So the ethernet cable healed itself. Funny that the high-speed died at 8:08  •  am Thursday and healed itself late Friday afternoon. Sounds like scheduled  •  maintenance to me. "Admit nothing" however is the mantra of the tech gods.  •  All has fallen back into place and I can return to the …

What better way to celebrate the 1,000th post than a picture from after last weekend's 2-1 victory by SFA Div. 2's Greenock Morton over the hated neighbouring SFA Div. 1's St. Mirren of Paisley (Ed.: acht, ptweie, spit). I have enjoyed watching a match at each of their home grounds but if your …

I never thought this would continue but today, the day after the Democratic National Convention, I am number one on Google for the search "kerry policies".  •  This is based on a post from March on an article in The Guardian Unlimited and then another on this odd Google effect from the same month …

...as in this is how I know pop culture has twisted my brain and why the internet has made me a sad pathetic shell of a man:  •  I read the BBC story about explosions in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, killing at least two.  •  A voice in my head says "Uzbeks! Don't give them string or matches …

My friend and my former insurer (don't knock it - it wroked for Charles Ives) has written a wonderful short essay about a last moment with his father and the brevity of life. At a mere 41, watching the growth of my kids hit second gear, I already know this is coming and could try to frame it …

So I was on the phone for 40 minutes with very helpful sympatico tech guys walking me through the problem with my computer not reaching their computer. It ended when they said they see my modem and it appears to be working well and my computer says everything is working well so I have to get a new …

As a consciously learning fan of fitba/soccer, one thing drives me mental which is being illustrated by the case of Patrick Vieira, captain of my favorite EPL team, Arsenal. They are my favorite team because I went to a game there in February 1980 and my theory of fan loyalty is based on personal …

My home high speed internet, care of Sympatico, has been down for 24 hours.  •  Interesting to find out that the toll free number in the phone book (published  •  by the same company that owns Sympatico) no longer has a tech assistance line as  •  one of the options. The robot voice actually goes …

I heard the band One Ring Zero earlier this month on NPR's Fresh Air. Regular readers will recall my affection for the full range of plinky-plink music from the products one can receive in plain wrapped packaging from Electron in Toronto to the works of They Might Be Giants. What fits attacted me …

Readers familiar with my girth will know that there is some incongruity between playing fitba and being, let's just say, north of 260 lbs. It is with some calming assurance, then, that I noticed the reintroduction of the Pro Belly 5000 into English Premiership League football recently as modelled …

...what does this image make you think?

I just don't see a shell game in this. Take 12 bucks a  •  week more from me and increase  •  hospital spending 4.3% in one go. Sensible.

From Boing comes this gallery of How and Why book covers from the 1960s and early 70's. My brothers and I pored over these before lights out and in the back of the station wagon on drives to Cape Cod for summer vacation or the ROM on a Saturday.  •  Up there with Classics Illustrated and …

I just finished listening to The Connection and its coverage of bloggy coverage of the Democratic Convention. I was a bit disconcerted to see that the live show and the live web cam [Ed.: as illustrated] were a bit at odds but that probably is an effect of simply too many media. Canadians will …

When I travel I like to go to grocery stores. First, I am a sucker for bright packages and a store made up of the same stuff as my regular store but in different boxes is a bonus. Plus, when I travel, I look for local food. Wild blueberry sauce in Maine, different shapes of oysters or pasta.   The …

I am on a team this summer and really enjoying it. I got to wondering about how many teams or regular pick-up games I have played on:  •  Kingston NS, baseball, around 1974 - one summer in grade six or so. Having a pitcher pitch past me terrified and I swung quickly to get out of the batter's box …

I got an email...no...a Gmail from John Boy about rigging the Sony P-32 direct into the hard drive off the computer rather than the camera's memory stick to record movies directly on to his computer hard drive. A worthy question. My 64 MB stick can be limiting if I want to take a bunch of movies …

It's happened twice now. CBC plays a movie starting after the CFL game and I get sucked into watching a 1970s or '80s or 90s epic thinking it will be over at, say 12:30 pm, because no one in his right mind would play a movie that lasts three and a half or four hours. I don't even really like …

portland and I spoke and shared the news. It was wonderful - clouds parted, reservoirs filled. Sure we were 8.5 up this year and now we are 8.5 down but today we won beating the Yankee's closer (who is very good against Toronto and Tampa Bay I hear) in the bottom of the 9th after a guy came into …

There seems to be some actual fretting on our side of the border that Molsons from Canada and Coors from the USA are merging. Molsons has branded itself, at least in English Canada, under the slogan "I am Canadian" for years. Now it appears people have bought in to that brand so much that the …

These are the ugliest socks I have every seen. I have to have them. Everyone has their thing and mine playing soccer is having the least attractive shin coverings. No disrespect to Manchester City, one of whose season ticket holders is linked to the right as "oc". But my oh my what pug-ugs.

The Rukster has received his credentials to the Democratic National Convention and is blogging the experience on a separate sanguine site.

We've just been through a national election here in Canada and one thing you learn is that your vote works in mysterious ways. We vote for a local representative to Parliament. We do not vote for Parliament and we do not vote for the government. The local representatives show up after election in …

So I am working away today, listening to fabulous North Country Public Radio and I realize I have been half-listening to hours of coverage of Stephen Hawking new idea about black holes. These hours of half-interested listening have had a few effects:  •  I am not arguing with the radio in my mind …

I had noticed these around City Hall, the coats of arms which over time have sat in council chambers. I noticed the third from the left first as the shield in the centre only has symbols for four provinces - Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick - so it must be from 1867 to 1871 when …

It had been getting a bit crappier than I was comfortable with lately due to cuts but Clear Channel affiliate WWTI ABC announced today that it was cutting its 6 pm and 11 pm news broadcasts to focus on hourly updates and weather...oh, and the internet. [I think they will be investing in the use of …

Boing questions the taxation of use of wireless LAN. If this IT stuff is becoming a commodity (which word is all the buzz now - "commodity" or "goods") of course it gets taxed. Every country has taxation. By law they tax goods and services at some level according to local policies. There are no …

And on other blog news, I have been reading a blog referenced to the right as "Brian" under "USA" who noticed my link the other day and was quite pleased that someone had been reading him and though enough to create that link. Brian a new Dad and a US army legal specialist out of nearby Fort Drum …

I have met two people who have taken on the job of a better aggregator. It is something that I am at once impressed with and challenged by. I think blogs are fluff ultimately but as a hobby it is pretty good fluff. Big deep comfy layers of the fuzz under your bed. So, I noticed something with my …

What was the conversation like before this one near Bagot and Williams was built?  •  “Mrs: Jim, I want a nice normal house.  •  Mr: Honey, I want to live in a rocket...”

I was at a wedding on Saturday at this massive church on Brock Street in Kingston. From Jennifer McKendry's excellent chronology of Kingston's architecture:  •  “The cornerstone of St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral is laid; the building is completed in 1848, and greatly enlarged in 1889 by …

Two-third of Olympics tickets are unsold, less than a month before the games.

Twenty years ago he was the President at Kings, hiding a few of us from campus police officer Fritz on a Friday night tear. Now he's at the cabinet table.

There is an interesting piece on the CBC's website on the use of Scots as characters in Canadian advertising these days. For a first generation kid like me, it really is nothing new but it is quite true that there is a bit of a wave going on the noo:  •  “It's hard not to notice these characters …

While I am on the topic of nice heritage signs, here is a favorite from the corner of Wellington and Barrack Streets in Kingston. I had no idea that Canada's heritage of booze and figure skating were so closely tied. Goes to show you. Meagher's now appears to be but a brand of liqueurs in the line …

In May, when we were in Cooperstown, I took a picture of this plaque on the second story of a building near the Baseball Hall of Fame. For folks like me who have no idea, this is the Treaty of Washington which settled the Alabama claims but also at Article XXX (watch my google ranks soar now …

CBC radio is doing some fancy footwork during the summer and playing something other than repeats. I caught Sunny Days and Nights on Saturday morning which is largely a reprise of the characters from the mid to late 1990's Great Eastern - obit for the show here. Both shows are from fictional …

I try to read a bit when I wake and have something spark a little tale to  •  tell. This Monday morning, however, the caffine is not getting above the C4 or  •  C5 leaving my head a fuzz-ball. I wonder why coffee has its effect from the feet  •  up? I blame the ribs. Not getting in at 2 am …

Sometimes pictures of food do not do justice and can look grotesque. But I have a habit of photographing stuff as it bakes when I get the sense things are working out well. Somewhere in a shoebox I have a photo of a cheese soufflé I made ten years ago, all puffed up in the oven.  •  What you are …

It all ended at a bar called Brandies listening to someone cover INXS (Ed.: actually pronounced "ink-es" as in "I loves dem ink-es, Doreen, don-cho?" said with a outport accent) watching people born in the 50's trying to pick up people born in the 60's. Then I realized I was present at the same …

The three lead items on the Toronto Star website at the moment.

If this is true, what was it all for? He's started setting up a secret police force and factionalism being enforced not calmed.  •  How long to a civil war and hurried pull-out?

The virtual apology issued in the editorial page of The New York Times for not being harder in its inquiries leading up to the Iraq War is interesting:  •  “...we do fault ourselves for failing to deconstruct the W.M.D. issue with the kind of thoroughness we directed at the question of a link …

I am not mad because they allowed Al-Jazeera to broadcast in Canada. I am mad because they barred RAI - the Italian national television network. Why must we be saved from Italian TV. Why does the CRTC do these things including shutting CHOI radio in Quebec for doing things no one really cares …

[Ed.: Image lifted from this kind and lovely web site.]  •  I have been playing with the idea of the Great Lake League of Bloggers. It strikes me that NYCO may have more in common with me now than friends in Atlantic Canada who from here seem to be of a sort. I figure that Mel drops by, that one …

Saddish jetsicle (propsicle?) news from the Flea:  •  “I have finally got myself sorted with a digital camera only to discover the Lancaster on a stick has been moved! I noticed it was missing but thought I must have been looking at the wrong part of the park. [See the restoration site at …

I got a pressy yesterday - a new beer book called Brewed in Canada, a 2001 history of brewing in this fair land by Allen Winn Sneath. Thing is - I did not buy it. I saw something on eBay that Melda would like, got it, shipped it, Mel says it is going to a third party so I'll pay ya and when she …

Just a reminder that there are a few class projects on the go that you can take part in:  •  Dates in Stone: send a picture of the building, a close-up of the entire dated stone and a description of where and how you saw it. Post in the thread using a good old HTML link to your web version of the …

Hard to figure out a question like what is the best pizza you have ever eaten. I liked Pizza Rodini in the late 70's in Truro. Thick cheese. I liked Mr. Tomaso's pizzas in the north end of Halifax in the early 80's. If you ordered anchovy he slapped your face and said "good boy" in his accent from …

Travelling, as I was, I was struck again by the fact of, the value of and the  •  beauty of the greatest low-tech invention of the 20th century, the t-shirt.  •  Egalitarian, a medium of expression, the brightest coloured garment anyone  •  wears, cheap, durable, four season.  •  “I got it on …

“We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.”  •  It's not my country but I am very fond of and am protected under the wing of its liberty. Read the …

So we headed down out of the North Country and headed west of I-81 for the first time. I was kind of in search of the stacks you could see south on a clear night, kind of in search of a good US fort and wanting to skip stones at Rudy's. Oswego was what you want in a small US city - college town …

No one does a parade like Americans. Cape Vincent NY, where Lake Ontario meets the St. Lawrence, may have 500 residents and last Saturday there must have been 5000 there to celebrate the French Festival. They were four rows deep in front of Aubrey's Store. It was a little weird as Napoleon really …

It was not the kind of place I usually would go but there was not much else in the town. Clean and friendly but a bit worn out. The weirdest thing was the neighbouring unit people who brought out a briquette BBQ and cooked steaks on the second story walkway outside the door of the motel. We had to …

I appear to have lost a couple of day's worth of stuff. Umm...to summarize:  •  Avril had a funny face that made me think of Smedly after having too much...ummm  •  Support Middlesborough and ...ahhh...because of this, this and this - especially for the pale pink tie on a pale pink shirt thing …

In a ruling from last week, USA v Councilman, about which I have not heard a ripple (though, to be fair, I do not get out much) the US Court of Appeal determined that an ISP scanning email for commercial content is A-OK. In the case, a book dealer that offered email addresses to others in the …

With the impending strike/lockout in the NHL and the prospect of many Canadian men having a very lost look on the weekend unless they find a way to watch the Swiss leagues, I would strongly urge some sort of decision in jumping of the soccer band wagon. Withe at least four games a week plus …

Everyone has a Smedly in their lives. Once in a while he or she ill-advisedly has three too many brown pops and on the way down to where ever she or he is going makes a face as illustrated by a person to the left from nearby Napanee. It is only at that moment that I understand what that expression …

I am quite stunned to discover that no one has bought this shirt from my rather dusty  •  shop. I will play with logos so check in from time to time. I am thinking Nova Scotian  •  fish. I am not getting anything out of this so you would probably be only  •  aiding the cause of keeping programmers …

Watched Drew Carey last night. Haven't watched in a while, probably a couple of years, so there were new characters and plot lines that didn't make much sense. We thought we can look it up on the interent. But why. In the good old days that was called unimportant. If someone you knew did not know …

One thing about growing up Canadian, you have a sneaking suspicion that you have missed out big time on the whole BBQ ribs thing. You can brag about Canadian beer, about how its a dry cold so you should suck it up or how watching hockey is sooooo much better than any other team sport but then you …

$15.50 Australian for 10 pairs of stripey socks in the teams colours. But no. No one could get that deal - even on eBay. Gotta be worth 60 bucks says Mr. Customs so pay up another $10.80 in duty, $4.96 in GST and $5.66 in PST not to mention the flibberty-jiggareded 5 bucks more in GST handling …

Above the marquee, Princess Street, Kingston.

Radio, like the telephone, is one of the great marvels of the electronic era. Enemy of the dictator. Friend to the housebound. Stats Canada released a report yesterday detailing the boom that private radio in Canada is experiencing. Even AM is breaking out:  •  “The performance of AM stations …

<img src="images/2004/efllogo.jpg" hspace=20" vspace="20" align="right".  •  In my unending quest for things to do or at least daydream about, I note from the Empire Football League (cheesy merchandise here) that Watertown New York's Red and Black play Ottawa's Deacon Demons in Watertown on August …

I just noticed that we are 5% Dutch around here. Surely Alfons doesn't make 1500 of last months visits. Who else out there is from The Netherlands and what else can we do to meet your needs? More photos of men in orange? A monthly gouda update? Perhaps some guidelines for Canada's new minority …

While I do not buy for one minute the needy line that people who write these sorts of blogs are somehow journalists, I am realizing on journalistic moment this morning - for the first time in three months there is no NHL playoff pool, no federal election, no Euro 2004. Jeese, even Iraq has its own …

I am hardly a supporter of the Iraq war and don't jump on every little event reported over there but I find this story reported in today's Globe extraordinary:  •  “Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is prepared to offer amnesty to the country's insurgents, even those who have attacked and killed …

There you go. Conservative defensive teamwork plus well orchestrated set plays wins over individual stars everytime. Perhaps a mugging of the keeper a second and a half before the photo above was taken as well. I will have to check the photos and compare to the mugging of the same keeper late in …

The mighty mighty Flea emailed me a link to this place [ed.: portland ordered a link decommissioning due to 12 pop-ups] where you can buy or pretend to buy a jetsicle home of your own [Ed: as seen on eBay]. I am thinking I would prefer to live on a boat but it sure would maximize your herb garden …

As you look to fill the 67 minutes before the Euro 2004 final, consider using the BBC's Shockwave tool to watch the goal that got Greece into the final from eight angles and four speeds. You can also watch four other parts of the game with similar controls. That is 160 replays. Has anyone done …

I noticed this building off Princess the other day. I especially like the twisty thing on the top of the facade. We need more buildings with twisty things on top. I know, for example, that pineapples in this sort of position mean hospitality - Memorial Hall has one over the door. So what the heck …

Kingston is one of the few spots in Canada where war has taken place and one of the very few where it was by the navy. In  •  November 1812, early on in the War of 1812, the small British fleet here was attractive enough to draw the  •  small American fleet into battle and set up a naval blockade …

We forget. Since Tianamen Square, where the greatest guy in the history of guy-dom did his thing, we forget that there is a tyrant. In Hong Kong they remember that tyrant. The clique in Bejing is the tyrant - as we are reminded on Blogs Canada today in its reporting of the Hong Kong demonstrations …

At 25, a breakfast of Advil, coffee and a generous rubbing of tiger balm on Saturday morning usually followed a night out in the pubs of Halifax. At 41, it follows old timer's soccer. The shirt worked. Keeper for a half. Shutout.

So it is Greece v. Portugal. For a kid of Scots immigrants, the fact that two smaller nations have made it to the final game of Euro 2004 is good. It gives some hope that another small nation's team, wallowing in rebuilding since the 1980s, might be there again one day. But how to celebrate the …

Greece joins Portugal in the Euro 2004 finals Sunday care of the best placed and best timed corner in the history of Greek appearences in major tourney semi-finals. Toronto with its massive Greek and Portuguese communities will be a great place to be on Sunday afternoon.

On this Canada Day, Switching to Glide, Canada's music blog, is making the call for more authors. Me and Mike and Dave and Steve and Jay are lonely. We need more ideas. We need more diversity.  We need more music fans to write about what they like about Canadian music and music loved by Canadians …

In administrative news, the 2004 NHL hockey pool prizes went out this week. 'Lil Zed received a lovely framed presentation of two Bill Root cards for coming first. Second place snabbed a Hartford Whalers Risto Siltanen for Mike while coming third got Hans a Bengt Gustafsson. The Risto was chosen …

Here we are closer to 2005 than 2003, the days shortening in a rush. We Canadians are sensible to take the day off after the first six months of the year and consider our lot in life through BBQ.  •  As part of my considerations yesterday, I made a little photo series of my walk to work because …