Looking forward, with mild but palpable pleasure, to another Thursday night class with John Acorn, the Nature Nut. (We all call him ‘John,’ but if I were another academic, would the proper title be ‘Dr. The Nature Nut’?)

Here’s a tip for you about Alberta’s provincial bird, the great horned owl, Bubo virginianus: they are incredibly trusting and not very bright, plus which, they hunt by day, as do most northern owls. This means that if you’ve got nothing better to do, you can attract great horned owls around either the St. Albert or Edmonton river valleys any time you like!

Apparently the trick is to find an open spot near an edge of trees and then kiss the back of your hand hard enough to produce loud, rodent-in-distress squeaks (you can kiss a friend instead if you’ve brought one along - this produces great distressed squeaks). At this point, the owl will do one of two things:

a) Swoop down low in front of you, find a branch, and crane its neck around in amusing circles to see whether there really is a distressed rodent around, or

b) Swoop down low behind you and rake its talons across your head.

Happy squeaking!!

3:31 a.m., this morning.

Me: “Hello, brain? Are you still there?”

My brain: (swaying back and forth with a lighter) “We can be heeeeeeeroes…”

Me: “So… no post about the David Bowie concert, then.”

My brain: “…just for one daaaay….”

So - just for the record - does absence, as the old adage goes, really make the heart fonder? Or does it just make you suffer?

This is feeling extraordinarily relevant right now.

But, all the same: Kim - best of luck in the big V-dot! (Heh.)

OK folks, for the millionth, squillionth time, hand sanitizer gel does not contribute to bacterial antibiotic resistance. OK? Are we clear? It is exactly the same, bacterially speaking, as soap. “Oh no!” I hear you squealing, “no no, the bottle says it kills 99.9% of germs!” It does indeed, but so does freakin’ Palmolive if you wash your hands properly.

Both soap and sanitizer kill off most surface germs - the narsties you get when you use, say, a public computer, the ones that used to belong to sick people or to people who didn’t wash their hands after #2. Your commensal bacteria - the ones you guys are worried about killing off because they ‘pwo-tect’ you (awwww) - are fine. They live down in your epidermal folds and you can soak your hands in Lysol and have plenty of live colonies half an hour later. OK? OK. I thought so.

Two sets of fireworks and a sort of laser show at City Hall. Does a new year’s eve get any better than that? The answer: an unequivocal no.
My new year was one hour old when its first disaster occurred: an epic battle of the ages between a gigantic SUV and my boyfriend’s Chevy S-10 at the corner of Boudreau and Sturgeon. I got off merely feeling as if I’d been viciously shoved into a wall, but the dude wapped his head on the window and I guess we’ll find out today whether there’s any real damage.
Car accidents! Wow. This is my first real one, since I usually don’t count the bus accident of 2002 or the one where a friend of mine backed into someone’s van (approximate speed 3 km/h). So yeah, uhh, happy new year to everyone else… and I hope your evening went better than mine!