It appears that, as of yesterday, Michael Moore has a blog. Welcome to the party, pal.

But, umm…where’s the RSS feed?

Had lunch with my friend Jane today. I haven’t seen her in months, now that she’s an Albertan. It’s been too long…she’s one of the few things I miss about working at that technology startup (whose name I dare not speak)…

Wow, Crush was amazing! Definitely the best value for the money of the Winter/Summerlicious outings we’ve had so far. I went for the cauliflower soup/pork loin/orange chocolate cake, and my wife had the greens/steak/creme brulee. Everything was excellent, the wine was surprisingly good for $39, the service was fantastic and we had a great seat outside that let us people watch on King West. The poor bastard next to us had a girlfriend/date that simply would not shut up, whether to him about nothing in particular or yelling into her cell phone. But it was more amusing than annoying; I felt bad for him. After dinner we walked over to Senses for a wee nip of scotch. I had Bowmore, she had Lagavulin.

Definitely a great start to the Summerlicious slate. Next up: Verveine.

We watched two summer (read: light and fluffy) movies last night: 50 First Dates and Love Actually. The former was about what I expected – dopey, Sandler-esque – and I only agreed to watch it ’cause Drew Barrymore’s in it. Love Actually was a surprise. I expected standard romantic comedy fare, but I sometimes forget that those of the British variety are typically much better then what Hollywood puts out. It’s light enough to make people smile, but it’s intelligent enough to be enjoyable. I recommend it.

50 First Dates…meh. I can only recommend it if you like Adam Sandler and can tolerate Rob Schneider.

It’s been a busy long weekend. Thursday – Canada Day – was actually pretty tame. Yesterday picked up a bit; went for a run in the morning with T-Bone, then breakfast, then walked down to St. Lawrence Market for some fresh goodies. Picked up my new suit from Harry Rosen, rented some movies and for some ungodly reason convinced ourselves it was a good idea to order Pizza Hut. After we ate the grease and watched the movies, we were about done in. It was a long day.

Today (Saturday) was just as busy. We got up early and went out to the Toronto Islands. My wife had never been before, and I’d only been there once. It was a great day in the sun – long walks, frisbee, boat rides, grass, trees, dogs – and we were pooped when we got home. We’re now on our way out the door to dinner at Crush.

And we have one more day left in the weekend!!

We found out this week that it’ll be August of 2006 before we move into our condo. Late August. At least. That’s a long time to wait, man.

Spurred by great reviews and a scary love for both Kirsten Dunst and Mary Jane Watson (and something equivalent to Tobey Maguire for my wife) we lined up to see Spider-Man 2 (imdb | rotten tomatoes). We weren’t disappointed.

Sam Raimi really nailed it: the anguish Peter feels for Uncle Ben, for Mary Jane, for Harry, for his failures as a student. He injects silliness & campiness, but not at the expense of the pain that Spidey – and all the great Marvel characters, really – struggles with every day. The action sequences were better, the rooftep-swinging looked more realistic, and Alfred Molina made a great Doc Ock. He walked just as fine a line as Maguire and Raimi did, between being a compelling movie character and being a comic book villain, and he pulled it off masterfully. Ooh, ooh, and Mary Jane even breaks out a “tiger”. That made me happy. Oh, and J.K. Simmons…I’m not sure they could have found a better J. Jonah Jameson anywhere in the world. What makes his performance that much more remarkable is that I still think of him as one of the most memorable characters to ever appearon TV: Vern Schillinger, resident Nazi rapist on Oz.

I liked the first Spider-Man, but I didn’t think it was a great movie. Spider-Man 2 is. I now have high hopes for the third movie, for which they introduced one obvious villain and another that’s only obvious to people who know their Spidey villains well. Hobgoblin and Lizard, please step up.

from The Globe and Mail

ISPs avoid royalties for music downloads
Canadian Press

Internet service providers do not have to pay royalties to composers and artists for music downloaded by web customers, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Wednesday.

The court ruled 9-0 that companies providing wide access to the web are merely “intermediaries” who are not bound by federal copyright legislation.

At issue was an effort by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) to force Internet service providers to pay a tariff.

SOCAN also argued, in effect, to extend Canadian copyright law beyond the country’s borders and apply it to offshore websites that serve Canadians.

Opposing the effort was the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, including the Canadian subsidiaries of some of the world’s high-tech giants such as Bell, Sprint, AOL, MCI, IBM and Yahoo.

The internet service providers (ISPs) argued that artists should seek royalties directly from websites that offer their works, not from the companies that provide wider-ranging access to the Web.

The case was closely watched abroad because of the international implications for the computer and music industries.

SOCAN’s effort contrasted with the different legal route taken by the recording industry in the United States, where the usual tactic has been to sue particular file-sharing services and the individual customers who download music from them.

The attempt to collect instead from ISPs was significant because they provide an easier target for litigation than tracking down a myriad of individual websites and customers.

In his column today Marcus Gee calls Fahrenheit 9/11 “Noam Chomsky for Dummies”, which is rich considering Mr. Gee’s column seems to just be a dumbed-down copy of this Christopher Hitchens review.

Just saw a cyclist get hit by a cab at the corner of Bloor & Church. The cabbie decided to make a right turn, right into the bike. The guy on the bike didn’t seem hurt, he just got flipped off his bike. Still, the cabbie didn’t seem terribly apologetic.

That’s the 3rd or 4th time I’ve seen this happen at this particular corner in a year. The last time I saw it, there was a police car stopped at the intersection, 15 feet away from where the cyclict had fallen to the ground. The cop didn’t even get out of the car.

Doesn’t really fill me with the desire to travel by bike in this city…