Gifted Typist

Upon hearing on CBC radio that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with the Dalai Lama this week, one of the little typists replied in earnest: “Mummy, why is Harper meeting a dying llama?”

It’s time we chucked the chunky two thousand and seven syntax for the year 2007 and adopted twenty-o-seven.
That was the syntax in the last century. It wasn’t one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine. It was nineteen ninety nine. And in the first decade, it was nineteen-0-seven or nineteen seven.
In the year 2000 we called [...]

You are not funny. Your host is not funny. Your debaters are lame. Your live audiences are sycophantic and undemanding.
This program has graduated from the Stuart McLean school of CBC comedy. It is in love with itself and its own little tropes. It fancies itself cute. It is founded on the premise that the louder [...]

If you stumbled  uponGT Sunday afternoon and evening, you probably saw some strange pages displaying.
That was my Sundayus Horriblis. GT suffered a major shutdown. It happened during an attempt to upgrade the Wordpress platform.
Directions were followed to the word. Files were downloaded, uploaded, moved around and deleted. And then Boom! It was gone.
Not being a [...]

We’ve had some labour unrest in our house these past few weeks.
One of the unions is threatening to walk off the job. The issue is toilet paper. The union claims that it is not being replaced when it runs out. It has filed a grievance saying that management and the other unions are not shouldering [...]

Not to be a picky pedant, but why do people sign emails with “Best?”
Do they mean best regards? Best wishes? Best in show?
Best what?
I know that best means well. They could sign the email Worst, which wouldn’t be good at all. Best is definitely better than worst.
But “best” all by itself seems incomplete to me, [...]

You know that TV commercial that shows the people screaming in horror as they spot the first fallen leaf at the end of summer. This happened to me this week, only it was much worse than a fallen leaf.
It was ….. oh dear God no, not…. CHRISTMAS! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I’m afraid it’s true. The flickering Christmas [...]

This typist is calling for a boycott of bookstores and publishers that are ripping off the Canadian book-buying public by failing to adjust prices to reflect current exchange rates.
On the weekend, I slammed down a computer book and walked out of a Chapters bookstore to protest the differential. With the Canadian dollar worth $1.02 US [...]

The other day a little box popped up on my computer and gave me this message:
The licensing subsystem has failed catastrophically. You must reinstall or call customer support.
But here’s the thing that really got me. The only response the little box offered was OK.
Excuse me? OK? You just told me I’ve had a catastrophic failure. [...]

I didn’t until I walked into Starbucks one day and made the mistake of ordering a “small” cappuccino.
The roll of the eyes on the waiter – oops, barista – said it all: “Don’t ‘cha you know?” he seemed to be saying. “Tall is the new small.”
Of course. Silly me. This is Starbucks. Why settle for [...]

On Saturday night, an oyster feed was had at my house. Oysters are not for everyone. But for me, a feed of fresh raw Nova Scotian oysters is as good as it gets. With a squeeze of lemon, a squirt of tobasco and a slurp of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, you realize that life does [...]

A walk with family and friends along the white rocks of the Atlantic coast produced these reflections of silly dancing. They were taken in a small pool of water that formed earlier in the day when high-tide waves were crashing over the rocks. The waves were not crashing here when the photos were taken but [...]

My cat Cheddar (see sidebar) has a personal hygiene problem.
She also has a weight problem.
So when clumps of undetermined substance accumulated in the fur in her rump area, she needed the cat equivalent of a Brazillian.
Go here to read more about Cheddar’s Buttzillian.

By the look of this blog, you could be forgiven for thinking this typist is one of those crazy cat people.
There have been Flickr slide shows, flickr badges in the sidebar, weekly columns – all about the cat.
While it is true that the cat in question (see sidebar) plays a big role in the life [...]

This typist is happy, efficient and motivated when it comes to typing.
But when it comes to admin tasks, the opposite is true. Admin induces a despondencythat borders on coma.
Filing HST returns, as I am doing today, induces deep depression.
Because of this, I avoid admin activities as long as possible. I save it all up until [...]