I read Slashdot a fair bit, and occasionally post comments. Today, for the first time since I’ve been on the site, my Karma rating moved from “good” to “excellent”.

I’m going to take that as a sign that maybe Slashdot knows something about my real life that I don’t. Maybe there is something to this Buddhist thing after all? Who knows.

I am baking bread right now. A whole wheat and sunflower flour bread, which I do like with almond butter. I will probably have a loaf left over, which will get frozen and be something to look forward to when I fly back in the middle of August. It’s weird to read that I am already thinking of the voyage home, but there it is. I have another trip to plan for right after it.

Speaking of that, I should probably start charging batteries for various things. I’ve received one of the books I ordered on Biblio a few weeks ago, but I still don’t have the one I want for the trip. Since all books are coming from the same book store, I can only assume that it will be here tomorrow.

And now, dinner.

I have finally discovered why I travel. It’s not because I get to go to far away places, take photos of cool things, sleep in bus stations, hunt for interesting vegan food options, or feel dirty from going without a shower for a week, no. Those are all good things, but the real reason is that I hate mowing my damn lawn. I cut it an hour ago, first time in a few weeks because it’s really hot and it hasn’t been growing much, and I realized that I only have to cut it once more before I leave. And then maybe once when I get back, and then it will be the middle of September when I am home again, and by then it is getting cold out and I might cut it once more. When you’re not home, the lawn is someone else’s problem. An extra tip — you can squeeze an extra day out of not having to cut it by coming home late at night. If you can’t see it, it looks freaking GREAT.

Give me flower beds, bushes, perennials, and mulch over this any day. Maybe I should just cover the whole thing with black landscaping fabric, dump a ton of pea gravel on it, make some stone paths, put some big bushes and some giant rocks, and just revel in what would be a totally kick ass Zen garden. Way better than this mullet lawn I have now. Yes, thats right. Mullet lawn. It grows way faster in the back because of the water drainage.

Anyway. Something else I want to mention. You guys out there, the ones who cook potatoes or pasta, freaking add salt to the water you boil or parboil in! It’s one of the only times you get to add seasoning. Lots of salt. It should taste like the ocean. The salt mostly stays in the water anyway. A sous-chef that my brother once worked for once said “What, are you making hospital food?? Season it!”

This has been a Public Service Announcement, brought to you by The Bravery.

I don’t normally blog from the couch, but I am this time. It’s been raining all weekend, and so I sit here with a cup of chai tea, my laptop, and a very worn 1955 edition of The Quiet American, the current book in a long line of books that I have been reading over the last few weeks. I know I haven’t updated this site in a bit. To be honest, it has been difficult finding the time or the motivation — summer for me is a time to be outside, not on a computer. I’d rather be enjoying the sun, soaking up the vitamin D, on a bike or something.

But, since it’s wet, here I am. Before The Quiet American, I finished Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It’s a classic, and if you’re a fan of cyberpunk or the sci-fi genre in general, you should read it. As I mentioned before, Ender’s Game was on the list before Neuromancer, and three Kay novels were before that. It has been a good summer for reading. Next, I will probably get into Issac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy again. Just the three books — not the prequel or the later ones. I will be out of reading material at that point, and will probably have to think about what single book to bring with me when I head to Finland. It will definitely have to be something I have not read. Something that will be forever coloured with what ever memories that trip brings. I am open to suggestions at this point.

Still, Finland is a summer away. I am stuck in that mode where I am basically waiting to travel. I keep revising my itinerary, and have decided that I will try to squeeze a side trip to Stockholm in there. I was on the fence about that originally, but figured why the hell not? Until then, though, I need to come up with something to burn through 30 days of vacation. I can carry ten over at work without anyone complaining, but now that I have been with the university for 8 years I receive 4 weeks instead of 3 each year. I dislike taking time simply because I have time to take. Perhaps I will book something off for the middle of winter, and assume that I will be here in Fredericton for the summer. We’ll see.

I was in Montreal this past week, for a few days. Well, two, split over three. One whole day of meetings, and one day worth of travel. Still, I managed to eat well, do a bit of photography (the views of the city from the Mount Royal lookout are stellar), and generally admire the city. There are almost no overweight people in Montreal. Everyone walks or bikes, there is a massive mountain in the middle of the city that you are either walking up or walking down all the time, and I’m sure that all of the smoking helps keep the weight off, too. That last part is obviously not my thing, but I could handle being in a city that offered the opportunity to lead an active life style. The new Bixi bike system is awesome. For a couple of bucks, you can grab a bike from any Bixi bike rack anywhere in the city, ride it all over town (the longer you keep it out, the more you pay, but it’s not much), and then you just leave it at another Bixi rack when you are done. With dedicated bike lanes, it is revolutionary. No need to take a lock with you — you just leave it. it is tied to a credit card, and I’m going to bet that there are probably monthly passes you can buy if you use it often enough.

For a track, I am totally going into the far end of heavy. Decapitated is a Polish death metal band that has been widely hailed as one of the most technically precise, brutally fast, uncompromising metal bands in Europe. Sadly, their drummer, Vitek, (the one featured in this video) was killed in a bus tour accident a few years ago, when the band was on tour in Belarus. Their tour bus hit a logging truck. What is incredibly amazing is how *precise* they are. Notice the lack of weird thrashing and body movement — too busy concentrating on their instruments! Anyway, this is a live version of Spheres of Madness. Fasten your seat belts. It is freaking heavy.