National Metal Day

National Metal Day

First celebrated 25 April 2020

This day was requested and organized by Rose and consisted of a week of fabulous activities for all.

Every day we were sent an automated message containing a link to a metal or similar genre song, we listened to it and sent in our votes to Rose.

Here is a list of the songs with links to YouTube so you can have a listen:

• Iron Maiden - Speed of Light
• Queens of the Stone Age - The Way You Used to Do
• Anthrax - Got the Time
• Fates Warning - Seven Stars
• Megadeth - Holy Wars... The Punishment Due

Tamsin and Sangchen joined in with this week from the UK (many thanks) and all was going well until Thursday night when Rose counted up the scores and realized that Queens of the Stone Age, who are not a metal band, were in the lead, hmm.  This caused some problems with the elements of our country to whom metal is serious business and a guest judge was called in at the last minute to rig the votes.  Thanks to Metin (AKA the Emissary of Satan) here are the final scores:

1. Megadeth - 7/10 average
2. Anthrax - 6.5/10 average
3. Iron Maiden and Queens of the Stone Age - 6/10 average
4. Fates Warning - 5.5 average

Note that average is the mean.  Mode and median were also discussed.

A further activity was to create a video of yourself playing air guitar to your favorite metal tune.  Not many people got around to this, I was too busy doing the catering, but here is Rose playing along to Slayer - Raining Blood:

I'd like to thank Sangchen for his excellent rendition of Europe - The Final Countdown.

And finally we had a celebratory meal of 'Pizza' (mind) for the Iron Maiden fans, bread 'drum' sticks with cheese fondue and a cake badly dressed up as a drum.

National Bird Watching Day

National Bird Watching Day

First Celebrated 18 April 2020

This first national day of our glorious country was a bit of a wash out.  The weather has been absolutely pants this April with really, I mean really cold temperatures and inappropriate precipitation.  This is the view from my bedroom window on 15 April:

April Showers?

We have recently seen quite a few birds on our feeder and Jacob in particular has been taking an interest.  Here's a list of what we might have seen on National Bird Watching day:

• Chickadee
• Dark eyed junco
• Chipping sparrow
• Goldfinch
• House sparrow
• White breasted nuthatch
• Downy woodpecker
• Hairy woodpecker
• Yellow bellied woodpecker
• Cardinal
• Robin
• Mourning dove
• American Crow

Here's what we actually saw all day:

• 2 Chickadees
• A few cold looking dark eyed juncos

A pathetic turnout, I think they maybe didn't get the message.  We might try again during Spring Watch.

We also celebrated with special food:

Spaghetti nests with meatball eggs.

Spaghetti nest

Bocconcini penguins.

Bocconcini penguins

Strawberry chicks in ice cream sundae nests.

Strawberry penguins

The UPP Quarantine Diaries - A Preamble

Good Day to you future citizens of Parkonia and visitors to our glorious land.

I hate writing introductory posts so I'll keep this short.  On the following pages you will find a brief history of how we spent our lock down months during the COVID19 outbreak of 2020.  I will start with a brief preamble of how we arrived at this point and introduce next 'week'.

In order to stop all the weeks of lock down from merging together and try to give our lives a little routine (and not least to stop me from accidentally opening a bottle of wine at 11 am on a Wednesday) 'we' (see definition of Parentocracy for 'we') decided on the need to celebrate something every week and the national day scheme was born.  In order for a 'National' day to be possible it was necessary to declare our independence and so from hence forth 78 Winding Way, Kitchener will be known as the United Parentocracy of Parkonia.  According to the 1993 convention on rights and duties we need 4 things:

• A permanent population - check
• A defined territory - check
• A government - check
• The capacity to enter into relations with other countries - working on that

We need to write to the UN and get them to recognize us - maybe we'll wait until this is over before we bother them.

We also have:

A system of governance:

We are a 'Parentocracy"

Definition: A form of Oligarchy where the state is ruled by 1 or 2 elite individuals with a senior(age) relationship to the proletariat.  Citizen's wishes are taken into consideration in the process of governance but not necessarily acted upon if they are not deemed to contribute to the common good or are just stupid.  Jacob has pointed out that it is ironic that the proletariat are the only people who don't work, might have to change the wording in the future.

A flag

Designed by Rose, overseen by Jacob.  Did you know that an expert in flags is called a vexillologist?  remember that for your next pub quiz.  Note that the colours, carefully selected by Jacob are:

• Amber
• Red
• Snavy blue
• Emerald

See what he did? (he's gifted you know) and also note that Rose got the order wrong!

UPP flag

A national anthem

The Wii me lounge music, listen here.  Protocol while listening; stand and bob about a bit, occasionally wave hands in the air and jump.

Independence Day

April 12 2020, to be celebrated each year on Easter Sunday with the consumption of Pizza and chocolate mousse.

We also have:

• A national dish - Pizza
• A national bird - Chickadee
• A national flower - cone flower of any colour
• A national slogan (not yet ratified) - Bottoms UPP

In the pages that follow we will record the national days, their dates and themes and a pictorial representation of how they were marked.

Enjoy

Footnote:

Actually, I won't introduce next week but this is an evolving situation as they keep telling us and as absolute ruler of this parentocracy I shall do as I please.