From the HR file, again

Among the resumés piled high on my desk, these little gems:

I also have glory teaching experience.

To which the only response must be: HALLELUJAH!!!

...and experience with ferret.

Which leaves me a little worried. Perhaps Wonderferret can shed some light on this statement - who knows?

Namedropping

Once again, for lack of other interesting news in the life of Ricardipus, I throw out a totally unrelated subject for your interest/apathy/hostile reaction. Many of you have been asking: "Why the name 'Ricardipus'?"

[Editorial note: NOBODY has actually been asking this. It's a literary device to get me out of having nothing useful to say today. Unlike every other day, of course.]

I could have used the first letter of my first name, like Zoe uses Zed (U.S. based readers: much of the rest of the world calls the letter Z 'zed', not 'zee' - now you know) , but "ARRRR" is hardly very catchy, unless it's Talk Like A Pirate Day, the last instance of which, come to think of it, was also the 650th anniversary of the Battle of Poitiers. Dawn posts as 'Dawn', which is admittedly pretty tricky. I dare you to suggest that she do otherwise. Scaryduck chose his name for some complicated reason that you'll have to ask him to explain. Rik is Rik because Rik is Rik. QED.

So: 'Ricardipus', because:

1) It was the name of a Roman noble who was famous for mercilessly blogging (oops, I mean "flogging") his servants. [Note: this is almost certainly untrue.]

2) I was going to call the blog 'My Wife's Husband is a Twat', but it seemed a bit close to something that had been taken already.

3) 'Ricardipus' is the genus name of a rare flowering plant, Ricardipus mimulosa, which grows exclusively on the Oak Ridges Moraine, not a stone's throw from my home. [Note: this is also almost certainly untrue.]

4) I couldn't think of anything else.

5) I have previously been referred to as being a bit of a goof, and 'Ricardipus' is, you must admit, a pretty goofy handle.

or,

6) There is absolutely no good reason at all.

That should be an adequately unsatisfying answer, I think, for the two or three of you who asked.

Remember: once you name a thing, you can control it. Allegedly.

For Misty

mushrooms 2
Originally uploaded by Ricardipus.

Just because. An homage to the Queen of Mushroom Photos herself.

And also a test of the blog upload tool. I have no idea if this will work or not.

EDIT: apparently, it does.

Lazy rip-off blogging

Ripping off this idea of Debi's, I scooted on over to myheritage.com and ran their clever Celebrity Look-Alike tool on a couple of recent snaps. And here are the results:



Hm. The Pope, Ben Stiller, and some gorgeous blonde woman whose name I don't remember.




Marilyn Manson, Yasmeen Ghauri, Jeff Goldblum, and some other gorgeous blonde woman whose name I also don't remember.

And not one, not two, but three instances of Patrick Swayze. I'm really unsure whether that's a good thing, or not.

EDIT: First panel: Ben Stiller, Jang Dong-gun (who?), Cindy Margolis (the woman in question), Patrick freakin' Swayze, Pope Paul VI, Marc Anthony, Bobby Charlton (woo yay!), Christian Slater. Second panel: Morten "I look like Patrick Swayze" Harket, Patrick ENOUGH ALREADY Swayze again, River Phoenix, Yasmeen Ghauri, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jeff Goldblum, Marilyn Manson, and that unidentified second blonde woman.

WooOOooo... scary...

The Number of the Blog, almost.

Lazy, lazy blogging

Inspired by a recent post by Dawn, I toddled on over to StatCounter to have a look at my referrer logs. They're the nice people who bring you the webstats widget over in the sidebar - you know, the one that looks like this:



visitors

Ok, so maybe it doesn't look exactly like that, but you know what I mean.


Anyway, here's what I found out:

Most common keywords used to find this blog:
scary spot the difference (referring to this, I guess)

Tied for second place, more or less relevant:
ricardipus
choir arnold schwarzenneger toronto (here)
fostex 160 cassette (here, and a few other places)
cool edit mp3 codec doesn't work (same place as the Fostex reference, I suppose)

A perfectly reasonable way of getting here:
the most boring longest sentence (presumably from this post, or the one before it, although many things typed on this blog would probably qualify)

Another perfectly reasonable one:
complaining about the weather (constantly)

From the quotations on the sidebar I guess, scraping the bottom of the relevance barrel:
macbeth 2007 release locations

Most poetic:
trumpet viney

Just plain weird:
critique sinus infection discovery

Ah well. Nothing to compete with "god damnit just get me the bear with the ladybug on it's face", but slightly amusing nonetheless.

Scary stalking flower child

Junior Ricardipus #1 had a school project the other day - making a sign to hang on his bedroom doorknob. You know, like those "Please Make Up The Room / Do Not Disturb On Pain Of Dismemberment" signs you see in hotels.

His effort:


FRONT SIDE
Welcome, I love you, you love me.

REVERSE SIDE
Once you come in, don't go out.


I am slightly creeped out by this.

The same stuff as usual

Well, a few weeks of summery weather have passed recently (punctuated by the occasional thunderous windstorm, like the one that made me half an hour late getting home last night), and that means that the sports car crop is beginning to show signs of establishing itself nicely for summer. Recently:

- a Ferrari 308 GTB (as far as I could tell), which my commuter bus actually managed to overtake on my way to work
- a few BMW M3s and a rather spiffy M Roadster, parked at the local Home Depot. I suspect that the owner was using it to pick up a bag of dirt or something similar.
- the ugly, but oh-so-expensive Bentley Continental GTC, looking even worse as a convertible than it does as a hardtop
- the tediously boring looking, but deeply expensive and horrendously fast Mercedes SL65 AMG
- the not-at-all boring, very stylish and still deeply expensive Maserati Quattroporte, as well as a Maserati Coupe looking all mean, dressed up in its best black tie and tails
- and today, a BMW 645ci, which is not by any stretch of the imagination the most lovely thing ever, but is probably pretty fun to drive anyway.

Sigh.

On the completely unrelated topic of birds, I saw a Robin and a Cardinal teaming up to chase away a Blue Jay, a species notorious for predating other birds' youngsters. Quite the rainbow of colours there, for a few seconds at least. And a few weeks ago, we had a very handsome little White-Crowned Sparrow for a day or two, migrating on through to wherever it is that they normally nest (somewhere north of here, I'd guess). Unfortunately, he was a) very small, b) far away and c) hiding under a bush, so no photos I'm afraid.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that, after several months, I saw the hawk again, being chased away by a flock of starlings. Poor thing.

--

In other news, it would appear that I didn't win the University of Toronto Magazine Short Story and Poetry Contest (is anyone surprised? I'm not.) My poetic entry may yet surface as a guest-blog item over at Zoe's place at some undefined point in the future, so I'm not going to post it here. You'll just have to use your imagination.*



*I wouldn't waste a lot of time on this, though.

An update of the n things post from long ago

It seems that recent events mean that I really ought to update this post. Specifically:


I have traveled to only eight of Canada’s ten provinces, and none of the Territories.

Well, with the RAMPAGING SUCCESS OF THE EAST COAST BLOGMEET, this is no longer true. I have now traveled to nine provinces, although I confess I never set foot outside the airport in Province Number Nine. But I was cleared through Canadian Customs and made my way outside the secure area, where herself could come and meet me, so I was actually, technically, there.


I live only a few minutes from a very large amusement park, which I’ve never visited.

After this weekend, this is no longer true. Yes, at the ripe old age of *ahem*not-quite-forty, I finally got drawn into visiting this place. And it was quite fun, I have to admit, and not as crowded yet as it will doubtless become once the weather gets a bit hotter. I have to say, though, that I agree with Junior Ricardipus #1 that Scooby's Gasping Ghoster Coaster was a bit scary (not because of ghosts, but because it's a roller coaster. I believe a direct quote was something like "I don't like this very much!". JR#2, of course, went on it again.)

Those ones where you stand up and go round loop-the-loops: you will never get me on these. Not a chance.


There exist recordings of me playing synthesizers, piano, harmonica, electric, acoustic and bass guitar, and bongos.

OK, this hasn't changed recently, but ocarina and clarinet should be added to the list, as should drum machines.


I have two budgies that are older than my children.

Sadly, no longer true, as budgie #2 had to be put down earlier this year. At the ripe old age of 10-and-a-bit, and suffering from advanced kidney disease, it was time. Not at all a pleasant experience for any of us, but something that needed to be done.

Budgie #1, who is now pushing 11 years old, is still going strong. She's a bit more clingy than before, but otherwise seems to be holding up well in the absence of #1. Actually, they mostly just squabbled so maybe she's enjoying the quiet a bit. I think she misses him deep down, though.


As for the rest, I'd really like to do something about this one:

I have never been east of Paris, or west of Vancouver Island.


This one, on the other hand, I have absolutely no desire to update:

As far as I know, I have never broken a bone.