Yup. Slush.
Vancouver has reverted to its rainy ways, and we now live hip-deep in slush. Well, okay, maybe just ankle deep. Almost.
No, I can’t think of anything more interesting to blog about than the weather.
Snow
Yup. Snow.
The “severe snow storm” predicted by panicky news teams has turned out to be a snow flurry. It’s mostly stopped now, and traffic seems to be moving normally.
I bet those people who decided to stay home from work are feeling a bit silly now. While they’re trapped in their homes sipping hot cocoa, we’re here at the office–
um… doh.
Confused ducks skidding across the ice
Yes, 2004 has lumbered into our lives. It looks a lot like 2003, but for the top story of the week. It’s an event so bizarre for this town that it makes banner headlines on the Vancouver Sun: “Brrr! More snow, cold weather ahead“.
The words strike fear into the hearts of all Vancouver residents. Peering through the blinds, they see something bizarre happening in the street. Pools of water have changed their form from a liquid to a solid! Cars slide helplessly into other cars, and small children fall over randomly. The very laws of physics have been turned upside down.
There’s more. Meteorologists predict that soon there will be snow falling — snow! And not just a dusting, but thirty centimeters!! The city, with only a handful of snow plows, will be rendered helpless.
The worst of it: ducks are thrown into disarray: “At Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park, confused ducks coming in for a landing could be seen skidding along the icy surface,” says the Vancouver Sun.
Please send help. Think of the ducks. Please, think of the ducks.
Standing in the shallows
If he looked very carefully, he could make out the tops of mountains nestled in the pillows of clouds. From time to time, birds would cross his field of view, rising and falling in the sea breeze. He breathed the heavy scent of salt and seaweed, and as his legs were becoming numb with cold, he wondered if he should be standing thigh-deep in the shallows.
Every once in a while, a larger wave crested and splashed over his hips, each one sending a shock of cold up his spine. No, he probably shouldn’t stand here anymore. He had stopped at the water’s edge to look at the view. Over the course of an hour or two (or was it three?) the water surrounded him and climbed steadily up the beach until now the largest of the waves threatened to knock him over.
But he’d stood his ground. Instead, he watched the clouds over the mountains on the horizon. Like the waves, the clouds flowed around and over the peaks and into valleys, swirling and cresting. It was a river in the air, moving too slowly to see with the naked eye. He kept his gaze fixed on a point in the clouds, though, and observed how that point would slide inexorably from left to right across the range.
Something nibbled at his toes. It was time to leave. He turned his back to the river of clouds and waded back to the now-distant shore, where cyclists and rollerbladers whizzed left and right endlessly. When he stood on solid ground, he paused to consider where he might go next. Just then, a woman, sitting awkwardly on a lawn nearby, lifted a book to hide her face. “I, ROBOT” the title proclaimed in gold embossed letters on a faux-leather binding.
“Asimov,” he muttered. “Always with the Asimov.” He turned left, then right, then left again, and made for the bridge. Maybe he’d sit on the bridge for a while.
Search words
Today, I checked my web server stats, and was amused by some of the most popular search words since December 1st. Here’s how they break down:
- Topping the list at 212 hits is the undefeated all-time champion of search words, “hamster”.
- Next at 96 hits is “Canadian Christmas“.
- At 43 hits is the old reliable “cubicle”. No suprise there. Lots of people like to read about cubicles online.
- That’s followed by 36 hits for “buster keaton”, who I posted about once in 2002.
- Then 11 hits for “automata”, which is a lingering reference to my “Webdog Automata” pages, which no longer exist. Apologies to those 11 people.
- 9 hits for “sumo”.
- 8 hits for “mouse”.
- 5 each for “beer nuts” (Mmm, beer nuts), “bookcase”, and “cubicle gifts”.
- 4 hits for “chimps on penguins”, which, to my relief, turned out to be a video of chimps discussing penguins.
- 4 for “christmas cubicle”, “light sensor robots”, and “photo hamster” (is that a hamster with a lens and film?).
- and the remainder was split among “rc robots”, “salt and vinegar chips”, and “the hamster”.
At least I no longer get searches for Ellen Fiess, black triangular UFOs, and naked penguins.