Hancock

This was the word Pardon the Interruption used to discuss it today. I don't have much to say on it, but can link you to this interesting article on the subject.

As an added unrelated bonus, there's a lively discussion in the comments to this old ABF post.

Ding, Dong, the... oh, you know how this goes

Via Cerebus, one of the best arguments against women ever being allowed to serve as judges at any level kicked the bucket a couple days ago. Her most important actions included killing 100,000 babies a year, the abolishment of most practical qualities of citizenship, and setting a dangerous precident by which the raving lunatic Beverley McLachlin was allowed to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada with possessing a penis, which would by itself triple her I.Q.

My Stanley Cup 2007 Predictions Hopes and Dreams

Well I was thinking a little bit over the last couple of days, and there are a pair of items that I think would make this years Stanley Cup playoffs truely memorable. Either would be wonderful. If both occured I could commit suicide and be eternally happy.

1. In the first game of the Stanley Cup final, for Buffalo Sabres ace goalie Ryan Miller to be injured, possibly as a result of something Spacek does. The end result: Buffalo has to play the rest of the series with their backup goaltender between the pipes. His name? Ty Conklin
   
   
2. The Game 7 overtime Stanley Cup winning goal should be scored by... Rory Fitzpatrick. The man that fans tried to vote in as an All-Star, whom the NHL not-so-secretly cheated out of the role at the last possible minute, would become the playoff hero of 2007 and cement his place in the record books and also give an ironic comeuppance to the NHL suits who decided to let fans vote for the all-star in a marketing gimmick and then reject the fans' choice when it didn't match up with the names that they wanted the fans to chose. (Besides, it might help him next year when the voting comes up).

Harry Neale, who whips up professional analogies like a...professional...whipping...device

I'd mentioned earlier that Harry Neale should have been upset that his lacklustre skills would be laid bare for all to see without the protective lightning rod for incompetance which is Bob Cole.

Friday night I went to a friend's place and watched the game. Neale was in fine form... which is to say that he said a bunch of crap that made no sense. Apparently a player can have "more cups than a fancy restaurant" which is silly when you remember a university student living in an old guy's basement probably has more cups than all but the most elite players. Rocket Richard is the champ in this category with 11 cups. I think any two people living together can beat that, not needing a restaurant (fancy or no).

Likewise, a shot from the slot which harmlessly flew into the webbing^† was a "grenade without a pin in it". This one I'm not sure about. Would a grenade without a pin in it not be a shot that made it into the net? A grenade with a pin in it won't blow up, which is the only reason you'd throw a grenade: in other words, an offensive attempt with failed. This isn't a strong argument though so anybody who wants to oppose this is welcome to it.

The real icing on the cake has to be his comment that a player (Naslund, I believe) who made a dynamite almost-goal was a "real ten-biller". Google has no idea. Does anybody out there in internet-land know what a ten-biller is? If you tell me it saves an angry letter demanding an answer from the CBC ombudsman.

In tonight's game Neale was no better. He started by horribly misquoting Tom Clancy with "if you kick a tiger in the rear end you'd better escape". Then he mentioned how a player appeared to have a run-in with Edward Scissorhands. No ten billers in the parts of the game I've caught, but the night's still young.

^† Speaking of which, something that always bothers me. The Britney-mesh they installed around the rink, I wish announcers would stop talking about the 'netting'. Because in my mind, the 'netting' is the white mesh that lines the back of the net, and when I hear about the puck getting shot into the netting my heart stops halfway through the word, and my brain is dying from thinking a shot has hit the net. I know my eyes tell me otherwise, but sound tends to impact the brain more potently (biopsychologists wishing to use this idea as their doctoral thesis should attribute to FACLC with care). Please please please call it something else. My coronary tract can't take it.

Bonus Harry Neale link: Only Maple Leafs fans could ever come to the defense of Harry Neale. And then to boldy remind us why the CBC makes us want to blow up their offices with bomb-making skills we learned reading Tom Clancy books:

I agree. It has to be a combination of neale/cole/bowen for it to feel like a Leaf game.

And to really feel like a Leafs game, it has to occur sometime between October and March...

The normal breast is really a mixed bag

It's definitely definitely definitely not safe for work (though emailed to me by a friend who was at work when he looked at it), but here's the "Normal Breast Gallery".

These knockers are really hit-and-miss though: for every nice rack there's an ugly and misshapen set of milkers that makes you understand why "media images make them believe the ideal is big and perky breasts with an adolescent-type small nipple and areola". Because the opposite is creepy (again NSFW).

I highly recommend, however, not clicking the link that reads The Shape of a Mother: Images of real mothers' bodies - very inspirational...unless you want to be inspired to turn queer. Which you don't.

Bonus weird thing: If the cause was so just, they wouldn't have to boldy lie on the site.

And it's not just the teenagers. By age thirteen, 53 percent of American girls are unhappy with their bodies; but by age seventeen, 78 percent are dissatisfied. By far the majority of adult women in the US are not happy with their breasts. The proof of that is that so many women (well over 200,000 in year 2002) choose breast implants, a risky procedure that can impair their health and forces them to have several surgeries afterwards and eventually have the implants removed. Why is this so? What causes teens to agonize over their breast development instead of observing it with thrill and joy, with the realization, "I'm maturing!"? What causes women to worry so much about their breast size as part of their body image?

Er, yeah, breast implants don't force women to have several surgeries to remove the implants. I was tempted to call this bad grammar, since its the possible (but not assured) health impairment that would mandate removal, but even then some of the 'impairment' is back problems and women aren't forced to remove them and several don't. The sentence is constructed poorly, but I'll bet you that its deliberate.

A video best enjoyed with the sound off

No idea any of these songs she's singing. Again, its best to play some Buckcherry while you're watching this video. Actually, after the first 20 seconds or so, its better just to pause the video, get some stuff down around the house, and then after the video completes jump ahead to the 6:39 mark. It gets interesting again. At about 6:52, just shut it off and go about your day.

Edmonton City Council: Left hand doesn't know what...other left hand is doing

I say this because City Council doesn't have any right-wing members, despite what Mike Nikel's opponents say about him every year.

Anyways, twin stories of note in the Edmonton SUN:

Idling law too hard to enforce.

Mayor Stephen Mandel says he isn’t convinced bringing in rules restricting how long vehicles can idle would be a good fit for Edmonton.

He questioned how such a crackdown could be enforced.

“It’s about enforcement and the feasibility of it,” Mandel said. “We may be better off doing something different.”

Councillors Michael Phair and Dave Thiele are calling for a crackdown on idling vehicles.

(and you wonder why I celebrated how that useless sodomite Michael Phair has left politics)

But then, wait. Contrast this with Edmonton's insane cab policy (which is partly responsible for Whyte Avenue violence, along with the Whyte Ave bar cap...also opposed by Phair the man-boy-love champion ass pirate).

Taxi tensions rise: Cabbie predicts feud will erupt this summer

An escalating war between cabbies from competing companies has the city imploring drivers to take a chill pill and cut out “vigilante-style actions.”

The feud began when Leduc-based Airport Taxi Service was awarded exclusive rights last year to the international airport.

Only their drivers can pick up passengers at the gateway, though any company can still do drop-offs.

Since then, Edmonton cabbies have complained Airport Taxi Service drivers have been illegally waiting outside Edmonton hotels, without having a pre-arranged pick-up.

A subsequent investigation found no evidence of Airport Taxi Service drivers trolling hotels for customers, according to a city report. But it’s still caused tensions to flare.

Airport driver Abbi Farh said he’s constantly being harassed verbally by cabbies when he’s in the city.

“I don’t want to get into a fight with anybody,” Farh told Sun Media. “You just try to be professional with these guys, but they push you, they want to make you mad so you lose it.”

Hassan Idris, also an airport driver, said two weeks ago he dropped off a customer at a downtown hotel and was confronted by another cabbie, who warned he better not be picking anyone up.

“There’s something strange going on, especially downtown,” said Idris, who wasn’t picking anyone up.

A city report released Thursday said there have been many confrontations reported.

“In most cases, the incident was some form of verbal abuse, shaking or spitting on the vehicle, sometimes while a passenger was inside,” states the document.

The incidents have all been initiated by the Edmonton cabbies, according to the city.

Due to “reports of escalating disorder,” city drivers last month were told by Edmonton Taxi Cab Commission chairman Clint Mellors to “do everything in their power to bring to a close the vigilante-style actions happening on our city streets between competing taxi companies,” the report states.

While pre-arranged pick-ups by out-of-town cab companies have been allowed in Edmonton, they’re technically illegal under city bylaws, according to the report. Mellors told Sun Media taxi inspectors are going to begin cracking down.

“It’s our bylaw and we will be enforcing it,” he said.

Er, so wait a minute. The city is looking at cutting back greenhouse gas emissions by banning idling across Edmonton. But then when it comes to cab drivers violating city bylaws by taking passengers both to and from the airport now suddenly there will be a crackdown. Does anybody with half a brain not realize that the net impact of this action will be twice the number of cab trips to and from the airport?

For those out of town, let me show you what the trip from downtown Edmonton to the airport is like, courtesy of Google maps: 29.9 kilometres, 30 minutes on a smooth no traffic day (good luck!). Now look at what we get if you are going from a semi-random address in the north end to the airport. Any thought how much idling it would take for you to equal the emissions involved in taking that trip for no apparent reason? Yet according to Edmonton City Council, idling is evil and two cab trips where one would do is perfectly acceptible.

Edmonton City Council: Now 8.3% less faggy

Yes, that's right, Edmonton's own Elton John wannabe is not running for city council in the next election and retiring from politics.

I suppose this means that male Pages at City Hall can finally take catnaps on their breaks with both eyes closed.

They don't fit!

[So, how's the Day Break episode watching/reviewing coming along? -ed] Shut up.

Well okay, I have all the Day Break episodes, but things haven't conspired yet to allow me to review them. In the interim, I've learned I have a new problem. Each of the 13 episodes takes up approximately 355,000kB of storage space. The episodes together combine to require 4,722,122,752 bytes of storage space on disk.

So I go to check Wikipedia, which helpfully informs me that a DVD+R, which holds slightly more than DVD-R, can contain up to 4,700,372,992. Now you know I am not a man of overreaction [mum's the word! -ed], but AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

99.539407% That's how much of the data would fit on a single handy DVD-ROM. Or, to put it another way, if I put Day Break on two DVDs I'll end up wasting about half of each disk. My other undesirable options at this point are to try and overburn the DVD (which is apparently impossible), or possibly find some way to very very slightly shrink the filesizes down. This requires endless reading in rambling and intensive helpfiles such as this one which is not a cheery prospect. Or else finding a useful video editor (for free), a process which has led me down many programs, none of which work properly. "videofixer" being the most glaring example.

Naturally, this would all be moot if only these 13 files were a mere 21 MB smaller!

I felt dirty when I looked down her shirt. I felt old and dirty when...

...well, actually, no, this is mostly right. Except the looking down the shirt bit, which I had done on previous days but that's not the point.

Okay, there are lots of hot <21 girls in this city (and I have photographs of most of them), but this is one I work with and lemme tell you in a green dress there are few better.

Regardless, at work last week I made a reference to one of my favourite bands growing up, I Mother Earth. To which she replied: "who?"

Naturally, I didn't skip a beat: "Edwin's old band" I told her. Unfortunately, she didn't skip a beat either: "who?"

If you want to feel really old, reference a band who's last album was 2003 and have some young girl who's future paints her to be either a stripper or a coffee shop waitress have absolutely no idea who the hell you're talking about.

Continued talking about Limblifter, Static in Stereo, etc. was briefly considered and then rejected. But I did stare at her ass later, so a small semi-pyrrhic victory was acheived.

Springtime for Cho Seung-Hui

Yes, that's right, it didn't take long for Daily Kos (rabble.ca dropped the ball) to post a heartfelt memorial to the "33rd victim" from Virginia Tech, the goddamn psychotic gook who's responsible for the whole affair.

Seung-Hui Cho, as he called himself

Didn't he call himself that stupid question mark?

He longed for comfort and company. All he received was chiding. Even in death, Seung-Hui Cho is scorned. I am forlorn.

Oh fuck off. He was 'scorned'. All mass murderers are scorned. If Cho wanted to avoid 'scorn' there were many easy ways to do it. He killed a shitload of people, and for that I will scorn him (and his apparently mass-murder loving culture, if need be).

From the first, there were labels. Many said he was "Chinese"

All of them working on the early information within hours of the shooting, when several sources named a Chinese man on a student visa as the perpetrator. This, of course, isn't a wrong or evil thing. The left wing nutsos like to paint it as such, of course.

Then he was, and today he is still frequently referred to as a Korean National.

What else do you call someone who has a Korean citizenship and not an American one?

Cho lived in shadows, deep and dark. He attended classes at a prestigious University. He was a scholar, a writer.

And if he were any shittier of a scholar, any poorer of a writer, he'd be the next ghostwriter for Naomi Klein. Yeah yeah, we get it.

Perhaps, America has let the Cho family down.

Yeah, that's exactly how the subject and object should be arranged in that sentence.


(h/t to Blog Quebecois)

"Any man who could perform such a feat, I wo'd na dare disappoint. She'll launch on time. And she'll be ready."

Anybody who gets a chance, this Saturday James "Scotty" Doohan's ashes are set to be launched into space via rocket from New Mexico.

I will certainly raise a glass of Scotch whiskey to the sky to remember him, and I encourage all of you to do the same.

And finally, a few more of Doohan's best Trek quotes (thanks to Curtis Fox):

A can't change the laws of physics. A've got to have thirty minutes.

Now you're an engineer

Inform them of what? A new weapon that's invisible? Raving lunatics, that's what they'll call us! They'll say we're so desperate to exonerate the captain that we'll say anything.

How many times da I have to tell ya...the right tool for the right job!

That suits me, I just bought a boat

NCC-1701. No bloody A, B, C, or D.

Thoughts from Vancouver-Dallas Game 7, Part 1

• If I was Harry Neale, I'd complain about being teamed with Jim Hughson. I mean, working with Bob Cole covers up a lot of flaws, and they get exposed working with somebody who knows the players on the teams he's covering. Early in the game a Brendon Morrow dive prompted a weird Greg Louganis joke from Harry. Hughson started to try and run with it and save the segment, and had his voice drop off in what I can only assume is the non-verbal (yet non non-vocal) way of saying ah fuck it Harry, you're on your own.
  
  
• I get the feeling the vintage Canucks jerseys won't be a bright idea...fans are going to find a very vintage feeling in their souls after the end of the game: "man the Canucks suck"

Bonus (non-lame) joke:
Q. What do a gold medal and a penis have in common?

A. They have both have hung from Greg Louganis's chin

NO!

My various email addresses have been collecting huge numbers of people sending me this familiar and somewhat annoying email:

I've added you as a friend on Facebook...
I've requested to add you as a friend on Facebook. You can use Facebook to see the profiles of the people around you, share photos, and connect with friends. Now everyone can join Facebook, even if you couldn't before.

Thanks,
(name withheld by FACLC)

I am here to tell you now, I have no intention of signing onto facebook. There, I said it.

"Used to be a lieutenant. Pretty good one, too, till they gave him orders to attack the wrong Hill."

So Islanders d-man Sean Hill was suspended 20 games due to drug policy violations. Since his team last night was eliminated from the playoffs, I assume he has to miss the first 19 games of the 2007-2008 regular season. (He may have to miss 20, its possible that the suspension will not include his one playoff game)

When I first saw the ticker on TSN yesterday, I got excited. Hill suspended for steroids! Awesome! Well, until I saw that it was in NHL news...I had hoped that Aaron Hill had been suspended.

Already the goddamned Toronto media are griping that Hill was a "pivotal" part of the Toronto playoff elimination. For one thing, Hill was +2 with no points in the 5-2 Leafs loss on April 5th. Even however if Hill was rather valuable to the Islanders, he was responsible for helping eliminate the freaking Maple Leafs. For that, his 25 game suspension was probably downgraded.

This is a very handy service, except that...

(click the image below to see it full sized)

I got this handy email today, under the subject heading "Change of Billing", informing me of the following:

Dear RBC Customer,
Your security is our responsibility. During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, Royal Bank Of Canada serves over half of The whole population of Canada. Our customers choose us as providers of sound, secure and solid financial services.We are committed to putting you first and to finding better ways to help meet your financial needs. Our strength is built on confidence because we continue to deliver security in every facet of our business.:
We are committed to providing a secure Money transfer environment for our customers.

It has been detected on your Royal Bank Of Canada online account that there has been a change in the billing address on your file.and every statement of billing including personal information(s) will be sent to the new address provided in your file. If you authorised this change please follow the link below and login to your account online for viewing,if you did not authorise this change please login to your account using the link below for viewing and correction(s).

It then gives me the handy web address: http://www.royalbank.com/index.htm

There's only one problem. I'm not an RBC customer. This turns out to be a phishing site, and clicking on the web address actually sends you to http://justgreeks.com/images/.update/.support/.login/RBC//

I (hopefully) don't have to tell you what this means. Clicking this just surrenders every penny from your RBC account.

A passage that applies to me far more than, say, the guy from Greenday

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The trouble makers.
The round pegs in square holes.

The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

They invent.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Stephane Dion's not-so-hidden meaning

But Liberal Leader Stephane Dion blasted the move. "I think it's the worst of two worlds because in the current system you choose the best person," he said. "I'm not sure the prime minister chose the best person. And he cannot claim that it's a democratic process. Really, it's an election that came a very long time ago.

What that frog ass claims in the line that you click to get to the link really boils down to this:

I think I know who should be Alberta's Senator far more than 312,041 Albertan hicks ever could.

If that wasn't enough, what's with this "election was so long ago" nonsense? After all, the last Liberal Senate appointees were Francis Fox and Yoine Goldstein. Francis Fox was last elected in 1980, while Goldstein was never elected by anyone. If Dion wants reasons to oppose Brown's appointment, I suggest he find one less inconsistent with the way he wants these Senators chosen.

A non-Virginia related note on the Americans

A while back I was pondering the United State's continual refusal to adopt the metric system. To be fair, the U.S. "adopted" the metric system, as sorts, in 1866 by the Kasson Metric Act (which narrowly passed due to the vehement objections of Captain Kathryn Janeway).

But when in 1971 the U.S. Metric study said "hey, let's do this metric thing by 1980", something went horrendously wrong and the Yankees balked on the idea. (The biggest Yankee balk since Vic Raschi)

Nixon proposed some more metric conversions in the mid-70s, including a push to teach it in schools. Finally, Reagan cancelled the program in 1982. There have been several recent half-hearted attempts. In Y2K, they tried to force states to use metric on roadways to qualify for federal funding, which went over like a lead balloon.

Now to be fair, the U.S. is unfairly singled out. Britain still loves their old-style Imperial system even though they, like Canada, are officially metric. But when Colby Cosh brought up U.S. metrification in a recent Virginia shooting post at the National Post's "Full Comment" page, I decided it was high time I blog about this topic as well.

Specifically, I was thinking that the U.S. at this point knows all the good reasons to switch, in the same way that the rest of the world knows all the good reasons not to (ie. everybody already seems to understand the old system, land is divided into sections and quarter-sections based on miles rather than kilometres, products like butter and wood and clothes are already sold as 1lb [453.59g], 2x4 [50.8mmx101.6mm], 36"38"i [91.44cm with a 96.52cm inseam]).

Why the continued resistence on the part of the United States? Probably, and this is just a hunch, because everybody on the planet says they should switch. This sort of "do the right thing" by peer pressure is exactly the sort of sovereignty violations that Americans get very touchy over (and with good historical reason).

That is to say, that the United States of America refuses to adopt the metric system for the same reason that a guy with an old beat up car (that his friends tease him about) doesn't replace it. Namely, whether its a good idea or not is less important than giving any impression that he acted because of the taunting.

More fallout and analysis of the Virginia Tech incident

As more information comes from what I should be dubbing the "Hokie Minh Disaster", I naturally have more insight. Here's some of it.

• Mark Steyn takes aim here at asking why nobody risked their own life to stop Cho, especially when it became clear that said life was likely forfeit anyways:

  But with the two people who hadn't been shot, with their help, we helped to barricade the door to prevent him from coming back in. ... Then he had come back after firing shots in other classrooms and he proceeded to shoot the door, which was wooden, so bullets were hitting the door and almost coming through door."

• Just to toot my own horn, my previous posts on the subject have been candidates for further discussion. Odd Thoughts thinks its "repugnant" that I (correctly) believed the killer was a foreigner. And how dare I borrow the Drudge Report's headlines?. Asian Wild Rose also linked to my initial post. I would like to remind everyone that said initial post has a more detailed followup where I generalize Koreans specifically. Worth the read!
  
  
• Early rumours are that Cho's visa is a phoney, but I've seen nothing online to collaborate this.
  
  
• CNN earlier today reported that Cho's guns were obtained because his now well publicized mental health history was kept from the gun shop due to privacy laws. The best reference I can find is this link stating:

  The woman declined to press charges, and the campus police referred the case to the disciplinary system of the university, Chief Wendell Flinchum said. Mr. Cho’s disciplinary record was not released because of privacy laws. The associate vice president for student affairs, Edward F. D. Spencer, said it would not be unusual if no disciplinary action had been taken in such a case. On Dec. 12, a second woman asked the police to put a stop to Mr. Cho’s instant messages to her. She, too, declined to press charges.

  It's still an interesting take on the subject, with privacy laws being such weird things these days. [like how the federal privacy comissioner had no problem with Edmonton Police and a private company teaming up to violate your privacy rights? -ed]
  
  
• Today NBC received photos, video, and writings from Cho Seung-Hui showing him in various threatening poses with guns. How come NBC got this within 2 days, and I once emailed a letter from Dallas, TX to Calgary that took almost 6 months?
  
  
• One of the "disturbing" images of Cho can be found here. It's still nowhere near as dangerous and scary as the "here's me with guns" photos that this guy's Yahoo profile used to have. His were assault weapons, not handguns. And he'd already been in jail for violent offenses!
  
  
• Early bonus points go to, surprise surprise, Ann Coulter, who has a new column about the tragedy (to be linked to at a later date when its archived and if I remember to do so), where she notes:

  But since Adam ate the apple and let evil into the world, deranged individuals have existed.
  
  Most of the time they can't be locked up until it's too late. It's not against the law to be crazy — in some jurisdictions it actually makes you more viable as a candidate for public office.
  
  It's certainly not against the law to be an unsociable loner. If it were, Ralph Nader would be behind bars right now, where he belongs. Mass murder is often the first serious crime unbalanced individuals are caught committing — as appears to be in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter.

• This isn't Virginia related, but don't you think Prime Minister Harper could have chosen a better time to announce this?
  
  
• What's worse? That this Quebec victim was probably a soft separatist, or that the Bloc is trying to use her death to drum up support for the gun registry?
  
  
• Even if the system had caught Cho in time, liberals are madly working to ensure that the next guy gets his chance to gun some people down.
  
  
• Finally, is this really the worse massacre in U.S. history? Wikipedia itself calls the Bath School Disaster as the "deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history". Since the body count is higher than Virginia Tech, not sure how CNN can claim the latter as the worst in the span of the United States. (Bonus line: when I proposed everybody carrying guns, a guy at work yesterday said it would be worse off if we became "like the Wild West". Until, of course, I noted that the "Wild West" was part of American history, and this is the "worst incident in U.S. history, so we would be far better off in said "Wild West").
  
  
• If you want a true "WTF" sort of moment, in 1982 an off duty police officer killed 57 people. Who? Where? Woo Bum-kon: in Seoul, South Korea. ("Facetious comment that's probably a good idea" of the day: a Wikipedian proposes the category "Spree shooters of Korean descent")

The Summer of Girls 2007 has begun

While its definitely NSFW, check out the polaroid hunnies off Driven By Boredom. (The main page of his site is similarly filled with hot ass).

And for my own contribution, here's the first Whyte Ave girl of the season, taken earlier this afternoon:


(I apologize for the weird size/shape/orientation...my paintshop program isn't working).

Blogger also tells me I apparently now have a maximum number of MBs permitted for photos. What the hell is with that?

NHL History in the making

My suspicions were true. A glance at the complete playoff history of the Detroit Red Wings brings up these lines:

1987 -- lost to Edmonton, 4-1, Campbell Conference finals

1988 -- lost to Edmonton, 4-1, Campbell Conference finals

2004 -- lost to Calgary, 4-2, Western Conf. semifinals

2006 -- lost to Edmonton, 4-2, Western Conf. quarterfinals

Meaning that unless Jim Playfair can turn things around, the 2007 Calgary Flames will go down in history as the only occurance of an Alberta based team losing to the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL playoffs. Ouch.

Further insight from the biggest tragedy since "Will & Grace" was given the project greenlight

• The recent shooting in the U.S. highlights one of the major cultural differences between the two countries.
  
  No, not about guns. Some are already blaming U.S. gun laws, and clearly haven't read my blog post yesterday where I used a recent incident in Calgary to highlight that more gun laws don't really help out in this case.
  
  Specifically, this line from today's Edmonton SUN article about the shooting (emphasis mine):

  The massacre has attracted hundreds of journalists from all over the world to the small southwestern Virginia town of some 38,000 people, where life revolves around the sprawling campus of old stone buildings and modern dorms.

  Only in the U.S. would a municipality of 38,000 be considered a town. That's about the size of Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada's 68th largest city. (Meanwhile, Carson City Nevada counts as the U.S.'s 363rd largest city at 55,289, the smallest burg on Wikipedia's list)
  
  
• Also of note, the killer, Cho Seung-Hui, has been living in the U.S. since 1992, so its only 90% accurate for me to refer to him as a foreigner. Yet I will continue to do so. Also of note, Cho [Seung-Hui? Are the Koreans like the Bajorans where the first name is the family name, or are the newspapers all being very very casual in referring to him? -ed] wrote a lot, complaining about "rich kids" (specifically, "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans"). Go figure that the one time an asian in North America is found not to be rich himself, he winds up shooting people up. Also, if writing about deceitful rich charlatans is such a warning sign, does that mean Eugene Plawiuk is gonna end up on a no-fly list?
  
  
• The primary United States newspaper of record, the Corvallis Gazette-Times, is reporting that Seung-Hui was referred to the Virginia Tech school counselling service for his disturbing creative writing (he was an English major). Good thing he wasn't in Chemistry like the rest of this continent's asian university students, or they'd never have got to him in time....

Update, 12:16pm: Gnotalex at Blog Quebecois notes that the CBC took all of 12 hours to blame George W. Bush for the shooting. Gnotalex also observes that per capita, Canadian schools are more violent than the U.S.

Update, 12:23pm: Further cultural differences: the Wikipedia page on Virginia Tech shows that it has a faculty of 1,304 and 28,470 students. This means that not counting support staff, Virginia Tech makes up 75.24% of the city's population. This isn't abnormal in the U.S. (some towns of 12,000 are over 80% made up from the local state college, and often have 48,000 seat stadiums filled every Friday), but is completely unheard of in Canada -- Red Deer College is in a city of 82,971 and has only 10,000 students. Lacombe, Alberta is the home of CUC, Canadian Univeristy College, which has 400 students on the outskirts of a town of about 12,000.

Also of note, Wikipedia reports the population of Blacksburg as being 39,573. This puts it slightly larger than St. Thomas, Ontario -- Canada's 63rd largest city.

Insights from the worst massacre in U.S. history (not counting November 3 1992)

The FOXNews report of the incident as of this moment is available here.

First off, I stated this around 2pm MST this afternoon, so it may turn out to be false, but I strongly suspect that when it becomes known who the shooter [shooters? -ed] was, it will not turn out to be a Julian (or a Richard or a Randy or a Jim or a Corey or a Trevor)(^†), but rather a Mohammed or a Yousef or a Ahmed. (An aside, at press conference an hour ago the local police chief said that one of the shooters has a goatee, which lends some support to my theory).

Secondly, for those who wish to make political hay about this incident, I'm afraid you're out of luck: timing has worked cruelly against you. It was, after all, only a week ago that a Calgary boy was arrested after planning a school attack on the anniversary of Columbine^‡: he had access to an assault rifle. For those not paying attention, that gun is heavily restricted in Canada...and see how far ahead that has gotten us. If you really want an enlightened observation, note that these attacks always happen on campuses full of weenies. Nobody ever goes on a shooting rampage at a pulp mill or an oil derrick.

^† For American readers unsure what the hell I'm talking about, visit this page

^‡ The good news about this Calgary shooting is the news that the kid actually had not heard about Columbine until he learned about it in school. Well, by good news, I mean that kids are actually learning things in public schools these days, which comes as the biggest shock of the entire incident.

Update, 7:51pm: The Drudge Report says now that reports show the gunman was a Chinaman in the U.S. on a visa. If true, I had the right idea, wrong continent. Still puts me ahead of most bloggers... (the most "progressive" of them, you might say).

Belinda Stronach retires

Third Edge of the Sword invites you to come up with your best rewrite of "The Happy Song" to commemorate the occasion.

So you know, bonus points for getting organic rhymes to the words "slut", "vagina", and "Hilary". I've been coming up short all day, and any or all of these words would be ideal for a "Happy Song" about the departure of Belinda.

(I suppose if you want actual coverage, you can turn to the Globe and Mail story)

Skatin' down the ice, smokin' indo, sippin' on $7 mugs of beer... laid back!

...with my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

Or rather, money on somebody's mind: how about Chronic 2001 as an an analogy the Edmonton Oilers?

(trackback link)

Odd ad campaign

I can't find the video of it, not that anybody who I'd want reading my blog is the sort of person who would enjoy it, but there's a new Fido ad out about faggots. The comments to that link describe it well enough.

The question becomes exactly who the ad is supposed to be for. The average fruitcake will probably be offended by a commercial to challenge orthodoxy and utilize the inconvenient truth that people can and do decide to become tinkerbells. What does that leave them as an ad campaign?

Fido: The phone for guys who want to become sodomites

Or perhaps

The new pay as you go phone from Fido: what to give that cousin of yours who likes to play hopscotch instead of baseball

Maybe even...

If you think you're a fairy, call us

The Happy Song

Let's all sing the happy song
Toronto's out!
Toronto's out!
Let's all sing the happy song
Toronto's out!
Toronto's out!
They thought they'd make the playoffs
That town is full of jerkoffs
So let's all sing the happy song
Tore...On....Toe....
Is Out!

"Hey, did you happen to see, the most horrible day, of my week?"

Last night, the goddamned Toronto Maple Leafs won.

Colorado had a lead in their game, and Edmonton was getting stomped 2-0 by the Flames. After the Flames lead was announced in Colorado, the Avs collapsed and lost their game, guaranteeing Calgary a place in the playoffs. And that's when the Oilers decided to stop sucking, break a 205 minute scoreless streak, and score 3 unanswered goals to win the game...thus eliminating any chance of an overall draft pick.

Even when the Oilers win, we manage to lose...

New (overdue) content alert

I got 95% done a music post about 2 weeks ago, hit "draft", and subsequently forgot all about it.

Click here to read it.

A solution desperately in search of a problem

With the rest of the world's problems solved, Grande Prairie is looking into banning plastic bags.

Post #700 Baby!

Well, after a seemingly endless wait since the last time, the seven hundredth post of this blog is now underway. The last hundred posts have seen a few changes, several on the cosmetic side.

You see, Blogger.com forced us all to go to "the new blogger", which has left me forced to make several changes. My least favourite, which nobody other than me has to deal with (well, related to Third Edge of the Sword anyways) is that my old one-word username was unceremoniously replaced with the email address I had to use to create a blogger account.

On the other hand, the new blogger came with a few neato features. Amoung them:

• Old posts all have the same sidebars on the right hand side. While this means looking at archived posts might be confusing for some ("click on the link to the right to sign up for a baseball pool? where???") it also means that the same favourite websites, archives, and features are available when viewing entries that were posted before the sidebar was updated.
• The archives are much cleaner and more easy to navigate. You can click the arrow next to a year/month and see the posts instantly appear. The downside? The casual observer would think to click the word, but that brings you to the page for that work. Not quite as obvious to internet newbies. On the other hand, internet newbies who view this site will likely swear off the internet forever anyways.
• Labels are now available. This could be huge and important, or just a waste of my afternoon to label all the backposts. We'll see.
• Private blogs are now possible, so I have created one. I guess this is another of those things nobody other than me cares about. Ah well.
• Several modules can be installed to the sidebar, and one of them is the one I've installed showing the last 5 posts. Not only has this made it easier to keep track of discussions, but has helped me eliminate the spam postings. One post had almost 100 of them!

And now the moment you've been waiting for: the statistics. (Also easier thanks to the auto-counting on the monthly archive display). In January since the 600th post, there were 22 posts over 29 days, 20 hours, and 47 minutes, which gives a posting rate of one post every 17.68 hours, or every 0.7366 days (ie. every 17 hours, 40 minutes, and 44.33 seconds). In February over 28 days there were a total of 47 posts, which provides a posting rate of one post every 14.29 hours, or every 0.596 days (ie. every 14 hours, 17 minutes, 52.34 seconds). In March, there were 29 posts over 31 days for a posting rate of one every 1.06 days (ie. every 1 day, 1 hour, 39 minutes, 18.62 seconds). So far in April, naturally excluding this post, there has been nothing. So since Post 600 on January 2nd, there has been a posting rate of one post every 0.932 days (ie. every 22 hours, 22 minutes, 26.94 seconds). Though I've felt that my posting rate has vastly dropped lately, the evidence doesn't really bear that out. Well, that makes me feel better.

As a final note, over this span my blog won an award.

Best Reads:

Hockey
• Is Calgary homosexual? A buddy's post on our hockey pool surmises that most of Central Alberta is bi.
• Bergeron and the Beanstalk? Its the second item in this post.
• Edmonton recently celebrated Mark Messier day by renaming a road and trading Ryan Smyth. I suggest the next landmarks to be renamed after hockey stars.
• Speaking of Ryan Smyth, this is all I'm able to say on the subject 4 days after it happened.
• And since Ryan Smyth was the talk of Edmonton for... well, its still going on 6 weeks later as the team is 1-19 without him, but at the time the talk for the previous week, I felt it was time to talk about Chris Pronger
• As the Oilers futility increased, I found a screenshot from TSN that I think covers quite a bit of the problem...and I don't just mean the injuries.

Politics
• What to do about Quebec? I have a suggestion related to equilization
• Doug Roche spoke on campus in January. I do a probably predictable rip on International Week
• Naturally a Liberal appointee expressing support for a Liberal policy should be removed from his position because he is a Conservative
• Some general griping about Ontario
• Parkland School District was (is?) on strike. I note there's a positive aspect to this
• The Alberta Federation of Labour recently stopped 12 year olds from working in bars, but they still work in restaurants. I explain why this is a bad thing
• Ed Stelmach again shows his contempt for Albertans by letting the corrupt police do more corrupt things with red light cameras
• The CBC searched for a Prime Minister. I argued about its futility
• If you want to plan your parenthood, where do you turn?
• Ann Coulter, global warming, and the nature of conservatism, all in one post
• An in-depth look at the 2007 Federal Budget

Global warming
• Since oil companies can apparently pay scientists to get the results they want, why is it so unreasonable to suggest that government scientists suffer the same bias?
• Who's the biggest threat to Alberta's oil industry? Osama bin Laden? Kim Jong Ill? Adnan Shukrijumah? Or some other dirty ethnic with a beard?
• I get fed up and declare war on global warming idiots. As a curious aside, yesterday (April 2nd) Edmonton got two more inches of snow.
• Some blog from Ontario did 12 Steps to prevent global warming. I rip them apart one by one
• David Suzuki apparently gets to speak to little kids about political beliefs without a contrary word spoken. I ask when Ted Byfield will get the same courtesy
• I take an idiot letter writer in the Edmonton Journal to task for criticizing the media coverage of a curious global warming protest

Comedy
• This Svend Robinson joke is really really funny if you saw the proceeding entry with his photo on it
• If you want to travel to London and you're a sodomist, you can pick up a handy book. Since nobody else filled the niche, I decided to help faggot tourists in Red Deer
• How many Quebecois are suicidal, and what should the number be?>
• Anybody wanna snag U. Urbina from my keeper league? I can throw in Juan Uribe to sweeten the pot

Miscellany
• Meigs Field may be gone, but Flight Simulator and Google Earth keep the dream alive
• Various opinions comparing Ubuntu and Debian
• I review the "scholarly" book Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth by Graham Harvey. I'm frankly surprised Eugene Plawiuk hasn't attacked me about this yet
• The "Loose Change" documentary gets assaulted again, and you can view it here
• What exactly is an X-ray? It's not this
• Mangled lyrics to "Home for a Rest". Plus mangled lyrics to "All I Wanna Do"
• The Chinese New Year came again this year, and I notice something sinister about it
• An Alexander Keith's beer commerical has some interesting historical tidbits
• Is a hippie festival in Drayton Valley Alberta a wise idea?
• Why does a nondescript Hollywood soundtrack have so many excellent reviews?
• Is this a scam or a job? I'm still not sure

Girls
• With no activity on the blog, I provided this old photo of a cute girl boarding an ETS bus downtown
• I promised pictures from the Capital Ex parade. Would you settle for the fair itself?
• I went to a job fair in Nisku a while back. I lately found a site with pictures of the pretty girls who were there
• My characterization of women has caught on...in Poland
• I take aim at women in the space program. Fortunately, the fat bitch is an easy target
• Some girl my buddy and I found on Plenty of Fish made us laugh because of how horrible she was compared to her self image. It was hilarious when we were drunk, so maybe do some Jagerbombs before reading this post

Edmonton crime
• Atlanta police are almost as bad as Edmonton's
• The Edmonton Journal is unable to tell what three black crime victims have in common
• Every Saturday I get to write another letter to the Privacy Commissioners complaining about the illegal Barlink system
• I received early reports of a recent shooting at an Edmonton nightclub