Embracing my dorkness

[bjarvis]

Following up on a thread in iambic_cub's journal yesterday, I went trolling through Google to see if I could determine the last time a Conservative prime minister of Canada entered office with a budget surplus. The earliest possible candidate would be John Diefenbaker in the 1950s but my recollection of the federal coffers under his Liberal predecessor Louis St. Laurent is a little fuzzy.

Anyway, I tripped across this: A History of the Canadian Dollar on the Bank of Canada website. I then spent a half-hour or so of my lunchtime absorbing it all. Fascinating stuff, I thought.

About 8 hours later I realized suddenly than I'm the only person I know who would read such material for entertainment.

And I never did find the historical deficit information I was looking for, although I'm sure it's out there.

Comments

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

I still want to read that syphillis history book.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I'll make myself a note to dig it out.

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

You are not alone. There are armies of us--we soak up currency histories, flag design controversies, how town boundaries were laid like sponges on a puddle. Welcome!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I can feel the love! :-)

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Main Entry: dol·lar
Pronunciation: 'dä-l&r
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Dutch or Low German daler, from German Taler, short for Joachimstaler, from Sankt Joachimsthal, Bohemia, where talers were first made
1 : TALER
2 : any of numerous coins patterned after the taler (as a Spanish peso)
3 a : any of various basic monetary units (as in the U.S. and Canada) -- see MONEY table b : a coin, note, or token representing one dollar
4 : RINGGIT

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I look at the title of this post, and I want to ask, "Is that like the dork side of the farce?"

But that would be both rude and silly, so I won't.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

If it's any comfort, even people I know in Canada started edging away from me a few years ago when I was ranting about how wonderful a new book was that I'd picked up at Chapters in Vancouver a couple of years previous.

The book? "Time Lord", by Clark Blaise. A history of Sandford Fleming, the early Canadian who invented the modern standard time system. The book traces how Fleming's missing a train (because every railroad kept its own time) launched the idea of a universal time standard, and how he pursued this goal until he died. The implications of a time standard are farther-ranging than one would think.

It runs in the family. My mother used to read stuff like "The Naked Ape" and "Kon-Tiki" for entertainment.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

There is a building (computer sciences) on the campus of the University of Toronto named for him; I worked in the building next door.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

For those who might be vaguely interested in the book:

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780676974737