As much as people get freaked out about what their kids are getting up to on the internet, who they're texting, what kind of pictures they're taking with their cell phone camera and who they're sending them to, and so forth, all this gadget technology has an upside: equipped with my mp3 player and a suitable selection of audio, I now have infinite perseverance when it comes to trying to outlast a fussy infant who won't settle down and let me nurse her to sleep.

Current Mood: imperturbable

Current Music: Perfume - love the world

Well...winter is here, and like usual, the first few snowfalls are resulting in dozens of crashes as people forget their winter driving skills and neglect to take the slippery conditions into account.

In the spirit of a gentle reminder, then, here's a little screed that an officer at the local provincial police detachment attached to the end of a press release after a first snowfall a few years ago. While I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir when it comes to my flist, perhaps some of you might want to print it out and tape it up over the water cooler at work or something. =)

(edited to improve spelling, grammar, and presentation.)

SLOW DOWN --- SLOW DOWN --- SLOW DOWN --- SLOW DOWN

Every winter the OPP investigates numerous collisions that result in death, injuries and property damage that never did have to happen.

Every year we ask and tell the driving public to slow down and adjust your driving to the weather conditions when you see ice, snow, rain, fog or any other inclement weather.

Every winter we investigate collisions where the driving public ignores this tidbit of advice and are unnecessarily injured or killed because they insisted on travelling at or above the posted speed limit during an ice or snow storm.

Every winter, since the inception of time, we always get bad winter storms that make for hazardous driving conditions.

Every winter we will continue to call the tow trucks, ambulance, or funeral homes for body removal because YOU JUST WON'T SLOW DOWN!!!

This winter let's do our collective best to prove us wrong!!!

SLOW DOWN IN BAD WEATHER AND LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER DAY!

Current Mood: sober

Current Music: di.fm lounge channel

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Current Mood: solemn

Current Music: Last post & reveille

We're opening winter with a bang this year -- modest snowsqualls and lake effect snow started overnight yesterday and have continued since. 25 fender-benders in town yesterday. We probably have the 15cm/6" of snow they were calling for by now.

Is it so wrong that I'm excited about trying out the hardcore new snow tires that we put on the van this year? Incredibly enough, I don't think I've ever driven a vehicle with proper snow tires on it -- just all-seasons -- so I'm looking forward to it.

Current Mood: okay

There always has to be one, doesn't there?

As frickinmuck correctly points out, while American voters may have repudiated racism by putting a black man in the nation's highest office, many also endorsed homophobia in several ballot initiatives, including California Proposition 8.

I'm disgusted by the notion that human rights should be subject to a majority vote, let alone that any of these measures passed. Times like this remind me of how much I cherish the protections afforded me by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

(As an aside, any time anybody mentions the phrase "Traditional Marriage", I can't help but think of this Rick Mercer clip. You know! Traditional marriage, like with arranged marriages, beatings and stuff!)

Current Mood: tired

This is awesome.

The vindictive, hateful, greedy and simpleminded rule of the last eight years has made a mockery of the great ideals upon which America was founded. Now I have hope -- hope that we'll see the USA coming back onto the world stage as a nation that's more interested in making and working with friends than in making and killing enemies. A nation that cares about people and not just profits. A nation that sticks to its principles instead of trying to find ways to work around them.

I've always respected the flag of the United States of America, but tonight I'd be proud to hoist her along with my own.

Current Mood: hopeful

• Turnout hit an incredible low. A lot of people have mentioned the lack of charisma evinced by Harper and Dion, which may be part of the problem. I think the biggest part of the problem was that this was an election without any galvanizing issues. It wasn't called to decide on a crucial issue of the day. It was called because Harper felt that flaunting his own election date law and spending 300,000,000 taxpayer dollars was a worthwhile price to pay for a chance to shoot the dice for a majority.
• Feeling less than enchanted with the NDP. While I think Layton by and large is pushing for the right things, he always comes off like a sanctimonious broken record. His rolled up sleeves, no doubt symbolising his solidarity with the working man, amuse me almost as much as Harper's sweater. Most of all, when the debates came around, the NDP -- a party that, historically, has bitterly complained about being excluded from the democratic process -- wasted no time in trying to shove Elizabeth May and the Greens out the door. The NDP tries to cultivate an image of being principled and not subscribing to "politics as usual", so the irony here was just waaaay over the top.
• Speaking of whom -- I thought that Elizabeth May did a bang-up job at the English debate, pulling together eloquent and pointed passages on the fly instead of repeating talking point after talking point. Unbeknownst to some, heckles are a longstanding tradition in parliamentary debate, so while she may have come off to others as rude, I thought her verbal jabs were great (probably the best of the night was a terse "Where is it?" when Harper started going on about his platform). If only the Greens would run a decent candidate locally! It would be enough to make me at least consider them.
• Duceppe was on top of his game in the English debate as well, delivering the most memorable line of the night. Asked what the first thing is that you would do as prime minister, he replied with the instant classic "Well, I know I won't be prime minister, and three of you won't be prime minister neither."
• It sounds like the knives are coming out for Dion already, which isn't a surprise given that the big story of this election hasn't been the rise of any party but the weakness of the Liberals. It's too bad; he seems like a decent guy, and even someone who I'd be interested in sitting down and having a conversation with over a few drinks, but his personality just didn't electrify the electorate. Not everyone has charisma in spades. That doesn't make him a terrible human being, just someone who's on par with the rest of us schlubs.
• While increasing the Conservative seat count, Harper could not make good on his shot at a majority, even with an incredible set of circumstances in his favour:
  • the Conservatives started off polling in majority territory,
  • the Liberals had the weakest leader in recent memory,
  • the right is united, no longer suffering the Reform/PC vote split,
  • the resurgent NDP and up-and-coming Greens are splitting the vote on the left, and
  • the economy is on everyone's mind, a topic that he and the Conservative party should be strong on.
  If he couldn't cash in for a majority this time, do you think he ever will?
• Finally, if you wanted to find a strong argument for Proportional Representation and an equally strong indictment of FPTP, you only need look as far as the third, fourth, and fifth place results in this election. The Bloc got 10% of the popular vote and was rewarded with 50 seats. The NDP took 18.2% of the popular vote and got 37 seats in return. The Greens received 6.8% of the popular vote, an atta-boy, and no seats.

Current Mood: calm

Current Music: Tara MacLean - Dry Land

Sometimes it seems like Thanksgiving just trades a frenetic workday for a day of frenetic dinner preparations. That being said, it only takes a moment to reflect upon some of the things that I'm thankful for:

• my family,
• having a world-class job despite living in a town that sometimes feels like a real backwater,
• coworkers who are intelligent, accomplished, indulgent, and opinionated,
• living in a place where I have a vote, even if I don't generally like the choices,
• having our rights protected by the Charter, because, as frightening as it may sound, I have more faith in the judges than I do in the politicians.

What are you thankful for?

Current Mood: sick

Oh, what's this? For months -- if not years -- we've heard about how our banks are on a sound footing, how there's no mortgage crisis in Canada, and how the Canadian banking system is the most stable in the world...

Canada does not have banking crisis: Harper

Monday, October 06, 2008
TORONTO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday that the Canadian banking sector is not in crisis and vowed to help other countries cope with their financial difficulties.

...In fact, we've heard this all this week...

Canada's banking system kept high and dry by strict regulation: Flaherty

TORONTO — High banking standards have kept Canada's financial institutions afloat and out of the kind of trouble that has sunk many of their international peers, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Wednesday [8 Oct 2008].

...until this morning: with the Conservatives slipping in the polls because people feel they're not concerned enough about the economy:

Flaherty announces measures to stabilize lending industry

The federal government plans to buy $25 billion in Canadian mortgage-backed securities in a bid to ease a growing credit crunch faced by the country's banks and other financial institutions, Ottawa announced Friday.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the government's plan is to buy the securities through the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation and provide much-needed cash to financial institutions that sell the so-called "National Housing Act mortgage-backed securities."

Flaherty announced the new measures in an attempt to assuage concerns over the burgeoning global financial crisis and defuse criticism that the Harper government was ignoring the spreading lending crisis.

That's 25 billion dollars in cash money handed over to the banks, ladies and gentlemen...$748 for every man, woman, and child in Canada. While the taxpayers get a bunch of (probably not worthless) mortgage-backed securities in exchange, it's still nice to know that the gov't is ready to step in and hand the banks a huge cash purchase when anything comes anywhere near to causing them problems with their bottom lines. Honest to God, these guys have no idea what they're doing with managing the economy. Certainly they have no more idea than anyone else.

The worst part about it is that since the banks dole out credit, they have us over a barrel when it comes to economic growth, and the alternative of letting them sit on the mortgages and starve for credit might very well amount to cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Current Mood: incredulous

Current Music: Tara MacLean - Dry Land

I own a company. I drive back and forth to work at 300 km/h (185 mph) every day because I like how much time it saves me and how much more work I get done at the office.

One day I wrap my car around a lamppost. The police give me a stern lecture on how wrong it was to be driving the way I was, then buy me a new car, since if I can't drive to work a whole bunch of people will be out of a job.

Current Mood: incredulous

Current Music: Vengaboys - Boom, boom, boom, boom

Ok, so up to this point the CBC has been streaming live video feeds of the Olympics in Beijing. This is great. Every morning starting around 6am, they've been streaming the semi-finals and finals of each judo division, which is even better.

Now, what happens today, on the only day when we have two Canadians competing, both of whom are outside medal contenders? The judo finals get bumped off the schedule in favour of volleyball and basketball preliminaries -- ones that no Canadians are competing in, no less.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Current Mood: tired

Current Music: ORANGE RANGE - Shanghai Honey

Apparently the universe really wants me to watch olypmic judo.

The CBC is streaming a live video feed of the finals and semifinals of the judo competitions. This is extremely awesome, because in previous years you were extremely fortunate to catch much judo on TV if indeed any at all. The admittely minor downside is that there only seems to be a live feed and with the time difference, that means that the action starts around 6am EDT.

I'd hoped to watch as much of the coverage as I could, but if I'm up late or don't sleep well, trying to get up at 6 in the morning will make me nonfunctional for the rest of the day. Since this is the case, I haven't actually set an alarm to wake up in time to watch judo. As it turns out, though, I haven't needed to -- two out of the past three nights, my daughter has helpfully woken up in the middle of the night and then fallen back asleep at the magical hour of...6 in the morning.

Surely this is divine providence at work. =)

On another note, this is really the first time that I've been actively participating in an olympic sport when the olympics rolled around, and it kind of changes my perspective. I am probably never going to go to a major international competition, let alone the olympics, but even myself and my little club out here in the sticks are connected to something much larger. It was astonishing to see how many judoka were bearing their national flags into the stadium during the opening ceremonies, and how many different countries judoka were coming from. Maybe I've always subconsciously thought of judo as something that originated in Japan and spread around a bit to North America, Brazil, and Western Europe. It was awesome to be disabused of that notion. African nations fielded judoka. Russia and the former Soviet republics are extremely strong competitors. Israel. Iran. Italy. Cuba is a judo powerhouse. (Who knew?) Even tiny little nations like Malta sent a number of very tough judoka to Beijing. It's very cool to be reminded that I have peers practicing the same sport as I in every corner of the world.

Current Mood: awake

Current Music: B'z - Blue Sunshine

Can't say we didn't see this this coming.

IMNSHO, Hasbro's made a mistake here. Sure it's probably a copyright infringement, but there are lots of people who love their Scrabulous. In the court of popular opinion, they're not going to fare well.

Current Mood: tired

Current Music: sound of dehumidifier running

大変だったけどできました！　僕のDebian GNU/Linuxコンピュターに日本語が入れる！　どうしたは良く分からないけど… ＝）

Ok, I don't know exactly how I got everything pieced together, but I finally got Japanese input working on my Debian box! This was the absolute last i18n frustration I had with this thing, and now it's sorted. 'bout time! 素晴らしいです！

Ok, I'm officially up too late again and am now going to bed.

Current Mood: exuberant but tired

Current Music: B'z - 野生のENERGY

Awww, furrfu.

S'actually not a bad ad. Guess the folks at the agency overestimated how blasé Britons would be about a quick peck. It's pretty obvious to me that the whole point of the piece wasn't OMFG HOT BOYZ MAKIN OUT, but this sort of thing apparently gets lost on some folks.

Despite this last bit, I've been incredibly perky today. For some reason, I seemed to wake up feeling like the day was full of potential.

edit: Apparently the marketing folks who put the video on youtube pulled it down. Linked to a different copy instead.

Current Mood: chipper

On our recent road trip, we stopped and bought a portable DVD player, because as much as I support limiting the amount of TV my daughter watches, I also support not being distracted from driving by certain cranky bored tantrum-throwing passengers. So I got to hear the following intro dialogue to the Special Delivery episode of Backyardigans several times over the course of the trip (paraphrased):

Tasha: We're bikers!
Uniqua & Pablo: Yeah!
Tasha: We're ROUGH!
All: Grrrr!
Uniqua: And TOUGH!
All: Grrrr!
Pablo: And BAD!
Tasha & Uniqua: What!?!
Tasha: We're not bad, Pablo. We're good!
Pablo: Uhhh...oh, yeah, I forgot. We're GOOD!
All: Grrrr!

No matter how many times I hear it, that exchange always cracks me up. What can I say -- sometimes, I'm easily amused. =)

Current Mood: surly

Current Music: Luna Sea - Crazy about you

Netherlands 4-1 France

Hot damn, the Dutch are on fire! blue_lucy, your team is going to come away with a very nice result if they keep turning in matches like this!

Italy 1-1 Romania

On the other hand -- what the heck is going on with Italy? The world champions are looking like they are not even going to make it out of their group this go round.

Current Mood: okay

Current Music: severe thunderstorm

Holy crap! The reigning world champions got trounced by the Oranje 3-0.

I can't remember the last time the Azzuri got wailed on like that. Half the population of the Sault is going to be walking around wearing sackcloth and ashes today.

Current Mood: okay

Current Music: Shaye - Happy Baby

Well...a day late, but:

Happy International Wear Your Kaffiyeh With Pride Day.

Current Mood: resilient

Current Music: B'z - Calling

...but it's even moreso when your smoking area is right next to a gas meter.

Current Mood: blah

Current Music: B'z - Stay Green

1. Start vehicle.
2. Lower all windows.
3. Load Joji Hirota and the Taiko Drummers CD.
4. Set volume to approximately 75%.
5. Hit 'play'.
6. Watch as pedestrians surrounding vehicle clear away.
7. Set gear selector to 'R'. Reverse as normal.

Current Mood: amused

Current Music: Joji Hirota and the Taiko Drummers - Pageant

OMG - Misono Swedish Steel 180mm Santoku. Want want want.

Here's a close-up of the engraving (same design, just on a different knife).

It's carbon steel, so it'll rust as soon as I look at it sideways. It's a 180mm Santoku, so it's probably smaller than I would like (only 7"), lighter than I would like (172g, a shade over 6oz), and flatter-bladed than I'd like (not as good for mincing, which I end up doing a lot of.) But never mind all that; it's one gorgeous damn knife.

Mind you, the knife that's likely to actually address my needs -- the Wusthof Classic 23cm Cook's Knife -- is classically cool in its own right:

If you envision an oldschool sixty-something grey-haired grey-moustached chef in whites and a huge chef's toque, this knife (albeit larger) is probably what he's swinging. =)

Current Mood: *shrug*

Current Music: Backyardigans - Huka Pale

...from the OMFG-please-give-me-a-fucking-break-dept.

Dunkin Donuts puts out an ad featuring Rachael Ray wearing a black paisley scarf. US neo-cons claim that said scarf is a keffiyeh and is Ray's clandestine way of expressing support for violent Palestinian extremists. Dunkin Donuts pulls the ad.

I told someone at work about this today and he thought that I was putting him on. Story from the CBC here; from Newsday with a side-by-side photo of Ray and Arafat here.

What a bunch of bullshit. I feel a sudden urge to go keffiyeh shopping.

Current Mood: resigned

Current Music: B'z - 野性のENERGY (Yasei no Energy)

Want to tell the world exactly what you're doing right Right RIGHT NOW? Dean Wilson over at UnixDaemon will show you how to wire that up.

Current Mood: bouncy

Current Music: Tal Bachman - She's So High

How the hell did these folks manage to put out seven CDs before I ever heard of them? Just goes to show how well-connected I am to the music scene, I guess. =)

Current Mood: bouncy

Current Music: Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies