2K9

Happy 2009, folks! I suppose this is the primier post of the year on honeygarlic.blogspot.com, so without further delay:

F1RST!

Now that that's out of the way, here are my 2008 resolutions:

Every day, I will go out of my way to do at least one thing that makes me physically stronger.

Every day, I will learn something that makes me mentally and morally stronger.

Every week, I will have something creative constructed to show for my efforts throughout that week.

Every month, I will eat something I believe to be allergic to - just to see if I really am or not.

Not bad. I blew the first two in September, having moved back to Brantford and lost the will to excercize. As for the third, it was arguably lost around May/June. Not for any particular reason... I just lost the habit.

My final resolution was to eat something I believe to be allergic to. (Wow... that's bad grammar.) I did this once a month, every month, until now. (As I type this, I have four hours to eat a shrimp to keep at least that one resolution from last year. I found sushi! Got it covered! Uh oh, my throat's closing...)

Here are my resolutions for this year:

1. Re-try my third resolution from last year: Every week, I will have something creative constructed to show for my effots throughout that week. To maintain this, I'll keep a weekly record to be posted on my other blog, here.
2. Up my GPA by two points for next term. (This shouldn't be too hard. For our non-Laurier readers, our school works on a twelve point system.)
3. Be healthier in these respects:

• Eat less grease. (i.e. Switch to margerine instead of butter and limit my use of the deep frier.
  
• Make a five minute effort towards physically demanding excersize each day.
  
• Floss daily.
  

That's it for me. You may recal, Ryan's resolutions were 1280x768. I have reason to believe he's kept them. I'm sure our beloved readers can expect a post shortly from him.

--

D. Phillips

Best Scanning Software Ever!

I just got a laser printer at the boxing day sales!  

It's a Samsung: a company which until now I've never really cared for since I can't crack my cellular.With it came a piece of software called SmarThru 4. And with that piece of software came a feature. A feature for which I am now a fan of the Samsung brand.

It's a bit of scanning software that recognizes characters, so I can copy text straight from my scans. I had a piece of software like this when I lived in residence, but SmarThru 4 features a few points that my old one didn't:

1. Recognizes and keeps formatting.
2. Recognizes images, and keeps those images in the document.
3. Recognizes columns and groups paragraphs neatly (although each line ends in a paragraph break, that's still pretty damn good).
4. Saving in a variety of formats, including rich text (with or without paragraph breaks), MS Word (with or without images), and Adobe PDF (with or without images).
5. In the setup for the OCR feature (optical character recognition), it asks to select your language. Maybe this is for a more accurate character database (so people in America don't get Russian characters), or maybe it runs what it scans through a spellcheck to assure the most accurate text possible. I don't know.

So, all my hype and excitement leads to this:

I haven't been able to find this software on any download sites (legit or otherwise), but hopefully it'll show up somewhere. (Maybe if you try downloading the software for my printer, it'll be included?)

--

D. Phillips

Merry Christmas pt. 2

I originally intended to pass along holiday greetings from the cast of Scrubs, but somebody who shall remain nameless beat me to the punch.

So instead, merry Christmas to one and all - from the unlikely duo of Bing Crosby and David Bowie!



--Ryan

Merry Christmas!

By the time anyone gets to reading this, you probably won't care... But perhaps someone will read this in a year and enjoy the screenshots of Google's and NORAD's satellites following the big man across the world. Perhaps.

Here he is, as viewed through the Google Earth application (with an extension from noradsanta.org):

Man, what a great guy. He was just in the Toronto area about ten minutes ago, so I snuffed out the fireplace in preparation for him.

If you don't want to download Google Earth, NORAD had some maps on their site as well:

Seems like the Barenaked Ladies were wrong; Africa seems to have done well this year.

But what's this?!? Oh my gosh!

He practically skipped right over Russia and Mongolia! Those poor people of northern Asia! How could this be?

Let's investigate:

Zooming in between the default points in Google Earth, we can see right inside of Santa's sack... and it appears... Omigosh! It's empty.

Santa's sack is empty.

Well, let's face it... If he ran out of gifts and had to pick between Russia and Africa, the African's are probably more needy.

--
D. Phillips


UPDATE:
So, Santa was just here. He just popped in to say "hi", since his sack was empty by this point...

And he said he did do it for the Barenaked Ladies. I probably shouldn't say this, but I guess he felt that he owed a favor to Steven Page... For taking the fall while Santa was into the snow.

Well it *was* there

I know the previous post says I'll have something up no later than Monday. And this, the next post, is going up Tuesday.

On the surface, that would seem to be a bald-faced lie on my part.

However, there was a post there - and at least the person who commented on it overnight can back me up on that.

Here's what it was: using the free audio-editing program Audacity, I changed the pitches of various popular songs. Then I uploaded the best ones and linked to them.

One of the tags for that post was 'borderline copyright infringement' - meant as a joke more than anything. Yet I suspect that's what tipped somebody off, and Blogger removed my post in accordance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

I don't believe that this was justifiable action on Blogger's part, for the following reasons:

1) Nobody is earning any profit off of what I put up - this site doesn't have any ads.

2) The DMCA doesn't apply to me because I'm not American.

I could be wrong on both counts, though. It's not worth the effort to fight it, so I'll just say that unless you were one of the few who saw the post before it was taken down, you missed some good fun.

--Ryan

Words fail me (continued)

Back in October, I bemoaned the decline in quality of the Dictionary.com Word Of The Day. I complained that the words had gotten too simple, and if I wanted to learn something from this glorified spam, I wouldn't be able to.

For a while, things were getting better. There were maybe two weeks of words starting with 'a', most of which I didn't recognize.

But then came this week.

Tuesday: fabricate.
Wednesday: gaffe.
Thursday: hackneyed.
Friday: iambic.
Saturday: jaded.

Okay.

Iambic is fine, since I would suspect that quite a few people are not students of poetry - it's not particularly useful in any way, but at least it's a word some people won't know. Ditto for hackneyed, which is fun to say.

But gaffe? Fabricrate? Jaded

Did I accidentily switch to the Word Of The Day For Twelve-Year-Olds?

--Ryan

(P.S. I was originally going to post something relatively cool - at least I think so - yesterday. But then stuff happened and I didn't have the time. And today I'm too tired to go through the little bit of grunt work that needs to be done; the moral of the story being that decisions made at 3 AM are rarely good ones. But tomorrow or Monday, I guarantee, it will be up. And I have now hyped it too much.)

Cookie Puns

For Christmas, we baked cookies for our families. Before I post pictures of how we arranged them, I need some help; I don't know what to write on the card!

I'm thinking something really crumby. I mean downright tasteless. Yes, cookie puns. Any and all help is appreciated, 'cause so far my dad's getting something from his chocolate chip off the old block.

--
D. Phillips

The greatest

The greatest sentence I have ever read on Wikipedia:

The last renovation occurred in early 2006 when several scenes in the chocolate tour ride were replaced with singing, animatronic cows.

I can only imagine how much better that line is devoid of all context.

Also, the greatest reason I have ever heard for why Michael Igantieff is the new leader of the Liberals: Bob Rae was too busy reading ninety-five books.

--Ryan

Don't be evil

...is, of course, Google's motto (a nice stark contrast to Microsoft's "Include just enough bugs in everything that they'll be sure to buy next year's version").

But over the past couple weeks, I've had a couple of Google-related incidents which were perhaps not evil per se, but certainly worrying.

First off, GMail. As far back as I can remember, my GMail account has had a VERY healthy and thriving spam folder (often between 150-200 messages). Currently, that number sits at...seven.

Now, I'm not complaining about the lack of spam. Rather, I'm starting to wonder if GMail has been reprogrammed to block some spam from reaching my account at all. And although I've never had a real message accidentally sent to spam, I still like the idea of being able to see everything, just in case.

Secondly, I've been using Google Toolbar for a few years now, and one of my favourite features of it is the pop-up blocker. Right now, the toolbar is telling me that it has blocked 615 pop-ups since it was installed (I suspect the real number is much higher).

Yet lately, it's been behaving much more aggressively - among the things it's blocked have been the Blogger "upload picture" window, links I've right click+"open in new window"ed, and links I've clicked on in GMail messages!

It's one thing to have an effective pop-up blocker, it's quite another for it to suddenly stop recognizing situations where I probably do want the pop-up.

So like I said, Google's not exactly being evil...but they're a little closer to that line than they were a month ago.

--Ryan

Review: New Pornographers NPR Live Show

(This post contains lots of links to Youtube videos. They are purely for my own enjoyment - and yours, if you wish - and not clips from the concert in question.)

It should come as little surprise to anyone who regularly reads this blog that the New Pornographers are one of my favourite bands ever. So when I come across anything of theirs, I'm going to listen to it. It's in this spirit that I ended up downloading a concert the group did for NPR radio in the US back in March 2006.

Now, one of the things that makes the New Pornographers so good in my books is that they have four different lead singers, with four noticeably different voices. Two guys (Dan Bejar and Carl Newman) and two girls (Neko Case and Kathryn Carter). This helps keep the songs diverse - much like The Beatles (or, um, Linkin Park? Faith No More? Help me out here!), different singers make for different-sounding songs.

Neko and Dan don't always tour with the rest of the group - but they soldier on, as they did on the tour from which this show was recorded, with Carl, Kathryn, Kurt Dahle (drums) and Blaine Thurier (keyboards) pitching in with backing vocals, and guitarist Todd Fancey never setting foot anywhere near a microphone.

Unfortunately, the day of this performance, Kathryn came down with laryngitis. This left the group without any female vocals whatsoever, and set the stage for what might be the oddest concert they've ever given.

Worse yet, this was 2006 - their latest CD, Challengers, had yet to be released, so the group only had 75% of their current catalogue to choose from (although to be fair, I'm not sure what they could have really used from that without girls...maybe Mutiny, I Promise You or All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth).

So what did they play? Well, there were standard Carl-fronted songs that don't really sound that different without women, such as Twin Cinema and From Blown Speakers. There were Carl-fronted songs that are played at almost every concert but do sound slightly off without girls, including Slow Descent Into Alcoholism and Use It. There was a quartet of Carl songs that rarely (or never) get played in concert, comprised of July Jones, The End of Medicine, The Body Says No, and Breakin' The Law. There were the two most well-known and well-loved songs the New Pornographers have, where Carl was forced to sing parts meant for girls so fans would get their favourites (Sing Me Spanish Techno and a rendition of The Bleeding Heart Show that wasn't nearly as bad as one might have expected). There was one song I'd never heard before and thus can't comment on (Graceland), there was Carl singing a Den Bejar Song (Testament To Youth In Verse), and finally we got Todd, the guy who I didn't think ever sang, singing a Dan Bejar song (Jackie).

And how was it? All things considered, pretty good. If you knew nothing of the New Pornographers other than their name, you might wonder why they deserved any sort of reputation after hearing this as a first exposure. It wasn't horrible, but it was somewhat below average (for music, not for the New Pornographers). If you're already a fan of the band, it's neat to hear what they sound like under unusual circumstances, but you'll be quick to admit that they're not at their best. Doesn't stop them from trying (and the between-song banter is good too!).

I give it a C+...probably a D if this was what they sounded like normally, but it's graded much easier because of the situation they were in.

--Ryan

Happy Holidays!

This is my attempt to get into the holiday spirit. My recent hobby of reading every word of the Geekologie archives has bestowed upon me this video.

I'm sure SCRUBS spoofed A Charlie Brown Christmas, but I still really appreciate the person who strung them together.

I apologize if this is too awesome for you to handle... or too offensive for you to handle... but if it was good enough to air on NBC, then it's good enough to air on honeygarlic.blogspot.com!



--
D. Phillips

... and I'm a PC

Microsoft released its first clothing line called Software. (Heh. I get it.) The retro-style clothes include the DOS tangle and a picture of Bill Gate's mugshot.

And now, I know that these are probably the most blogged about videos these days, but I can't help it. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you: Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld!








--
D. Phillips

(And now, for my attempt at Ryan's Jeopardy-style Labels.)

Twelve quick hits

(There are a bunch of small things I want to mention, but I have no idea if I'll be able to make twelve. Let's see.)

1) I don't know if anybody actually looks at the "blogs we know" list to the right (I do want to expand it eventually, turning it into "blogs we like"), but Cassan has been writing a lot this week. If you like reading stuff that's a lot of questions with very few answers (from a philosophical point of view), check it out.

2) This morning was my first exam. I can now safely forget the four types of prison movies, and whatever else I learned. Actually, I didn't do nearly as poorly as I was expecting, considering I've been sick and unable to focus on studying from more than maybe 15 minutes at a time. And there was a lump under my pillow last night (very few people will have any idea what I'm talking about there, but they'll all be at least chuckling).

3) Speaking of being sick, I don't think DayQuil exists anymore. This doesn't make me happy - DayQuil and NyQuil were a perfect combination for me to get over any sickness (not necessarily for everyone though, from my experiences different people tend to react differently to different medications). I went to Shoppers yesterday to buy some, and there wasn't even a spot for it.

4) On a related note, NyQuil is now green. On the list of "Things Ryan Has Ingested That Were Purposely But Freakishly Green", NyQuil fits somewhere between ketchup and eggs.

FIVE GOLDEN RINGS...fourcallingbirdsthreefrenchhenstwoturtledovesandapartridgeinapeartree.

6) Canadians love it when Americans talk about us, right? Well here's Jon Stewart and friends on our Parliamentary crisis. I have to say, I love the way the rest of the world is treating this as "Harper clinging to power" and nothing more.

7) What's the deal with bedframes? As much as that sounds like the setup to a joke, it's a serious question, and something I was pondering in my NyQuil-induced not-quite-asleep state last night. What purpose do bedframes serve? Is it just that people like having the extra leverage when they slide out of bed in the morning?

8) As a follow up from #1 and #7, it's good to question things. Even things that seem like they needn't be questioned. I learned recently that when Pierre Trudeau became Prime Minister, one of the first things he did was ask the Foreign Affairs department why Canada needed a Foreign Affairs department (presumably he did this to every department). It seems like a simple question, but what's the point of doing or using something unless you understand why it's there?

9) The Kitchener Rangers haven't been winning too many games lately. Not a big deal. As I believe I said at the start of the season, the bulk of the team is 17- and 18-year-olds - people who will be back, and better, next year.

10) While I've been sick, I've been listening to the radio a lot (the idea being that with my iPod, I might start skipping through songs, which might prevent me from falling asleep) - and I've come to realize something. I have a very hard time telling the difference between Hedley and Theory Of A Deadman and Faber Drive and Daughtry, etc. I know there's a lot of good new music out there, but it's up to people to discover it for themselves because almost all radio stations will only play what appeals to everybody a little bit, rather than what appeals to some people a lot. I think there's an untapped market here.

11) I want to go on a vacation next fall where I ride scooters. I really don't understand why Blogger would pick those as the three sample labels. (Yes, I'm reaching to make twelve.)

12) Jay Leno is getting a primetime talk show. I like this a lot. I don't know if I'll watch it, but primetime television becoming something more than episodic series, a show where you can watch it whenever you want and still be entertained, sounds like a great idea to me. Now if only he can get guests that are on to be entertaining, rather than to plug their latest book or movie.

--Ryan

I lied

...when I said I was done with politics for the time being.

But when I said that, I didn't expect this to show up on Youtube.



(Particularly the part from 3:20 on.)

--Ryan

Pinky and the Brain (and Larry)

In the mid-1990s, there was no greater cartoon than Animaniacs - a collection of short cartoons featuring a wide array of characters, and jokes that worked on two levels (so that adults could understand some things that went over kids' heads).

One of the most memorable Animaniacs series was Pinky and the Brain. Why, I bet just the mere mention of those two mice has got the theme song going in your head, hasn't it?

Well, at one point, Warner Brothers executives believed that Pinky and the Brain had grown stale, and needed a third character.

The writers' response was a tad unpredictable - write an episode with a third character (never intended to be permanent), and use the episode as a meta-criticism of adding any third character.

The entire cartoon is here:


Okay, so you probably didn't have to watch the whole thing, the theme song was the best part. And no, that plot (aside from the new character) wasn't particularly unusual for the show.

In the end, it was all for naught, as anybody who can remember the horrible season of "Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain" can attest.

--Ryan

And now for something completely different

Bomb scares are no laughing matter.

Even in an unlikely setting (like downtown Kitchener).

Especially when there really is a bomb.

Except for when it turns out to be completely harmless, and wholly accidental, as was the case earlier this week.

A World War II era bomb - helpfully labeled 'bomb' - was found behind a wall in the basement of a Kitchener house by some electricians. This led to the entire block being evacuated and the Army called in to dispose of the bomb.

Had the bomb detonated, it would have just produced a lot of smoke - it was a practice bomb, so to speak. It belonged to a former owner of that house, who picked it up as a souvenir from an armoury and then forgot he ever had it.

My favourite part is still him feeling the need to label it.

-----------------------

One last thought on politics (at least until the situation changes).

In fact, we'll do it as a game. Spot the flaw in the following sentence, only very slightly paraphrased from John Baird:

"The opposition has hatched an unconstitutional plot for no reason other than to gain power, and we are prepared to go over the Governor-General's head to prevent it."

--Ryan

Flanagan ON politics

It's almost impossible to understand everything that's going on in Ottawa this week (although I'd like to give the Macleans.ca bloggers a round of applause for the best coverage I've been able to find), but one thing is clear - everybody involved is, to some degree, at fault.

The Conservatives are the easiest to pin blame on - promising a Parliament of bipartisan cooperation was a good move. The fiscal update tabled last week wasn't necessarily a horrible idea either - if you're not going to make any meaningful gestures towards fixing the economy, symbolic gestures likes the ones contained therein are appreciated. That said, if those are your primary objectives - working with other parties and making symbolic gestures that don't have any real meaning - one of those gestures being an attempt to bankrupt every other political party shows a stunning lack of common sense.

If that were the end of it, fine - the Conservatives made their bed, and now they have to lie in it, but at least they're not as bad as the opposition parties (I'm now convinced that the Conservatives could not introduce a single piece of legislation which a single other party would support, no matter how well it fit with their ideology).

But that's not the end of it. Instead, the Conservatives are caught completely off guard by the opposition realizing that the pledge of bipartisanship was completely bogus, and now claiming that the coalition is somehow 'undemocratic', 'un-Canadian', or 'a coup d'etat' (all terms used by Conservatives in the past 24 hours).

It's not. No matter how many times this Conservative-created talking point is espoused on your local talk radio station (our governing party has spent at least part of their week publishing a list of Conservative-friendly radio hosts and talking points people can use when calling in), there's no reason to believe it. Think back to the last election you voted in - did you vote for the Prime Minister? Unless you were in his riding, no, you didn't.

You voted for your MP. You voted for somebody to represent you in Parliament - and it's up to those people to organize themselves in such a manner that the Prime Minister is able to make legislation that is supported by more than half the House of Commons. Stephen Harper is no longer able to do that, Stephane Dion is (and as a bonus, his ability to do so is in writing).

"Oh," the Conservative supporters will whine, "nobody votes for their MP anymore, they vote for the party." Not true. People might vote for the MP because of his party, but they're voting directly for the MP. In fact, if people do vote because of party allegiance, I can think of worse affronts to democracy in recent memory.

What other Conservative talking points can I dispel? Not too many as it turns out, they're almost all along the lines of "people didn't vote for anything other than the Conservatives". However, here's what I did dig up...

I mean, I follow the news, virtually every single day you have Harper or Flaherty out there telegraphing exactly what they plan to do with the economy.

And completely contradicting each other in the process. Harper told the APEC summit in Peru that Canada would run a deficit. Jim Flaherty has repeatedly claimed that he will never put Canada into deficit, even if it means selling off assets at low costs to make sure the books stay balanced. (Actually, I guess Harper would be in favour of that plan - undervalued assets? Sounds like some good buying opportunities!) That worked out really well when he tried it in Ontario, didn't it? Highway 407 is making truckloads of money for a foreign corporation, and Flaherty secretly left Ontario $5 billion in debt anyhow!

Oh, by the way, you don't need to mention that you follow the news - if you really do, it'll show in the rest of what you say.

And I wish the media would be more clear on this point – the opposition aren’t being singled out by this fact the Conservatives stand to lose the most money of all. The only difference is that Canadians are voluntarily giving money the Conservatives, so they don’t need taxpayer handouts. The only reason the opposition would be hurt more is because nobody wants to donate to them. They should be putting their efforts towards fixing that problem.

Ooh, I like this one. Where to start?

Okay, let's see. The reason the Conservatives get so much money from other donors is because they govern for the rich. The NDP, because of their ideology, will never attract large support from the upper class - so unless you're suggesting that the most important function of a political party is to make money, rather than, oh, I don't know, maybe to help people, those subsidies are the most democratic means of party finance there are.

As for the part about the Conservatives losing the most money of all? Absolutely. But look at the Green Party or Christian Heritage Party or Natural Law Party or whoever you want - they're not getting money any other way, and without that money, they can't have their voices heard. And I'm sure most Conservatives don't mind losing a few million dollars in party money, since they're still getting Cabinet positions (and Cabinet salaries) in record numbers.

I don’t want another election. But what I want even less is a surprise backroom Prime Minister whom I never even had the opportunity to vote for or against. What an insult to democracy.

Not so fast there, Connie. Okay, I'm cheating a bit on this one - I wanted to mention the "plotting with socialists and separatists" line the Conservatives have been so fond of this week. Boy, that sounds familiar. Of course, it's only an insult to democracy when you're on the receiving end, isn't it?

------------------

I'm not saying the coalition is completely in the right. As I mentioned earlier, they're in the position there where they've hyped up this coalition idea so much, Harper could offer a carbon tax, doubling the corporate tax, and Quebec being legally allowed to separate on the whims of its Premier, and Dion, Layton, and Duceppe (in that order) still wouldn't jump ship.

In a minority parliament, such as we have, it's the job of all parties to make the government work. The Conservatives weren't willing to do that - but now, they might be (although I haven't seen them make any serious attempt at reconciliation), and the other parties have forgotten that they can't shut the Conservatives out until Michelle Jean grants their request to let them form government themselves.

(I do think she'll grant it. The job of a Governor-General is to ensure that there is always a government running Canada, with the ability to get its agenda through the House of Commons. The Conservatives no longer have that ability, the opposition does - and we don't need an election to prove it.)

--Ryan

P.S.: Longest post ever?

Yet another question

Why did it not occur to me until right this moment that today is Buy Nothing Day? I'd heard about it for at least the last three years, and that was a time when people actually had money to spend.

The world confuses me.

--Ryan

Double dipping

(Quick political update, it looks like Stephane Dion is going to be Prime Minister at some point in the very near future. Consult the usual websites for more information.)

I'm starting to understand the concept of anxiety - the idea that there's too much going on for any one person to completely grasp it, and a feeling of a sort of helplessness that arises from that.

But one thing has really struck me, and it's the one event that's contributing to everyone's anxiety - Mumbai.

As we understand it now, a group of terrorists with a questionable or unknown background invaded two high-end hotels in the Indian city, held some people in the hotels hostage (whether they were officially classified hostages or not is irrelevant - if you're barracading yourself in your hotel room and won't leave until the invaders do, you're a hostage), and despite the best efforts of Indian forces, the siege continues with over 150 known dead at this time.

What I can't figure out is how it took us this long to know this much. The attacks began Wednesday night Indian time (I'm assuming Wednesday morning our time), and yet by late afternoon Wednesday, no Western news outlets seemed to know more than that there was a terrorist attack in India, and it involved hotels. It wasn't until Thursday morning that the picture began to be filled in, and Thursday night by the time most people were caught up with the situation so far.

This was a similar timeframe to 1989, when something else happened halfway around the world - the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. (Interesting to note from the introduction, it seems to have been similar to today in that there's simply a lot going on.)

Back then, we didn't have the technology we do today - Tom Kennedy had to file his report, wait for open time on a satellite feed, and send it to CBC by satellite. This was made even harder by the Chinese government's decision to close all in-country satellite feeds and not allow any pictures or video to leave the country.

Yet we still got the news in roughly the same timeframe it took for the story of the Mumbai massacre to be fully understood in Canada.

How is it that one man can be stabbed on a bus in backwoods Manitoba, and the entire world be aware of it within a few hours, yet when hundreds of people - mostly tourists and thus Westerners at that - are held captive by terrorists in a major city, it takes us far longer to figure it out?

--Ryan

The Parliamentary blues

If you read the following passage to somebody who hadn't been paying attention to Ottawa in the last 24 hours...

Chretien was seen on his way to his downtown Ottawa office, but when asked about the coalition talks he feigned an inability to understand English.

"Je ne comprends pas anglais," he said.

...they'd think it was a satire. Then they'd point out that we've known Chretien doesn't speak English for decades, and the real revelation is that he can apparently speak French.

So you'd explain the context - Chretien and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent are seriously involved in discussions about at least their parties (perhaps also the Bloc Quebecois) forming a coalition government, rather than sending Canadians into another election. Unless the Conservatives are willing to back down on a new piece of legislation, one or the other will happen.

The response would be, once again, that it sounds like a satire - or at best, an Andrew Coyne-esque fantasy sequence where we're thrown into a constitutional crisis because there's not enough on the government's plate as it is.

It's neither.

As if this wasn't odd enough on its own, the question of 'who would be Prime Minister in this coalition?' is much less clear than normal. Would it be Stephane Dion, who isn't supported privately by ANYBODY in his own party anymore? Jack Layton, who has frequently been described by centrists as 'right leader, wrong party'? Gilles Duceppe, which would be the funniest thing to happen in Canadian politics ever?

This is getting more interesting by the hour.

--Ryan

To yours from falling hands we throw

I'm a little late on this one, but if you're in Canada, the Olympic Torch is coming to town. Or at least, it's pretty safe to assume it will - 90% of Canadians will be within a one-hour drive of the Torch at some point. The relay will run through roughly one thousand different communities over the course of 106 days.

You can view a full map showing the Torch's path here, but I'll quickly summarize things:

It all starts on October 30, 2009, in Victoria. From there, the Torch travels (primarily by air) through the northernmost reaches of Canada (including a stop in Alert, Nunavut), travelling west-to-east, ending up in Newfoundland.

The rest of autumn is spent in Eastern Canada, with the first cross into Ontario (in Ottawa) not happening until December 12. The Torch then goes down the 401, into Toronto, through Hamilton and the Niagara Falls area, before hitting Brantford on December 21.

From Brantford, the trek continues southwest through Chatham and into Windsor, turning around and going up into Sarnia. Then the Torch stops for a two-day Christmas break in London, before making the trek to Waterloo Region.

Stops in that area include Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Stratford, and New Hamburg (where, from what I understand, this will be the biggest even since the Johnsons installed indoor plumbing).

The Torch then goes up Highway 6 through Guelph, eventually reaching a destination of Owen Sound. Then it crosses over into cottage country, and begins the long journey through the prairies, culminating in the beginning of the Games on February 12.

Mark your calendars!

--Ryan

The History of Peanuts (Part V)

(As always, click on the images for a size increase.)

When we last left the Peanuts gang, 1953 was turning into 1954, and Charlie Brown was still far from the lovable loser we all remember. How's he doing now?


Better. Although he'd become more famous for not receiving anything on Valentine's Day, ever - maybe this is why? Also, if anyone misses my birthday by a day, this should give them a good excuse.


I remember that song! No other reason for posting this one, I just liked the Raffi reminder.


Ah, how I long for a simpler time - one where people read comic books and remembered the Korean War. I'll freely admit to knowing barely anything about that one until learning about it in a history class this year. Also, I don't think Vietnam was as bad as what Charlie Brown was assuming was next. Hurrah?


And we end this batch with the debut of a man who would go on to be far better known as a vacuum cleaner salesman.

--Ryan

Grey Cup liveblog

2:56 - Here we go! At this moment, TSN's showing some sort of snowy car race (play-by-play by the immortal Vic Rauter), but Grey Cup pregame starts in four minutes!

3:00 - I stand corrected. First they're going to update us on everything else going on in sports (mainly NFL football). NOW here's the pregame!

3:06 - Six minutes in, and we've already seen seven commentators - not including the two who will actually call the game. And hey, here's an interview with Joe Theismann, because there's nothing Canadians love more than seeing American football stars from the 1970s patronizing our game!

3:12 - Maybe the current Motts Garden Cocktail commercials would seem like less of a ripoff of the Philadelphia cream cheese angel if the latter commercials weren't still on the air.

3:23 - Tonight's atmosphere is going to really be something. You don't get the hometown team playing in the Grey Cup very often, and as I learned when I went to a Habs game last year, nobody does sports passion like Montrealers. (The post-1994 Expos don't count.)

3:27 - See, what they're not telling you is that Gus *has* to eat KFC because all those hobbies don't leave him any time to cook (and judging from the commercial, he doesn't have a wife).

3:35 - Dave Duvall, Montreal's kicker, is practicing field goals. TSN's desk is located directly behind the goalposts. My lifelong dream of seeing Dave Randorf get hit in the head with a football on-air might come true here.

3:44 - I was wondering what kind of hilarity would ensure as TSN tried to fill three hours of pre-game coverage. Unfortunately, it seems like they've found a solution to unintentional comedy - video packages. Blargh.

3:47 - Spoke too soon. Brian Williams is interviewing CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon, who is trying to argue that the fundamentals of his league are strong. And Ottawa's return has been pushed back another year.

3:56 - I'm doing a lot of multitasking here. Watching, blogging, snacking, and homework. So if you suddenly spy a whack of text in here on John Updike and Islam, that's why. Likewise if there's bite marks.

4:00 - There it is! The Grey Cup! And its honour guard of Mounties! Don't we get enough of the RCMP whenever Americans turn their attention up here? Also, the commentator count is now up to nine.

4:09 - DAVE NAYLOR! I completely forgot about him! That's ten, and we *still* have at least Chris Cuthbert to come! I bet TSN has more people in Olympic Stadium than the Expos did some weeks.

4:15 - The annual tribute to those CFL-connected people who have died in the past year. Unfortunately, there were a LOT this year, including at least five broadcasters. Hard to believe in a way.

4:36 - I was away from the TV for the last little while, and from what I heard, I think I missed some Dixieland music. Right now, there's a guy talking through Microsoft Sam. Halfway to kickoff!

4:47 - The fans are starting to trickle into the stands, which gives you some idea of just how big Olympic Stadium is. You barely even notice the roof, because the stands stretch so far back.

4:53 - We see a group of Baltimore Stallions fans in attendance (quite possibly the last Stallions fans on Earth). The Stallions were the only successful part of the CFL's ill-fated mid-90s American expansion, and they moved to Montreal after 1996. Baltimore went to the Grey Cup in two out of their three seasons of exitences, while Montreal has been in six of the last nine, meaning this might be the most successful franchise in the history of pro sports.

5:01 - So is the new trend in commercials to name and reference a specific (and likely fictitious) person, showing how your products relate to the average person? I've seen at least four examples of it so far today. Can I blame this on Joe the Plumber?

5:10 - I just realized I haven't made a prediction yet. Probably for the best.

5:11 - Okay, fine. Calgary. Probably by quite a bit.

5:19 - Pretty sure I just saw the referee signing autographs for a guy in a Saskatchewan jersey. Rider fans are awesome.

5:24 - I'm a little freaked out at the moment. Reading Updike, the main character is about to make a delivery in Camden (New Jersey, as that's where he's from and he can't legally drive a truck out of state). On TV, Brian Williams introduces a video feature on Avon Cobourne, wherein Williams travels to the town Avon grew up in - Camden, New Jersey.

5:28 - And as TSN goes to commercial, they focus on the Grey Cup in such a way that you can clearly make out the word 'excellency' on the bowl. In the book, the guy drives a truck for the Excellency furniture company. I think I'm being mocked.

5:33 - Special pregame live performance by Mobile! And only a few weeks after I decided that 'Out Of My Head' was the best song of 2007! (I'm slow with this stuff.)

5:37 - Wow. So, um, the lead singer really isn't that great live. And they only sang one song ('The Killer'). Hopefully the halftime show's better, although looking over the lineup makes me doubt it.

5:38 - "Anthony Calvillo plays every play like it's his last." Get ready for a lot of Hail Mary passes.

5:46 - They showed the pre-game speeches from each coach to their respective teams. That was different. Oh, and Rod Black brings the commentator count to an even dozen.

5:56 - There's not much to say about player introductions, but I think I was wrong before - a large portion of the roof seems to have been removed. Weird.

6:01 - Is it just me, or is the girl singing the national anthem something like 13 years old?

6:08 - Kickoff! And this crowd is LOUD!

6:14 - Montreal with a quick, efficient drive down the field, but they're stuffed at the goal line and settle for a field goal.

6:19 - Glen Suitor's (and Reggie Hunt's) favourite movie is Gladiator. This is one more trivial factoid about a ocmmentator than I expected to hear by this point.

6:28 - I had a dream last night that involved a smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese flavour of instant oatmeal. I mention this in case it ever inexplicably becomes reality, in which case I can say I had the idea first. I have weird dreams.

6:34 - First quarter comes to a close (this seem fast to anyone else?). Still 3-0, but Calgary's in the midst of a big drive. Burris has yet to throw an incompletion. And my book's running out of time to turn itself around.

6:42 - 3-3 after a Calgary FG.

6:51 - I'm starting to think that there is no food which wouldn't seem appealing if it was featured in a Tim Horton's commercial.

6:56 - Touchdown Montreal, on a rush by the pride of Camden, New Jersey! 10-3!

7:07 - 13-3 Montreal after another field goal. Boy was I wrong.

7:14 - Twenty-yard pass leads to a touchdown for Calgary. Maybe I wasn't so wrong. 13-10, and probably going to halftime as such.

7:17 - Wow. With his helmet off, the guy who caught that ball can't be much older than me.

7:20 - Yep. 13-10, and time for the Diet Pepsi halftime show. Cue the jokes about how we only get a secondary brand as sponsor because we're a secondary league in a secondary country.

7:24 - I have absolutely no interest in seeing Vince Vaughan Celebrates Christmas With A Dysfunctional Family.

7:35 - But slightly more interest than I have in watching more of this halftime show.

7:45 - Last year's Grey Cup telecast was innundated with commercials for the Wendy's Bacontaor. So omnipresent were these commercials that, after the game, I went out and bought a Baconator. I haven't noticed any ads as oversaturated this year. Maybe Future Shop. At least it's not Viagra.

7:58 - Calgary's defence stops Montreal quickly, but Calgary's offense can't get anything going either.

8:05 - Told you I hadn't been following the CFL this year. I forgot Dave Dickenson was even in the league, let alone on Calgary. Too bad he's relegated to backup status (again).

8:07 - Huge run for Burris brings the Stamps to the 10. It's like Montreal just doesn't expect him to run, ever.

8:09 - And they don't get it in, settle for a field goal. We're tied, 13-13.

8:14 - Montreal goes up 14-13 after a botched punt. American viewers are now very confused.

8:20 - Calgary once again gets within ten yards of the endzone but has to settle for three. At least they're in front now, 16-14, as the third quarter ends.

8:24 - Old Dutch all-dressed potato chips, the official snack food of honeygarlic's Grey Cup coverage! I also ate half of a frozen pizza, but it wasn't that good, so they don't get sponsorship.

8:27 - 19-14 following another Calgary field goal. I smell strategy coming into play pretty soon.

8:33 - I like how, as Calgary has made their comeback, the announcers' narrative has changed from "Anthony Calvillo has never had much success in Grey Cups, maybe this time's going to be different" to "The knock on Henry Burris has always been that he can't win the big games, maybe he's about to dispel that myth!" They're not even being subtle about it.

8:35 - From the 20, Calvillo throws to the endzone and a Stampeder picks him off. If the TSN Turning Point still exists, that might be it.

8:41 - 50-yard field goal just makes it through the uprights, Calgary extends their lead to 22-14.

8:45 - Three-minute warning. Als basically need to score on this drive.

8:48 - They don't. Ended up punting. I don't think Calgary can run down the last two minutes and change, so Montreal should get one last shot.

8:56 - Here we go, last chance for the Als. 14 seconds of playing time, starting from their own 30 after an unexpectedly good punt return.

8:57 - It was working, but it takes them a moment too long and they don't get far enough. Stamps win! Here's hoping they don't break the trophy the way BC did a couple years ago. Less exciting than this year's Super Bowl, maybe even last year's Grey Cup. Still fun though.

Goodnight everybody!

9:04 - Okay, I thought I was done, but Jim Flaherty presenting the Grey Cup to the winning team was too funny not to mention.

--Ryan

Double-Clicking Madness!

It's term-paper time, and my desktop is cluttered with Word documents. To try and sort out what's important from what can be put off, I usually start their filenames with numbers or exclamation marks... But that's not working anymore. I need something even more obvious... I need a bigger selection of icons.

Good thing there's the icon archive! It's got icons for all your Windows, Mac, or Linux needs!

Shown right are some examples of clever social-network icons to look like they were scanned from a ballpoint pen. (Maybe they were!) I just downloaded the Buuf collection for a wide variety of fun and excitement in my documents! Many of them have long names of perhaps inside jokes, and many of those are potentially obscene, but the icons turn out alright.

So point your browser to the icon archive today and find yourself something more fun to double-click!

--
D. Phillips



(p.s.: Ryan, I take it you gave up on labels... but I'll continue to use only the ones you've created. Now excuse me while I Google "Bovine" for the next half hour in preperation for my next post.)

A preview of things to come

As the old saying goes, it's fun to liveblog anything.

(I'm not entirely sure how old that saying really is.)

Nevertheless, tomorrow marks the 96th installment of the Grey Cup, the annual championship of the Canadian Footbal League.

And while my following of the CFL this year has been somewhat lacking - I probably haven't watched more than five minutes of any one game - I'll be watching this one. Montreal against Calgary. From Montreal, no less.

TSN's pre-game coverage (and thus my liveblogging) starts at 3 PM. The game kicks off around six. Tentatively scheduled for 3:45 is me wondering why I'm devoting most of my day to watching football when I have lots of school stuff I could be doing.

--Ryan

Ho ho...no...

While working on something for next Wednesday's Sputnik, I realized that with only minor rejigging, part of it could make a pretty good blog. So without further ado, I present the four worst Christmas movies of all time!

(Note that in this case, "worst" does not mean "avoid at all costs", but rather "so bad they're good".)

4) Jingle All The Way. This one would be a lot higher if it wasn't (inexplicably) a moneymaking success. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a well-meaning business executive who leaves getting his son a Christmas gift until Christmas Eve. Unfortunately for the Governator, all the stores are sold out of Turbo Man action figures, and Arnie goes on a quest to find one, while being alternately aided and thwarted by a crazed mailman (Sinbad). Somehow this involves beating up several mall Santas. Oh, and Phil Hartman hits on Ahnold's wife. Best intentionally-funny quote: a caller to a radio station, trying to name Santa's reindeer - "Randy, Jermaine, Tito...". Best unintentionally-funny quote: Arnold escaping a bouncy castle while yelling "I AM NOT A PERVERT!".

3) Santa With Muscles. In theatres at the same time as Jingle All The Way - but far less successful - Santa With Muscles features Hulk Hogan as a bounty hunter who develops amnesia en route to saving an orphanage from Yuletide closure while thinking himself to be Jolly Old St. Nick. Amazingly, one of the more believable plots on this list.

2) Santa Claus. Made a strong case for #1, but it was originally in Spanish, so there's a chance (however slim) that the hilarity arises from poor translations. In this movie, Santa Claus does not live at the North Pole. Rather, he lives in a "gold and crystal palace". On a cloud. IN SPACE. And if that's not enough for you, his next-space-cloud neighbour is Merlin the Wizard, whose skills Santa needs to help fight Pitch, the devil's assistant. I'm not entirely sure if Christmas ever actually comes up in this one.

1) Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. See, this is the one where you'd expect Santa to be spaceborne. And possibly some sort of warrior. Neither are really true. Instead, Santa is kidnapped by a Martian leader who believes that Santa has the ability to make Martian kids happy for the first time in centuries. Two Earth children are captured as well, because otherwise they'd tell the authorities where Santa had disappeared to. (This isn't welcomed by the Earthlings, who try to hide from the Martians, at which point they encouter a man in a really bad polar bear costume, and opt to hide in a cave. Which the bear sees them go in. This doesn't lead to their cornering and death.) Naturally, some Martians are against this plan, and try to kill Santa instead. I don't want to spoil any more for you, you really just have to see it, even if you can only find the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version.

So this Christmas, ignore the little boy who just wants a BB gun, ignore the man who is visited by Christmas ghosts, and ignore the Muppets. Watch one of these instead. You'll be glad you did.

--Ryan

About time

Sometimes I have trouble thinking of something to blog about. Sometimes I have to scroll endlessly through news sites, or reach into a repository of ideas I've never fleshed out.

Other times, I see things like "global economies explained using cows". Those times it's pretty easy.

It wasn't exactly what I expected, but some of them are really funny. Surrealism is (perhaps unsurprisingly) my favourite.

--Ryan

Ranch

Say what you will about Wendy's, but you have to admit that out of the big three global fast-food burger chains, they are by far the best. Best tasting, best value, freshest beef - and most importantly, best advertising campaigns.

From Dave Thomas peddling his company's wares, to "unofficial spokesman" Mr. Wendy, to the animated Wendy's girl extolling the virtues of her employer, Wendy's has found commercials that, unlike any from their competitors, people remember.


And then there's the Ranch Tooth. That little guy (as seen on the right) popped up at inopportune moments to remind people how much they wanted something with a little ranch flavouring (playing on the idea of a 'sweet tooth').

It was only a matter of time until Wendy's shifted their focus to another product, and the Ranch Tooth was phased out. With no discernible skills other than subtly saying "ranch" every now and then, what was our lovable hero to do?

Well, since this is the 21st century, Toothy McGee did just what any of us would do - look to the Internet for help! The result is Ranch Tooth!, a downloadable application which, once installed, pops up on your desktop at random intervals to say 'Ranch'!

What an age we live in!

--Ryan

Just call it Dr. Google

They say Santa Claus knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, et cetera.

Good for him.

I could know all of that too, if I were to have a camera follow you around 24/7.

But does Santa Claus know when you've got the flu? Not unless you're outwardly displaying symptoms.

That's where Google, the Santa Claus of the 21st century, comes in - with Google Flu Trends!

GFT looks through all Google search logs, and highlights every search term related in some way to the flu. They then break them down for each US State - and through five years' worth of analysis, have determined that flu-related searches are generally higher when more people are reported sick with the flu.

Not only is this a neat little tool to tell you where the virus is going, traditional methods of gathering flu statistics generally take a week or two before completion, by which point most of those infected will be healthy. Google provides instantaneous data!

Best of all, maybe this will convince Madagascar to stop closing their ports as soon as somebody coughs.

--Ryan

P.S.: Look down! I've started using labels! Maybe not for their intended purpose, but baby steps, right?

CAUTION: Hot Beverage

I was watching some Japanese cartoon about a professor called "Mr. Despair" (or, I guess the Japanese equivalent of that... I'm sure it was a clever pun in their language), and it made a joke about Westerners suing over ridiculous things.

You know the type of thing I mean. Like for sexual harassment when a teacher looks at a student for too long... Or suing McDonald's over serving too hot coffee. (With the new iced-coffee flavors, could someone file on brain-freeze? I should like to see that.)

What I'm getting at is, what ever happened to stupid lawsuits like that? Don't tell me America has smartened up... I want to see something really ridiculous like a town called Sin City suing the movie for slander. Or maybe someone suing a spam company after he falls for their game.

But I guess we've smartened up. It sure would rock if someone posted some current stupid lawsuit links in the comments section of this blog though!

--
D. Phillips



P.S.
On second thought, I actually hate this sort of thing. But I'm sure someone does, and they might find this site one day. Do it for them.

Border patrol

I haven't posted anything about Barack Obama's electoral victory last week yet. Although the real reason might be something closer to laziness, I'm going to say it's because there was an oversaturation of Obama-praise throughout the blogosphere and the rest of the media, and I wanted to offer something else. Sound good?

Something's been grating on my nerves quite a bit since last Tuesday. In the buildup to the election, the storyline was that an Obama win would prove that race no longer matters in the US. Since the election, I've seen story after article after roundtable discussion about the future of race relations in the America, what Obama's victory might signify, how history will remember this election...

...but all of that has been in the international media - BBC, CBC, TVO and the like. On CNN, in other major American outlets, the talk's been on policy, on the economic crisis, on the usual irrelevant celebrity news. Looks to me like America's gotten over their race problem just fine, it's the rest of the West that's still fixated on it.

Meanwhile, Canadian left-wingers have their own stories to follow, as the Liberal leadership race is heating up. Sort of. The big story over the weekend was that the methodology for picking the next leader has been determined. Now, I've recently become a fairly-serious political junkie, but even I find this "story" ridiculously dry.

A few weeks ago, I heard CTV-reporter-turned-filmmaker-and-occasional-Laurier-professor Rick Gamble talk about how the news media gets most of its stories through press releases, and how he once joked to his assignment editor that "if some kid opened up a lemonade stand and put out a press release, you'd have me cover it" (which did actually happen a couple of years later).

I think the same thing's going on here - the people who decide what the news is going to be see a Liberal Party press release, and think "Canada's natural governing party? Leadership? We're there!" - giving no thought to the idea that the few people who actually care about this news care enough to search it out on their own.

As for who the next Liberal leader will be, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae still look like the front-runners. That's not necessarily as bad as some people are making it out to be when they complain that we need an Obama of our own. In fact, each of the last four times there was a Democrat elected in Washington while we had a Conservative PM, our next election was a Liberal victory (King, Pearson, Trudeau, Chretien).

What the Liberals need now is somebody who's a good speaker, able to win over more centrist Canadians, and move the party slightly to the right. Michael Ignatieff would probably fit this bill best, even if he's not the most exciting personality, and then he can hand off to Kennedy or Trudeau or LeBlanc or whomever to take the party in an exciting new direction.

Or at least, that's how I see it.

--Ryan

The History of Peanuts (Part IV)

As I explained last week, people seem to be at least a little bit interested in this subject (at least interested enough for multiple people to Google it every day and end up here), so it's back. Parts one, two, and three, should you care.

As always, click on the picture for a larger version.

We last left our colourful cast of children in late 1953, with Charlie Brown professing his fondness for 'plaid' ice cream. Additionally, Charles Schulz was making frequent musical puns, as illustrated here:


You know, I'm *sure* that when I flagged that comic for inclusion many months ago, I was going to comment on something Liszt wrote (Finlandia? Did he compose Finlandia? Do I rememeber Finlandia?) - but it's long been forgotten. Your loss.


Poor Snoopy. Had he remembered this trick forty years later, he could have made a killing on the talk show circuit. Incidentally, I just tried balancing various common household objects on my ears, and they all either fell off or got stuck in much the same way one would stick a pencil on their ear. I want big ears.


Forty years, however, would *not* have been enough time to see significant advancements in 3D technology. I remember 3D Dinosaur Adventure, a computer game I had as a kid which came with the same glasses, and 3D effects that were negligible at best.

(However, I will point out that we've now improved that technology, culminating in the impending release of Toy Story 3D.)


And the final strip of the evening has me questioning its entire premise. If Charlie Brown is even 5 years old in this strip (probably a safe minimum bet), he'd have been born in 1949. It's certainly not unreasonable to think that even a very young grandfather probably wasn't born later than 1900. Weren't boys and girls segregated in schools in the late 19th century/early 20th century? Or was that only Catholic schools?

And what's an inkwell?

--Ryan

(Normal service will resume soon. In the meantime, enjoy the tea and biscuits being brought around by the stewardesses. We will depart as soon as we have received our delivery of lemon-soaked paper napkins.)

May the Farce be with you

Royal Canadian Air Farce, the long-running CBC sketch comedy show, is in the midst of its final few episodes, with the grand finale coming on December 31.

While Air Farce was seldom as good as This Hour Has 22 Minutes, particularly when the latter had Rick Mercer or Mark Critch, it was still a solid ground for satire of Canadian politics.

The official Air Farce site I linked to above contains video clips of their entire 15-year TV run - in fact, every episode ever, which is really quite remarkable.

There are song parodies ('Osama Sama Ding Song'), celebrity guest stars (Peter Mansbridge and a whole lot of politcians), and lots more!

--Ryan

CBS May Have Covered the Election in HD, but CNN Covered it in 3D!

Ryan did a post on something I usually write about? Then Danny's writing on CNN's election coverage.



So, who saw the holographic interview on CNN last night? Yeah, me neither... I just channel surfed through it.

From the second or two that I saw, I thought it was very well done. They kept camera angles consistent... and even though Jessica Yellin seemed to have no feet, it's a step in the direction of the Simone film.

The difference between this and things like this in the past is just that it's a live broadcast, I suppose. Something about it seems fancier than your typical green screen... and I hope it's not the glow that's surrounding the hologram. And yet, we've still seen live things like this in the past from CNN.



--
D. Phillips

Analyze this!

Dan usually handles the technological blogging, but since he clearly doesn't want to talk about this one, I guess it's up to me.

Google Analytics is a handy service from Google which, once you've signed up, gives you information on the people who visit your website. There is an incredible level of depth in the information tracked, and as the easiest way to explain it all, here are some highlights from this blog:

All stats taken from October 1st to October 31st, as it seemed like the simplest period. In that time...

• We had 470 visits from 332 different visitors.
• The average visitor looked at 1.56 pages and spent 1 minute 5 seconds on the site (not counting time spent looking at the last/only page they visited).
• The vast majority of those 470 visits came from North America - 222 from Canada, 159 from the US - but we also had visitors from locales as exotic as Malaysia, Belgium, South Africa, and Honduras.
• The top city for visitors was Brantford, with 113 visits (no more than 74 of which were me), followed by Kitchener (30), Toronto (20), and London (13).
• The top non-Canadian city was a tie between Santa Clara (CA), New York City, Chicago, and Sydney (AU), with three visits each.
• With 33 visits, October 15 (the day after the election) was by far the busiest day on honeygarlic all month. The least busy day was October 25, with seven visits. Most days averaged between 14 and 20 visits.
• 239 visits (or just over 50%) were from people using Firefox - impressive, since I was by far the top visitor and I still use IE.
• 412 visits from Windows users, 45 from Macs, 13 from Linux.
• 4 visits from the odd combination of Apple's Safari browser and Windows.
• 1280x800 is the most popular screen resolution for our visitors, narrowly beating out 1280x768 and 1024x768. Highest resolution is 1920x1200 (how this nine-time visitor hasn't gone blind is beyond me), smallest is 720x480 (didn't know that was still possible).
• There were 53 views for Part I of my long-forgotten "History of Peanuts" series, and other 67 views for the January 2008 archive (which contains all three parts of that I did). The
  Internet has spoken, and I guess I'll be going back to that sometime.
• 150 visits came through Google, with 53 of them searching out "is xkcd shitty today" and presumably landing at Dan's post on that subject.
• Second place is 8 searches for "brantford international jazz festival blog" (if you think that's a wide gap, another 20 or so searches were for derivatives of "is xkcd shitty today").
• One person seems to think that rather than favouriting the blog homepage, they can just continually search out my review of the Oxford Circus restaurant and get here through that.
• Out of the 75 different search terms which led people here, I can't decide if my favourite is "how many moles of pencil lead are there in 10 hand written copy of mole pledge" or "what song is dun na na yeah highs chool bands play". I'm sure neither of them found what they were looking for.

Well I found it interesting.

--Ryan

(P.S.: All together now...dun na na YEAH! Dun na na YEAH!)

A Halloween musing

I'm sitting here, left with the task of doling out candy to children (or pretending I'm not home, but I've got the candy, so that would be a waste). And I just had a thought.

When I was a kid, I'd be at least getting ready to go out by now, if not out already, and some really young kids would have likely been by already (possibly cousins showing off their costumes).

But not only has nobody been by yet...there's no way I ever went out trick-or-treating when the sun was still shining so brightly. Or at all.

I pondered this oddness for a moment.

Then I realized the culprit - last year, daylight savings time was pushed back a few weeks. Oh sure, it's great for farmers, and allegedly for heart attacks (my thinking on that one is that it's the extra hour of sleep gained/lost that causes the drop/rise in heart attacks, nothing else), but what about the kids who are now going out an hour later, returning home an hour later, gorging themselves to the point of a sugar high an hour later, and crashing an hour later?

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?

--Ryan