Gary Roberts

This week I decided to download WordPress. After an initially frustrating database setup, I finally got it up-and-running on my hosting company servers. I'm happy to report everything seems to be running well and that I'm quite impressed with the application. It appears to be a lot more user-friendly than Blogger with lots of templates to choose from, all of which are easy to modify if you have knowledge of HTML and server side scripting languages. Also, I like the selection of widgets and plugins that are available - again, all easy enough to modify once installed.

All in all, I'd say I'm much happier with WordPress as my blogging tool of choice.

Labels: blog, wordpress

I went to Statlers bar in the gay village Saturday night, to watch my work colleague and friend, Ricky sing. She has a regular gig there and I'd already seen her perform on one occasion, but a few weeks ago I promised another colleague, Mary, I'd go with her and maybe throw some pennies at Ricky while she was onstage. Statlers is a nice little bar and the staff there are friendly and attentive, and this is where I met Mary as we watched Ricky wander around the bar before her act, greeting her friends and full of nervous energy.

We got a good seat near the window as the bar started to fill fairly quickly and Ricky took to the stage and introduced her pianist, Diane, and her drummer Tom; both of whom were excellent musicians! Diane has a deadpan look on her face pretty much all the time, which makes the comments and quips she throws at Ricky really quite funny. The pair of them had a good repartee going all through the show and it was fun to watch them both. Ricky has a fair set of pipes on her, too. She can certainly blast those tunes out, which is no surprise given she used to be a backing singer with Anne Murray during some of her earlier tours in the States.

Her act was great and she really drew in the crowds that night. All in all, the evening was a huge success for Little Miss Rické; she had the audience in the palm of her hand and did a good job entertaining us with her concert hall act and constant banter with Diane.

I just wish she could play the trumpet as well as she sings. You may need to turn down your speaker volume before hitting the play button in the video below...

Okay, it's not quite the famed hillock of lush vegetation that inspired Charles Darwin, but it's the closest thing I have in way of a view from my home office. Given time, I'll eventually get around to cutting away the ivy that's slowly growing across the window in my office upstairs. In the meantime, it does provide me with a somewhat limited view of nature; in this case a beautiful green dragonfly, which had settled on one of the leaves this bright and sunny morning.

I managed to fish out my camera from the depths of a drawer, to take a snapshot before the winged predator flew away in search of Sunday brunch.

Labels: nature

One of our friends from England didn't believe there were such things as raccoons in Toronto, when she visited us in 2007. When she finally did catch a glimpse of one through the window one dark and rainy night in November, she squealed with delight and (in her excited state) immediately nicknamed them "macaroons".

Well, now that summer is here and we're spending a bit of time in the back yard, we're starting to see more of them and they ain't too shy! Here's a video we took of two youngsters going for a walkabout on our fence - just for you, Louise!

Labels: raccoon, toronto

We had to put our dog, Sara, to sleep yesterday. She had started to lose complete control of her bladder and it had gotten to the stage where she was peeing right in front of us, without any warning she needed to go outside.

She was an old dog of 13 years, with arthritis in her joints and a no-nonsense attitude towards other dogs which screamed "leave me the hell alone!". She found it more and more difficult to get up or down the steps to go outside and had fallen down them on a few occasions, towards the end. I even built a ramp for her a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't something she was ever used to and she just couldn't use it.

We adopted Sara from the humane society in October, 2008, so we had her for 10 months and gave her a good retirement, at least we think so. She lived in a quiet environment with us and was always shown plenty of affection, even though she wasn't the type of dog who sought it from anyone; she pretty much kept herself to herself and slept all the time. It's strange, but she didn't even like to go for walks, she always pulled on the leash to get back home to her bed once she'd done her business. She didn't appear to have much enjoyment in life and we often wondered about her history, whether or not she'd been overly neglected by previous owners.

We've had a number of pets and have always done the right thing for them when the time came. However, this time it was hard. Sara was a cranky old dog and didn't like anyone touching her too much - especially vets! She was very stressed when we finally got her to the animal clinic and she had to be given a sedative immediately. Even so, when it came time to give her the final injection she still had plenty of fight left in her and would snap at the technicians until they were forced to give her more sedatives. In the end, they had to sedate her four times before she finally calmed down.

We were with her all the time, holding her and comforting her as much as we could until she finally let go her last breath.

Labels: dog, pets, sara

Read this drivel:

The cuttlefish is a cephalopod which operates with such sophisticated technology that scientists today are struggling to understand just how this creature came to be. This creature is a perfect example of God's magnificent design, demonstrating stealth tactics, among other features, which include not only changing colors, but also texture, to blend in perfectly with its surroundings. If it is perched atop a barnacle-covered rock, it can conform to mirror the rock as well as the barnacles. But God's amazing creation goes further. The cuttlefish can perform this feat in a split second, and never even look at itself to examine its disguise. He does it by instinct. God is showing forth His glory through His creation.

Then watch these three dopes as they show their complete ignorance of science and evolutionary process:

Then read what the experts have to say about the cuttlefish (on Pharyngula).

It's depressing to see such hopeless ingnorance in the three panelists above, and even more depressing to think there's an increasing number of these IDiots spreading their ignorance around.

Is it just me, or do other people find it a teeny-weeny bit scary that the Pentagon holds "prayer breakfasts" and invites people like Ken Ham, chief honcho at Answers in Genesis and founder of the Creation Museum, as a guest speaker? Mr. Ham uses his blog to write about his visit to the Pentagon, then segues into a babble about how he doesn't believe in evolution and that life on other planets shouldn't occur. Apparently, he must consider the billions of stars that exist in our universe as being there just for show, to twinkle away at night solely for our entertainment.

Now, I know there's no proof of life on other planets, although exoplanets are known to exist. However, this guy flatly refuses to believe in extraterrestrial life on the grounds that it conflicts with his biblical teachings.

What I find scary--other than a steadfast belief in the writings of an ancient document (and only one of many!)--is the fact that the Pentagon decides where in the world to send its soldiers to put their lives at risk. It employs people who are in control of missiles and nuclear weapons and holds what it terms prayer breakfasts. I can only hope these people don't use the opportunity to ask for advice about world issues from someone like Ken Ham and the voices in his head...

Labels: religion