WeatherGirl’s Station

Hope all is well with you and yours. We’re home for the holiday season this year, the university calendar was not kind and the idea of flying on Christmas Eve unappealing. So here we are in the frozen north looking forward to a white Christmas with just the three of us.

This evening was wonderful. We made tacos together (not the most complex meal I will confess) and opened a single present each from under the tree. We all landed an example of our favourite media. How fortuitous! Cookies made for a satisfying dessert.

Now we await Santa’s arrival with anticipation.

With wishes for a peaceful 2006 this is WeatherGirl signing off for the night.

Current temperature 32F/0C

Yes, you read that correctly, our ten ton behemoth has become a svelte superstar and we’re not even sure how it happened. With all the wet food she’s been getting, courtesy of Turq, and the old bait and switch con they have going (he asks for more and when it’s put out he walks away and leaves her to it) we’d assumed she was headed to the twenty ton mark. Wrong! All the bounding around this summer seems to worked its magic and she is officially at a healthy weight. (I should hope so since she lost over three and a half pounds in the last year.) This has had a very positive effect on her arthritus and she does not hobble as badly as she used to.

We found all this out when Portia went in for some innoculations. We also discovered that she has a heart murmur. We’re not surprised since she is 14 years old. We haven’t embarked on any seek and destroy options yet as she does not co-operate with the taking of medicine. (She has the patience of Job when it comes to evading swallowing.) We’ll see how she’s doing next time she needs shots.

Turq latest: the death spiral continues, though it looks like he’ll make it to 2006. He is now exhibiting symptoms related to blindness and we suspect he is losing weight again.

Current temperature 32F/0C

Hmmmm? I’d like to see this movie again before I decide how much I liked it. And I did like it but … The story was told as a series of set pieces with little to connect them together. Understandable given just how much was in the book but I’m not sure that the movie stands on its own, character development was clearly considered optional.

The set pieces were quite something though and definitely worth the price of admission.

Current temperature 36F/2C still boggling at that temperature!!!!!

Great. While this is a fairly standard bio-pic and the cinematography is not much to write home about, the chemistry between Phoenix and Witherspoon is red hot and brings the whole thing to life. The sound track rocks and it is quite amazing that the leads produced such wonderful vocals themselves.

There’s some interesting social commentary in several scenes and I enjoyed how they wove the writing of certain songs into the story line. The one serious question I have is - does the almost complete absence of African Americans in this movie represent accurately the Carter/Cash experience or were they omitted for other reasons?

Current temperature 36F/2C (normal temps, max 24F/-2C and min 8F/-13C)

… a very brave man, Judge Jones.

(Yeah, I know I’m a few days late on this but I’ve been inhaling paint fumes in a cupboard and it’s been keeping me off-line.)

Judge Jones has ruled that Intelligent Design is a religious idea and therefore not appropriate for the science classroom in state financed schools. And to that I say - amen.

As a Brit I have always found it baffling why Americans want to take their religious beliefs and shoehorn them into science. Science is a way of examing the world around us that follows certain rules and expects certain behaviour from its participants. Religion can serve a similar purpose but works under a completely different set of assumptions.

If you are a religious person who is having a hard time dealing with scientific discoveries and facts it is up to you to work through the questions raised and find a way to reconcile your faith with science. It is not the scientific community’s job to contort itself to solve your religious dilemma.

We have no business teaching as science, religious ideas that have not been subject to the scientific process. Of course if religious groups wish to subject their beliefs to the scientific process then that’s another issue. But then where’s the faith in that?

Read more in the article unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom by PZ Meyers.

Current temperature a positively balmy 36F/2C

And the burning question is - at this rate, will we still have snow for Christmas? Coatless of Morris

So I thought that American big business loved free trade and worshipped at the altar of the free market. Of course not, silly me, they can’t possibly be expected to respond to new technology with commensurate innovation. No, they go whining to our legislative overlords how the game has to be fixed so they can keep making outrageous profits from their out-of-date, inefficient practices.

Phi has written a well reasoned article on what the buggers are up to called, Timeshifting is not priracy. All I want to do is be very, very rude to the grey suits who think they have a right to make money without any effort while at the same time telling me what I have to watch and when.

Maybe I need a new moniker. Perhaps IrateWeatherGirl or SpittingMadWeatherGirl or BattleAxeWieldingWeatherGirl. Where’s a well informed legislator when you need one!

Current temperature 1F/-17C

Brill! Great genre movie. Loved the female lead, Rachel McAdams, she had brains and guts and didn’t stand around screaming waiting for a man to save her!!!!!!!! Big thank you to Carl Ellsworth. The film races along and doesn’t let you relax for a moment. Cillian Murphy plays the villian with gusto. (Hope he doesn’t get typecast.)

Current temperature 9F/-13C