Some Speeches Are Freer Than Others

Deano posts an interesting entry about the Comcast cable network canceling anti-war ads...

"The Comcast cable television company rejected ads that an anti-war group wanted to air during President Bush's State of the Union speech, saying they included unsubstantiated claims."

I like that. "Unsubstantiated claims." Not like what's coming out of the White House. íCourse not.

Pretty sad day for American democracy when you can't even pay to give peace a chance.

Lives In The Balance

Yesterday at work, I was writing an SOM (Selection of the Month) for the most recent Jackson Browne CD. I surfed on over to his web site to see what info I could dig up, and stumbled across this wonderful poem, sent to him by a teacher.

Brightened up my day. Hope is does the same for you.

p.s. I didn't kill any British actors today.

Raising Caine

Been finding myself with less time to blog recently. Between ball hockey on Monday nights and my copy editing course on Wednesday nights, and the fact that I've been dating someone new, I've been spending less time sitting in front of my computer. Sorry about that, dear faithful readers. I know you understand. I will try to be a better blogger.

Hmm, so what's new?

Well, I killed Michael Caine.

Okay, maybe not in the "traditional" sense of killing someone.

I went to see "Adaptation" last Sunday with Sue and her sister Jen. (GREAT film, btw.) The previews included a trailer for what looks like a very interesting movie set in Vietnam in the í50s or early í60s, starring the aforesaid Mr. Caine. I leaned over to Sue and whispered, "this must have been his last film before he died."

Her jaw dropped, and she replied with incredulity, "He died?!! When did he die? I didn't know that!" I nodded solemnly, and turned my mouth down at the corners, giving that yes-it's-sad-but-true look. Then she relayed the message to Jen, who was sitting to her left. Her response was nearly identical. I informed them that he had passed away some time before Christmas.

Well, my little piece of obituary reportage had been nagging at me. I remembered seeing news of some white-haired, hard-living, old-school Brit actor dying late last year, but I was becoming less confident that it had been Michael Caine. So I did a google search, and found this most useful web page: Dead Or Alive?

Ummm, as it turns out...

But, I was close...

Like I said, I knew it was one of those white-haired, hard-living, old-school Brit actors. Sorry Michael.

NEW WORDS FOR 2003

These were sent to me by a cow orker today, subtitled, "Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary." Some I've seen before, but some are new, at least to me.

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generationís answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STARTER MARRIAGE: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from oneís workplace.

IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the shit out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

404: Someone whoís clueless. From the World Wide Web error message ì404 Not Found,î meaning that the requested document could not be located.

GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that is exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that youíve just made a BIG mistake.

Ironically, I experienced an "ohnosecond" when I went to post this entry, and instead hit the "sign out" button. What a 404 I am sometimes.

Sliding Towards Byzantium?

or

Flea boy! Flea!

This weekend's shaping up to be an interesting one. Should be a lot of fun, too.

Friday night, I'm a-going' tobogannin'! God it's been yearsólike, 20 at leastósince I've slid down a snowy/icy hill on a long piece of wood. Pure insanity! But oh such a part of a Canadian childhood. It'll be fun to relive a little of that wild pleasure.

It's snowed a lot here since Christmas and it's been frightfully cold (tonight is actually the coldest night of the year), so the conditions are good. There's a park off Broadview near Danforth, not too far from where I live, with a nice sloping hill that's been a big sliding mecca for the past few weeks. It's actually the west side of the Don Valley, I suppose. It also affords a beautiful panoramic view of downtown Toronto, which is really nice at night, with the moon and the CN Tower and all the lights of the office towers.

And then on Saturday afternoon, I'm going to a flea circus! Yep, that's right. A real old-fashioned flea circus. More info here.

Should be a blast!

Watch The Mousie!

So, I've known for a while that on a Mac, you can use "shift-command-3" to take a screenshot, a "photo" of whatever is on your computer screen. But I just found out today that there's a "shift-command-4" feature that does something similar, but way more useful.

What it does is, it turns your cursor into crosshairs, and then you can select/highlight anything on your screen, and it then takes a photo of only what you've selected/highlighted, which it then saves to your hard drive or desktop, or wherever.

Cool!

Three Easy Pieces

1) Heard about this site on CBC Radio this morning ó Rooting Out Evil:

Rooting Out Evil is sending a weapons inspection team to the United States to inspect the chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons produced and concealed by the Bush regime.

And we want you to join us - in person or in spirit.

Become an Honorary Weapons Inspector
And Support Our Mission Into The USA!

2) Also came across an interesting article in The Times by John Le CarrÈ [via blogdex], which generally captures my feelings on the prospect of Gulf War II. Especially this passage:

"How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it."

and this...

"...Those who are not with Mr. Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall ó just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

3) But, as usual, The Onion says it best.

Back On Course

Haven't had much time to blog recently, so I'm composing this entry from work on my lunch break. Won't have much time tonight either, as I'm starting a night course at Ryerson in magazine copy editing.

A position as a copy editor might be a wise next career step for me, so I thought it would a good idea to upgrade my skills, and get some actual training from a pro. Editing copy comprises about 30% or more of my present job as a copywriter, and I think I'm pretty good at it, so this course shouldn't pose much of a problem, and hopefully I'll learn some valuable stuff that I don't know now. Plus my employer will compensate my tuition, provided I pass the course, so that's a bonus.

In the meantime, here's something for your edumatational enlightenment: some linkage from WFMU'S BLAST O' HOT AIR newsletter.


HOOGERBRUGGE
"Animated five-part harmony group belch and drop trou at your point and click command as a dark ambient drone plays in the background. It's a Dutch thing."


HARMONIZING HORSIES
"Four happy horsies harmonize in a pastoral setting. It's a Swedish thing."

DO THE MAJOR LABELS OWE YOU MONEY?
"Established to provide information about a proposed Settlement of lawsuits brought by Attorney Generals of 43 states, Commonwealths and Territories, and by counsel for the Plaintiff Settlement Class entitled In Re: Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation."

THE INTERNET MUSEUM OF FLEXI/CARDBOARD/ODDITY RECORDS
"So you thought they were only round and black! An astounding collection of flexis, promotional die-cut discs, playable paper cereal boxes, postcards, stamps, Chinese food containers, Cream cheese lids, and lots more! We've mentioned this site before but it just keeps getting bigger and better. The collection is curated by Mac, the host WFMU's Antique Phonograph Music Program, and the site is designed and maintained Henry Lowengard (longtime WFMU webslinger)."

JOHANNA'S ART INSPIRED BY STEVIE NICKS
"A world of enchanted drawings inspired by Stevie Nicks. Mystical moons and unicorns galore grace this gallery of Stevie portraits, stationary, jigsaw puzzles and custom tambourines. You can even commission a portrait of you and Stevie together!"

RALPH DEWEY'S BALLOON TROMBONE
"Back in July, 2001 while I was at the Fellowship of Christian Magicians convention, I participated in a balloon orchestra as part of the evening show. We made balloon instruments and pretended to play to a tune. It turned out to be one of the hits of the week. We even got a standing ovation. One of the instruments that I decided to make was a trombone. One that actually had a working slide." Here's how Ralph did it!.

OTIS F. ODDER: 365 DAYS
The Bran Flakes' Mr. Otis F. Odder will unearth a new MP3 track every day of 2003, with some archives of past tracks.
"For the entire year of 2003 (January 1st to December 31st) this page will feature one mp3 file (every day) to download. The content will be focused on musical pieces, but will also include spoken word. Listeners of the incredibly strange and outsider realm take note, for this is the majority of material that will be made available." And How!

Bush League

Over at Slate, Jacob Weisberg provides the "Bushism Of The Day".

Now we've all seen samples and forwarded emails of Dubya's "accidental wit and wisdom". But some of these quotes are just priceless. I mean, this guy's the most powerful person on the planet. "Leader of the free world". Gawd.

This one slays me:
"There's an old saying in TennesseeóI know it's in Texas, probably in Tennesseeóthat says, fool me once, shame onóshame on you. Fool meóyou can't get fooled again."óNashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

And then there's this gem:
"I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to beóa literate country and a hopefuller country."óWashington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2001

Sure, maybe Clinton couldn't keep it in his pants, but at least he had something between his ears.

All Shook Up

Okay, enough kvetching from me about sports-related injuries. In the spirit of the season, enjoy this lovely snow globe.

I love the little thumping noises they make when you hold down the mouse and keep shaking.

Sorry Charlie

Got back to playing ball hockey tonight after a three-week lay-off over the holidays. We had nine guys show up, so one team got the extra player, meaning they had a sub. It wasn't my team unfortunately.

So it was a bit of a rough night with no rests. By the second and third game (we play until one team scores five goals), I was pretty winded at times. Makes it tough when you spend a lot of energy on scoring chances, and then have to scramble back to play defence when the play goes the other way.

Towards the end of the night, I had a break-away, managed to get a shot off before falling to the floor with an excruciating charlie horse in my right calf muscle. Ooooh, those are nasty. The whole muscle in the back of the lower leg just knots up. Nothing to do but lay there and try to stretch it out.

Got back into the game, and a few minutes later, a player on the other team had a break-away, and I scrambled back to try to catch up with the guy, stretching my stick to try to disrupt his control and hopefully poke the ball off. Wasn't working, so I made a last-ditch desperation dive. Didn't work, and he scored, while I lay sprawled on the gymnasium floor with another charlie horse, this time in my left calf muscle. Even more painful than the first one.

That was it for me. It was almost time to call it a night anyway, so I sat out the rest of the game, and then gingerly walked to the subway.

Man, first the black eye, and then two charlie horses. I thought exercising was supposed to make you healthy! I stretched beforehand like I always do, and drank Gatorade on breaks, but I guess the three-week lay-off plus a bit of overexertion/dehydration left me susceptible to Mr. C. Horse. Oh well, I should be okay tomorrow.

Why are they called charlie horses anyway?

Word

Fitting that this was Dictionary.com's Word of the Day for January 1. I was a big slugabed that day.

slugabed \SLUHG-uh-bed\, noun:
One who stays in bed until a late hour; a sluggard.

Nemecek's business is not for slugabeds. He opens for business every weekday at 4 a.m.
--Drew Fetherston, "He Can Really Make Pigs Fly," Newsday, December 12, 1994

I found Oriana, as usual, up before me, for I always was a sad slugabed.
--W. Hurton, Doomed Ship

All save Whit elected to sleep in that morning. Whit came back to report that he had spotted the tracks of a doe and a fawn made in the new snow directly beneath my unoccupied stand, and I regretted being a slugabed.
--"Paying Tribute to Deer in Minnesota Woods," New York Times, December 6, 1998

Slugabed is from slug, "sluggard" + abed, "in bed."