"Autumn's here, it makes you sad, about the crummy summer we had"

Okay it wasn't THAT crummy. I got to hug some trees and party a little. And no homework! But my point is, it got cold. Fast. So it is clearly fall and I didn't even get to a beach.

Anyway, as others prepare for school by taking advantage of all the school-supply sales, I must be all consumery as well. You see, my dear old computer bit the dust - or, in tastier terms, it is toasted, scrambled and fried. Mmmm.

All of this means that the purchase of a new Hell-Beast, I mean computer, is imminent. I'm going for a laptop this time, for the power-saving and portability-to-Victoria properties and the sheer betterness of it. The next question is what to get. My Code-ninja amigo Mark laid out what he says are my two best options. I'm looking for input from my readers, even if you're just some random who stumbles across the site by accident. So here they are:

A) A Dell, $600ish, best warranty in the business.
B) A MacBook, $1100ish, ages far more gracefully.

Mark for the record is a Mac person and is desperately trying to convert me, so we all know where he stands on this issue.

Additional considerations:
-My needs are very simple: email, Messenger and word processing. Occasionally scanning photos and obtaining mp3s off the Interweb. No silly computer games, no ninja coding, just the basics.
-I'm off to law school next year so I'd like something that will hold up ok for the next four years.
-I'm not broke or even poor(or at least, I won't be when I start my new job) but I'm trying to save up for the aforementioned law degree.
-I'm utterly spazzalicious and need a warranty that will protect against me accidentally mangling my electronics.

One thing that barely deserves a mention is that the MacBook comes with a free iPod nano. Personally, I think that's just stupid and a symptom of our ridiculous consumer-obsessed culture (yes, I'm always on)...charging more than is necessary for something and then trying to sweeten the deal by throwing in something that people don't need and, in my case, don't want and will rarely use. It might be useful for my occasional long bus rides to Maine, but that's about it. Mostly I've found headphones creepy ever since I read Fahrenheit 451 in grade 5 or whenever it was. Maybe I could sell it and recoup some of the exorbitant price of the computer...

Anyway. Let me know what you think, or if you have a better idea. Thanks folks!

I heart vacations

My paycheck will suffer but my happiness certainly has not. I started out the week by attending an environmental law & policy workshop and strategy session hosted by the NSE in response to the proposed amendments to the Nova Scotia Environment Act. The biggest problem seemed to be that the Act gives the Minister of Environment and Labour tons of discretionary powers but doesn't compel him/her to act, meaning that enforcement of environmental legislation is likely to continue to be patchy. Not to mention that the public consultation period ends 8 September (I dunno about you, but I JUST heard that the thing was going on) and they haven't been actively engaging with the public on the issue. The NSEN initiated this particular event in Halifax, and there's been nothing in any other part of the province. Just a quiet invitation to submit comments. Gah! So we're asking for them to extend the consultaion period and actually go out and get input from the public. This is our future, and we can't just let it be decided quietly in the boardroom and on the golf course. So please contact your MLA, Mark Parent (Minister of Environment and Labour) and the Premier and tell them you want a more thorough public consultation on this Act!

Anyway, I spent the rest of the week getting/making work clothes, cooking, cleaning, reading, staring at the walls...it was brilliant. I dragged The Boy on a brief hike in the Blue Mountain/Birch Cove Wilderness Area, which is a gorgeous and peaceful, though somewhat inaccessible, retreat from the insanity and bad-driver-ness of the Bayers Lake industrial park that borders it. We went to see Accepted - predictably cheesy but really enjoyable - and I finished off the week by taking Jenn to a going-away party for one of my high school friends who is joining the exodus out West. We met some fun people and recruited them for Fantoga 2006. Then on Sunday I cleaned my old room at my parents house and that wasn't so much fun because, well, it was cleaning.

Anyway I have loads to do this week because I'm going to Maine next week to visit the family before starting my new job. More interesting posts to come, I promise. The Republican branch of my kin never fail to amaze and entertain me...

R.I.P. shiitake log

You never produced any shiitakes, but you were a source of hope for 8 months, and the bright-yellow fungus that you grew in your final days added a splash of colour to the apartment before Jenn raised concerns about what kind of toxic spores it might be releasing into the air. May you journey unimpeded to mushroom-log heaven.


Great weekend...market, cooking, Buskerfest with the Sackville crew, then a glorious Sunday full of reading and staring blankly at the walls.

The difference between a duck

Well as most of you have already heard, I now have employment of the gainful sort, and after all the cover letters and stupid boring job-hunting crap I've done, all I needed to do in the end was to have friends who are willing to pass along my resume to the right people and give me glowing recommendations.

So that frees up a lot of time in my life, for LSAT prep and hugging trees and spending time with people and reading the summer issue of The Walrus, which after much ado finally arrived in my mailbox yesterday. I went on a Sierra Club excursion to Long Lake Park yesterday and forgot to bring swimming gear, but that's okay because one person brought an adorable dog and a few of us stayed on the shore and played fetch with him. I miss my dogs.

I wish I had something witty and awesome to say but my life is quite vanilla at the moment and I'm happy to have it that way.

Wicked tasty

God often appears to me in unusual ways. Right now I'm experiencing a divine revelation in the form of a sour yellow plum.

Overall, it's a good day to be alive.

Days

Today is Lammas, or Lughnasda if you will, the first festival of the Harvest (the second being the Autumn Equinox). Some people observe this holiday on the first or sixth day of August according to the Gregorian calendar, but I prefer the calculation that places it on the secong full moon after the Summer Solstice. It pulls our focus away from the artificial blocks of time that we've created for ourselves, and makes us pay attention to the natural rythms of Earth. Holy crap, am I becoming more hippie by the hour? It's a good exercise for me, though - everyone who knows me is undoubtedly aware of how calendar-obsessed I normally am.

Today also marks the 61st anniversary of the day a US warplane dropped a plutonium bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. It's worth pointing out that there is a movement underfoot in our fine city to get Mayor Kelly to join Mayors for Peace, an immensely important step albeit one that will require great political will from the mayor of a naval port city.

Just a couple of points that I thought you all might be interested in. Other than that, this hipster's life is relatively uneventful as usual...still languishing in underemployment in my overheated little store, still looking to improve that situation, still trying to find the time to get done all the things that I need done. I went to Mahone Bay for the weekend to partake of the Classic Boat Festival, formerly the Wooden Boat Festival - an annual event full of overpriced, very non-vegan foods and tourists who can't drive. I love it though, and I go every year. Everybody gets into the spirit and I generally get my ass on my grandparents' sailboat which is always a bonus.

I recently had a neat employment-related idea, but it's far too early to be talking about it with too many people. If anything does come of it, you'll hear all about it; if not, maybe I'll just withdraw from the job market and become a hermit like some repentant Dr. Seuss character, growing my own food and making my own clothes out of miff-muffered-moof.

Yeah I've done this before...but I was tagged!

omg nerdiness, fun, LOVE!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people.

"Yet no one in charge seemed to see this as a failure. Or more precisely, no one in charge and none of the supporting ideologues were able to see this as a failure of the Globalist theory - a theory that had growing power for two decades. That is, twice the length of Napoleon's reign, four times that of a world war."

-John Ralston Saul, The Collapse of Globalism
(my "light summer reading")

I tag:
Jenn
Lisa
Matthew
(Mark is going away to San Francisco for a while. Bye, Mark!)