Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )
When the Red Sox play the AL West it is worse than interleague. First, they appear able to lose against the AL West. Second, when they do lose it happens at 2 am EST so you have wasted an evening and gotten a rotten sleep thrown in for good measure.
By the way – and milking the double entendre for all it is worth – playing a guitar after a couple of weeks of mandolin is very weird. There is all this space between the strings.
From the BBC and its Editor’s Blog (formerly and futurely known as an Editorial Page):
Each is enough to daze you for the day. Together, worse. Being honest about the order of importance given and we give to each, worse still.
Ever since my pal portland came up with the phrase beer-tasting water, I have been a little too obsessed with Pabst Blue Ribbon. But then I realized I had a unique opportunity to perform my sort of science experiment: a side-by-side comparison of a PBR from the US against one brewed under license in Canada by Sleeman of Guelph. Even though any possible outcome of this project will not advance the human condition one bit, I took on the challenge.
First, I noticed the price. A six of Canadian PBR is $7.50 at the LCBO. The US version was $4.60 at a gas station on 12E, east of Watertown, NY. I knew I was getting ripped off, too, as I had seen $3.29 for the six at another place that was sold out. Then I noticed the cans. There is clearly more blue ribbon on the PBR stateside. Does this matter? I suppose not. Both also have the River Plate red sash which is quite natty.
To be honest, the beers taste pretty much the same – sort of bland, the pablum of beers yet without off flavours and somehow comforting. Like pablum, no self respecting adult would look forward to the taste but, once presented with it (like a new father feeding pablum to his little baby for the first time and scraping it off his hands knees and forehead), one is less turned off than one might expect. Yet the Canadian version, right in all pictures, is clearly a notch lighter and by the end of the glass as it warms and the bubbles die away it maybe even more watery.
What have we learned? Not much. Except I have ten more in the fridge.
Buckley blasts Bush. The ABA blasts Bush.
A book must be out somewhere because there are interviews about the Long Tail all over the place. The Long Tail refers to a graph and that point on a graph where many different things are happening so rather than describing an spike in activity, it is showing an extended diversity. Someone has decided that this is what the internet has caused.
To a degree this is a correct observation but only to a degree as, in large part, it is not. This is because it is a catchy generalization that can be applied and misapplied with confidence. One basic principle that is largely ignored is both the incompleteness and over-self-congratulatory praise that accompanies it. So we have a tendency, like with refereces to “post 9/11” to accept that everything has changed – without the slightest reference to what was before. One very handy illustration of this is from these two posts at Bound By Gravity where Andrew (Canada’s best blogger at the moment) assumes and then catches himself assuming that the internet has had an effect on reading.
This sort of thing has become rampant. Recently I saw a reference to how difficult it must have been to travel by car before the internet based on the assumption, one supposes that mapping began with MapQuest. Another, more to the heart of the error of the Long Tail, is that people lived lives permeated by mass media and mass production. First, this presumes that people defined (and define) their lives by media and product – as subjects of consumption. That presumption is based on the limited ability the internet has to provide: it can only deliver communications and provide a venue for ordering product. Second, people did live out personal niche interests as actively and fully as they do now. People bought rare stamps, comic books and music. People read things that no one else read and held ideas that were different from their neighbours – hence, among other things, the great splintering schismistastic fun that is protestantism. They just did not do it publicly and through a medium that recorded the activity digitally. It was done by mail orders, letters, conversations, meetings. In rec rooms, via ‘zines and through posters stapled to utility poles.
Structurally, even with the opportunity to watch old videos on YouTube, the internet is just another mass medium and as dangerous a one as ever there was through its active denial its own nature is a mass medium. The third issue of Geez magazine came last week and is full of good advice on cross checking the effect of the internet on your values. Are you more materialistic? Are you more prone to follow the poltical and ethical messages of others? Are you more part of the Borg?
Remember, the internet is good fun and can be used responsibly. Be careful out there.
Sometimes a place is a good place not because it is surprising, rare or new but because it represents a sort of joint well. For my money, the Lucky Inn in Pembroke was a classic Canadian-Chinese buffet. Similarly, Pizza Rodini of the Truro of my youth was the best greasy circle of za.
This is how Sansones struck me. The food was mild “New York diner Italian with attached bar”, the service was good and the price was fair. The scalloped edged plates and saucers were classic. The inside of the place is a little dark but busy like a antique store filled in large part of Sansone related stuff – but also Adirondacks outdoorsy stuff – which kept the kids occupied as did a number of large fish tanks.
Should you go? Will you be in Malone, NY sometime?
Woke up way too late and had to deal with my friend Manual Spammo. What poor
lives these saps must lead to have to cut and past their way now through the
handy dandy “are you human” quiz before each comment is posted. Looks like it
took longer to post than delete. That is a gain. Anyway:
Gotta
run.