Little Rocket Man Achievement...achieved...

Can't say how I'm feeling, now that I've stuck the garden gnome in the nose cone of the intercontinental ballistic missile, and sealed him in behind the hatch.

I'm nearing the end of Half Life 2, Episode 2, from The Orange Box for Xbox 360. The requirement's been met: the plaster-Plus (as in indestructible) and jolly'painted little old man I'd found at the start has adventured along with me to this moment when we will part ways. I go to fight the deciding fight against the enemy: perhaps to die and re-spawn over and over, 'til I get it right. Then He goes...where no garden gnome has gone before.

30 points. But what have I achieved, really?

Perhaps I expected I'd feel changed, emboldened even, like Amelie's retired papa seeing the point when his globe-trekking garden gnome returned home, took again its position, a still-life in his managed garden.

Perhaps after he's gone, one hundred miles high, I'll see it, and clearly. The point. I can't play too late tonight, though; can't stay up late, searching for meaning: another workweek begins come morning.

Windowsill Farming

The harvest's in. Cherry Belle radishes. Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes. From the windowsill. From plastic ice cream buckets recycled for this purpose of windowsill farming, and supermarket potting soil. South-facing window.

Vancouver’s summer 2010 essentially over mid-August: am guessing these all would’ve cooked in the south-facing window, if not for the cooler weather.

Naturally, immediately had to sample a little of this bounty. A taste. Each. The radish: satisfyingly crunchy, then the peppery note which kept building. The tomato: tangy, then slurpingly sweet; even though just a wee tomato I held between thumb and forefinger.

All of this windowsill harvest an experiment I’ve long wanted to do.

NAASSCAARRR...on TSN...Really?

What?
NASCAR?...I actually get t'see a Sunday race?
Live on TV? A 2010 Chase Race?
ESPN, which I can’t get in my pricey cable bundle, wants t’share a Chase Race with TSN in Canada?
TSN isn’t sooo preoccupied broadcasting golf and football and whatever else – TSN wants to give us NASCAR?
Wonders never cease.

It has been a few weeks since the last race I could actually see…anywhere, on the sportier channels of my pricey cable bundle. I do still recognize my Sunday buddies who turn left…there’s a relief. Happy Harvick looks happy, still. Jeff Gordon’s as ever hopeful. Mark Martin hasn’t retired. Good.

Was in such an excited hurry – rushing to catch the race from Kansas – rushing to catch an actual televised NASCAR Chase Race available to fans north of the 49th Parallel – I saved this as a draft, instead of posting it!

Antici'pation

Canada Post delivered my very own Royal Mail packet Wednesday morning! Air mailed from the U.K. and halfway ‘round the world in Vancouver inside two weeks. Inside my very own packet, stickered with its Customs Declaration signed by T Hirst of Hirst Publishing: Tricia Heighway’s Paddytum.


About a very special teddy bear, and the man who needs him.
I'm saying no more: don't want to ruin it for myself.

Tricia is Tasha Noble, one of the nicest people I’ve met in the writers’ workshop-playground that is Protagonize. Paddytum began on Protagonize: I remember fondly the wonderful installments Tasha treated us to. That feels so very long ago now. Paddytum found a publisher, you see.

And now I have my very own copy.

How to Pre-Pay at the Gas Pump

Are you a devil-may-care bicycle commuter, also registered owner and grocery-gettin' weekend operator of a motor vehicle, and therefore are only naturally unused to the...convenience of pre-paying at the pump for gasoline?

Have your repeated unsuccessful attempts ever crashed the unhelpful pump-computer, lined-up waiting cars, and their staring and unhelpful operators, compelled a garbled barking over a P.A. system and eventual visit by an actual service-station person?

Has actual service-station person likewise crashed the pump-computer, because service-station person isn't any clearer on deciphering those instructions?

Fear not, bicycle-commuter-slash-weekend-driver. Perhaps it'll be next weekend, perhaps in six months: your next visit to the gasoline pump will be uneventful, possibly pleasant, or even fun, when you unswervingly follow these simple steps.

Step 1/ Pre-Pay, just as they say, at the pump. Present your credit card. Swipe your card the correct way through the reader. If you have a newer-fangled chip card: tap your card on the chip-card pad.

Step 2/ Wait. The small display should display "A moment, please", something similar and promising: indicating the computer has read your card and is readying things for your actual purchase of that gasoline.

If small-display doesn't appear at all encouraging: first, re-try your card.

If small-display still does not cooperate: start your feet stepping; proceed to the station office; deal with an actual person more than likely only too happy to assist you.

Step 3/ When things do function properly at the pump. Small-display prompts you to take the nozzle in hand, and select the fuel-grade.

Step 4/ Follow the prompts: when the pump is active, pump your gasoline.

Step 5/ Done pumping: replace the nozzle in its cradle.

Step 6/ Pump-computer prints your transaction receipt: take your receipt.

There. Done. Happy Motoring!

Love Admail?

Doesn't everybody simply love ad'mail? Oh, I do. I might only write, or scribble some nothing, if there wasn't this admail I just must de-personalize, and now, y'know? But I do love handicrafts: love scissoring out my personal info: name, address, account number. Also relish grinding the multi-page shredder, shaking the glass in the windows and drawing a kilowatt-hour or two, when there are pages enough and I can use it.

Looks like it would make snug bedding for...I dunno...a gerbil, say, that nest of shredding, eh?

I was becoming concerned [my cable tv provider, or phone service giant - can't decide which to insert here] didn't love me any longer. No crisp envelope in the mail in some time, y'see: no ad'mail. But another two weeks rolled by, and another biodegradable ink and paper nudge that I try [brandname] broadband services showed up, reliable as a friendly unknown-caller phone-call during dinner.

All so biodegradable. The 100% recycled paper responsibly sourced, et cetera. It's so green Mother Nature might approve, and start growing pamphlets instead of forests.

They've used both sides: I can't even scribble notes on the b-side.

Google Images Search: Revert to Basic Version

Ohhh, Goody!
There is an option for saying "No Thanks" to Google Images' new and standard, and slow, search return. An option for reverting to Google Images' simple and quick-loading way it used to display image search results.
Page-bottom.
Nicely central button: Switch to basic version.

Oh'yess, now here's the Google Images search I won't grow old waiting for. Don't have to landfill this machine now and move anywhere 21st Century'ish just so I can see some bloated, image-cluttered scroll-fest the same day I go searching for it. I can turn time back, revert to how things were, in the good ol' days.

I'd gone image-searching for Iron Age houses, hillforts, and such. Research for writing tonight, sometime.

Now I have to find that certain special pre-writing mood again.