Brain Dump for Saturday, September 24

Thoughts ..

1) Geese

The Winnipeg Free Press article on goose overpopulation touched on several ways to deal with the problem, none of which are as good as my idea: There are millions of these 15-lb pea-brained menaces assaulting our city and country side ... and there are millions of people starving in Africa. It's time for a mass slaughter of geese so that they can be ground up and shipped to the Horn of Africa where they would provide desperately needed protein to little children with distended bellies and their skeletal mothers.

2) Rex Murphy

I completely disagree with Rex Murphy this time. He proposes that the NDP change their party voting structure to give Quebec greater say in the upcoming leadership race, saying that not doing so "is not a winning formula for the long run." Perhaps his bloated vocabulary has started invading grey matter normally reserved for logic, but the exact opposite is true: Changing a fundamental party rule to favour Quebec, where there is very little grass-roots support (as evidenced by the mere 1600 memberships province-wide), is "self defeating politics". The Quebec anomaly is no more than a flash in the pan, and if they tilt their rules to favour that province they will piss off their base everywhere else.

3) Garbage

What the heck am I supposed to do with my big plastic garbage can when I get my big plastic garbage cart? This is a serious question.

4) Coloured Rods

Another Rod has joined us in the local bloggosphere. Rouge Rod started posting a little over a month ago and has kept up a torrent pace since then. Rouge joins the original Black Rod, The Blue Rod, and The Purple Rod who hasn't posted much lately. The Orange Rod has closed up shop, and there was also a Red Rod that didn't make a very good go of it. You can understand my hesitation to accept new Rods, given some of the fly-by-night rodders in the past, but Rouge seems to be making a genuine effort, so good luck Rouge!

5)Vladimir Putin

Barack Obama needs a little Vladimir Putin in him. No .. that's not what I meant. Oh God, you guys are so immature.

6) Dinner tonight

Do you leave the cover off the roaster when you're cooking a Canada Goose? What do you think: rosemary, cracked pepper and thyme?

Friday Afternoon Update

I have absolutely nothing to talk about. I am totally uninspired. It is 5 o'clock on Friday and I started drinking 3 hours ago. Not that that has anything to do with my lack of blog output -- in fact it may help given enough time and beer -- but I just thought it might help indicate my frame of mind at the moment.

So, with nothing to contribute to the pressing issues of the day like, what Winnipeg's new slogan should be ( and which of the varous polls you should bother voting in, if any) ... actually I have my own write in suggestion that I mentioned on the NewWinnipeg web forum: "Here be giant banners" ... But don't bother with that. Vote in MrChristian's poll instead. Anyhow, where was I? Oh ya right, birds ... I'll give you an update on the bird that nested in my front yard, since I KNOW that you're dying to find out how the family is doing.

Ok. The little blue eggs














successfully hatched into little wee baby chipping sparrows
















(Trust me, they're in that picture somewhere)

And then one day shortly thereafter the nest was empty. No sign of a struggle. No baby birds on the ground or blood of anything. Just gone. Mama bird was flying around with a worm desperately trying to find her babies so she could feed them. So sad. I suspect a crow nabbed them out of the nest. Damn crow.

Sorry for the downer. I'll change the subject:

If you happen to be in the area of the art gallery in the afternoon between Tuesday and Friday until the end of the month, pop into the WAG Studio and check out the student art show. There's some crappy stuff, some weird stuff, and some really good stuff too. And some of my stuff. Specifically this. (Looks better in person, I think) I should have submitted this too, but oh well...

I'll be back next week with hard-hitting commentary on the newest Winnipeg Megaproject, whatever that happens to be. Ciao.

Live blogging little birdies - UPDATED

Yeah, that's right. Watch out Falcon Cam, Cherenkov has up-to-the-week coverage of the little birdie who decided to nest in his yard, thereby screwing up his landscaping plans, complete with blurry pictures:


Little birdie is sitting on a cluster of wee little blue eggs, in a nest in a bush that was not supposed to be standing anymore.

Little birdie is still sitting there.

Yup ... still just, umm ... tell you what ... I'll keep you posted if anything happens.

UPDATE:

It appears my little birdie chose her nest more wisely than the falcons. In an unfortunate turn of events, the ledge on which the falcons were nesting got flooded in the rains today and the chicks perished. Story here.

Who wants to bet that Trey will get an earful from Princess about this one? "I wanted to go back to the nesting box, but nooooo ... you wanted to try the ledge."

I checked on my little birdie this afternoon. Seems to be doing fine. Did not take a photo, as it would look exactly like the one above.