More unusual weather this morning. As I look out the window while I type this is is snowing. Now for a southern hemisphere lad like me snow in October is a very odd thing anyway, but even for the locals it's odd to get a snow storm this early in the Autumn (as I insist on calling it when nobody else is around).
It's supposed to be a doosie, too, with a foot or more of heavy, wet snow predicted all across the northeastern United States (and I presume into Canada, too, even though to watch the TV you'd think the weather stops at the border). It hasn't started settling yet, but with that much falling it can only be a matter of time before the landscape turns white.
Talk about a cold snap, we only got our first frost yesterday morning and already the snow is piling on. There are still flowers in bloom in our little garden!
It will likely all be melted by tomorrow afternoon, though, and it really is a cold snap so daytime temperatures will probably be up a little again once this sorts itself out. For the moment, though, Mrs Walles and I will just have to wrap up warm when we venture out later, and add salt to our shopping list to spread on the driveway if the snow turns out to be more persistent than forecast.
Plus it is lovely to watch the snow falling. Unlike some jaded souls here who, thanks to many hard winters, have come to treat snow as just an inconvenience, I still get excited by a big dump of snow. Especially one that I don't have to shovel the next morning!
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Are you well?
In New Zealand (at least when I left, hopefully things have not declined too far in the intervening months) prescription drug advertising is a relatively new thing, having been legalised only a few years ago. So it's not much of a problem, you can just tune out the few ads that you come across.
In the United States things are much more advanced. I assume there has never been any restriction on drug advertising - presumably it would be unconstitutional. But however it relates to the nation's constitution, it has a poor effect on my constitution because it is everywhere, especially on television. I doubt an ad break goes by without at least one long spiel for some wonder drug or other. That may reflect in part the kind of channels I watch - programming targeted towards the geriatric end of the audience will include more such advertising, I suppose, but even on the channels targeted toward the more youthful and (one would think) healthy end of the market carries these ads. If you don't think there's anything wrong with you, they try to make you think there might be, and then sell you the pill to fix it.
Just off the top of my head I can think of commercials I've seen for drugs to treat arthritis, depression, insomnia, heart disease, acne, indigestion, psoriasis, short eyelashes and dry eyes. They're all soothing, slick and positive with gentle muzak in the background, certainly never depicting the diseases they're about That's no doubt to counter the lengthy voice over that lists the risks and side-effects from taking the medicine (I'm particularly amazed by the psoriasis drug that seems to be carcinogenic, and the surprising number of drugs that warn they may increase your risk of death). By the end of it all you may still not have a desire to take the drug they're hawking, but you may want a little something for the nagging depression the ads produce.
Then of course you get the ads placed by lawyers to attract people who have taken drug X and may be entitled to compensation. Presumably because the manufacturers left something off the long list of risks. There's one on CNN right now as I type this.
It's makes me sick, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The pharmaceutical companies are probably already working to create a pill to cure this revulsion. They can advertise it on television. They'll make a mint.
In the United States things are much more advanced. I assume there has never been any restriction on drug advertising - presumably it would be unconstitutional. But however it relates to the nation's constitution, it has a poor effect on my constitution because it is everywhere, especially on television. I doubt an ad break goes by without at least one long spiel for some wonder drug or other. That may reflect in part the kind of channels I watch - programming targeted towards the geriatric end of the audience will include more such advertising, I suppose, but even on the channels targeted toward the more youthful and (one would think) healthy end of the market carries these ads. If you don't think there's anything wrong with you, they try to make you think there might be, and then sell you the pill to fix it.
Just off the top of my head I can think of commercials I've seen for drugs to treat arthritis, depression, insomnia, heart disease, acne, indigestion, psoriasis, short eyelashes and dry eyes. They're all soothing, slick and positive with gentle muzak in the background, certainly never depicting the diseases they're about That's no doubt to counter the lengthy voice over that lists the risks and side-effects from taking the medicine (I'm particularly amazed by the psoriasis drug that seems to be carcinogenic, and the surprising number of drugs that warn they may increase your risk of death). By the end of it all you may still not have a desire to take the drug they're hawking, but you may want a little something for the nagging depression the ads produce.
Then of course you get the ads placed by lawyers to attract people who have taken drug X and may be entitled to compensation. Presumably because the manufacturers left something off the long list of risks. There's one on CNN right now as I type this.
It's makes me sick, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The pharmaceutical companies are probably already working to create a pill to cure this revulsion. They can advertise it on television. They'll make a mint.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Pints and pounds
In America they have a saying, which apparently gets drummed into kids at school, that "a pint's a pound the whole world round."
It's catchy and memorable and even though it's patently false. It is roughly true that a US pint of water (the pint is from the US, it doesn't matter where the water comes from) weighs almost exactly one US pound.
Where it really falls over, of course, is the "whole world round" part, because the definition stops at the border. The imperial system once used in New Zealand (and around the Commonwealth) defines the pound the same, but the pint is about a quarter as large again as its US cousin - much to the delight of beer drinkers who dwell outside the US border.
Not that it matters in most cases, because most of the rest of the world has converted to metric, and as a child of the metric system I've hitherto had little to do with pints and pounds anyway. I did have to memorise that an inch is 25.4mm so that I could use the old lathes in the metalwork room at high school, and I'm aware that glass milk bottles (if they still exist) are about a pint and butter comes in blocks close to a pound, but that's about the extent of my acquaintance.
This is a good thing, because otherwise I'd be in a much greater state of confusion than I am. If I already had a feeling for pints I'd have to unlearn everything I already knew. It's bad enough just learning what I don't know about all these measurements.
One nice thing about the US pint is that it's equal to two cups, which are close enough to metric cups that it doesn't matter in recipes. And two pints makes a quart which in the US system is just a little less than a litre, which also makes things easier. I'm gradually getting the hang of it. A few more years and my measurement skills may even measure up themselves.
It's catchy and memorable and even though it's patently false. It is roughly true that a US pint of water (the pint is from the US, it doesn't matter where the water comes from) weighs almost exactly one US pound.
Where it really falls over, of course, is the "whole world round" part, because the definition stops at the border. The imperial system once used in New Zealand (and around the Commonwealth) defines the pound the same, but the pint is about a quarter as large again as its US cousin - much to the delight of beer drinkers who dwell outside the US border.
Not that it matters in most cases, because most of the rest of the world has converted to metric, and as a child of the metric system I've hitherto had little to do with pints and pounds anyway. I did have to memorise that an inch is 25.4mm so that I could use the old lathes in the metalwork room at high school, and I'm aware that glass milk bottles (if they still exist) are about a pint and butter comes in blocks close to a pound, but that's about the extent of my acquaintance.
This is a good thing, because otherwise I'd be in a much greater state of confusion than I am. If I already had a feeling for pints I'd have to unlearn everything I already knew. It's bad enough just learning what I don't know about all these measurements.
One nice thing about the US pint is that it's equal to two cups, which are close enough to metric cups that it doesn't matter in recipes. And two pints makes a quart which in the US system is just a little less than a litre, which also makes things easier. I'm gradually getting the hang of it. A few more years and my measurement skills may even measure up themselves.
Friday, October 14, 2011
A story with legs
The other day I decided to finally resow the grass under an old rubber mat we had been using on the lawn. I've become accustomed to lifting the mat up when I mow so I was expecting there to be an assortment of the kinds of creepy crawlies that live under rocks and old rubber mats. This time, though, the bounty was truly prodigious. As well as the occasional beetle and earthworm, there were a few leeches and some enormous, fat worms. As soon as they were exposed to daylight, most of these headed for the safety and darkness of their various underground lairs. But two or three of the huge worms didn't really move - until one of them lifted itself up on its legs and scurried off.
Now I'm not much of a naturalist, but truth that I will cling to in a storm is that worms don't have legs. For a moment I thought I'd uncovered some kind of unearthly hell-beasts. Then I wondered if the chipmunks had started evolving to better suit the increasingly aquatic environment outside our back door. But then I realised that these ten centimetre long creatures were salamanders, tiny amphibians, land-lubber cousins of the much more spectacular hell bender that lives in the waterways here.
There are a number of varieties found here according to my references. Not something we have in New Zealand outside of high-school science labs, really. I'm not sure exactly what species these are but from what I've read land-dwelling salamanders don't have lungs, instead absorbing oxygen through their skin. That means they don't have to move to breathe, of course, which no doubt helped the initial illusion that they were worms. Some of them also have that neat trick of dropping their tail when startled, to distract predators, though all tails seemed to stay attached this time.
I left them alone for a while and when I came back to sow the grass seed they'd obviously found their way to safety. An interesting and exciting encounter, but one which reminds me I have to take more care when investigating nooks and crannies over here. It was just some harmless salamanders this time, but there are nastier things that lurk in dark corners that I'd really rather avoid.
I left them alone for a while and when I came back to sow the grass seed they'd obviously found their way to safety. An interesting and exciting encounter, but one which reminds me I have to take more care when investigating nooks and crannies over here. It was just some harmless salamanders this time, but there are nastier things that lurk in dark corners that I'd really rather avoid.
Friday, October 7, 2011
What I learned about Williamsport
Until last weekend I had only a glancing knowledge of Williamsport. Even though it's fairly close by, I'd only passed through it once when we went to Niagara Falls two years ago. About all I learnd then was that it is home to the Little League Hall of Fame, and general headquarters of the of all things little league. That's little nippers playing baseball, to the uninitiated, but it's a pretty big deal in these parts.
This time I noticed that the little leaguers were flying an enormous American flag. I was left wondering how big the one flown at the grown-up baseball hall of fame must be if the little league merits the flag they have.
Anyway, the other two things I knew about Williamsport were that it was the scene of an attack by Native Americans of some settlers in the eighteenth century, and that not far away over the mountains begins the basin of the Ohio River, which ultimately leads to the Mississippi (though I should mention I haven't checked either of these "facts" very closely).
After our recent foray I now know two more things about the town. First, as I wrote the other day, they know how to lay on a book sale. And second, where to get lunch. For after we'd rummaged around the books we retired to the Bullfrog Brewery for pretzels and sandwiches. Mrs Walles had turkey, cheese, apple and caramelised onions while I went for simple pork loin and both were excellent. It's one of the many good microbreweries that litter this part of the countryside, most of which have their own bar attached where you can admire all the shiny equipment in which their product is busily fermenting.
We were both amused, as we looked for a place to park the car, that most of the spaces beside the brewery are reserved for an organisation that aims to fight alcoholism. Maybe at the end of a long day fighting alcoholism the only cure is a drink?
Anyway, I am pleased to report that Williamsport is a very tidy and pretty place. It's a large town with solid architecture in the middle of town, where we were, but that centre is not so large that it's intimidating. Mrs Walles tells me that there are bad parts of Williamsport, but I didn't see any of them.
I was very happy to visit and it is nice to see the centre of a town, since you so often bypass the centre when you're travelling here, and get no real feel for the towns you are passing "through". We're sure to be back again, whenever books or sandwiches call to us again.
Anyway, the other two things I knew about Williamsport were that it was the scene of an attack by Native Americans of some settlers in the eighteenth century, and that not far away over the mountains begins the basin of the Ohio River, which ultimately leads to the Mississippi (though I should mention I haven't checked either of these "facts" very closely).
After our recent foray I now know two more things about the town. First, as I wrote the other day, they know how to lay on a book sale. And second, where to get lunch. For after we'd rummaged around the books we retired to the Bullfrog Brewery for pretzels and sandwiches. Mrs Walles had turkey, cheese, apple and caramelised onions while I went for simple pork loin and both were excellent. It's one of the many good microbreweries that litter this part of the countryside, most of which have their own bar attached where you can admire all the shiny equipment in which their product is busily fermenting.
Anyway, I am pleased to report that Williamsport is a very tidy and pretty place. It's a large town with solid architecture in the middle of town, where we were, but that centre is not so large that it's intimidating. Mrs Walles tells me that there are bad parts of Williamsport, but I didn't see any of them.
I was very happy to visit and it is nice to see the centre of a town, since you so often bypass the centre when you're travelling here, and get no real feel for the towns you are passing "through". We're sure to be back again, whenever books or sandwiches call to us again.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Masterpiece Mystery mystery
On Saturday Mrs Walles and I took a trip to the town Williamsport. This would have been the weekend that her family visited and we all partook of the delights of the state fair, until the rain put a stop to that (the sun, by the way, has finally made an appearance this afternoon). Mrs Walles found a good consolation prize in the form of a book sale organised by the friends of the library in Williamsport, which I was gratified to discover was being held in a Methodist church hall. Having attended the annual book sale in my home town - also held in a church hall - every year like clockwork until all this going-to-America business intervened, it was pleasing to see that some things are the same the world round.
This particular sale only lasts three days and we visited on the morning of the last day so I was worried things might have been picked through. I need not have worried, though, and between us we managed to select forty seven volumes which, thanks to the rather generous pricing scheme, we managed to get for much less than a dollar apiece.
Among other things I stocked up on British mystery novels. I've a weakness for a good mystery and apparently so do the American library-going public as there were plenty to choose from. But then this shouldn't have been a surprise, having watched Masterpiece Mystery on public television. They've been playing Inspector Lewis in this slot the last few weeks. Now, where I come from something like Inspector Lewis is the televisual equivalent of the mystery novel. You expect exotic settings, eccentric characters, a lot of bodies and even more red herrings, and for someone other than the butler to have done it in the end. Good stuff, and well done, but not exactly on par with the roof of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa.
But I suspect that the viewers here don't see things the same way. Each episode comes prefixed with an introduction by the actor Alan Cumming. He's best known - to me at least - as Boris from Goldeneye, but he possesses a pleasant Scottish brogue which lends gravitas to proceedings. Cumming treats Lewis with reverence, like a lost Shakespeare play, as he explains the set up for this week's plot. But I don't think that's his real purpose. Here, he seems to be saying, here is the good stuff ladies and gentlemen, and let us pause a moment, bask in its radiance, and give thanks before the tape starts rolling.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's all just a bit of window dressing. Perhaps everyone realises it's a bit silly but they keep at it because it's what they've always done. Alan Cumming always seems to have a slight smirk as he delivers the little sermon, so I suspect he at least thinks it's a bit over the top. Or maybe they really have been so starved of decent telly that a decent British murder mystery is like manna from heaven.
Anyway, it's really just an amusement to me and all the more tolerable because once Alan finishes his blessing the whole show runs without ads. Perhaps New Zealand networks should treat their shows with a bit more reverence if this is the result!
This particular sale only lasts three days and we visited on the morning of the last day so I was worried things might have been picked through. I need not have worried, though, and between us we managed to select forty seven volumes which, thanks to the rather generous pricing scheme, we managed to get for much less than a dollar apiece.
Among other things I stocked up on British mystery novels. I've a weakness for a good mystery and apparently so do the American library-going public as there were plenty to choose from. But then this shouldn't have been a surprise, having watched Masterpiece Mystery on public television. They've been playing Inspector Lewis in this slot the last few weeks. Now, where I come from something like Inspector Lewis is the televisual equivalent of the mystery novel. You expect exotic settings, eccentric characters, a lot of bodies and even more red herrings, and for someone other than the butler to have done it in the end. Good stuff, and well done, but not exactly on par with the roof of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa.
But I suspect that the viewers here don't see things the same way. Each episode comes prefixed with an introduction by the actor Alan Cumming. He's best known - to me at least - as Boris from Goldeneye, but he possesses a pleasant Scottish brogue which lends gravitas to proceedings. Cumming treats Lewis with reverence, like a lost Shakespeare play, as he explains the set up for this week's plot. But I don't think that's his real purpose. Here, he seems to be saying, here is the good stuff ladies and gentlemen, and let us pause a moment, bask in its radiance, and give thanks before the tape starts rolling.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's all just a bit of window dressing. Perhaps everyone realises it's a bit silly but they keep at it because it's what they've always done. Alan Cumming always seems to have a slight smirk as he delivers the little sermon, so I suspect he at least thinks it's a bit over the top. Or maybe they really have been so starved of decent telly that a decent British murder mystery is like manna from heaven.
Anyway, it's really just an amusement to me and all the more tolerable because once Alan finishes his blessing the whole show runs without ads. Perhaps New Zealand networks should treat their shows with a bit more reverence if this is the result!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Wet feet
The rain that has beset us for some weeks now is set to depart. According to the National Weather Service we can expect the sun to appear in a couple of days time. To which I say: what is this "sun" they speak of? It's not quite as bad as that but there have been a lot of grey days in the past few weeks, very little sun and an awful lot of rain.
Last Wednesday the rain was particularly awful as it started seeping into our basement. Fortunately I just happened to go down there as it started so I was able to reduce its impact. Nothing was really at risk, except an old bed which was quickly moved out of harm's way. But there were a lot of cardboard boxes down there that I have been slowly cutting up and disposing of.
Of course I'm not used to having a basement, but they are ubiquitous here. Not every American home has a basement (in some places the water table is too high to make them practical, for one thing) but they are extremely widespread. I can tell you now that they are a double-edged sword. On the one hand it's like having a whole extra level to the house, and somewhere to hide all those annoying utilitarian machines - which in the case of a typical American home means at least the washing machine and dryer, the hot water cylinder and the central heating and air conditioning. We have all of these in our basement, plus enough space to have a little room down there, finished and carpeted which we use to hold the spillover when we have guests to stay.
The bad part is that you have a big empty underground chamber beneath the house that's only too happy to fill with water if the conditions are right. To counteract this they have drainage built in and are sealed to prevent even damp getting in. They are impervious to water, or at least they are supposed to be. But if you have a little hole, and erosion of the soil around the foundation, all it takes is a good strong rainstorm for the water to start pouring in. And that's what happened to us last week.
It's not normally a problem but the ground is already so wet (we could grow rice in the back yard at the moment) and there was such a cloudburst, that the water had nowhere to go.
So I spent the rest of last week cutting up boxes and bagging them ready for disposal. Now I just have to mop the floor with bleach and we'll be just about back to normal. Apart from that nagging feeling whenever the rain comes that the basement might be filling with water, spurring yet another visit downstairs to ease my mind. I'm looking forward to some sunny weather.
Last Wednesday the rain was particularly awful as it started seeping into our basement. Fortunately I just happened to go down there as it started so I was able to reduce its impact. Nothing was really at risk, except an old bed which was quickly moved out of harm's way. But there were a lot of cardboard boxes down there that I have been slowly cutting up and disposing of.
Of course I'm not used to having a basement, but they are ubiquitous here. Not every American home has a basement (in some places the water table is too high to make them practical, for one thing) but they are extremely widespread. I can tell you now that they are a double-edged sword. On the one hand it's like having a whole extra level to the house, and somewhere to hide all those annoying utilitarian machines - which in the case of a typical American home means at least the washing machine and dryer, the hot water cylinder and the central heating and air conditioning. We have all of these in our basement, plus enough space to have a little room down there, finished and carpeted which we use to hold the spillover when we have guests to stay.
The bad part is that you have a big empty underground chamber beneath the house that's only too happy to fill with water if the conditions are right. To counteract this they have drainage built in and are sealed to prevent even damp getting in. They are impervious to water, or at least they are supposed to be. But if you have a little hole, and erosion of the soil around the foundation, all it takes is a good strong rainstorm for the water to start pouring in. And that's what happened to us last week.
It's not normally a problem but the ground is already so wet (we could grow rice in the back yard at the moment) and there was such a cloudburst, that the water had nowhere to go.
So I spent the rest of last week cutting up boxes and bagging them ready for disposal. Now I just have to mop the floor with bleach and we'll be just about back to normal. Apart from that nagging feeling whenever the rain comes that the basement might be filling with water, spurring yet another visit downstairs to ease my mind. I'm looking forward to some sunny weather.
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