Articles from October 2008

Ugh. I've been sick since Wednesday and didn't feel like blogging. I should have posted one of the drafts I've got saved up for such an occasion, but by the time I remembered that, I was too lazy. :D Anyway, here's my reaction to a news tidbit from today.

I like freedom of expression and freedom of access to information. To me, these two related freedoms are fundamental to any society that claims to be…

I did a terrible thing today. I bought more books.

This is how it works: Chapters is located in a mega-lot that also includes Staples, Future Shop, and Wal-Mart, any of which I may need to visit a couple of times a month to purchase stuff. However, when my body comes in proximity to Chapters, my addiction centre sends signals to my legs to move in that general direction. Once in Chapters, I am utterly…

I have discovered how I will get through the next six months. Or year. Or two years. However long it is until Stephen Harper tries to get a majority again. I will watch CBC comedy news shows.

What would I ever do without The Rick Mercer Report or This Hour Has 22 Minutes?!

For my American friends, The Rick Mercer Report is similar to The Colbert Report. Mercer does a lot less in-studio, however,…

I shouldn't be up this late. I'm going to bed. Really, I am. However, there is one advantage to staying up this late: infomercials.

Think what you like about infomercials. I think they're annoying, sure. But open your mind for a moment and listen to those infomercial hosts--don't listen to what they're saying, but how they're saying it. As I write this, YTV has started to air the Magic Bullet infomercial with "Mick and Mimi."…

The polls are closed, and the votes are mostly tallied. Last month, Stephen Harper called an election; this month, he was re-elected with yet anohter minority government--a stronger minority, but still a minority. In the ensuing chaotic coverage, some interesting trends have emerged. The new hot issues are Liberal leadership, government functionality, voting reform, and voter turnout.

The Liberals lost eighteen seats (at the time of this writing), which is a blow for them. Still…

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is out today, so while I was downloading the torrent, I remembered I had yet to watch Michael Moore's free film Slacker Uprising chronicling his campaign to get slackers to vote in the 2004 American presidential election.

The film was interesting. Whatever you think of Michael Moore's position or techniques, he's certainly passionate about what he's doing. And democracy may not be the most perfect system of government, but it seems to…

I'm addicted to a new game called Superstruct. It's a "massively multiplayer" forecasting game. Sort of like a role-playing game, Superstruct is set in 2019 and concerns five "superthreats" that together weaken humanity enough to make our survival outside of the century unlikely. But you aren't playing as a superhero or a zombie: you're playing as you--or as you will be, in 2019.

Created by The Institute for the Future, Superstruct is more…

This morning I went to a debate for the candidates of Thunder Bay-Superior North (my riding). The debate was hosted by LUSU, so naturally most of it was focused on how the candidates can help students. There were plenty of questions about student loans and debts, jobs after graduation, taxes, etc. I used the debate as an opportunity to actually familiarize myself with the candidates, one of whom will represent me in Ottawa by…

So I was going to write this entry in French, but I discovered along the way that I've forgotten my simple past tense. This disturbs me.

I took French from grade 1 until grade 11 in school (this was before the provincial government postponed mandatory French until grade 4). It's only compulsory until grade 9, but I liked my teachers, and the courses were interesting and academic. Plus, being able to speak another language is…