Dopplegangland

Note for future reference:

(1) Not all Indian food is compatible with my stomach.

(2) Such Indian food will exit the body the following morning, in a 180 degree response to its original entry.

(3) Much toilet cleaning, brushing of teeth, ginger ale consumption, and moaning will follow. I also now have an aversion to yellow and pink.

So, I spent most of yesterday trying to get rid of the roller coaster in my stomach, and trying to put an end to a tension headache that would have brought Godzilla to his knees. I’m still a bit wobbly today, so give me another day. Bush-whacking a boy of my size is never a pleasant sight.

And a warning to all you Super Bowl partiers this evening: Butter Chicken and Shrimp Korma do not mix well with other food and drink…

I was in Valu-Mart this afternoon, looking to stock up on the Swiffer wet cloths that eradicate the dust from my floors on a weekly basis.

Sometimes I buy the old-fashioned plain cloths. Sometimes, I go nuts and buy the Febreeze-scented cloths. Call it a wild craving for some variety…

Today, I picked up the last box on the shelf…and it announced itself as something new: “Open Window Fresh Scent”.

Now…this puzzles me. When I open my windows, I smell a salt-encrusted, carbon-emission choking main thoroughfare in February. Why would anyone want to package & sell the smell of Canadian streets in winter?

I’m sure that, somewhere in the world, when one opens the window, the air smells like roses. Perhaps the soothing Lake District in May…or crisp Muskoka in early October.

On the other hand, I do wonder what it smells like when you open a window in Calcutta in July…or if frostbiting death through an open window in Iqaluit in January actually HAS a smell.

Is this really what I want from a floor cleaner?

So…when I got home, I opened up the box and took a sniff.

The verdict? It smells like plain-brand Swiffer…with a touch of peach!

The highlight of an exciting day. But I’m sure my hardwood floors will be grateful…

…as the driver of a 2004 Toyota Matrix, I would like to state that, at no time in the past, has my car EVER demonstrated signs of sentience, free will, mad consciousness, or the desire to speed away of its own accord from kung-fu ghosts and well-dressed machines. Our expressways can only WISH they were so exciting!

The accelerator pedal has never stuck to the floor, and the car has never decided to accelerate ahead at warp 7 without the approval of my very large lead foot.

Now, I’m always open to the possibility that my Matrix WILL become sentient at some point in the future, in a 2001/HAL-style, multi-dimensional fit. The Japanese are VERY clever, in a pseudo-Cylon way, and I wouldn’t doubt it was beyond the reach of their disciplined, communal, insane genius.

But I haven’t seen any black monoliths recently…nor has my car developed a glowing back-and-forth red evil eye. So let’s put that thought on the back-burner, shall we…?

Some warm new pictures of my beautiful darling, to close out a bitterly cold January…

(1) It’s exam time, and I’m already buried. In what could be a new mark of ridiculousness, I bought a giant (for “giant” read “ENORMOUS”) Rubbermaid container to carry projects home to mark…and it was TOO small!

Mega-Tupperware or not, mass marking awaits…there will be silence from me until Sunday, at the very least. If you don’t hear from me then, send someone around to lift a few lids…I might have fallen INTO a giant rubber container, completely exhausted & mentally shredded.

(2) Like the revised banner? It’s all down to a former student/padawan who kindly submitted a re-design suggestion. He knows who he is…and I’d like to thank him very much. Mind you, being the thickity-thick-thick-thicko that I am, it took me ages to notice he used a revised 3rd/8th Doctor logo font.

(3) Margaret Atwood, Canada’s lady of letters, has given me my quote of the day, in a spirited online defence of art & the human condition. It might sail over the head of philistines such as our Feckless Leader Harper, but it’s worth sharing…

“It isn’t a frill — something human societies can choose to indulge or to discard. Art isn’t only what we do, it’s what we are. Our musical and dancing and linguistic abilities appear to be built into every single one of us, in every society on Earth. So it’s not a case of whether or not we’ll have art: it’s a case of what sort of art we will have. Good, or bad? Old, or new? Our own, or somebody else’s? Whatever the choices, any theory of humanity that fails to take account of human art fails indeed.”

(4) The original title for this post was “Wednesday Random Thoughts”…but having written it on a Thursday, it clearly proves I have lost my mind…