Figure 1: A cartoon turkey.

Today I donated some money to the CBC Turkey Drive. They're collecting turkeys downtown but since I am lazy and it's cold, I just sent them some money via the website.

This is a good cause, but what would make it better is if they had a turkey who could drive. You know? A turkey drive?

I saw a number of Facebook posts yesterday and today related to the fact that at one point over the weekend, Edmonton was allegedly the second-coldest place in the world. I was like, that's ludicrous! What a ridiculous claim! But it turns out it's true--coldest place in North America, and I think only a weather station in Siberia recorded colder temperatures. [Also: if you read the news story linked above it soon veers off into a cute story about a kitten, so that's good.] -58 with the windchill. That is -72 Fahrenheit. How cold is that? Cold enough that I am wearing leggings under my pants. Also my dog has booties.

developments

1. I adopted a World Vision foster child in Cambodia. She is very cute. I put a picture of her up on my desk bulletin board, to remind myself that the amount of money I send her village every month is equivalent to what I make working for just over an hour. The world is a screwed-up place sometimes.
2. I thought I had invented the term "T-Ho's" for Tim Horton's but the UrbanDictionary says "Sorry, Jocelyn, you're not as clever as you think you are." Slang-coinage heartbreak! This is just like when that other guy invented the telephone at basically exactly the same time as Alexander Graham Bell but didn't patent it quickly enough and was forgotten by the annals of science.
   
3. Tee hee, annals.
4. Speaking of telephones, I have a home phone now for the first time in several years, and we bought a cordless phone with 3 HANDSETS. 3 handsets, people! To my foster child in Cambodia, this would undoubtedly appear to be an insane level of luxury. However, to us it means we can actually PHONE EACH OTHER FROM DIFFERENT ROOMS IN THE HOUSE.
5. Oh right, also, I'm very enamoured of my new neighbourhood. On Saturday we went exploring a bit and discovered that the Mill Creek Cafe has excellent omelettes and sells bread they bake themselves which I am going to buy some of today, and there is a used bookstore just 'round the corner from my house that had all kinds of interesting things. We met our neighbour on one side and she told us that ours is a "hippie neighbourhood." Bread! Books! Hippies! These are a few of my favourite things. <3 Ritchie
6. When our friend Chris told someone old (his uncle? His grandpa?) who used to be a school teacher/principal we were moving to Ritchie, he (the uncle/grandpa), said that the boys from Ritchie were tough. "They're good boys," he said, "But they're tough." James and I say this to each other on a weekly basis, especially when we see boys wandering around who look like they could be from Ritchie. Also, like the boys from Ritchie, we are good, but tough.
   

Philanthropy win

Just a note to say: 2 of my Kiva loans--1 in Tanzania, 1 in Bolivia--are completely repaid now. I am well on my way to becoming the patroness of some tiny village. And having a statue made of me--completely out of mud.

Yesssssss.

And I re-invested my money in Samoa, in the business of a lady who sells fish. What a marvelous idea! I hate fish, and I will do anything I can to encourage people to eat them, including investing money in business that sell fish. The more fish we eat, the less likely it becomes that they will stage some kind of global revolt, like the cylons.

the things you can't see

Today I made my first loan through kiva. This is a microlending website. I lent my $25 to this group in Bolivia. This is actually very efficient, because, in case you didn't know, you get more for your money in Bolivia. I checked on it.

Yeah, I crack myself up. But I am seriously excited about this opportunity. I'll report back. I understand that I don't really make profit on this undertaking though. Typical Jocelyn--invest in something that will just pay you your own money back! I stick my tongue out at myself, emoticon-style: :P

I also went to the doctor this morning, and she suggested I start taking Vitamin D. Then I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of healthy food, because the doctor made me feel guilty.

I have a case of the Mondays

I know I should be suspicious of google, especially since they now own pretty much all the information in the world, including the archives of this blog + my personal e-mail, but it's hard to be mean about a company that just announced free phone numbers and voicemail for homeless people in San Francisco.

Ya know? They're undermining my corporate rage.

The beneficiaries of this year's Dewey Donation System are The Rockhouse Foundation, a small library in Jamaica, and The Children's Institute, a Los Angeles organization that helps children and families who have been affected by violence. I know that we librarians are supposed to concentrate on lobbying governments to make sure that libraries are funded adequately so they don't have to depend on donations, but at the same time, the thorough Tuesday-morning heart-warming I get from buying picture books for kids trumps that. So far this year, 170 books and almost $1000 have been donated to these two organizations! And that's not even including mine!

Revised: mine just got added to the total! You should go donate some money and/or books just to watch the tallying magic. Or if not for that reason, then because books are the safest, best, most interesting thing. In the world.

And yet I don't have any money

I'm the 262,713,044 richest person on earth! Discover how rich you are! >>

love, and fish biscuits

A news story about a giant LEGO minifig that washed ashore in Holland. The story recounts, "The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall." Good to know.

Looking for off-the-beaten-path philanthropic opportunities? Passionate about preservation? Save a Film lets you make a donation to have an endangered 16mm film (most of them from the 1950s and 60s) digitized and put online, so others can have free access to it! In some cases, the 16mm print in the Academic Film Archive may be the only existing print, ANYWHERE. I kind of want to be a film archivist (when I grow up) so I probably get more choked up about endangered films than most people. Nonetheless, it would make a good gift, too, if you did it in someone else's name. Starting at $110. Here are some of the films eligible for upload.

Linky Mondays--On Tuesday?!?

Earlier I mentioned that 7-Elevens are being converted to Kwik-E-Marts as advertising for the Simpsons movie. This Flickr photoset shows one of the converted stores. I'm sad because it is more obviously Simpsons-y than I had hoped it would be, and less cinema verite. I wanted to walk into one of these 7-Elevens and think, "Whoa, this is like being in a real-life Kwik-E-Mart," not, "Wow, this is like being in a giant commercial for the upcoming Simpsons movie." Simpsons movie: I'm watching you. And I'm wearing my "Worst Episode Ever" shirt.

A sad article about the state of Romanian zoos. Romania's entry into the EU has meant tougher regulations for zoos. My favourite part is the allegation that "less valuable zoo animals had been killed as food for more expensive reptiles." Stupid expensive reptiles! God loves all the animals, even the smaller lemurs and muskrats!

Joss Whedon, aka Jocelyn's TV Hero, is auctioning off a number of items for charity, including a dinner with him in San Diego during ComciCon. Described as "Three hours of intimate conversation, hilarious anecdotes and dark, awkwardly personal secrets." Hot. (Although, I'm not convinced that dinner with Joss Whedon would be that great an experience. I have never had any desire to meet celebrities, even the ones I really admire. I don't want them to sign things, or pose for pictures with me, or anything. Mainly, I want to watch the films and television shows they make in the comfort of my air-conditioned living room. Maybe I'm just not that kind of fan.) (The auctions support Equality Now, which advocates for women's rights. Again, hot.)

Today is Tuesday, but it's like an honourary Monday, because it was a long weekend. I like Canada Day. It reminds me of Canada. I also like July, because it is a three-paycheque month. However, I do not like Tuesday. It makes me uncomfortably hot. Also, I am engrossed in the third season of Arrested Development and the first season of Lost. Did I mention how air-conditioned my apartment is? Le sigh.

I'm a pretty big fan of McSweeney's and its various publications, especially The Believer (not to mention its dispatches from a public librarian, which are both funny and sad), although I am also occasionally pleasantly baffled by much of what they produce. I like to know that there are people who know more about these things than I do, and that those people have a means to publish their work, and I try to support them so they can continue to baffle me in the future. Now is a good time to give some of that support in money format, because they're having a huge sale precipitated by the bankruptcy of one of their distributors. Progressive fiction deeds (not to mention original artwork), done dirt cheap. If I hadn't already spent all my money at etsy, I would be so busy buying things I wouldn't even be here.

Earlier this week I saw a guy wearing a shirt that said, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the substrate," which made me laugh the laugh of someone who passed Chemistry 20. And the word "precipitate" reminded me of this chemistry shirt, so for all you know, I have dozens more chemistry terms in my mind, just waiting for me to have a chance to use them. TITRATE!

When I have kids, I'm going to sing them the Neil Young song "Helpless," and teach them all the words. And then their friends will be like, "why do you know the words to that song?" and they won't know. Much as I know the words to a number of Canadian folk songs--it's the circle of life. There is a town in North Ontario...

The importance of planning.

the zombie preparedness initiative. It seems that in this age of terrorism, we have ignored some of the real threats to humanity: zombies. velociraptor attack. Wal-mart.

Two things I can get behind:

1. The Camel Book Drive. This is a charity site for a camel library in rural Kenya. Kind of like a biblioburro... only with a camel.


2. In just over two weeks it shall be computer shutdown day. I might do this just as a bizarre experiment in withdrawl. I check my email in the morning in a vegetative state. In fact I probably check it in my sleep.