Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh? has a good post about recent SES polls. The third table, a breakdown of the reasons people feel Harper won, is the most interesting. 71% of voters say the Conservatives won because it was “time for a change” or because the “Liberals needed a time out”, both of which are asinine reasons to vote for an opposition party. That’s hardly a surprise though.
Author: Dan Dickinson
Victor Mancini
I just can’t picture Chuck Palahniuk’s book Choke being made into a movie. But I’d love to see someone have a go at it. I read it a few years ago (my brother’s copy…it kept me occupied between London and Toronto) so I only remember bits and pieces, but what I remember would be challenging to film well.
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If you live in Toronto and can think of something that another city’s transit system does that the TTC should, check out this post over at Spacing. They want to hear from you. I suggested something like Seattle’s Busmonster.
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I have a four hour meeting tomorrow afternoon. Who schedules something like that on Friday afternoon? They’d better have Diet Pepsi on hand, or I’m likely to snaploseit.
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That’s right, Girlfriend Du Jour is back. There’ll be a fresh new entry tomorrow morning, and each day for at least a month.
Certified & circumcised
The Hebrew Hammer (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was weird and dumb, but at least it was trying to be weird and dumb. Think Shaft, but (to borrow a phrase from Jon Stewart) Jewey. It was the kind of dumb humour that makes you groan, sprinkled with the occasional genuinely funny scene (like Adam Goldberg dancing or the WASP teacher trying to pronunce “Chanukah”). Avoid unless you’re a fan of Rob Schneider movies or you’re feeling ironic.
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Hmmmmm…anyone for a little Girlfriend Du Jour? I’m bringing it back for…oh, I don’t know, a couple of months maybe?
Gives a whole new meaning to "statuesque"
Not that I watch the Junos, but…you’ve GOT to be kidding me.
I'm having a thermal event
No, not a hot flash.
The test server (read: unauthorized blog server) we use at work had a bit of a meltdown this morning. It seems that it’s fallen prey to a common affliction for this particular Dell configuration. This morning I noticed that it wasn’t running; when I tried to start it up it told me that the previous shutdown had been because of a “thermal event.” I’ve been around computers for a while, but that one was new to me. Anyway, as that link points out, it’s a faulty motherboard capacitor problem, not a problem with the hard drive as I thought initially, so there’s not much to be done about it. Luckily a replacement was already on the way.
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Check out preview.local.live.com (in IE); it looks pretty but doesn’t seem to serve any functional purpose. Like Paris Hilton or my appendix.
Actually, come to that, both of those things are pretty fucking ugly.
Man…you'd have to be some kind of crazy…
Check this guy out…he plans to jump from 40 km up, in space. He’ll probably break 700 mph during his fall.
I dunno…anything that involves saliva boiling off my tongue probably isn’t a must-do for me…
"That's Protestant whiskey!"
We watched the entire third season of The Wire over the weekend. It’s addictive, that show, which I guess explains why we watched 4 episodes a day. It seemed to wrap everything up in a neat little package; I don’t know if they weren’t expecting a fourth season (there will be one, by the way) or if they just wanted to start fresh.
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I gave up travel agencies in favour of airline’s websites 8 or 9 years ago, but recently more sites have completely changed the way I plan my travel. We’ve planned our upcoming trips to New York, Montreal and the Rockies by booking our reward flights on Aeroplan, researching our hotels using Tripadvisor and plain old Google, booking rental cars on Expedia, searching for image of our destinations on Flickr, seeing where our hotels were on Google Maps and ordering guide books from Indigo.
Hey CBS…howzabout you digitally insert these crackers up your ass?
Reuters is reporting that CBS has begun digitally inserting products into TV shows (after they’re filmed) as a way of generating ad revenue. I suspect it’s the same type of technology networks have used to place ads in baseball games (on the backstop) and soccer matches (on the field) in recent years.
Not that product placement is new for the networks, but this just makes it all a lot easier. I guess they have to make up for the fact that everyone (myself included) TiVos shows and skips the commercials nowadays. Still, I’d rather they do product placement than run ads for an upcoming show on the bottom third of the screen while I’m trying to watch something.
Hey Mr. cab driver, can you take a look at my leg?
I’m encouraged by this story in the Globe about Stephen Harper’s intention to talk about credentials for recent immigrants. There are entirely too many skilled professionals in this country who’re caught in a quagmire of bureaucracy, unable to work in their field.
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We tried Veda last night, the new Indian takeout place just up the street. Not very impressive at all; I tend to agree with Steven Davey’s review in Now. I mean, it’s pretty hard to mess up butter chicken, but it was pretty bad. Don’t think we’ll be going back. Trouble is, our local indian options are dropping off now that Banjara‘s closed up shop.
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The Olympic closing ceremonies might be more painful to sit through than the Oscars. Yeesh. Still, pretty exciting to see Vancouver get the handoff and get ready for their day in the sun. Or snow, as it were.
Own the podium
Another event, another medal for Cindy Klassen (she finished third; Clara Hughes won the gold). Five medals in one olympics. Pretty incredible. Speaking of incredible, and speaking of Clara Hughes, not many people could win two medals in olympic cycling and two medals in speed skating.
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Still on incredible women: MacLeans talks to Neko Case. She loves her some Canada, and Canada loves her back.
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We’ve had a really easy winter so far here in Toronto. I can barely remember any sustained snowfall (certainly nothing like this storm in St. John’s; I hope they got all their curling-inspired partying over with before it hit!) and very few days of really numbing cold. Still, it’s been really grey and dreary, so I can’t wait for spring.
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The Raptors tanked another one today, blowing a 28-point halftime lead over the Mavs. Well, I guess they didn’t tank it so much as Dallas just caught fire from beyond the arc. Chris Bosh is good, but he’s just not as clutch as Dirk Nowitzki. Yet.
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Economics is almost done. One last bit of reading to do, and then one last assignment; if I finish it by the middle of next week, I’ll have three weeks off before the class starts. Good thing, too; I have a trip to New York and a ton of March Madness watching planned in there.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 