Any tips? We are heading down to the Finger Lakes Saturday morning, heading back to hit fireworks on the Thousand Islands dusk Sunday. I say I say - any tips? Custards of note?

I read this lunchtime that Dr. Jim Murphy, my dentist from 1997 to 2003, has passed away at 74. One of the nicest guys you would ever have meet, he was obsessed with giant pumpkins. During my days of the acre garden and Lil' Shiva the red roto-tiller, he and I talked gardens and seed catalogs …

From the Whig:  •  “One of the largest freighters on the Great Lakes ran aground less than a kilometre from the Thousand Islands Bridge near Gananoque yesterday afternoon. The Canada Steamship Lines vessel Niagara, a 222-metre-long bulk carrier, lost control of its steering while approaching the …

I like this a lot:  •  “The "vote is about the Charter of Rights," said Martin. "We're a nation of minorities and in a nation of minorities you don't cherry-pick rights."”  •  Growing up in the mini-United Nations that is Nova Scotia its not hard to believe this. From my first year in Sydney Mines …

566 MW past 100% production according to the IESO  •  Well, last year's pleasant cool summer is something of a memory this year with the June heat waves and word that we are already consuming 102.2% of electricity production.  •  “Ontarians used record levels of electricity to cool things down on …

...is interesting in Canadian politics - the rapidly increasing downward spiral of the Conservative Party of Canada. They appear to understand less and less as the days go by:  •  “Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says the government's same-sex legislation will make it through the House of …

Saw this the other day through the haze, past Snake and Simcoe Islands, a mirage of Main Duck Island and the False Ducks...or perhaps Yorkshire Island, Canadian islands way out in eastern Lake Ontario usually a thin line right on the horizon on the clearest days. Click for big-o-viz.

Mini-putt by City Hall  •  On the upside, there are always ribs and my lunch on Saturday was a share of a side and a pull pork sanny on the lawn in front of work.  •  I am still a little unsure about the morality of the Titanic kiddy slide having passed the graves of the dead in north-end Halifax …

Can you have dog days less then a month past May? We are in our second stinkin' hot heat wave and my brain is on hold. I am unthinking. Thoughtunful. Things I do not care about one bit when it is over 30º C:  •  Canadian Federal politics. Who cares? The separatists are in bed with the socialist …

My pal Dan writes about the opening of the Queen Street Commons, a shared workspace in Charlottetown PEI. Co-creators Robert and Cyn are excited, too. It even has a blog, if a building can have a blog...if it is a building...  •  [Ed.: cue the theramin or synchrotron or whatever.]

An interesting essay in the New York Times this morning on the politics of the TV cartoon life of Hank Hill.

Not that I think he is wrong but old Rummy appears to be taking a new tack:  •  “US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has warned it may be years before the insurgency in Iraq is defeated. Speaking on US television, Mr Rumsfeld said ultimately Iraq's own forces, rather than coalition troops, would …

John of Argghhh! linked to my photo of Fort Henry below and he has struck me to the core - I have been remiss in my feeding of his fort photo needs. Fortunately, last weekend, I took a bunch of views of Fort Henry and the Royal Military College from the Wolf Island ferry as we returned from one of …

Who gets a cold in June during a heat wave?  •  I do.

I am starting to dislike Chelsea. I thought, fair enough, another power house would be a good thing but now they want too much:  •  “Chelsea are poised to make another high-profile swoop after reportedly agreeing an £18m deal for Manchester City winger Shaun Wright-Phillips. Both The Sun and the …

I am a little unsure the degree to which the Brockville players I marked were better and, conversely, to which I sucked. I only know they seemed to have three guys going by me fairly constantly and when there was a corner I was very happy to be the guy that hugged the post. Fortunately for me, I …

Simply pathetic  •  Way to go, humanity

Sign of the end times?  •  “Restaurant owners in Alberta are now able to hire children as young as 12 without first getting provincial approval as a result of what government officials call a "procedural change" in employment practices.”

It is quite interesting to follow the gnashing of teeth on the US based blogs I read about the Supreme Court of that fair land's ruling this week that municipalities can expropriate people's own lands to gather it together and give it to a developer to build a project. Go read Kip for a lawyer's …

Don't you get the feeling that the more this is talked about the more it is likely to pan out? I have owned but I rent now, by the way, both on purpose and out of laziness. I think laziness is a purpose sometimes to me.

Happier Days  •  It appears that the fourth schism has occurred within the Conservative Party of Canada since the early 1990s saw the Reform and Bloc Quebecois split off leaving Elsie Wayne and Jean Charest alone in the wilderness of the House of Commons followed in more recent years, first, by …

View from the Wolfe Islander III. Click.

I don't regularly yap too much about what I watch on TV but Jamie's School Dinners, a four hour mini-series being shown on Food Network Canada right now is very good. It documents Jamie Oliver's efforts to radically improve lunches serves in the public school system in the UK. Much more of a …

My man Myrick in China is experiencing some blockage care of not only the Communist Party but some of the free world's favorite IT companies that are out there lending a hand to the censors. Here is his post about is in Asiapundit.  •  I really should have called this blog GenXpundit if I was …

Well...and further to last week's google hit sucking post, Live 8 in Canada will feature acts ranging from Bryan Adams and Celine Dion to Motley Crue. Wow. The details are in as the Globe reports:  •  “The Barrie site can hold 35,000 people. Concert goers will be limited to two tickets each …

Click

It was such a perfect late afternoon over at Sackets Harbor I figured I'd make a gallery. Hopefully dial-up users will be patient though I did reduce the size of the thumbnails.  •  The forts and harbour at Sackets were the base for one-third of the US army and one-half of the US navy around 1812 …

The by-times-charmingly-innocent Cory Doctorow points out a new fun use of Google maps - especially when combined with Google's Orwellian asset Keyhole - without reference to the fact that it is another link in the new fence being formed around you. Now, apparently, we can be tracked by …

It will be interesting to see if I am still doing this in a year or two as the blogosphere has now passed into the retraction phase, the collapse after its glow as a Red Giant, the undoing of its big bang. Will I then truly be like the C.B.-er apres the last chart making by Red Sovine …

From the trip home on the Wolfe Islander III on Sunday evening. Click it.

It is something of a first principle that new technology has unanticipated and damaging effects that often cause a greater shift in society than the intended outcome but, even so, the downside of the internet is sometimes shocking when you take a moment to think about it:  •  “For despite years of …

It has been some time since I did that Reader's Profile on Gary in New Hampshire. Anyone else wanting to have a post about them? Gary's was good as I could blab about his pottery. How about someone outside North America? Any takers from the baker or candlestick-maker sets?

After the perfect game and the perfect dinner at Sacket's Harbor Brewing, we had the kind of drive on a perfect early summer evening up the Lake Ontario shore of Jefferson County that makes you want to buy a cottage in another country. When we got to Cape Vincent to take the short ferry to Wolfe …

Duffy Field, Watertown, New York  •  What a game. 698 fans at four bucks an adult and one buck a kid. Out team were actually in purple...and I wore blue. And we won! "We" meaning the nearest team in the New York Collegiate Baseball League, the Watertown Wizards. The two buck program says:  •  “The …

Am one and got one.  •  My old man was blitzed as a child, immigrated in his mid-20s, raised a family while making a career change to the ministry, dragged us around Altantic Canada homes and travelling around North America and the UK growing up including Stonehenge (as illustrated), tag-teamed …

AAIIEEEAAIIIGHHHH!  •  I don't even know what sound a Luxemborgian President of the European Union makes when he shakes his fist. Apparently, he did not get his way except that he said "I was ashamed" by the UK and the Netherlands blocking a continuation of farming subsidies.

I have altered history through the power of email!  •  In late April, I complained to my faceless anonymous cable company complaint email service about the blacking-out of the last half of a local Yankees broadcast. I do not love the Yankees but their local broadcast is pretty good coverage and I …

Seeing as many of the good bands are still out there to be added to a concert, the Toronto part of Live 8 might work out really well:  •  “Wherever it will be held — Downsview, the Molson Amphitheatre, Molson Park in Barrie — the concert, one of eight being held worldwide July 2 to shine the …

Isn't the puny nature of the funding given under this program is enough to question its purpose:  •  “...the province said it is interested in projects that would work with cellular phone technology. It said the projects will have to include a business plan explaining how the product will make …

Interesting observations in The New York Times on the Yankee's pitcher Randy Johnson and his redesigned slider after making good use of it last night:  •  “Flaherty has stressed to Johnson the importance of releasing his slider from a higher arm angle. That adjustment has helped the pitch dive …

“You, Sir, are a fool and a fascist! The day we agree to this proposal is the day I see you in rotting in the bowels of Hell!!!  •  “  •  “Ian Doyle, Nfld Min of Finance, responding yesterday to the summit's closing speech by First Minister Designate John McDonald MacKay Archibald …

Jay is promising a break through, a disturbance of the orbs, a breaking of the cycle of echo chambers in which folk only listen to the sound of their own voices and each their own "me too" set.  •  Watching and hoping.

Ian muses about the last Gen X fad, mid-90s retro swing. It lasted a bit later in the Maritimes with the Johnny Favorite Swing Orchestra being nominated for the 1999 Best Group in the ECMA's and a Juno in 2000 - they collapsed soon thereafter and Johnny found out soon that his self as solo was not …

I understand in a few weeks I will be spending a Saturday laying on the sofa for social justice watching Live 8. That is good. I have laid around on the sofa for far worse reasons and I need a good lecturing/hectoring on how I am not pulling my weight. I know I do so don't even start. But I wonder …

For a couple of weeks it has been hotter than I would have ever known as a kid in the Maritimes in early August, let alone late spring. So my brain is frizz. Fangdoogled. Yet I have posed this really dumb project that I am supposed to add to every Friday. Trouble is, I need dumb things in the real …

Recently, I was at a meeting of people all fairly well known to each other where one person called another person "Jerry" when we all knew it was "Gary". Although I have had the Hal/Al thing myself and not really been bothered as it is common enough when, instead, I watch it happening in front of …

“A Dalek stolen from a Somerset tourist site has been found on Glastonbury Tor after thieves said it was "too hot". The prop, which was at Wookey Hole Caves, near Wells, for a Doctor Who exhibition, was taken more than a week ago...  •  Last Thursday, staff found a Dalek plunger arm and a ransom …

Isn't that what is said just before the end?

I got up here in the wee hours to check the stats from the citation in yesterday's New York Times, page C4 for posterity, and was surprised to see that it does not alter the alignment of the planets.  •  Good Beer Blogs Stats - 13 June 2005  •  As you can see, last Friday when I was nothing and a …

Does anyone care how the stumps feel?

This is sort of funny if it were not a pathetic business model meeting rude nerds:  •  “Even worse, when lingerers were confronted, they were bellicose. "We get yelled at by people who feel it's their right" to use Victrola's Wi-Fi without making a purchase, Ms. Strongin said. Tony Konecny, the …

So there I am, in the last paragraph 14th story in The New York Times, Business Section, Media and Advertising page, web edition index at 6:37 am Monday morning with the precious URL, all live and linky:  •  No seized web site or anything. No referrers yet as I can see. Oh well. Wait for the …

Does anyone have any idea why 49.76% of my user agents are using BitTorrent 4.0.0? I thought that was all about the sharing of files on the go, compressed video, that sort of thing? 78,292 hits so far this month.

Just for the record, I am really pleased my efforts under the category "Tantrama City" have attracted a referral through a seach for "how+to+get+an+acoa+grant" on Google.  •  Beauty.

Any thoughts? Taken from The Globe so I trust your comments will reflect review of the artistic merit of the work as much as my mere posting implicitly does.

I've done it. Everyone I suspect has done it. Been the bore of a thread. David sets a good example of how to deal with it when he has suspected he was too rude - he apologizes. Civilized.  •  But the civility we crave (and advocated here semi-manafesto-ly) is actually a rare thing in the bloggy …

Folks fret about the denatured urban landscape but we are pretty lucky around these parts. In our little corner of where Lake Ontario pours into the St. Lawrence I've seen a stone's throw (not that I tried) from the shore, other than the crows, mallards and ring-bill gulls, kingfishers, mergansers …

It is always sad - yet funny - seeing someone with inordinate access to resources doing something incredibly stupid:  •  “A South African man who paid a relative to serve a jail sentence in his place has finally been put behind bars. Engineer Rupert Reddi was sentenced in 2001 for kidnapping and …

Just a note to myself about the TV show ICC Cricket World, a half hour weekely package recapping the past week's news - sort of a This Week In Baseball with more action. Oddly it is sponsored by the Dubai airport duty free shop but as I have two first cousins, one on each side, in Dubai working on …

A bit thick at soccer last night. Blork says it has something to do with northern fires and it is not smoggy smog, the brown air of August. This tells the whole story, if you can handle the truth.  •  A thrilling 0-0 tie against the break away schismistic Red Rovers. You see my team, the Golden …

Isn't it funny when the Boingsters go totally Dad and denounce average students for disagreeing with what they say or not worshipping because Boingsters are, like, Wired-hired bloggers [despite not having much to add] and, ummm, they are older people so...you know...you better respect us …

One line from the BBC report on the five year financial plan for Man U stands out:  •  “United supporters will also be alarmed at suggestions that manager Sir Alex Ferguson is to be limited to a transfer fund of £25m a season for the next five years.”  •  So, as a means to ensure the fiscal …

First Plenary Session, June 10, 2007  •  Given the surprise devolution of powers two weeks ago to Atlantic Canada through its new Free Zone and Autonomous Regional Capital, Tantrama City this weekend will be the scene of a swiftly arranged summit to determine what now could be done with the health …

So if the right is ticked at The Charter for making its institution of choice, marriage, non-exclusive and the left is ticked at The Charter for making its institution of choice, health care, non-exclusive should everyone be ticked off or should everyone get with the program?

It is not really the argument the two plaintiffs have brought to the Supreme Court of Canada today but it is close:  •  “The Supreme Court of Canada will rule Thursday on whether it's unconstitutional to prevent someone from paying for private medical care - a case that could change the face of …

I don't know if I can forgive you. Have any of you told me about "Girl" from Beck's release Guero of earlier this year? No.  •  Fortunately the timing was perfect despite your indifference, with this warm evening, the apricot light turning to candy floss, I could get six listenings in while in the …

I have had two interesting events blogwise, or rather beerblogwise, this week. First, I was offered my first free sample for review. It is from a distributor in New England so we have to figure out how to get a free sample across the border. Free beer is an interesting concept. Until now, I have …

I think I have found a way to watch the Blue Jays. Stick to road games and listen on the radio broadcast on local 960 am. There is something very Big O about whatever they are calling where the Jays play, thought I have not been in it since the upgrades this year. If I get hit by something large …

Even his wife doesn't believe him...

I can't think of anything smart-arsed to say about this from this morning's Toronto Star:  •  “On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Me., carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chainsaw stained with what appeared to be …

The new White Stripes CD is good. Deconstructedness is a general theme and it's less Jimmy Page loud than Elephant but good.  •  More if I have anything to add later but it strikes me I haven't bought a record on release day for 20 years.

One way is when experts determine the way you will pay consultants for the advice you do not know you need yet, as in:  •  “How much would you pay for your accountant to leave a voicemail answering a question just before you ask it? That's how to make money podcasting.”  •  Watch out! <a …

This new tax gathering policy from the virtually bankrupt government of PEI strikes me as very odd: being taxed for something you may do in the future. What will they think of next?

Pure gratuitous cheese.  •  It's like a hockey goalie trying to play baseball in soccer shorts and a golf shirt, isn't it? Something duckbill platypus about it all.

There is nothing better than learning about a health fad you never picked up on after it has been debunked. Personal moral superiority without a period of doubt and guilt. Perfect.

I noticed this change to the law being announced in this morning's Star:  •  “Ontario will become the latest province to take steps outlawing mandatory retirement at 65 when Labour Minister Chris Bentley details his plan today at a store where many seniors work: Home Depot. The chain was chosen …

We live in a tower by a park by the Lake and despite all the water around us, walking on the lawn last night was like tramping through rice crispies. Unlike the west and the east, we have been without rain but today it is to come.  •  When I gardened muchly and was less urban, though not less …

Baseball is about one-third of the way through its season. Didn't the snow just melt? Already Kansas City is 20 games back. Baltimore and the ChiSox are surprising many still by holding their own. And just look at the National League East:  •  “  •  TeamGames BackWashington0  •  Atlanta1/2  •  NY …

I hate it when the teams I hate make a good move:  •  “Manchester United have signed Dutch international goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar from Fulham for an undisclosed fee. The 34-year-old has agreed a two-year deal and will join the club on 1 July, providing he passes a medical.”  •  Van der Sar is …

It is simply too nice to contemplate any typing, a warm Sunday in June. Yesterday, I had to iron a shirt and shave on a Saturday for a piano recital of three to ten year olds. Those two very words make me shudder. Left me in a foul mood even though I was the bad Dad leaving halfway though the …

In all the coverage of Karla Homolka's impending release, I keep reading an untruth. Consider this from this morning's Globe and Mail:  •  “"It's not that much of a hassle," said the convicted 36-year-old rapist, who is subject to a rare order under Section 810 (2) of the Criminal Code, the same …

It's back. Grown men, many gone grey, dressing up in bright colours and short pants to run around like eight year olds. It's great. With the league restructuring, not this one - this one, I am on a tentatively nameless yellow team, that sort of yellow yellow with a bit of orange yellow. Numbers of …

Who knew that beating Baltimore in a series at the start of June would be important? It is when the Yankees are getting swept by Kansas City.

Shock, disgust and some confusion have spread from Ottawa to Atlantic Canada with the revelation of tapes of conversations between a senior official in the Tantrama City Government and a top cabinet member in the Federal Unity Government. In the tapes, made somewhere between 25 and 30 May 2007 …

And as if to point out how upside down the world has become, here is a photo of US and Russian soldiers having a fun break during joint training exercises:

...unless of course you are actually involved in this farce.  •  Look, this is how bad it is: I vote NDP most elections but even I know it is a sad sad day when the Federal NDP has, by far, the most plausible chance of forming a national government people would generally support on the basis of …

Recovering from conservative fiscal imprudence takes time but it is good to see, according to the financial marketplace, that Ontario is on the road to recovery:  •  “Dominion Bond Rating Service upgraded the long-term debt rating of Ontario to `stable' from `negative' today due to the province's …

I must have twisted my blankle or strained my black as I can't think of anything to blog about this morning. A pull bloin. Maybe its just fear of the impending first fitba game of the summer tomorrow night, dread at the prospect of the unknown way this corpse will fail me.  •  I am big on the web …

Ben at Tiger in Winter made me do this, though I hate the me-me thing.  •  Number of books I own: about 12 shelves worth shelf being about 28 inches makes it about 336 inches worth. About 35 on beer. Books not inches. I have owned many more and sold them. Books are like water: they go in, they go …

This could be you one day, running down a hill, 200 yards of hillside after a cheese for the prize of...the cheese.

Again, the moral objectionists, boo-hoo bleaters all, have come out full of rage over the Gurmant Grewal tapes. To briefly review, Tim talked to GG and GG taped it without telling Tim. That is OK. But what they talked about? Now the RCMP is listening to the tapes. Moral ragers say "HANG TIM" and" …

This is unbelievable:  •  “Officials from the United States offered to return Maher Arar to Canada before they deported him to Syria, but Ottawa turned down the offer, a senator says. Liberal Senator Pierre De Bané testified Wednesday that the U.S. offered to send Maher Arar to Canada, but only …

Along with the lack of any coherent or useful organization or indexing, this medium suffers from a lack of its own history. Sure there is the Internet Archive capturing something like one front page screen shot in every 12,486,081,230 and those high level no details stuff time lines about when the …

Nothing like a good shaking out of the marketplace and the NHL lockout is no different. Big news this morning in the Toronto Star:  •  “If the National Hockey League and its players' union fail to reach an agreement on a new contract this summer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and a leading …