Author: Peter

Blog FAIL

The last time I posted at least one new item in every month of a year was in 2006. Last year I missed December; this year I missed January and March. I can’t even claim to have been working on other things because I wasn’t running the site at that point.

At this rate the four of you are only going to have until 2017 to read my increasingly rare and nevertheless decreasingly sparkling insights. Just thought you’d like something to look forward to. 🙂

A monkey sneezing

You know it, you love it….

You can’t write stuff like that.

I’ve seen the clip every night since Dave first aired it, and I think I’ve finally figured out why it’s great. It’s not the sneeze itself; not the suspense; not even the look on Sherman’s face. It’s the “honk” right at the end.

I’m thinking of using it as my system beep.

CBC podcasts being truncated

In the last few weeks, several CBC podcasts have regularly been truncated in mid-interview or mid-sentence. For example, the As It Happens podcast is one which has been running short: yesterday’s “Best of”, which usually runs near 45 minutes, was cut off just after the 15-minute mark (ironically in a story about amputation). The worst I’ve seen so far is today’s Vinyl Café, which ends after just over a minute—but is nevertheless surrounded by the CBC header and footer bumpers! (Update: looks like the Vinyl Cafe episode has been fixed and re-posted, but still no dice on AIH.)

I reported the problem a few days ago and again today. I haven’t had any response and the problem persists, but with luck someone is on the other end of the contact form and the problem will be resolved before too much longer. I hope they also re-post the files for the incomplete editions. (Update 2: AIH episodes have also been updated, although not re-posted.)

Pattern recognition

In-and-Out. Chuck Cadman. Afghanistan. Torture. Linda Keen. Arthur Carty. Marc Mayrand. Dalton McGuinty. InSite. Listeriosis. Crime. Science. Academia. Elections Canada. Omar Khadr. Gordon O’Connor. Maxime Bernier. Canadian soldiers. The Military Police Complaints Commission. The ethics committee. The press gallery. CAIRS. Access to information. Notaleader.ca. The federal budget. The economy. The recession.

The emblem of this government has become a furious male face screaming indignation in the arena of our democracy. At every turn, the response has been to obfuscate, manipulate and demonize. Everything has been opportunity to divide. Truth has been tangential. Ethics and morals have been deemed quaint. The Game has superseded all. Short-term political advantage is all that’s mattered. Nothing worth doing if it is not in one’s own personal interest.

End of an error

The Brunswick Hotel is irretrievably, permanently gone. It’s something of a loss to the local music and historical communities, and the owner deserves the severest punishment available for what he did to the place, but ultimately its demise was long overdue. For six months about a year ago I was there for several hours every Tuesday night in support of a local musician, and even contributed to a drive to get a halfway decent sound system for performances, despite the pervasive stench of urine and the dangerous drunks (most of whom got that way at the Wick’s bar). (The musician eventually gave up the gig, and as far as I know doesn’t perform at all any more, which is a loss for the Canadian music scene.)

Despite the good music it (very) occasionally hosted, the Wick was a smelly, overserving hole—you can insert whatever scatological prefix you’d like—and I’m glad to see it finally gone.

Happy 6012th birthday

I always knew I had a special place in the cosmos, but I thought it was from sharing a birthday with Johnny Carson and “Weird Al” Yankovic. But with all respect to those fine gentlemen, You ain’t fat! You ain’t nothin’! You ain’t nothin’! The real deal is that I was born on the anniversary of the creation of the earth, which as I understand it means I should have some sort of superpowers or something.