They Take After Their Masters

Sorry about the lack of posts, but right now I'm sort of holding down two jobs and I'm dog tired.



Next comes body mods and tats, I suppose.

I'm Too Easily Diverted

Ever on the lookout for more excuses on-line for procrastination under the guise of keeping the grey cells in tiptop form, I happened upon this simple, but maddening word game.

The object is to determine the appropriate five-letter word (I'm really practiced at the four-letter ones). Each time you guess, you will be shown whether your word was before or after the goal word alphabetically. Simple, eh? How many five-letter words are there anyways? Actually, a whole shitload when you consider that most four-letter words can be extended by an -s or -d or -y.

My best score is 10,893. What's yours?

And don't forget your blends, dipthongs and digraphs.

The Fire of 2008

It's easy to make jokes about buying marshmallows or having a caribou roast. Hell, I have a lot of problems with the administration of our local co-op and the decisions they make. But when you get down to it, they are a very major employer in town (including one of my daughters), they are "owned" by the members (including me), and the larger source of consumer goods in a very isolated community.

So when the whole complex goes up in smoke, it is a major concern for residents. Not only did we lose the larger grocery store, but we lost our post office (and my printer inks therein), our cable television distribution, our bank, our point of sale for Inuit artists, our fuel distribution administration, and a whole host of other important services.

I did not go down to see it burn - we were having a blizzard and I feel that the morbidly curious only interfere with efforts to contain the blaze. Also, if there are any heroes in a losing effort it has to be our local volunteer fire department, who contended with 100 kph winds, almost zero visibility, exploding tanks and ammo, minus 45 C windchill, a contorted maze of buildings, the evacuation and protection of many houses downwind, darkness and a fire which would not go out. I take my nassak off to every one of them. Personally, I would have bailed.

Unlike southern communities, there are no leaseable facilities available. And building from scratch means waiting for open water (July) before the first ship cannot come in with materials. Coping with a problem of this magnitude, therefore, requires different organizations coming together to find solutions. Our local community centre operated by the municipality, therefore, is going to become a temporary store for the next half year or so I believe.

Heaven only knows about the post office. For now, Canada Post is holding our mail up indefinitely in Kuujjuaq. Could we be going back to the old days of dog sled delivery? Wouldn't make all that much difference, actually, the bastards.

There are two things I hope we learn from this: from the Great London Fire of 1666, the Great Chicago Fire, the Great San Francisco Fire, and so on, is don't place buildings too close together; and let's pitch in together despite our differences, and help each other to build a better community.