Neutrality

For those of you not in Canada, we've just started a federal election. And since it's set for May 2, it's going to be several weeks of shouting and jockeying for votes. We actually have a vacation planned right in the middle of it, which I'm not sure is a good thing or not. On the one hand, we'll probably enjoying watching TV without political commercials. On the other hand, I'm a political junkie and a federal election is like your World Cup.

However, here's the thing, you won't be reading much about the federal election on this blog.

I haven't advertised the point much on the blog, but I am a member of the federal civil service. Now, I've always been careful about posting opinions on federal politics since getting this job, but now that we're in an election, I think that probably gets ramped up a bit. Members of the civil service, as I understand it, have to remain neutral. Especially during elections. There are very specific rules in place for this - about what happens if you want to run for office, or help someone run for office. Or write opinions that could damage one candidate or party over another.

However, things get a bit dicer when it comes to social media such as Facebook, Blogger and Twitter. I'm willing to bet a whole bunch of people are going to get burned by Twitter in this election. Politicians, political staff, civil servants, Twitter is just a minefield waiting for people to dance through it blindfold.

And yes, I know it was around and used during the last federal election. However, people were still trying to figure out what to do with it. Beyond it being a toy to let people know where you were when you were on your cell phone, people couldn't see a practical use for it. That's changed now. Everyone knows how Twitter can make an impact. Hell, the only way I know what's going on around Iqaluit is by checking my Twitter feed.

But yes, Twitter is going to get a lot of people in trouble the next few weeks. And probably Facebook. And likely Blogger/Wordpress, etc. So I'm going to try and be a very good boy and not get in trouble. I'm not going to stay off these platforms, because I enjoy using them. I'm just going to be a little extra careful on what I say on them.

Because I think the idea of a neutral civil service is a good thing. Not always an easy thing, but it's good that it is neutral. So in public, I shall be in neutral.

Although it occurs to me that the next five weeks or so might be hardest on Cathy. Without the blog to vent on anytime I see something that drives me crazy, I might start walking around the house ranting. There's a good chance I might not come back from Florida. Or, come to think of it, make it to Florida alive.

Last Five
1. Cruel (live) - Tori Amos
2. Christy - Brendan Benson
3. Someone saved my life tonight - Elton John
4. She's always a woman- Billy Joel
5. Tower of song - Jenny Gear*

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 11

A much belated Republic of Doyle review. My apologies. But as I think there's only one left in the season, I can hardly punk out now so close to the finish line.

So on out last episode of Doyle, Jake learns the disadvantage of having friends come along on a stake-out and that perhaps you shouldn't involve yourself in the affairs of your ex-fling's current boyfriend. Tinny tries to make Dez into less of a doufus with mixed results, while Mal and Rose go on vacation. In the liquor cabinet.

It's not exactly a secret that I loathed last week's episode, which was a blemish on a nice run of shows. For whatever reason, it takes five or six episodes for the boys to get into the swing of things. Which is fine if you have a 22 episode season like they do in the United States. Doesn't work quite so well when you only have 12. Something to work on for next season. Republic of Doyle isn't high art, but it's good when it's on the mark. They just need to be hitting it with more consistency.

Having said that, this was back to form. A good, solid episode where the guilty party wasn't readily obvious. I was actually wondering for a bit if it was going to be a two-parter. While on a stake-out Jake goes into a bar with brother Christian and lawyer Walter in tow where there is some illegal gambling going on, featuring the mayor of St. John's, a judge and a developer. Next thing you know, armed gunmen burst in, with strippers (much to Walter's pleasure), and people are photographed in compromising positions.

The mayor hires Jake to figure out what's going on and get back those photos. What's happening is that there appears to be a sizeable amount of corruption happening in St. John's City Council, which the mayor may or may not be involved in. Throw in sinister feds and a couple of murders and you've got yourself a pretty good mystery with lots happening.

Seriously, when a murder happens in St. John's at this point, they might as well just call Jake and ask how he's involved with the incident.

Even the Dez and Tinny stuff wasn't too bad. I hate saying Tinny is more interesting trying to fix up Dez because I wish she was just more interesting all on her own, that she didn't need a male character to fix to be interesting. But compared to the terrible dope growing subplot from earlier the season (and hey, remember her wanting to go to London? Once again, Doyle is not great on following up on these things) I'll take it.

I will, once again, say that more Walter is a good thing. Yes, the Christian and Jake stuff wasn't too bad. But how much more fun would it have been for Jake and Walter to be going around trying to solve the case? So yes, more Walter. Besides, he delivers several killer lines in about four minutes of screen time.

Finally, we have the ongoing Jake/Alison/Leslie triangle. Leslie continues to be the most frustrating character on the show right now, because for a police detective she is staggeringly dense. She catches her boyfriend lying to her, does something I believe they might call actual detective work and catches him lying again. Then he tells her who she should and shouldn't be friends with. I believe that's three strikes there in one episode and yet, there she is still with him.

I think that's my problem with Leslie and Allison. They're both supposed to be deeply intelligent women and the absolute top of their game. But they're not always written that way and, Leslie in particular, acts incredibly stupid. They should both be smarter than Jake and yet the deeply stupid stuff they're wrapped up in (Alison with an abusive husband. Pick something with Leslie) is annoying. If they were deliberate character flaws, I might go with that (I can almost go with Alison and the abusive husband). But more often then not it feels like lazy writing. "Let's get them to do something stupid because it moves Jake's story along" is not great writing.

Don't get me wrong, it was a fun episode, nice and twisty and I enjoyed it. But I want better and there are times when I see good writing like most of this episode, laced with just lazy stuff that makes me frustrated.

So let's see what happens next week. We have hints of a sinister plot going on at city hall, we're about due for Christian to do something dumb-ass again, the Jake-Alison-Leslie storyline is probably due to be wrapped up and I'm sure we'll have another cliffhanger of some sorts.

Quotes of the Week:

"Let’s go to George Street. Girls like me better when I’m drunk." - Walter

"Pay no attention. That was my dickweed brudder." - Jake. Glad to see 'dickweed' passes muster on the CBC standards.

"Special knock, you know what that means - Strippers!" - Walter

"Anyway, any one for microwave coconut shrimp?" - Rose

"You're hot and your blonde. Of course people are watching you." - Jake

"If I could take Jake’s blood, I would." - Dez, not being creepy at all.

"Think hard. Not too hard, you look like you’re hurting yourself." - Tinny

"I wanted another daughter, but I got you. Oh well, you take what you’ve got." Mal to Jake

"I guess he told you I saw him."

"Well, he has a black eye and I know he met with you." - Jake and Leslie on Jake's meeting with the mayor

"Tragically, I see no hookers." - Walter

Last Five

1. Watching Michael Knight - Mark Bragg*

2. For a dance - Jackson Browne

3. Love you so what - Lloyd Cole

4. I want you - The Beatles

5. Maria's bed - Bruce Springsteen

The fire

Last night the plan had been to write the usual Republic of Doyle review. Except I was completely knackered and didn't have it it me to sit down and write it. "No problem," I thought. "I'll just do it tomorrow evening."

Except in lieu of events that happened in Iqaluit last night, writing about a TV show seems kind of silly. Although I promise to have a review up by tomorrow night.

We had a fire last night in Iqaluit. A bad one. No one died, thankfully, but a relatively new apartment complex burned to the ground. You can read more about it at the CBC or Nunatsiaq. There's a fairly spectacular photo of what the fire looked like on the front of Nunatsiaq as well. I can't directly link to it, however.

Fires are bad anywhere, but up here they tend to be much worse. Trying to fight a fire in cold that can be -30C or more is tricky. The wind was up last night and there were plenty of other buildings around that could have went up. Hell, we found ash around our house when we woke up this morning and we're about a kilometre or more away. But hard work and more than a little luck (the wind was blowing the right way to prevent the fire from spreading), meant it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Still, for about 60 people, it was disastrous enough. The fire started at 1 am. Most had enough time to wake up, throw something on to stop from freezing and get out. That's about it. They lost everything. Plus I'm hearing many didn't have tenants insurance, which means getting the insurance company to pay for their material losses is not going to happen.

Plus, this is Iqaluit. The apartment occupancy availability is somewhere around zero. When I first heard about the fire this morning I honestly though those 60 people were going to be living in the old residences out by the airport for the foreseeable future. I really didn't think there was going to be anywhere for them to live.

However, if there's such a thing as a lucky break from absolute disaster, then the victims got two. First, they were all employees of the Government of Nunavut, which had provided housing for them. The GN still has some vacant apartments, so they'll have new places to live in a few days.

The second lucky break is the community is rallying massively to help out. People have been dropping of donations of all kinds at the high school and other places all day. Cathy and I have, and I suspect just about everyone in town is doing it as well. Rotary, North Mart and Arctic Ventures are giving money to help and local banks have set up accounts where people can donate money as well.

It doesn't help with personal momentos that were lost, like photographs, jewelry and gifts. People lost everything and the psychological impact that has can never be made up, not matter how much the community rallies. Still, I'm glad to see everyone is pitching, trying to do something to help. I honestly don't think much work was done in Iqaluit today. It was trying to find out what had happened, if anyone was hurt, if you knew anyone in the building (Cathy had a former co-worker living there. Both her and her dad lost everything. I had a friend who lived across the street. He's fine, other than the shock of opening his curtains at 4 am and discovering the apartment building about 100 feet away was engulfed in flames) and how could you help.

There are still questions to be answered, of course. No one knows how the fire started, other than it started outside. Some are questioning why there was no sprinkler system inside of the apartment building. And it'll sort itself out, I'm sure.

But the important thing is that everyone is safe and, as much as possible, are being looked after.

By the way, if you want to help, I suspect the easiest way for those not living in Iqaluit would be to make a donation at the bank. CIBC has an account set up. If you wanted to go to your bank and see if you could make a donation, I think that would be the best thing to do.

Last Five
1. Last night of the world - Bruce Cockburn
2. Green grass (live) - Tom Waits
3. Fire up ahead - The Trews
4. Tunnel of love (live) - Dire Straits*
5. Waiting for the world to change - John Mayer

Ah spring...

I remember, this is almost 14 years ago now, when I was with in South Korea and I experienced spring for the first time on March 21. You grow up in Newfoundland you don't get spring. Odds are you're going to get Shelia's Brush, which is a late winter, early spring blizzard that's going to dump 40 cm of snow on you. But even at the best of times, it was going to be snow/rain, greyness and muck. Sunshine was a dream and expecting actual greenery was cause for you to spend some time at the lovel mental health facilities at the Waterford.

But on the first day of spring, back in '97, it was warm, there was greenery and cherry blossoms were in bloom. It was magical. I must have wandered around Busan with a stunned look on my face for days.

I mention this because today is the first full day of spring. As I type, Environment Canada is reporting that it is -33C outside with a windchill of -53C. Yesterday wasn't much better, by the way. I think the windchill was around -47C.

The idea that this is spring is some cruel joke the gods are playing on us. That it's bright and sunny outside with plenty of daylight is just some extra spice to the joke. You could almost be fooled into thinking it was warming up outside. Until you went out there and frostbite set in in a matter of minutes.

Having said all that, Cathy was getting cabin fever yesterday, having been sick most of the last week. So me, her, the dog and the new digital went for a jaunt to get some air, which promptly seared our lungs and caused our skin to dry out in about 10 seconds. However, in that brief period of time, I managed to take some pictures. Only cost me two fingers, but what the hell. One must suffer for their art.

Last Five
1. Got my own thing - Liz Phair
2. Answering bell - Ryan Adams
3. Kitty - The Pogues
4. Bigfoot (live) - The Weakerthans
5. Boston - Vampire Weekend

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 10

You know the episode is in trouble when you catch yourself thinking fairly early on that you really hope Tinny shows up. Because if she shows up, perhaps there will be less screen time with Garrison Steele, the aggravating crime write from last season back to bedevil Jake and bore the crap out of the rest of us.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the only redeeming moment in the entire episode is when the Johnny Cash kicked in during the last 45 seconds of the episode. Generally speaking, you can't go wrong by throwing some Johnny Cash ("God's gonna cut you down" Awesome song) into the mix, however it was much too little and far too late. The streak of good Doyle episodes curls up and dies with a whimper this week.

To be fair, I knew that going in. The worst episode of last season featured Garrison Steele so why they felt the urge to bring him back again this season is beyond me. Here's the thing about Steele - he's a smug bastard who uses people. He thinks he's charming and so do others, although it's blatantly clear to anyone with half a brain that he's an asshole.

He's a character that makes everyone on the show look stupid because he's so clearly an asshole and except for Jake no one gets it. And to make the worst of it, he's an asshole who in his two appearances never gets his comeuppance.

All in all, it's a pretty aggravating way to waste an hour of your life. Even the mystery of the week is dumb. A fighter is put away for murder. But did he do it? Did he take money to do the hit? And is there a crooked cop involved? If you can't see where it's going, if you're not rolling your eyes at some of the stuff (sure, a cop is going to kick the crap out of Doyle on George Street in the middle of the day with no one way boo. Absolutely) then you're a little too easily amused.

On top of that we have the return of ditsy Leslie and they begin the process of writing the Crown out of the show with the absolutely dreadful idea of her having an abusive husband that she's just having a hard time leaving. After showing her all season as being a tough, in control woman we now see her dealing with an abusive husband.

And yes, I know this happens in real life. I've had friends go through similar things. But really? Could they have not gone down this path? It feels....cheap.

Just dreadful all the way around. This is one where you take all traces of its existence, burn them and hope that people forgot you ever aired it.

By the way, in a Doyle related thing not directly related to this episode, I read somewhere that Russel Crowe is a fan of the show. Might be because his buddy Alan Doyle starred in an episode or because the show is popular in Australia (it airs there).

Honestly, if you're not writing a script for Crowe right now then you're mad. I have two plots right off the top of my head.

1. Crowe and (Alan) Doyle are brothers. Crowe is a successful musician who gets dragged into trouble when his stunned younger brother gets him involved in something. Jake to the rescue. Hook for Crowe, he gets to sing on the show.

2. Crowe and (Alan) Doyle are still brothers. Both were successful rugby players back in the day until they both discovered they enjoyed smacking people around a little too much. They have to be kept in separate prisons because together they were too much trouble. But they're both out now and mixed up an a game throwing scandal involving the local rugby team. Hook - Crowe can play rugby, which he apparently likes.

Pity they already used Mary Walsh as a bar owner. She would have been good as their mother.

There you go. I have given you your plots. Write them up and get him on the show next season. It's entirely on the condition that Garrison Steele never comes back, though.

Best Quotes
"You wouldn't know your arse from a hole in the ground." - Jake

(Smack) "Not in the face!" (Smack) "Not in the gut either." - Jake

Last Five
1. Four seasons in one day (live) - Crowded House
2. Damn liar - Cherly Wright
3. Double life - Matthew Good*
4. Old Polina - Great Big Sea
5. Shitloads of money - Liz Phair

New toys

So yes, not dead. Just the usual excuses. However, as Cathy pointed out, people are going to think this is becoming a Doyle review blog. And with only two or three episodes left in the season, that would be bad. Instead, I will point out something weird regarding packaging.

Considering how expensive shipping is up north you'd figure companies would be doing their damnedest to try and not to be stupid with their packaging. You'd think that, but you would also be wrong. Chapters is nortorious for this. I have gotten an order of 10 books in as many as six boxes before. Today's culprit is Future Shop.

Cathy got a new laptop before Christmas. As she's carrying it back and forth to work quite a bit she thought it would be a good idea to get a neoprine sleeve to protect it. So we go to Future Shop and order one. This is what it looks like.

Lovely isn't it? Now, something like this, you could probably slip into an envelope. It's not fragile or likely to be easily damaged. It is, after all, something designed to take a bit of damage to protect a computer. This is what they shipped it in.

Seriously, a tree had to have died for this package if you saw how much paper they stuffed in it. Now, it's free shipping, so I shouldn't care too much, but really? That's some seriously dumb packaging. If Future Shop goes tits up, you can take a guess as to why.

We also had another Future Shop Package. There have been a few comments about how I don't have many photos of Iqaluit up on the blog. Part of the problem is my camera is a Pentax K10D, which is a big son of a bitch. It doesn't exactly slide into my pocket. So I decided to burn off some of the Future Shop gift card money and buy a nice pocket digital.

The theory is I can take this with me more easily around town. Plus it makes it easier to take on vacation. So I went with a Canon Powershot S95, which looks like this.

It's a lovely wee beastie, I must say. And I'm quite happy with the photos I'm getting. Here are a few samples and I haven't tweaked or adjusted any of the colour settings.

I'm telling you, that's easily as good, if not better, than what I can take with my Pentax. It doesn't have the telephoto lens, but I'm pretty happy with photos that good. And that's just me playing (and taking them outside when it was -35C and I wasn't really able to do much in the way of fine tuning with the settings). So I'm happy with it. So hopefully readers (the 10 of you still around) will see a few more photos from around town in the months to come.

Last Five
1. We made a pact - Hey Rosetta!
2. Girl sailor - The Shins
3. Politik - Coldplay
4. Girl in the war - Josh Ritter*
5. You've lost that lovin' feeling - Hall & Oates

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep. 9

Well folks, I didn't mean to disappear quite that long from the blogging world. No reason for it, really. Just one of those weeks where I didn't seem to have much to say. However, now we have a new Doyle, so let's dive into that.

This week on Doyle, Des conducts perhaps the most inept convenience store robbery short of using a hand carved musket (this has actually happened in St. John's, by the way), things get testy between Jake and the Crown, Leslie shows some spirit for the first time this season and, oh yeah who the heck is Des Courtney? Because as it turns out, he doesn't exist.

The string of good Doyle episodes keeps on rolling here. There might have been better ones this season but there haven't been any better balanced, I think. There were a lot of characters rolling around here and they all got their moments to shine. Jake got to be annoyed, surprisingly concerned, clever (dropping the GPS) and deeply stupid (Not knowing what Special K was, and not knowing where the skateboarders hang out. That was actually bad expository writing, but anyway). Mal got to be fatherly, Rose got to be motherly (she got to be smart in figuring out who Des's father is and caring in knowing what he's going through and offering to help while keeping his secret. Nice stuff). Tinny wasn't annoying, the Crown was a bit of a bitch, but for surprising reasons and Leslie was not a total ditz.

And the mystery was good as well. Why did Des try to rob a convenience store? Why can't he remember anything? Why was he wearing snorkeling equipment (alas, never explained). It was a nice putting together of all the pieces. I can also believe the police not having any interest, because it's a pretty open and shut case for them (let's just say the RNC have a history of this sort of thing). Oh, and for those wondering, the Veiled Virgin is real. I'm still trying to figure out if they shot inside the Basillica. I kind of doubt it, though.

Writing like this is trickier to pull off than you might think. A decent mystery and giving everyone a few moments to shine. Hell, they made Des interesting, and he's never been one of my favourite characters. They made Tinny interesting, something I would have thought was impossible.

And seriously, thank God they gave Leslie something to do other than mope about and cry this week.  There was a little bit of feistiness there. A little of the old "I can't believe I'm letting this lunatic talk me into this". Although the mayor has to go as a character. Not because he's disrupting Jake and Leslie from being together, but because he's annoying and kind of flat. People don't like the Crown, but hell, no one can say she's boring. She's been better written than Leslie this season by a mile.

Oh, and thank god she isn't married to the mayor. We can finally put that theory to bed.

Granted, I think the run of good episodes comes to an end next week with the return of author Garrison Steele, a character I loathed last season, but we shall see. I had low expectation for a Des-centric episode and it turned out great.

Quotes of the week:
"He was at I'se The Guys, the male strip club." - Jake (I'se The Guys, by the way, is right up there with Wiggs Dinner as an all time great Doyle name.)

"Des, you're not going to last two minutes in real jail." - Tinny

"You're going to get me disbarred, you know. I am an officer of the court!" - Walter. I will say this again: More Walter, goddamn it.

"What are you doing?!"
  "I planted a GPS in his backpack."
"Oh good, I thought you were losing it." - Mal and Jake after Jake smacked around a suspect. The fact Mal has more respect for Jake these days is one of the nice developments of this season.

"Leslie, so sorry to get you out of your nice, warm bed." - Jake. And it's not just the quote, but the fantastic smirk he makes when saying it.

"You're like the son I never had." - Mal to Des, proving he's still not above taking the piss out of Jake from time to time.

Last Five
1. Everlasting light - The Black Keys
2. Losing you - Neil Diamond
3. Novelty - Pathological Lovers
4. Rocking horse - The Dead Weather
5. Compliments - Band of Horses

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 8

This week on Doyle - Jake ends up quite possible much stupider at the end of the episode than he was at the beginning, which is impressive when you consider he viewed helping Martin Poole a good idea, Dez tries to get Tinny's helping in manning up and gets tazed for his troubles and Sgt. Bennet goes on to show why she's not really a great police officer.

This was seriously not a good episode of Doyle to be a male. The only person who didn't managed to get the shit kicked out of him was Mal. For those of you keep track, Martin got tazed and the shit kicked out of him. Jake got hit in the head with a crowbar, the back of the head with a bottle of wine and the shit kicked out of him. And Dez got the shit kicked out of him by Tinny and tazed twice. This doesn't count the number of times guns were pointed at them

If you operate under the theory that men aren't all that bright to begin with, I assure you none of those characters went to bed smarter than they started the day.

So why all the abuse? Well, Martin is trying to get the Doyle's to help him land an accountant who is on the run for mysterious reasons for the bounty. This is Martin, of course. So Mal and Rose both know he's lying, but he's also dangling $300,000 in front of Jake, who is dumb enough to go for it. Thank god Christian wasn't in this week's episode or things might have gotten really stupid. Then again, maybe they would have tazed him in the head and jolted some sense into him.

So yes, there are shenanigans afoot, with a bounty hunter looking for our accountant, some dude with a machine gun, the police and a very pissed off crown attorney.

Over all, not a bad episode. Actually, just like last year, the second half of the season is shaping up to be much better than the first half. I have no idea why. Last year I just assumed they were finally figuring things out. But things like the real reason why Martin was trying to get the Doyles involved in the case and where they were going with it, a lot of the physical comedy and even the hint of a future plot with Jake and the mayor all work.

Hell, even Dez didn't annoy me this evening. The multiple tazering was funny. The only way Tinny and Dez are not staggeringly annoying is when they work together.

If I had to pick a weakness, the Jake/Bennet/Crown triangle is getting old already. Thank god for small miracles in that Bennet at least found out (although Jake had to explain it to her) about why he said all that crap to her when she came to see him. She's taken a serious step backwards as a character this year. It's becoming a moral imperative that they do something with her.

Seriously, there's a scene where Martin tells Jake that if anyone can get a particular character to turn, it'll be Bennet. The problem is, we haven't seen much this season to indicate that she's an effective cop, let alone a particularly scary one.

Bennet aside, a fun episode and another step in the right direction for the show.

Best Lines. For once, Jake doesn't get them all:
"True. I suffering from discordination. And, well, fear." - Dez

"Do you miss the dental?" - the Mayor
"Well, luckily all my teeth have been knocked out and replaced." - Jake, who may or may not be joking.

"Mal...Mal...Is cake a food group?" - Dez, after one too many shots of electricity

"Don't be such a sook." - Tinny

"Dez, don't! You can't afford to lose any more brain cells today!" - Tinny

Last Five
1.  Baker, baker - Tori Amos*
2. The fix is in - OK Go
3. Run (live) - Kathleen Edwards
4. Johnny Feelgood - Liz Phair
5. The bridge - Mark Bragg

Seal-free month

1. About a month or so ago I saw some online publication, the name escapes me, declare February to be a Palin-free month for them. That unless something truly dramatic or astonishing happened with Palin, they weren't going to write about her. I don't know if they were successful or not, but Palin made it fairly easy this month. She's been unusually quiet. A combination, I suspect, of licking her wounds after the shooting in Tucson and that so much of the news the past month has been focusing on the events in North Africa. She tried a few half-hearted attacks on President Obama, but really, nobody is going to listen to Palin on foreign affairs.

But I thought that was a noble cause. A good thing. The best thing for getting rid of someone like Palin is to suck the oxygen out of the room. If no one pays attention to her, then eventually she's going to fade away, perhaps crawl back to Alaska and get lost in the wilds somewhere.

So where is this leading? Well, I've decided for the month of March I will not write about the seal hunt (after this post, obviously) or even read stories about the hunt if I can help it all. That might be a bit of a challenge as part of my job responsibilities including reading news stories that might be of interest to my bosses. And I certainly, absolutely, positively will not read the comments section.

Read the comments section for most news stories is a bad idea. Reading them for seal hunt stories....that is the way to madness, my friends.

You can only argue with the deranged for so long before you wander down that path yourself. So, no seal hunt for March. Let's see how well I do.

2. I had a comment awhile ago about how I don't have many pictures of Iqaluit up on the blog. And I understand how people are interested in what the town looks like. And way back in the day I wasn't a bad photographer. The reason there aren't more photos is that I'm not 100% happy with my camera. It's a been a little glitchy for my liking ever since I bought it. Also, the damn thing weighs a ton.

If I'm just running out to get groceries or go to work, I'm not dragging out the whole DSLR kit and caboodle on the off-chance I might find something cool to photograph. Plus, Cathy hasn't been having much luck buying a cheap little digital for her to use.

So, with a couple of hundred dollars in Future Shop coupons lying around, we decided to splurge on a little Cannon Powershot S95. From the research I've done it appears to be about as good as you're going to get at that price range with those features. It should arrive in a few weeks. Once that happens maybe you'll start seeing a few more pictures from around Iqaluit up on the blog.

Last Five
1. Crazy love, Vol. II  - Paul Simon
2. A slight discomfort - The Hold Steady
3. Summertime - Beck
4. It's my life - Talk Talk
5. If I should fall behind (live) - Bruce Springsteen*