Month: August 2006

Friday Cogitiferiffic Chatarama

Who the hell ever thought I would make it to August 25th 2006? Aside from the whole thing in Mexico in ’66 (thank you Pepe), I got through the nuclear war along with all of you, got through my teens without being eaten by a backroad ditch along with pals, got though a holiday in Paris as Syria was blowing bits of it up in ’86 and survived the Kings Cross Fire in ’87. Things got a little dull after that and law school and stuff but then there was the 5.4 earthquake in ’97 and that weird day in PEI around Jan. ’03 when I decided to head out of work early and got caught in a blizzard that was so thick I could only make out where the road was by checking out the tops of telephone polls. Whew. What a roller coaster. But here we are. August 25, 2006. Woot. I’m taking half a day to celebrate.

– Final lunchtime update before hitting the road update: I just created the “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” after looking at the picture of David Sommerstein of NCPR at this page. Expect splintering schismists branching out into “Adult Novice 500 Up” but that is their business and may also morph into a heritage group playing trapball and the other early games. The “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” is hereby soliciting membership as well as designs for the hat which must feature a “K” on the front. Submissions and proposals to be posted here.

– Update for the road update: As I did so triumphantly for “flogging”, I just now coined “clogging” for filling up the comments section of a blog with technically incapable comments or, I suppose, just going on and on…like this.

– It is a sad, sad day when the yapping of bloggers is not what shapes the news but is the news. Bo-ring. Everyone lay on the floor, wiggle around now and scream as one – “STOP PRETENDING BLOGS ARE NEWS!!!” I heard you . Thanks.

– There are men of destiny and then there are others who are not:

The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said yesterday he will change its name because it angered so many people.

– I am watching the post- or to some mid- conflict reaction in Israel. Remember this post from last month. The concern appears to be mainly the lack of ability to impose immediate overwhelming force as opposed to ultimate peace – which is fine but the taxi driver may not have had that breath of relief. It is such a foreign existence it is hard to even imagine it.

– One clawed back. Five and a half to go.

– Gary’s Blogger blog has taken off nicely. Interesting post on pottery restoration services. Now there is a situation that requires a van with a big engine and the right to break the speed limit – Vrrrooommmmm. I say it gets designated the all important and still available purple flashing light.

– Have you noticed that certain cheater-ramas have entirly poached the Friday bullet idea? I knew I should have copyrighted this fantastic idea when I had the chance. Imagine the dollar bills flowing over my upstretched face and arms. Imagine.

Isn’t that enough? Off to see the newest member of the clan who is supposed to enter this world around noon and then off to grannie-in-law’s to talk sports of the 1920s to today. When is someone going to try that music format of “the music of the 20th century” anyway? Al Jolson then Ramones then “The Biggest Aspidistra In The World” then ringing my bell.

Start Your Christmas Shopping Now

Care of a kind word from a co-worker, I learned that the LCBO Vintages folk released 375 ml bottles of Lustau East India Sherry on Saturday. As I know my mother does not read this blog…or the internet at all ¹…I know I am safe to admit this is her stash for wee cakes and scones and after a nice bit of lamb and with a wee bit of blue cheese and beside a dish of trifle…and before and after a nap. Here is a review from one wine site’s review of the Lustau range as well as one from a wine blog. Note: “A blend of Soleras averaging 15 to 50 years of age.” Yum! Wee whisps of the 1950s in the glass.

¹’cause onywin tha’ dae is gang tae Scots Prrrrresbyterrrrian HELLLLLLL!

Moving Stuff

With the move to long-term contractual indebtedness, there has been a small wave of thing acquisition that canot go unmentioned, and not just the junior gin-soaked popinjay training kit. These are things that have worked and I recommend:

  • My Dolly: I was not aware that what I know as a dolly in Canada is a hand truck in the States. But there is no doubt aoub t the fact that the move was made on a Model PJD2223A Harper Nylon Dual Hand Truck (Jr). This thing was sixty bucks or so at the Home Depot and at any given time has move two rolled up futons, or a six foot tall computer desk or umpteen boxes of books. With a removable handle (bright yellow in my version) it flips from a two-wheel box jockey to a four-wheel table on wheels. It has saves both back and patience.
  • Bankers Boxes: In the good old days, you went to the NSLC and picked up wine boxes and rum boxes and moved your stuff in those. [Don’t try it with the PEILLC, however, as apparently those boxes are valuable assets that only a fool would think of wanting for free, thus earning you the locally classic yet over-used dirty look abaft.] Now, I am a man and I go and buy bankers boxes when I move. Not the big ones, either. The smaller letter sized one will do. Because they are all the same size and very sturdy you can stack a whack of them on your Harper Nylon Dual Hand Truck (Jr). And because you bought the small ones you can remove them without fear of hoisting an inadvertantly 400 lb one that wrenches the back. Slow and steady wins the race. And they also provide sensible storage for the stuff that does not see daylight.
  • The Scott Classic: Who the hell needs a Briggs and Stratton in the sub-urbs. The lawn I now own takes 15 minutes to mow. So I own a green Scotts Classic mower with a fancy green paint job and bright orange wheels. I puff about as much with a push gasoline mower but without the blue fog of exhaust. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to run and a brief nod to exercise before the self-inflicted prize of a cold drink.

Three smart sensible things. I am not usually like this. One thing I have not bought yet are contaps or tapcons to drill into the brick and secure the angled flag pole bracket for the front of the house. Houses ought to have flag poles. Especially when you have a 3×5 Louisiana with the pelicans on it.

Cricketing Shame

How could I have missed the news? Caught up in the last bits of summer…looking at boats…finally getting the push mower out for a go after weeks of drought and brown laws. How could I have missed this?

Eventually, after nearly an hour of après-tea negotiating, the Pakistanis were convinced to continue. But by that time — with some 24,000 fans in the stands and in the dark about the proceedings — the officials had decided that Pakistan had forfeited the game. In 129 years of international cricket, never before had a game been terminated thusly. When you think about the aborted international games in other sports that immediately spring to mind — about the appalled Soviets getting off the ice on Broad Street or Bobby Knight pulling his basketball team off the floor against his hated Communist opponents — cricket’s was an astounding run of civility. So chalk up another milestone in the sporting world’s further descent into the underworld.

Book Review: Great American Beer. Christopher O’Hara

This is a handy neat smaller format hardcover that the publisher was kind enough to FedEx me this week. And I am glad they did as this is a dandy guide to its exact topic: post WWII, pre-micro revolution pre-branding US beer. The author gladly admits this in the introduction:

The antithesis of the recent microbrewery revolution in America, this was a time when the major beer powerhouses took control of the brewing industry and, in the grand spirit of American industry, relentlessly quashed the small, independent producers that relied upon local support. This story is about the Americanization of beer, where homogenized brands – grown through a mixture of political clout, industrialization, and marketing might – became the best loved, and most heavily consumed beer brands in the world.

This is an unapologetic book in a time of review and perhaps revision. As Ken Wells discussed in Travels With Barley, despite all the efforts and successes in the craft brewing revival, this is a continent of lovers of beer-flavoured water making that still the primary cultural phenonmena to be grappled with when considering beer.

This book tells the story not so much of how that occured as who was involved. And it does so with style and wit. It is a primarily a series of fifty 500 to 200 word essays on the individual brands that made up the wave of oneness that is macrobrewing, from Bud to Blatz to Utica Club. Because this is as much pre-brand as pre-craft, there are no discussions of those “Bud Draft Dry Light Ice” sorts of beers that popped their heads up starting in the late 1970s – the word Light…or rather Lite…does not appear in the table of contents. This is a book that argues for a golden age and makes a pretty good argument for it. Even with the eighteen page history, this is not academic tome or a deep dive into the culture but, as you can expect, that could be an issue which, once raised, might be legitimately greeted with a shout of “academic, schmacademic.”

The book heavily relies upon images of the collection of beer stuff collector Erik Amundson, which you can see at the web site www.taverntrove.com. This is good and well handled as the advertising, packaging and other flotsom and jetsom of the brewers played such a huge role in differentiating a homogenized product. It is presented attractively along with well-written, informative text providing a book for the beer fan not scared to be presented with the phrases like “trendy imports” and “craft snobbery”. I’d say get it.

The Flickering Light

More connection problems that are making me think that the modem is dying. Do modems die? I dutifully unplug, replug and reset it with a certain percentage of luck getting back on line. It reminds of days in small urban centre Poland when the phone rang, people shouted what sounded like “Tak, soo-ham!!” which I understand means “Yes, I am here!!” and then hangs up as only about one in seven connections were ever made. For $39.99 a month I should have better analogies springing to mind than eastern Europe of the immediate post-communist era.

Anyway, how would you know if your modem was dying?

Friday Chatting As Cats Glare

So I figured if I was qualified to act as judge and executioner over the life of a
cat I was at least qualified to be amateur boy vet. Seems likely from what
you read on the internet that the old thing is anxious from the move, creating
alkaline pee and over eating. I’ve been doing that too so I am not slightly
sympathetic. Away with the all-night cat food buffet and in with the locking
them up with slightly acidified water. We’ll see. I know there are alkalined cat
lovers out there so I will not be grim or overly Nero-like with these decisions.
See you keep me on a moral path.

  • Update: The Flea writes good.

  • Gary wants you to know that he has a
    myspace blog     now. I do not know if this is wise of him as there is a heck of
    a lot of flotsom and jetsom around the MySpace world but Gary will let us know.
    I would tell you but as a joke I set mine up in German just to see and now I get
    emails from teens in Leipzig whom I have no interest in having as mein
    Freunden    .

  • On a fancy-grade whim, I bought one of these
    which I saw on deep discount. It is, as far as I can tell, is a junior
    gin-soaked popinjay training kit and pairs with the subterranian stash
    nicely. Suggestions for accessories welcome. I already have housed the pair of
    Greenock golf club whisky tumblers so you can rest easy on that account.

  • It appears that talking
    with terrorists     is in fact what one does after all. Of course, we knew this
    and did not buy into the pre-post-post-9/11 thinking that conveniently forgets
    the IRA, ETA, the MPLA and every other acronymed militant insurgent radical
    political movement in human history. As these people are people in the
    neighbourhood and not cyborgs in a robot army,
    settlement and reconciliation at the end of the day is the only end game.

  • I am concerned for the lack of respect that imaginary mystic
    dwarves     are getting these days.

So it is the end of another week
and another week’s worth of bullet points. I hope to be off to the Antique Boat Regatta
at some point on t’other side of the bridge as I wants to hear wee boats go
VVRRROOOOOOOOOOOM but it all depends on the weather.

Gee…The Constitution Does Govern

Speaking of constitutions and freedoms and stuff, here is the opinion part of the ruling of the Federal Court on the suspension of the US administration’s domestic surveillance program. Great paragraph at page 40:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all powers must derive from that Constitution.

Via the Jurist.

Good News For Freedom

Good to read this news out of the Supreme Court of Canada this morning:

HUMAN RIGHTS: “POLITICAL BELIEF” DISCRIMINATION

The Respondents were a group of occasional provincial government employees and members of the Provincial Liberal Party, who were either not recalled to work or had their hours of work reduced after the Provincial Conservatives came into power in P.E.I. in 1996. They filed complaints with the Human Rights Commission alleging “political belief” discrimination. While the cases were pending, the Conservative government amended the Human Rights Act , limiting the amount the employees could recover, and preventing them from seeking other remedies available to complaints brought on other grounds of discrimination. The Respondents alleged that the amendments violated ss. 15(1), 2(b) and 2(d) of the Charter. The Prince Edward Island Supreme Court declared the statutory limitation on the available remedies for “political belief” discrimination and the compensation formula prescribed by ss. 28.4(2) to (5) of the P.E.I. Human Rights Act contrary to ss. 15(1), 2(b) and 2(d) of the Charter , and not saved by s. 1. The Appeal Division unanimously upheld the trial judge’s decision with respect to s. 2(d) of the Charter. The Appeal Division did not address the issues of ss. 15(1) or 2(b). Government of Prince Edward Island v. Merrill Condon, et al. (P.E.I. C.A., February 16, 2006)(31416) “with costs”

As I have noted here before and provided more background to the related rulings under the “political rights” heading, I was involved in the original level of this matter before I left private practice. The only thing that diminishes the ruling today and its implication that there is no argument to be made in favour of imposing unconstitutionality upon our political freedom in Canada, is that I was really hoping to get to sit in on a hearing, watching at the back in the cheap seats in the biggest of the courts of the land.