Just an earth bound misfit

( Ignorance is Bliss )

VirtualTourist has compiled a list of the world's top 10 ugliest buildings, and a Canadian building made the list. All well and good, but I want to know how the University of Alberta's Butterdome didn't make the list.

Here's the list:

1. Morris A. Mechanic Theater, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, now vacant (ugly yes, but more depressing than true artistic error)
2. Zizkov Television Tower, Prague, Czech Republic (it has sculptures of babies crawling up the tower! This architect should be shot for crimes against taste)
3. The Beehive, Wellington, New Zealand (it looks like a beehive. And it's a parliamentary building. Insert your own joke)
4. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (this would get my vote if it weren't for the baby sculptures on the Zizkov Tower)
5. Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia (bleh)
6. Petrobras headquarters, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (ugly, yes, but not as bad as the others)
7. Markel Building, Richmond, Virginia, USA (I like this one! Really, I do!)
8. Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (pic in the story link above)
9. National Library, Pristina; Kosovo (covered in a metal fishing net?! What was the architect thinking?!)
10. Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea (ah, Kim Jong II, you lovable lutanic you)

When I see glass buildings I think about the wars to come in which those buildings will shatter and crumble, killing the people inside and spraying glass on people in the streets below. Maybe that's why the architect of the Kosovo national library covered the building in a metal fishing net.

( The one with the porn star )

I finished all my Christmas shopping in the Big City. I never do it this early in the year, but I wanted to go to Big City for another reason so I figured I might as well. Oiltown has little shopping opportunities. This seemed like the best time to make the drive, too, before the weather gets bad.

I stayed downtown, having found a hotel that's not particularly good but offers reasonable rates for such a prime location. I like to be able to walk to where I want to go. Plus, the general manager upgraded my reservation for free so I had a Jacuzzi in my room. I don't know why she did that. It must be because I'm awesome or something.

I went to some bead stores, my real reason for the trip, as I've decided I want to try making jewellery. Beading with semi-precious gemstones, that's what I'm going to try. I already had some inexpensive materials to practise on and now I'll try it with the real thing. We'll see how it goes.

I wanted to spend Saturday out doing something but couldn't find anything. I'm not interested in concerts or sporting events, there weren't any movies playing I wanted to see, there was a Tom Stoppard play but the tickets were too expensive. I ended up staying in my hotel room reading and watching TV. Exciting stuff.

However, my Christmas shopping is now complete.

Last night I went to dinner with some co-workers. The conversation included stories about driving around in a truck with your panties hanging out the door, skinning a bear in your driveway, and debate over electrostimulation versus manual stimulation to collect semen from a bison. Oiltown, everyone.

I'm leaving soon to the Big City for some Christmas shopping. I want to do it while the roads are still free of snow, you never know what the weather will bring. It's a long drive and since the sun sets at 4 pm now it will all be in the dark, but again that's life in Oiltown.

Today is a statutory holiday in Alberta, so I'm at home thinking about Remembrance Day and war.  Neither of my grandfathers fought in WWII.  My maternal grandfather was a few years too young to have fought in WWI, and when WWII came around he was a farmer with five children at home.  My paternal grandfather volunteered but was ruled physically unfit to serve.  My paternal grandmother's brother died serving in England, he was 19 years old.  My father doesn't remember him but my grandmother claimed he taught him how to swear.

Here are three poems by Danny Martin, a young English poet who served in the current Iraq invasion.

 

( Modern war, same outcomes for the soldiers )

( Known Unknowns )

 

( Already looking forward to Season Four )

It's the anniversary of the felling of the Berlin Wall.  I remember crying with happiness when the Wall first came down, and listening to the audio footage on CBC Radio I'm tearing up again.

I'm a fan of alternate history, and in one of the 'What If?" books a historian said that the Wall was what prevented the Cold War from becoming hot.  A frightening thought.

Things I should accomplish this weekend, in no particular order:

• pick up dry cleaning
• buy new winter boots
• buy this month's book club book
• wash car
• get groceries
• clean house
• steam-clean carpets
• email out Christmas wish list
• watch season finale of Mad Men
  

Thanks to everyone who sent messages of condolence.  It really helped.
 
( Here are some pictures of The Beast )

EDIT:  The Beast's kidneys are too badly damaged, he can't be saved.  We'll euthanize him this afternoon.  My little guy, my baby, my best friend of 14 years.  Dead because of me.

First off, have some Canadiana:  In one of the world's stranger Hallowe'en traditions, trick-or-treaters in Churchill have a patrol to protect them from polar bears.  I've heard this before, it's been going on for decades, but thought the non-Canuks on my list may be interested.

Three days and almost $2000 later, I brought The Beast back from the animal hospital.  He's sleeping on my bed right now, snoring.  They gave me painkiller and antibiotics to give him, and a prescription for prazocin to keep his penis from spasming and help him urinate.  Unfortunately the pharmacy won't have that ready until tomorrow at noon. 

They're culturing his urine to see if the antibiotics will kill his remaining urinary tract infection.  If not, they'll give me something else. 

The danger is that he's at risk of having another urinary tract blockage.  They instructed me to always keep fresh water for him (which I already did) and to give him only canned food.  I have to watch him to make sure he doesn't have any more trouble urinating.  I'm worried because immediately when I brought him home he kept going in and out of his litter box, but I called the vet and she said she "expressed his bladder" before he left and to give him the prazocin (which I won't have until tomorrow at noon) so maybe it's that spasming thing.  Or perhaps it's the UTI. 

I've taken tomorrow off work to, well, babysit my sick cat.  Not how I planned to use my earned time off but there you have it. 

I'm still anxious about him, but pleased to have him home and I think he's happy to be home too.

Thanks to everyone who wished good health to The Beast!  He's still in hospital but the vet says he's recovering well.  His urine still has blood in it, but it's not bright red like it was before; most importantly he IS turning all of that IV fluid into urine, meaning his kidneys are working well.  He's still on Dilaudid for pain.  His low body temperature and scarily high potassium level are back to normal.  He's still not eating so they're having to force-feed him, which he's fighting; when I saw him he was lying in his cage growling and he swiped at me when I tried to pet him.  That's my Beast!

He's still catherized so he's not on antibiotics, because the vet said that giving a cat antibiotics while they're catherized can cause antibiotic resistance.  They also asked me to give them the other medication he was prescribed, which should help relax his bladder.  In humans it's used to treat prostate enlargement, which explains why the pharmacist looked at me funny when I asked for it. 

He probably won't be released until Thursday.  The vet told me that he can't have dry cat food any more, only canned food designed to reduce the risk of urinary blockage.  I hope he doesn't lose too much weight because of this because he was underweight to begin with, and very old to boot.

The vet bill is up to $1700, but he's worth it.

I posted on Saturday that The Beast has a urinary tract infection.  The animal hospital is closed on Sundays.  I've been watching The Beast get worse and worse: he's not eating, he's not drinking, he keeps going to his litter box but not using it.  Meaning he hasn't urinated since Saturday morning at the latest.  He vomited twice but it was just stomach acid.  On Sunday he was getting weak, barely able to walk.  I took him back to the vet first thing this morning.  This is a different vet than the one I saw on Saturday.  She said The Beast has a urinary blockage.  I asked Saturday's vet about that and he said no, he wasn't blocked, so I am pissed upset about that.  Today's vet also said that The Beast is so severely dehydrated that his muscle weakness is almost certainly due to high potassium levels, which is scary. 

The Beast was admitted and they're going to un-block him and rehydrate him, as well as continue his antibiotics.  They estimate he'll be there for two days.  So far this has cost me $1500, but the vet cautioned me that 1) he could become blocked again and 2) she thinks he may have kidney insufficiency, a common problem with older cats.

I called TaigaDad when I got home and he suggested having The Beast, my best friend of 14 years, put down.  Bastard.

The Beast is sick.  (That's not him in my icon, but it looks like him.)  He was his usual self early this morning, but later began crying and walking in and out of his litter box without using it.  Then he urinated just a few drops, outside the litter box.  I took him to the vet right away, thinking that he's 14 years old so maybe he has one of those urinary blockages male cats are supposed to get.  No, he has a urinary tract infection.  He had one two years ago too.  The vet put a needle into his bladder to sample his urine (ow) and said it was red.  While waiting for the test results The Beast vomited and defecated on the floor and peed on me, because he's classy like that. 

Now I have antibiotics I'm to give him twice a day for four weeks, and a human drug (prazosin) to give him for the next four days to help relax his bladder.  The pharmacist asked how I'm to give him these drugs and I said "with great difficulty".  If past experience is anything to go by he's going to be vomiting a lot for the next week.

Poor baby.  Poor carpet.

I met tonight with a PhD sociology student who's conducting research on women working in Canada's north in the primary extraction industry; she wanted to talk to women working in the oil sands.  So I talked about myself into a tape recorder for an hour.

I was reading a review of last night's episode of House and found this gem in the comments:

Chase will stay at PPTH because he didn't do it. There is still no clear evidence of him having killed Dibala. Watch The Tyrant again and try just to imagine it was Cameron. There are dozens of clues that she did it!!  Plus, we never actually see what is happening.

He doesn't want her to know he knows because it will ruin both of their lives. She lied to him when she said she wanted to save Dibala. She probably did something bad at the morgue by putting his name on the signature sheet.

His confession was role play. He was pretending to be Cameron. That's why he couldn't repent and tried to justify the murder. I am sorry for Cameron if it turns out that way, but given House is no soap opera, I would think that this scenario is much more likely to happen than Cameron leaving Chase for an action she didn't have the guts to do it herself.

I have to hand it to this person, it's creative.

( Bravehearts, without Mel Gibson in blue facepaint )

Mad Men tonight: 
( The Colour Blue )