That was a lovely weekend!

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I needed some time away from the keyboard — literally. I've been suffering from a pinched nerve in my left shoulder for the past two months (I've been explaining it as a side-effect of "Extreme Pallbearing", but it was probably a TV I helped to move that did most of the damage). We've been on a big deadline at work over that time, so I've been wincing while I worked since mid-August. It's been good for my chiropractor's income, but bad for me.

A weekend spent almost completely away from the computer was just what I needed . . . still some pain in the arm, and a bit of remaining numbness in the little finger of my left hand, but otherwise I'm feeling much, much better.

The weather was wonderful, allowing us to get good use of the gazebo in the back yard for possibly the last time this year (all our neighbours have taken their sunshades & gazebo-equivalents down by now).

Victor and I spent Saturday visiting with some old friends of mine (for various values of "old"), including the discovery that one of them is now blogging as Rantibus, where he gleefully posts anti-Right Wing screeds:

Welcome to I, RANTIBUS.

It is my hope that this blog will fulfill two functions: It will provide analysis of past events that were under-reported or not reported at all, and of issues that shouldn’t be allowed to pass from public memory. It will also feature my satirical faux anthropological study complete with lexicon and taxonomy, AN OBSERVER’S GUIDE TO THE RIGHT WING - A Field Guide to the Fatuous.

Twice weekly, I shall add content in the form of an analytical article or two and an excerpt from The Guide plus two new definitions from the lexicon. (In non-alphabetical order) Plus any other outrages my fevered mind deems appropriate.

Years ago, I began writing political commentary. Eventually, I had to give it up because almost every thing I wrote about prompted me to take the next plane to Washington DC or Ottawa, stand outside the White House, houses of Congress or the Parliament Buildings and scream “F__K YOU, you ethicless, scurrilous swine,” leaping about, shaking my fist and doing a credible impersonation of John Cleese on speed. Needless to say, most of what I wrote was unprintable - not so much for the language, but that it eventually degenerated into a spit-flecked seething cauldron of invective full of sound and fury, signifiying the proverbial nothing. Very much like what Dennis Miller would read like if you stole his thesaurus. Then, I had the opportunity to work on two political campaigns and came to an interesting epiphany. Politicians have long since resigned themselves to the fact that they will be cursed in the streets and excoriated in the public fish wraps and have grown Teflon rhino-hide to insulate themselves. But there is one thing, to lapse into the vernacular, that really grinds their nuts.

They cannot stand being made fun of.