Day Ten: Act Two

OK. It is now act two. We have passed the first act, established a whole bunch of stuff, the main players have made their best opening statements and we have a sense of where the story is going. And we know we are nowhere near act four because the stage is not yet littered with bodies.

The election has gone well for everyone ten days in and we now that because nothing much has changed. No one has made a huge gaffe and the polls have not really shifted much except to indicate that the population is conspiring to maintain a Liberal minority.

  • Jay has staked his reputation and maybe a few ales on the conservatives ending up with about 50 seats, roughly half of what they have now and thinks that he is seeing that already coming to be. Other conservatives are not so bleak but one Grit is even strong on an announcement for stronger gun laws. That is confidence.
  • Jay also has found a great site keeping track of the polls called nodice.ca. The last poll they note shows:

    Liberal – 40%
    Conservative 28%
    NDP – 17%
    Bloc – 11%
    Green – 14%

    This is Liberal majority territory. Stephen Taylor is sifting for clues. It will be interesting to see if this is a blip from the subtly different world of 36.5, 29, 12, 18 and 4.5, to see if there is a recoil back from the brink to ensure another minority.

  • No one has gotten dirtymouthed yet and I think that no one will for now. If anyone starts saying bad things about others before the holidays it will only hurt them and nothing will be gained. So the NDP does not slam private medical clinics, both Layton and Martin will not say Harper is evil and Harper is rolling out large-ish spending like on childcare, reviving the baby-bonus in a way to the interest of some, even when he is cutting 4.5 billion or more from the budget with the GST cut and now another cut for small business. I think that the comment from a Liberal “handler” that the Conservatives were announcing too much for their own good is probably the most honest assessment of where we are. A word to the wise and an admission in one. Some call it hiding but if the polls are dropping why would you rock the boat?

Act two. In some plays it is like the second period of hockey, when you go away and do something else expecting either something interesting and different or the boringly same when you come back. No one wants to be the butt of Christmas party jokes, the only thing that the not so funny guy said that is remembered by everyone.

Lockerball

I have this memory of being in the car really early on a Summer morning when I was five or so. We are driving around Montreal, there for Expo 67 or Man and His World, and it is the day a Bealtes album was released and the car radio is just playing the lp straight though. I also remember the day that the Bealtes broke up a few years later in 1970, Mom remarking that it made the TV news. But 25 years ago this morning when I heard that Lennon was shot it was the morning of my Grade 12 English exam and we were playing lockerball waiting to be let in the room to write. Lockerball was just volleyball with a scrunched up ball of paper hit back and forth over the rock of lockers, one on one. You couldn’t see where the other guy was going to hit it. Like a good game of hack or bumball, it was one of those games that was only played in one place for a few weeks by a few people and then it passed.

Lennon was in a revival. We had copies of Double Fantasy and picture sleeve 45s of “Starting Over” and all had braced ourselves a few times on false alarms that the Beatles were going to play Saturday Night Live even though we also listened to the Talking Heads and the other new music. We grinded away at their songs on guitar in friends basements and argued by the resevior on Friday night who was more the most useless Beatle over whatever bad red Hungarian wine someone had been able to get. I had sold all my X-men comics one day on a trip to Halifax to buy German pressings of Beatles releases. I still have them. Lennon dying seemed to start a spate of shootings or maybe was the height of them. I heard Reagan was shot when I jumped in the car after soccer practice and the Pope was shot around then, too. But Lennon died and when I was 17 it was really bad, cursing by the lockers before the exam began.

Canadian Satellite Radio

As you all know all too well, I am a radio nerd. I was a member of the Radio Prague Listeners Club, have received reception report confirmation cards from many nations, held a trans-Atlantic reception record for a while when I heard local East German radio in my old Nova Scotian home, listen through buzzing and clicking interference on poor reception nights to catch a moment of Steve Somers of WFAN and shared with you my joy at hearing California from eastern Lake Ontario a year and a half ago.

I have radio nerd cred and, though I am not hardcore, I would think that I would be the guy that satellite radio is aimed at. But when I have a look at what Sirius Canada is offering – now that the CRTC mandated puritanical technology delay is almost ready to be lifted – I just don’t know. I have a computer at home and one at work. Both play a bazillion stations and even some amateur nutcases making really bad radio to bring down the man, being in this case the corporate structure of global media, with their iPod (charmingly unaware of the irony all others see given that iPod is todays jewel in the crown of a corporate communication empire.) And yes, I have a bitchin’ Sony 2010 which has healed itself nicely which is my real window on the world. Plus I have a car with that wonder of wonders an AM/FM radio with which I can enjoy the exciting exploration of the unknown as I travel.

So what does paying $14.95 plus tax to get a subscription to Sirius Canada get me? Is it just that it will be the same wherever you are? How dull and dulling. More stardardized delocalized Omnitopian fare. Are you planning to sign on? Is anyone?

Cricketing Powerhouse

Odd that the Pakistani bowler Shoaib Akhtar should celebrate victory over England by running through a crowd of his teammates, flinging them into the air. But it is a different game and, as the BBC reports:

Inspired by Kaneria’s exploits, Shoaib then summoned up all his energy to deliver a destructive spell of his own.

No wonder I don’t really get this sport.

Holy Moley!

I have not yet gotten into the NHL again but I still know enough to know this is a massive trade:

The San Jose Sharks swung a shocking, blockbuster trade on Wednesday, acquiring Joe Thornton for a trio of former first-round draft picks. San Jose swapped Wayne Primeau, Marco Sturm and Brad Stuart for the talented Boston Bruins captain. “To get a player of this calibre, you have to give up something to get something,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson stated. “You would make this trade last month, this month or next year.”

First thing I thought of was Esposito going to New York.