Yule Log '08

Stay warm, friendos. But keep cool!

1970's Football Fashion

I found this on With Leather. Just watch. No questions. I couldn't answer them anyway.

A Betamaxmas!

Here is my new favourite holiday themed website: A Betamaxmas. It's a crappy old TV set in someone's rec room, a clicker, a tv guide with Different Strokes on the cover, a couch with a knit blanket, and best of all, rabbit ears that need adjusting. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drink some hot apple cider and watch A Very Brady Christmas for the seventh time.

TI99/4A

Today on boingboing, I came across the Obsolete Technology Website. I absolutely love the collection of pictures of outdated computers, but I also love that I found this:This is the Texas Instruments 99/4A which just happens to be the first computer I owned. It attached to a television and had a cassette drive. It's language was basic, but you could upgrade to extended basic with a cartridge. Awesome. From the TI99/4A I upgraded to this:


The Commodore 64. Classic.

I Think Therefore...

Happy World Philosophy Day, which takes place this year in honour of the 60th anniversary of the Unversal Declaration of Human Rights. Think about that.

Keith Olbermann speaks...

Santa Maradona priez pour moi!

Diego Armando Maradona, arguably the greatest to ever play the beautiful game, scorer of two of the most famous goals in football history, has taken the reins of the Argentinian national team. Tomorrow is his managerial debut, albeit in a friendly against Scotland.

I normally have very little interest in international friendlies though I would be curious to see how this one goes, only because of the new manager. With Diego, you just don't know what you're going to get. It could go so well, or all so horribly wrong. I'm hoping for it to go well, but I won't deny a certain joy to be had in watching the other. Of course, one friendly match against Scotland will be much to soon to tell, but tomorrow is when it begins.

As a minor sub-plot to tomorrow's proceedings, the assistant manager for Scotland, ex-England defender, Terry Butcher, who was playing in the 1986 World Cup quarter final against Argentina, has said he is unable to forgive Maradona for the first of the two aforementioned goals, the "Hand of God," though I suspect his anger probably has more to do with being made to look a fool in the second.

Lost in Translation

Official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so when Swansea Council wanted to put this sign up, they sent it to their translator, got the reply and posted the sign. Unfortunately for them, the "translation" reads:

"I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

The sign has since been removed.

Here is the story.

Goal!!!!!!!

That was the first goal scored by the Palestinian football team on Palestinian soil. First recognized by Fifa in 1998, they didn't play their first match on home soil until 26 October 2008. The match, with Jordan, ended in a 1-1 draw.

The Ball is Round

I'm currently reading David Goldblatt's thus far excellent The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football.* In the section about the game's spread to South America there is this report from a Brazilian journalist watching one of the first organized games in Rio de Janeiro:

"In Bom Retiro, a group of Englishmen, a bunch of maniacs as they all are, get together, from time to time, to kick around something that looks like a bull's bladder. It gives them great satisfaction or fills them with sorrow when this kind of yellowish bladder enters a rectangle formed by wooden posts."

Not really too far off, was he?


*In North America it's published as The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer. That said, the publishers did not change the text to read soccer in lieu of football each time.

Alton Ellis R.I.P.

Levi Stubbs R.I.P.

Champions!

The Vancouver Whitecaps are your 2008 USL champions!

They beat the Puerto Rico Islanders (we hate them!) 2-1 on Sunday, thanks to two second half goals by Charles Gbeke, in what was, by all accounts (well, by my account) a thrilling encounter.

Some photos from the day:

We all dream of a team of Justin Moose!


There's only one Eddy Sebrango!


And finally...the trophy. And the Moose! (And Me!)!


Bring on the MLS!

Credit Crunch?

This American Life is an excellent radio show on National Public Radio in Chicago. Another Frightening Show about the Economy is their attempt at explaining what is going on with the economy right now. It's worthwhile listening, as are all of their shows which are, thankfully, available as podcasts.

Souvenirs

This photo, taken by photographer Michael Hughes, is from a series of images of various types of souvenirs photographed in their original context. Here is the flickr pool from whence they came. I'm just not sure if my favourite is Don Quixote or the pickle.

Pizza of the Day

Today's pizza, the "Last Day of September but That Has Nothing to Do with the Name Pizza" has tomato sauce, tomato, pesto, olives, onions, and mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. "Wait a moment," you ask, "what are those round things on the pizza?" Very observant you are. They are chickpeas.

Pizza o' the Day!

Today's pizza, a pizza I like to call the "I have a lot of leftover basil so I should make pesto pizza pizza," has green peppers, tofu, olives, mozzarella, tomato sauce, mushrooms, Parmesan and, of course, pesto. Home made pesto, by the way. (Yes, I'm bragging about my ability to make pesto.) Now, I have to go eat...

Norman Whitfield R.I.P.

Crowd Control

All of the hard work I put into bringing out my inner hooligan, and now this:

On This Day In History...

Thirty five years ago the democratically elected government of Chile was overthrown by a U.S. backed coup led by Augusto Pinochet. President Salvador Allende died in the coup, and seventeen years of military dictatorship and political repression followed, with at least three thousand people murdered or disappeared and many more imprisoned and tortured.

The End is Nigh? Part Deux...

Well, we're still here. At least I am, I can't vouch for you. And according to news reports, turning on the LHC was a success. What those reports don't tell you, but what I'm here to tell you, is that a black hole did appear and it swallowed up the earth. So, let me be the first to welcome you to bizarro alternate reality world on the inside of a black hole. How do I know this, you ask? Easy...England beat Croatia 4-1 in World Cup qualifying today.

The End is Nigh?

This could be the last blog post I ever write. Hell, this could be one of the last things I ever do. For in a short while, if you don't already know, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is going to turn on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It has been called the world's largest science experiment and is designed to create the conditions immediately after the big bang, in order to gain a better understanding of our universe. And while CERN asserts that it is perfectly safe, there are those who believe that turning on the LHC could result in any number of doomsday scenarios, my favourite being the creation of a black hole that could swallow up the earth. And while I would take much amusement from the fact that the earth had been swallowed up by a black hole of our own creation were I still around to do so, and I believe that if we are stupid enough to turn on a machine that is capable of destroying the planet on which we reside then we probably deserve it (isn't there some kind of precautionary principle in science?) my fervent hope is that the naysayers are wrong and that I'm still here tomorrow. Check back...if you can.

Writer's Rooms

I came across a great ongoing feature today on the Guardian website. It's called Writer's Rooms. Basically, it's a photograph of the room and a description of that room, usually by the author in questions, assuming they're still amongst the living. I haven't looked at them all and so haven't chosen a favourite yet, but as someone who loves books and as someone who wishes he wrote more and wishes he made more time to write, I enjoy the glimpses into writer's spaces.

Yummy yummy yummy!

I have food in my tummy. You're looking at what is one of my favourite meals available in this city. It's Vij's Portobello Mushroom and Red Bell Pepper Curry on Paneer with Beet Salad & Naan.
So good. Eat it. Unless you hate food. Or yourself.

A Math Problem in Four (4) Parts...

There's Only One...

Tomorrow evening, in what is one of the more anticipated fixtures of the season, the Whitecaps play the Portland Timbers. (They know what they can do with their timbers.) As an extra bonus, the Whitecaps will pay tribute to David Morris. David, a long time player and fan favourite, is the inspiration behind such songs as "There's Only One David Morris," and "We All dream of a Team of David Morris." I'm hoping that if he isn't going to be playing in every position then at least he'll be the referee.

Picking Blackberries

As I was leaving the studio where I work yesterday, a man at the guard house offered me some freshly picked blackberries from a bowl. I had a few...so tasty. He told me where he had picked them, in a nearby field, but also that there were some along the railroad tracks. I normally bike along those tracks, for a short way where the road runs parallel and there are no blackberries there, but I knew where they would be. I went a different way home, so I could pick some myself, along a dirt path near those railroad tracks. The pathway is being flattened and levelled so I think before long it'll be paved; this may have been one of my last chances to bike on that path as it is now, that way I'd never gone before. Sure enough, there was a long stretch of barely picked over blackberry bushes, rich with shiny, ripe, bulging berries. I set my bike down in the dirt, crossed the tracks and started picking. I had no container with me, so I just stood there picking, eating and sucking the juice from my stained fingers. I love blackberries for a number of reasons. First of all, and most obviously, they are delicious. They are somehow an embodiment of summer for me, a marker and a result of long hot sunny days. And as they are a marker of a point in time, a moment in the season, I am reminded by blackberries that, as asparagus leads to peaches and plums and nectarines which in turn lead to blackberries, before long Concorde grapes, which I truly love, will be ripe. As well, around here at least, they are ubiquitous, one of the few wild foods that are readily accessible to be harvested by us city dwellers. But like the inevitable pricks that come with sticking your hand into a thick blackberry bush, or the disappointment that comes with biting into a hard and sour one, there is something bittersweet about the arrival of blackberries. As sure as blackberries ripen at the height of summer, so too will that moment pass. Those long and lazy days will shorten, the sun that has sweetened those berries to perfection will diminish, the berries will fall to the ground, and before long it will be autumn.

A Gift from the Mail Fairy!

There were two packages in my mailbox waiting for me this evening. The first one I'd been expecting for some time.

It is, of course, my Eh! Steve! T-shirt. If you don't know Eh! Steve!, he is a Homestar Runner character, and can be seen here. Click on Eh! Steve! on The Cheat's monitor at the end for a treat.

The second package was unexpected. About a month ago I was listening to Rough Guide Radio's monthly world music show and there was a trivia question which I answered correctly. The question was, "What is the closest South American country to Trinidad & Tobago?" When I listened to the August show they hadn't yet updated the page where they announce the winners so I was unaware I had won. But I had. This is what I won:


And:I don't have any trips planned and no vacation coming up, but if I get one, I just may be heading to the Caribbean. Mon!

Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore, R.I.P.

Olympics Report-Day 8

Random thoughts and observations from Day 8:

-Sweet. Women's Pole Vaulting is on.
-Damn you CBC, you lied...it's women's long jump.
-Mongolia has a medal now. Nice work Mongolia.
-Guess who still doesn't have a medal?
-Due to the time change and what not, I never really know if what I'm watching is live, whether it happened yesterday or today, or tomorrow even. Am I watching tv from the future?
-I'm going to have a martini now.

Olympics Report-Day 6

Random thoughts and observations from Day 6...

-Cultural Sensitivity Update: The Spanish Basketball team has appeared in a newspaper ad all pulling their eyes back to make them slanted. What can I say? At least they're not pretending to be mentally disabled...
-Still no Canadian medals. I'm actually kind of on the cusp of hoping we get zero medals, but it's probably too early for that to last. Not my hope, the zero medals thing I mean.
-Apparently I'm not very patriotic.
-Go C-A-N-A-D-A!
-Is that better?
-It's funny that when that Hungarian weightlifter dislocated his elbow and was writhing on the ground in agony while receiving medical attention, a small group of stewards with little white cards came and shielded him so that the audience couldn't see him. And by funny, I mean strange.
-Gymanstics, Softball, and a couple other things I don't feel like watching are on now. Of course, my live feeds work today, when I don't want to watch anything.
-Arsenal won the opening leg of their Champion's League qualifier today 2-0 against FC Twente Enschede. What does that have to do with the Olympics you ask? Don't ask me such idiotic questions.

2 Tone Records!

The BBC is currently running a two part radio documentary called Too Much Too Young: The Story of 2 Tone. Part one is currently available for listening here. Unfortunately, you only have a few more days to listen to it. Part two airs this Saturday and should be available for a few days after that online.

Enjoy yourself!

Olympics Report-Day 5

Random thoughts and observations on Day 5...

-For some reason, none of the CBC video feeds are currently available in my area.
-Hmmm...how can I comment if I can't watch anything?
-Some 2 or 3 year old kid hucked a frisbee at me as I was cycling home. He didn't hit me, but his dad was pretty embarrassed.
-Togo joined the ever-growing list of countries ahead of us in the medal standings.
-Damn, Kyrgyzstan has a medal too. We're really not very good at these summer game things, are we?
-Apparently the kid that was singing at the opening ceremonies was lip syncing...she was chosen because she was cuter than the girl that actually sang the song. I never saw the opening ceremonies.
-Newsflash: I found a non CBC feed of questionable legality. Unfortunately it's a feed from Go-Go-U-S-A!
-Can somebody please beat Michael Phelps?
-Apparently not in this race....Damn.
-I read an article earlier today about how the design of the pool along with advancements in the technology of swimwear have lead to so many records falling. Is that fair? Discuss.
-Enough of this...I'm going for a run.

Olympics Report -Day 4

Some random thoughts and observations from Day 4...

-Canada sucks at water polo. I'm watching Montenegro hand us a whoopin' in the pool.
-Apparently they have yellow cards in water polo, as the Canadian coach (?) just got one.
-Canada is also not very good at field hockey. At least the Canadian men aren't. They lost in that today as well.
-Field hockey is a girl's sport.
-Apparently the fireworks in the broadcast of the opening ceremonies were visual effects.
-CBC is a showing lots of the Olympics live on their website which is very cool (how else would I get to see Canada blow at water polo?) but it is strange to watch these sports with no commentary.
-Canada is currently behind, among many other powerhouses of world sport, Azerbaijan, North Korea, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe.

Isaac Hayes R.I.P.

Hiroshima Day

Sixty three years to the day after the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, killing as many as 200 000 people, the overwhelming majority civilians, in the blast and it's aftermath, here is an article by journalist John Pilger on the legacy and lessons of Hiroshima.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn R.I.P.

Signposts!

I found this sign attached to my bicycle today:

Maybe I'm just lazy, but wouldn't it be easier for everyone involved if they just put a sign on the post itself, asking cyclists not to lock their bikes to it?

Pizza of the Day!

Actually, it was the pizza of two days ago.

It has tofu, green peppers, green olives, zucchini, and three (3) types of cheese: Mozzarella, Parmesan and Manchego. Ooh, Manchego.

George Orwell is starting a blog!

Wait a minute, you're asking yourself, isn't Orwell dead? (At least I'm guessing that's what you're asking yourself...that's what I'd be asking myself...how am I supposed to know what you're asking yourselves? You expect too much of me.) But I digress...

The Orwell Prize is going to be publishing George Orwell's diaries, in blog form, starting August 9th. Originally written 9 August 1938 and continuing on until 1942, each diary entry will be published 70 years to the date after it was written.

For a long time I considered him to be my favourite writer (I still count Homage to Catalonia as one of my favourite books) so I for one am very excited to have this glimpse into his life and thoughts.

The blog can be read here.

Art Garfunkel's Library

I first came across Art Garfunkel's library in an article on the Guardian website. Art Garfunkel has kept track of every book he has read since June of 1968 and now one can, should one wish to, read through that list. He began way back when with Rousseau's Confessions and one thousand two hundred and twenty-two books later, sometime in 2007 (Is that the most recent update or has Art stopped reading? (Is Art even still alive? Editor's note: Yes, Art is still alive)) he read The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. Alternately, you can save yourself the trouble (and lose out on the joy) of the entire list and just take a look at his favourites.

Browsing through his list, combined with my love of lists, inspired me to do the same thing. Sometime in the late nineties I started keeping track of the books I read by recording them in my journals, along with any remarkable, thought provoking or interesting quotations. And even before I started doing this regularly I sometimes made mention of the books I was reading. So I was able to dig through these old journals, starting in January of 1995, and compile a list of 331 books I have read, though technically it is only 327 as four of them I repeated. (There are other books I have reread but they usually didn't make it into my journal, so there is no record of them.) My first book on the list is Gösta Berling's Saga by Selma Lagerlöf and just yesterday I finished reading Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. I really enjoyed the slow process of digging through old journals and finding the books I'd read, but it's also interesting now to be able to just look through my list and see what trends there are, what subjects captured my interest or what writer's I was taken with at any given time.

And maybe one day, if I'm bored or curious, I'll cross reference my list with Art's and see which books we have both read.

And should anyone care, I'm averaging about 26.48 books a year versus Art's 25.89.

But it's not a race.

Utah Phillips R.I.P.

I'm almost two month late on this, but I was saddened today to hear of the death of anarchist, hobo, peace and labour activist, Wobbly, story-teller, folk-singer and all around inspirational human being Utah Phillips.

You can read and listen to an interview of Utah by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman right here.

UPDATE: Light On!

The screws have been realigned in a more symmetrical pattern. However, I'm now concerned that I may have to realign all of the screws on all of the face plates in my apartment. Thank you, Sparky, for introducing me to a whole new kind of crazy.

Light On!

I'm very pleased with myself right now; I've just changed my first ever light switch. I didn't even get a shock.

Pizza of the Day: Summer Solstice Edition

Here's today's pizza, a traditonal summer solstice pizza:


It's got mozzarella, cheddar and parmesan cheeses, zucchini, red pepper, jerk tofu (jerk!) green olives, pickled jalapeno pepper (thanks Mom!) and tapenade. Yeah, it's a bit lopsided...so what? You are too.

Bo Diddley R.I.P.

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of a human skull,
Now come on take a walk with me, Arlene,
And tell me, who do you love?

Hairy Upper Lips Part 3

AKA: Moustache May Redux.

The Merry Month of May has come and gone again. You may recall two years back I participated in Moustache May at work. Well, we did it again this year. On the last working day of the month there was an awards ceremony. I won a prize.

The moustache:

The Category/Award:


I'm not sure what that means, but everyone seems to think it's dirty.

The prize:

The reaction:

"Congratulations! Your efforts paid off...nice work. As for the prize: use it."

It's June now so I probably should shave it off, but I'm just not sure. I saw a poster for a concert in two weeks that I get in at a reduced rate if I'm moustached...

In the News...

And the award for the most misleading headline to a news story or the most disappointing payoff in a news story due to it's accompanying headline is:

Great tits cope well with warming.

It's about birds. The feathered, winged kind, I mean. Somehow I don't think that's why it is currently one of the most popular stories on the BBC website.

Lying Liars!

I want to start this by saying that from a young age my Mom taught me the value and importance of honesty. Now, there is a radio show/podcast that I listen to regularly called Radiolab. They take a particular theme and explore the science behind it. The most recent one I listened to was about Deception. A segment within the show was about self-deception. In the 1970's two psychiatrists came up with a self-deception questionnaire used to gauge how honest a person is with themselves. And here's what is interesting about the results: people who scored higher on the test, meaning those people that were less honest with themselves, (i.e. liars) performed better at things such as sports and business, and overall tended to be happier. Whereas people who were more honest with themselves, and thus more realistic about their own faults and the way of the world, tended to be more depressed. Thanks, Mom.

люди!

This, right here, is why Russian men are super tough and you're just a great big sissy. A Russian man was knifed while drinking with a security guard at his workplace. He woke up the next morning, still at work, took the bus home, ate some sausage, then went to sleep. His wife noticed the knife handle sticking out of his back. Yuri Lyalin, the man who was stabbed, apparently has no ill will towards the man who stabbed him. He said:

"We were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?"

That reminds me of the time I once stepped on a dried lentil with my bare foot and it stuck there. I found the lentil in my bed and wondered how it got there until I later found another lentil stuck to my foot and did the math. What I'm really trying to say here is that I need to sweep my floor more frequently.

Zombie Strippers!

Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes!

Last year when I finished reading War & Peace, I said I wasn't sure which would be next on my reading list: Ulysses or The History of Western Philosophy. Apparently neither were. At the beginning of this year when listing my resolutions I also mentioned those two books. And while I'm making very slow work of the latter (I'm at Plato) I have now completed the former. I took it with me on my trip to Ireland (a bit of light vacation reading anyone?) to force myself to read it, plus I'm the kind of pretentious sort that would read Ulysses while traveling in Ireland. I would also read the Odyssey while Greek island hopping, in case you were wondering. And while I didn't finish the book on my trip I did get two thirds of the way through it and have now, just over an hour ago, finished it. Apparently James Joyce said that it took him ten years to write it so it should take people ten years to read it. And while I had no intention of spending ten years on it, I can see why one might need the time. It is a masterfully crafted book, full of references, at times captivating, at times confusing, at times witty, at times, umm, confusing. Some episodes of it captured me, others left me wondering what exactly was going on. But for all that, I think it was worth the effort. I didn't necessarily understand all of it, but I'm not sure I needed to. At those times it was enough to enjoy the writing, the play with language etc. And while I have no intention of rereading it just yet, I may feel the need to do so someday. At the James Joyce Institute in Dublin they had a great little post card that summarized Ulysses in 36 words. And while I didn't buy it and so am unable to post that here for you, here is the BBC's Cheat's Guide to Ulysses complete with plenty of amusing readers comments. Next up? Finnegan's Wake. Or not.