Grazing Rites

So after several false starts I was finally able to get my terabyte drive up and running last night. Let me quickly chronicle for you how I screwed the pooch on this one before I go on to espouse the virtues of a large hard drive.

First I was so focused (read: obsessed) on getting a new TV I somewhat forgot about my primary goal of getting a new hard drive as a) I promised it to myself when I bought my computer and b) it was slowly moving from ‘want’ to ‘need’. So while I ordered my TV and blu-ray player at the first second of opportunity I more or less completely forgot about the hard drive which is a damn shame because NCIX had some pretty awesome deals.

Then I found a Boxing Day in-store-only door crasher hard drive even cheaper than the online one. Wow, it was such a great price I was taking orders for friends. Then I get a message about half an hour before the store opens that they already had an insanely long line-up. I get there 4 minutes after the store opens and see well over a hundred people in line, in the freezing cold, in the snow, standing on ice. There were only 40 of the hard drives available so I knew the likelihood of me getting one was nigh impossible.

Then they had a post-Boxing-Day Boxing Week sale that included another drive, this one decently priced and slightly better but the price was a little higher than I had hoped. I did some checking around and discovered it to be a fair bit cheaper than all other drives its size post-Boxing Day so I just ordered the damned thing since we pretty much need it. In the end I got a good price, not a great price.

So despite ordering it 3 days after the TV and blu-ray player it was the first thing ready for pickup so I made my way, risking life and limb on copious amounts of black ice, to go pick it up.

When I got home I discovered they didn’t include a SATA cable to actually, you know, connect the device. I took a look in my tower on the off chance Dell included a spare – no such luck, I felt silly for even looking really. Now to some this may seem like Standard Operating Procedure but let me tell you back in the day EVERY hard drive I ever bought came with an IDE cable and every computer tended to come with spares. IDEs were so plentiful you can probably still find at least one in the home of any person who ever upgraded their own computer if you looked hard enough – I think I have a box somewhere. So a new standard of not including the completely necessary cable seems to me to be a cash grab, or at the very least a little “screw you buddy” from the industry. If shipping old drives with no IDEs would have made more sense as you can connect 2 drives to each cable but for SATA it’s one drive per cable – that’s the whole point, the S stands for ‘Serial’ which means you can only connect one!

I looked online to see if there’s anywhere convenient to get myself a SATA cable only to discover they are quite elusive prey. Future Shop, Best Buy, The Source (formerly Radio Shack), and even my local computer stores don’t carry them. Near as I could figure I had 3 options: get one from Atic for $5, order one online for $5 plus shipping and have to wait several days, or trek back to NCIX the next day to get one for $3.

I’m cheap, I have nicknames that were born from this fact, and I just spent over a grand on Boxing Week so obviously I’m in save-every-penny mode. Once all my new equipment is up and running I’m pretty much only going to let myself buy food from now until Spring.

So the next day I drive well out of my way and spending 20 minutes in line to pick up a tiny piece of cable for $2. At least it was slightly cheaper than advertised.

Then I go home and hooked everything up and thanks to a very timely phone call from Jon (I kid you not I thought “it would be awesome if Jon called RIGHT NOW” and a second later the phone rang) I was able to get it set up but formatting the drive took well over 2 hours.

So now my hard drive capacity is 1.25 TB. I finally get to talk about my storage capacity in terabytes. As you likely well know dear reader, it makes me feel like a big man.

So my next day off I am going download crazy.

At my current rate of data consumption this drive should last me 3 years before I need to think about expanding my capacity again but I’m enough of a realist to know that it’s far more likely to be closer to 2 years.

Let’s put my capacity into context. I could currently hold about 12% of the entire Library of Congress in text. This most recent expansion increased by capacity by a factor of 5, so another increase by a factor of 8 would allow me to potentially store the vast majority of human knowledge and experience if I were so inclined.

How can that not make you feel like a big man?

If the entire planet was destroyed and only my computer survived aliens would be able to piece together a pretty accurate picture of what our society was like I think.

So far I have 5 resolutions for new years:
1) Never buy parkay margarine again (I swear it smells)
2) See a dentist
3) Save money
4) Help my girlfriend get a newer car
5) Have a kickass vacation

Not a bad list thus far but I thought I’d take a look at last year’s resolutions to see what the standard was and see how many I kept and I was surprised to discover I more or less kept every one. I was also looking at what I was blogging about a year ago and that put me into one of those rare year-end-retrospective moods.

So a year ago I was watching a lot more movies in theatres than I am now but the selections were a little better.

My Christmas wish list included 2 major items I ended up getting for myself in the spring, specifically a new PDA and a new computer.

The primaries and subsequent election became the primary focus for my blog for much of the year; I currently have over 160 political entries in my blog compared to the over 90 entries on the subject of technology and over 70 on travel. As a result I became a frequent visitor of The Huffington Post and decided I love Jack Cafferty, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow. I turned some of the bigger events into, well, events with friends and pizza and heckling and pennants. Ah, gotta love a good election – especially when there’s someone you really want to win and on their own merits not just because the other guy is worse or crazy.

I spent a lot of time this year playing some awesome games on the Wii such as Conquest, Lego Star Wars (thanks again Jon!), Rock Band, and some great Virtual Console titles like The Secret Of Mana as well as the WiiWare version of Dr. Mario.

February saw the end of the format wars for HD discs, Blu-ray becoming the official successor to DVDs and thus setting in motion my Boxing Day spending spree.

I quit the last of my moonlighting jobs and haven’t looked back.

I scored some points sending cookies on Valentine’s Day (man that feels like way more than 10 months ago!).

Had my first Mr. Mom days and contrary to some expectations the world did not end and everyone made it out not only alive but unscathed.

My son began day care and my pocketbook survived and I truly came to understand why no parent can explain how they make things work but yet they always do somehow make things work.

In March we took an overnight trip to Everett/Seattle which was a lot of fun although the kid didn’t like the car so much – I’m looking forward to making another attempt but the current condition of the car may prohibit that until a replacement is found to say nothing of addressing the kid-hates-roadtrips issue.

After nearly a decade I got rid of my personal cell phone.

I got sick more than usual.

The kid had his first birthday which went well.

My friend Alvin ran for School Board and ultimately lost but it still felt good to be a part of the campaign, even if it did drag me kicking and screaming onto Twitter. Now I get to know every time Wil Wheaton sneezes.

My old friend BOTF had a fan-made patch released that made it completely functional on XP.

Star Trek: The Experience closed its doors on a sad day in September.

The American and global economy tanked but in my opinion not as bad a reported and indeed I think some of the sky-is-falling reporting desperate for a post-election story made some of it worse given the importance of consumer and investor confidence. Thankfully my region is insulated for another year and change. I did my part to keep the economy going with my Vegas trip and Boxing Day spending spree. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to turn this one around on my own, thank god for Obama. (BTW, the IMF just endorsed his recovery plan)

I got the professional equivalent of a punch to the nuts when one of my staff, a bit of a loose cannon to begin with, quit with no notice or reason and threw me into a bit of a tailspin for weeks on end. My long-suffering family bore it well.

Took another step closer to 30 but at least I had a pretty cool surprise birthday with my favorite restaurant, friends I don’t get to see nearly often enough, and some sweat-drenched lasertag. Ah, good times. Oh and Rock Band.

We had a federal election in which I influenced more votes than an ordinary citizen probably should but still the outcome wasn’t what I had hoped for – even my own riding which went the way I wanted was a nail-bitter.

My blog got a major facelift and now looks utterly fantastic. Check out that handsome guy at the top there. You gotta admit that’s pretty hot right? Okay, how about professional then? Intelligent maybe?

Bah.

I got flipped off at my first company Christmas party at my day job.

I finally figured out how to get my roadtrip videos on YouTube. No, I’m not an idiot they were in an incompatible format. Still have lots of uploading to do.

24 got delayed by a year thanks to the Writer’s Strike. I’m still rather bitter about this.

I carved a Barack O’ Lantern.

And as if that wasn’t enough we got a little constitutional crisis right before Christmas.

And of course one of the biggest things of 2008 was my trip to Las Vegas with Jon and Josh. Finally got to wear that awesome pinstripe suit I bought dirt cheap years ago and had completely forgotten existed. We went to Hoover Dam which I had never seen before, had a near religious experience catching James Darren’s show, saw Wayne Brady and other fantastic shows and sights. Opened up a whole side of Vegas I hadn’t seen before but more than that it was just fantastic being able to take a trip with Jon again; easily my fondest memory and best experience of the year.

That’s right, the guilt trip for a vacation in 2009 starts now.

What a year. Just look at all the stuff. On the whole it was a pretty awesome year.

On Christmas Day I was in the mood for some lighthearted fare – essentially I didn’t want to have to think or feel too much, there’s enough of that noise over the holidays. So I may well have been in the perfect mood to see this flick.

Overall I thought it was fantastic although I do think it violated the rules of good taste in a pretty major way at one point – with the exception of that one issue it was pretty excellent. If you’re a stickler for plot and consistency then like me you might be a little annoyed with how the conflict is ultimate resolved but even if that kind of thing bothers you it won’t stop you from laughing your hind quarters off.

People have a lot of preconceptions when it comes to Jim Carrey. Many people, such as me, found him painful to watch in the Pet Detective movies and The Cable Guy while others, also like me, thought he was utterly fantastic in The Truman Show, Man On The Moon, and Liar Liar. Unless you completely hated Liar Liar and everything else Carrey has done, this movie is for you. This isn’t the childish inane slapstick of Ace Ventura but if you like that sort of thing there is a fair amount of quality physical humour. Jim Carrey has range but he seems to run into problems at the extreme ends of his range, this movie fits nicely in his wheelhouse.

Yes, the premise does have a passing similarity to Liar Liar but really that’s where it ends. For one thing Yes Man doesn’t have all that familial responsibility guilt trip moral lesson magical crap that made Liar Liar feel like a Disney film.

Yes Man might not win any awards but it will make you laugh, surprise you, and introduce you to some memorable characters – what more could you ask for from a comedy?

If you’re in the market for a new TV the one I ordered from Future Shop is apparently still available. They started out with 2,000 available online; by the time I got to it (which was right away) they had 1,500 left. As of this entry there are still more than 400 available online. Just go to the flyer online and look for this item: LG 32″ Flat-Panel LCD HDTV** (32LG20)

My friend is already jealous of the 3 HDMI inputs, and really that’s always the ultimate goal of a new technology purchase – basking in the glow of jealousy from your friends.

(Prices include tax, shipping, and environmental fees where applicable)

LCD TV (Future Shop): $630
1 TB Hard Drive (NCIX): $130
Blu-ray Player (Best Buy): $120
Diapers & Toys for Kid (Superstore): $45
Lunch (White Spot): $45
Clothes for Kid (Please Mum): $40
Gas (Super Save): $35
T2 Blu-Ray (Future Shop): $15

Total: $1,060

So I may have officially gone a little nuts. There were some other things I did say no to like a 16 GB SDHC card, a vacuum cleaner, and Canucks tickets but I still think I may have gone a wee bit overboard this Boxing Day. Looks like it will be awhile before I let myself get Rock Band 2 but that’s fine as between Christmas gifts and the list above I’ve got plenty of entertainment that should last me through the spring really. Although the spending isn’t completely done – I still will likely need to get cabling which I’m told can be insanely expensive ($80 for a cord?!), a new mouse, plus weekly pizza beginning January 11th with the debut of 24 Day 7.

So I think I’ve MORE than done my part to keep our economy running, and you’ll notice I spread the wealth around quite a bit. All that said if you don’t have the finances by all means don’t follow my example, but if you do and you can then you’ve probably earned yourself a little treat.

It started with an errant pixel on my 20” CRT TV that would intermittently fail; I spent more time than a thinking man should trying to clean it off.

Now I knew one day I would need to transition to HD, particularly once Blu-ray won the HD wars but being as pragmatic as I am I needed a good reason. The sick pixel started to provide one. Also my computer’s only outputs are HDMI so I haven’t been able to watch videos from my computer on the TV since I got the new PC.

I was so cognizant of this need to upgrade one day that I haven’t bought myself a DVD since the HD wars ended. I play the long game.

Then came Vegas; Jon and Josh dragged me into a Sony Store despite my firm belief that you shouldn’t waste time on vacation in electronic stores because you won’t buy anything and they don’t have anything you can’t see back at home. Anyways, they had the new Transformers movie playing on an HDTV from a Blu-ray disc. I knew that, as I was sitting there seeing things I swear I couldn’t see in IMAX, that I would take some significant step towards HD come Boxing Day.

Well I spent copious amounts of time measuring space, researching, and comparison shopping over the last week. The file I used to collect all the information I acquired became a sought after commodity itself.

After much searching of websites, flyers, and my own priorities I finally decided on a TV: a 32” LCD by LG capable of 1080i with 2 RCA inputs, 1 S-Video, 1 Coax, and 3 HDMI and a universal remote for $480 from Future Shop. There were other models as much as $80 cheaper but I decided the copious inputs, higher quality output (everything else was 720p but this set can also do 960p if you’re anti-interlace), universal remote (all other remotes for TVs that size were simple, not universal) and a recognizable brand name that I’ve had positive previous experiences with, in the case of LG my last cell phone which I loved was one of their products, was well worth the extra scratch.

But in my searching I also stumbled across a Blu-ray player for $100 from Best Buy, easily $80 cheaper than any other Blu-ray player anywhere else. It automatically up-converts DVDs to the maximum resolution of your TV and has a SD card slot. How could I not jump on that? Jon’s argument for the PS3 notwithstanding this was a no-brainer.

So on Boxing Day I needed to attack Future Shop and Best Buy simultaneously but they both open at the same ungodly hour. So I needed to draft my partner and institute a team split – me in Future Shop with the Visa and her in Best Buy with the debit card. Clearly I couldn’t in all fairness subject my son to that and getting a babysitter was potentially problematic.

So I waited for the online sales to begin at 5pm PST on December 24th. I was all ready with accounts with each website logged in and ready to go 15 minutes before the launch. 2 browsers prepped I launched my purchasing attempts simultaneously and after 20 minutes in queues I was able to buy both the TV and the Blu-ray player without leaving the house.

It wasn’t all good news; there wasn’t an in-store pickup option available so I had no choice but to pay shipping – a painful $50 for the TV and a very reasonable $10 for the Blu-ray player. I’m still hoping I might be able to edit the order after the fact for in-store pickup on the TV but even if I can’t I think this was the right way to go. Given all the hassle of actually shopping on Boxing Day I think it’s worth it. Now I don’t have to find a babysitter, get up early, risk driving the car in a foot of snow, finding parking, fighting the crowds, waiting in line…

Now I need to see what my first BluRay disc purchase will be…

I got to see this in IMAX that day it came out. I thought it wasn’t too bad versus the original.

I thought the relationship with the boy was more realistic and provided a much more organic transition for Klaatu. The same goes for the professor, his character was more natural than the original and provided a better counterpoint to Klaatu. John Cleese was fantastic but I was sorely disappointed when the audience would chuckle after ever line he said. It’s upsetting because people were so poorly prepared for him to do a serious role and even worse because they were laughing no matter what he said which makes me think they weren’t even listening, or thinking. That makes me sad for the unthinking cattle of humanity and it takes a little something away from the laughs he’s gotten in previous roles if you’re ready to laugh at anything. It’s like when Data tried to do humour and the holodeck audience laughed at everything, even when all he did was raise his hand. It’s so sad it almost makes you want to cry – not just for the artist but it makes you want to weep for humanity that so many of us have become a holo-audience (hollow audience? See what I did there? Only laugh if it’s funny, I don’t need your pity).

I was largely disappointed with the nanobots; I was already very familiar with the concept, and not just from TNG’s ‘Evolution’ or all the Borg’s use of nanoprobes but in Political Science it’s a well-known and respected (and feared) End Of Days scenario generally referred to as ‘The Great Grey Mass’ which is basically poorly programmed nanites getting out of control. So with that background I found the idea tired and predictable. I also found the lack of the famous catch phrase extremely disappointing. Allegedly Klaatu says it both in reverse and properly at the end but I didn’t hear it and thanks to my Christmas gift from Jon I know there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.

And what’s with them hiding under the Cloverfield bridge?! I nearly shouted “what the hell are we doing back here?!” when it happened; a painful lack of originality with that location choice.

So in some areas I found it an updated improvement (Klaatu breaking out of the government facility was pretty cool) and in other areas (the ending) it somewhat lacking so I think overall it balanced out. So for me no cartwheels of joy but no cries of heresy either.

I had every intention of going to work today; God on the other hand had other plans for me.

I woke up to a semi-frantic phone call from Mindi – it seems multiple attempts at public transit had failed and so she had tried to unearth the car, only to get thoroughly stuck less than 100 meters from the house. I threw on some warm clothes and pushed the car back to its berth and all 3 of us called in with a snow day.

For the kid it means saving money with one less daycare day, for Mindi it’s a paid day off, and for me it’s a lost day I’ll have to make up later. I could have attempted to go in but Mindi had reservations about it and my stomach wasn’t feeling particularly good given my early morning and rather sudden activities. I only had one appointment today that wasn’t particularly urgent or difficult to reschedule.

Mindi having been left in charge of her office while her boss is away, still had to manage things remotely. After a couple hours it became obvious that she was going to have to go in despite the snow. So in the end she just had a late start, with a late end, while the kid and I had an unscheduled Mr. Mom day.

Then I had the genius idea, after doing some HDTV research for Boxing Day, to dust off the old Firefly DVDs.

So things worked out in the end for everyone.

Download here:
http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/episode_baf01.html

There’s something about my Mr. Mom days that somehow keeps letting me catch some excellent classic science fiction shows and movies. Last winter it was old movies like the original I Am Legend, The Omega Man. This winter I’m catching a lot of Outer Limits and Twilight Zone episodes. This month alone I’ve caught Outer Limits episodes with Neil Patrick Harris (who shares a make-out session with Gabrielle Miller of all people), Ron Perlman, and the wife from the Die Hard movies and a Twilight Zone episode with Dr. Smith from the original Lost In Space.

So last night the kid wakes up in a crying fit at 5am, for awhile there he just hugged the crap out of me and cried his little eyes out. Bad dream I figure but whatever it was interrupted my sleep so I ended up sleeping in a little bit in the morning. Given the snow and the ice I decide once outside the house I’m not going to rush in an effort to make up for lost time because there was nothing time-sensitive waiting for me at work and rushing in these conditions is how people get hurt.

On the last bus I take to work I was happily watching episodes of NewsRadio on my PDA when some guy starts waving his hand in my face. I stop the video, take out an earbud and ask him what he wants. He shoves an Elvis cassette tape in my face and says I should be listening to that instead.

“No, thank you, I’m fine watching this” I say.

He insists. I smell alcohol on his breath. It’s 9am.

“Is there something about me intently watching my show and smiling that makes you think I’m somehow unhappy with my selection?” I asked. “Was there something about me paying absolutely no attention to the outside world as I watched my show with my headphones on that made you think I was interested in a conversation? That I was secretly hoping you’d interrupt my enjoyable activity?”

“No,” he says, “I just thought…”

I interrupt him, “and look at the size of my little device here – it’s smaller than your tape, what makes you think I have the means to play that tape when it’s bigger than my player?”

He just stares at me.

“I’m going to go back to what I was doing before you interrupted me” I say, not feeling particularly patient, “and don’t you worry, I’m watching this show because I chose it and I enjoy it”.

Then I get to work to find out the water has been shut off to my office including the washing machines I use almost daily and my washroom. I investigate and the plumbers say the water will be off for the winter and they insist they do this every year. The thing is, I’ve been doing this job since 2006 and have never been away for much longer than a week and this has never happened before. I’ve had my water disconnected for servicing or an installation or somesuch but never for more than a couple weeks and certainly nothing approaching an entire season but apparently it’s out of my hands.

Then a guy from our alarm company shows up saying he got a call saying there was a problem in my office. We’ve haven’t had any issues with the alarm in my office in months.

Suffice to say I’m having a very strange day.

So the patch has been released concerning the IE security hole I wrote about yesterday however Automatic Updates may not catch it right away because it was an emergency patch rather than one of the regular patches that are issued at predictable times. So if Automatic Update hasn’t asked you to reboot your computer (needed to apply the patch) in the last 24 hours I highly recommend you get the patch through Windows Update: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

I found my 24 hours of exclusive Firefox use largely much faster than IE (shockingly fast in fact when updating my geocities website) except, ironically, for posting blog entries - it was a complete mess when I tried to do that.

A critical security hole has been identified but NOT yet fixed in Microsoft Internet Explorer. I strongly advise everyone to use Firefox until Microsoft issues a patch. I use Firefox to a limited extent already and I find it tends to work much faster than IE anyways. For those of you unfamiliar with Firefox, 3.0.5 is the latest version and can be obtained here: www.mozilla.com

Also if you’re old school and still have Netscape kicking around I highly recommend you uninstall it as it has not been supported for some time now which means security problems have gone unaddressed. Firefox is a great heir to the Netscape legacy anyways.

So I was treated to an early Christmas gift exchange with Jon the other day shortly before we went to see The Day The Earth Stood Still (you can expect a review of that shortly). Anyways Jon crossed ‘Fancy Earbuds’ off my list very effectively with some top-of-the-line Bose earbuds (inner-ear headphones I think Bose calls them). He insisted I test them out soon as I opened the gift and sure enough I was blown away by the audio quality. I’d heard things I’d never heard before in songs I’ve loved for over a decade. I could try to quantify it but as someone who still doesn’t quite grasp the concept of pitch I wouldn’t know the right words.

Frankly before trying out my new Bose earbuds I was convinced years of concerts and clubbing had permanently damaged my hearing but clearly I was mistaken. I used to think that the louder music was outside of a live setting the more likely it was to induce a headache but as I used these it didn’t just make things louder, but also clearer whereas normal earbuds its the reverse.

They’re so nice in fact it seems a little silly to use them to watch old encoded episodes of NewsRadio and the like. Plus I’m not sure that I want to risk using them in the snow – not that I think they couldn’t handle it, I just don’t want to do anything to cut down on their lifespan.

Man, when I decided to use the word ‘fancy’ to describe an upgraded or higher end version of something I already had the kind of did the job but not very well (frankly I was a little hesitant about doing it in the first place but I figure as I start to stare down 30 I deserve to have nice things), I wasn’t expecting THIS fancy.

I guess that’s just how Jon rolls.

Lucky for me.

And my ears.

Note: Jon actually called as I was writing the last sentence to ask how they were working because he forgot to get a gift receipt. “Over my dead body you’ll get these back” I said.

So yesterday I’m reading about how there’s snow in New Orleans and I wonder why that’s such a big deal. Yea, okay, it’s like the most snow they’ve ever had and they almost never get snow but “come on” I say to myself, “It’s just frozen water”.

Then today we get snow. At home it’s lightly sticking, half way to work it’s sticking heavily to the point where you need to step carefully, and then at work it’s raining with barely a trace of snow.

I’m running out of clever blog titles to reference my earth-is-becoming-genesis theory so I’m just going to start randomly quoting Star Trek III whenever the need arises. To review my theory is that Earth is increasingly sharing a major property of the genesis planet, specifically David’s observation “all weather known to exist within a few hours walk”.

I tell myself that at least I’m not one of those people who complain the second any kind of new weather arrives but then I go for lunch and the wind has picked up, along with some wind-chill. On the way back from lunch my fingers are freezing and turning red. I’m reminded of the beginning of that Sarah McLachlan song Full Of Grace…

“Winter here’s cold
And bitter
It’s chilled us to the bone
I haven’t seen the sun for weeks”

Sure felt like I was experiencing what she was singing about.

Then I remembered she’s lived in the same city I do since 1988!

It IS the Vancouver winter she’s singing about.

I’ll be damned.

Took me awhile to connect the dots on that one, that song’s been out since 1997 and I swear I got the album the week it came out.

Whenever you’re sick, and I mean at-some-point-praying-for-the-sweet-release-of-death sick, it is absolutely critical that you have good entertainment. Well at least for me it is. If I want to be anywhere but inside my own body I need a good diversion. Sure, things I’ve seen or read before are fine when I’ve got a cold or whatever but if you’re puking your guts out, food becomes an object of fear rather than desire, and you don’t know what pain the next hour will bring you really need to keep your mind occupied. Or, you know, sedated. Sedatives being the easy but often not the best way out I rely heavily on entertainment. In my most recent bought with whatever this particular hell is Hustle saved the day.

In fact it was uniquely well suited; in the past I’ve watched things like Sex & The City but the thing that makes Hustle a better fit is that, like the ads say, you have to watch carefully. If you let your mind wander to things like the agony you’re in then you’ll miss something. It’s a mental exercise that pays off. And there’s very little violence or other physical unpleasantness either so nothing to remind you of the hell that you’re in.

I’ve been a fan of the show for years but have had mixed results when trying to catch it on TV; so over the course of the last little while I decided to go through every episode I could get my hands on to see if I’d missed any, and to enjoy the ones I had seen before again.

Adrian Lester and Robert Vaughn’s calm voices and confidence soothe the nerves. Marc Warren gives you a reason to smile. Robert Glenister’s accents keep your ears busy. It has fantastic casting all around.

Hustle is a fantastic show no matter how you’re feeling but if you are feeling like crap this is perhaps one of the best TV shows to make life seem bearable again.

And the best part? Season 5 begins January 5th.

This one’s for you, Jon…

Me: (home sick from work with food poisoning) “You know what’s quickly climbing my Christmas Wish List?”

My Partner: “What?”

Me: “Monkey-Strong Bowels”

My Partner: *silence*

Me: “You know, Jon would have hurt himself laughing by now”

Step One: Always get a gift receipt. Even if you know the person’s likely to love it, you never know when they might get 2 and if you’re the only one who gets a gift receipt, who’s the winner?

Step Two: Get a post-it note.

Step Three: Affix the post-it to the back of the gift, sticky side down.

Step Four: Fold the gift receipt so that a least one dimension is shorter than the post-it. Slide the gift receipt under the post-it it until it almost touches where the glue is holding it to the gift.

Step Five: Put a piece of tape on the top two corners of the post-it.

And there you have it, a way to include a gift receipt that should survive the unwrapping process but not really draw a lot of attention to itself and shouldn’t be easy to lose.

What is the proper response when someone flips you off at a Christmas party at work?

All across this country people have been learning this word over the past week – if you don’t know it yet here’s Wikipedia’s take: “When a legislature or parliament is prorogued, it is still constituted (that is, all members remain as members and a general election is not necessary), but all orders of the body (bills, motions, etc.) are expunged.”

Today at the request of Harper this is what the Governor General has done.

Ostensibly this was done so the government can create a federal budget in a historically short amount of time, or so Harper claims. He also invited the Liberals and NDP to offer suggestions but he doesn’t want to hear from the dirty Bloc whom he seems one step away from declaring enemies of the state.

The opposition leaders were quick to point out dates, times, locations, and specifics of budgetary suggestions they had already made but the substance and occurrence of which Harper rejected.

Hopefully all this has done is delayed the inevitable collapse of Harper’s government and made the electorate seriously reconsider the role of the Governor General.

For those of you wanting an unbiased rundown of what’s happened I recommend the Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute

I got into it on The Huffington Post; here are some highlights of my comments…

I was disappointed to see our Governor General, who left Haiti to escape a dictatorship, facilitate this; her actions may not have violated the letter of the law but she betrayed its democratic spirit. It is unprecedented in that it’s never been done with a vote of confidence on the agenda; so to those who see a constitution as a living, evolving thing this has set a potentially dangerous precedent. Plus the term of prorogation makes up the busiest shopping days of the year. If clear relief and better days were clearly ahead we’d be more likely to spend over Christmas and Boxing Day but with things in question consumer confidence will likely drop, along with the value of our dollar, and even if things are fixed in the early spring I don’t think we’ll rush out and make up for the lack of spending over this crucial period. Suffice to say the damage done today to the constitution and the economy may not ever be completely undone.

I thought Layton did pretty well; he’s been stepping up during this crisis in my opinion. Frankly I thought all the leaders were poor choices during the election but this seems to have brought out the best in Jack. Just so long as he continues to lead by example - during the election and the years before that he just seemed to be sniping all the time, if this represents true growth and maturity for him I’m confident he can lead us to better days.

Remember the things Harper tried to do that brought us here. He proposed $2 billion in government cutbacks but refused to say what programs would get cut. He wanted to sell off $2 billion in government assets without saying what they were going to sell off! He wanted the MPs to vote for this economic update even though it had no specifics! He promised the MPs an opportunity to vote on the economic update twice and has twice now broken that promise. Harper mentioned that we all have to “tighten our belts” but somehow his definition of “tighten our belts” involves destroying all political parties but his, selling off $2 billion in government assets without telling us which assets, cutting the budget by $2 billion without saying what will be cut, removing workers right to strike, and limiting women’s rights to ensure equal pay.

No economic crisis is sufficient to warrant destroying democracy, workers and women’s rights, and government infrastructure – particularly when doing so offers no solutions to the crisis!

I’ve heard all the speeches and all the arguments and I still support the coalition.

I was quite public about my disappointment in the leaders of all federal parties during the last election. Tonight changed all that. Each leader gave a speech regarding the coalition.

Harper’s speech came on time but lasted half as long as advertised. He misunderstood the role of the Bloc in the coalition (to clarify the Bloc support and vote with the coalition but have no say in policy whatsoever) and tried to vilify the entire coalition based on that misunderstanding. He ignored what he did, what he tried to do, and instead made the Bloc sound like terrorists. At the end you could see how relieved he was that it was over.
Timeliness: Check
Stage Management/Focus: Check
Content: Fail
Bilingual: Fail
Calm Leadership: Fail
Score: 2/5 (40%)

Dion’s speech came very late, was nearly incomprehensible, and the camera was focused on the background, not Dion. He made his argument but it was not the strongest or clearest argument he could make.
Timeliness: Fail
Stage Management/Focus: Fail
Content: Check
Bilingual: Fail
Calm Leadership: Check
Score: 2/5 (40%)

Duceppe spoke exclusively in French and made some good points.
Timeliness: Check
Stage Management/Focus: Check
Content: Check
Bilingual: Fail
Calm Leadership: Check
Score: 4/5 (80%)

Layton appeared in front of the locked doors of Parliament, spoke in both English and French, and made the strongest case for the coalition since my blog entry on the subject. He was clam, concise, confident, reasonable, and had dates and facts to back him up. He seemed every bit the strong leader, straddling the usual things that divide Canadians and his passion for the citizenry came through. This wasn’t the Layton we’ve seen for years – the critic with a smirk ready to jump on and oppose any misstep of the government. This was reasoned, conciliatory, polite, and frankly, Canadian. In my opinion Jack Layton is the first of the current leaders to pass the test of leadership.
Timeliness: Check
Stage Management/Focus: Double-Check
Content: Double-Check
Bilingual: Check
Calm Leadership: Check
Score: 7/5 (140%)

I have already expressed my views on the coalition, they have not changed and I won’t stir the pot by re-stating them. But as a matter of who presented the best leadership in this crisis Layton by far outshined the field and thus I have to give it to the coalition.

For The Love Of God, Please
Backpack
Sippy Cups

Clothes (3T or larger unless otherwise stated)
Jacket
Pants
Shirts
Shoes (size 7)
Sleepwear
Socks
Sweatshirts
T-shirts
Snowsuit

Other Stuff
Diapers Size 5
Medium Swimming Diapers
Moneymaster Contribution
Potty Training Stuff
RESP Contribution
Stepstool
Transformers bed set for twin bed
Transformers G1 DVD Set
Wipes
Sony AA rechargeable batteries
Age-appropriate Transformers stuff

Gift Cards
Baby Gap
Chapters
Community Centre (i.e. punch card for swimming at Canada Games)
Gymboree
Please Mum
Sears
Superstore
The Children’s Place

Please Do NOT Buy
Large Toys (no room)
Plush/Stuffies (we’re still trying to name the ones we have)
Toys that make noise

Obama won, Alvin lost, the provincial election is months away, and Hillary is Secretary of State. Got that? Good, now you’re caught up – on to Canadian federal politics and boy is it interesting!

Stephen Harper is poised to be ousted as Prime Minister and I couldn’t be happier at the prospect. Harper took his final steps into the dark side when he tried to slip a budget bill past parliament that included suspending civic servants’ right to strike and federal funding for all political parties which would heavily favour the Conservatives for the foreseeable future and all but destroy the Green Party. The opposition parties did their job and raised bloody hell about the whole thing and began talking about forming a coalition to take down Harper’s government. Harper got scared and took those two parts out of the budget bill and promised to make them separate non-confidence votes but the damage was done. Any Prime Minister willing to shred constitutional rights and try to twist election law to establish an unending dynasty for his party needs to be removed from power as fast as possible. He’s a threat to Canadian democracy and organized labour.

So separating the bill may have been enough to calm the Bloc but the Liberals and NDP aren’t about to let this go and rightly so. He stepped over the line and has lost the confidence of parliament and hopefully any reasonably informed Canadian citizen. The NDP and the federal Liberals have reached an agreement for a coalition in which the NDP gets 25% of the cabinet seats in a potential coalition government which Dion would lead. They brought Ed Broadbent out of retirement to assist with the negotiations – he’s like a God to die-hard NDPers, and I think a personal icon to Jack Layton. He’s really the heart of the NDP and if he helped draft the agreement then most NDP supporters should be on side with this one. Ignatieff and Rae have signed off on it as well, with surprising enthusiasm. The positions of finance minister, treasury board president and deputy prime minister would be held by Liberals under this agreement.

Still sitting on the fence? Let me tell you 3 more things about this evil economic update bill that should firmly put you in support of the coalition. First, it called for the sale of over $2 billion in government assets but failed to name a single one – what presents were the private sector about to get at a huge discount from a motivated seller of questionable integrity? Second, it called for $2 billion in cuts to government programs but failed to name a single program it would cut from – what were we going to give up: child care subsidies, health care, defense spending, welfare? Third, the budget contained no stimulus package for the economy – now personally I don’t really care about this point, I don’t think things are as bad off as advertised but this seemed to have a lot of people steamed so I thought I’d throw it in.

So what happens next?

First off if you agree with me that Harper stepped over the line I want to encourage you to write your local Liberal, or NDP (or hell, Bloc even – viva la Quebec!) representative and express your support of the coalition. If you live in a riding represented by a Conservative then just write the NDP and Liberal parties generally. Respect to Peter Griffin notwithstanding, coalition is the word!

So the federal political future branches off from here into 3 possibilities largely dictated by the Governor General.

Option 1: Coalition! On December 8th Parliament votes down the economic update and the Liberals and NDP ask the Governor General to form a coalition government. If she consents the coalition has agreed to stand for 30 months but that can be cut short if they lose a confidence vote. So the Bloc votes become disproportionately important – which Quebec and the Bloc should love so why would they mess with a balance of power that gives them plenty of influence and attention?

Option 2: Harper suspends Parliament, called “proroguing”. But in order to do this he must also have the Governor General’s permission but that’s not all. In theory he must make the prorogue a confidence vote itself and even if he somehow pulled that off he would have to kiss goodbye to any legislative agenda.

Option 3: Election. Harper loses the confidence vote but the Governor General does not give Dion permission to form a coalition government. This is unlikely for 2 huge reasons. Firstly it would represent a huge interference in government affairs from what is generally considered a figurehead or ceremonial position. Secondly if we haven’t hit election fatigue yet you can bet this decision would be hugely unpopular among the electorate, not to mention a significant burden on taxpayers – although personally not so terrible for me as I’d get more work out of it. If a largely unpopular election is called as a result of unprecedented interference from the Governor General it could spark a public outcry that could shake our very governmental structure to the core. Any party promising to eliminate the Governor General position could gain fierce support and if they won and kept the promise, textbooks across the nation would have to be rewritten. Although as a matter of law we would actually have to go to the Queen to disband the position, overrule her decisions, or replace her – and we’d do it, too.

So, suddenly the Governor General and her views become important to Canada. Who knew the day would come? Her name is Michaëlle Jean and she was appointed (technically recommended to the Queen) by Paul Martin. She was born in Haiti which she fled with her family to escape a dictatorship. So, who do you think she’ll support? The Conservative who wants to repeal the right to strike, disenfranchise all other politician parties, and sell off government property and make cutbacks without specifying which or a Liberal-lead coalition?

I’m confident we’ll have a new Prime Minister by Christmas.