Greetings from heart of the frozen West. You Easterners perhaps do not understand why we love the wintry weather, but here in Victoria our comrade citizens think nothing of performing community underwear aerobics in the street while singing patriotic songs. We do not let a little thing like overnight snow shut down all transit, schools, and services! Pah! This snow, it is like mother's milk to us! Old ladies snap their fingers at the cold. And their hips also!
Last night we took glorious PCL from Vancouvervostok to Victoriagrad. The People's Ferry Spirit of Red October steamed heroically into harbour only one hour late thanks to the valiant efforts of our comrades in the BC Ferry Workers Collective. Not one step back! Retreaters are traitors! Traitors will be shot!
Once in the industrial stronghold of downtown Victoria, where mighty factories produce finest quality tractors, smoked salmon gift sets, and patriotic mugs, we wait three quarters of hour for taxi because all available taxi units are needed at the Front. All citizens must sacrifice for benefit of greater motherland!
On a related note, I watched a copy of "Alone in the Wilderness" recently (thanks, Dana), in which a tough Alaskan chap builds his own cabin in the bush with hand tools, why not. He then proceeds to spend the next 30 years by himself in the cabin in the wilderness with nothing for company but a canoe and a sizeable blueberry patch. I immediately thought of Michael. Of course Michael would have the canoe, blueberry patch, AND Fawn and Jade, but he is definitely the type.
I am happy with my car. Almost totally happy. Only one thing annoys me. The wipers.
They wipe, yes. Great clean sweeps without shudder or squeak and nary a drop left behind. *When* they wipe.
When the Mazda designers were locked in their little planning room, brainstorming the Mazda 3, they forgot the cardinal rule: don't reinvent the wheel. They left the wheels alone, but they messed with the windshield wipers. Instead of the intermittent setting, where you decide how fast the wipers wipe, they added a moisture sensor which does the thinking for you. Duh. 'Cause me no can see rain. Me drive with eyes closed.
And of course, the sensor has its quirks. It doesn't wipe when you think it should. When starting the car this morning, it was *pissing* rain. The sensor had no idea. I manually had to switch to the "wipe fast" setting and back to wake the sensor up. WIPE! WIIIIIPPE!! How is this convenient? I ask you.
Once the wipers are in motion, the sensor is still in control. It doesn't simply set the wipers to a particular speed, it actually makes the decision to wipe with every sweep. The little pea-brain is thinking furiously before every swish: "Should I wipe now? Should I wipe? Should I?" This makes the wipers more efficient, yes. It also causes a sort of wiper arrhythmia in the strict sense of "no rhythm" that drives me bloody bonking barking mad.
You can't switch it to manual. Twiddling the knob adjusts the moisture sensitivity of the sensor but twiddling your thumbs is at least as effective. If the sensor is supposed to do my job for me so I can keep my eyes on the road, why, Set take you, PROVIDE A KNOB?
I figure if someone is too stupid to know how to adjust his or her windshield wiper speed, that someone should not be sitting in the driver's seat in the first place.
Mrs. Foster has returned to us. I had wondered if she was dead, but no, she has a few things yet to teach us before departing the Earth. In this case we would have remained embarassingly ignorant of the fact that Saturday last was Daylight Savings, if not for the saving grace of Mrs. Foster's phone call.
For those needing a reminder, Mrs. Foster is the elderly lady who leaves random messages on our voice mail, apparently believing we are the Front Desk at the Home she Quite Obviously Lives In. Fortune has never granted me the privilege of intercepting a live call from Mrs. Foster - we are privy to her voice messages only.
Here she is on Saturday, warning us to change our clocks an hour back:
Mrs. Foster versus The Microwave.
P.S. Rachelle and I watched The Shining Hallowe'en night, and as you may recall, the very haunted bad bad room at the Overlook is 237. Coincidence? WooooOOOooooooooo....
P.P.S. Mrs. Foster clearly states "Room 227" in the earlier recorded message. Which is just down the hall from the Room of Very Naked Scary Corpse Ladies, and is frankly Close Enough. Meep.
