Old 'blog is new again

The Senators/Ferrari content is now in its own home here: red-glory.blogspot.com

This will once again become the blather blog where I'll post stuff which doesn't fit anywhere else.

Ironic Moments With Dave

Scene: Tim Horton's. Enter Dave and a co-worker.

[co-worker] (to Tim Horton's staff): one large coffee, double cream.

[co-worker] (to Dave): I'm trying to cut back on the sugar I have, you see.

[co-worker] (to Tim Horton's staff): ...and an apple fritter.

Lotto Update

The Super Seven draw turned my cool $4 into a free-ticket (or, the equivalent of $2).

While better than the total loss I was expecting, it still means I'm down on the transaction.

Next step: waiting for the jackpot to climb back to the point where I can play. I only play for $4 or $10 (depending), for jackpots of $10 million or more, and only if I have not played the previous week.

Playing the lottery is a tax on stupidity, but I don't think I'm totally stupid.

Disconnect

Stop budgeting like it's the 1950s, scholar tells city

She said the city’s decision-making process, financial and otherwise, is based on an outdated model built for a society where men were families’ sole breadwinners. [...]

“Decades after most Canadian cities dropped the model to better reflect their changing demographics and values, the Ottawa city government still largely follows that thinking,” Ms. Beninger said.

The model promotes suburban expansion to provide homes for mothers and children and city infrastructure for working men, according to her research. The result is city funding going to roads and sewers while things like child-care subsidies, arts funding, and housing programs, all deemed “special interests,” are ignored or threatened while both are needed to maintain a healthy city.

Nice.

Problem with this observation is that the record show that this is what people want, since that is what they buy. Sure, there are alternatives, but they are either not priced appropriately (people don't buy what they can't afford) or are not attractive (people don't buy what they don't want).

Well that was fun

Ever wonder why political leaders never provide thoughtful, paradigm-shifting, intelligent plans?

Rae, Ignatieff, LeBlanc ditch Green Shift

OTTAWA - Liberal leadership candidates Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff would ditch the Green Shift carbon tax, outgoing leader Stephane Dion's signature policy, on grounds it was rejected by voters on election day.

That's right, Skippy, it's because the voters don't want them.

And so forward the great Liberal party, having lost power to the Conservative party's brilliant and innovative we're-not-the-Liberals strategy, can now be counted on to put up a brilliant and innovative we're-not-the-Conservatives strategy in response.

But on the other hand, such a strategy gets votes, so it can't be all bad, right?

Besides, it gives the columnists, opposition MPs, and bloggers the opportunity to bemoan the lack of intelligent, innovative, paradigm-shifting leadership.

IRC on HD

[xdroop] HD comes out, and suddenly every sitcom DP thinks he's shooting a fucking movie.

Clubbing Bunnies

'comparing Google Apps to OpenOffice.org is like clubbing a staked-out bunny — Google Apps is so far behind that the whole exercise seems like an exercise in pointless cruelty.'

(Source)

Dr. Phil Needs To Get Over his New Toy

...his new toy being "being broadcast in HD". Today featured several shots of him standing next to a large display, and while the content on his display was readable, the right half of Dr. Phil wasn't.

This is my new favorite thing to complain about: TV producers and directors who see all their friends with shiny new plasma widescreen TVs and assume that the average man in the street has the same gear.

I'm sure that on a wide screen TV, Dr. Phil looked stunning -- but on my TV, the shot looked like crap.

Memo to TV producers: you are not shooting a movie. If your content falls off the sides of my screen, my viewership might fall off the side of your ratings.

Remember: for widescreen, stage wide, but frame narrow.

(Or letterbox. But we all know that if Dr. Phil got letterboxed, half of $STEREOTYPE's trailer parks would call in demanding to know why Dr. Phil looked all funny with them black bars on the screen.)