Kara’s Blog

Often the question arises: what is Canadian? How do Canadians identify themselves as Canadians? How do non-Canadians identify Canadians? What represents Canadian culture?

The answer usually boils down to the commonly held view that we are "not American". And it's true. We Canadians love to distinguish ourselves from their counterparts south of the border. But that can't be all we are--call me crazy, but I suspect there are other countries who also see themselves as…

Although it's only been two days since we moved into the new house, and we had Internet by 1 PM on Friday, I still feel so disconnected. This really puts my online activities into perspective: I spend most of my waking hours online. If I'm at home, I'm basically online. I may be doing something else, either on the computer or something completely different, but I'm still online if people want to talk to me.…

Not in the literal sense (yet), but in a metaphysical, vaguely sort of philosophical manner of speaking. So many little things have intruded upon the scope of my life that I find myself adrift without a schedule, without priorities, attending to tasks as they pop up or as they flag me down with little urgent signs that threaten to bludgeon me if I don't take care of them.

We're moving into a new house across…

I have to hand it to Disney. Few corporations can be great at being both good and evil. My hat goes off to you, Disney, for achieving that fine equilibrium. You bring us quality programming for kids--and manage to ruin their lives in the process.

I speak, of course, about the sick and twisted travesty that is Disney television shows. Case in point: Kim Possible. I ranted once before about how Disney ruined Kim…

Is there something special about turning 18?

Heck yes.

Normally I'm not one to get excited about birthdays. One year older ... but the 18th is special since it's the age of majority. Apparently on September 19, 11:59:59 PM, I am not mature enough, but one second later I have magically matured to just the right amount. I am now mature enough to participate in the democratic process by ticking boxes on a piece of…

As I've said previously, I'm tired of the repetitive fearmongering being done in the name of our "global warming" crusade. It's another example of herd mentality exacerbating a crisis that it is supposed to be solving. Last century it was nuclear weapons, this century it's global warming.

Well wake up people, and stop being so selfish! After all, we are not the only planet in this universe. There are many other planets out there that…

VSNS Lemon 4.0 RC 2 is now available for download. It contains two changes. The first, and largest, change is that it no longer uses sessions to store the configuration variables. This makes it easier to integrate your blog with another page on your site. Secondly, because file_get_contents() generates a warning if allow_url_fopen is disabled, the RSS feed on the Admin CP index and the update checker will both fail gracefully if your host…

We've got this bottle of whiteout in the drawer at the front desk of the art gallery. Regular whiteout or whatnot. I was bored one day and read the tiny printing on the back of the label. After resting my eyes from the strain of trying to read the subatomic type, I considered the implications of this warning: "Contents may catch fire." :huh:

It's very ambiguous. What do they mean, "contents may catch fire?" So…

Tomorrow is my first day of my first year of university. I'm both excited and nervous. Today I went shopping for school supplies. Notebooks, pens, that sort of thing.

I have two math classes, so I'll be doing a lot of pencil work. I love wooden pencils and have eschewed their mechanical counterparts up until now. However, since the spacial organization of lecture-style seating makes pencil sharpening more of an Olympic sport than useful utility,…

Finally! It feels good to have VSNS Lemon 4 out, but I still have lots of work left to do.

I've turned my scripts repository into a wiki (DokuWiki, specifically) in order to better handle documentation and modification. Yes, that's right: documentation. It is by no means complete, but it is there, and I will continue working on it as much as possible. Since it's a wiki, you can contribute too, if you…