Finds of the week?

In today's audit we found a couple of interesting things. In one load we found three bottles (two water, one Gatorade) which were filled with a liquid that we suspect was urine (none of us, however, was curious enough to open the bottles and sniff to find out for sure). So we simply weighed them out as "household special waste" (Stewardship Ontario, being an industry body, prefers this over the more common term "household hazardous waste"; according to them industry would never sell a hazardous product to the public). In the next load we found an empty laboratory reagent bottle, labeled as benzyl benzoate. That same load also contained a number of syringes, which gives one an idea of what the reagent was probably used for.

I've slept rather poorly for the last few days; my sleep was interrupted a number of times by weird dreams. In one of these I met someone who I haven't seen in around eight years; I'm rather curious as to what has actually become of him.

The shitmobile lives up to its name... again

During our lunch break today we noticed a puddle under the truck, which smelled like diesel fuel. Investigation proved that the fuel was leaking from a line. It remains to be seen how serious this problem is; the fuel wasn't dripping onto the exhaust system, at least, so no immediate fire hazard, but this really needs to be dealt with before we drive to Pembroke on Tuesday. The investigation continues.

Apparently we'll have a second vehicle for the trip, by the way. It's a large cargo van, apparently an insurance writeoff. Somehow I have a feeling that this vehicle won't be entirely trouble-free either.

It was a short day, so for the heck of it I took the TTC downtown. I didn't do much, except eat, but it was a nice change from sitting in my hotel room and surfing the net.

Two exhausting days down, three to go

The Toronto project continues. The hours haven't been totally outrageous, but for some reason I've been really bagged the last couple of days. Yesterday we found out that one of the loads we were sent last week was from the wrong place. Replacement material is supposedly going to be brought to us on Friday. Fortunately we hadn't sorted them yet; if we had, we'd have to sort the new stuff anyways. According to the Human Sawmill, the driver is the same one who screwed up several times on the winter audit (dumping some of our material before it got to us).

On a whim I picked up a copy of Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality. I'm enjoying it, though some of the material is a bit over my head. Maybe repeated readings will be necessary.

Another vibrator showed up in the trash today (a much more mundane model than the two we got in Wellington County the week before last).

Relocation

So I've decided to follow whippersnapper's advice and relocate to another provider so as to be able to add a site meter. I kind of like the new look. My old blog is still there, if you want to see my older posts.

I spent the last two days in Toronto, doing the usual crap. Today I'm going back there with Ms McD and the people she boards with, for the big pot rally at Queen's Park. Should be fun.

A mysterious comment

In response to this post, I got a rather puzzling comment:

Astrology is the ancient practice and study of the stars and planets. Its history goes back to Babylonian times. Astrology is not the same as astronomy. Astronomy studies only the science of the planets, stars and universe.

horoscope, astrology (http://astrologyquestions.com)

I'm not sure what to make of it. The website it directs you to is fairly basic, seemingly directed at people who have never heard of astrology (and how many people, at least in our culture, can that be said to apply to?) The comment was cut and pasted from that website. I'd like to find out more about the poster's motivations, but since the comment is anonymous I can't do that. It reminds me of nothing so much as those religious zealots who think that directing you to John 3:16 will be enough to make you say "Gosh, I didn't know that! I guess I'd better accept Jesus as my saviour right away!" (They tend to be selective in that regard; they usually don't direct you to 4 Kings (aka 2 Kings) 18:27 for some reason).

I got my bike back from the shop yesterday- just in time for the return of shitty weather. Looking out the window, it looks like we got a couple of centimetres of snow last night.

Steve shows, once again, how classy he is

Our esteemed prime minister is heading off to Europe soon, to unveil a memorial at Vimy Ridge. Thing is, none of the opposition leaders were invited. Traditionally, things like paying respect to the war dead are supposed to be non-partisan affairs, but Harper is thinking ahead- he's no doubt thinking that people will see him, but not the opposition leaders, paying his "respects" before the TV cameras. Classy, Steve. Really fucking classy.

On a positive note, the U-Pass passed. Thanks to everyone who voted Yes- I won't benefit directly, but apparently GRT is going to make some general improvements to their service in response to this, so everyone in the region will benefit in the long run.

Bad news for the astrology buffs...

A British researcher has conducted an extensive study of how much influence people's star signs have on their choice of a mate. The conclusion- none at all:

A new study of 20 million husbands and wives has concluded that a pickup ploy linked with the Age of Aquarius is all wet.

According to a University of Manchester report released this week, asking a potential partner "What's your sign?" offers no more insight into the relationship's likelihood of success than consulting a Magic 8-Ball.

The investigation, which draws from 2001 census data in England and Wales, is thought to be the largest-scale test of astrology ever undertaken.

"If there is even the smallest tendency for Virgos to fancy Capricorns, or for Libras to like Leos, then we should see it in the (marriage) statistics," says study author David Voas, senior research fellow at the university's Centre for Census and Survey Research.

Assuming even one set of lovebirds in 1,000 is influenced by the stars, Voas says, favoured combinations of signs would appear an extra 10,000 times in a sample of 10 million couples.

Instead, he says the spousal pairings were instead "just what we'd predict on the basis of chance."

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but hey, you still have the tarot cards, Ouija board, and chicken guts, right?