Category: Uncategorized

Rained Out In Cooperstown


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Well, it only lasted two and a half innings and I got soaked but it was OK. I get to get my money back for the tickets because the game didn’t make it to the fifth. Plus, Gentleman potter Gary made me a piggy beer mug in the style and then, before the rain, Fergie Jenkins elbowed Gary out of the way in a crowd so he could get to where he was signing stuff. Willie Fordham was signing his book out in the street and Adam Dunn hit a homer during the pre-game derby way way over my head (as illustrated above) and everyone said “HOLY MOLY – LOOK AT IT GO!!!”.

More photos when I get my head out of the interstate highway system. Gary had lots of questions about you all, particularly the Flea and what he gets up to. I said I am not sure about anything that goes on at the western end of Lake Ontario.

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Friday Chat Or The Chat For The Day After The Red Sox Win!!!

Eight AM meeting across town so I may be brief today. Rainy Friday in May here, by the way. It’s close enough to winter still that you think rain is great.

  • Yes, the Red Sox took the Yankees in the final game of this series and did so in high style 5-3. It was a close game even if the Yanks got two of their three in the first inning when Wakefield’s knucklebal was wonky. After that is was all horsetails and flies. But the Red Soxs left the bases loaded three times so it could have been a bust out but for some good defence by the Yankees at the right times. Big outing for Loretta, the Sox second, who went 4/5.
  • I am inordinately fixated on baseball this weekend with the first GX40 Rewards ProgramTM Event at Cooperstown when Gary and I and maybe even portland will converge for the Hall of Fame Game as I got tickets. There have been rumours of later events such as a Thousand Island BBQ and the Flea says we can all go to Toronto one day and play with his vintage Twister games.
  • You know, I probably believe George when he says the government wasn’t “trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans” but should you really put yourself in the position where you have to say that? I believe him in the sense that the technology and personnel are simply not there to listen to everything and make coherent sense out of it all. And telephone records are always compellable by the courts on a subpoena issued on the request of a lawyer as opposed to by a judge upon a hearing. This is not really the stuff of privacy anymore than the internet is. Yet…there is that whole appearance thing and, more importantly, the mishandling of the appearance thing. Will he lose Congress to a hapless opposition. Will he be look back on one day as the US’s Paul Martin?
  • Apparently nice is the new cool. You have to look who is behind these sorts of studies, though, and I have it on good authority that the money for this bit of work came from the Association of Grannies and Librarians of Maine as well as the Cardigan Manufacturers Association of Indiana.

    He said fewer people identify with the classic image of cool than one would expect. For most, the new cool is someone who possesses more “socially desirable” characteristics. “I don’t know if I can blame marketers, or if there is even anyone to blame, but the mainstream got a hold of coolness and turned it into a mainstream version of coolness,” he said. “People now identify passionate and warm as cool, which is almost oxymoronic.”

    This, of course, is the leading edge of the new neo-socialist movement that will whip neo-cons off the map from 2008 to 2022. It’ll start with nice, move through additional arts classes in high school and end up in news papers dropping their business sections. Mark my words.

  • My Google – because I own one share – is getting more open. Hoo-ray!

    Talking to the BBC, Mr Schmidt also reflected on Google’s decision to adhere to Chinese government censorship rules in order to launch its new site in China. He said the decision was “the hardest the company has ever made” but added that, despite it being heavily criticised, he still felt it was the correct move. Mr Schmidt also believed that competition in the internet search business, especially from Microsoft and Yahoo would drive up prices and increase revenue rather than threaten them. Google appeared to be benefiting from its “limitless growth model”, he said, adding that more users, more advertisers and more content would fuel further demand.

    Excellent. More kowtowing to totalitarians and bizarre enununciations on economics please. These are the snippets you cherish after the bubble bursts.

Gotta run. Someone spell check this thing, wouldja?

Reader’s Survey: How’s It Going?

Time for a readers’ survey to give me an update:

  • Where are you?
  • How often do you read?
  • Do you think I am a bit manic?
  • What are your favorite topics?
  • Should I encourage portland to write more?
  • Which topics do you prefer: food and drink, politics, disdain for blogging, sports?
  • Do I go on and on?
  • No, really…where are you?
  • Do you follow the comments?
  • Are you a stalker?
  • Should I delete the wacko comments or let them ride?
  • Do you also read our sister station A Good Beer Blog
  • Do you read as many blogs as you did two years ago?
  • Is your time with blogs time you later regret giving to blogs?
  • Is the Flea right or me?
  • Is David Janes right or me?
  • Anything else?

The Yankees Lose!!!

There really isn’t a ball in their hands. The now Small Unit just needed a little squeeze after blowing another game.

I could go into why I tell myself I dislike the Yankees but it is really an arbitrary facade I have assigned to myself. Yet hearing things like Jason Giambi, the DHer who gets to stand near first, blowing a few defensive plays again warms my tiny little heart. Not quite as much as the joy I knew when Partick Roy quit the Habs mid-game after reaming out the GM in front of the entire Hockey Night in Canada audience.

But close.

Most Haunted

hauntedMost Haunted. It’s the kind of show you stumble across after the Mets win in the 14th inning and for some unknown reason you are not quite ready to hit the hay. I think it is my best guilty pleasure for the following reasons:

  • The host who comes on at the end of the show to explain why everything you have just seen is likely hooey.
  • It’s in “W”, the network formerly known as “Woman’s TV” or something like that. I am not a “W” person. I cannot bear Debbie Travis. Debbie Travis is on “W” every three hours.
  • Green-grey night vision goggle filming of séances with people saying “did you hear that” or “I can’t stay in this room a moment longer” or “She is here. In that corner…right…there” over and over.
  • Elementary school ouiji-boarding ‘fraidy-cat hosts and para-normalists apparently getting really scared over and over week after week except for the fact that this is their job and their hobby and they are supposed to know a lot about things that go “boo”.

Best. Reality. Show. Ever.

Wednesday…Thursday…Chatday…

Tra la! It’s May, the lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev’ryone goes blissfully astray
Tra la! It’s here, that shocking time of year!
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear.

It’s May! It’s May, that gorgeous holiday
When ev’ry maiden prays that her lad will be a cad!
It’s mad! It’s gay, a libelous display
Those dreary vows that ev’ryone takes, ev’ryone breaks
Ev’ryone makes divine mistakes
The lusty month of May!

A little something for the Broadway set amongst you.

Time is flying, is it not? A few short moments ago I was in winter’s grip and now the weather is all July in Halifax – mid-20s and sunshine. Fabulous. You know all those people who say October is the best time of year? They are nuts. May is. Pre-bug, pre-smog, pre-heat, pre-kids-at-home-every-day-with-nothing-to-do. It’s been a busy week following on a couple of busy weeks but at least it is May:

  • I have been contacted by the Asparagus Growers of America to remind you to eat asparagus. Asparagus is one of the two foods that kids won’t want to eat until they find out that it makes your pee change colour and then they can’t get enough. My trick? A little orange juice in the steamer.
  • In other public service news, send your kind thoughts for portland who is waylayed by a unshakable nasty bug these days. And one for the Junk Store Cowgirl, Linda, who has been in radio silence for almost a month now. You will recall her good lad received a shipment of Marmite from the office workers here.
  • Nice to see that radio is confirming the lack of practical support for podcasting:

    Commercial FM radio has reached the billion-dollar revenue milestone in Canada, at a time when they are also preparing to sing the blues in Ottawa this month. Industry data released Thursday show Canada’s commercial FM stations collectively pulled in $1.03-billion in revenue last year, with pretax profits of $247-million. Those numbers are up substantially from 2004, and when combined with earnings from AM stations, helped drive commercial radio to an unprecedented $1.33-billion in revenue. Pretax profits also soared 24 per cent to more than $255-million.

    Radio really is the miracle medium, providing all your wireless needs for a wee $7.99 transistor rig from Radio Shack. If I were you , I’d think about a career in radio.

  • It has been a week when I have re-evaluated Mr. Harper to a degree. His budget was not a bad budget, keeping in mind that I disagree with both the Tory child bonus voter attraction scheme and the murky Grit shadow plan that really never was. If I was a booster of the military more than I am I might be a little offended by something of a gap between word and deed but otherwise it was pretty middle of the road and is not going to undermine the tidy little boom we are enjoying. The most troublesome part of it is the continued de-Federalization of the nation that really has been tripping along since Joe Clark fist uttered “community of communities” back in ’79. Where will it all end? Who gets the “D” in Canada when it is utterly disassembled?
  • BLork is a wizard but more so a person of intestinal fortitude as I have had such jars but dipped into said jars.
  • This bit from a memo obtained under access to information is a tad odd:

    The percentage of Canadians who hold a valid passport has steadily risen — to 36 per cent in 2004-05 from less than 28 per cent in 2000-01 — in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The passport office expects the figure to reach 48 per cent of Canadians by 2008-09. “Since 9/11, passports are being seen as secure identity documents rather than just travel documents,” the notes say. “Passport Canada is now as much a security agency as a service agency, in keeping with the new international norm.”

    Does my government think I need a secure identity document other than for travel? I certainly do not. My me-ness is mine wherever I am and I don’t need no state papers to prove that. Sounds more like Passport Canada just bigging itself up. Silly puffery as I’d like to think, generally, that I am much more in keeping with the new international norm.

  • Update: Why the heck is a company in PEI importing workers from Russia? Even with a 1.5% unemployment drop from March to April, there is still 10.5% unemployed in the province.