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Give it up already! Snowstorm #2 is hitting us tonight and tomorrow morning, with once again, 20cms and higher. Watch! Me! Shovel! Snow! Blech. I’d be a millionaire for every inch of snow I moved.

Incidentally, I noticed a couple of disturbing patterns re: snowstorms:

• Snowstorms only happen at night! That’s because you can’t really see snowflakes during the day. They’re really vain you know.
• Big movies always premiere on snowstorm days. That’s because when it’s storming nobody really wants to be stuck at home. And movie companies know this.
• There’s a linear relationship between the amount of snow and the physical location of a body we (here) name A. When A moves northward, there’s less snow to be detected. When A stays around the same area (Snow_Δν↔∞), snow appears to stick around too.
• When my brother sends highly descriptive messages with subjects like ‘Yo’ or ‘Re: Yo’, it is more likely that we get huge amounts of snow.

I’m still working on the right formula for the best approach to shovel and move huge amounts of snow. I keep you posted.

Yesterday’s snowfest and cleaning didn’t hold us from doing some Christmas shopping. Some observations that might (or might not) entertain:

1. It wasn’t busy in the Mall. I’ve seen it busier. Initially, I assumed that the snow must have been keeping people away from doing their Christmas shopping. But then, maybe it’s because of Walmart?

2. I’m the only person in the world who knows what he gets. I played it for a couple of hours and then asked my wife to wrap it up. I can’t wait to unwrap it once again. Thanks to Alfons, for reminding me.

3. We only managed to find brown wrapping paper at Pharmasave’s. Earlier attempts to find it at Shopper’s Drugmart ended up empty-handed. My efforts there to locate a single roll did result in the best comical situation, handled nicely by the shop assistant:

* “Do you have brown wrapping paper?”
– “It should be with the Christmas wrapping paper. [after long search] Oh… it must have sold out”.
* “I guess brown is the most popular colour for wrapping up Christmas presents, this year”

4. The camera has an ‘auto-focus’ problem. And related (technically): But, why yes, we do have a blender. After all, I had to use it one time during my first attempt to make home-made sambal. (that sambal nearly killed me too, but that’s a different story)

5. One of the trees lost a big branch during the snow storm. It’s that heavy that I can’t tug it myself. Earlier, I’ve feared for losing this tree: for two consequent summers, this maple tree has literally been ravaged by caterpillars. I’d be suprised if it’ll blossom next year.

6. GIANT ICICLES-TIME! It’d be smart to stay clear from any building. You don’t want an icicle fall on your head. Water-puddles-day!

We’ve slowly entered the cold dark age of Winter. Last week, the first couple of centimeters of snow seemed to announce the beginning of that age. I bet, those snowy leftovers will be hanging around until our first thaw in the Spring. -1o Degrees! So much for hoping for a milder Winter. Less snow then, please.

Earlier this week, my wife remembered the typical Dutch December 5th celebration and surprised me with a genuine (but not Dutch) chocolate letter. A genuine ‘A’ too. It was a moment of joy and obviously, pause too. Related to this: I’ve been wanting to make ‘amandelstaaf’ for the longest time. It brings up good memories about the day we touched Dutch soil.

I’ve been sporadically following the Curry vs. Winer fight, particularly after Curry’s last poo-poo and confession about editing the history of podcasting. Low blow after low blow, followed. While I’m not a fan of Curry either, seeing Winer manipulate his own writings just makes me want to throw up. Seeing Winer carry pictures of his buddies on his weblog, reminds me of a typical word: [opgeilen]. Huh?