possible as well, as they were not able to complete the reference check until just 2 days ago. So I'm feeling pretty good today, and it looks like this X-mas will be a happy one.

"If I'm not a safety whatchamajigger, I'm nothing!" -Homer Simpson.

Thought #9478B, section 5

I was recently enjoying a look through some of my old Calvin & Hobbes books and lamenting Watterson's self-imposed exile. As I recall, one of the reasons he abandoned the whole comic world was the restrictive format required by the newspapers. He hated being force to use x number of panels and such-and-such layout, and the constantantly shrinking size. So he quit after 10 years.
Well, how about this: forget the newspapers entirely, go direct to books. He would be free to use any format he wanted. Strips wouldn't even have to end at one page. How about a huge, multi-page epics? I know I would buy any new C&H books released.
Can't find a publisher? I doubt any publisher would be idiotic enough to pass up this opportunity. Even if they did, thanks to the wonderful modern world of the internet pipes, he could self-publish and market them through Amazon or something similar. I don't see any insurmountable technical problems.

But perhaps he just grew tired of doing it. Maybe it was better to stop while it was still fresh and good. C&H never jumped a shark, and so will be remembered that much more fondly. Always leave them wanting more.

"That was totally wicked!"

Yesterday I went to see the new James Bond movie, "Casino Royale", with the new guy Daniel Craig. In the past, any time a new Bond actor came along he was often greeted less than enthusiastically. "Well, he's ok, but he's not as good a Connery", is a typically review. I must say that I was impressed. Craig plays Bond very similar to Connery: he's not as slick as Moore or Brosnan, but still has style, and is nastier and colder, just as you would expect from someone who is essentially an assassin. I think Mr. Craig pulled it off brilliantly. He's as good if not better than Connery, but I didn't feel he was trying to copy him. I hope he sticks around the franchise for a while.
As for the movie itself: an excellent Bond film. It had more of the feel of some of the early films, not as flashy/comic-book-like as later ones. There are still gadgets, but nothing implausible. Things like bio-monitor implants, cell phone tracking, cell phone activated bombs which are certainly up to date, but not fantasy items. The action sequences were amazing! I've seen a lot of action movies in my time but this stuff really thrilled my old, jaded self. Some of the stunt work alone is worth the ticket price (the foot chase through the construction site at the beginning has to be seen!).
The women (a Bond film staple) are certainly up to par as well. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
And I must mention the cars. In a nice tip-o'-the-hat to the old films, there is a rather nice 1964 Aston Martin DB5 just like the one in Goldfinger.

But the thing that stirred my lust was the absolutely gorgeous DBS. God, but that is one beautiful car! The sound of it tearing out of a parking lot in one scene actually gave me shivers! They didn't have nearly enough of it for my liking.

No, the film wasn't perfect. There were a couple of slower bits, but these are greatly overshadowed by the rest of the film.
Anyway, if you're a Bond fan or ever have been, SEE THIS MOVIE!