Jay has been noting events at the disasterously bad idea of Pajama Media - great evidence in itself that the A-list idea of 2003 never was - and I repeat the noting of this quotation below from the discussion board at "pajamasmedia.isfullofcrap.com" just for its sheer 1998-ish-ness:  •  “When the …

Have I been a nag? I have, haven't I. Well, today is the last day. Round One of the Canadian Blogging Awards is over at midnight tonight and then we will see if the place and the beer blog get a top five ranking in any of the categories. You know, fourth is not bad. I am not demanding a first and …

Ian has been on a bit of a roll lately. Today he raises the question of standardization and homogenization of commercial culture on the road:  •  “But on a long road trip, the understanding that you are never more than fifty miles from a Wendy's chili (low fat, kids!) or the 100% positivity that …

When I stock my shelves for the winter, it is all about the sauces. As far as I am concerned your staples are all sauces and dry goods. Everything else can be bought on the day. So happy was the lad when, during the trip south, I found a treasure trove of BBQ sauces. I now have five different …

Ben o'Boston has raised an interesting argument in my mind for the Tory NDP coalition that some hope for. If the NDP raises fears of fiscal wackiness, let the conservatives run the fiscal side and if the CPC raises fears of neanderthal-like social conservatism, let the NDP run the social programs …

Don't let the moment slip away. Now is the time to suck up to my ego and vote for Gen X at 40 and A Good Beer Blog in the Canadian Blog Awards for best blog, best culture blog, best group blog and best blog post series. I sucked up to my ego just now myself. I feel better for it. Just today and …

I am coming more and more to the conclusion that Tuesday is the joke of the gods. Every few days I get up and - whammo - it is Tuesday. There are no holiday Tuesdays, are there? Tuesdays are not so much when bad things happen as nothings happens. There are few people who say "wait until …

It is 7:07 am and as far as I can tell nothing has happened in the twelve hours since the fall of our government. No halt to the flow of taxation and expenditure. No tanks in the streets. Not even a trip to the Governor General to ask for dissolution of Parliament. Do these people know the cost of …

From the BBC comes another really interesting broadcast I will probably never get around to listening to on the race in the mid-1800s to wire the globe for that great pre-radio revolution of communication by cable. As with good ale, it was monks who made an early important break through:  •  “The …

With the passing of the motion of non-confidence this evening, we can now announce plans for the campaign coverage to come here at Gen X at 40 HQ:  •  clever new news sources such as listening to the morning news in that half-awake pre-caffinated state that I shake about 10:45 am will be added to …

Votez-vous! The forces of the Flea are gathering and you only have three days left to vote. Style, wit and a good grasp of basic grammar cannot be allowed to overwhelm your voice on the internet.  •  Remember this! Just like you, every computer is unique and each of these magical instruction …

Micheal is putting the boogie curse on my one share of Google. I suppose that the collapse of Google in itself would trigger the end of this bubble economy. But what of the small investor who puts just enough in to get the annual report and little else? What of me that person? Shouldn't that …

Given the likelihood that the Federal government will fall tonight, is anyone clambering for fixed election dates these days? Regardless of the content of the issues, north and south of the border folks are less than happy with the administration of their national governments if the polls are to …

For the third time in 2005, the basic Sony Cyber-shot has died. The first time it was the day before my cousin's wedding in the US...so I had to buy another. Likely cause I thought was sand in the lens. That camera, a DSC-P32, had done yeoman's service so I did not feel too bad. Then the next one …

So we got there - meaning Cortland 120 miles or so down I-81 and when we discovered that the pool area of a 70 USD a night hotel is no place for man nor beast, it was off for another 18 miles to Cornell's campus in Ithaca, one of the great small cities in eastern North America, to see if we could …

This Friday question deserves its own post. Should Conrad Black get his citizenship back? Should Canadian citizenship be at all renouncable? Would it not be better to say he must renounce his Lordship so that he may rejoin the masses of the Canadian populace without the taint of peerage? I say the …

Just as with the child whose non-meal time symptoms passed within a day and a half, so it has come to pass with me. I credit the chanting and the placement of the gerbil statutettes. So it is Friday and it is a day off booked far in advance to coincide with an teachers' in-service day and as we …

What a weird day to be sick. American Thanksgiving. Fading in and out of a Neo-Citronization, I am following the weather to make sure we can get a run into Ithaca Saturday for some shopping and I reallized I never got American Thanksgiving before. Here is what it appears to be about:  •  The …

I am lowering the cone of silence this morning due to a bug of a indelicate nature. Red Sox management will just have to get along without me for a while.  •  Update: Oh - and one more thing. Please vote for both A Good Beer Blog and this here Gen X at 40 at the Canadian Blog awards. I think both …

Ralph Klien, conservative Premier of Alberta, is at it again giving national conservative leader Stephen Harper a boost wherever he can:  •  “Days before an expected election call, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said the country will probably be left with another Liberal minority, largely because …

Attentive readers will have noted the presence hereabouts of one Newfoundlander, a trinket giver of high degree, by name of Myrick who has made his way to China and now runs AsiaPundit from Shanghai, China. It was interesting to read, then, this article on the BBC about the state of blogging in …

We have planned a short trip to Ithaca for some pre-Yule procurements and have to face the reality that Friday there may be a wall of snow dumping on a very discrete part of the big highway from Canada to Syracuse and on south:  •  “A FLOW OF ARCTIC AIR WILL DEVELOP THANKSGIVING MORNING AND …

The counter-culture has truely begun when someone figures out how they can get back at their credit card company through digital banking:  •  “Don Rogers wanted to make a statement. A 32-foot credit card statement, to be precise, one he hopes will help him win a long-simmering privacy feud with …

From yesterday's Whig comes news that 86 wind turbines are to be built at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. A project of this scale so close to a city is very interesting:  •  “Kingston is set to become one of Canada’s "greenest" cities, now that the provincial government has approved a project to …

“  •  “But when they told me 'bout their side of the bargain,  •  That's when I knew that I could not refuse.  •  And I won't get any older, now the angels wanna wear my red shoes.  •  Oh I won't get any older, now the angels wanna wear my red shoes.”  •  ”  •  Mr. Lovely and company win.

The BBC has produced a interactive game with Margaret Thatcher's reign's economic stats including a chart with champagne imports 1979 to 1990. Smoking down. Foreign holidays up.  •  Remember 25% inflation? Hokey-kabokie! The only upside for me in that was it was undergrad and at the beginning of …

The first blockbuster trade of the off-season? The Boston Herald reports:  •  “Nearly two years after acquiring Curt Schilling from the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Red Sox are on the verge of getting another overpowering right-hander to bolster their starting rotation. And this one is just 25 years …

I had a googlie explained to me once. I almost had it but it was gone in minutes. And I have no idea what an inswinging yorker is but apparently the picture above is an illustration of one in Pakistan's second test play against England today. The caption reads:  •  “Pakistan enjoy further success …

I wish I was an electrical engineer so I could know if I was seeing a boondoggle or not. The Federal Government has announced that PEI is to get a 30 million dollar electricity cable to assist in its wind generation plans:  •  “The federal government has announced money to build a third electrical …

This essay on the state of New Orleans in Time Magazine is an unsettling read. Being involved in the life of a municipal government, I recall when I was watching the hurricanes and the floods wondering things like if he ground would not be become saturated with salt or how the tax base would be …

Mike can make a fella miss the old city with photos like this.

The Elemental Form  •  Red Ensigns. As I mentioned yesterday, I have been working on this edition of the Red Ensign Standard for a while. Some of my readers may have no idea about Red Ensigns so it is good that wikipedia has a good post about them. If I can take credit for being around at the …

Mr. Lovely scores  •  Nice to see Arsenal move up the ranks with its win over second place Wigan. Who knew Wigan would be so strong? Now we are hoping that teams like Newcastle and Charlton have big days to tighten the top of the table and keep Arsenal third.  •  In bigger sporting news, Morton v …

I am working away on my turn at writing the Red Ensign Standard, kicking myself for not raising my hand when there were less than ten members. These have been hard days for the group in that there has been some serious discussion as to its meaning - which range bloggers with an interest in history …

Ever since I saw him laugh at a man whose leg he just broke on purpose, I have not had a warm feeling about Roy Keane, captain of Man U, shown right in deep thought.  •  How odd, though, to read he has ubruptly quit the team, just when they were working on chipping away at Chelsea's previously …

Here we are again. It is getting like shaving. Every morning I look in the mirror when I am shaving and think - here I am shaving again in the morning. Well, it's Friday and in the cause of getting you through today here are somethings to chat about:  •  I have been pleasantly surprised watching …

I seem to have fallen into a habit when Christmas shopping of getting things neither I or the intended recipient might want. I blame internet shopping, of course. I can't get into it as a few of you are actually human who know me and not just responsive Googlebots created by Lord Goog to immitate …

GUI = Graphical User Interface. Now you can draw your own. I find this widget called the Fly very interesting - and I don't find many new widgets actually of any use at all:  •  “The Fly also comes with something called Fly Open Paper: a sheaf of blank pages that permit a much more free-form range …

I wonder if the new Federal program to have ex-pat Canadians move home will mention this sort of thing?  •  “At least two families have been evacuated from the shores of Lake Winnipeg after a series of dikes the Manitoba government built this fall failed to stop frigid water from spraying onto …

Why not a $100 laptop? Sweet that it is green, too.  •  I think there used to be a $100 laptop in that you could word process on a used Tandy 100 that you picked up second hand.  •  What they really need, though, is a wind up $100 laptop with a shortwave band radio attached. That way one widget …

Happy Dennis Lawrence  •  Well, I have my dark horse pick already for the World Cup 2006 pool here at GX40. Trinidad and Tobago (aka T. 'n'T.) beat Bahrain today in the final qualifier for the big tourney. Great that a guy called Dennis scored the big goal. No doubt there are many guys called …

The days of smallball are here again and staying for good with yesterday's good news:  •  “Major League Baseball players and owners have come to terms on a set of tougher penalties for steroid use. The new agreement calls for a 50-game suspension for a first failed test, 100 games for a second and …

“[Ed: This is the second in a series of profiles of our readers. The first on Gary Rith can be found here.]”  •  A little something about myself? I was born and raised in Moncton, New Brunswick between the years of 1962 and 1980. I was a good student until I got to high school, then it was more …

Bob Geldof is part of the solution:  •  “...emails "give a feeling of action, which is a mistake"...  •  ...what workers achieve each day will be linked to the number of emails they ignore...”

Wow. This post from our North Country librarian pal Jenica illustrates how far the evils of the internet have soaked into the brains of the young:  •  “Because I am a good professional (or try to be), I answered with the long answer, and then showed him the best way to use our available systems to …

I linked to this yesterday over at the sideblog (that's what that is called by the way) but the list of people making fun of the concept of Web 2.0 is one of the best anti-tech-hype things I have read for a long time. Any you might add? My favorite is  •  “Web 2.0 is made of ... Segway spare parts …

The BBC is reporting on a study that has become a BBC TV program...or maybe a BBC TV program that became a study...they seem to specialize in that which came first thing:  •  “In an unusual three-month experiment, six specialists from a variety of disciplines worked to improve the happiness levels …

So what if Canada is dropping like a rock in the standings for countries with the least corruption - if you get to have newspaper leads like this:  •  “Quebec — Thousands of men, women, teenagers -- and at least one dog and a plant -- will have cast their votes by this evening to choose the new …

It was pot-a-cide apparently. Gary sent me an email with the sad story from the potter's perspective.  •  “I got a call from the Wolfeboro, NH League gallery. A drunken teenager, his 2 friends, and his father's NEW 32,000 pickup truck drove through the front of the gallery! And guess whose work …

I need more information. When the yogurt says "best before" is there a second time period which could be called "better before" followed by "it's up to you" and maybe then "roll the dice until" and finally a "you got to be kidding me" deadline? And can yogurt really go bad?

I understand inviting someone to move here from another country and I understand encouraging new grads to stay but I find spending public money to get folk - who have already determined they want to move away and have in fact moved away - to then come back. Haven't we as a nation been rejected or …

I've been laying around moaning and groaning and lapsing in and out of consciousness all weekend after the effects of a flu shot - I think it's the flu shot - hit me. I napped on pretty much every upholstered surface in the house. I never got a flu shot until last year when it was all in the news …

There are days when the news is just plain weird. Who knew that the Queen is the real enemy of your average Islamofascist terrorist? Who know that water is the cause of global warming, that there is now a way to deflect killer asteroids and that we may soon sense waves of gravity? Who knew that …

I have asked you all before who you are and where you might be. Now you can show it on a map of the GX40 Nation from Frappr! Click on the "Ad Yourself" link to the right of the Frappr screen. I'll figure out how to run an updating version of this map sooner or later.  •  Let me know where you are …

It turned out to be much colder that I would have expected yesterday given the sunshine. There seems always to be something in the weather on Remembrance Day. We stopped at the Naval memorial downtown and I watched this vet read the plaque as he waited for the ceremony to begin. Click below for a …

Why is this not leading to an arrest for sedition or one of the other crimes of disloyalty?  •  “From the November 8 broadcast of Fox News' The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:  •  “ O'REILLY: Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel …

I don't talk about products much. I don't talk too much about food that comes from freezers - but to be fair freezer food is one of the great wonders of the western world.  •  A hint to all Canada: the new President's Choice Chicago pizza is really good. It is what it promises. Then, for dessert …

Well, another week has passed and on these slower days blogospherically-speaking, it is time to chat. Some of the things I have been thinking of this week are:  •  I see that the daily visit stats are tracking down but daily visitors are not. As most activity around here in the background is from …

It looks like a fine day for Remembrance Day this year - no lashings of sleet as if often the case.  •  It is still hard to understand why Ontario is not on full shut down today but it was good to see the kids have a pretty full week of activities in elementary school based on remembrance. I wrote …

Woopee.  •  Paul McCartney is broadcasting a concert to astronauts:  •  “Sir Paul McCartney is to become the first musician to broadcast live music to an audience in space. His rendition of the Beatles' song Good Day Sunshine is to be beamed to the international space station crew. Sir Paul told …

[Ed.: I liked this beer blog post so much I am reprinting it here...]  •  One of my favorite web sites in the whole world is Forgotten New York run by Kevin Walsh who is a fan of all things utilitarian in architecture in the Big Apple. He has changed the way I see any city I visit. Last summer he …

I have said it before but I do enjoy reading the blog of my near neighbour Brian, a paralegal with the US Army at Fort Drum, New York, settling in after a tour in Iraq where he got my borscht and jerky. Today's post is a slice from any law office with a military twist:  •  “More overheard quotes …

When I was a kid there was a phrase kicking around: "generation gap." It generally referred to the folks older than me and the folks much older than me. It would be raised by the WWI era vets in our early 1970s church tisking when looking at long haired college kids wearing tie-dye and jeans, that …

Could you create web widgets that automatically:  •  take an webby audio file with spoken word on it,run it through voice recognition turning it to text,identify key words of your choice in the text,tag those key words like in Technorati,make those tagged words also HTMLy links,identify where in …

Nice to see a new CD by The Darkness coming out this month. Nice also to see that they are speaking out against eBay and the bootleg release of a review copy on that website:  •  “"I've bought our own album back off this character who's selling it on eBay," the singer told the BBC News website …

“...the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.”  •  Branding, which has actually taken a hit lately if you have been watching, is the presentation of something as it isn't so that you will accept that thing …

These are odd times which must challenge the prospective conservative voter. There seems to all of a sudden be an interest in taking the lead from Jack Layton and the NDP and letting a moment pass. From The Toronto Star:  •  “"If there's non-confidence motions before the House we'll be voting …

Japan's fleet sets sail to kill 1,000 whales off Antarctica. Do I care? I think that I do but why?  •  First, the excuse that this is science could only be accepted by those who could support intelligent design as science:  •  “The fleet sailed on Tuesday from Shimonoseki port for the first year …

I listened to the first edition of the new afternoon Radio 2 to 4 show Freestyle as I worked away yesterday and I was not upset at all. New CBC things usually get quite upsetting but this did not.  •  To be fair, host Kelly Ryan was one of my favorite people in the undergrad gang and I like to …

Seeing as I know the guy who doodled the first image of the little fox EATING THE PLANET which is the logo for the open source browser...isn't it time we thought about the success of the Firefox browser? The BBC reports:  •  “More than 10% of net users are going online with the Firefox browser …

I think I am ready now. Jack Layton has pulled the NDP's support of the Liberals and it is probably for the best. The Star reports:  •  “New Democrat Leader Jack Layton says he won’t support the federal Liberals in the event of a confidence vote in the House of Commons. In a speech at a Toronto …

I think I would be a bit shocked at three months in jail if someone video taped a movie from a cinema seat then sold bootlegged physical cassette copies. Three months is a lot. Same goes for digital piracy I suppose. But when you call yourself "Big Crook" I suppose you are somewhat aware of what's …

As I contemplated the coming winter through the night while the windows rattle with the chilling leaf-stripping winds that have blown since yesterday's rainbows, it is nice to know somewhere there is a cricket tour with a match in Pakistan against England in a small club:

I must say I do not get the sad and strange news from France with all the rioting:  •  “Unrest has gripped areas with large African and Arab communities since the deaths of two youths in the rundown Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, who were accidentally electrocuted at an electricity sub-station …

The last whisp of summer blew out of here with a cold front late this afternoon leaving only this after the thunder and lightning. Click.

For the gormless gommuses amoungst you, we are talking kilts! Mike reminded me this morning of one nearly rational pronouncement out of Pyongyang - dinnae go oot w'oot yerrrr hanbok if your are a Korean lassie. Now why would the Magnus Gommus himself warrant something like (but not really much …

This may make no sense to US readers but should be clear to Canadians and those in the UK: when you buy your poppies use paper money, please, and say thank you as well.

I think that one of the diffferences between Americans and Canadians is that Rodney Dangerfield got no respect. Red Green, on the other hand, is a Canadian icon and a standard against which every Canadian male falls by the wayside.  •  The last Red Green Show was taped last night in Toronto. While …

I am not complaining or even posturing. I reserve that for my mid-week Vogueing classes. But I don't really understand the foundation of the discussion that the UK's policy and participation Iraq and terrorist attacks in London are or are not connected. The debate continues:  •  “A former British …

It's clear now that, with the first polling after the interim Gomery report out, no one really likes anyone anymore.  •  “The results suggest the Conservatives are the preferred option of 31 per cent of Canadians, 3 percentage points ahead of the Liberals, who are favoured by 28 per cent. The New …

I have never had a computer crash. I don't know why. Clear living perhaps. But I am always concerned when I read stories like Craig's because I would never be able to deal with the sorts of instructions he gives to revive the dang thing. His list clearly leaves out actions I would take like …

Remember those movies? Aren't they kinda silly now that you know the future ain't so bad?

I just came across the searchable, on-line, member's only archive of the Canadian Bar Review which I immediately whirled into use to find my favorite law journal article of all time "The Early Provincial Constitutions" by J.E.Read from 1948. Classic nerd knowledge fills every page: The content of …

What have we learned this week?  •  I got my first Google cheque. One hundred and fifty bucks but it came with a form that said I had to support Web 2.0. The madness associated with things webby continues with Google starting the free web library without consideration for the rights of authors …

There are plenty of folk who use blogs - imagine - to blindly criticize our fair land, saying it is a shame that we do not have standing armed forces of 250,000 to rattle our swords now and then, saying it is a shame that we are taxed for sensible public services looking with envy southward where …

Poor Mr. Loverly. The indignity.

One of the more attractive reasons for Canadians considering a move to the US for personal avarice may soon be disappearing according to the New York Times:  •  “There are no cows more sacred in the tax code than the deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes. Together, they add up to at …

So much for the new world of tech-media. Somebody finally asked an obvious question and got an obvious answer:  •  “The belief that the Internet is pushing aside traditional media as a source of news and information may be mistaken, according to a new study profiling online Canadians. The study …

After a while which has lasted a few months where things (you know...stuff) had to get done and then got done, the doing got done and then I was done doing. So I watched some repeat fitba from last Sunday. Shearer nipped that off his very ankle into the net in a 3-0 win over West Brom. Loverly. I …

This is an interesting situation and an educational point on the enforcement of contracts:  •  “"If they don't comply with the contract ... we can do whatever we want with these aircraft, whatever the hell we want. Maybe we'll give 10 planes to Cuba or to China so they can study the technology …

Nice to see in all the impending blether like the Gomery Report implications (just hold the election, please) or faceless Lord Goog renewing its attack on law (hiring a PR lawyer instead of a IP one to solve its problems), it is nice to have some simple news astronomical. Two new Plutonian moons …

Interesting to read that two of the lowly Blue Jays - Hudson and Wells - but only one each from the Red Sox and the Yankees made the Golden Gloves for the American League. I was not aware that outfielder Vernon Wells was so consistent:  •  “Wells, 26, played flawlessly in centre field this past …

Hmmm...this choice of language reminds me of something I learned about once...  •  “"The public trust in the in its system of government was subverted and betrayed, and Canadians were outraged, not only be cause public funds were wasted and misappropriated, but also because no one was held …

Now the world makes sense again. My Red Sox have decided to start their self-destruction. Epstein, shown in a happier time in this susinct Getty photo, is gone as I feared. Here is the report from the team's own site:  •  “In a move that sent a Halloween night jolt across Red Sox Nation, Theo …

Interesting to read that my old pal from Halifax days, Kelly Ryan, is reviving her radio host career started twenty years ago when she did CBC Halifax's weekend wake-up show. Once I goaded her into referring her co-host as "L-7" and "four corners" based on the Flinstone's beat poet episode of …

Stuck between harvest and Yule, the month of freeze up. The month when jobs turn out to not be going where you thought they were, when term papers must be started, when the year's billings look like they will not enough. We remember the dead this month - the saints then the soldiers. The extra …