It's been a while since I pointed out the virtues of Brent Bambury but the  •  changes to the CBC Ottawa web site for All in a Day, his 4 to 6 drive  •  home show, as well as his recent week off that show reminded me of what an asset  •  he is to the CBC.  •  I particularly like the snazzy hoodie …

The Star this morning has a very good passage summing up where we are so far in the Federal election:  •  “Officially, Liberal spokespersons are saying their hopes remain buoyant. "We are confident that when Canadians are asked which prime minister they want, they will choose Paul Martin with a …

The New York coast from Lake Ontario to the Thousand Island Bridge was today's tour. It is interesting being so close that we can leave the house at noon, get the Wolfe Island Ferry at 12:30, get the Horne Ferry at 1:30 and be in the States at 1:40 after driving about 15 km and taking two boats …

We had fireworks out the back door last night and the kids loved it. I have a 15 second movie which I have posted along with two shorter ones but it really just shows fireworks. Much better live and, a real warning to the downloading set, the 17.4 MB clip is a bit of a committment:  •  fireworks …

You could do worse surfing the web than check out Modern Ruins by Sean O'Boyle. One of his best is below, from a series on the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA which is now a national historic site with, would you believe it, its own web site. Sean will sell you a print or a book of …

From a corporate press release:  •  “Tim Hortons has 184 restaurants in the U.S. – western New York, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Maine – and 2,358 restaurants in Canada. ”  •  Why Kentucky?  •  I have noticed my former Tim's loyalty, developed over the best part of 20 years, has …

In City Hall there is a great room called Memorial Hall where in the past Sir John A. MacDonald was laid in state and now where meetings on planning matters are held or, as shown at the very bottom of this post, citizenship hearings. Memorial Hall was remade in the 1920s as a memorial to the lost …

This story about looted goods moving from Iraq to Jordan from today's New York Time caught my attention:  •  “American officials say sensitive equipment is, in fact, closely monitored and much of the rest that is leaving is legitimate removal and sale from a shattered country. But many experts say …

This is kind of weird. At the side door of city hall, there is a fairly grand and fairly worn out three bulb light fixture which I have never really had a good look at before. At the base of the entire thing is this sea creature. The other side is utterly rusted out. There is a matching one on the …

Here are some entries in the Gen X at 40 really short short film festival:  •  tiny squacky parrots [1.7 MB] at the Toronto Zoo [1.2 MB]  •  the oddly placed fiddler [1.7 MB]  •  wave jumping at the sea [2.5 MB]  •  rattlin' windows in storm [4.0 MB]  •  elevator [4.0 MB]

I am growing more and more interested in the fluidity of the Federal election. In the news, polls and blogs I am reading - especially, Jim Elve's e-Blog, whose political blog index page is the best visual presentation of a list of blogs in the history of blog listing - it is clear that there are …

This is an interesting case and one that hits close to home as, between the freckles, I am virtually albino - I burn in November, have never tanned, go straight to sheets of blistering if left out in the sun:  •  “CAPE MAY, N.J.—A man has been charged with child abuse for not applying enough …

Looks like the ICBMs hit Napanee this evening. Nice knowing you all.  •  Later: a larger view as well as one of the aftermath.

The other night, I was listening to 1060 KYW news radio when I swear I heard a reporter describe MacDonalds as being ranked in some respect "among fast feeders" rather than "among members of the fast food industry" or some other such characterization.  •  Even if I heard it incorrectly, it was …

This is an interesting piece from the BBC - apparently in the US and UK people like the phone more than the web when dealing with government. I use government web sites in my work a great deal - probably as much as anyone would. Some are great reference tools, like the Ontario statute and …

I suppose it was a funny way to run an eight episode series, four doubled up  •  shows started and finished before eight evenings had passed. In the end the last  •  two of Colonial House were  •  a bit duddy with the reversion to the feelings of those involved. Historical  •  facts and accuracy …

Perhaps just the bad luck version of brand mastery.

So, unlike before, I am now happy after last night's PBS broadcast with the colony as, with 4 weeks to go, a business manager - something of a factor - has shown up to get them into economic shape and he looks to the berries and the tidal zone for prosperity. Gone are the puritans as baptist …

As readers such as Ale Fan and Crispyhead will no doubt know, the Canadian  •  General election was called yesterday. There are four main parties and 308  •  seats, up from 301 in the last Parliament. At the call of the election the  •  make-up of the national Parliament was as follows …

Further to last week's examinations of the jet at Brockville, this is the jet on a stick at the 401 at Trenton, equadistant to the west - it can actually be seen from the highway. A far more recent skewering, the jet has a nice blue plaque near it that says it only went up in 1995. I was quite …

This morning's Toronto Star has an article on the advent of sharia law arbitrations in family matters in Ontario.    What I understand the process to be about is the interpretation of marriage contracts by an arbitrator before going to court. The article raises the valid concern that new …

Just in time for the endtimes of blogging, Bill Gates jumps in to say it's a go:  •  “In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Mr Gates said the regularly updated journals, or blogs, could be a good way for firms to tell customers, staff and partners what they are doing.”  •  In a world of …

Not really a rut but we are off to Owen Sound for the Victoria Day weekend again. Maybe now that I have a year in on my bloggery, I will find out that I am just in a twelve month loop inadvertantly repeating my actions in brain stem obedience to the cycles of the seasons, an organic robot. I am …

So Calgary is in  •  the finals. And the US Olympic track and field team for Athens may be  •  getting gutted for  •  steriod use. It's time for the hardware to get passed around to someone  •  other than the millionaires with the best consultants. Oddly related in my mind  •  is the sealing off …

I find the following quote on today's horrible events in Iraq odd:  •  “The U.S. military said it could not confirm the attack and was investigating the incident. "I cannot comment on this because we have not received any reports from our units that this has happened nor that any were involved in …

So...do I really want a house that monitors what I do? I mean...what do I do at home what I want recorded for posterity? Will the Hal 2000 home warn me that I must be getting a cold because I have blown my nose in the bathroom five times in an hour? A really smart house would do well to stay out …

Interesting to note that the big increase this month in visits is fueled almost entirely by RSS which now accounts for more than 50% of entry pages. In January it was about 25%. There has not been a similar increase in unique visitor site numbers so I take it people are using web-based RSS sites …

I have to pay more and I don't mind.  •  What the Liberals have set out in the budget is a full term plan to fix the errors of the Tory inability to keep the hand out of the cookie jar. It's a real shame that folks bought their idea of "spend but no tax" economics (perhaps the weirdest form of the …

Gee. Following a TV show and writing about it...  •  The Governor is an arse. Good to see in the promo for next Monday's continuation he is going. He and his family are southern US fundamentalists in the present day and presume that that is an acceptable moral norm for those who are not in the …

Reading through another day of the same headlines I think I read in 1992, I came across the earth shattering news that our pizza industry is under attack:  •  “After wheat, softwood lumber and cattle, Canada is battling the United States over pizza. The Canadian Border Services Agency on Monday …

Watched the first two hours of the PBS series Colonial House this evening about a 17 person pretendy settlement on the coast of New England. Besides the fact that they got to be within shouting distance of Dipietro's of South Portland, they sit there eating dried peas, salt beef and oatmeal when …

While in Portland with portland, Casco and Miss Foo-foo-foolonsie, I found what I hoped would be a set of local Down East essays complementary to the excellent and previously reviewed Living North Country on the life of upstate New York. I found The Maine Reader: The Down East Experience from 1614 …

So we are in Brockville for a picnic on lawns of the waterfront parks and wandering around checking out the playgrounds, the caboose and that jet on a concrete stick. Somewhere around 1968 there was a big thing for putting jets on concrete sticks everywhere.  •  This one is right on the harbour …

Is this how it starts?  •  You go on a trip and think that you are out of town, why not try something new, no one will see...so you bowl. Just once. But it doesn't feel too bad, almost wholesome. You come home. What happens on the road stays on the road, you think. Then you think...I could bowl …

Just in case you ever wondered where "Gotcha" came from as in gotcha journalism or gotcha politics, here is the cover of the UK newspaper The Sun reporting on the sinking of the Argentinian navy ship the Belgrano from 1982. Here is one person's take on the incident and here the BBC's.

Daniel was good enough to point out that the son of Rob1 is being highlighted on CBC3 this week - check out the Presstube feature. While there have a listen to the track by I am Robot and Proud on the playlist. Hmmm...maybe I need a stop over at Electron. I was pleased to see portland make amazing …

I picked up a copy of Wired yesterday - the May issue I think - and I got angry with it as I usually do before I was very far into it. I think what I don't like is the dishonesty of the analysis, the pretend futurism masking the product hucksterism and the bland thought under the bright pretty …

I was going to call this post Three Summer Ales in homage to the winter version but what with the current Molson ad running on the TV about why would you drink an American beer any more than you would buy a Morrocan snowmobile, I am compelled to point out that most Molson products have a little …

Here is the BBC report on the discovery of a 1791 Pittsfield Massachusetts by-law banning the playing of baseball within 80 yards of the new meeting house. Reading, as I am now, a book of articles on the Red Sox collected over the 100 years of the franchise, it is interesting to note that in 1903 …

One of my all time favorite TV stimuli is the one that says "Sox on Fox". When I had a house, I could have a dish that got me Fox TV from Boston on which I watched the Red Sox play. The show was promo-ed as "Sox on Fox". Dr. Seuss was a native of Massachusetts, albeit from the westerner end at …

There is a day in the life of every blog where the author wonders...who the hell reads this stuff. For me it is today as the stats package tells me I had 871 visits yesterday. Here are my theories:  •  portland and I are actually as fascinating as we believe we are after a sufficient number of …

With the current spate of photos I am noticing again a lot of "page not founds" in the refer logs via Bloglines. So remember if you are using Bloglines to read this web site, please set the preferences to "Summary" to maximize your bloggy pleasures. That means you, too, Allstream and UPEI guys.

I tried to get out of the thing at the last minutes citing our collective cold and the temperature difference of 52 F in the caves compard to 75 F up top but I was over-ruled and lucky for having been over-ruled. At 40 bucks USD for an hour and a half with a gift shop mine field to run at the …

I know I've written about this as I have a three hour repetition loop on stories when told face to face and I am sure that much the same is the case here.  •  Suffice it to say, I was surprised to see at the no-hitters display at the Baseball Hall of Fame, there was no mention of my role in …

I'm sure I am not the first to notice this restaurant sign in Cooperstown, NY.

What a blast: at the beach with portland, an Armenian Orthodox wedding,  •  gabbing with family from all over, the baseball Hall of Fame, Ommegang brewery,  •  Howe Caverns, four hotels - the last with a bowling alley (Ed.: as illustrated).  •  America is different from Canada in a few ways. There …

Surprised to find ourselves facing 22° C, we headed to Scarborough Beach south of Portland. This is what happy feet look like in the big ocean: [2.5 MB mpg]. Never had ice cream head ache below the ankles before. Happy kids nonetheless: [2.9 MB mpg].

For more than a decade, friends of mine have gathered under portland's fish for dinner. We did again last night. I understand it came from an installation of hundreds of these at a Montreal art gallery which he had admired during a visit in the 1980s which, when he returned to see it again years …

I could yap it up like a Saranac Lake Chamber of Commerce membership nominee. Suffice it to say it is a beautiful town to which we will return.  •  The view to the south from the fifth floor of the Hotel Saranac.  •  The view to the west from the same fifth floor of the Hotel Saranac.

Best route ever from Kingston, Ontario to Portland Maine.   Highway 3  •  across the Adironracks, crashed at the Hotel Saranac, this morning down Lake  •  Champlain on the NY side to cross over at Rutland Vt., nip to Lebanon and down  •  to Concord NH, over to Portsmouth NH on #4 and up to …

Saranac Lake to Portland to Cape Cod to Holyoke to Cobleskill and back. A big north-eastern loop. Dispatches as possible. Attack cats unleashed at home so don't try anything.

Forget where this is from, the politics, the players, the serious economic issues - this is the best expression of the real reason for having any government IT development project:  •  “  •  increased parking revenue  •  ”  •  Gold.

From CBC on the web, I just learned my hockey pool dreams ended last night at about 4:57 am local time.  •  “"This is awesome," enthused Iginla, Calgary's captain. "There hasn't been anything like this that I've experienced in the NHL. It was awesome to see that goal go in." Flames netminder …

Yesterday I needed someone 1,000 miles away to check in on someone and I was able to call on someone I write with regularly through these thingies. The person is notoriously decent but the medium has allowed me to keep up in such as way that I felt it was not an imposition to ask.  Thanks...and …

So Bruce Wark of Halifax's The  •  Coast has taken the time, as journalists can, to gently lead a new story  •  into the world of my reading - apparently,  •  the little tiny Greens are having a little tiny crisis:  •  “a former Green Party leader named Joan Russow and three  •  high-profile …

Next Monday we wake in Holyoke, MA and hit the hay in Cobleskill, NY. What to do with the day?

Boy was that ugly yesterday. From the unlinkable Toronto Star's report:  •  “"Fans were throwing whatever — beer and pop — at the bench," he said later, after this Sunday Bloody Sunday had finally come to an end, and quite a while after his own afternoon had come to a miserable conclusion, more an …

Later: I sense a side hobby starting. Please forward your entries for the history of time as told in cornerstones project.

There is some interesting discussion this weekend on the approach being taken in light of the up-coming Canadian Federal Election. Everything from voting and letting the elected know to not bothering is being discussed. Craig is worried that Rob may not bother. Over at the BlogsCanada e-blog, the …

The inner harbour area was the scene of greater waterside development in the past. Above, a row of spikes are pretty much all that is left of an old wharf. Below, the last mill, now a restaurant and shops complex, still a tad darkish but Satanically sanitized.

Coincidentally, here's a little counter-intuitive nugget:  •  “The security service MI5 has published its terrorist threat assessment and safety advice for the first time. The details, available to the public on a new website, were previously given only to a few organisations. But MI5 director …

This is just bizarre:  •  “The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now. The lawsuit was filed April …