A Day In The Life Of A Dog

Business to see to first of all. Head on over to Norma's blog, where she's posted thoughts on September 11th in her most recent blog. And I have a preliminary page set up for the photoblog, right here at Ottawa Daily Photo. Sometime next week, expect some posts to start showing themselves there, but there's already a follow icon in place, so by all means, click on that. I'll let you know here in this blog when I've started posting things. After that, I'll occasionally make mention here when it's called for. 

Now then, onto today's mayhem....

7:25 AM. Waking up. Slept very well indeed. Had dreams of the biggest dog bone you could have ever imagined. Chewed on that for hours. Makes me a bit peckish. I wonder if the human is awake yet.

7:35 AM. Good morning, human! Quite a wonderful day, isn't it? Tell me, how are you feeling today? And while you're telling me, would you mind making me some breakfast?

7:45 AM. The human pours me a huge bowl of kibbles. Human, you're a doll. 

7:46 AM. Not quite matched my old speed record of wolfing down breakfast, but I'll get there...

7:50 AM. The human opens the door and lets me out. Oh boy! Time to run and jump and play!

And maybe get my paws on that annoying squirrel.

8:10 AM. Charging through the back fields like a lunatic, barking everywhere I go. Is there anything on earth  better than a good run?

Well, maybe a good scratch behind the ears. And a belly rub. And a chance to mooch food.

8:25 AM. No sign of that cat from down the road that doesn't like me. I don't get it, really. I mean, I know Spike The Magnificent says that cats are strange critters and must be treated carefully, but really... 

Maybe I ought to stop in at her place and say hello. 

8:50 AM. Have reached the home of the cat. I walk around, sniffing the ground. Well, she hasn't been outside, but I know she lives here...

8:53 AM. I have found the cat. She is sitting behind the window, hissing and howling. I can hear her even through the glass. Hello, cat! It's just me! Your friendly neighbourhood doggie. Would you like to come out and play?

8:54 AM. The cat continues to be ferocious and annoyed, from the looks of her body language. Can't we just be friends?

8:56 AM. I could be wrong, but to borrow a phrase humans use... did that cat just give me the finger?

9:00 AM. Oh well, I give up. I guess there really is no reasoning with a cat. Have a good day, try not to be so cranky, you hear?

9:15 AM. Heading home. Wondering if in time I can just figure out a way to get past her inner contempt for dogs and see that all I want is to be friends.

9:40 PM. Back home. The human is out doing chores in the barn. Hello, human. Can you explain to me the inner mind of a cat, by chance?

10:45 AM. Manage to mooch a cookie from the human during her tea break. Yum yum yum.

12:05 PM. The human is making lunch. Time to get in mooching mode again.

12:20 PM. Use my best sad eyes routine to convince the human to give me a sandwich. Smoked beef and mozzarella. With honey mustard. Very tasty!

2:25 PM. Lying flat on my back, feet in the air, dreaming of chasing squirrels.

3:10 PM. The human wakes me up with a belly rub. Well, human, if you must wake me up, a belly rub's a good reason. As opposed to a bath or a trip to the vile enemy you call the vet.

6:35 PM. The human has ordered in pizza for dinner. I chow down on three whole slices myself.

Meat lovers pizza with extra tomato sauce, have I mentioned how tasty you are?

Yum yum yum...

7:00 PM. The human turns on the television and heads back into the kitchen to do the dishes. An entertainment news program is on. Oh, it's that awful smarmy son of the former Prime Minister. What's his name again? Muldoon? No, Mulroney. What a sleazy guy he is. Reminds me of a used car salesman.

Entertainment journalist. He obviously aimed low in career choices.

7: 06 PM. Mulroney the Younger is at the film festival in Toronto for some reason, chattering away. He really does seem to like to listen to himself talk. Hey, wait a minute... there's a guy passing through at the back of the crowd, looks familiar...

I've seen that guy before! That's Lars Ulrich! The Mountie! That guy's a legend!

7:08 PM Mulroney the Younger intercepts Inspector Ulrich and asks what he's doing in Toronto. The Inspector looks annoyed and says he's working on a case, and to leave him alone.

7:09 PM. Mulroney the Younger asks Inspector Ulrich if Metallica will be performing in Toronto anytime soon. Inspector Ulrich looks about ready to tear his head off.

7:10 PM. Mulroney the Younger has made the mistake of asking Inspector Ulrich if he's sure he's not the other Lars Ulrich. Inspector Ulrich hits him right in the kisser. The human sees it. She says he deserves it.

11:15 PM. Mention made on national news of Mulroney the Younger. It seems he was found hanging upside down from the CN Tower, babbling about an angry heavy metal drummer. Well, that's what you get for annoying a Mountie.

The human turns off the television and says good night. Have a good one, human... though tell me, by chance are there any more slices of pizza? I'm feeling a bit peckish.

Wanderings Of A Canadian Loon

A couple of things to see to before I get started. First, head on over to Norma's blog for her review on the DVD release of Star Trek Into Darkness. And take a look at our joint blog, where we've got a musical interludes blog today, featuring two outstanding songs in concert by U2.

Now then, back again today with a photoblog, from places I've been to in the city as of late. 

A few days ago I was over in the Hintonburg neighbourhood. The church you saw a couple of blogs back, the church of St. Francis of Assisi, dominates that neighbourhood. Nearby is the Rosemount branch of the city library. I was working at one of the computers, and the sculpture below, of a parson speaking with a groom and bride, stood directly opposite me, on the windowsill.

On my way home, I passed by St. Mary's, a Catholic church on the western edge of Little Italy. I've always liked the looks of the building, so I stopped by and snapped a shot or two of the front facade. No, I don't know what the deal is with the sky. I'm still learning through trial and error with this thing.

And down at Dow's Lake, which is part of the Rideau Canal, I stopped on the bike path, for there right before me was a great blue heron. I'll have to figure out the zoom feature on the smartphone quickly; this was the better of four shots. Still, the subject seems used to people. He walked down the concrete edge you see here, into the water, not minding the passersby, more interested in patiently beginning an evening of fishing. I'm always amazed, when I see them at the water's edge, at how still a heron can be.

In The Company Of Evil

Well, I've been busy taking pics since the last blog. I'm getting my feet wet, figuring out the smartphone and thinking of photographic subjects. My next blog will feature a few more shots, and I'm thinking that I'll definitely go ahead and join in on daily photoblogs, in a seperate blog from this one, spotlighting my home town of Ottawa and beyond. Keep an eye out here for further developments as I go along. If you'll have a look over at Norma's blog, you'll see her response to my now getting my mitts on the smartphone (yes, I was dragged kicking and screaming into it, but that's beside the point).

Today, however, a bit of news occupies my attention...

Last week, news came out that the last surviving witness of Hitler's final hours had died. Rochus Misch, an SS sergeant, had been a loyal bodyguard for much of the Second World War to the most evil man of the 20th century. Misch was unapologetic to the end, suggesting that Hitler was no brute or monster. He sidestepped the issues of guilt or responsibility, claiming he knew nothing of the Holocaust, thinking of those days as just doing a job, not asking questions. He insisted Hitler had been a wonderful man, describing the events leading up to the suicide of the dictator and his mistress turned wife. Perhaps it is because of his lack of remorse about it all that the end of his days is being treated from various quarters with derision. Where the country itself has accepted the past and taken responsibility, this man never did. This is a man who's seemingly spent most of his life not atoning for the past, never accepting what most reasonable people understand: that Hitler, and the Nazi ideal by extension, was pure evil, walking the earth.

From the point of view of the writer and the reader, the news occasionally provides inspiration. And stories from the war, even seven decades on, can provide us with fodder for writing. Jack Higgins, the great British spy writer, is an influence on me as a writer and as a reader. True, I'd say his work has been declining in recent years- he really should have stopped several books ago, but it's not the huge plunge off the cliff in quality that Tom Clancy's work has taken (side note: Tom Clancy hasn't written anything of value since The Bear And The Dragon). Higgins is known for writing pot boiler thrillers, both set in the Second World War and the contemporary world. He's best known for The Eagle Has Landed, a thriller about German plans to send an operative against Churchill, through the use of an Irish operative. The book was later adapted into a movie starring Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland, one that I liked.

Most of his current work centers on Sean Dillon, a former IRA enforcer turned British operative, a hard man who can be both ruthless and yet utterly charming. Dillon started out as the villain, in a book which set him as the man responsible for the mortar attack against Ten Downing Street during Desert Storm, and yet Higgins found the character so compelling that he turned Dillon into the protagonist for his next book, Thunder Point, which draws on secrets linked to those last days of the War. It begins with the Nazi Martin Bormann escaping Germany at the end of things (making use of the rumors that persisted for years that Bormann survived), taking a submarine for sanctuary in South America. He carries pivotal documentation, including the names of those friendly to Nazi interests in Britain and America, and a document that could prove critically damaging to the Royal Family (another nod to the history of the Duke Of Windsor, who seemed entirely too comfortable around Nazis). The sub goes down in the Caribbean while Bormann is away, and decades later, the fact of its existence is uncovered, and a British intelligence officer, faced with an unknown enemy trying to reach the sub, enlists Dillon under the notion of set a thief to catch a thief, and starts the former terrorist out on the path to becoming a better man. The book remains a personal favourite, and it wouldn't be the last time Higgins made use of the war to tell a story in the present, later using a German baron starting out in the war as a young man, gradually rebuilding his life through the years after, ultimately becoming the villain in a later book, tangling with Dillon and his associates.

From the writer's point of view, I have ideas that come out of the war as well. I've mused on writing a thriller set squarely in the war. And I've also thought of using the war as part of the backstory for a book set in the present, for a villain whose family escaped to South America after the war, still holding onto Nazi ideals, still part of that legacy.

As writers, we find inspiration in some strange places. With the death of Misch, we have the end of an era, the last witness of those days in that bunker. It speaks volumes that he never made amends for it, that he still thought of that most reviled excuse for a human being as a wonderful boss.

And Now For Something Completely Different

No, that's not me, but I can see the resemblance.

I am something of a dinosaur, sticking with film cameras (disposables, lately) while taking pictures to my heart's content. I love photography, snapping pics of whatever comes along my way. Well, now I'm sort of being hurtled into the digital age... because my partner in crime Norma has sent on a smart phone. I've been messing around with the camera, taking some shots. Obviously not these ones, but they do suit my warped sensibilities.

I do follow a number of photoblogs. Some of them are daily blogs, one of which I started following from St. Louis, which led me to more, and more, and more, and well, you get the picture. Other photoblogs are not quite so daily, but on a regular basis. One listed below has taken a break, but hopefully she'll be back. Others have a regular habit of  posting photoblogs from time to time with their own work. And others make their own photography an integral part of their blogs. Take a look through the links that follow, and you'll get to see some great work.

Bob at St. Louis Daily Photo

AngryParsnip at Two Little Square Dogs

Cindy at Just North Of Wiarton And South Of The Checkerboard and at The Checkerboard Aussies

Jane and Chris at The Maple Syrup Mob and at The Real Maple Syrup Mob

Grace at Perth Daily Photo

Nathalie at Avignon In Photos

RedPat at Occasional Toronto

LondonLulu at Princeton Daily Photo

Virginia at Birmingham Daily Photo

Jack at Naples And Hartford In Season

Deb at Just Cats Home Care

Christine at Random Thoughts From Midlife

Ben and Fern at Victoria Daily Photo

Joanna at Up On Haliburton Hill

Peggy at North West Photos

Krisztina at Krisztina Williams

Angelika at Angelika's Photographic Sketchbook

Maryanne at Cairo-Giza Daily Photo

Annette at Annette Gendler

Nancy at Bondi Resort

Barbara at Words Words Words

I think that's everyone. Now then, it appears I've joined their ranks. As I've said, I've been playing around with the smart phone, taking a few preliminary shots around Ottawa, getting used to using a smartphone as a camera. I'll test in these pages for awhile, periodically doing photo blogs with several pics a piece, before deciding if I want to have a go at a seperate photoblog. Obviously this blog would continue.  You're all expecting my mayhem on a regular basis, and besides, the cats, dogs, and Lars Ulrich all demand serious time to play. They're quite adamant about it.

 What to call the other blog, if it comes to that? How about No, This Is Not Carlos Danger's Personal Stash? No, I'd never get away with that (or could I?). Besides, hopefully within a year, Anthony Weiner's back in oblivion where he belongs, sending more selfies and crotch shots to strangers. Anyway, enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Rideau Canal at Bank Street 

Chinatown Arch, Somerset Street

Front entrance and facade, Eglise Saint-Francoise-D'Assise

Eglise Saint.-Francoise-D'Assise

Five Thousand Feet Up Mount Calamity

Some business before the mayhem as expected. Go on over to Beishir Books or to Norma's Blogger page, and have a peek at an excerpt from a hilarious work in progress she's calling Sucker Punched. And let her know what you think.

Now then, to the chaos at hand...

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." ~ Edmund Hillary

"Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory." ~ Ed Viesturs

"For a climber, saying that you are stopping by Everest is like saying you're stopping by to see God." ~ Roland Smith

"Every mountain is within reach if you just keep climbing." ~ Barry Finlay

"If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”  ~ George Mallory

"Life's a little like mountaineering- never look down." ~ Edmund Hillary

"He had a head start on me, but it didn't matter. I had the experience, the equipment, the knowledge of these mountains. He had a pair of loafers, designer clothes, no climbing gear, and no idea what he was doing. It was fear that drove him up Mount Calamity. Fear, and the slowly dawning knowledge that I wasn't the Lars Ulrich he thought I was, and that I was annoyed. Honestly, what was it with these entertainment reporters, constantly mistaking me for that heavy metal guy? That Lars looked like he's been hit in the face by an ugly stick too many times. No matter. I knew the mountain, and there was no place on its slopes that Entertainment Tonight reporter could hide from me. Sooner or later, I'd be throttling that waste of space Rodrigo Perez." ~ RCMP Inspector Lars Ulrich

For those who might not know, I'm a rock climber. I've been doing it since I got a taste for it climbing Rattlesnake Point on the Niagara Escarpment when I was a kid- without equipment, experience, or a fellow climber (yes, I know that's stupid now). Needless to say, it did open up my taste for it. Most of that's been done in the eastern parts of the continent, up whatever convenient rock face presented itself. It's something that I've enjoyed doing- though I have yet to have gone this season. With the passing of my mother (four months ago today), I don't really trust myself right now on a climb, and that's not good for other climbers. It'll come back when it comes back.

I can say that we climb because the mountain's there (like the ill-fated George Mallory once said). We climb for the sheer joy of the experience. And we climb because if we couldn't, we'd have to find some other foolish way to fill our spare time. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun though.

So I thought today that I'd give you some images to amuse or shock yourself with (depending on your tolerance for heights). Enjoy, and do tell if the prospect of mountain climbing excites you or chills your nerves...

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A Spoonful Of Vodka Helps The Spam Go Down

Every once in awhile they show themselves. Yes, the awful spammers. Either they're lurking in your junk file in your email, where you might expect to see pharmacy spam, real estate scams, pills for enlargements, and messages from the elusive Adriana who insists she show you nude pictures of herself. And then they turn up in your spam folders for your blog, where most of them go to die, never to be posted in an actual blog, caught for the spam that they are. Some of them are unintelligible. Others insult my regular readers (how many times have I seen the "is it just me, or do some of the comments seem to come from brain dead people" comment?). And others seek to let me take them on as apprentices or guest blogs, an act that I would only do if I weren't in my right mind, since it would result in a mass exodus of my readers.

So it is that a few days ago the following message, with a link spamming Prada handbags, ended up in my notifications for my blog. For obvious reasons, I did not add it into published comments.

Dear Mr Banks, I first came across your works about 15 years ago and since then I have eagerly awaited each new publication. Whatever the genre your works have been impeccably written and superbly imagined; never failing to excite and stimulate; never failing to amuse (and at times confuse); never failing to lift the imagination to a higher plane. I can only wish you well in these difficult times and my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all your works to date.

Me again. Well, apparently our spamming friend seems to think my name is Mr. Banks. So sorry, but no, I can't say I'm an English banker who likes things in his life to be just so and hires nannies who are practically perfect in every way. In fact, I can't even pull off an English accent. Any time I make the attempt, I inevitably slide into an Australian or Irish accent. So no, I'm not Mr. Banks. Besides, I'm pretty sure I have no need of nannies, since I don't have children (at least that I know of). And I prefer a beard to just the plain mustache. Besides, I avoid at all costs the wearing of a noose... I mean, a tie. Yes, I do think my work amuses and confuses people (admit it, dear readers, you're wondering where my lunacy comes from, aren't you?), but that's hardly the point! And I'm pretty sure that what I was writing fifteen years ago has never seen the light of day, so what on Earth has this spammer been reading, and who's this Banks fellow he, she, or it seems to have me mistaken with?

I'm sorry, Not So Dear Spammer, but I don't know any nannies who look suspiciously like Julie Andrews and like to fly with umbrellas, defy the laws of gravity, and hang out with Dick Van Dyke, a couple of kids, and every chimney sweep in London on rooftops and in cartoon chalk drawings that feature dancing penguins and marijuana brownies during high tea. Nor do I know any nannies who break into song for no reason at all while telling children that there's fun to be had even in chores. I have never met people who have tea parties at the ceilings of their home. I would not knowingly hire someone clearly making use of the dark arts of witchcraft and who seems to know everything I think before I do. Let's face it, that's a bit creepy. I have never had the Bride of Frankenstein in my employ (look it up, we'll wait for you).  And I'm pretty sure that none of my neighbours are retired admirals who like firing their cannons (and violating the noise bylaws) from their rooftops twice a day. In short, I'm not Mr. Banks.

To the spammers: do you honestly think I'll publish your comments? Do you really believe I'm that foolish? I know, they'll never give up trying. And every once in awhile, they'll write something that I just have to comment on. Well, I leave you to it with these pics of the dark arts using nanny with the umbrella and a fondness for soot covered chimney sweeps turned jacks of all trades.

Just watch yourself around Mary Poppins, people. Never let your guard down. She knows what you're thinking. Yes. Every single thought that would shock the Sisters Of Little Or No Mercy.