Get Out the Vote!

Well, we’re down to the wire here, folks.  My daughter has made great strides over the last few days, rocketing up from 268 to 539 in the Harper-Collins “Share the Reading” contest, but is still inexplicably trailing by about 50 votes to a witless person who adores puppies and thinks the book adaptation of “Marley and Me” is a literary wonder.

So now it’s all down to the proverbial ground game and turning out the votes. Today is the last day to cast a ballot.  Essentially, it  boils down to this choice:

Need I say more?

By the way, if you’ve already voted… no problem, you can vote again!

https://hccsharereadingcontest.com/mobile/profile.php?entry=503300352

And if you can pass that link on after voting via email or to your social networks that would be terrific. I would love nothing more than to help score a win for her and the worthy charitable foundation she’s competing for.

Someone Needs Your Help!

For what it’s worth, I’m not dead. Well, at least not quite yet. Surprisingly!

I haven’t been blogging for ages simply because I’m just rather fed up with politics in general and the phenomenally depressing grind of awful news that’s relentlessly churned out on a daily basis by our intrepid media.

But never mind that. What brings me back here today is a very specific purpose and that is to ask that you cast a vote for my daughter on the “Share Reading” competition she’s involved with.

Here’s the link:

https://hccsharereadingcontest.com/mobile/profile.php?entry=503300352

It’s the easiest thing to do and all for a good cause.

Currently, she is in second-place behind a nitwit who regards the print adaptation of “Marley and Me” as a work of literature worth re-reading.  Surely that cannot be allowed to stand!

Has YouTube Killed “Related Videos”?

Google moves in mysterious ways… Whatever happened to “related videos” on YouTube that were at least in someway tangentially similar to the previous video watched?

Suddenly, it seems that there are only four options presented – none of which are remotely connected to the preceding video. Like the ubiquitous promo for the “Invisible Mercedes” or some “Epic Pee Prank” they do however have many millions of hits.

It also seems that the “suggestions” (in the past, always pathetically inept guesses for the most part) are now just the same as those appearing where “related videos” used to!

Quite odd…

Après Hiatus

Apologies to readers for being MIA from the blog for the past month or so, and especially to anyone that had their comments hung up in the dreaded spam filter awaiting moderation. Work has been consuming almost all my time of late, forcing me to crowd out personal distractions such as blogging, but I can no longer stand the self-imposed discipline, so I’ll try to resume posting on a more regular basis.

Manitoba Avenue

It’s been quite a long while since I posted anything on this blog even though a great deal of events have transpired since then. On a personal level, I’ve pulled up roots for the umpteenth time and moved cross-country, landing this past summer in Winnipeg — a city to which the expression “of all places” undeservedly appends itself perhaps more than it should.

Having deserted this forum so abruptly countless months ago without any explanation, it’s hard to know how best to return and start things up again.

Eschewing blithering, heartfelt apologies and lengthy excuses for being hopelessly MIA, maybe its best to simply plunge directly back into the flow of events…

So here’s a screengrab from the local CBC newscast of the house next door to mine catching fire the other night. My place is the brick building on the right.

Merry Christmas

Please accept without obligation, express or implied, these best wishes for an environmentally safe, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, and gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice (but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all) and further for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated onset of the generally accepted calendar year (including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures). The preceding wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, political affiliation, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee(s).

Xmas Update: The Queen’s annual Christmas message. Hey, it’s a tradition…

Gettin’ Stoked

ONN’s “In The Know” panelists discuss whether there’s an epidemic among young people (esp. college males) today who get stoked over everything from nachos and free key chains to finding $10 in their pants pockets.

Warning: Although it’s the weekend, the video contains harsh language and therefore may not be NSFW. Viewer discretion is advised.

Completely off topic; apologies for the extended absence over the last several days. As happens from time to time, I was really bummed out (non-stoked, one might say) by recent news events. Sometimes it’s good to just step away from things for a while, take a deep breath and re-group. Posting will still however be slow and infrequent for a while as I’m kind of inundated with “real-world” stuff at the moment (nothing bad… just lots of work and such).

Starless & Bible Black

I turned the big 5-0 today so forgive me for indulging in a little sentimental nostalgia… I’ve been digging through a lot of old “progressive” rock music by the usual suspects. I’m especially attached to this piece because it was one of the very first things I threw on the platter of my new stereo with great excitement in my very first apartment (a terrific sub-let in a somewhat decrepit old home built in the 20s that actually had a piano in the dining-slash-bedroom — not that I can play, but that didn’t stop me from endlessly meandering on it).

Pre-Internet, I wasn’t sure where the title came from. I knew it was by Dylan Thomas, but that’s all. In fact, it’s from a radio play that he wrote called Under the Milkwood that was broadcast on the BBC in 1954. “It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courter’s-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”

Another absolute fave of that time:

Pandemonium seesaw… I ran for the door, ringmaster shouted, “All the fun of the Cirkus!” Brilliant.

Anyway, an open thread if you wish… and, of course, feel free to embed cool tunes in the comments.

Windows 7.0 Party Time!

I’m beyond speechless. Sadly, the actors in this painfully upbeat “launch party” video for the release of the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows OS weren’t quite so reticent…

Apologies for making you suffer through that hacktacular video — presuming you watched it beyond the 20 second mark. In truth, it was a completely unrelated pretext just to note that there will be light posting and relative inactivity here for a while due to work-related and personal stuff going on at the moment (generally good things, but very time-consuming).

I’ll try to occasionally post on Twitter in the meantime. And yes, I know many people think that’s a thoroughly unserious medium, but I’ve decided to give it the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Beside which, I like the notion of attempting beat the challenge of the puny 140 character limit without all that maddeningly cryptic text-message crapola).

A Vancouver Day in 60 Seconds

Nice time-lapse from this past weekend, complete with lightning and fireworks.

Good grief, another blistering hot stretch of days ahead…

In other news, it was a little cooler than usual in Minnesota over the last couple of weeks, so global warming is clearly a totally bogus hoax. I believe there may be an errant or poorly situated temperature gauge in Delisle, SK that also “proves” beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever that AGW is nothing but a nefarious Communist wealth-redistribution scheme of planetary scope…