Memory Alpha

I've been spending a lot of time lately navigating Memory Alpha, the definitive Star Trek wiki. Its what the Star Trek Encyclopedia would have been if it was the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Also of interest is the Non-Canon Star Trek Wiki, covering the books and comics which canonically don't exist.

Wikipedia covers Memory Alpha and its drawbacks, strengths, and controversies.

Other relevent wikis are the Great Machine Babylon 5 Wiki, Unclyclopedia, the Wikipedia parody site, and Wookiepedia, the Star Wars Wiki.

Update, 11:11am: I also should mention that I have added the first theme to Deep Space Nine to the "star trek themes" post

What a difference a year makes -- the 2005 hockey season

In another ongoing feature I have decided to introduce, here's where I pick a blog post from (another, obviously) blog and see what they said a year ago.

For this inaugural edition, lets see what Battle of Alberta said on September 30, 2005:

Here's the challenges we posed:

1. Name one thing that's widely expected (or bit of conventional wisdom) about the upcoming NHL season that you doubt will happen.
2. What is the biggest unknown for you in the upcoming season, or what will you be most curious to see?
3. A) Pick one player who you think will break through, and B) pick one player whose performance will drop off considerably, relative to what we're used to
4. A) Pick one team who you think will break through, and B) pick one team who has been good recently who you think will be bad this year
5. A) What will the results of the Stanley Cup Finals be, and B) how is *your* team going to do.

Here are a few of the highlights:

I think that zero tolerance will fail, as it has so many times before.
Scoring will not increase substantially, and coaches will find it difficult
if not impossible to wean themselves from clutch-and-grab hockey. It feels a
bit like the old Lucy bit. "This year we're cracking down. We mean it.
Really. We're getting tough. Watch out...." And then the big cave.I thinking
by Christmas.

I don't know how widely expected is, but I hereby predict that the mobility restrictions on goaltenders will either have no effect on play or they will do the opposite of what they were intended to. Goalies remain untouchable no matter if they're in their crease (which is good for exactly what these days?), in their ridiculous trapezoid or roving around on the white ice. If anything it will work to the advantage of goalies like Brodeur and Belfour — they'll be that much closer to the red line when they skate out, unmolested, and redirect the dump-ins up ice.

The consensus seems to be that the defending Stanley Cup champions are going to drop back to become just another above-average team, which is bloody confusing. They won the East in the last regular season, then won the Cup, but because they lost the Bulin Wall (Stillman? Lukowich?), now they’re back in the pack? Bollocks!

I leave you to judge as you see fit....

Tie another one on for size, Belinda

By now, everybody in the country has learned that Canada's most dispicable female politician is now the adultress in the marriage of the star player for Canada's most dispcicable sports franchise. This is not the kind of dirt you turn to Third Edge of the Sword to gain breaking news on, which is good, because I don't have any. I know a stripper in Ontario, and a girl who slept with Brian McCabe, and that's about as close to "Aurora-Newmarket sluts" or "PLAN FOR TEAM TO LOSE players" as I get on a personal basis.

But its such a "hot topic" story that it deserves some attention. I wrote about Belinda Stronach in the Edmonton SUN back when she switched parties, but I was not blogging at that time. My only on-site references to Belinda have been noting that the Canadian women who were accused of murder in Mexico looked like her, using her for a dig on Barbara McDougall, and comparing her to Frank Mahovlich.

Anyways, here are a couple interesting Belinda links:
Backseat Blogger asks herself "why is this a story" and comes up a little short, other than to notice that the Conservatives sure have to be glad now that she left when she did.
User "E-string" on Yahoo Answers is completely lost as to why Belinda would want a "caveman" like Tie...apparently unaware of everything sex researchers have ever told us about women. (Bonus post: While "Plan For Team To Lose" is an anagram of "Toronto Maple Leafs", "Tie Domi" is an easy anagram to "Me Idiot")
Grastoon.com has a political cartoon on the subject. For editorial cartoonists, this really isn't as much fodder as it should be. (Bonus cartoon: Who is Kennedy?)

What's my take on this? Just shock and outrage. Belinda Stronach? Slutty homewrecker, you say? A Liberal not to be trusted? I have nothing to blog about this...words simply do not describe it.

The things you find hiding from Lyle Oberg commercials

Does anybody have any clue whatsoever what this means?

The end of January - the beginning of February, 2005 . Photos of Lucy Lawless were published by Rob Tapert, her husband. Rob Tapert had a need to attract to attention to his project "Boogeyman" and photos of Lucy were not beautiful and they had vulgar design.

After, I heard the following information: Boogeyman (its budget is $20 million) had big advertising and information: $8.5 million in its first weekend. But dreams about a great success are not harmful! After the second weekend Boogeyman had left a top list!

Madame Vandersexxx (Eurotrip) had destroyed a popularity of Lucy Lawless, nobody was able to trust that one day Lucy will has played this role but at present time Mary Jensen (Boogeyman) is destroying a popularity of Rob Tapert. I think this situation prove that people loved no Xena and no Rob Tapert they loved only Lucy, because Xena is Lucy Lawless.

Taking part of Lucy in a show which falls from favor explain big money of Boogeyman. Needs to pay due, a rent of 3,052 movie theatres, big advertising of Boogeyman in mass media and others the arrearage of her Rob Tapert i.e. there is a need to attract attention to BOOGEYMAN and Rob Tapert was in a great hurry to undress his wife.

But 23 March 2005 Lucy's naked back had been deleted from Two and a Half Men. I.e. sexual perverts Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, Chuck Lorre were gelded without anesthesia and eunuch Chuck Lorre oppose? Aha! Thankless! It was medical care! You all had gotten used to turn woman into rubber (sex) doll. I think, the Rob cockerel must undress!

Using own popularity Lucy Lawless tries one's best to attract attention to Rob Tapert and her actions assist to raise up a career of Rob Tapert and his boyfriend Sam Raimi. But it is not enough for them and with help of Rob Tapert influence on Lucy they used not only Lucy but her pregnancies, stepdaughter and his shared children.

But still it is not enough for Rob and Sam. Using subject of Xena and forgetting that film was for children they had thought out the following: two heroes of film are women so they will be lesbians!

Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi use analogous pictures where there is kiss of Xena and Gabrielle to demonstrate Lesbianism of Xena, but why I am looking at this picture and I see only beaten and dying Xena and necrophilia of Gabrielle or maybe Gabrielle wishes to rape Xena at this picture, though it is sixth season, the final scene of second series of Friend in need: Gabrielle had brought a few water from a stream of life in her mouth to give Xena.

ObergForOprah.ca

Just heard a horrible radio commercial for Lyle Oberg's campaign to run for Premier of Alberta. It sounded like the Liberal radio ads in 2004, or the Conservative radio ads in 2006. In other words, a damned woman trying to softly butter up the candidate to persuade these soccer moms to vote the right way. I've always held opposite: Women's Suffrage was a horrendous mistake, and we should try not to repeat the errors of history by encouraging them to vote any more than necessary.

Anyways, Oberg put in his nomination yesterday, being the ninth person to do that. Now he's got a fully-functional website, and radio ads, and it sounds like he's trying to make a massive public splash to get his name thrown as a front-runner through the sheer volume of media. It's probably best to remind everyone that the left hates him for the education budget cuts, the Klein loyalists hate him for his March comments urging delegates to vote en-masse against Klein at the PC Leadership Review, and everybody else hates him for his general creepiness.

Bonus curious ObergForAlberta.ca observation: The sidebar on Oberg's campaign website has a serious deictic problem: they can't decide whether this sidebar is being told to the website viewer by Oberg himself or an agent: "My Policies & Vision", "My Record", "Campaign Schedule", "Ask Lyle", etc. It's not easy to switch deixis and voice incompatibly, but they manage to acheive it.

Representation by Population (offer not valid in Quebec)

Terry O'Neil has a posting on the Shotgun blog about how StatsCan has determined that Alberta/BC combined now beat out Quebec in population, and reminds us that the latter has double the Senate seats as the former, plus 11 extra MPs.

The former issue is, of course, a bit of a red herring: the Triple-E Senate requires there to be massive population disparities, but that also allows true Rep-by-Pop in the House of Commons.

(As an aside, can you believe that the Wikipedia Triple-E entry makes absolutely no mention of Stan Waters?)

Temporary "sticky" post test

This is a placesetting post. Why? I don't know if Blogger.com can do sticky posts. But I feel that they most likely will put posts in order of draft, rather than in order of posting. If I am correct, this post will be above the posting I just drafted but did not publish regarding things that concern me, like Americans and Arar, the Oilers against the Canucks in a split-squad game, and the Alberta Royalty Tax Credit program.

If I am incorrect, that post will appear above this one, and my beautiful plan will fail miserably. (Not that its relevent anytime soon, I just would like to know).

Update, 5:20am: It works, baby, it works! If I ever decide to make a sticky post, I simply post a few (say, 5-20) blank "draft" posts underneath it. Then, as I wish to post, I can add them in one at a time until I wish the "sticky" post to unstick. Then I can delete all of the draft posts that I didn't use, and voila. Not bad, FACLC, not bad...

Not Edmonton 5 - Not Vancouver 4, and other things I'm not too sure about

A bunch of players, many of whom might play for the Edmonton Oilers, narrowly defeated a bunch of other players, a couple of which have an epsilon chance of making the next round of cuts for the Vancouver Canucks. (0 <ε<<1, of course). Edmonton was apparently using this game to test the forwards, as common understanding is that Mac-T was fielding the defensive pairings that he is planning to pencil in on opening night. That's more than a little bit scary. So what else is concerning me? There is an article up on the Human Events website about Maher Arar entitled "Don't Blame Canada". The American take on the Arar situation is apparently one mostly of blaming Canadian authorities for giving bad information and ultimately making the U.S. look much worse than they feel they should have appeared. As you well know, I remain convinced Maher Arar is a terrorist.

The Canadians shared other inflammatory misinformation with the U.S. government, including the assertion that Arar had abruptly left the country after refusing to be interviewed by the RCMP. In fact, Arar had agreed to an interview under conditions the RCMP rejected, he left for a trip to Tunisia with his family five months later, and they were visiting his wife's ailing father, not leaving Canada for good.

How should I take all of this? No clue. Sorry.

All of my fantasy baseball matches are too close for comfort. Down 5-7-0 in the buddy league on Sunday, I've returned to 7-5-0 today, which means it can swing back. 5-4-1 for the Edmonton Separatists, down from 6-4-0 earlier in the week. The Alberta Mariners have recovered slightly, now down only 3-7-0 instead of 2-7-1, but that's it for good news. The Royal Alberta Navy? Oddly enough has recently climbed the charts, now 8th place (half a point up on the rapidly dropping 9th place team). So I'm not sure how to take baseball developments. Similarly, I don't know who I want to win the AL Central. Kind of rooting for the Twins, but I feel Detroit could use one huge season to thank their fans for dealing with a team that has just recently started finishing above the Kansas City Royals.

The Edmonton Journal reported that on Tuesday, City Council did a lot of things including something about "Whyte Avenue and other high-traffic bar strips" but didn't specify. The current news releases from City Hall don't mention it either. The Journal also mentions the weekend parking ban on Whyte will be extended (question: does that really make any difference whatsoever, and why would they think it does?), but no clue if that's the development that is mentioned in their other article. What the hell are they trying to pull on Whyte Avenue now? Not sure what to make about any of that either.

Scrapping the ARTC bad for small business

September 25, 2006

Edmonton –In response to Minister Greg Melchyn's surprise move eliminating the Alberta Royalty Tax Credit Program the Alliance leader Paul Hinman expresses his disagreement and grave concern on the direction of this red Tory Government.

“This government is no longer pro small business. Perhaps our biggest worry is no longer the Federal Government but our own liberal infested cabinet who are undermining our economy,” said Hinman.

The government has elected to make these changes at a very inopportune time. Rig utilization is only 39% this week due to low gas prices and the government continues to hammer away at small oil and gas producers. Melchyn recently clawed back 186 million from the industry and has now grabbed another 111 million.

“This government is completely disconnected from small business and the economy. They are reacting to calls from the Liberal and NDP opposition rather than using some common sense,” said Hinman.

Gas Prices have dropped from January highs of $12 per MCF (thousand cubic feet) to a low of $3.84 per MCF this past week. Oil prices have dropped from their highs of $74.80 USD per barrel to $60 USD per barrel today. And now the government decides to take another bite out of small producers and explorers.

“It was wrong to eliminate the ARTC. However, adjusting the formula to remove large profitable corporations receiving the credit would have been appropriate. Doing nothing is better than what they have done,” concludes Hinman.

I have no idea what my opinion should be on the Alberta Royalty Tax Credit. I have no idea what my reaction to the debate on what the royalty rates for oil extraction should be. Is that bad? I mean, I'm politically well-informed, know more than my fair share of economics, am an awfully clever scientist, and despite all of this I do not have the slightest clue what my opinion should be on these two timely issues in Alberta. Am I for it? Or a'gin it? No clue. Suggestions and recommendations would be appreciated.

Space. The Final Frontier.

Presenting all of the Star Trek TV series opening themes, courtesy of YouTube:


The original series theme. For some reason, I can't find one that's longer (ie. contains DeForest Kelley). I'll keep looking.


The first season of Star Trek:The Next Generation. Notable for showing our actual solar system, which they changed in Season 3. Oddly enough, this is the only TNG theme video I can find.

Also I can't find either of DS9's opening themes, which seems a shame. They did the slow music early seasons theme, and the militaristic Defiant theme too. Can't find either.

Update, September 29 2006 2:34am: I managed to find this opening theme from the first two seasons - sans credits. Close enough. Now the militaristic theme is on my to-do list.


Naturally, the crap-ship Voyager theme is available in its full... *ahem*... "glory". Gawd I hate this show, especially since CityTV has apparently decided that its the Trek-show to be aired twice a day on free TV while the other series get jacked.


Here's the regular theme to Star Trek Enterprise (Berman, that asshole, in his wisdom decided to leave "Trek" off the show's depiction. Good ideas from that man, I tell ya)


The "battle theme" for the mirror-universe episodes of Enterprise


And here's the Enterprise theme to the music of Star Trek:The Motion Picture. Boy they have a lot of videos from that half-baked idea of a show.

Pardon The (History) Interruption

For some reason today, I caught (no sound) part of Pardon The Interruption, where they were doing a "this day in history" thing. I forget 100% what it was, and the Wikipedia entry on today in history just doesn't cut it. (By "today" I mean "yesterday", since its now the 27th).

The thing that angered me (maybe another thing to take umbrage in?) is that PTI treats the NHL like a completely uninteresting nonsport, and yet takes up 60 seconds discussing some silly historical footnote that was completely non-sports-related.

Here are some of the interesting things that happened on September 26th though:

1. The Serpukhov-15 bunker incident in 1983 that almost vapourized us all. (thanks again to Ronald Reagan for actually ending this kind of nonsense)
2. Seoul was recaptured by UN forces in 1950
3. Sir Francis Drake completed his circumnavigation of the globe 426 years ago "today"
4. The Queen Mary launch in 1934
5. Abbey Road released (in Britain) in 1969 on the same day The Brady Bunch premiered. There's a clever observation or joke or something to be made there.
6. If you want sports stuff, Nolan Ryan throws his 5th no-hitter in 1981, Ben Johnson is stripped of his gold medal (in Seoul, oddly enough) in 1988, and in '83 Australia II wins the Americas Cup
7. A 1997 earthquake collapsed the Basilica of St. Francis in Italy
8. Finally, the Concorde makes its first nonstop Atlantic crossing. Yeah, that worked well.

   Jim: Five standard excuses?
   Sir Humphrey: Yes. First there's the excuse we used for instance in the Anthony Blunt case.
   Jim: Which was?
   Sir Humphrey: That there is a perfectly satisfactory explanation for everything, but security forbids its disclosure. Second there is the excuse we used for comprehensive schools, that it only gone wrong because of heavy cuts in staff and budget which have stretched supervisory resources beyond the limits.
   Jim: But that's not true is it?
   Sir Humphrey: No, but it's a good excuse. Then there's the excuse we used for Concorde, it was a worthwhile experiment, now abandoned, but not before it had provided much valuable data and considerable employment.
   Jim: But that is true isn't it? Oh no, of course it isn't.
   Sir Humphrey: The fourth, there's the excuse we used for the Munich agreement. It occurred before certain important facts were known, and couldn't happen again
   Jim: What important facts?
   Sir Humphrey: Well, that Hitler wanted to conquer Europe.
   Jim: I thought everybody knew that.
   Sir Humphrey: Not the Foreign Office.
   Jim: Five?
   Sir Humphrey: Five, there's the Charge of the Light Brigade excuse. It was an unfortunate lapse by an individual which has now been dealt with under internal disciplinary procedures.
   - A Question of Loyalty

I take umbrage I tell you! Umbrage! (Hold on, I need to check the dictionary). Yeah! Umbrage!

4 : a feeling of pique or resentment at some often fancied slight or insult

Well okay, when reading a post on the Battle of Alberta criticizing the Oilers 2006 defensive pairings (I'm the 27th anonymous comment about a possible mis-type that everybody missed), I came across this post:

I would have loved the Oil to get some D. Unfortunately, it cost too much. 6.5 bucks for Jovanovski? Wot a deal!

If Sutter were a competent GM, he would have shipped some of his gorgeous underpaid (according to the current market) defensemen to teams that "needed" them, and robbed them blind for scoring talent.

Instead, he gets Tanguay at fair market value. A good signing, but at market value.

I don't like the Roloson resigning--too much money for a 37 year old--but I honestly believe that Markenen will perform admirably as a decent number two. He did fine in the final round last spring.

In the new NHL, the team that wins is the one that can most consistently grab players at below their fair market value. D-men overvalued? Get forwards! GMs need to be arbitrageurs (it's a word, look it up) and I think that Lowe is passing this test better than Sutter.

Well, okay, fine, you stumped me. There are 988,968 words in the English language, and I don't know all of them. So what have we got?

arbitrageur
Pronunciation: "är-b&-(")trä-'zh&r
Variant(s): or ar·bi·trag·er /'är-b&-"trä-zh&r/
Function: noun
Etymology: French arbitrageur, from arbitrage
1 : one that practices arbitrage

Aww gee, thanks! Good thing I looked it up!

arbitrage
Pronunciation: 'är-b&-"träzh
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, arbitration, from Old French, from arbitrer to render judgment, from Latin arbitrari, from arbitr-, arbiter
1 : the nearly simultaneous purchase and sale of securities or foreign exchange in different markets in order to profit from price discrepancies
2 : the purchase of the stock of a takeover target especially with a view to selling it profitably to the raider

There, that's more helpful.

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Also on the list of things that I take umbrage to: The Washington Times review of the completely serviceable date-movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Of all things, its written by former Alberta Report reporter Kelly Jane Torrance:

The insecure superhero doesn't take the breakup very well. Especially when it becomes clear Matt dumped her so he could take up with co-worker Hannah (Anna Faris). (Miss Faris of the "Scary Movie" franchise is also an attractive blonde; but Matt choosing her over supergirl Miss Thurman is yet another plot hole.)

Yeah, sorry Kelly, but I've got to weigh in on this one: Uma Thurman is one of those women that just doesn't do anything for most guys. She's actually a more glaring example of this than the most common example, Angelina Jolie.

Hmm, anything else to take umbrage with? No? Well, I'll use a work incident today and the discovery that there are less than 100,000 words in the French language to do some pointless frog bashing. Hint:all of these lines are lines I either have used against the French assholes at work, or lines I will hopefully one day use;

• "Wow, I haven't seen a Frenchman take a beating like that since the Plains of Abraham
• Now the problem is that you are trying to take the same side as the French...and we know how well that worked in World War 2. And World War 1. Indochina. The Algiers. Franco-Prussian War. War of 1812. 100 Years War.
• It's odd, you think that a Frenchman would do a better job retreating than that.
• When most people think of France they think of their excellent cheeses, but I prefer to think about about their whine.
• Stick to speaking French. Leave English to the race of people who knew how to run an Empire.
• Frenchman: We have a word for people like you
  FACLC: Is it surrender? That seems to be French for a lot of words
• Okay, okay, that's enough, I'm raising the white flag. Now I feel like a French patriot.

Oddly enough, these recipies don't work in a normal blender...

No, seriously, have you noticed that? You can't make omlettes the way they show on the informercial! It just doesn't work!

Is It True What They Say About Ignatieff?

Consider this: if StopIggy.com is accurate....

He lobbied his supporters aggressively to vote to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan

He has come out swinging against the Kyoto Accord, posting in his online blog that the Accord is ineffective, and that he has better ideas for reducing pollution in Canada.

He has hinted that he wants to reform the Medicare system to allow increased privatization

Iggy has spent the better part of his academic career advancing views that fit disturbingly well with the current positions of the U.S. administration

Iggy was an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq war

He wrote breathlessly of “Jeffersonian” democracy

...than this Michael Ignatieff guy might almost be worth voting for.

How much do you figure, however, that they're just trying to tempt us with a bunch of things that aren't actually true? That's the more likely story.

For more on StopIggy.com, check out Angry in the Great White North.

Sapphists complain about persecution while enjoying effeminate behaviour

The New Yorker has an article about gays being "bashed" on an airline because (gasp!) people expressed disgust watching these uranists making out. Probably the highlight of the entire article is this account from sperm bumper Stephan Varnier:

"I had a José Saramago book I was looking forward to reading. And then I was going to take some melatonin and have a little nap."

Even their hobbies were queer. Surely this can't be the first time they've been told to try acting just a little less flame-y.

Jews vs. Sodomites: the L.A. Cemetary edition

Found this YouTube tribute to lost Hollywood names now buried in gravesites around Los Angeles. Now for the big question: count the number of Jewish stars versus the number of homosexual celebrities you can see.

Other highlights is seeing "Dodge" and "Ford" next to each other, and Richard Milhous Nixon's gravesite. "The Greatest Honor History Can Bestow is the Title of Peacemaker". Ouch. Poor Nixon, stuck with that on his tomb.

Less angry, less white, and less male

I continue to hold out hope by keeping a link to Angry White Males on my sidebar, even though after a big start the new comics died down until the election last year, but still have not posted a new cartoon in the 2006 Calendar year.

A similar, yet far more active webcomic, is Day by Day. Not putting it in the sidebar, but here you go for a peek. There's some non-political stuff too, like this recent one about hot engineer chicks. A good Clinton/Berger bashup was done as well the day before 9/11's anniversary.

Speaking of political comics, what's Stephen Notley up to? The last sorta political strip he did (thank God) was "Hiding Behind Women and Children", and that was fairly tame. No political nonsense on angryflower.com in ages now, and that's a good thing.

Returning to /. after a lengthy absence

How long has it been since I visited slashdot.org? This post when I returned from vacation is the latest entry I can find referring to it, so I wouldn't be surprised if its been about that long. In all honesty, I sorta forgot it existed. I was always aware of it, but the only times I ever thought "I wonder whats on /." was when I was far away from any computer.

Today however I was motivated to check it out when Colby Cosh made a coding error, failing to include a link on the last entry of a world press roundup: "Sony's Japanese price point for the PlayStation 3 turns out to be too high at 2× the XBox 360 and the Wii".

So naturally I check slashdot. I find this entry: Low-End PS3 Comes with HDMI, Cheaper in Japan. Also available in the PS3 library is a look inside the PS3, a look at the problems with the PS3, and that finally later this month Sony willactually start building PS3 machines to fulfill their promise of 1 million machines in 2006. Sounds like the Xbox360 difficulties tripled (and the cost doubled, Cosh reminds us).

Also found on slashdot:

• Debian 4.0 ("etch") is hoping to be released in December if a controversial funding proposal comes through
• After almost 40 years of loyal service, parts shortages and replacement combat fighters, the last F-14 Tomcats will be retired.
• No idea if it will go the "Clerks" route, but Spaceballs is set to become an animated series airing on US cable in 2007
• Business students are the most likely grad students to cheat says researchers. 56% admitted to plagurism, while only 49% of law students did. Not sure about the certainty of this: it was a common warning when I was at the University of Alberta that you did not study in the Law Library, or if you did you watched your belongings at all times. Apparently Law was such a competitive field and the students so unscrupulous that they would steal textbooks from people studying in that library in the hope that they were going to negatively impact the GPA of one of their competitors. Reportedly they would even swipe them from under your chair as you were busy studying (or sleeping, in my case I suppose). I always studied in the Cameron Library basement or in Cameron itself: I sometimes would leave all of my belongings for several hours and never find them missing. Just lucky, maybe.
• Famed mathematician Dr. Shing-Tung Yau is furious at A Beautiful Mind author Sylvia Nasar for "defaming" him in a letter she and another person wrote for the New Yorker magazine. You can also see slashdot's original coverage of the letter.
• Microsoft just made online music even less desirable, with Media Player 11 removing the ability to even move music from one machine to another (say if you change computers or use a laptop).
• The creator of the "Columbine RPG" game discusses claims that his game was the lynchpin behind the Dawson School shootings in Montreal.
• Finally, artifical volcanoes could be used to slow "global warming". Question: Didn't volcanic eruptions used to be accused of speeding it up? Seems to me that was used against me on Usenet ages ago. Who's laughing now?

"My, this is terribly awkward. But I wanted to tell you something. But I don't know. I seem to be so charmingly befuddled."

For the first time ever watched Four Weddings and a Funeral (don't ask), and was struck to hear "Love Is All Around" by the Troggs. This was not the first song that was also in Love Actually but it was the one I could remember and that caught my ear. Then I discover in fact the two movies have something else in common: Richard Curtis, who directed Love Actually and wrote the screenplay for it, Four Weddings, and the dreadful Notting Hill. It seems Curtis owes Grant a debt of gratitude...or the other way around. Hard to say.

Curtis is a longtime collaborator with Rowan Atkinson, having worked with him on the immortal Mr. Bean as well as Blackadder (baaaaa!).

Anyways, this is mostly just a rambling entry, but here's the text of W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues":

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Bonus Four Weddings and a Funeral observation: Matthew (the faggot who was ass-pirating the old bearded guy) was played by John Hannah who you might also remember from The Mummy (the dorky brother of Rachel Weisz). The thing I noticed during Four Weddings is that he sounds amazingly like Lord of the Rings hobbit Billy Boyd (or possibly Dominic Monaghan, I can't remember now which he sounded like, and no way am I turning that movie back on).

A quick Coulteresque retort to a Journal letter

Today an Edmonton Journal letter writer casually mentioned the "illegal war in Iraq". Forgetting that International Law is both hazy and frankly disambiguous, and that U.S. Law is clear, one thought arises:

You'd think that the party which glorifious a jewel thief who has sodomized underage Cuban boys would just shut up on the topic of legalities.

Arar rumours: like Pronger rumours,only with uglier chicks

Posted on Steve Janke's Angry in the Great White North by "Roger":

Jack now supports Mr.Arar's $400 million dollar Law suit against Canadians for what Arabs did to him under the same Liberal Government the NDP supported to get same-gender marriage in canada, BUT , here's the interesting twist, Layton knew Arar and the Hamas linked CAIR was abetting him since Sheema Khan revealed that CAIR coaches Muslims to avoid Helping CSIS and the RCMP stop terrorist from murdering Westerners or Canadians right here , so Jack uses Arar's wife to run for the NDP in Ottawa where Momin Khawaja was arrested to prove the RCMP's fears a terrorism cell that CAIR told Arar not to expose or help Canada arrest before using bombs in Londons subway, Arar's wife is a Palestinian/Muslim/pro-sharia law follower and gays in palestine are murdered right in the streets under Sharia .

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Speaking of Pronger, I saw on TSN today that Pronger talked about the rumours swirling as he left Edmonton: "It started off with I slept with so-and-so, and I'm having kids, then it moved to my wife sleeping with some of my teammates."

Wow, your wife was sleeping around too? I hadn't actually heard that one. Thanks Chris!

The perfect hammer to crush the metaphorical skulls of potential NDP Members of Parliament with...

"Truly consensual sex between 14 year olds and over 30s is too rare to be concerned about and doesn't seem to be a social problem"

Yes, that's right voters across Canada, the NDP not only don't want the laws changed to prevent men of any age from having sex with 14 year olds, but they also don't see any problem whatsoever with such a relationship.


(Okay, "hidden agenda" time: is the reason NDP followers oppose this because they themselves dream of pulling a Svend Robinson someday and being a creepy 50 year old having illicit sex with kids still in Junior High? Didn't I cover this already?)

All-Star cast indeed: WKRP In Cincinatti as it might have been

Reading about the classic 70s-80s sitcom about a wacky radio station (which tragically will never show on DVD for the same reason Married With Children shall always have the crappy theme music on Seasons 3-11), I was shocked to discover that key cast members were brought in when the producers first options failed:



Roddy McDowell as "The Big Guy" Arthur Carlson





David Letterman as Andy Travis







Richard Libertini as John "Dr. Johnny Fever" Caravella







Howard Hesseman as Herb Tarlek

---

Bonus Married With Children... trivia tidbit: MWC's resident lesbian Amanda Bearse directed episodes from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (which once guest-starred WKRP alumnus Howard Hesseman). She's also directed episodes of Dharma and Greg, Veronica's Closet, and The Big Gay Show.

Bonus Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place trivia: Ryan Reynolds, the "successful" Blade actor who portrayed Berg in the show, was offered the part of Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nathan Fillion, his castmate from Pizza Place who played Johnny, auditioned for the role of Angel but was turned down. Joss Whedon didn't realize this when he offered Fillion the Firefly lead.

Is the closest distance between two cows a straight line?

Was downloading the extremely advisable Irfan Image Viewer tonight from tucows.com, and suddenly was struck by a thought which I have thought of before, but never really openly blogged about.

Is it really better to choose a closer server? Is choosing within your own country a better option than closer across borders?

From Edmonton, I had the option to download from these Canadian destinations:

• MTS Advanced Inc.(Manitoba Telecom Services) Winnipeg, MB
• Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation (CDLI) St. John's, NF
• Nexicom Inc. Millborook, ON
• KWIC internet Simcoe, ON
• Persona Communications Sudbury, ON
• Look Communications Inc. Toronto, ON
• Island Services (ISN Internet Incorporated) Charlottetown, PE
• Access Communications Regina, SK

I chose the Regina option, and as it downloaded (quickly enough, Irfan isn't a huge program which is why I use it) I got to thinking on the subject. Would the Winnipeg connection possibly be faster (ignoring respective server speed) just because of how the internet backbone runs? Meanwhile the American list looks like this:

• ACS Internet Anchorage, AK
• Aspect 1 Internet Services Phoenix, AZ
• mintac.net Wilmington, DE
• Host.net Miami, FL
• NetNITCO Internet Services Hebron, IN
• Mid America ISP, Inc. Marshalltown, IA
• Quantum Connections, LLC Benton Harbor, MI
• The e.Lib, Inc. Concord, MI
• CMSInter.Net LLC Mt. Pleasant, MI
• MV Communications Londonderry, NH
• NYI New York, NY
• FIRST USA, Inc. St. Clairsville, OH
• epix Internet Services Dallas, PA
• The Planet Dallas, TX
• WhiteHorse Communications, Inc. El Paso, TX
• Westlin Bunker Datacenter Houston, TX
• West Central Net San Angelo, TX
• Internet Texoma, Inc. Sherman, TX
• Mirrors @ TDS Internet Services Madison, WI

So if I chose the Texas options? Might they be faster? Is it quicker to go from Winnipeg, which is 1197 km away in the same "country", or from Marshalltown Iowa, 1989 km away across an international border? Would it change if I was downloading from 929 km away Billings Montana?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Bush responsible for lower gas prices in Belgium

Dan Gainor has a column this week about the conspiracy theory that the oil companies are lowering world crude oil prices to help Bush's Republican collegues do better in November's midterm elections.

Not just would they, but could they? If you believe that, then you and Cafferty should discuss the Illuminati’s controlling world events—just to raise gas prices. But that defies the same “logic” Cafferty claims is behind oil company support for Republicans. The increase in gas prices has hurt Bush and Republican incumbents for two years. Why then didn’t these same mysterious forces keep the price low?

Because in the real world, oil companies don’t control gas prices. They’re set on world markets. They’ve dropped significantly from their recent high on August 8—declining 42 cents between August 12 and September 12. If you’ll recall, gas prices soared from $2.26 a gallon in February as Iran increased tensions about its nuclear aims. Then, on April 11, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared, “Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world,” according to the New York Times. Gas shot up about 25 cents in two weeks thanks to our nuclear reaction.

Other big news is that Bush spoke at the United Nations yesterday, as did Iranian President Maher Arar Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here are some of the MSM headlines following the speeches:
Two solitudes in collision: Ahmadinejad, Bush manage to avoid each other - Leaders swap allegations over nuclear intentions
Ahmadinejad: UNSC pawn of US and UK
Iran must make first move, Bush tells UN meeting
Bush reaches out to Muslims at UN: Offers assurances to people of Iran
Bush: 'My country desires peace'
W., Iranian dance in N.Y., but it's not a pas de deux [oohh, aren't you fancy with all the French? -ed]
Bush touches all bases in goodwill UN address
WRAPUP 6-Bush, Ahmadinejad clash over Iran nuclear rights [this must be from Reuters -ed]
American, Iranian presidents skip each other's talks
At U.N., Bush Urges Reform in Middle East: He stresses diplomacy and calls on the people of the region to reject 'extremists.' Kofi Annan criticizes U.S. handling of suspected terrorists.
Iranian president labels US a lawbreaker
Iran blows away Bush's warm words at UN
New Yorkers unite for war demonstration [All of them "unite"? Or is this just some left-wing gasbag trying to make professional protesters look grassroots? -ed]
Bush and Ahmadinejad clash at U.N.

Bonus link: "But finally these Islamic terrorists are saying what they mean. Al-Qaeda in Iraq said it best, saying the only acceptable thing is to convert to Islam. And that is the real aim of the Islamofascists: worship Allah or die. It has been their goal for decades. Which is why you can't reason with these people. They don't care about peace...they don't really care whether or not Israel exists...it's all about getting rid of the non-believers."

Chris....Pronger is it? Neverheardaya

The Edmonton Journal reports today about Chris Pronger being upset over his treatment by Edmonton fans.

Luckily the Journal's sportswriters don't let the big adulterer get the last word:

As revealed in Hall of Fame hockey writer Jim Matheson's interview with ex-Oilers defenceman Chris Pronger in Tuesday's Journal, Pronger still doesn't get it.

If Chris Pronger is "pissed off" about the numerous rumours floating around about his depature from the Edmonton Oilers, he has himself to blame.

When he wanted to be traded, he should have called a press conference, announced his wish to leave, and explained, in a simple but clear sentence, precisely why he wanted out.

Case closed. Gossip averted. But that has never happened.

Still its interesting to consider that if the rumours are true, Prongs coulda stayed in Edmonton if he'd just waited for CityTV to fire Christie Chorley when Bell Globemedia bought out CHUM.

List of traffic-building blogtools I don't use/understand

1. Digg
2. Del.icio.us
3. RSS Feeds
4. Technorati
5. Flickr
6. Reddit
7. Trackbacks

Besides being hot and not interested in me, the other thing Loxy and M______ have in common

(Not entirely true, I've never met Loxy and while she has a photo on her blog, I'm an anonymous guy whos political rants are unlikely to be what attracts women...I just needed a second similarity besides hotness, and M______ isn't a fan of hockey or photography)

Both girls were not impressed with their birthdays. Loxy's 25th (I think) was apparently this weekend. M______'s 21st (I think) was earlier in the summer. I'd heard from eyewitness accounts that M______'s birthday was a "disappointment" to the guest of honour: her new cheating abusive boyfriend didn't show up, and only 3 people were in attendance with one not counting (the boyfriend of our mutual friend discussed here), where I got all this info from).

Of course, on a certain level the "disappointing birthday" is M______'s own fault: she made other people plan it, and then threw a hissy fit when people disagreed with things she did and said.

But on another level, its a hype issue: birthdays never live up to our dreams in the same way and for the exact reason that Christmas doesn't live up to its billing in our cortexes. It can't. It's like a small-scale version of the wedding rule: Something is going to go wrong at your wedding. Likewise, something is going to make your birthday less memorable: your clothes are going to get mud splashed on them while you are walking down the sidewalk, or there's going to be a 3 hour lineup at the bar you've chosen. You just have to roll with the punches and live with it. The last birthday that I had that I fully enjoyed was 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 when I turned 18 21 16 8. Wait, have I ever had a perfect birthday party? (I know that if this was a photo of the attendees it would be a birthday for the Top Five at least).

I wasn't happy with the results of my birthday. Simple as that. I hoped for more and it didn't pan out.

Sound familiar to anybody else?

Bonus quote:"Robert Palmer knew what he was talking about I guess." Probably not quite as popular a sentiment on a blog as the above.

Yeah, thanks for the advice...

On my way to the job fair at the Shaw Conference Centre, and I happen to check an email from CareerBuilder.com:

From : CareerBuilder.com
Reply-To : CB
Sent : September 19, 2006 12:30:36 AM
To :
Subject : Increase your chances of an interview...

TIP: The more jobs you apply to, the better your chances are for a call back. Don't wait for a second chance to make a first impression.

Really? You mean I'm more likely to get an interview if I just applied for more jobs? Why didn't I think of that!

Benedict XVI was planning this...

I was reading through Colby Cosh's archives for something other than sleep/dishes/cleaning to do, and came across this entry on Pope Benedict SVI after he was coronated"

From Wednesday morning's New York Times, which I cite here not because it is a bad newspaper but because it is a good one:

Pope Benedict's well-known stands include the assertion that Catholicism is "true" and other religions are "deficient"; that the modern, secular world, especially in Europe, is spiritually weak; and that Catholicism is in competition with Islam.

In other words--oh my God! They picked a Catholic to be Pope!

Seems to have come full circle now, doesn't it?

Bonus link: Cosh's webpage search couldn't find it, but just below this post was the entry on Ann Coulter's article in Time Magazine I was looking for last week.

George W. Bush meets Joshua Tree

Found this from a post on the Western Standard Shotgun:



This is a good time to remark that Google Video, while neat, is not as user-friendly as YouTube. Getting the code to embed in a website is a pain in the ass, and the interface just looks awfully cold. This website also counts down 10 reasons YouTube beats Google Video. I tried to be fair and find a list in favour of GoogleVideo, but this blog is the closest I could quickly find. Also notice how "YouTube" is so quick and easy to type or say, while "Google Video" is much clunkier. "G-Vid" would have maybe been a better name (of course, then I'd likely criticize it for trying to hard to have an edgy sounding name, so they can't win).

In "today's world" we don't need that VHS copy of "Lethal Weapon 3"

Kate at Small Dead Animals takes on the question "why do we need guns anyways?" to hilarious effect.

I post this mainly so that Kate can receive some well-deserved site traffic: having a mere 156 comments so far!

That terrorist Arar still under suspicion

Now this at least is good news:

Maher Arar is still under suspicion at Canadian airports, having to wait for security clearances when his name is red-flagged by the computers.

Arar is especially unnerved because the last time he flew, from Ottawa to Edmonton he experienced the same sort of delay. And he spent the trip in the last row of the plane beside someone he strongly suspects was an undercover air marshal.

More good news: maybe there actually are undercover air marshalls on planes. Or is paranoid Arar racially stereotyping a crew cut white guy in a suit? We'll never know.

Arar, his wife Monia Mazigh and their two children, nine-year-old daughter Baraa and four-year-old son Houd, moved to scenic Kamloops in July after several years in Ottawa.

Mazigh, who holds a PhD in finance, accepted a teaching job at the city’s Thompson Rivers University. Arar, meanwhile, is working toward a doctorate in wireless engineering.

I've said for a long time that something in Arar's story smells fishy. Syria is a lousy place to visit and an even worse place to be a prisoner in, but they aren't Red China. They may treat you awfully bad in jail, but they do actually have a reason to put you there in the first place. Arar did something. I don't know what. The Americans know what. Maher Arar knows what. The Syrians almost certainly know what. It's up in the air if the RCMP knows what, and its almost certain nobody in the Canadian government (except perhaps Jack Layton) knows what he did. But he did do something. And now an extra clue: I didn't realize his wife has a Ph.D in finance. This could easily be connected to my old theory from before I had a blog, which was that Arar was involved in some sort of relatively simple money laundering trick to help terrorists (possibly al Quaida), which he'd goofed on big-time. However, the trick is fairly easy to catch as long as the volume of events is low, but if it became common knowledge would be a pain in the ass to catch them all. In other words, the U.S. would rather he go free than for every jackass on the globe to know how to secretly fund terrorism, and Arar knows this which is why he's free to be such a public antagonist about the whole thing -- as long as he doesn't tell what he knows, they'll leave him alone. His fianceer wife could be the lynchpin of this plan. That Arar has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering may provide a clue or two as well. Needless to say, its setting off even more alarm bells for me.

Canada.com also has a handy timeline in the (public) events of the Arar case. One day I'm sure we'll be able to read that in June of 2002 Arar's wife funnelled money through a bank account somewhere, or that in April of 1999 Arar attended an al Quaida recruitment facility, or that his "acquaintance" Abdullah Almalki (who also ended up sent to a Syrian jailcell) in January 2003 tried to repeat Arar's crimes with similar results.

I've also noted that Arar looks a whole lot like that crazy Iranian president who also is a devout Muslim who hates America and is probably involved in terrorism.

In the end, I had the right idea: wrong execution

Baseball pool disaster.

Remember how I was poised to make a miracle comeback in my buddy league?

I was. I did. At a certain point on Sunday, "Martok" (who has live Yahoo stattracker) text messaged me to rant about his team because they were falling to me. And then Jose Contreras stepped up to the mound...


At the end of the day, the scoresheet looked like this, and now I'm fighting for 3rd place:


Oddly enough I did take him in 4/6 offensive stats. In other words, had my ERA/WHIP lead help up, I would have won 6-5. This is how it appeared at approximately 4pm on Sunday. Remember when I said this?

Er, wait, Davis has already started! I guess that settles it: I need Contreras's recent K/BB production to beat down Davis

At that point, I had officially conceeded the playoffs, I just didn't know it yet. Had I pulled Contreras when I saw Davis was carrying a perfect game after 4.1 innings (when I had to go and leave the confines of MLB.tv), I would have benefitted from Davis' 2.57 ERA (actually lowering mine), and gaining on the K/BB category as well due to his numerous walk-free strikeouts. I definitely didn't need Contreras to get a 2.00 WHIP and 7.50 ERA.

However, there is still a chance I was doomed: Borowski got lit up while Mussina (who "Martok" had benched) did fairly well (3.00 ERA, high K/BB ratio). Its possible that Mussina would have improved his ERA enough to beat me: and highly likely he would have won K/BB. However, Borowski's 3 earned runs and 3 hits in 0.1 innings would have likely cost me the WHIP/ERA titles anyways. I knew I shoulda left him out! (It might have helped me too, since the ERAs and WHIP were so close). In the end, leaving Florida's crappy closer on the bench may have been the worst fantasy decision of the year.

Well, you can console yourself in your other leagues, right FACLC? Shut up. All of my fantasy baseball teams lost their playoff matches yesterday. This contrasts with last week, when all 3 teams won despite being underdogs.

The Edmonton Separatists are now playing in the 3rd place game as is my team in the buddy league. The Alberta Mariners, making a push for the consolation prize "7th place" are now playing for 9th. The only good news is that the team in my buddy league (5/6), the Edmonton Separatists (5/12), and the Alberta Mariners (11/12) are now fighting for spots where even upon losing they will improve over their seasonal record: 4th, 4th, and 10th.

That's not really that good a news, I suppose.

Satan's prophet Mohammed still doing Lucifer's dirty work

Q. What do the towel-heads around the world say when the Pope quotes an old text criticizing Muslims for being overly violent?

A. They bomb churches and shoot a 60 year old nun in the head!

I think its time somebody with an accurate map of the middle east calculated exactly how many neutron bombs need to be dropped on which location to kill every inhabitant of the Middle East outside of Israel. If this is not feasible, then Isreal should be evacuated and the entire MidEast carpet bombed with a bunch of these babies

Seriously, its time we face the facts that "Mohammed" was actually Satan himself, fueling the fires of a weak-moraled people to his own cause, and that the Koran is in fact The Devil's own handbook. Until this theory gains hold, feel free to check out Mohammed's Believe It Or Else!

If Figgins/Jeter/Borowski come through for me....

You aren't going to believe this. I know its true because I hardly believe it.

You may recall the story of "Martok", my buddy who ran our last hockey pool and all that. Well, its he I have been in a playoff dash with (unsuccessful so far for me, check here and here).

But today, the game is different. WE have the advantage! It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets.


Ch-ch-ch-check it out!

While I'm still down, note the insane close-ness in so many of the categories. Remember also my experience from last week, where I won with a tie due to my superior ERA (the tie-breaking category).

Now the Hunt for Red October quote is perhaps horribly misplaced. I had the advantage last week: 2 Sunday starters to his 1, and my attention to playing/benching the right players. This week I again have two starters, and while he has his sole starter currently on the bench as well, its Mike Mussina and benching him won't matter with his win lead unless Mussina does so well to deflate his ERA. He also has until 6pm to decide, as Mussina plays the 2nd half of the double header in Boston (two split double headers in two days? ouch!). I also had the advantage of a secure lock in the categories I was leading, and only had to win the ties. Here I have to win the ties and hold my narrow lead in WHIP and runs. Not going to be easy, especially when he has the offensive power of Jason Bay, Miguel Cabrera, and Vernon Wells at his disposal. Brad Lidge, Huston Street and Billy Wagner are available to give him more saves than my Nathan/Fuentes/Borowski combo. Surprisingly, Fuentes didn't pitch in the 16-inning duel yesterday, but even so the tired bullpen staff means it is unlikely he will be in a save situation.

The real question at this point should be: do I play my two starters? The WHIP/ERA lead means that I can be hurt by a bad outing by one/both of my starting pitchers: Davis and Contreras. I can't touch him in strikeouts or wins, so even if both pitchers get 10K and a win apiece, I'm still mostly out for the count. And if they both bomb, I'm losing the few titles I have victory over. My only hope is for the K/BB to go up, and Davis/Contreras have paltry 1.51/2.53 ratios between them. Contreras is 3.57 in that department this past month, however.

Er, wait, Davis has already started! I guess that settles it: I need Contreras's recent K/BB production to beat down Davis: especially when Davis' last outing was something of a disappointment. He's facing Washington today, so that's the good news: though they've won 3 of their last 5, they are at the bottom of the NL East barrel, and Kearns/Vidro/Soriano are the only threats to Davis's numbers.

So I'm back into nightmare territory. With the RBI/HR/R contest so close (31-32,6-6,30-28) I can't afford to sit, say, Jermaine Dye to have Podsednik in there to break the 3-3 tie in stolen bases. (I can afford to include Chone Figgins, who hit for the cycle yesterday). Johjima has just been moved into the No. 3 spot in the Mariners batting order, which is good for me with Ichiro on my team: more RBI chances for Johjima and more run chances for Suzuki.

I need to beat him by one in homers (highly unlikely unless Jason Bay is out sick today). I need an extra stolen base (Bay's out sick, right?). I am in desperate need of more RBIs (isn't Cabrera suffering some elbow problem?) and an extra save (Oakland and the Mets can't win all the time, can they?). All this while holding my run lead (Cabrera has a knee problem too, right?), my ERA not ballooning out of control (Davis really is an elite pitcher, isn't he?), and my K/BB climbing more than his (Wagner is probably due to allow 5 walks in a row).

Wish me luck! Again, if my ERA can hold steady all I need is a tie!

What to watch after Arizona-Colorado is over?

Already watched Game 2 of the Yankees-RedSox doubleheader. The San Diego-Dodgers game was a 11-1 washout when I last checked, and the Dbacks versus the Rockies just isn't capturing my interest.

Luckily, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story was refered in the Wikipedia article on Steve Bartman. I still haven't watched it, and so my decision has been made.

Update, 11:38pm: Ironically, Stewie Griffin The Untold Story is currently being rented. Now Blockbuster only has one copy, so I can't watch it tonight. Luckily, I kept the MLB.tv coverage of Arizona-Colorado, and now its 6-6 in the top of the 13th inning.

Update, 12:09am: How going into the 15th inning after Jeremy Affeldt managed to load the bases (including a botched call where a toss to Affeldt at 1st beat Chad Tracey but the umps disagreed) with only a single out. Only a double play would end the inning. In the end, they ended up getting a 1-2-3 double play, not the rarest but certainly one of the odder ones.

Update, 12:48am: Arizona wins the game in the bottom of the sixteenth inning when Chad Tracy scores on a sacrifice fly to RF by Chris Snyder. 7-6 final score.

More than meets the bland eye

Deeply disappointing that Michael Bay takes 2nd billing to the freaking Transformers, and that this was the most dramatic thing they could come up with.

For shame!

Beer, typos, and other baseball tidbits

• From Ichiro achieves multiple milestones: Outfielder gets sixth straight 200-hit season, sets steals mark:

  Willie Keeler holds the Major League record with eight straight 200-hit seasons from 1989-1901. Wade Boggs holds the American League record with seven consecutive 200-hit seasons from 1983-89.

  1989-1901? Did nobody else catch this? Or that that is a lot longer than 8 years? The answer is eight years from 1894-1901. You're welcome MLB.com!
  
• A's, alcohol ban leave Guillen in grumpy mood: ChiSox manager upset by postgame beer ban, rips Oakland G.M. after loss. Best line of the article:

  When Ozzie Guillen learned that alcohol is banned after games in the Coliseum clubhouses these days, the Chicago White Sox manager responded with profanity and anger.
  
  His club couldn’t muster nearly that much passion during the actual game — and the Oakland Athletics beat Jon Garland to give another boost to their playoff chase.

• Pedro Martinez near tears when his return fails to bring his team a glorious clinching of the NL East pennant. I know they don't technically call it a pennant, but whatever.
• My baseball pools are not going well: I'm not 0-10-2 anymore, but after climbing to 3-7-2 yesterday I'm back to 1-9-2 going into today's games. Go Derek Jeter! In my other leagues, the Edmonton Separatists are clinging to a 5-4-1 lead (pitching looks a near-lock, but desperately need to break the wins tie and get the RBIs into a safer lead); the Alberta Mariners are struggling hardcore, down 2-7-0 with two stolen bases to the opponents one and 0.03 lead in average (no chance of catching up in pitching).
• Manny Ramirez sitting out because of an actual injury!

Edmonton Police: Opposed to this annoying "matter of public record" concept

EPS has explained that they really did have a suspect in the Oliver school shooting but that they decided not to release that a man was arrested and charged. It turns out to be the same guy that parents tackled a few days after the incident, that police said was the wrong man, but apparently is the right one (and the "prime suspect").

Er, I'm confused: with all this talk about "erosion of civil rights from anti-terrorism" bills, one of the matters is that suspects can be arrested and not identified until they are charged. But now we discover that Edmonton City Police can just decide at random not to do this anyways? And if charges were laid, doesn't that mean a preliminary hearing? Don't the local newspapers cover the Provincial Courthouse? Is this a case of the newspapers not putting two and two together? Or did EPS cover up the hearing as well?

I think its time EPS was disbanded, unless they can answer some of these questions.

I'm having 0-10 Nightmares

Yesterday was a rut of odd games in Major League Baseball:

Toronto beat Seattle 10-0, and destroyed my fantasy team. As you may recall, I don't take players from Ontario teams in my sports pools. Therefore I have no Blue Jays, but a fair number of Mariners (which is why my team has sucked, I suppose).

Also yesterday, San Diego defeated the Cincinnati Reds 10-0.

Finally, I'm losing 0-10-2 right now in my buddy fantasy league. The pitching stats are close, the offense isn't even close. Hopefully my pitching can win me a little something. I probably am losing anyways, but it would be nice to lose a 6-5-1 squeeker.

Grey Cup 2005 Rematch: Edmonton vs. Montreal -- Mid-September gun violence

Holy crapola:

A shooter (possibly 2 or 3) in Montreal has opened fire on a crowd at Dawson College, with 11 people in hospital and eight critical. Later news reports will surely tell you more. CNN reports 20 wounded, and only the shooter is dead.

While some victims were taken to Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, Dawson College itself is not a particularly interesting institution from a religious standpoint -- at least at first glance.

Montreal Police Chief Yves Delorme says "There is no racist connotation or no terrorist link as far as we know."

Hard to be sure at this point. After all, Montreal has a bad history about that: remember Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi? Is this maybe another crazed Islamic lunatic?

Forgive the mistakes, I only had 15 minutes to write this. See also Annex.

Please note that if I am committing suicide today 89/12/06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. For I have decided to send Ad Patres the feminists who have ruined my life. It has been seven years that life does not bring me any joy and being totally blase, I have decided to put an end to those viragos.

I had already tried as a youth to enlist in the [Armed] Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me to enter the arsenal and precede Lortie in a rampage. They refused me because of asociality. So I waited until this day to carry out all my projects. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite not handing in my theory assignments and studying little before exams.

Even though the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational and erudite person that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to undertake extreme acts. For why persevere in existing if it is only to please the government? Being rather retrograde by nature (except for science), the feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventive leave) while trying to grab those of the men.

Thus, it is self-evident that if the Olympic Games removed the Men/Women distinction, there would be only be women in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, people were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontlines during the world wars. How does this sit with the fact that women were not authorized to go to the frontline at the time??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50 per cent of history's ranks, although they never existed? A real Casus Belli. Sorry for this too brief letter.

Twelve hours after me, newspapers onto the story

To be fair, they have a lot more information than I did. Also to be fair, they get to interview people and stuff, while I'm literally a guy in pajammas in my basement.

[Lillian] Bich Van Duong, also known as Lily Tran, 23, was shot to death when the Mercedes came under heavy gunfire at Argyll Road and 76 Avenue on Saturday night. "Heavy gunfire" apparently is four bullets, as rumour has it thats all it took. Regardless, I did the early sprinting, and the newspapers are on the marathon trail. This is, of course, the reverse of how blogging is supposed to work, but if you want that you'll turn to an expert. You're here, so this is all you get.

So apparently Pillon is the very-recent boyfriend of the deceased, and the other 18-year old seems to get away with no identification at all. This smells weird to my nose, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other man turns out to be even more gang-affiliated than Pillon (who was on the front page of Monday's SUN looking extremely creepy for a guy who was just shot in the head).

For more on this as it develops, go read a newspaper. I'm moving on.

More photos of the hot Vietnamese corpse laying on Argyl

Er, too soon?

Anyways, I found Lily Tran's myspace page Its almost impossible to read, but so far no indication of her boyfriend's name. Turns out she is interested in meeting "my fav rapper of all time... T.I. He is one sexy mother....". Seeing how the rap game is played, she might not have to wait long!

Also found a couple websites with her photos, including lots of hot photos.

Previous Lily Tran stuff can be found below:
- Unravelling the mystery woman
- Photos

Third Edge of the Sword 2.0?

I was blog reading this afternoon, but Haloscan is really slow with the September 11th activity, and Blogger.com is going a little slow as well.

So I'm reading up on features in Blogger.com's new beta version.

I'll evalutate their potential for Third Edge of the Sword on an item-by-item basis:

• Customize Your Template: It mentions "new page elements and font and color options" but no details. I might use one of these if it turns out to be any good. I am not holding out for much hope, though.
• Create a Private Blog: I'm not sure if this can be set so that only individual posts are "private", or end up turning this into a "myspace" blog where people have to login. The first one might be handy: an occasional post actually telling the details about M_____'s visit to my workplace and what really happened might be of interest to a few select people. Also, I could read up on it myself and have a more direct firsthand account on what happened..in case I forget. Still not worth an upgrade.
• Fresh New Templates: I've got a template I'm relatively comfortable with at this point. It's not garishly large or has large images that simply annoy people. It backgrounds my text and personality relatively well, and makes this blog easy to read. Won't need it. Unless there's a really good one.
• More Feed Options: While I'm always hungry, they're talking here about RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 standards compliance. I have no freaking idea how any of this stuff works, and I'm too lazy to learn. The "feed for all comments on your blog" sounds like a half-good idea, for all these March 2006 posts that are being spammed after leaving the main page. Maybe I'll look into it, but not today.
• Updated Dashboard: "The new Dashboard makes it easier to check your blog’s activity and gives you one-click access to the most common blog management tasks." What the hell does that even mean? It tells me nothing about what it includes, and whether any of the management tasks I use will be there. Nevermind.
• Instant Publishing: No more publishing spinnor spinner (though a publishing spinnor would be kinda cool). This is neat and handy, but we'll wait and see.
• Bugs: Yes, you heard right: there are bugs! Awesome! What kind of bugs? Old users can't login to post, archive list difficulties, no search options, no "NextBlog Button", no support for browsers other than the Big Two, and a few others. Third party applications won't work, and if I don't like it... I'm SCREWED, can't go back.

I guess I won't be changing for now.

I wonder if Blogger 2.0 blogs can be seen to be experienced...
Update, 3:07pm: Yes, Julia Buckley for example.

Update, September 22 2006 2:27pm: The Soapbox Prophet recently switched to Blogger 2.0 as well, with varying results.

(Not My) Thoughts on 9/11's Fifth Anniversary

So far I've posted lots on September 11, but nothing about 9/11. I do have a little to say on the subject: I've never told my own "Morning of 9/11" story, and might do so later tonight.

Instead I will post National Review Online's Symposium on 9/11 and let the words of much wiser people than me be your guide for Third Edge of the Sword coverage of "the big story of the day".

I. Like. To. Push. ThePram. A. Lot.

(h/t to Zaphod's Heads)

Alberta Blogtime and Cooking with passion

I was directed over to Austrailian Su-Yin's cooking blog. Nothing there that particularly interests me. Ah well.

You may notice that I now have the "Alberta Blogs" automated blogroll on the right of the page, yet not myself be listed. This is because I have added the code, but still haven't gotten around to actually emailing the blog to them. This is mostly an anonymity issue: the original issues about my anonymous posting have (with two exceptions) evaporated into the wind. But I am finding new and exciting reasons to not burden you people with unnecessary information such as "who I am" or "how to contact me". Unfortunately my emails all say my actual honest-to-God name. Anyways, I will probably figure a way out of these by the end of the afternoon, and likely will myself be on the Alberta Blogs blogroll within a week. Which is, of course, why I'm posting so much this weekend: why would I publish after people get to read it?

"And Sugar, we're going down swinging" -- The fantasy baseball playoff FallOutBoy

I won. Ha ha.

Just a little friendly gloating. As you may recall from yesterday, I was locked in an immortal struggle in the small head-to-head fantasy baseball league I'm in with my buddies. You may also note that things looked dark around 2:30pm on Sunday. Well, I won. Tied, really, but that's a win anyways as we've discussed:


Turns out his leaving out Arroyo was a good move. But had I been watching more carefully, I'd have known to replace Chipper Jones with Chone Figgins, get a 5th stolen base, and get the 5-5-2 tie anyways. That's neither here nor there, of course: differing circumstances are just that...the circumstances that never happened.

Naturally, he's a little choked: he was beating me the entire week, beat me in the regular season, and actually never fell behind at any given point of the race. Or, as he says:

JOOOOOREEYYY. I tie the [censored -ed] in our match, but have a better record during the regular season and the league says he beats me??!?? Who's the commissioner and what's he going to do about this injustice??

FIXED, FIIIIIIXED, I TELL YOU.

The Commissioner, of course, is me. BWA HA HA!

---

My Edmonton Separatists (see this post from yesterday) also won their playoff match yesterday, falling to 5-4-1, but that's good enough to win. (Heck, if 6-6-0 is a win, so is 5-4-1).

The Alberta Mariners (again, check yesterday's post) won in the Consolidation Round's semifinals, a nice 6-3-1 victory that bumps me into at least "third place" (9th place).

The "Intelligent Dolphins" post that should have been here a month ago

As was widely and relatively quietly printed in newspapers during the planetary reorganization fiasco, a South African researcher has presented a paper stating dolphins are less intelligent than previously thought, as their brains are large but the complex structure is not there. Tests showed dolphins can't even do tasks a goldfish can do, due to too many glia and insufficient neurons.

The kicker, as I'm sure other bloggers told you in my absence, is that this fact was well known. It had previously been published. In the New York Times? Nope. USA Today? Uh uh. Washington Post? Atlanta Journal Constitution? Chicago Tribune? Western Standard? Where?

From the freaking Onion: Study: Dolphins Not So Intelligent On Land - February 15, 2006. To wit:

GAINESVILLE, FL—Although dolphins have long been celebrated for their high intelligence and for appearing to have a complex language, a team of researchers at the University of Florida reported Monday that these traits are markedly less evident on dry land.

According to study researchers, a group of 25 bottlenose dolphins removed from their holding tanks failed 11 exercises designed to test their basic cognitive abilities and reasoning skills.

"The dolphins were incapable of recognizing and repeating simple gestures," said study co-author Dr. Scott Lindell. "Their non-verbal communications were limited to a rapid constriction and expansion of the blowhole, various incomprehensible fin motions, and heavy tremors while they lay prone on the lab table."

After capturing the dolphins from the ocean, Lindell and his colleagues tagged them and placed them under the intense, high-wattage lights of a moisture-proof lab. The researchers then administered an extensive battery of tests designed to measure everything from the dolphins' self-awareness to their aptitude for writing and reading comprehension.

"Dolphins have a popular reputation for being excellent communicators," Lindell said. "But our study group offered only three types of response to every question we posed: a nonsensical, labored wheezing, an earsplitting barrage of unintelligible high-pitched shrieks, and in extreme cases, a shrill, distressed scream."

So there you have it: The Onion: second only to Third Edge of the Sword as your source of breaking news.