Ranting and Roaring

I’m phasing in pings from the Blogger site (if you don’t know what this means, it’s OK). I’m expanding the number of blogs being checked from 20,000 to 50,000 — if I can find them — over the next week, slowly to ensure my algorithms can keep up. The net result of this should be: faster updates to you, and more reliable data in general.

It was a Canadian who helped stop Idiot the Airplane Slayer.

In reference to this, of course.

From here.

An interesting analysis (spoiler laden) of The Matrix here. I’m a little uncomfortable with using “Matrices” to refer to more than one Matrix (i.e. Matrixes). Why? For the same reason we don’t talk about The Toronto Maple Leaves. Although we do say Canadian Geese, and we talk about computer “mice”. I guess this could go either way. Update. Wanted to quote this table, which has no real spoilers:

• This site and my e-mail was down yesterday because of the Host Matters fire. Sorry, I guess.
• On the subject of this, look at the number of TrackBacks for that article. Now look at this, if you’re using a SVG-friendly browser (you should be, instructions on the page).
• Replaced Michael Demmons in the blogroll, as he’s going solely by Discount Blogger now.
• Added the hilarious Blog Quebecois to the blogroll, discovered via Colby Cosh.
• Depreciated Recovering Liberal in the Blogroll, because Kathy is posting exclusively in Relapsed Catholic days.
• My e-mail is now at davidjanes.com, still named greenflash, and is written in a non-spambot-friendly fashion. I’m no longer using Sympatico HSE, since it was slower than a 56K modem if any other phone in the house was plugged in (even with the filters). I’m now with Rogers, which has turned out not to be such a horrifying experience as one might expect.
• Clorine in swimming pools causes asthma. Well well well, not exercising is paying off more more everyday.

On May 14th, the World Health Organization took Toronto of its “SARS-affected” list,
and there was high-fives all round for our wonderful public health officials for doing such a wonderful job.
Since then, new “clusters” of infections have appeared in the city, several deaths, and thousands of quarantine orders. All of these are linked back to the initial infection, which wasn’t quite solved as they thought it was. “We fumbled SARS”, admit health officials. No shit.
Last night in Toronto, all the students from a Catholic (does God have something against Catholics these days?) secondary school in Markham, just north-east of Toronto, were quarantined. I believe I heard on the radio that that’s 1500 students.

On April 24th in the National Post, Mark Steyn wrote:

Too bad there’s no hills near Toronto.

My wife Joanne and I had our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday.
And tomorrow is my daughter Trinity-Anne’s second birthday!

Start reading here.

My get-around-town car is a battered 1990 Honda Accord (the Highlander is for towing the boat and transporting Trinity-Anne).
I paid enough in taxes last year that I could have bought a new TT and had money left over
to put a home entertainment centre in the basement.

A cheerful little note came from City of Toronto today, informing us that our
property taxes have gone up by another 700 dollars. That’s on top of the
3000 dollars it went up last year.

Listen,
kids: there was no goddamn common sense revolution; Mike Harris just looted Toronto property taxes to give the money to everyone who voted for him.
Diane Francis, fuck you too.

The World as Blog.
Via Empty Bottle.

Ha-ha.

Unless they show up naked again somewhere.

Feckers.

So, the Heimatstadt Dienst has raised the threat level to “Orange”.
Don’t worry your pretty little head though, just sit back let the experts take
care of it for you, just like Sheriff Lobo did with the sniper.

Maybe the attack is by make-you-crazy beef, now reputed
to be a Canadian speciality.
Fortunately, the relationship between Canada and the US is so good, I’m sure any trade problems
can be sorted out with a phone call between The Moron and the L’ddle Guy.
Unless the White House has Call Display, which could mean big trouble.
The Chretien Victory Lap is looking worse and worse by the month.

I just couldn’t write anything down about the Blogger Bash last week,
so I’m skipping it for now — it’s stopping me from writing anything.
Very weird. Will post pointers to everyone’s comments soon.

• I’m glad they let The Preacher live a little big longer;
  should have kept him for the big battle — hell, he
  should have been there the whole season. Best new character
  in a long long time, maybe since the mayor (I liked the half-episode
  MBA vampire too)

• Why are the afraid to kill off characters?
  There should have been a couple more dead, by my count.
• Does getting mad make you recover from gut wounds now?
  Or did I miss something?
• Why didn’t the six backups guard the entrance to the hellmouth,
  rather than the exists to the school?
  Why didn’t they put one of the potentials out there at each exit?
• I guess Spike won’t be showing up in Angel.
• What’s up with Angel showing up, then leaving? It’s a cheap gimmick.
• The major final battle should have been Buffy, Willow and Xander, just
  like in Season 4. That’s the core of the show, not the buffettes.

I hope I’m not too late with this! There’s a total lunar eclipse tonight, starting at 22:03 PM, totality between 23:14 and 00:07.
Make sure you use at least Number 15 welder’s goggles to protect your eyes!
You’ve been warned!

Update: of course I’m not too late — the damn eclipse is tomorrow night.
And it clear and cloudless in Toronto right now. Feck.

Been laid low recently. Posts resume tomorrow.

My head is spinning. Man, did we have a good time.

We’re up to twelve, maybe 13 people! See you there.

And one more final word of thanks for our cool graphic:

My translation project for the day, delivered to my mailbox with even being asked! Interesting that they use the formal “Sie” to address me, rather than the more usual “du” form found in German sex-spam. Ahh, they’re trying sell me a business, I think.

Guten Tag,

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Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Vallerie Stegenau (Kundenbetreuung)

Die blaue Frau ohne Hose is a perfectly fine German sentence fragment.
Don’t be tempted to say Die blaue Frau mit keine Hose “The blue woman with no pants”: the Germans I’ve talked to don’t like to hear mit keine “with no” for ohne “without”. A great German word is (der) Minirock, which sure looks like a combination of English and German (or it could also be a description of how it makes you feel). Sie trägt einen blauen Minirock “She wears a blue miniskirt” or Gestern, hat sie den schwarzen ledernen Minirock getragen “Yesterday she wore (had worn) the black leather miniskirt”.

The Greatest Health Care System in The World^TM.

Peak Talk; Samizdata.
I won’t bother pointing out again what a screw up proportional representation as a voting system.
Oh whoops, I just did.