Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Penultimate Lesson.

I’m a bit torn between what to comment on today.   Yesterday afternoon I had my penultimate* lesson with German Teacher Dude.  It was the usual two hours of yakking.  I suppose I should put “lesson” in quotes,  since the vocab sheet that I get at the next meeting is a list of all the obscure terminology that I might have had trouble coming up with in our conversation.  The range in vocabulary can be quite far reaching,  and I’ll not bore you with the details.  So we scheduled our last session for two and a half hours for next week,  and then we’re done!  He was hinting a while back that it would be a shame to waste the hours that Travelling Companion is supposed to receive,  but I’m not going to jump through any hoops to get her remaining hours transferred to me.  Sorry.  I think I’ll manage.


Perhaps the biggest challenge for me when it comes to learning anything new, is that I’m learning something new.  That’s all.  It’s unfortunate that I really never got to practise any German after leaving McMaster University all those many years ago,  but sh*t happens.  Thirty plus years is a long time to leave a skill lying fallow. The only glimmer of hope in the whole undertaking is that at least it’s in my long term memory.  That part hasn’t gone to seed just yet.

Now take a gander at this image.

sore losers

OK so,  there are presently fires burning in Arizona,  and that’s really sad,  but there were fires burning last night in Vancouver,  and that’s just stupid. 
Did a bomb go off?  Was there a terrorist attack?  Why no, they lost a hockey game. 
Should I repeat that four or five times??  A HOCKEY GAME!
Seriously!!
I certainly wasn’t about to make any prognostications when it came to how the score would end up,  and there was that home ice advantage,  but I was both surprised by a shut out,  and then the ensuing silliness on the streets.

In amongst all the rather damning photos of stupid people, (good evidence gathering by the way) I had to chuckle at this line of text,  “Police tried to nip the violence in the bud by closing liquor and beer stores early, but it appeared to have no effect.”

Um ya,  nice effort there geniuses,  but this has nothing to do with being able to get more booze.   I’m thinking a few more rounds of rubber bullets right at the very start of things might have quietened things down a tad.   Then,  a very loud reading of the Riot Act.  Ever heard of that one?   I know it’s a phrase we sometime use when dealing with misbehaving children, but it is actually a part of the Criminal Code of Canada.  The resulting convictions can be somewhat dire.  Of course unfortunately,  most politicians these days are cowering,  snivelling pansies,  and wouldn’t have the first clue about history lessons or crowd control.   There was a riot 17 years ago,  remember?  More on the subject. 
Enough of that.  I’ll get down off my soap box now. 

It’s been a while,  but I thought the other day I had better do a back-up,  since it’s not just the programs that I would worry about,  but the many, many pictures that are hanging around on various drives here and there.   Only thing was though,  it had been so long since I had done this little procedure, that I began to think the computer would be tied up most of the morning.  That would never do.
I also realised from scanning some of the files that were being “backed up”,  that there’s a certain amount of cr*p that needs to be cleaned up.  Stuff I had forgotten about.

DSC_0001  

My nephew,  who not only can write you a program, but can hook up all the hardware and make it run for you,  was kind enough to write a little back-up program for me.  All I need do is hook up an external drive and click on an icon on my desktop.  I’ve never been overly keen on the back up software that comes with any of these external drives,  since most often the information can’t be retrieved all that easily by we simple folk.   Remember what I said about learning new stuff?  Right.
Oh,  and I should mention his one time words of wisdom to me a couple years ago: “It’s not IF your computer will crash,  but a matter of when.”  Again.  Right.   Words to live by. 

Well,  I’d say “keep those sticks on the ice”, but I guess that’ll have to wait for “next year”. 

There’s always “next year”.


*You’ll just have to look it up.  Sorry.

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Well, I've been getting too many spam comments showing up. Just a drag, so we'll go another route and hope that helps. So, we won't be hearing anything more from Mr. Nony Moose.
I guess I'll just have to do without that Gucci purse.