Category: Nature

Big Snow

January 27, 2026

We had a giant snowfall a day ago.

The forecast became increasingly unbelievable, beginning a week before at about a foot and by the morning of the blizzard rising to 2.5+ feet. Everything closed and we both worked from home.

The snow began Sunday before lunch, and continued for over a day, although most of the snow had fallen before we woke on Monday.

The last photo above was taken at first light Monday morning. The bird feeder remains under the snow as I write this, a day later. Since it’s going to remain below freezing for at least the next ten days I don’t expect to see it again for a while.

Official tallies of the snowfall range from 12.5 to 15 inches, but according to what I read measuring the actual totals was a challenge since many of them depend on volunteers that in some cases were unable to report. The tallies seem to vary wildly as well: a town not five minutes away from us is reported to have received over 5 inches more which seems dubious.

I cleared the snow three times. The first time with just a shovel, and then I used the snowthrower to clear the driveway just before dark on Sunday. This was quite a challenge since it was awesomely cold (below -15C) and I couldn’t stay out too long. When we woke on Monday it looked like I hadn’t even cleared the day before, since what seemed like at least as much again had fallen overnight. Without the snowthrower we would have had a mighty challenge indeed.

The photo on the left was Monday morning. Keep in mind that the previous afternoon I had already cleared the steps twice! There was so much snow that the usual method – just push it off the steps and patio – wasn’t an option since the snow level was higher than the patio. Clearing the steps is usually the easiest task, but yesterday it was a chore.

Luckily we didn’t lose power, and I haven’t heard of any serious disruptions from the storm. During the worst it seemed like everyone just stayed at home (the only vehicles we saw on our road Monday were ploughs).

I like snow but maybe this was a bit too much 🙂

A Game For Men

May 21, 2025

Australia is famous for the ferocity of its fauna, and therefore it’s not at all surprising that yesterday I came upon this:

Yes my friends, this is Animal Kaiser Plus: The King of Animals. This is nothing less than an IC card game based around animals fighting to the death! I sat on the tiny and suspiciously close to the ground seats and could hardly throw my $2.80 in fast enough to give it a play.

An ‘IC card’ game refers to a game using physical cards that are read/scanned by the machine during play. These are very popular in Japan and this is my first time seeing one in English. If you don’t have a card to scan you are giving a default player character, which for me was Leo, The Lion Cub.

The ‘gameplay’ consists of pushing one button to get a random number (between 10 and 50) which – if higher than the opponent – leads to an attack. It’s so simple even a child – a toddler – could do it and it’s obviously no major challenge for a venerable gamer like myself.

So when my Leo, The Lion Cub was repeatedly beaten senseless by the ‘Teck’ attacks of an Asiatic Black Bear I suspected this ‘playing without a card’ business was a handicap.

Happily the game vends a card every game, and after humiliating ursine defeat I received my first card. I hurriedly fed in more credits and purchased two more cards: and thus my team was complete:

Philistines may say it was pure luck I happened to get exactly one animal, one ‘strong’ and one ‘miracle’ card in three rolls – thus providing one card for each team category – but those heathens don’t understand my level of gaming skill.

Those Philistines also wouldn’t begin to observe that this game is a simplified reskin of Japanese arcade classics such as Mushiking or the various Ultraman or Kamen Rider games I often play in Japan. I’m intrigued the system has ‘gone west’, albeit in a non-licensed form.

And so I unleashed my empowered Black Panther upon the animal kingdom, and his righteous fury made mince meat of a bear and a Goblin Shark before he was in turn blown back by the juggernaut of all beasts: an elephant.

It’s perhaps fitting the game then provided me a Goblin Shark of my very own – with evocative attacks including ‘Kande Burst’ and ‘Sledge Gauer’ – although my lethargy by now was absolute and I had to tear myself away from Animal Kaiser Plus: The King Of Beasts without seeing how the shark fared. What other fabulous cards were waiting inside?

Even if I never see this game again, I’ll remember it forever.

Bird of Paradise

May 10, 2022

It’s time for a new LEGO kit:

This is the third in their ‘botanical’ series, and as a child of the jungle myself, naturally this called to me!

It’s the biggest of the botanical kits so far, mostly because (unlike the flower bouquet) it comes with a pot.

It also came with a number of tiny (~ 5 mm) golden rings. These are dazzling, and apparently somewhat special (the kit mentions it has more of them than any other LEGO kit) but they are embedded inside the pot and you can’t even see them in the finished product!

The pot is dense and heavy, and wouldn’t be fun to dismantle. Obviously the bulk is required to prevent the piece from falling over when made.

The stalks are made from smaller pieces joined together, rather than very long axles, and therefore the plant would be very customizable. I followed the instructions perfectly 🙂

Speaking of which this was a very easy kit to make, even if you’ve not done LEGO before. It was a pleasant build as we watched Japan walking videos on YouTube, and dreamed of our next visit to Japan…

Doesn’t this resemble the real thing!?! I expect as I scampered around the dense jungles of my place of birth I saw these flowers often as I listened to the singing of real life birds of paradise!

The last step was to add the soil, which was hundreds of small brown circular pieces. I expect if you bought enough of these it would make good cat litter.

And here’s the finished piece! It’s lovely isn’t it? It’s also very large, but looks great on a mantle. As with the other two botanicals, I think this one will find a permanent position in our home.

Robot Claw