Wooly aphids, second breakfasts and Turkish Star Trek

Congrats to our friends William and Mona on the birth of their daughter on the weekend!

I'm tickled to report that Chris Conway has written a song in which he kills me three times. You can find the lyrics to his wonderfully silly song, Death to the Immortals (or Killing Friends Is Fun) in his LJ.

'Twas a fine Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Our fridge is stuffed with leftover turkey which I didn't cook. I had pumpkin pie for breakfast on Sunday morning. Life is good.



Thanks to our biologist friend Peter Kotanen for identifying the mysterious bug I posted about yesterday. From Peter, through Leslie: "It's a wooly aphid (Family: Pemphigidae). The white hairs are wax. They spend the summer as clonally-reproducing females, often on plant roots or in galls; in fall, sexual winged forms are produced. Weirdly, mated females lay a total of 1 egg."

My Typical Day:

I usually wake between 6:30 and 7 a.m., sometimes earlier if I have insomnia. I make some tea and toast or cereal and take it down to my basement office since I find it cozier there in the mornings. My current favourite tea: Fleur d'Oranger Oolong from Mariage Freres in Paris. Hey, I just discovered you can order some Mariage Freres tea online from Furansunocafe.com. I also enjoyed some chestnut honey from La Petraia, which we visited during our Italy trip. I love food memories.



But I digress.

I usually work until about 9 or 10, at which point I have a shower and my second breakfast. I love the hobbit habit of second breakfasts; I would far rather two small breakfasts spaced out through the morning than one big one.

I usually work at my desk until 5 pm-ish (sometimes later if I'm work-obsessed, in which case we get take-out), with a break for lunch as well as later in the afternoon for errands / workout. Sometimes I go for a run just before lunch, sometimes after work. We have a big supermarket a five minute walk away, so I usually plan dinner near the end of the day, then go shopping for fresh ingredients just before I start cooking.

After dinner, I either do musicstuff (I'm writing two songs right now as well playing around with home studio stuff and recording a flute part for Seanan's CD), read, write non-work stuff, study CSS, or do something with Jeff like playing Magic or going for a walk. I recently calculated that giving up cable tv has netted me about 40-50 extra hours a month, or 480-600 hours a year. That's a big hunk of bonus time for which I'm always grateful.

Links

Thanks to Ray for this link to a bizarre Turkish Star Trek video titled "Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda" (anyone out there know Turkish?). This episode appears to be a remake (sort of) of the Salt Creature episode. The special effects are hilarious. If anyone knows more background to this video, I'd love to hear about it so I can post about it in He's Dead, Jim.