I'm so sorry to hear about Smudge. Even if it was the right thing to do, it's still very hard. We put Duncan to sleep in August and I miss him terribly.
I also miss your wonderful father. And I'm very glad that Smudge was a link between him and The Wuzzle.
Big Holiday Hugs all around

You may like this article

Toronto: Justice Denied
Is Toronto being taken over by hucksters,
fauxhemians, and the “knowledge economy”?

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/200...ture-mark-kingwell/

Whim, more or less.

Like your new blog name, but just curious, why the change?

Re the highchair with or without tray. People with small kitchens often buy the chair without the tray as it is desined to fit snugly up to a table and allows the toddler to be safe and confined, but eat at the main table. A boon in small european houses. Also useful for activities such as finger painting, or playdough where you need a larger surface than the tray itself. ikea design!

I like the August 4 pix - bucolic scenes of father and young son oblivious to the stealthy triffids looming behind them.

Ahhhhhh!!!!!!Baby is attacking The evil High-Chair! Is He or is He not?

(I like Astrid's use of the capitals for 'He' because he's a deity - K :-))

Wow! I'll say progress! Most beautiful and impressive! We have a front garden of which I'm quite proud but it's a bit um.. scragglier than yours. :)

Hi--The pretty yellow flower is Golden Goblin Blanket Flower,--Gaillardia "Golden Goblin": bought a raft of tiny pots in a deep-discount sale on Lynden Road last fall, gave some to you in the spring having wintered them in the box you made for me. It's a success, eh?

Cherry Beach.

I like the canoe pix a lot. Where were they taken? I'm guessing Lake Ontario for the sake of convenience, but can't guess where.

A couple. I'll send when home.

Btw, did any of the botanical garden photos turn out?

Nice fireplace.... drool..... me like very much....

Exactly the same shot, too - only the client was different. I can see why the same idea occured to two different photogs, but still -

Check out today's Globe for a portrait of... Uncle Corrado. There are at least three other old-time barbers I can think of to write about -- Frank, who just moved from McCaul and D'Arcy to a basement on Dundas, Gus, the famous other barber, and the barber next to the bus station on Bay -- so I'm not sure there's any excuse for two stories on Uncle C. in one week.

#3 and #5 are pretty recognizable, especially #5. Otherwise, I'd agree.

Neat photos--amazing how little is left of 1874 Toronto (and none of this area was affected by the 1904 fire).

He IS stylin'
Is that a chuck roast and overalls he's sporting?
Elf hats ARE the new black.
K

That is one adorable elfinwuzzle!! I love the jaunty yellow boots. And I love the way his hat matches the blue stripes on the playground! Way to colo(u)r coordinate, Wuzzle!

Yea! The Wuzzle is back!

I think banning anteaters is unreasonable - they eat termites, for one thing.

Ohhh, *shucks*! Hens (Gallus gallus domesticus) believed (by Wikipedia and thus all too widely) to be descended from the wild Indian and south-east Asian Red Junglefowl are the quintessential Galliformes. Too bad! A gamecock would be the perfect adjunct to house renovation: they have have fabulously penetrating and courageous crows! (Your grandma kept a gamecock and his hen in the driveway during WWII to enjoy his courage and fighting challenge.)

I think it's hens, but not geese, turkeys or ducks.

The Bees Act provides as follows:

19 (1) No person shall place hives or leave hives containing bees within 30 metres of a property line separating the land on which the hives are placed or left from land occupied as a dwelling or used for a community center, public park or other place of public assembly or recreation.

Ooops. No pigs. Honey bees are neither venomous and poisonous since their stings, are, of course, beneficial to arthritis, and, of course, the Science Museum keeps bees.... Are hens Galliformes?

Hmmm. This opens possibilities! You can keep a pig and hens (and... gamecocks)? Bees?

hee!

They're from the early '80s, just before composite materials became common. They were once painted birch laminate, but the paint eventually started to look really banged up, so I stripped them down to the wood and put on a wax and oil finish. It makes them look very old, but honestly, for the era they were mid-priced cross-country skis.

dude, where did you get the skiis? The 1950's?

I'm so glad to see someone talk about Sally's book! I must pick it up.

And doesn't it make you want to photograph your entire house, purely for posterity?

Having noticed my compost withdrawal symptoms whilst in NY after Christmas, Paul pointed me in the direction of your compost entry and other notes heavily horticultural. Most impressive - and in fact would look fine in his backyard space!! Having (yesterday) ceremoniously emptied our first compost onto the brand new raised vegetable beds just completed on the hillside of our new residence in this village, it was especially apt. Jane

Giant German bunnies? Patrick, you are that very same person who grew up with the lovely Harry, who was half Flemish Giant, and Harry was a very big rabbit indeed. He was an excellent rabbit, kind and affectionate and very nearly housetrained, who went to Jon Arno's kindergarten class on a visit, and everyone made a circle with their legs and Harry hopped around and visited within the circle. You can housetrain a rabbit, almost, they seem to be able to use a box for the pee and one variety of poop, like a cat, but there's a second category of poop which seems harder for a housetrained rabbit to control, so there are always a few beans here and there, nothing to worry about: the big concern with a rabbit in the house is chewing lampcords and other less essential items, of course; the lampcords are the most ...uh... disconcerting. I would keep another rabbit like Harry at the drop of a hat, so much brighter and more fun than a guineapig, tho' we were all devoted to Dinny.

Hurray!

I have yet to get that shot totally right - he's actually a bit out of focus.

He's young to use that slide, so he really has to be spotted going down it, though it's awkward to shoot and wait for the sliding toddler at the same time. Also, if he stands just a bit back, he's not red, which I think would be a nicer effect.

Trial and error to come, I think.

Great Wuzzle photo!

Mr. Wuzzle totally has your eyes, Patrick.

Also, can I persuade you to switch over to WordPress so you can have comments appended to individual posts???? I'm 99% sure you could import your db.

DITTO!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PATRICK!

Not speaking generally about Torontoist's ability to pick up on peoples' Flickr posts, but this particular post came three days after they were scooped by Boing Boing.

And so you should be very proud, Catharine; the Wuzzle is a marvel. Belated Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Thomas!

<snort>

Arncha gonna add that you came full circle and poured MORE concrete last weekend?

Two scrap pieces of MDF lying on the roof, attached to the loops on the bottom. It was blown over at one point, and stuck out from the roof like a figurehead, but that was a satisyfying effect too.

How did you manage to poise your pumpkin snowman on the peak of the roof, Patrick? I have a hard enough time persuading mine to stand drunkenly lopsided supported full lenth by a t-bar fence post!

Hi, Ann -

We were staying outside Montepulciano, and spent a week exploring, in a low-pressure sort of way.

Wow, Patrick. Lovely, lovely photos. Looks and sounds like a wonderful trip! Where exactly were you?

Well, you could slash their tires. Just a thought...

The funniest thing is that they've stuck the licence plate on some crappy midrange Chevy truck. Not to be a snob, but at least sticking it on some bling'ed out Hummer or Caddy, you'd have a half-way worthwhile opponent. But this is just pathetic. Bring on the $5 a gallon gas, I say; whatever it takes to get rid of these path8tk cr8ns.

Hi, A. Nonymous -

It's not done yet.

You did all that work and you didn't prime and paint the end cuts of your porch? Why would you do HOURS of work and then skimp on 15 minutes worth? Especially since: If any water gets into your boards they're going to rot from the inside now that you sealed the bottoms. The slightest chink in your "paint armour" will allow moisture into your boards and now it can't escape because the bottom is sealed. It's a bad, bad idea to seal the whole board. It may have seemed like a good idea but it's really one of the worst things you could have done.

I actually do like souvlaki. Doesn't everybody?

The real problem is scale. TOTD was probably a manageable street festival at some point in the '90s, but it's gone far beyond the neighbourhood's carrying capacity. Anyway, I enjoy being a curmudgeon.

Patrick, do you really like souvlaki?

Welcome to the city! Millions of people live here. For 60 hours, some of them are in your neighbourhood. Just thank your lucky stars that Greece didn't qualify for the World Cup this year. The Euro Cup returns in 2008, by the way -- you might want to start planning now.

Don't you live near a subway station?

You are all always welcome here... That new fence will come in handy in mid-August, eh?

You should buy it! (Although the words "retro 70s reno" set off a loud warning bell, which some of the photos suggest may be justified.)

I recognize the house, although it didn't realize it was Jane Jacobs'. For some reason I always thought she lived on Admiral Road.

What, the curvy pieces? I took them down to repaint.

I was looking at your porch just a few days ago and wondered about the notch. We're around the corner on Logan in the house with the "Children of the Corn," planting in front.

Finished our porch last year... it was worth it.

Robert

Good luck. Urban raccoons have developed a taste for cayenne pepper, I think. And why would the mother raccoon leave when there's a whole newly planted garden for her to dig up next door?

I knew it was plum. Let's hope the tree bears fruit this year so the question can be settled once and for all!

The raccoon saga reminds me of the early days of our cottage when we started to suspect that squirrels might have gotten into the space between the kitchen ceiling and the roof. We started poking at the ceiling; it turned out that the entire space had been crammed full of pine cones et al. by industrious squirrels (floor ankle deep in pine cones by the time we were finished). Eventually came to suspiciously heavy bit of pine cones complete with real live baby squirrels. Put suspiciously heavy bundle outside, then watched mother squirrel retrieve and relocate. Solution was similar to Patrick's: fiberglass between joists, then tongue-and-groove following the slant of the roof leaving no space in between. And chicken wire on the outside.

Yes, Joyce! Yesterday, while looking for our handbook of bird eggs/nests east of the Mississippi, found Petrides, A FIELD GUIDE TO TREES AND SHRUBS (Boston: HM, 1958), and p. 124/228 American Plum, of which there are "several hundred varieties" and "some are cultivated"; it's the only *thorny* plum to have sharp leaf teeth and regularly to lack glands on leafstalks, and one of its main characteristics for ID is a shaggy bark. (Does that little tree's bark qualify as "shaggy"? It's certainly very strikingly varigated.) It's the teensy thorns on that Logan Ave. tree which are so soft as to not register as thorns (but you can see 'em in a close-up photo of twigs and blossoms) which made the Royal Botanical Garden's garden-help folk think hawthorn; but lo and behold! Here's a description of a thorny plum! So... Maybe this is one of the cultivated varieties of the American plum, with thorns so vestigal that only the camera "knows"? The thing about the plums is, they're often self-sterile, and this tree bore fruit year before last (NB: seeds in the fruit are somewhat flattened). Maybe the next step is to examine a leaf and the "leaf-arrangement"? Uh...where are the glands, usually, on a leaf-stalk, in order to to check for their lack?

The flowers bear a striking resemblance to plum - the national flower of Taiwan. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum

The flowers don't look as rounded as any photos of apricot blossoms I can find online... maybe you could take a little sprig off and wander around Edwards Gardens or someplace with helpful plaques.

Patrick, the hawthorn I'm familiar with has an overpowering scent plus lots of thorns. The flowers also look too big for hawthorn. I'm enjoying the saga about thr racoon family

We're not sure. Somebody thought it might be a plum.

 I'm enjoying the porch renovation pictures. Re the tree . Are you changing your mind about it being an apricot?

The funny thing was, as far as I could tell it wasn't really gardened in, though there may have been a few annuals which sank without trace in years past. There was something that might have been a madonna lily (dead) and some ornamental grass (also dead) - that was pretty much it.

It would have been kind of impressive filled with something big and invasive - bamboo, maybe.

That planter had better foundations than our house! Not a good thing from either point of view, that.

Edited by author 03-29-2006 04:35 PM
We asked the demolishers to tell us if they found any - the foreman looked at us oddly and said 'It wouldn't be the first time.'

Have they found the bodies yet?

Impressive work on the baby room renovation! And a well-told saga, albeit vicariously exhausting.

Get the skis ready! Snow is in the forecast! (well, maybe just a couple of centimetres. But still.)

I make part 1 as 2 Iroquois class, 1 Protecteur class, and 4 Halifax Class. Plus 5 Kingston class as under part 3.

Part 2 appears to be mothballed stuff, I think. I make it to be two Restigouche class destroyer escorts and 4 of the old Oberon class subs. The odd one is I think and Anticosti class mine layer. The active fleet's across the river, on the west side. There I make it to be various Fisheries and Coast Guard vessels, 3 Kingston class, 1 Protecteur class, 5 Halifax class, and 2 Victoria class (one in dry dock).

A decent ref site can be found here: http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/canada/postwar/

Re IKEA...maybe it's just parents' way of getting back at them. What was that statistic about 3 in 10 Europeans being conceived in an IKEA bed? Maybe the parents figure they're *owed*.

*snort*

So basically if you put your current books together, you get the weatherstripping of the altars?

Check your inbox - :)

More photos of the Snapper please!!

Congratulations!!!

I thought Insulate and Weatherize was topical enough, in an indirect way.

Will have to see if Taunton has a series for children: Baby's First Router, that kind of thing.

Time for a new "this is what I'm reading" book! I suggest this one.

;-)

Anyone eager to join in the Russell/Help Mom cat-dog fray might want to take a break and take a look at my book about conservative Humans: HOW TO EAT LIKE A REPUBLICAN, or, Hold the Mayo, Muffie, I'm Feeling Miracle Whipped Tonight (Villard/Random House,July 2003).

It'a cookbook from the point of view of a New York Republican (despite Mike and Rudy, Republicans are outnumbered in New York City 6-1, or roughly the ratio of women to men on any given Carnival cruise), a rare breed indeed. From Chapter One (Champagne Finance Reform to Chapter Nine (Unimpeachable Desserts, or the Party's Over), everybody eats -- and drinks -- well, including John McCain, Bob Dole and Rush Limbaugh. And includes,importantly for Liberals, an invaluable section called REPUBLICANS OF NORTH AMERICA: A FIELD GUIDE.

Just a thought. In the meantime, let's keep the conservative books coming, but please, with a sense of humor. We are Republicans, we can afford to have a sense of humor.

Re the door library. I admit to being an old door geek. I love old doors. I must refrain myself from picking up old doors I do not need. (every time I see one in a dumpster I'm like oooh aaah) I scored some brass doorknobs and plates out of a dumpster that matched mine exactly, that I could not find something even close at the door store and even if I could would have cost me big time. The Door Store is exceedingly expensive. Slightly less expensive but still overpriced is the Salvage Shop on Queen East near Leslie run by a former Door Store employee. I like that place out in Cobourg too. Email me what you are looking for, I have a few extra grates and doors kicking around the basement, if one is the right size for you I could trade or sell em to you. Sadly Garbage Palace has closed down (formerly at Queen/Ossington) where I scored two reasonably priced old doors, I loved that place and know of no other cheap place in TO with a decent old door selection. Although there is also the Habitat for Humanity restore store. They have lots of doors and are in North York, I can't remember the exact location.

Nothing since Oct. 13??? Your audience is getting impatient... :)

We decided to fix (replace) our own eavestroughs with the help of my boyfriends brother who does general construction, and were standing on the porch roof to try to figure out a good plan before proceeding to the store. Of all strange coincidences a roofer happened to wander by (visiting his friend, a neighbour of ours) and in his oh-no-novices-trying-to-fix-eavestroughs dismay climbed up the ladder and helped fix them in place (raising them up and driving in new nails) - so we didn't have to get new ones after all. My boyfriends brother didn't like the roofer's plan of how to fix them, but they have not leaked once since.

RE eavestroughs these days, which is to say, non-rusting aluminum--which is to say, the eavestrough version of sliced bread--these require special equipment to install: special cutters, crimps, rivets, etc. Therefore, the eavestroughers however dim but nevertheless competent re eavestroughs, who own that equipment plus the extension ladders to go with it, have the rest of us over a barrel. *With* that equipment, doesn't take 'em two shakes, and well worth the $$. Here's a caveat RE old houses: an eavestrougher insisted we replace a perfectly sound facia board, so I phoned the carpenter, an andient and favorite Austrian, who came and replaced it, it having been damaged by the eavestrougher, while grumblng mightily. The teenaged eavestrougher was blythe. The Logan St. house isn't that wide, should be pretty easy to rig eavestroughs, if have the crimps, rivets, etc., not comparable to this house, in which eavestroughs service two cisterns, east and west, etc.

Pictures dammit!

As sign of complete domestication, pictures of homey kitchens much more satisfying than pictures of cannon. Oh well.

Thx! Will try this tomorrow morning -

The footbridge is rickety but functional... you should be OK. It just *looks* like there's construction that might stop it from being usable. I used it running on Sunday.

Good luck with the renovations!

yeah, noticed that one. you could probly send it in for a correction, if you felt in need of a project. the winery's site says $16.95, FWIW.

Re Ontario whites article--I wonder if anyone has tried the Vineland Chenin Blanc, at $416.95...

Edited by author 06-28-2005 10:50 PM
Ah. This is a plot development I'd forgotten to explain: the rectangle had *orginally* been a triangle. Perhaps its past will be explained in future episodes, a la George Lucas.

I'm curious about the role of the triangle. The rectangle seems to be being quite mean to it.

Re: urbanites opening the door post - I don't have a doorbell but I actually do almost always open the door when someone knocks without looking through the peephole first (unless its an odd hour) I usually come to regret this decision although I guess I keep doing it because the odd time I'm pleasantly surprised. I make a point not to answer though right after a snowstorm then its always "can I shovel your walkway?" The door-to-door can I do something for money types get annoying when they don't take no for an answer or start doing something on the property anyway after NO and closing the door. I've just put up a "No flyers, free newspapers, advertisements or unaddressed junkmail" sign. I should add to this "We don't donate at the door, we don't need any snow shovelling or lawn mowing, and no religious discussions thank you!"

Looks rather like the oval wanted to be more than "just friends", as it were...

Try it now.

The ads are great but your "too good to be true" link just takes me back to the same page.

That Labour ad is hilarious. I assume one of these viral things that got accidentally (or perhaps "accidentally") leaked by the party or its agency?

Regarding those present at the death of Pope John Paul II.
It would be interesting to know who was allowed in to visit him as he lay dying. Apart from clergy, who were the lay people - male and female - who were invited in by Dziwisz? Were these the same friends who witnessed the closing of the coffin and the burial?

I enjoyed Wells's comments on the Tory campaign website. Alas, when I went to look, the posted slogan was "Less Talk More Action". I wonder if they have caved in to the relentless mockery and pulled the "Are you thinking" line? One blogger hit the ineptitude on the head: "It's like dog-whistle politics but out loud."

Regarding (http://www.snappingturtle.net/gigantichound/archives/005299.html) the attendants to the Holy Father at his death, I'm not sure whether it is the omission of the nuns or the nurses names that were the cause of the post. In any case, it is traditional for nuns not to be named. It's part of their holy orders much as monks also tend to shed their individuality. The superiors, the leadership do get named mostly for the practical reason that they have to deal with the outside world.

Yes, but do the tombstone people make memorials for witch hazels?

South-facing, yes. The brick wall at the back seems to radiate heat first thing in the spring.

(Things were a bit earlier last year - I think it was a milder winter.)

Wow, things in bloom already! All I have is a front yard still covered in snow. Does your garden face south?

Heavy airlift on a light budget link - The link to MCpl Sean Marshall writing on a proposal to start a Crown corporation leasing Ilyushins or Antonovs doesn't seem to be working, I think it is this one: http://www.sfu.ca/casr/mp-airlift.htm

Peter/Blue Jays Way is too full of motorists having testosterone-related crises, IME. Also, it's sloooow.

I still swear by the Skydome elevator. Come down John, which is easy to get to via a left onto Stephanie if you're southbound on Beverley; at the very foot of John, ride straight across Front and up the ramp to Skydome. There's a useful wheelchair ramp to your right. Ride over the bridge over the tracks; the elevator (behind more-or-less unmarked glass doors) is immediately south of the bridge on the left (east).

The nice thing is the the elevator has two sets of doors so you can ride in and ride out -- nice not to have to dismount if you have, say, a kid on the back of your bike! At the bottom, you can ride out onto Bremner; a right takes you to Rees, left onto Queen's Quay and you're set.

They sent me an e-mail saying they were looking into it.

Did you get any response from Olivia Chow about the Bremner sensor issues?

Ok. That wasn't totally clear to me. Anyway, have you tried taking Peter/Blue Jays Way to get around to Bremner? Not that you should have to...

The left-hand from southbound turn, yes.

Re: Bremner... Do you mean the left-hand turn lane from Spadina?

Funny I don't consider myself hardcore :) Just medium core maybe :) BTW I just fixed my blogger settings so that posts could get perma links ... so the URL for IKEA Vaughan is http://crazybikerchick.blogspot.com/2004/1...a-stitchin-and.html

I didn't really think that Bush message was all that bad. Maybe I've just seen him speaking too much recently on the debates. He does seem to be struggling to remember a script at first, but once he gets off-topic onto the heat and functioning air conditioners of Texas, he's at the top of his game.

Re: that map and essay. Yup, it was me. Thanks for the link!

Edited by author 10-02-2004 04:54 PM
Patrick, my new Scott from Bluewater kevlar canoe weighs 16 lbs without the sponsons. Looking forward to seeing Italy pix...

Oh, but they cheated, Andrew, they cheated. All those pix are from the company's site.

(On the other hand, check out the Catte Towne as recorded in the Bayeux Tapestry: http://www.spatch.net/cattown/episode-tapestry.html)

Get thee behind me, Satan. :)

From the Japanese website you link to, giving directions on how to dress up your cat:

2. After you are enough with your joy, take a photo!

I am never enough with my joy.

But I would pay large amounts of money for a pic of Smudge in a duckie hat. LARGE amounts.

Patrick... I think the cat photos you found are the inspiration for this amusing site:
http://www.spatch.net/cattown/episode1.html

Re. subways... the diagrams are quite interesting, illustrating among other things that size (in the sense of area covered) doesn't matter as much as you might think. The Washington Metro goes on forever, but as I recall it used to be a major effort to try to get people living in the far out parts of it to actually *use* the system...

I.

We did! More tinkering to come, maybe.

Nice turtle! Time to update the main snappingturtle.net home page...

a degree of tardness, perhaps.

Sally McKay's blog sort of implies that the training was due to sloppy early efforts.

Is it just me, or does the fact that they felt that they had to have courses in how to spray-bomb a bike ring and associated bike husk indicative of a high degree of tardness?

What was the big challenge? Don't point nozzle at your face? Don't ingest? What?

Your suggested headline is just about perfect, although the Honest Keeper wasn't quite quick enough to save Jim from the reforming Lion in Belloc's version.

The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
"Ponto!" he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion's name),
"Ponto!" he cried, with angry Frown,
"Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!"
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.

Keep in mind that, based on the stated survey methodology, bad data tends to endure and to produce its own pseudo-trend. My read on their blurb is that they have a sample size of 600 individuals, but each individual stays in the sample for 3 days, meaning that they only sample 200 people a day -- that's a small enough sample, that if you get a weird crop of respondents on one day it can really affect things, and then the effect persists for two more days. This seems to me to be a somewhat spurious way of smoothing out their curve.

Edited by author 06-14-2004 09:30 PM
Yo Yo Yo
 OTTAWA (CP) — Ed Broadbent challenged his Conservative opponent in Ottawa Centre on Monday to a battle — the hip-hop term for a rap off.
 “Yo Mike!,” begins the written challenge to Mike Murphy issued under Broadbent’s tongue-in-cheek stage name Rapper Ed-to-the-B-Bop-Bent.
 It followed the Conservative Party of Canada’s complaint that it considers Broadbent’s rap video on his web site to be the equivalent of free bling bling.
 The Ottawa-Centre Conservative riding association complained to Elections Canada that the one-minute spoof on Ed as a rapper is in violation of election law.
 It doesn’t mind the former NDP leader rapping that “the NDP train is leaving the station and is the social conscience of the nation.”
 Its complaint is the video was donated by the production company that made it and exceeds the $1,000 limit on campaign contributions.
 Broadbent spokesman Rob Sutherland wasn’t down with that.
 “They don’t know how to have fun, these guys,” Sutherland said.
 “We’re trying to have fun in an otherwise negative campaign,” he said.
 Broadbent appealed for cooler heads to prevail.
 "The Conservatives have got to chill,” he said in a news release that promised all expenses would be claimed, including those for the video.
 The 68-year-old Broadbent is decidedly not rap-like — he doesn’t carry a cell phone — and could not provide further comment.
 The campaign says the video may be ”too hip” for Ottawa Centre Conservatives.

You know that the Ed's Back ad was created by This Hour Has 22 Minutes, right? From the cbc.ca website:

Meanwhile, a mock ad created by This Hour Has 22 Minutes featuring former leader Ed Broadbent wielding boxing gloves and rapping about being back in politics as an NDP candidate in Ottawa has turned into the real thing. It never aired on the popular TV show, but the NDP got permission to put it on the party's website, labeled "Ed's Back." With a vibrant green background spouting red Seuss-like text, Broadbent delivers a punchy script peppered with lines like "Come out now, Martin, and fight like a man." At one point, half of Jack Layton's face slides up in a teasing manner as Broadbent says: ""If you have doubts that we'll be back, then listen up: You don't know Jack." So far, at least 13,000 people have watched the peppy 55-second spot on the NDP website, and the numbers should shoot up given media coverage in recent days.

What they neglect to say was that they had to cut it from This Hour because the ombudsman judged it to not display sufficient balance, or something.

The campaign knows the Broadbent rap won't work on anyone. They did it as kind of a flyer and that's why it doesn't actually run as a TV ad, you have to seek it out on the NDP or Broadbent campaign website.

Edited by author 06-03-2004 10:27 PM
what? it's a nice modest one. won't hurt a bit.

No. Just no. Repeat after me: "I have no need for a naval gun, no matter how small."

ROBTv has also interviewed the people who run the Vice Fund... twice now I think.

Looks like Klein's attempts to distance himself from sympathy with a dictator haven't been working out as hoped:

Alberta's Klein Accused of Plagiarism in Essay, Journal Says
2004-05-13 14:23 (New York)


By Reg Curren
     May 13 (Bloomberg) -- Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has been
accused of plagiarism while writing a paper for his university
degree in communications, the Edmonton Journal reported.
     About five pages of the 13-page paper on Chilean politics
and media were lifted directly from various Internet sites
without benefit of quotation marks or appropriate attribution,
the Journal reported.
     Athabasca University's academic vice-president, Judith
Hughes, told the Journal that her office is following up several
complaints about the paper. Klein, 62, released his essay to the
public last week to rebut criticism that he made sympathetic
comments about former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the
legislature.
     The paper, for which Klein received a grade of 77 percent,
does include original information from personal interviews, the
newspaper said. His spokeswoman, Marisa Etmanski, said in a
telephone interview that the issue ``should be between the
student and his school.''
     The premier's feelings are ``going to be hurt by this,'' she
said. Klein included a list of Web sites he'd consulted in his
endnotes at the conclusion of his paper, the Journal reported.

(Edmonton Journal 5-13 Web site)
For the Edmonton Journal's Web site, see {EJRL <GO>}

I see that the QuickTopic thunkage has inverted this set of comments as well.

Change. Ugh, I don't like it. </geezer>

Last night I saw my first TV commercial featuring a Roomba (that was not actually advertising Roomba, I mean). It was an ad for -- I think -- a beverage, but obviously not very successful, since all I remember was the Roomba and not the actual product they were flogging.

I like the Roomba webcam.

My prize for funniest entry goes to the medium security K-6 education facility.

I skimmed a book by the author a little while back -- tendentious and cranky. A good read, in other words.

Well, perhaps. You'd need a hammer drill to put anything into the walls, though, like the Graduate House (Toront-O) students.

Oh, c'mon, you guys lack imagination. I can think of many concrete-womb advantages -- you could fill your dorm room with matter, for starters (electric jello, plastic balls, soap suds immediately spring to mind). And the soundproofing must be phenomenal -- perfect for blasting Slipknot CDs at 3am.

Edited by author 04-19-2004 02:06 PM
Here's the image I was thinking of -

http://tinyurl.com/2znsz

(The cutline on the original read -

Inmates in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison spend 23 hours a day in their cells with only 1 hour a day to spend in the 10' X 20' cement room for exercise.)

The concrete womb analogy is particularly apropos when you consider that it's a dorm at MIT, if memory serves. Might as well be an isolation cell -- making it resemble the womb only serves to drive home the "you ain't getting any, should have gone to Harvard" point that MIT really is all about.

My first reaction to the concrete womb was that it looked a lot like pictures of the isolation cells at Pelican Bay.

I particularly liked the playground shot (Dec. 2003); it never fails to astound me that playgrounds are still being constructed without secure fences around the perimetre. (And this one's right next to what looks like it could be a busy road -- perfect.) This more or less ensures that the parent has to stay without about 4 feet of their kid at all times. Sounds very relaxing.

I saw that guy's website posted somewhere else a while back when he named the OCAD building Eyesore of the Month in Nov. 2003. Love the expression "hyper-entropic avant garde faggotry" and always will.

Though I must say, if he can't see the appeal of a concrete womb to an MIT student (see Feb 2004), he lacks imagination.

Also, you have a spelling mistake in this post...Stat instead of Start...sorry, couldn't resist correcting that...

Part II: http://www.bowjamesbow.net/2003/01/08-the_canadi.shtml

Part III: http://www.bowjamesbow.net/2003/01/11-the_canadi.shtml

Follow Up: http://www.bowjamesbow.net/2003/01/13-the_canadi.shtml

Monday, January 06, 2003


In the coming days, I'll discuss what could be fixed, and how it might be done.

? :)

(ahem) First in blogland?

http://www.bowjamesbow.net/2003/01/06-the_canadi.shtml

I doubt I could call myself the first, however. :-)

I think your blurb on U.S. conscription overlooks the civil war, where conscription was brought in late in the game and led to plenty of ethnic strife, especially in New York, only Irish-black instead of Anglo-Franco.

Frank Iaccabocci is free....

I'm told Borden was on the old hundred. Never having had enough money to actually own a hundred-dollar bill at any point, that's just a rumour, though.

Where's your Fisking? I was promised a Fisking and I want one, dammit. I haven't seen a good Fisking since just after the verb was coined, in fact...

You're just picking on that nice man Mr. Borden.

Wow -- the political contribution page is unbelievable. Who would've guessed there were Republicans living in the neighborhood -- must be some kind of diversity program.

Try it now.

Still getting used to Movable Type -

Great site! I tried to follow a link to a star article (on Miller vs the incompetent right) and it didn't work... Expired at source?

Edited by author 03-05-2004 12:08 PM
Well, I think this board is a brilliant idea. Wish I'd thought of it.

"one more car"! Too bad we never got around to making you the bumper sticker we threatened.

The Aht Gallery (Canvas) has a beautiful website!

I thank the driver whenever I get off at the front...mainly because I feel guilty about getting off at the front, I expect!

In the *early* morning the passengers on the Bathurst streetcar do thank the driver, but when they get on. They don't later in the morning, possibly because it's so crowded with people insisting on getting out the front, not the back door.

I thought the

Comments (O)
Comments (O)

thing was kind of sad, repeated. Also, it keeps actual comments from getting lost far down on the page.

I've been TTCing. I only drive once a month or so. It's my least favourite way of *getting* to work - on the bike I'm all muscular and alive, and on the subway I can at least read. (Though I have to say: on a late shift, driving home *rocks*. </heresy> I use Spadina, strange as that may sound.)

I hate this new comment-posting method, by the way...

Does this mean you're actually DRIVING to work everyday? You of the "one less car" sticker?

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