A Few Quick Notes 250

-Today, like the past few days, has been rainy and somewhat less than pleasant. For most of the day it has been raining and the only expected change is for the rain to turn into freezing rain.

-We had a rather fruity batch of black bean soup tonight. I think that the fruitiness can be explained by my rather large squirt of lemon juice. Fortunately, I didn't mind the fruitier version of the soup (though I didn't think to ask either Neil or Rebecca what they thought about it).

-As our Christmas departure draws near we are trying our best to consume and not replace our perishable foods. So far we seem to be doing a pretty good job. Unfortunately a day or two ago we purchased 10 pounds of carrots and 10 pounds of potatoes. Neil's comment was that if we each consumed 1/2 a pound of carrots a day we would be fine, and so far we seem to be on track.

-For the past few days I have spent much of my time grading papers or reading about the Scottish Parliament. While reading an article by Cowley and Lochore this evening I came across the following line: "An 18-year old Scottish Parliament - able to vote, drink, drive and have sex - may well turn out very different from the one of today."

Maybe I am just tired, but the thought of a parliament out on the town searching for one night stands really cracked me up. Unfortunately, as the local Nova Scotia legislature is 250 it is probably past going out for wild nights on the town (though I am sure that it has witnessed a fair bit during the past quarter millennium).

-For the cooler kids out there, it seems that the journal Parliamentary Affairs now has a podcast. Though I have downloaded all of the episodes I haven't had a chance to listen to any of them yet. I keep wondering if it will be as good as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography podcast that I also download (but then forget to listen to).

-While checking out the corn this afternoon I noticed evidence of our first ear of corn. It seems that so far we have only one ear, and, not surprisingly, it is on the largest of our corn plants. Hopefully we might get a few additional ears in the coming days (if only for show).