Peter – Page 85 – Petroglyphs

Singing and smoking

Can someone please explain to me why smoking and singing are so closely linked? It seems to me that a singer’s greatest assets are the voice and lungs… the two things most easily and permanently harmed by the poisons in tobacco smoke. (For that matter, I don’t know why anyone smokes any more, but that’s a different post.)

I’m thinking of this at the moment because I’m making plans to go to Toronto in a couple of weeks to see Lenni Jabour and The Third Floor. While I’m more than happy that they’ve got a regular opportunity to perform, it’s getting harder and harder to make the trek to a place where I’m going to be subjected to this kind of thing. (To my knowledge, none of the group smokes. And it’s not like I haven’t encouraged them to play elsewhere, like London or Kitchener-Waterloo.)

Fortunately I live in a city that not only will soon have a 100% smoking ban in public places, but already has some sensible businesses—like Maggie’s and CopperField’s—that are smoke-free and book great live music.

Me three!

Mark Pilgrim highlights Karl Dubost’s article My Web site is standard! And yours?.

So for the last few hours I’ve been cleaning up link rot, using the W3C’s checklink tool. Some of the newly-trashed links were valid less than a month ago. As some smart guy named Tim once said, Cool URIs don’t change. Grrrr.

OOPs

Shakespeare

thee.getTo(nunnery);

Greeley

youngMan.go(Direction.WEST);

Bible

thee = new Satan("Peter");
thee.getBehind(this);

Freud

Consciousness() {
  super.ego();
}

Dante

for(int i = 0; i < those.length; i += 1 ) {
  if( i.entering(this) ) {
    i.get(hope).abandon();
  }
}

Carroll

return ( hare.getMadness(Date.MARCH).equals(madness) );

How’s that again?

You gall a var, zoar foss sickeffer
Tiz a maut, van vallice etter
Loase a roud, how vall the hurough
Et you have gruff’s on the maybur

Hey wait, back up just a bit
What was that last thing you said
Oh right, your gruff’s on the maybur

Double Whammy, Gruff’s on the Maybur

Idiocy isn’t a strong enough term

I can’t find words to express how stupid this is.

Tim Bray points out that the online banking sites (specifically the online stockbroker) run by CIBC don’t work on his Macintosh with any available browser. I’m not surprised; their basic banking service has had problems with Mozilla-based browsers for more than a year, and they’ve refused several times to communicate via secure (S/MIME or PGP) e-mail.

The official (non-)word from CIBC is:

CIBC Online Banking is currently testing the new Netscape 6.2.X browser version.Please do not upgrade your browser at this time. We currently recommend Netscape 4.79.

I think a year is more than long enough to have waited; in the meantime they’ve added useless features like e-mail money transfers (which isn’t even particularly usable or well-integrated). They’re about to lose one more customer.

Over 230 channels locked out!

DOCTOR: I have something to say that may shock you.
WOMAN: Why, are you going to use smutty language?

Jayson McDonald, The Boneyard Radio Hour, Semi-Emergency Room

I’m somehow pleased that two of my favourite programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and C.S.I., and two others that I watch from time to time (Friends and Will & Grace) are among the ten worst programs on television (according to the so-called Parents Television Council <http://www.parentstv.org>). It’s a good thing these folks don’t get Canadian television….

Breaking the Silence

The world will soon be a better place:

In a whirlwind visit to Greece, the world-renowned Canadian recording artist Loreena McKennitt proudly presented a donation to The Hellenic Red Cross, received a gold award for sales of “Live In Paris And Toronto” in Greece, and started work on the research for an upcoming recording.

Quinlan Road

Loreena hasn’t recorded or toured for several years—her latest CD project was Live in Paris and Toronto in 1999, and her most recent studio release was The Book of Secrets two years earlier. Her return has got to be one of the best pieces of news I’ve received this year.

I heard your voice singing
Your eyes danced the song
Your hands played the tune
’Twas a vision before me.

Loreena McKennitt, The Old Ways

The Capitol

Mark Kearney, local historian, professor and trivia guy, has an article in this month’s London CityLife magazine about the Capitol Theatre:

The lobby doors are locked, but if you peek through you see bits of paper on the floor, two step ladders leaning against a wall, and some debris on the wine-coloured carpet that leads past the snack bar to the two cinemas inside. The box office window has a small crack, and the entranceway could use a good sweeping. … [N]ow, everything at the Capitol is as silent as the movies it used to feature…. [B]eauty and age are rarely respected in this business anymore.

The Capitol, née the Allen, is the site of what could be my ideal movie theatre. (See The Majestic.) Unfortunately I don’t have the cash or business acuity to make it work. But I can dream….

Step by step

The first thing I’d do is work on the sound. Correction: on the soundproofing. When it opened, the Allen was a single 1200-seat auditorium; in the mid-’70s, as the Capitol under Famous Players, it was split into two smaller cinemas. Perhaps movies weren’t played as loudly then, or maybe Famous just skimped on the renovation, but it suffers from what seem at times to be paper-thin walls. I’ve got a friend who’s an engineer specializing in acoustics, noise and vibration, and he could fix that up in a flash.

Department of Redundancy Department

One of the consumer-tech chains up here—I think it’s Future Shop—has been advertising their products as the best in digital DVD technology. I’m glad the industry has finally upgraded from that analog DVD tech we’ve been putting up with for so long.

Please.

Using a computer to rent movies

Ordering a movie via digital cable is a pain in the ass (PITA). iTV has always been still-born service. Netflix works well because you can do all you ordering online on a well designed website via a computer. After you do that, the service runs itself. Interactivity belongs on the computer.

John Robb

I’ve got to disagree. With a capable interactive television system, ordering a VOD (or SVOD) movie is as easy as selecting it from a menu and entering your PIN. (I do this every day at work—it’s not some idealistic fantasy.) You don’t have to leave your sofa, let alone wait “2-4 days” for the movies to arrive in your mailbox. And you don’t need a dedicated computer, just the settop box you’ve already renting from the cable company. Netflix does have an advantage (currently) in that they’ve got a big selection of DVDs, but more convenient? Nuh-uh.