It Starts

Consider this official warning, basement construction is underway.

Below is the first shipment of lumber curtsey of VanParents, aka Parents with a van :)

On the right are the sills and the left are the studs, so everyone start your miter saws!

I hope to have some CAD up soon, then construction can begin.

more details to follow.

Canadian Music Creators Coalition

So this is actually old news now, syndicated across the internet on mass. Ironically it is a story about copyright and content, and most places that syndicated it actually published the content, as opposed to just directing people to it, and making comment. I suppose this was a press release, and they were within their rights to republish it in this fashion, it just caught me as funny.

I digress, I wanted to highlight this, because I think it is an important step in today's copyright mine field. This is a group of artists, standing up for artists. As they make clear, the CRIA, RIAA, and MPAA represents both content creators, and content distributors, and often their is a conflict of interest. As such these artists are making it clear they stand for the content creators rights, as it pertains to the current discussions and litigation surrounding copyright. This isn't an endorsement of piracy, but an endorsement of fair use.

I think their press release speaks for itself, but I really wanted to make sure I syndicated it here. So go their site, read the paper (pdf) and support the artists who make content you enjoy. Especially the artists who have taken a stand against the anti-consumer views of the recording industry.

BEHOLD

Our Air Conditioner, in all its air conditioning glory! Oh, and a turtle...

Good news, and home repair

Afternoon all, just got myself worked up into a good mood so I thought I might share.

This weekend was great, I guess to start with we had a nice lazy Friday night (always a plus.) We actually did a good job just tidying up the house while dinner cooked. Watched a movie too, Stay, it was a little bit arty, probably not for everyone, but I think the acting was pretty good, and it was something different, which just made for a great diversion.

Saturday brought old friends, in the form of Josh. Josh is one of Erin's friends from first year, and just happened to be heading to Guelph this weekend, and we happen to be on the way, so he stopped in for lunch. By odd coincidence he met Brad at Mountain Equipment Coop on Sunday morning, Brad and Josh have made each others acquaintance when they got terribly lost trying to follow my GIGANTIC rental truck to Erin's parents house the day we moved into Milton.

After Josh left, and faced with rain on the outside we opted for painting our bedroom instead since we purchased the paint back when painted the bathroom. Its Elephant Tusk, which is an odd name for the colour, as it neither is made of ground elephant tusk, nor is it that ivory white. Instead it is a warm yellow/tope, and gives the room a nice hue. My intention was not to give the paint a bland sound or anything, its just we needed a nice moderate colour for about 80% of the room, because we have daring planes for the other 20%. We have this phenomenal red picked out, we just need to take the paint in to RONA to get tinted, but the combination is really punchy, and goes well with our existing furniture and accoutrements.

We did all the tape work on Saturday, expecting the paint work to take a while, then we doddered off to my parents for some delicious dinner. Sunday morning we got up reasonably early (like 9:00 AM :) and started at it, and by such language I actually mean we doddled, had a nice breakfast and patted our cat. We had one coat done before noon, you would be surprised at how fast a room paints when it doesn't have finicky corners, doors, toilets and mirrors. Honestly the bedroom which is four times the size of the bathroom took a quarter of the time. By the end of the day we had done a big grocery shop, a second coat, dinner at Erin's parents, and got home in time to peal the painters tape and reset all our furniture. Not to shabby, not to shabby at all.

Also Azi is finally back to her normal self, we had a dicey couple of weeks where she was having issues with her food, and she went into heat, and got fixed, and was generally off her game. Now she is back in full force, pouncing, and bouncing, running and galooting all over the house. As you can see from the pictures from yesterday, all that activity has made her sleepy too. In spite of the mildly annoying attention seeking habits cats general have, including walking on your face at 6:00 AM when its food time, I'm just happy to have the old happy/hyper cat back.

This highly productive weekend has now set me up for a generally good week, a week which includes the installation of an Air Conditioner, and the grand opening of the downtown Lee Valley (always a favorite of mine.) This is all icing on the cake, and only part of the reason why I am in a good mood, but the real reason needs a blog post all of its own!

Lazy Lazy Kitty

Here are some new pictures of Azi, she was in a lazy lap cat mood today, between bouts of galoots.

Too make up for my DUPEPHTO (inside (of my head) joke) here is a new one

But it is not of the cat, this is my tripodometer the night I got back from Fredericton

Scalpers

Until Erin approves the picture I intend to post, I will just give you a teaser of what is to come...

Cat Filler

That isn't to say I am filling anything with cats, more that, in light of a lack of time to write anything good, I will distract you with cat pictures.

How to catch a bear...

This one comes curtosy of Erin.

How to Catch a Bear:

1. Go out into the woods, and dig a hole.
2. Fill the hole halfway with ashes.
3. Place peas around the hole.
4. wait
5. When the bear comes to take a pea, kick him in the ash hole.