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I Am Skooter Photographs

I Am Skooter	«October 2004 . home . December 2004»
So here's us, on the raggedy edge.

It’s not April Fools, so it must be true

This headline features prominently in Today’s New York Times:

Apparently, after a single day of lower than projected sales Wal-Mart is slashing prices.

The obvious question is: how? Isn’t this the company that is supposed to have the lowest prices possible; the company that lowers the cost of living of every community it opens a store in? How can they lower their already unbelievable prices anymore?

The mysteries of the universe are lost on me; I hope that one day I can understand.

Tommy Douglas? You’ve got to be kidding.

Obviously a bunch of baby boomers overwhelmed the voting on this Greatest Canadian thing; that’s the only way I can see this happening.

This guy brought cheap and (relatively universal) health care to an entire generation and stuck us - their children - with the bill.

So I can only assume that is was that generation that voted for him.

In my heart, Terry Fox won this thing. This guy sacrificed so much for so little personally and his work has inspired and saved so many people.

give me land lots of land and the starry skies above

Welcome to East Vancouver

Found on the street in a supposedly upscale area of East Vancouver.

This is not a place to live; this is in fact a war zone. I grew up in the supposed wilds of Scarborough, and I never saw anything like this.

Welcome to fall in Vancouver; welcome to the fall of Vancouver.

One less opponent; one more infidel

Today’s New York Times has reported in public what I have know for weeks now:

Mr. Barghouti has, of course, in part resigned due the success of our campaign. The writing was on the wall.

In conversations with Mr. Barghouti he had indicated that he would be supporting our campaign; the true campaign for the Palestinian people.

Mr. Barghouti is a traitor to all Palestinians, and not deserving of your support. When our campaign is succesful, we will ensure that worms will feed on the infidel’s flesh in his prison cell, and nowehere else. This is the price of opposing our campaign; there can be no alternative.

Remember: our campaign stands for peace, and in opposition to Israel.

Ripped from the Headlines

Today’s Vancouver Sun gives us this headline:

Prank gets college yearbook recalled
MONTREAL — Officials at Montreal’s prestigious Lower Canada College have been forced to withdraw and reprint the student yearbook after two encrypted messages calling for death to all Jews were discovered.

There’s really no defence for these kids; what an incredibly stupid thing to do.

What makes it even dumber is that this is a total rip off of a Law & Order episode from I don’t remember when. These kids aren’t even being creative; they’re just watching TV.

Who says our education system isn’t working?

Blogging the Tiger Tech Talk - Again

The sheer volume of technology here is amazing, and the number of laptops is a perfect demonstration of Apple’s dominance in this growing segment.

There are at least 20 15” Aluminum PowerBooks here, and the same number of iBooks. A few 17 inches in attendance, but very few 12” PowerBooks. 15 is definitely the place to be here.

This vindicates my choice.

Off to the Dashboard session. This stuff is cool.

Blogging Tiger Tech Talk

Not the content of the talk of course; this thing is NDA’d. That’s my way of saying “I know something you don’t know.”

But seriously, get here open up a laptop and there’s like 4 access points for a wireless network. Not just one, but four.

Apple knows how to run an event. The last IBM event I went too offered no Internet access at all, even though they were promoting their wireless access point technologies.

If you’re going to do something, do it right.

Atomic Bomb: deja vu?

U2 is tonight’s musical guest on Saturday Night Live, and it’s the first time I’ve seen them perform anything from their new album — How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

When I first heard the lead single, Vertigo, I was pretty excited. I wasn’t that drawn in by the last album, but this one sounded truly interesting.

Seeing Bono sing the track live, it occurs to me that this album may, in fact, be a return to the Acthung Baby and Zooropa days. Achtung Baby was a brilliant album, in part because it was a fresh sound; the tour was incredible, the singles were great, the video’s stunning. I can’t really summarize how significant this album was to music in the 90’s. It was amazing.

Performing live, it struck me that Bono was reinventing his Fly character from the Zoo TV tour and musically there’s some similarities.

Am I less excited because of this? Not really. I’m looking forward to the album’s release no less, but I’m wondering whether this is U2 - for the first time really - dipping into their own past.

I’m seriously hoping that this band doesn’t slip into Sting territory; if it becomes a cliche of itself, I may lose faith in popular music altogether.

Cast Iron Railway Bridges are being stolen in Australia

At least, if I heard the news correctly. I suppose it’s possible that I mis-heard it, but really - do you think so?

I have a certain amount of admiration for anybody who can put together a plan to steal a bridge…that’s right out of a Superman comic book or something. Evil genius at its best.

I can’t make up stuff this good, even when I try.

in my world, this counts as news

The wonder that is Slashdot produced this today, and given one of my current side projects it was of particular interest.

Oh My God It Burns! » Practical Applications of the Philosopher’s stone. For drunks.

Be sure to check the feedback; the responses to the article are quite wonderful.

I swear, I’ll produce better stuff than this Vladimir stuff (and isn’t that spelt wrong, anyway?)

King Ralph’s coat tails

Quite a bit of polling going around Alberta right now, where a provincial election is scheduled for next week - the 23rd, specifically.

Most of this polling is showing a slip in Ralph Klein’s popularity below the 60% level, and in the Conservative’s popularity to below the 50% level. This happening in a province which pracitically bathes in Conservative cologne so that its citizens can carry the stench of Conservatism with them everywhere they go.

This quote from today’s Globe & Mail (who’s website is slipping increasingly into uselessness):

What I can’t remember, is when Ralph did take an election seriously?

Continue reading "King Ralph’s coat tails"

The Best Commute in the World

There realy is no better commute in the world than this.

get your friends to stay home after you vote

My campaign for the Palestinian leadership is progressing well; fundraising efforts are gathering steam, and the campaign is extremely organized at this point.

It’s my personal belief that the future of Palestine lies in peace. Only the Israeli’s stand in the way of this peace. It’s because of this that I’m adopting a pro-peace/anti-Israel stance in the campaign.

On election day I need your help to ensure we win this vote. There are two things you can do to help the most:
1) Get out and vote early. Polls open early in the morning, don’t wait.
2) After you’ve voted, arm yourself and ensure that your neighbours (if they aren’t supporters of our campaign) are unable to leave their house for the rest of the day. If you need munitions, contact our campaign office; we’ll do our best to arm you appropriately.

Preventing your neighbours from voting for anybody else could be the decisive strategy of this campaign: support our campaign for peace by using only the armed force that is absolutely necessary for us to win.

See you at the polls, and on the campaign trail!

It’s windy here today…

It’s windy here today; the kind of wind that makes large, old trees sway back and forth with ease. Leaves are coming down outside the window.

The best part is I have to take the Seabus today - not once, but twice. I used to do this almost every day, and crossing the Burrard Inlet on rocky seas is always fun; not the sort of thing you do in many places - very Vancouver.

Fall is slipping away and winter is settling in, and today feels like the tipping point. Tipping points are great, especially when you realize you might actually be watching them happen.

This I Really Like

Even the persecuted Loyalists run out of the United States would, I think, agree with this one.

http://www.fuckthesouth.com/

Especially the part about not letting people visit the Liberty Bell (something I’ve never, incidentally, done.)

Here’s a suggestion: the 49th parallel is a little bit too far north for the real border - the undefended one, at least. Maybe the Mason-Dixon line could provide some guidance?

my campaign for the palestinian leadership

I’m taking this opportunity to offiically announce my candidacy for the leadership of the Palestinian state. It’s not an easy decision to enter this race, but I feel that I can really make a difference.

I’m proud of the fact that I’ve assembled a crack campaign team - the best in the business, in my opinion. Of course, in order to protect their lives I’d like to keep their identities a secret; they know who they are, and they know that I wouldn’t be able to achieve this without their support.

Continue reading "my campaign for the palestinian leadership"

Microsoft Word: Tracking Changes

For years now, I’ve been using Microsoft Word’s change tracking features to produce documents. Frustrating though it may have been, it provided a feature that was eminently useful.

I’ve only recently begun using Microsoft Word 2004 and the person who designed the new interface for change tracking deserves to be worshipped, if only because they managed to overcome years of inertia on a little used feature to make it truly useful.

Continue reading "Microsoft Word: Tracking Changes"

Laurie Anderson: Until the End of the Moon

I’ve been a fan of Laurie Anderson for as along as I can remember; Home of the Brave was one of the first movies Muchmusic showed, and it blew me away. As so often happens, this lead to an obsession.

One of the things I like about her just came back to me as I started typing this; Movable Type likes for you to attach a category to each entry. This is great, except I can’t figure out what category Laurie fits into: she doesn’t.

Music will do, but be warned of its limitations.

Continue reading "Laurie Anderson: Until the End of the Moon"

Remembrance Day 2004

Remembrance Day always makes me sad; it’s a set of memories that are slipping slowly away, drifting into nothingness.

Continue reading "Remembrance Day 2004"

I’ve been seeing a lot of these lately…

This specifically is a 333MHz PowerPC G3 from a Lombard Powerbook, and if you’ve got something similar this is basically what makes your life tick.

Yasir Arafat is gone

Yasir Araft is gone, and I’m officially goine to embark on a quest to grow a beard like his in tribute.

The major question for the world at this point is does this move us closer or farther away from a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian situation.

I’m not going anywhere near that question. Not even close.

Now, onto that beard.

not every day ends like this one did

Bush vs. Kerry

As of this morning, I was saying that I figured Bush had this thing. I based this largely on my belief that the GOP would get more of its vote out.

At some point, I got my hopes up for Kerry and told somebody this. It was a feeling, and not a really strong belief. I flip-flopped.

It looks like Bush, which is probably good for the Canadian economy, but bad for the world. I’m not happy about this; not one bit.

There’s other depressing facts here: Barak Obama was elected - the rising star of the Democratic party. Isn’t this a good thing?

Barak will be the only black man in the Senate. This is not a good thing.

Not much of today is a good thing. Here’s to keeping your fingers crossed for the next four years.

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