find your happy place (of travaillez)

It's crazy- people are now leaving their jobs at my former employer who started working there after I left. Things are that abysmal there. I left mid november.

It used to be a place that you could stay for a few years and gain experience and then move on. Now it's a place to stay a couple of months until the other job leads pan out. How sad for them, they took a loyal base of employees and drove them all out. Thank god for the vibrant job market right now, or people might be trapped there. I should have left 2 years before I did. What can I say, I got comfortable. I learned my lesson there. I'm much more well-adjusted now.

My new desk is still a cubicle, but it's bigger than a high-school study carrell and I have a Herman Miller desk and Aeron Chair.

Seal(ing) of the Dominion of Canada

I couldn't agree more with one of my neighbours about Sir Paul and Queen Brigitte coming over here to tell us colonials to leave the cute furry seals alone. It's not that I feel I should support small remote East Coast fishing town residents ( though I do) , so much as I think they are misguided rich upper-class activists who should lend their fame for a better cause. In Europe. I despise animal activism solely based on cuteness, not on science.


1-the furs are going to rich europeans, so protest it there in the fur shops of Paris and London if you are going to protest it at all.
2-there are plenty of seals, but there are less cute species that could use help, go where you are needed.
3-there are plenty of worthy issues in your home countries. look in your own backyard.
4-we have a problem with the former colonialists of Canada coming to tell us what to do. think about this.
5-seals are cute, but not endangered.
6-if the sole reason for protesting this is the cruelty of the manner of harvesting, why not take on the meat industry? Their methods are equally brutal and far more animals meet their fate this way. What about the British upper crust's foxhunt, Sir Paul?



PS What the hell was Lady Paul doing petting a wild marine mammal? We have laws about harassing marine mammals in Canada. Why wasn't she charged. Fluffy nearly kept her hand though, which amused me greatly.

This morning, as I made my cup of Murchie's Prince Charles Blend tea, I thought about the famous "Bonnie Prince Charlie" of history and wondered, what other famous figures from history had nicknames that would never translate.

I mean, did the Italians have a "Neat-o Prince Vito"?

By the afternoon, this had bugged me to the point that I needed to settle the "Ich bin EIN Berliner" debate once and for all. I mean, was JFK a Jelly Donut or not?

This was a sensitive subject for some Berliners. Many Berliners really have a soft spot for Kennedy for what they see as firmly defending them from Soviet annexation, so they are bound to be forgiving.

Here is a synposis:

A common urban legend asserts that Kennedy made an embarrassing grammatical error by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry.

The legend stems from a play on words with Berliner, the name given to a doughnut variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have originated in Berlin. While this "jelly doughnut" is indeed common to Berlin, it is only known as Pfannkuchen (pan cake) in the city and nearby regions. Other parts of Germany picked up the pastry under the name of Berliner Pfannkuchen, shortened to Berliner.

According to the legend, Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a person from Berlin." By adding the indefinite article ein, it is claimed, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut." In the legend, the statement was followed by uproarious laughter. Those retelling the legend will often claim to know someone who knows a German who misunderstood the statement due to its grammatical error.

When you start splitting grammatical hairs, however, the story doesn't quite as good. As a German speaker myself, I know you do not say "Ich bin EIN anything" when you are referring to yourself, but apparently you can say "Ich bin ein Brandenburger" or 'Ich bin ein Arzt". Indefinite articles can be used from emphasis. For example to say "Er ist ein Schauspieler", means not so much that someone is an actor by trade, but that they are acting like they are an actor.

Here is a German teacher' s take on it.

Now one Berliner I talked to about this had a story along the lines of: Kennedy's quote has been truncated. He really sadi something like "Ich bin ein Berliner Staatsburger" or something like that, which makes more sense, but the historical record has cut him short to poke fun. This appears to be untrue. Full speech.

Footnote: One thing I disagree strongly with is that Berliner Pfannekuchen are not called "Berliners" in Berlin. They are. Berliners joke about "warme Berliner" being homosexual Berliners, rather than freshly baked pastries. My advice to you: don't declare "Ich bin warm" when you really mean temperature rather than orientation.

senators eat burgers too.

saw senator/mayor/former davinci Larry Campbell in the A&W lineup at Sinclair Centre. Didn't he have a heart bypass or something?

found this recent quote from our NDP feeder party member turned liberal:

Asked what he thinks of U.S. officials' stance that Emery is a major drug dealer, Canadian Senator Larry Campbell, a former drug officer, says: "If they consider that, then they have bigger problems than I can even imagine. There's simply no way he's a major anything."

work snack fun

Dear Sunnie,

I’m going to have to cut burritos entirely from my diet and not for the usual reason: The machine ate my money again and left me with a burrito dangling off the edge, almost ready to drop, mocking me from its precarious perch.

Buying another to try and force the first one out doesn’t work, as the machine is smart enough to know when a burrito is stuck in it, but not smart enough to deliver a burrito properly.

I had to settle for a chimichanga, so my hunger for food is sated, but not my hunger for justice to be served from the vending machine.