The Superbowl happened. Yawn. The Superbowl ads were on. More yawning. Not that I’m a big football fan anyway, but I used to watch the Superbowl. Now it’s just too…staged. It’s no longer a sporting event; it’s a circus with a football game attached.

I tried watching the first few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD, but I just couldn’t get into it. It’s like watching an episode of Seinfeld with all the Jerry, Elaine and Kramer bits cut out. Same character, same neuroses, same whining. I couldn’t even finish the disc. Just sent it back. I’d probably have preferred to watch the Superbowl…

I really, seriously hope that this is a joke. Or just a wildly overstated artist’s impression. I’ll be living a few blocks from the intended landing zone of this alien monstrosity, so I don’t relish the idea of getting a neon sunburn after every northerly neighbourhood stroll.

BlogTO: equally freaked.

A few months ago I read that CBS would be broadcasting all the March Madness games online for free. Yesterday pc sent me the URL. God help worker productivity around the continent.

I think I’ll miss Selection Sunday as we’ll be on our way to (or wandering around) New York, but the papers the next day should be filled with coverage. I remember flying into Kansas City a few years ago on Selection Sunday; the next morning USA Today (not my choice; it’s what was outside my hotel room door) had a special March Madness section. I was in heaven. Actually, I was in Kansas City, but the pullout made it bearable.

Ah, Canadian politics. You can cut the hypocrisy with a knife.

Gmail is adding some cool new stuff. My GoogleTalk sessions are stored in the gmail history, and now they plan to embed GoogleTalk directly within Gmail itself.

There’s certainly no shortage of news about the Danish cartoons, but I found this article in The Guardian very interesting.

Muslim protesters infuriated by cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad raised the diplomatic stakes last night as Iran’s best-selling newspaper announced it would retaliate by running images satirising the Holocaust.

I think this is an excellent idea. Here’s why: it uses reason rather than violence to make a point. Granted, it may be an intended as an exercise in petty revenge rather than a thought-out appeal for empathy, but let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the latter. Of course, on seeing such a cartoon in the Hamshari daily, any reasonable person would say, “That’s absurd, of course the holocaust happened, there’s loads of evidential proof, the Jews of Europe didn’t just up and move to Uruguay, etc., etc.” Said reasonable person would then wonder to themselves how any newspaper could publish something so offensive to so many people. And, of course, it would then dawn on this reasonable person that they’ve just described the very situation that Muslims found themselves in when they saw offensive caricatures of one of their holy figures, and the reasonable person would admit their own hypocrisy and shortcomings and realize the error of the Danish cartoonist.

This assumes, of course, that everyone is reasonable. 🙂 But unreasonable folks certainly aren’t going to respond well to the torching of embassies and placards about killing either, so why not try to change minds with reason and intelligence rather than armed mobs? The only thing this violence has achieved is to give some people (who don’t like Islam much to begin with) an excuse to point fingers and call names…like these fine folks who Antonia Zerbisias calls out.

OK, back to work.