Par un vendredi 13, dans son pédalo au milieu du lac, un homme en fredonnant un air connu complotte avec son ami imaginaire.

C’est le dernier scénario généré par un petit gadget que j’ai fait pour ajouter à votre page iGoogle. Il affiche un début d’histoire différent (et souvent inusité et dépourvu de sens) à chaque visite de la page.
Bouton pour ajouter le générateur de scénarios à votre page iGoogle :

Tant qu’à y être, voici aussi un autre gadget iGoogle qui génère votre horoscope le plus véridique possible : Page originale du générateur d’horoscope.

For fun, I drew (on the computer) a coloring page for Xavier, who is big on fish/Nemo/waves right now (and who still loves pirates… especially since we’ve started watching Peter Pan – the 2003 movie – together). If you like it, print it out for your own little mateys! The PDF is here: pirates.pdf

I hope to draw some more in the future, so I created a web page to place them online. It’s over there: http://emilieonline.com/coloriage/. I’ll tell you if I make any more (and I’ll work on the simplistic look of that webpage, too).

In the spirit of the holiday season, blog filler! in the form of the Christmas Quiz Tal put up.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping if the gift allows. Admit it: it’s more fun to tear some paper wrapping than just remove silk paper and uncover the surprise right away. Bags for the small odd shapes.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Artificial. My parent’s Christmas gift from a couple of years ago was a beautiful artificial tree loaded with fake snow. That snow litters the floor and drives me crazy each December – and the cats got sick a small couple of times from stupidly eating the stuff – but the effect is so lovely.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Often somewhere around my sister’s birthday, Nov.22, although this year it was just last week. Usually, I LOVE to put up decorations all around the house, but this year I’ve been a little swamped and tired and, as I might not be hosting anything, I think the tree and the lights outside will have to do it. I look forward to when the kids will be old enough so that we can all decorate the house together.

4. When do you take the tree down?
As soon as the holidays are over, the decorations have got to go. It drove me crazy that they were up until January 7 or so last year. Like I said, I really LOVE decorating for Christmas, but past January 1st, I need to take it all down.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Eggnog’s not really a tradition around here, so I haven’t tasted the stuff yet.

6. Favourite gift received as a child?
Hum. I don’t know… I remember getting Barbie’s motor home, which was awesome and included its own detaching vehicle, so I think I’ll have to go with that.

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes (long story). It’s a really beautiful thing, too, with hand painted characters made of metal. I also have a wooden stable/shelter that my grandfather made for the scene.

8. Hardest person to buy for?
Everyone, at times. Notable perplexity each year for Frank’s sister and maybe my parents.

9. Easiest person to buy for?
Gah… depends on inspiration, I guess. This year it will be Frank’s brother.

10. Worst Christmas gift ever received?
Tough one. I received some bath products some many years ago that I didn’t make much use of, not being one to take baths, really, but other than that I’ve been doing OK on the receiving end.

11. Mail or email Christmas card?
Last year I mailed a scrapbook card with family pictures to a LOT of relatives around – it was Xavier’s first Christmas with us! – but this year I’m pretty busy and just skipped sending cards at all.

12. Favourite Christmas Movie?
Every year, Frank and I (and our kids in the years to come, I hope) watch Anastasia (the Dreamworks animated version) on the morning of the 25th. Alright, it’s not a Christmas movie per say, but there’s snow in it!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Usually just a little later than I should have.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Not to date. I did recycle Christmas gift bags and some wrapping, though.

15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas?
Chocolate Christmas log cake, the Vachon version, with cream and ice cream and sweetened strawberries.

16. Clear lights or coloured on the tree?
The previously mentioned white snow Christmas tree is beautiful with white matching lights.

17. Favourite Christmas song?
With a long-term goal of creating an really nifty holiday compilation, I’m trying to find a new holiday song I really like each year. Last year I’ve added Mariah Carey’s version of “All I want for Christmas is you”. Other notables are some songs from the Ally McBeal’s Christmas soundtrack, Sinatra and Lauper’s “Santa Claus is coming to town” – which I like to sing to Xavier – and a couple of other oldies. Haven’t found one for this year; suggestions welcome.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Some travelling involved, since my parents are both originally from an area about 2 hours South of here.

19. Can you name Santa’s reindeer?
No. Well, Rudolph – but in French we just call him the Red Nosed Reindeer.

20. Do you have an Angel on top or a star?
I’m waiting to find a really amazing star to put on top. So far, nothing.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
When I was young it would be on Christmas Eve, but now that we’re older it is spread out throughout the holiday season, depending on when each family throws their Christmas party. Mostly evenings, though.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
Too many people in the shops. It is somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that stores stay open longer in December, but not entirely.

Secret’s up! Here are our costumes for this year’s Halloween costume contest at work:


We’re Mr. and Mrs Pacman, in pixels!!

There was also a jack-o-lantern contest, and here are our entries :

The tree is mine, and Frank did the other one from an image I pulled from the web. He later drew a terrified face on the little pumkin.

Winners aren’t voted yet: the Halloween activity is lunch, so we’ll know then. There are some pretty good costumes and pumpkins today… I’ll post an album of everyone at work later on if I can.

Happy Halloween everyone! Here are some treats:

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Update after lunch:
It was Larry who won best costume, and Claude best pumkin! Congratulations! I put up an album of pictures of Halloween 2007 at work:

Halloween 2007 au travail

After lunch, we went to visit Félix and his mommy; Félix was ready too for Halloween! Here are the two sweeties in disguise, a bunny and a monkey:

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Update at the end of the evening:
*Sigh* Halloween’s always an eventful night! Grandpa Maurice and grandma Manon came to say hi for a couple minutes, then Frank came in with grandpa René and grandma Lucie (and a huge load of toddler clothes… and some lunch!) for dinner and for a little chatting and games with our favourite little monkey! We also gave out a lot of candy to a lot of little Halloweens. Then, Eric, Geneviève, Romane and James came around; Frank joined Eric and James for a little candy run in the streets around, while Romane and Ge stayed with Xavier and me to play some more.

The front door light is now turned off, and our little man is out for the night… time to get some rest for ourselves! Here is a little pic of Romane and Xavier on their Halloween night:

Two weeks ago, I started to experiment with the programming language Ruby on Rails and needed a project to work on. I decided to revive an old web project that Emilie and I created a long time ago.
Now that the main parts of the site are functionals, I present you the new Cherry’s club, the drinks database.

-Edit It seems the site is actualy quite ugly and broken with Internet Explorer. I’ll work on that later, just use FireFox

– Frank