Gargoyle

One Christmas, back in my late teens, I received a gargoyle for Christmas. Technically it is a grotesque, as a gargoyle has a built-in spout to redirect water away from the side of a building, but at the time, I did not know the difference. Anyhow, it was winged dog, about a foot tall, and I thought it was pretty cool.

The next Christmas, I received a four inch tall grotesque on a little pedestal and a gargoyle calendar. The next year came the black-sand pewter hourglass framed by six grotesques, and a garden grotesque tic-tac-toe game. People had started to assume I was the gargoyle type.

As a side note, as a birthday gift just after that last Christmas, my sister bought me a wooden skull, with wings made of bones expanding in a two and a half foot wingspan. The salesgirl at the store she bought it at gave her a look that asked "Really?" and my sister said "It's his type of thing." Because, you know, skulls uh... and gargoyles and... yeah, I don't even know.

The salesgirl gave her a pitying look and sold it to her at half price.

When my wife came back from BFF (and brought with her tons of story) she said she brought me a gift and hefting over a box with a smirk on her face. Opening it up, I saw a lot of packing paper, and a book on top: Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. Apparently Random House provided the attendants of this bloggerfest free copies of the book, and had also held a draw for a prize - which Lara had won...

Gargoyle Bookends. "Cuz it's your thing!" she could barely withhold her chortling.

Anyhoo. The book's pretty good! It's about a hedonistic sort of fellow who has never loved anyone. He gets in a car accident and gets severe burns all over his body. As he recovers in the burn ward he is approached by a patient from the psychiatric ward who tells him she was born in the 14th century and that they were married. She tells him stories of love from different ages, including their supposed shared past, and slowly he begins to fall for her. She's a sculptor who creates gargoyles and grotesques - the strange forms call to her from within the stone and she brings them forth in days-long sessions, giving them a "heart" when they are complete. Then she informs the burned narrator that she has only 27 "hearts" left to give before her time on earth is done.

I saw a review in some magazine describing Gargoyle as "The Time Traveller's Wife meets the English Patient", which is a pretty lame review, because all three are on completely different levels. Gargoyle is quite well written, has a cynical tone which made me laugh - loved the part where he goes on for a page listing off the food at the Christmas dinner, inserting random things within to make sure you're actually reading; my wife is a chronic word/sentence/tract skipper so it made me think of her - and definitely my type of thing.

Pay more for faulty technology!

Two years ago, a crackling static began emitting from the smoke detector wired into the ceiling of the upstairs hallway. According to Canadian law, you're supposed to have one smoke detector per level of your house. We had the one upstairs and one downstairs (still working, despite multiple layers of paint implying its age) so I took this opportunity to purchase two new alarms.

The first was installed in the kitchen, of the variety that does not get set off by normal cooking, sold at a reasonable price. The upstairs was a combination smoke and CO2 detector, of which the price gave us pause in the store.

"That's pretty expensive." my wife noted.
"Well, it's got both features, plus blah blah blah reading the box blah blah and I as you well know am über paranoid, especially with a baby on the way." So we bought it.

Then, suddenly, three piercing chirps filled the air after a night of cooking spicy Indian food.

What's this yellow light mean? Why is it labeled SERVICE? I'll check First Alert's website.

This Means...		You Should...
1.	The device is not working properly, and needs to be replaced.	1.	Units under warranty should be returned to manufacturer for replacement. See "Limited Warranty" in your user's manual for details.

Okay, so let me get this straight. Elsewhere on the site, you say alarms should be replaced every ten years, but now should my higher end alarm suddenly conk out a year out of warranty, your advice is "Give us more money"?

No thanks, I'll be buying a sensor without the yellow "random vindaloo malfunction" light.

Curse you American Cola!

So back in my college (learning and later teaching) days my (non-alcoholic) drink of choice was (parenthesised clarification) Cherry Coke. Then came the new Vanilla Cherry Coke, which I did not like. Conveniently and tastily, an alternative was provided in the form of Lime Coke. Of course, in all of Ottawa, the only place I could find Lime Coke was in the drink machines at the college - every other store scoffed at me, telling me it was only available in Diet form.

Fast forward to last month, when my mother crossed the border to the States and smuggled back my requested sweet, sweet ambrosia, she also brought back tales of at least a dozen flavours of Coke.

As she was going back under the fence a few weeks later, she asked if I wanted anything else. I requested "Go, and bring forth abundantly Coke if fruitful (of Cherry and Lime)" (Guaranisis, 9:17). They didn't seem to have lime so I got a case of Cherry and more liquid crimson yummy

As it turns out, Cherry Coke bottled in the States tastes nothing like Cherry Coke produced in Canada. It's kinda odd that artificial cherry flavour could be made to taste even less like cherries. It makes me wonder whether they've screwed up the simple act of stealing half of Sprite's syrup for their Lime Coke recipe...

Fun fact: When I worked for Transport Canada in the department which provided the emergency response line for chemical spills, some of the longest, most complex documents I got to process were the procedures to follow should a tanker leak syrup for use in soft drinks.

Weekly Wednesday #4

... located easily on the calendar between monthly Tuesday and daily Thursday...

Weekly Realization:
When my wife said "You should do a weekly thing like Rude Cactus!" I said "Sure!" and didn't really go to all the bother of checking into how consistent he is... and he's not... which is good, because scrambling at the last minute for a link, or a picture if nothing actually stood out the past week is kinda lame.

Weekly Déja Vu while Spring Cleaning:
"Man that fridge is hard to clean... I think I'll wait until another night to clean the freezer..."

Weekly Link: http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/smarts.php
Octopi only live 2 years? This is sad.

Weekly Moment of Self Pride:
Yesterday I told Kiernan that the new fruit and vegetable juice (with lettuce!) was Monkey Juice. Tonight he asked for Monkey Juice with no prompting. This in addition to my contributions to his animal sound repertoire ("What does a zombie say?" - "Aaaaaugh"; "What does a skunk say?" - "P.U!") makes me realize how fun molding tiny minds really is.

Weekly Workplace:
I'm glad I wasn't able to locate the lady in charge of the baby pool yesterday. I would have walked in there and said "Give me 2 dollars on April 17th!" (no, Lindsay, not because that's your birthday and it's such a lucky day - it's because it's 9 days past her due date)... The baby was born on the 6th, so if the pool-runner (the workplace bookie? hmm... wonder what odds she has on Holy Mackerel in the sixth...) hadn't been aware of this I would've been out a toonie...

Weekly WTF:
I was invited out to see a free preview of the movie The Ruins on Thursday, (no spoilers ahead) and it was a moment of "Wow, a horror movie that doesn't rely on cheap tricks to make you jump in your seat" - okay, they did it twice, but it was usually just gory visuals. Then the movie ended. It just... stopped. Um, no crazy twist? How did this get past test audiences without a Hollywood-esque twist? It probably ends exactly the same as the book, and what movie these days does that? Borrrring. I myself have come up with the perfect ending for the movie which would actually work, and which also ties up one of the glaring plot holes they casually glanced at, referenced, and then threw away. I bet it was in the original movie script.

Porter it up!

It was last month, when I was told that I had to submit an expense estimate before my first business trip to Toronto, that I was told about Porter Airlines. There I was, figuring in the $150 of cab fares from Pearson International Airport, that my officemate asked if I was going to be staying downtown. Since this was the case, she said "Porter it up!"

Porter flies to the City Centre Airport, on an island right by downtown Toronto. I was told of the many wonderful aspects of a flight on Porter, but it wasn't until experiencing them that I realize how much the little things help - especially when there are a ton of little things piled on top of each other:

Transportation: As mentioned, the plane lands in Toronto on an island. When I first got there I was thinking "Okay, great. There's apparently a free ferry that runs to the mainland, but from there I guess I'll have to cab it." Not so! After the ferry ride, a shuttle will take you to the corner of Wellington and York, right downtown. They'll also be there to pick you up and bring you back to the ferry when you're heading home. All of this for free!

Airplane Food: I've only been on a half dozen flights in my life, but the food up until Porter consisted of my choice of salty snacks plus a mini-can of pop. If you're flying on a Porter flight any time near mealtime, you're suddenly presented with a small half-shoebox neatly sealed with an actual meal inside. Not a full-course meal, for certain, but for breakfast I had a muffin, a yogurt, and a cereal bar. For lunch or dinner, there was a half-sandwich, some melba toast or crackers, a BabyBel wheel of Gouda, and a cookie or chocolate for dessert. Add to that your choice of pop, bottled water (I was bringing home the cool shaped water bottle to show off but left it at the ATM), or, you know, beer. Or wine, red or white. Complimentary. In a glass. And I'm not talking "Here's your glass of cola, sir, we'll be saving the rest of your can for the next person.", I'm saying a full 355mls all to yourself!

Music: They've got awesome covers of 1960's bossanova and yé-yé music piped into the planes before takeoff, not that you get to hear it for long since there's never any delays waiting on the tarmac (on the Toronto side, anyhow, since they're the only airline using the airstrip) but in any case the music matches nicely with the style of...

The Flight Attendants: You know when you see a flight attendant in a movie, all pretty and neat, in their little uniforms with their pillbox hats, then you get on a real plane and you've got the over-made-up middle aged ladies in their puffy blouses and lopsided kerchiefs, who look kinda dejected when they don't think anyone is looking? They're that way because they're not up to par with the hotness of the Porter attendants. (Since this blog was initially started in the lounge at the airport, then was interrupted when my flight arrived, it should be noted that my flight home tonight was staffed by two ladies who decided they didn't want the sexy new Porter outfits, and instead slumped sadly in lame outfits as described formerly. Of course, they were probably on this particular flight to average out the age of the flight crew, as our pilot looked about sixteen.)

Their Mascot: The raccoon, it is everywhere - and I just like it from a branding point of view. I smuggled out the outer packaging of my boxed dinner because I love it. The raccoon's head, Kilroy Was Here style, with a noodle-laden knife and fork. Below its snout is the word "orte". The first time I saw it I tilted the packaging, wondering whether the p and r that were supposed to frame it was printed in a way I could only see at a certain angle, but no... then it hit me. The noodles were not noodles - the p hangs off the knife on the left, and the r is speared by the fork - pure genius in design.

Mr Porter's Lounge: Man. The picture on this page doesn't do it justice. The lounge at the City Centre airport has free wireless Internet, computers for those who don't have laptops with them, comfy chairs, coffee maker, espresso maker, and a fully stocked drink fridge (no beer in that one, unfortunately).

Now, Porter is a small airline, so of course if there's plane troubles it's not as quickly resolved. If I left the above review as is you know Lara will bring up how Porter "screwed me over" last month. But I don't see it as being screwed over -- Basically I had a 7pm flight, but got off training early. I called them and asked about moving my flight up, and they bumped me up to the 5:30 flight, a more expensive flight, but at no extra charge! Unfortunately, it was snowy and slushy in Toronto, and that shuts the whole city down in a gridlocked panic. So the 10 minute shuttle was half an hour late. Calling ahead once again to tell them I wouldn't be able to make it to the 5:30 flight, they pushed me back onto the 6:15 flight. When I got there, it turned out that the plane that was leaving at 6:15 had been delayed -- in fact, they wouldn't let it leave Montreal -- so everyone on the 6:15 flight had to be bumped to the 7:00 flight.

You know, the one that I was originally booked on.

And the one that I was now 13th in line on standby to get onto.

So I hung out in the lounge, and they brought me dinner, and I used their wireless, but ended up rebooking to Saturday morning and receiving a $50 voucher for a future flight... they were all very nice about it, so I don't hold it against them as much as Lara does...

So if you're looking for an airline that will make you feel civilized, fly Porter. They don't fly everywhere - Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal (through Toronto, so really, it's faster to drive from Ottawa to Montreal), Halifax, Quebec City, and New York. But do as I did today - don't reschedule your flight home. Just go and shop, or spend the day in the lounge, even if they give you funny looks for checking in at 10am for a 7pm flight.