I may not know what art is but I know what I like...

This was in this morning's unlikable Toronto Star's report on PM  •  Martin's trip to Washington:  •  “Canada will stand up for itself and its own security  •  interests in North America, Prime Minister Paul Martin is declaring as he walks  •  into today's summit with U.S. President George W. Bush …

I don't know what to think of Beckham. It appears his Spanish stay will be over after one season as Real Madrid appears to be ready to trade him to Chelsea this summer. Now anyone who leaves Man U. and Real Madrid in about 12 months goes up a notch in my books as the first is run by a boot …

This is another picture that begs me to buy a proper zoom lens digital camera. Living by the big lake you see some odd mirages. Sometimes you can see the hills of Pennsylvania floating above the pale horison, sometimes the edge of the sky looks like a saw from the image of the far off deep lake …

These are the thoughts going through my head these days: I don't know what to make of this situation  •  where winning appears to be structured on a handover to a former Ba'athist, or  •  this one where people are still being  •  tortured long after the tyrant's fall, or this one where the …

Another found thing in Fluhrer Park - an old man hole cover with the words "Angrove's Foundry". It is undated but given the font, as we all have said at one time or another, is not new.  •  Click on these photos for a closer view.

I was out of the office today at meetings on Rideau Street and at lunch walked around this small limestone industrial building which is surrounded by boards next to Fluhrer Park. On Arthur's suggestion I am using thumbnails which does work well for this kind of set of photos. Good thing I have a …

The loverly Tim Wakefield illustrates the knuckleball grip in this photo from the Bosox web site.

Did anyone else get 1000 emails from a spam source titled something like the United States Banking Association at noonish yesterday? I thank God I have my email with ISN still which lets me delete 100 at a time.

Nothing saddens more than a good idea gone bad due to a glaring lack of attention to standard contracting. Apparently a couple of guys have made an amazing documentary on The Ramones but never go permission to use the music, never got sign-off from the band members at any time during three years …

I've had a couple of vivid dreams lately, the kind you recall and seem to have a story. I don't put any stock in messages from dreams at all and tend not to even remember them but I am struck by how these dreams are in someways relevant to the season because they are about my old garden. I don't …

David Bowie announces he wants people to bootleg and sample his music for a competition:  •  “The British music star has given fans the right to create a new song by using computer music software to blend or "mash up" two existing tracks. The winning song will be released as an MP3 and its creator …

A good weekend for my teams - Soxs sweep the Yankees and Arsenal wins the League with a chance to go through the season without a loss. Only the Morton lost in their last ditch effort to get promoted to SPL Div. 1 with the most losses and ties possible.  •  Also, from Trailer Park Boys Ricky …

One it is.  762 posts. 106,127 visits. 5,000,000 KB added to the stream.  •  Cakes and tea on the lawn at 4:00 pm. Gifts are being accepted in the way of donations to the European Union's butter mountain.

I am so out of it. I turned 41 last weekend and I think it is really beginning to show. As a desperate and ill-advised attempt to reach back to something lost, better and younger I went to a record shop, immediately sucked in my gut, found the Franz Ferdinand CD and got out before the pimpled and …

Fort Frontenac is a small fort in (and the historical epicentre of) downtown Kingston which was occupied by the French from 1673 to 1758, the British from 1758(-ish) to 1871 and Canada since then. It also played a role in US history as the base for LaSalle's explorations. It is a working military …

At Ontario on Stoney's.

If I was smarter I would know how to paste from flash so I could show you all the rude tastefully funny messages I have put in the McDonald's ad agency, S2K Graphics, do it yourself McDonald's banner web widget.  •  Do any smart people stop by here? [Later: surely I meant smarter than me …

So that's how they'll do it by June 30th:  •  “The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday …

A lovely, respectful photo cost Tami Silicio, a contract worker for Maytag Aircraft in Kuwait, her job. They also fired her husband for good measure for breaking US military policy on not publicly reporting the coffins of the dead. From the unlinkable Toronto Star: "Her photo, showing more than 20 …

This is an odd bit of residual demolition - a second story fireplace left hanging after the removal of its neighbour years ago. It's on the west side of Stoney's on King Street if you have not noticed it.

The class act of the political bloggers retired today. Michael Demmon's Discount Bloggger packed it in today after two years. Michael is a Newf in Atlanta who has worked as hard on his blog as anyone I have every read - libertarian and moderate, opinionated and tolerant. And that was the thing …

...and it is a biggie. After years of confusing skills at practice and game  •  day performance, the Ottawa Senators, the best team at finding the exit door  •  first, fired head  •  coach Jacques Martin today. Interestingly, CBC radio stated yesterday  •  morning that there were locker room …

I do not often endorse a business here but, as I have written before, one I love is Premiershirts which as I understand is a hobby turned business from a nice friendly guy in Oldham, England. I noticed he got a mention in an article in this month's When Saturday Comes - which should cause a good …

At the bottom of Brock Street below Ontario, there is unpaved patch of cobbles. The never-endingly wonderful Forgotten New York has a section dedicated to cobbles and Belgian blocks. These Kingstonians may actually be cobbles, individually hand-cut and squared limestone rocks, rather than the mass …

Before there was the interweb, there was Atlantic News on the corner of Queen and...what?...in Halifax. On Tuesday morning you could get the Sunday papers from the UK for about five bucks a pop - as well as about 300 other papers and a thousand magazines - and catch up on the snippets of news you …

I've been focusing on the pubs lately but we have some great churches in Kingston. St. Paul's at 137 Queen Street was built from 1845 to 1846 and when I have more time on a sunny lunch I'll add some detail shots. There may be burials in the churchyard from as early as 1791. Molly Brant was buried …

Left: US President George W. Bush illustrates how he would love to pat the webmaster of Gen X at 40 on the head and blow him kisses for all the good clean fun he has shared with the free world during this last, difficult year.  •  The first birthday of the favorite blog of googlecrawler14 comes to …

Jim Elve has a very interesting post on the process of getting citizenship in Canada which includes the following passages from a booklet, A Look at Canada, which is the study guide for the citizenship test. Jim states: "I think that the Citizenship responsibilities defined and the ways of Getting …

I have noticed that Bloglines is creating a lot of the "page not found" referral log entries. As one kind correspondent advised, Bloglines does not read my photos because I do not use the full URL for them, only the local identifier - I am too lazy. As a tactical response, I set my Blogline …

I feel like I am just about to surface. The first round of the hockey playoffs is just about over and I can breath again. I don't know why I get so obsessed or why I need a strategy. I do not watch western conference games during the first round. I need the sleep and I can't over do it watching 2 …

The facade of the Ontario Bank on the corner of King and Clarence has been released from its scaffolding and is showing off a snazzy strip of copper. I have to get a better detail of the sign over the door as it is full of leaves and vines and fairly jazzy skewed lettering.

From today's BBC News:  •  “German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder shares a beer with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the Hanover industrial fair.  •  Nursultan Nazarbayev: Must we have another, Gerhard?  •  Gerhard Schroeder: Ja, Nursultan. Then we will see...”

This report at the BBC on the downside of "baby blogs" is interesting. I try to be discrete about the kids, images especially. I also keep away from work related topics and a few others that spark tedious threads. Some folks here, both known and not, use pen names, which is fine, while others give …

In my never ending quest for something that appears to be related to the truth, I want to report on a feature of an earlier building chronicalled here in this junior journallette. In March, I posted this post about an interesting building which I have since learned is bound for the wreckers due to …

Apparently, I look like a monkey and I smell like one too.  •  As a present to me, I signed up for membership in the Greenock Morton Supporters Trust, a part owner of the team from Dad's hometown. The Trust has a spot on the Board of Directors, supports community activities and allows you a role …

When I was younger and you went to someone's place for the first time you sussed out what kind of person they were by flipping through their milk box of lps. I still have that box in the closet as a turntable and kids don't really mix but these are my CDs. I also have the casettes and 45s. You …

Being in Ontario during the hockey playoffs is the right place to be. There is a pervasive legitimacy about being Leafs fans that you just don't get in the Maritimes with the mix of allegances for the Habs, the Bruins and whatever team is good this week. We watched the win over the Senators last …

Finally, computing has proven its worth with the release of The University Leisure and Lifestyle Manager (software that will work on a smartphone or handheld computer):  •  “"If students are into academia, then the text book service and the feedback on assessment will be handy," he told BBC News …

Systems man Adam has outstripped himself with statistical succulence.  •  The daily stats are now broken down by category as well as total to give us all an idea of the trends. You can see that the goalie points are key this early in the playoffs but that the scorers are coming up strong. The …

Later: I view this web site at 1024 x 768 pixles. I like the space that gives. I also usually provide for 20 pixels of space on each side of a photo and am posting width at about 550 or 600 pixels. Whatdya think?

The other day we took the ferry to Wolfe Island on the Wolfe Islander III which you can see zipping into the dock in a short movie here: [6.7 MB movie]. The trip is 20 to 25 minutes depending on the weathere and gets you from downtown Kingston to the heart of Marysville, Wolfe Island, which has …

Sometimes correspondent here at GX40, Jim Elve has been writing about getting a cease and desist letter from GovCan lawyers. As I am one of the guest writers on the election group blog section of his web site, I am hardly impartial but I play no part in the questions of design.  •  That being said …

There are odd news items and then there are odd news  •  items.

Fargos General Store, Marysville, Wolfe Island.

Make sure you are heard as Canada decides to revamp its Copyright Act. The CBC reports today:  •  “Heritage Minister Hélène Scherrer is promising to fight to make online music swapping in Canada a crime. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Scherrer said she intends to draft legislation in the …

I was surprised but I guess should not have been by the part of Bush's speech described in this morning's New York Times in this way:  •  “Drawing later on a line he often slips into his campaign speeches, he reminded a global audience that "freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in …

I am listening to George Bush right now during the live speech part of tonight's presentation and I can't shake how similar it is to listening to the English lyrics sung by Swedish pop bands like ABBA or Ace of Bass. It is not what he is saying (I don't care much about debating that) but how he …

I love fun web games that have neato results statements like:  •  “The fireball is below the horizon. There is no  •  direct thermal radiation.”  •  Whew...except...this is a real time, real outcome  •  widget to figure out how you would be affected in the case of an asteroid  •  strike. It takes …

I was reading Living in a Society and Matthew's take on the CBC's contest/show idea/BBC rip-off, "The Greatest Canadian", and I see that he has one Maritimer on his list of top 50 Canadians (Alexander Graham Bell being another questionable claimant). That person is Joe Howe who is, of course, the …

Took a trip on the Wolfe Island Ferry (which is a very fine ferry) and got this view of the face of Royal Military College, Fort Henry and the Cedar Island Martello. Here are a couple of other posts on the martellos and the harbour defences.  •  The vista - too tiny to really see anything …

Reading the BBC web technology index page is an exercise in juxtaposition these days. On one hand, we have stories about the courts still playing out the criminal roles in the 1990's dot.com-lead bubble played by executives of firms such as Computer Associates and Enron. Similar problems with big …

Via Arthur, here  •  is a great accents  •  library of locals reading the same text. Of the 77 English accents I think I  •  like Macon, Mississippi the best.

The CBC showed Don McKellar's film Last Night last night as there was no late hockey game to be shown. For my money, his TV and film are the best expression of the not quite right in the head perspective that somehow plays a part in the Canadian character. [Twitch City is the best Canadian TV show …

I believe this sign is for Kicki's "Q" Club Snooky-Bar Box.

Right in the middle of a four day weekend, the inhabitants of one street in Kingston gather to let over 100 kids run over their lawns for 23 minutes every Easter Saturday.  •  The crowd gathers: mass quantities of caffine consumed in preparation for the sugar rush  •  This took an amazing amount …

Woke at the crack of noon. Amazing to get that opportunity with little kids around.  •  When I woke, CBC was playing Bach's "Passion of St. Matthew" and making great efforts to explain why this day, in multi-faith times, is a day off - it is, apparently, an example of faith to all the faithful. I …

The pool stats are up. It is amazing to see how much work Adam puts into the systems without having ever met me (who would have thought that being a bro-in-law of my ex law school roommate carried such pull).  •  Anyway, please note that the goalie points are added from day one and fluctuate …

I don't really know how (let alone why) I and others write this stuff - in that I wake up, have no clue, read some places I read every day and soon find myself a bit amazed how even a small review of the day in the life of a handful of people is so startling.  Compared to the seriousness of the …

I will now slip into a hazy dream-like state for 2 months during which the playoffs will occur every night on TV for hours and hours after which it will be summer much to my surprise.

In the 1970's there were two products purchased in my childhood home that were labled "husky" - 100% whole wheat bread with bran added and my pants.  •  I have always been big. Certainly bigger than my family except those who like the odd (and the even) ale. But when I go through quizzes like the …

Speaking of hockey, the Canadian women's hockey team won the world championships last night in Halifax beating the other great team in the world, the USA.  •  We are particularly pleased as fourth cousin Gillian Apps was there scoring goals and stuff. Gillian is shown upper right playing for …

The puck drops tonight at 7 pm eastern. Get your picks in...even if you don't know that much about the NHL. Click on the link to the upper right.

Things I never knew #12349: Americans do not have the option buy milk in plastic bags and so they can benefit from a set of instructions.  •  It is this handy sort of knowledge transfer that this world wide information superhighway thingie is going to be all about one day. Kim is leading the way …

At the corner of Brock and Clergy up from the Hotel Dieu Hospital and half a block down from the back door to the Royal Tavern sits the Elizabeth Cottage built in the 1840's. It was the private home of the architect of the Kingston Pen and is now a national historic site.  •  I was thinking of …

Just to let you know, with about 30 hours to go for 2004 Hockey Pool pickin' we have 21 registrants. As I said, this is the first year we have had an open invite so are pretty pleased with any interest given the no prize and wacked rules principle upon which we operate.  •  Line up. Maybe one day …

Like David, I am messed up this week with the clocks going forward last weekend. Losing one hour should not be so dramatic. I didn't even lose sleep due to my dedication to nap therapy but coming come from work yesterday felt like leaving elementary school at 3:15 pm. Except no one was up for …

My wine. Planted the vines. Weeded, pruned, picked. Squeezed by hand. At least it was good lookin'. Wild strawberry infused with a quel'que chose of household cleaning product.

Why does Paul Martin most often in my mind appear with this expression? Where has he mislaid the thing he wants so badly?

Via the perma-link to the upper right you can enter your picks for the hockey  •  pool. Picking lasts until the first puck drops on the first game of round one.  •  Too bad there won't be a Toronto v. Montreal series but the Habs are going to  •  get an early boot any way...  •  Meantime …

Early in the fall of my grade 11 year, 1979-80, I went out on a Friday night to find the house across town in Truro where Håken (that year's exchange student from Sweden who played on my high-school soccer team with me) lived. We were meeting up to do some reasonable underage drinking and record …

This article from The New York Times via Boing about Toys R Us and others changing digital punch card records of workers hours is a good lesson in the down-side of the digital world:  •  “Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees' time records is far more prevalent …

The Darkness's fitba team at the Music Industry Soccer Six, 2003  •  Months too late to be cool, I picked up The Darkness's CD Permission to Land. The entire thing is such a worthy tribute to 1970's power rock or whatever you would call it - the nudie arse on the cover, the Marshall stacks, the …

Another day another pub exterior.  •  When I was going up to find the back view of the Royal Tavern the other day, I passed this pub and realized that it said established 1839 on the awning. For those of you in outside of North America, this may not be extraordinary but for Canada - especially …

An interesting discussion over at Boing Boing on the legality of webcasting baseball games you are attending. Last week when I was recording short passages of the Sarah Harmer concert, I did wonder what was the legality but as I was technologically restricted to 20 second clips at most, I am …

My father, the good Rev., once told me of a church that he said he would not have been surprised if the architect's drawings had been originally done in crayon. So, too, with the new design for the Provincial Government of Prince Edward Island's web site. Here is a brief look at the evolution …

This is great news. Two firms have announced a 150 wind turbine operation on Wolfe Island off Kingston. In today's (quick linking rotting) Whig-Standard it says:  •  “Arenewable energy firm and a hydro company have agreed to build a $400-million wind farm on Wolfe Island, the firms announced …

There are few things I really like in life, few things I really think are worth while. Giving your pre-teen kids body farts. Growing onions. Pre-reggae Jamaican music.  •  If you check out this link, you will find "Calabash" [1.4 MB .wma file] by Count Lasher and Charlie-Binger's Six, from this …

Many thanks again to you, the readership, for the encouragement stats bring. As I do not have a dust gathering pay pal button, your increasing clickery is the foot stool of these my literary efforts. Given the we had two stats app outages - on the 13th and 31st (see Dia. B below) - it looks like …

Express yourself.  Why do my picks suck so badly?   Why do the  •  Leafs implode in a flurry of cross checking when they fall behind?  •  Whose goalie will go on fire? [Not really on fire but you know...]

Another in my occasional series on the pubs of Kingston. This is at the corner  •  of King Street and Johnson. Half a fish and chip shop, half pub. This is our  •  version of Chess's of St. John's, Murphy's of Truro except it has Guinness on  •  tap. Your choice of fish and chips includes smoked …