Saturday notes

An assortment of points.

1. I've been really pleased with my traffic through the blog lately...I suspect it's partially my political rantings, but who knows. However, today was looking like a slow day....that is until Damien Penny linked to my article on Craig Westcott. I think I've had about 100 people so far come over to read what I've said about Craig in the space of a few hours.

So yeah, that sort of puts into perspective what big traffic numbers are. Dear God, how many people must read his blog in the run of a day?

2. Since there seems to be some confusion about this and perhaps I didn't make it clear in the last post. If you're a member of the Conservative party, then that a big 'C'. If you just a have a few conservative beliefs, then that's a small 'c'. For example, if you were to ask me about Westcott up until last week, I would have said he probably had some conservative beliefs, but I wouldn't have been sure if he would vote for the Conservative party because of some of the things he's said in the past.

Then again, considering Westcott's yelled at pretty much everyone in recent years, I don't know who he would have vote for.

3. An almost busy day for us up here at the Chateau. Cathy was up early calling Aeroplan to take care of the last bits of trip to Australia next year. Then we were off to the mass registration. Cathy signed up for badminton, scrap booking and swimming. I have curling and, sigh swimming.

I never learned how to swim growing up. I actually did take some adult swimming lessons about 10 years ago, but then promptly stopped swimming. Use or lose it, as the saying goes and I lost it. So while I'm not expecting miracles in these lessons, it would be nice to have enough confidence to get into the water in Australia next year to go snorkeling or, in a dream world, maybe learn how to do some basic scuba.

So yeah, swimming lessons. We'll see how it goes.

4. We also hit the Arctic Ventures sea lift sale. I'm kind of immune to price shock up here at this point. You buy it and you barely even look at the price anymore, because most of the time you need it, so stop griping over the price. But I think some of those high fuel costs people have been complaining about down south have finally taken hold up here. Those prices today certainly struck me as being a lot more expensive than they were last year. Or maybe it's just me.

5. And because it wouldn't be a post without something political, two observation into the ongoing racket involving VP nominee Sarah Palin.
a. Saying "screw the media" for either legitimate or illegitimate reasons might work in the short term and motivate your base, but it's a losing strategy in the long run. No campaign wins by trying to do a long war with the media.
b. And now that the initial frenzy over who Palin is (and I confess to being part of that initial frenzy) and the more serious, thoughtful journalists are doing proper investigative work, the kind that can take days or weeks, it's not looking any better for her. This wave after wave of negative coverage questioning previous judgments and fitness to be vice president is just going to wear away the initial enthusiasm.

But as with all things, time will tell...

Last Five
1. Lady Madonna - The Beatles
2. Beauty of speed - Tori Amos
3. Music - Joss Stone
4. O Valencia! - The Decemberists
5. July Jones - The New Pornographers*