Toronto? Now there’s a town that knows how to pick a mayor!

I must say, it’s enjoyable watching the insanity that is Toronto’s municipal politics from a distance. I’m in no way suggesting that Vancouver is perfect - I mean, nothing here really makes sense - but at least we’re moving onwards with resolutions to some issues. Toronto just keeps arguing about the same things.

So John Tory - the Mayor Apparent, from this vantage point at least - has released his “Green Light Plan” which suggests, in part:

• Replacing Toronto’s antiquated traffic computer which controls sequencing of traffic lights
• Adding more advanced green signals and having them operate all day
• Better co-coordinating of Toronto’s road maintenance schedule
• Constructing more neighborhood friendly Toronto Parking Authority lots across the city
• Allowing TTC Metropass holders to board buses and streetcars by the rear door under the honour system

Really, so much of this is laughable that it feels pointless to comment on this. In brief:

• Nothing in Tory’s plan suggests that people should be getting out of their cars
• Nothing in this plan does anything to promote alternative modes of transit
• What the hell does increasing parking have to do with helping traffic move more efficiently, and exactly who wants an enormous parking garage in their neighbourhood
• How Tory plans on implementing a partial honour system on the TTC is astounding; anybody who’s ever ridden the current honour system routes on Queen & King streets knows how many fares are lost on these two routes alone

All I can say is voters usually get what they deserve, and in this case that looks like John Tory. Don’t forget: this man supported Mel Lastman aggressively.

Merger, Sch-merger

Well, the Progressive Conservatives & the Canadian Alliance are finally getting together, right on the heels of the launch of my most recent mini-project. I’m not saying the web site had anything to do with it, but really: isn’t that way better than either of the ones they’ve been able to come up with.

I suppose as a loyal member of the federal Liberal party I’m supposed to be fairly upset about this: it certainly puts a wrinkle the plans for another 100 years of Liberal majority governments (although it’s likely to have only a modest effect on the looming 2004 election-cum-coronation of Paul Martin. Really, I can’t see this as anything but good: with real opposition, the Liberal government will be forced to do something - anything - to convince Canadians that the country (which has been fairly apathetic) is moving in the right direction.

All of the above is - of course- predicated on the fact that Mike Harris does not become the leader of any new entity. That’s just scary.

Rock Creek Fair 2003

The Rock Creek Fair is an annual thing, and one that my family has pariticipated in for years. I had never been.

Somewhat coincidentally, my Aunt Wendy was able to make a trip out here corresponding with this year’s fair; this also happened to be her birthday.

Rodeo

The star attraction of the fair is the rodeo, and I waited patiently for it. When I finally found a decent spot to take photos of the roping, I was standing next to a guy who owned his own ranch somewhere up Pemberton way. I learned lots.

For starters: if you’ve ever tried to make a lariat and loop it around your head like cowboys to in western movies, just stop. They use a special rope that’s quite stiff, more like plastic than any rope I’ve ever owned.
crooked) table in order to keep it steady.

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“Igor - hand me that brain”

Well, installing a new hard drive in my old Pismo generation PowerBook proved to be more fun than I had anticipated. Despite my attempts not to, I had to remove the processor card - the hard drive cable connects underneath it, and the connection had come undone. This card, unsurprisingly, holds your CPU. Immediately after reinstalling it, I found myself with a PowerBook that wouldn’t turn on.

That heart-attack your just heard was, in fact, mine.

Well, a bit of jiggling around and it turns it is was just not seated properly: everything booted up nicely.

These lovely folks have a piece of software called Carbon Copy Cloner which many people swear by. In my case, it was utterly useless and I had to go the old route of doing a clean install of Jaguar, installing all the updates and then manually moving a bunch of files around.

You know, Apple should really have some sort of utility to do this: call it “Import Files from Another User” or something. Would really make life a lot easier.

Anyway, my almost 4 year old PowerBook has a smokin’ new 5400rpm 40GB hard drive, and it’s noticeably faster (and a lot roomier.) I’m pretty happy, after all the pain.

How Much Information Is Too Much Information for a Free Mailing List?

A few days ago I removed myself from the reasonably informative Wired News mailing list, ostensibly so that I could resubscribe under a different email address. This may have been a mistake.

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