That is the magic formula, the secret to all idle thought and a crushing blow to economic production. Even though this is the shortest weekend of the year, it is still worth anticipation and therefore chattery:  •  British Columbia is passing an Apology Act. Here is the text in first reading. It …

I listened to this  •  commentary on same-sex marriage this morning on NCPR and I thought it was  •  one of the best bits of radio I have ever heard.  •  It made me think about how CBC radio used to provide lucid and thoughtful  •  commentary like it.

The reason why my favorite guy is known but unknown and hopefully fine is he was photographed but got away. This guy did not. I found the image pretty startling when I looked at the BBC's "In Pictures" page this morning. Seeing as the Chinese are machine gunning folk over property issues, this …

Cyn has posted a good movie she took on the bridge across Charlottetown harbour showning shorebirds swooping at dusk. She has had some qualms about the proper music to accompany but has done well. It reminds me that a day trip to the beaches at Prince Edward County might be in order to catch some …

Apparently we move to ten digit diliang soon. I have a computer in my house. It uses the phone to dial in even though it is a high-speed connection. I have set the password automatically. Years ago. I have no idea where it is. I think I have to change my dialing from seven to ten numbers. I have …

This little passage is interesting in its historical time line of the transistion in music from stone scraping plastic to the new digital wonder era:  •  “Apple Corps., the record label's holding company, sued the fledgling computer business for infringing on its trademarked name. The matter was …

Like most, I know very little about Israeli politics. But aren't elections grand things? When parties can fall from first to fifth?  •  “A pall of stunned silence had descended on the group of about 200 supporters, before Mr Netanyahu's speech, when the initial election exit polls were announced …

Thank you for giving me a tax increase and clawblack to look forward to for the second half of 2006:  •  “The tax hike in July could be even bigger if the Tories go ahead with plans to scrap the income tax break for the entire 2006 calendar year, as they said during the election. Current payroll …

Maybe me nerves will ease now that we are nine up and five games to go. We have, however, been here before.

Cyn has pointed us all to the story of the century, the harbinger of the slavery to robots to come - scientists say that we will grow our own meat someday soon:  •  “Scientists are trying to develop an industrial process that grows meat tissue from a few cells in a lab – or even at home, in a …

I just noticed this article on click fraud in Wired care of Boing and found a very odd thing - a moral argument for the rights of property holders:  •  “By splitting revenue with the sites that host the ads, search engines have become, in effect, the Internet's venture capitalists, funding the …

Sunday night and what do I do? I watched an hour on the history of disco. It was sort of a sanitized history of disco but still useful. Other than Saturday Night Fever, I never bought a disco album but it was still pervasive in my life from grade 4 or so to grade 11. I did buy (and think I still …

What do you notice?  •  “Paul Lima had a vague feeling he wasn't getting any mail. When his mother phoned wondering why he hadn't cashed his birthday cheque, "the penny dropped," the Toronto freelance writer says.  •  He called Canada Post, which said he had changed his address in person on Nov …

What was better? Watching UConn lose on the last shot in overtime or watching Florida dominate throughout? Another four days of great games. In any event, no first seeds go to the final four. How are we doing on the questions:  •  “1. Who will beat Duke? What round? [5 points for each question …

Canny readers will recall I am a fan of the Greenock Morton, despite having only seen them once and not having certainty that I will ever watch them live again. I do not write much about them as one has the sense that by writing about them you contribute to the conspiracy of the gods against them …

Even after four and a half years after 9/11, the mind set of the guy fro the west attracted to the terrorist life style leads me still to believe that they are a bunch of morons fed more on too many James Bond baddies than the Koran who got incredibly incredibly lucky. This testimony from the …

Marian is back blogging and corners the market on the big yam story.  •  What. A. Big. Yam.

This article in today's Globe and Mail quotes an interesting argument about the weakness in Stephen Harper's plan to cut the GST:  •  “Mr. Robertson said he doesn't believe all of the $26.8-billion in GST savings allotted to individuals will make it to them either because he doubts merchants and …

Things come. Things go. McLuhan's classic example of shifts in technology was the demise of the spittoon caused by the development of the typewriter and the related replacement of male clerks with female typists. It may be that the pen is going the same way due to the keyboard:  •  “The decline of …

Once again it is the day before Saturday. It has been a good week around  •  here. No rocking out or anything but spring sprang and, really, that is half the  •  battle of the entire calendar:  •  Update: It must be a requirement that you can prove that you have  •  been hit on the temple with a …

In another in my continuing series of elemental considerations...who knew there was such a crunch on:  •  “The Chinese government is introducing a 5% tax on disposable wooden chopsticks in a bid to preserve its forests. It produces about 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year, consuming millions of …

I hate when stuff like this happens:  •  “Health concerns and demands for greater efficiency have led many employers to restrict supplies and encourage workers to cut back on their drinking.”  •  In my adult life, I remember the day when Moosehead Breweries cut off the free beer tap for the …

Ugh, a portal. That is apparently what Google does not want said of itself.  •  “Although Google dislikes being described as a portal, Sullivan and industry analysts said its new finance section leaves little doubt where the company is headed. "They are being fairly careful about it, but they are …

In a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling on criminal indecency it is stated:  •  “Incompatibility with the proper functioning of society is more than a test of tolerance. The question is not what individuals or the community think about the conduct, but whether permitting it engages a harm that …

Last evening I was witness to a dish of wild blueberries, oats butter and sugar: blueberry crisp. But then I thought for a moment that it might have been blueberry crumble when I was a kid. I knew we never called it Blueberry Brown Betty but others in school might have. Brown Better always struck …

Nova Scotian greeting. Response: nu'h'n. Best Bett MacDonald joke. Tony Blair can't say that. Big Tone is having a bad week:  •  “Police opened an investigation yesterday into allegations that Tony Blair sold seats in the House of Lords in exchange for secret loans to his governing Labour Party …

I must say "hell" about 37 times a day. If I stub my toe or realize I failed to lock the car once I'm inside. It is a pretty low level sweary-mary around our house. So odd it is to read this:  •  “If it's not the bloody, it's the hell.  •  When British censors banned a controversial Tourism …

Without the heavy snow and deep frozen lakes and river, this soft winter has made the signs of spring less eagerly lept upon. But I've seen the robin as well as a rather more dimwitted than usual killdeer and maybe heard the purple finch...or a house finch, p'raps. You know, the one that goes …

With this late winter early srping cold snap I can kind of feel for the Mars rover:  •  “One of the wheels on Nasa's Martian rover Spirit has stopped working. The robotic vehicle is now dragging the wheel as it moves to a slope where it can get maximum sunshine on its solar cells to sustain it …

This is a little question we like to call question 7:  •  “Two points for each team in the sweet 16”  •  How did we do?  •  HansAlanRobDuke  •  Texas & M  •  UWVA  •  Texas  •  Memphis  •  Pitt  •  Gonzaga  •  UCLA  •  UCONN  •  Illinois  •  UNC  •  Tennessee  •  Villanova  •  Boston College …

England's bowler wakes as play resumes after on-field nap time during the England v. India third test in Mumbai today. It is one of the lesser reported aspects of the game that impromptu field snoozey times are often held during television breaks for news updates.

Unusually for me, I did the right thing and took Thursday and Friday off and never checked out the free on-line streaming internet version of the CBS coverage of March Madness last week during work hours:  •  “CBS Corp.'s decision to broadcast the annual March Madness college basketball tournament …

...from a Sunday nap. First, an unholy pool crashing upset...thought I am secretly happy some place called George Mason won...but I can't tell you why. And then I see the goofiest whack across the temple of the English language by CBS sports when you try to check out what happened...they appear to …

I've been wonding what this is all about for a long time so I am glad that Craig is wondering, too. Aside from the question of unauthoritative semi-fact, there is much good in the entertainment value of blogs but one simply can and should only devote so much time to being entertained. There are …

I can be rash. I have bought suits without putting them on. I think. I have only bought two suits. Anyway, Blork mentioned Geez magazine and I subscribed for 25 bucks. That is about 125% of a large La Chouffe at Volo when you add tax and tip. For a year's worth of a bunch of ideas that is good …

You know I suppose if I was going to be a knee-jerk about the new rural overlords I would have some emotional response to the cutting of funding for something called the Unity Council - like Mulroney cutting the trains for everywhere of use to me - but I think I would have had to have known it …

I should find the ruling and link it up but this is an interesting concept coming out of the ruling requiring part release of information held by Google:  •  “The Justice Department had wanted access to search records to help prevent access to online pornography. The judge said privacy …

Very goggle-goo-goo headed this morning from paying too much attention to the NCAA basketball championship first round. It really is the entire world series and summer olympics crammed into 48 hours. Almost as difficult was doing this table in my raw HTML wizardry below. Sad about Syracuse but it …

The other day when I did rock, I stood for a moment before the tour t-shirts and decided that, no, I would not buy one for 40 bucks even though there was a brown one with orange printing displaying the large Queen crest on the front. It was not that I would not have occassion to wear it or that I …

Rocking for Al as excellently portrayed in today's Star  •  Back. Just like that. Two hours and a bit ago I was in Toronto and now I am not. Intercity highways are the business:  •  Here is the question: Queen - yea or nay? The concert was good value. I realized along with the elder brothers that …

I only watched the middle innings last night but the game between Cuba and Puerto Rico was one of the best baseball games I have ever seen with all the drama and skill you would have seen in a classic Canada v. Russia hockey series in the good old days when we had mutually assured distruction to …

For all the thumpery about Canada needing to be peacemakers and not peacekeepers, there is much to be said in either case for just having peace in mind and letting others know about it. This, one day, is a shoe-in to make one of those Canadian minute vignettes they show a lot on channel 43 and …

Oh for the life of the sporting event opening ceremonies organizer. With this year of Winter Olympics, World Cup and even the World Baseball Classic, the opening of the Commonwealth Games has not had the usual attention it would have in Canada normally. But it is clearly our loss as someone …

The Borg is expanding north:  •  “Internet search giant Google Inc., whose plans for expansion in Canada have been a closely guarded secret over the past year, offered a brief glimpse of its strategy yesterday as it attempted to woo several hundred computer science grads. After buying …

Without getting into the politics, this news strikes me as simply incredibly sad:  •  “The bodies of more than 85 executed men have surfaced across Baghdad in the past two days, in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, providing graphic proof, yet again, of sectarian mayhem. Many bodies bore marks of …

Which is worse during bachelor week? Talking to the cats or the computer. At  •  least the computer does not run away when it sees you. But being cats they make  •  you do things through the power of staring...like making you think it is Friday  •  and making you want to post stories in bullet …

As usual, the Flea has exposed my real intentions in writing here day after day after pathetic day - the dream of undeserved riches. Well, apparently that dream is no longer a waste of time as the NYT reports that pickings are slim but wallets are fat in the bubbly economic world of web buy-outs …

Mike in Halifax posts a comprehensive linkfest of resources related to the 1960s TV show Rat Patrol. Despite being raised by fairly dovey semi-peaceniksters in that era, Rat Patrol was A-OK as was playing with Action Man aka GI-Joe in our house as, of course, they were killing fascists and …

There's a very odd article in the New York Times tims morning. I thought it was going to be a humourous essay when I saw the title "Don't Always Follow the Crowds" and the reference to the NCAA championship but it is actually a strategy piece to picking your pool picks:  •  “In a small pool, with …

Where does Ted's School of Hair Design go?  •  Under an hour to the announcement so and I thought I would start getting some of these amazingly good questions on to paper...or a paper-like surface in terms of its informative quality.  •  “1. Who will beat Duke? What round? [5 points for each …

Needless to say it was a great evening watching Syracuse beat Pitt in a hard-fought and yet respectful game for the Big East championship. Also suffice it to say that while I am not a person to want a 180 lb television set, I am grateful that I know others with 180 lb television sets. I helped as …

When I think of all the promises that information technology has made but not followed through on, this is the sort of futurificationing that most alarms me:  •  “The divide that separates people from their online lives will utterly disappear. Instead of leaving behind all those net-based friends …

Demetris Nichols (foreground): Al's getting to watch the game tonight!  •  Eric Devendorf (background): Wooooooooooooot! Al! Al! Al! Al! Al!  •  I've gotten up at the crack of noon before...OK, more like 11:11 am on the 11th. I have been a bachelor with cats before. And I've had the Artie party …

...when chat is king and as is traditional we throw out all convention and use bullet points instead of separate posts. Madness. Here are some things to discuss today:  •  Nothing good ever comes of leaving the kids alone for one single minute, even at a Timmies:  •  “It all started Tuesday in …

There are few days that match the day that three of us seem to be on the road to recovery over the great flu of 2006, the Orange smokes #1 UConn and they fire that most painful couple in Canada:  •  “When the retailer unveiled its new spring ad campaign Thursday, the bearded handyman Ted and his …

The Flea will have me eating my words the incredible contact being made at the Trevor Greene post has got me quite amazed. I am also amazed that (through the flu or whatever it is) I am able to learn despite the CRTC's sanitizing of the airwaves, via Syracuse.com's blog, that SU is well ahead …

I think CM is keeping track so just for the record I finally got what the kids have. There was a story on the TV news that something around 50% of the kids in school have been hit with this one. I know the elementary school of our choice is running on a very limited population. But spring is just …

The computer screen gave me information but...it made no sense  •  I said no way but I said, yes, it was happening. Tag the first guy out at first. Then leave Lee looking at his knees. Then get A-Rod. No sweat. Especially for guys who likely sell real estate all winter.  •  Woot!

With the impending week of bachelorhood being topped off by the very junior high experience of tickets to Queen, I am finding myself inordinately drawn to the plight of Syracuse in relation to the NCAA tourney. They play in the Big East conference of 16 teams and, as this article in the NYT …

I couldn't think of anything else to say about this news from that bastion of democracy somewhere below your toes:  •  “Most foreigners visiting Japan would be photographed and fingerprinted under controversial legislation approved Tuesday by the country's cabinet. Children under 16, diplomats and …

I know it's just me but, you know, I find these fine points interesting:  •  “"The power to make cabinet appointments is a power that resides in the office of the Prime Minister as the highest democratically elected official in the country and this Prime Minister has no intension of acceding that …

When does this stuff get to be a concern?  •  “Web giant Google is planning a massive online storage facility to encompass all users' files, it is reported. The plans were allegedly revealed accidentally after a blogger spotted notes in a slideshow presentation wrongly published on Google's site …

“"We are only the pioneers. Ours is the venturesome age that is exploring the possibilities of the human mind. In transmitting the heritage of the past, in stimulating the creative faculties of the mind, in building up a new dynamic civilization, radio will be one of our great instruments. I do …

Very sad to hear about Kirby Puckett being dead at 45. Much will be made of his weight and all but I was stunned listening to WFAN last night how he had 2,040 hits in 10 seasons with five seasons over 200 hits topping at 234 in 1988. Practically speaking I missed the two World Series wins by the …

...errr...not that she always doesn't...you know...but...but this time it is something nice about blogging and I - like the entire bandwagon I jumped on sometime time ago - am so used to saying bad things about the uselessness of this hobby I thought this was a good reflection:  •  “...there's the …

The New York Times has some pretty fine sports photography, especially baseball. The article which goes along with this picture of Cuba's team preparing for the World Baseball Classic says:  •  “The most fascinating and mysterious team participating in the World Baseball Classic sometimes …

Has anyone else noticed the Opera browser having issues with Gmail? When I get into my account I cannot open individual emails. Clicking on them simply gets no response. Other functions on the account page like deleting and dealing with spam work fine.

With the best of intentions to get fiscally responsible and also become maybe more useful by having sufficient space for projects, we are thinking of a house. A house means, of course, paying mortgage interest, maintenance costs, mowing, shovelling, maybe a second car again and not being in a tax …

The news of Treveor Greene and the other events involving the Canadian Forces in south-east Afghanistan coincided this week with TVO presenting Michael Palin's travel series Himalaya including the episode Friday about the Chitral area of northern Pakistan, its most northerly district of the NFWP …

I got this sad report through the Kings College grapevine this afternoon:  •  “A Canadian soldier in Afghanistan is in critical but stable condition after being attacked by a man wielding an axe during a meeting with tribal elders today. The reservist soldier, Lieutenant Trevor Greene, of …

The caption on this photo at the BBC site reads:  •  “Miss Piggy dons a designer dress for a window display by London store Selfridges to celebrate 30 years of punk.”  •  I don't know what either Miss Piggy or Selfridges has to do with punk. But punk turning thirty has got me a bit, music of my …

Graceless politicization appears to be the flavour of the day in the new PMO:  •  “"The Prime Minister is loath to co-operate with an individual whose decision-making ability has been questioned and who has been found in contempt of the House," said Sandra Buckler, a spokeswoman for Mr. Harper …

Mary Poppins. Big moment in my life that whole Dick Van Dyke chimney sweeper dance singing "chim-chimney-chim-chimney-chim-chim-cheroo" but really what have I done with the knowledge? Nothing. My chimney sweep dancing skills have gone nowhere. What do we do with knowledge like that? What would we …

The First Law of Discomforting states that lay rejection of the scientifically obvious will be directly related to the discomfort it provides to people, systems and investments. Discuss.

Trouble is the war ended 61 years ago:  •  “Three German ciphers unsolved since World War II are finally being cracked, helped by thousands of home computers. The codes resisted the best efforts of the celebrated Allied cryptographers based at Bletchley Park during the war. Now one has been solved …

It was quite sad to hear about Leonard Cohen finding himself in something approaching a view of the poor house due to a legal dispute in this era when he should be being dipped in gold as a national treasure. And I don't even like his songs that much. I do like, however, what he stands for as a …

I am still trying to figure out the Harper plan for child care and, without getting political just now, just want to make sure I have the math right. So this is what I understand today:  •  “32,805,041 Canadians  •  2,057,848 Canadians 5 and under  •  6.27% of Canadian population is under six and …

What do these madmen think they are doing to the economy!?!? What kind of internet company bursts its own bubble and takes my one share with it?:  •  “After hailing the results of an 18-month effort to boost advertising revenue, Reyes said it would be increasingly difficult to maintain Google's …

The Flea has me. Nabbed me. Found me out. I don't know what it means but I know it means something. Viva obscure correction! Viva! Viva!!!  •  So it must be a sign and what do you do when you encounter a sign? No, not run away. You embrance change and betterment. But what to do and how to do it …