Femion

Fromage et Chattons

I never realized how many chapters I end in my book with the phrase "into the darkness" or "into the unknown". It's chesier than the Wheel Pizza.
A few days ago dad discovered a litter of wild kittens in our lillies, as you can see by this awe factor picture below:

But it was only a metre away from both our driveway and the very busy Church Street, dad called the pound to come get them. We've had a wild cat problem in our yard for a while. Dad does his best to scare them away from his garden, but they keep coming back for the cheap cat food our neighbors leave out for them. After catching the kittens in the litter except for one, who came back the next day looking very forlorn, the cat catcher decided to go ahead and set a trap for the older cats. The next day a black cat fell for the trap, as seen below, and you could hear it meowing from inside our house. The other black shape in the picture is one of the siblings of the cat in the trap. Both siblings sat beside the cat in the trap for most of the afternoon until I unintentionally scarred them both off to take the picture. I guess it was too much to take for our neighbours, who claimed the cat was theirs to get it out of the trap, although it obviously isn't because they've never cared for it before.

My First Novel

At 10:42 pm last night I wrote the last sentence of my book, Lost in Six Billion Dreams. It's the first novel I've ever started that I finished. I've been working on it since about February-March 2004 and it's about 53 000 words long. I suppose I should be thinking more about quality over quantity, and the true test is whether I'll want to treasure or burn my manuscript. It feels great to finally have it done, but now it's going to take me another two years to sift through and edit this trash.

Tricky Experiment

In the July 30th issue of New Scientist, there was a link to an interesting experiment. The video on this link is of a group of people in black and white t-shirts passing basketballs to each other. To participate, click on this link and count the number of times the basketball is passed. Then, and only after you have watched the video, go to the answer.

Staples Fanfare

This Saturday was the opening of the Antigonish Staples, the latest addition to the growing Antigonish commercial area, next to the Atlantic Superstore, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart. Dad wanted to go to the Wal-Mart and since the Staples is within walking distance, we decided to go take a peak, even though we knew what we'd find when we got there.
Well, the place was packed, to say the least. It felt like all 4000 or so people in Antigonish had all piled in there for the opening day, so that they could be the first to buy their special pen and wheely chair. We dared not venture more then a few steps inside, but our trip was not a complete was of time. There were many freebies, and we left after our ten seconds in the store, without spending a single cent, with three 500 page printer paper blocks, two different road atlases, and plenty of timbits and Tim Horton's coffee if we had wanted it.

Driving School Feuds

As I've said before, I am currently taking driver's ed from Ed Brown Driver Training. It is hell. We're more than twenty crammed in a putrid green coloured room that was once a laundromat, we're only given photocopies of a textbook that's got to be over twenty years old, and they're skimpy on the looseleaf paper. The guy who teaches the course is very loud, inconsistant, and confusing for someone who hasn't got a clue about cars (i.e. me).
Since Young Driver's of Canada left, the only options in Antigonowhere have been Ed Brown and McKay's. There is a feud between them because Brown used to work for McKay and as recently as this Wednesday, this ad appeared in the Casket, (the local newspaper):
McKay's Driving School
As you know, over the past three years we have been the victim of someone we thought we could trust. This trust cost us thousands of dollars and effected dozens of students. They can photocopy our books and try to copy our lesson plan but they can't copy our trustworthyness. Over the past 16 years...
So not only do I have to tolerate two and a half hours a night of boredom and ear-drum breaking lectures, but I'm supposed to feel bad every time I see their photocopied books because I turned down trustworthyness in favour of a ten dollar cheaper fee and one night less of class. I don't think so. As "loyal" as McKay's is, they could stand to have some competition.

Fundy Funday

Here are some pictures from our recent camping trip to Fundy National Park in New Brunswick. It was pretty and rainy so most of the pictures came out in shades of grey. The beaches were really warm for the maritimes because they aren't exposed to the Atlantic as most Noca Scotia beaches are, but they were really muddy because of the sandstone geology of the province and the constant tides, which are also responsable for the creation of the Hopewell Rocks "flowerpots" as seen below, where the tides cut away at the cliffs to create interesting formations.

In other news, Last night was my first class of driver's ed. The instructor speaks WAY too loud and I haven't got a clue about cars.

University Tours

This weekend I went to Halifax to tour two universities, St. Mary's and Dalhousie, to see Shakespeare by the Sea's The Merchant of Venice, and to shop. I don't know where I'll go to university yet, but Dalhousie seems impressive. It's the biggest university in Nova Scotia, it's where my mom got her economics degree, and it's not too far away from Antigonish.
Point Pleasant park, (where we went to see the Merchant) was a shock. It has been transformed from a really tall, thick forest to an almost barren hillside after Hurricane Juan and the beatle disease. I think it should be renamed Point Unpleasant Park.
And as usual, with a big city there are more weirdos, such as the vagabond Robert Munch fan in the bookstore (I's jus'a sixty-year-old goin' on six) and the man going around Wal-Mart singing "What do ya get when you fall in love? Ya get pneumonia!" over and over again.

Another Genius Destroyed

This post is dedicated to A Modest Destiny a truly great work which is no longer thanks to the angry masses of the internet. It's amazing how the internet can be used as a sheild of anonymity by regularily civil human beings to terrorize one another. I'm guilty of it too, I've insulted and been enraged at other people, merely for having an opinion. Now, perhaps I have been ill-informed, but I don't understand how one seemingly minor incident has resulted in this. There are people on the other end of the line and they do have feelings. Remember that the next time you feel the need to bully online.

In other news, Arthur, my father's friend from high school, and his girlfriend have come to Antigonowhere for vacation. I don't know what they plan to see, but they've gone off in search of beaches and fish & chips shops in the rain.