Neil Young: Heart of Gold

Faced with the rather depressing prospect of a Sharon Stone Triple Bill on Bravo for the evening, I instead fled for the Fifth Avenue Cinema to see the newly released Neil Young: Heart of Gold.

The film was directed by Jonathan Demme and feels much more like his Stop Making Sense concert film than, for example, The Last Waltz which has more of a documentary feeling. It opens with scenes of Neil and his frieds speaking about the concert, thir past and the Ryman Auditorium in Nasville, Tennessee where the Grand Ole Opry was filmed for many years.

Next comes the music.

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Serenity (Again)

Lest anybody doubt what I have said in the past about Serenity read Orson Scott Card’s review of the film.

Stupid South Dakota

And you thought North Dakota was stupid when they wanted to drop the North because it made them sound cold.

South Dakota legislature attacks Roe vs. Wade
State prepares to pass bill banning all abortions except to save mom’s life

A direct attack on Roe v. Wade is coming from the South Dakota legislature. The new bill, which outlaws abortion, makes no exceptions, not for a pregnancy caused by incest or rape. It would only be legal — the only exception if it would save the pregnant woman’s life.

Stupid stupid stupid South Dakota.

Stop electing grumpy old men who think this is any of their business, or even appropriate.

Tiffany’s

Why, exactly, is it considered newsworthy that Tiffany’s is opening a store in Vancouver?

Who Said a Little Planning Was a Bad Thing?

Further evidence that a little planning goes a long way. (The emphasis is mine, where applicable.)

Armed robbers steal 25 million pounds
Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:25 PM GMT9
By Andrew Gray

LONDON (Reuters) — An armed gang posing as police stole at least 25 million pounds of Bank of England money on Wednesday in one of Britain’s biggest robberies.

Robbers kidnapped the manager of a security depot in Kent and his family before escaping with their haul, police said.

The thieves may have got away with more than 40 million pounds from the depot run by private security firm Securitas, according to one report on ITV television news.
…
DETAILED PLANNING

The latest robbery had clearly been planned in detail over some time, police said.

Personally, this is exactly the kind of thing I think you need a good project management plan for.

Calvin & Hobbes

According to today’s Calvin & Hobbes (which I have on my desktop thanks to a Yahoo! Widget) I’ve been spelling a word incorrectly for some time now.

From here, out it is no longer Bleh it is now Blehhh with apologies to any and all who were offended by my misuse of the English language.

According to Google News, Pope Benedict annointed two Americans as Cardinals today. Where’s my fancy hat is what I’m wondering? It’s exactly this kind of holier than thou attitude that people don’t like about the modern catholic church.

Mountain Equipment Co-op

So, apparently, when I changed my address with the Moutain Equipment Co-op this time, I asked to start receiving correspondence in French. This is going to make my vote for this year’s board of directors very interesting…

Thick as Thieves

We were thick as thieves, the three of us. Thick as thieves for four steady years. Losing this is a small part of what’s made the last three years so…odd.

Today is a day with a lot of memories for me — three important things (that I can remember) all happened on February 20th. The 20th seems to be some sort of focal point for some reason — my grandfather died on September 20th, and October 20th is the birthday of two very good friends.

One of those friends passed away three years ago today. Before that, at least until I moved to Vancouver, we were as thick as thieves.

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3 Milk, 2 Eggs, Bagels!

Hudson’s Bay Company (again)

A lengthy article by Peter C. Newman in today’s Globe and Mail waxes poetically about the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company

It’s informative, but I’m not sure that my read of the article is his intended message.

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Tom Wolfe

I have just finished reading Tom Wolfe’s most recent novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. It’s the first Tom Wolfe I’ve ever read. I probably won’t read another.

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Silly Online Quizzes

It may be entirely unsurprising to those who know me that I have scored Serenity in this quiz.

Why I Shoot Film (yes…again)

David Pogue writes the Circuits column for the New York Times and has long been one of my favourite technology journalist. He is, in a general sense, an excellent writer on a topic that can be difficult to write about.

After suffering a catastrophic hard drive crash, David used a prominent national data recovery company to recove his data. The interview was edited, and today he published more of it in his weekly email message.

Remember, it’s this guy’s business to mine and recover digital data…here’s how it goes.

David Pogue: Let me ask you a related question. Everything is going digital. Digital music, digital photos, digital movies. Is that a dangerous trend? My mother once bemoaned the fact that rough drafts of famous novelists don’t exist anymore, ‘cause it’s all word processed, and no one will ever know the composing process.

SG: Yeah. One of our recovery guys said something one time, that in 100 years, anything we put on electronic media will not exist. Yet anything published will still be around. And I think he’s right.

DP: So things on paper-

SG: So your books will be here.

The italics are mine, added for emphasis.

Still wonder why I shoot film? I’ve got a rich, beautiful print from a black and white negative hanging on my wall that reminds me quite a bit: that negative is about a hundred years old at this point.

I’m not saying I don’t like digital, but I definitely still like film.

Woo Hoo, Dude

From today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Pot edges cherries in value as a state agricultural product
By JOHN K. WILEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SPOKANE — Law enforcement officers harvested a dubious record last year: enough marijuana plants to rank the illegal weed as Washington state’s No. 8 agricultural commodity, edging sweet cherries in value.

I Am North Vancouver

For a bunch of different reasons — personal, a desire to be outdoors, and a bit of work — I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in North Vancouver lately. This has led me to one conclusion…

I am a very North Vancouver kind of guy.

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CBC’s Olympic Intros

Everybody knows I love the CBC, perhaps in inappropriate ways. I think my relationship with CBC Radio One might be one of the most meaningful ones in my life.

But what’s up with these Olympic intros on CBC TV. This crazy voice with the weirdest voice overs I’ve ever heard.

Go figure. Go Canada. Yay Torino.

A Hypothetical Question

You’re hunting in the woods with Dick Cheney and you get shot. Dick says it’s an accident.

Do you believe him?

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Cheney shoots pal in hunting accident
ALAN FREEMAN

WASHINGTON — He may be humourless and totally lacking in charisma, but “U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney” has always prided himself on being a straight shooter, at least politically speaking.

Over the weekend, the avid hunter and poster boy for the National Rifle Association thought he had aimed straight while quail hunting on a southern Texas ranch. Only instead of a bird, he blasted fellow hunter Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Republican, hitting him with birdshot in his face, neck and chest.

The Tyee’s Blatant Bias

The online only publication The Tyee is based out of Vancouver, and bills itself as an alternative magazine.

For some reason, alternative in this case means blatantly biased. Witness this link to an article about David Emerson crossing the floor.

What’s biased about this? It’s a link to another article — see that text I highlighted in yellow? The word sex doesn’t appear in the Globe and Mail article its linked to at all, and the only reference to Belinda is in passing.

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Steve Fossett & Richard (Dick) Branson

Steve Fossett has now flown a plane for the longest ever continuous flight. With Dick Branson waiting for him at the landing.

These guys are supposed to be rivals, aren’t they? This got me thinking: just how much money have these guys spent in this never ending contest of mine is bigger than yours?

Feynman

But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
— Richard Feynman

Are Hyrbrid’s Really Saving Us?

A great article at the New York Times questions whether Hybrids are really saving the planet

Don’t get me wrong: I conceptually like the idea of a hybrid car, and would buy one if money weren’t an issue — it’s just that the hype is far greater than the reality.

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Crossing the Floor

Much is being made about newly minted Conservative David Emerson’s crossing of the floow. To that end, some thoughts.

• David is a natural conservative. It’s obvious to any who cares to look
• When I first read the name, it didn’t occur to me that he had crossed the floor. I suspected that perhaps, Harper had chosen to include him as a Liberal in his cabinet on the basis that he not only represented Vancouver, but also a Conservative viewpoint within the Liberal party. Such a thing would usually happen in a case where a formal coalition existed, but it could have happened here. David did not have to switch parties and Mr. Harper would have been following one of the oldest pieces of advice in history: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
• To the people who claim that it’s too soon after an election — one in which he ran as a Liberal — I say phooey. Phooey I say. If you are blindly voting for a party on a ballot, you’re not voting. You’re supposed to understand the issues and vote for the person who’s going to best represent your community.
• To those pulling quotes from Hansard of David slamming the Conservative Party: why bother? This happens every time…I had some nice juicy ones about Scott Brison too. It’s important to rememeber that, in part, these people are chess pieces on a board playing a game.
• To James Moore — you deserved it. This says a great deal about Mr. Harper’s leadership and loyalty.

Mostly, to the Conservative Party of Canada be careful what you wish for. David’s not as nice in person as he might seem on TV — and he doesn’t seem that nice on TV.

Why Try?

First it was Brad and Jen and now Lance and Sheryl

What is the world coming too, and is there any hope for the rest of us?

Say it ain’t so Lance. Say it ain’t so.

David Emerson: The Liberal Party’s Spartacus

Now that David Emerson has crossed the floor and joined the Conservative Party of Canada as a cabinet minister, I’m calling the Conservative election campaign I ran in 2004 — the year that saw David win his seat — a win.

Viva la revolucion, David.

Televsion’s Fracturing Audience

It’s become a cliche to talk about television’s fracturing audience. Since the mid-80s arrival of subscription based cable channels that mostly carried movies, TV stations have blossomed. This has, in Canada, been helped in part by CRTC rules that wind up creating stations like Fox TV Sport Canada with the Canada appended hanging by that thinnest of threads as a sign that this particular station will, in fact, play hockey games occasionally; maybe some curling.

Some of these stations make no sense at all, though.

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Only in China

Ticket madness at Disneyland become an issue meriting a national response, according to the illustrious old grey lady.

Mickey’s Ticket Mistake: Hong Kong Disneyland Is Mobbed
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: February 3, 2006

Even the Hong Kong government issued a statement late Thursday calling on Disneyland to improve its ticketing and guest entry procedures.

Liberal Leaders all in a row

John Manley — down.

Frank McKenna — down.

Brian Tobin — down (forcing me to eat some crow.)

Allan Rock — down.

What do all of these people have in common?

They’re winners. These are not people who like losing elections.

I suspect that anticipation of the writing on the wall in the next go-round may have been a motivating factor.

Jeff Tweedy, Commodore Ballroom

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