Townie Bastard

Ravens

2012-01-29T13:41:00.001-05:00

One of the early Nunavut facts I learned was about ravens. I mean, I've read about ravens being smart, but until you see them in action you can't quite believe how clever they are. A gathering of ravens is called either an unkindness or a conspiracy. Both names work very well.

Let's give you an example. My neighbour across the street is dog-sitting for a friend. So this morning he has the dog tied on out front, a beautiful husky. And the neighbour put some food out for the dog. This, naturally has attracted some of the local ravens.

So as we can see here, the conspiracy is gathering around the dog, who is just sitting back and watching it all unfold.

Next, we have him wandering over to remind some of the ravens they shouldn't be quite so close to him and his food. By the way, the raven were essentially distracting him....

And now we have him chasing after some of the ravens who were making a play for his food while the ravens from the above photo were distracting him.

Sit, repeat.

I took these photos this morning around 11 am and as I write this around 1:30 pm it's still happening. Well, it's evolved. At one point I counted around 20 ravens, which was beginning to drive the dog mad. Even after the food was removed, the ravens still kept at him. There's only four over there now and the dog is curled up in a ball and is ignoring them.

I swear, right now it looks for all the world to be a game of raven chicken. To see which raven can get closest to the dog and not get eaten. They've done everything but land right on top of him.

You want to be careful about anthropomorphizing the behaviour of animals too much. For all I know, the dog and the ravens were play for the last couple of hours. Still, given how hard the dog is working to ignore them right now, it's hard not to view the ravens as dicks.

So there you go, your north lesson for today...

Last Five
1. Bull in a China shop - Barenaked Ladies
2. Susie - Wonderful Grand Band
3. Hunting for witches - Bloc Party*
4. My pet snakes - Jenny and Johnny
5. First love - Adele

Review: Republic of Doyle, Season 3, episode 3

2012-01-25T23:46:00.002-05:00

Well, we all knew going three for three was a bit of a longshot, didn't we?

It wasn't so much a bad episode...there were some good moments. However, it did have several strikes against it, which drops it solidly into the deeply mediocre category.

1. Oh look, the douchebag brother is back.
2. Oh look, the crazy ex-wife who I begged producers to get rid of after season 1 is back.
3. The reason for Tinny still being in town, assuming she's not lying again, is really stupid and awful.
4. The characters have to act beyond stupid to get to some of the funny bits.
5. Way too much going on in this episode. There was, what, four storylines going on at once. Yes, it leant a certain slapstick air to thing, but you could have dropped a storyline or two out of there and things would have worked just fine.

So basically, some clever bits, put together with a mishmash plot featuring the return of some unwanted characters. Not Doyle's finest hour.

I confess to missing the first few minutes due to being on the phone. However, the action pics up quickly after the intro, in which Jakes wakes up deeply hungover and surrounded by pink flamingoes. This leads him to show up at an antique store where he quickly sticks his nose in someone else's business because there is an attractive woman involved. Soon enough, we're off the races (and Jake is off through a plate glass window), trying to find a gold cigarette case and why everyone seems to want it. Including, of course, another murder. I would mock this, but they needed to murder someone this episode to make up for the lack of exploding cars.

In subplot #1, we have Rose being increasingly suspicious as to what Tinny was up to during her time over in Europe.

In subplot #2, we have Jake's ex contacting him to see what suspicious behaviour her new husband, the divorce lawyer, is involved in.

And in subplot #3, which ties into 1 and 2, we have Des being, well, Des. This include the hot med student unfathomably finding him interesting and Tinny being jealous.

Remember a few weeks ago when I said the writers weren't doing Tinny an favours during the first two seasons of the show? They really put the screws to her this episode. Aside from acting like a manipulative bitch most of the episode to both Des and Mal, we then get a piece of crap writing at the end explaining why she didn't leave for London at the end of last season and why she hid from everyone after they came back.

Seriously, it's so bad I almost hope she's lying again, so that the real reason is more interesting than the one given.

So yes, there's lots going on. Christian shows up and continues to be an annoying and uninteresting douchebag. Lesley is still deeply pissed off.

Don't get me wrong, I laughed at parts. And the whole scene involving the dead body, and trying to transport it to the police is funny in a marvelously slapstick kind of way. However, it all hangs on the massive contrivance that Jake, and especially Mal, would be so incredibly stupid as to move a body from a crime scene so that they could transport it to the police station. I mean, that's breath-taking when you think about it. You can only hope the writer is nodding and winking with this scene - "yeah, I know. But just go with it because it's fun" - because the alternative is that he thinks you're as dumb as a pile of rocks.

Even Jake trying to explain things to Lesley after the commercial break feels more like the writers trying to explain to the audience the staggeringly stupid thing they just finished watching. "Hey! It's just Jake being Jake!" Except Mal would have never done that, so it's just awful writing.

By the way, while I still find pissed off Lesley amusing and believable (Jake royally fucked up her life. The only unrealistic thing is that she's still talking to him at all), she really is the world's worst police detective. "She's no Brenda Lee, that's for sure" as Cathy said watching the show, referring to "The Closer".

Then the last two minutes veer into the deep end, with the ex looking like she's sticking around for awhile longer. And then the depressing news that Garrison Steele is returning next week. A character so unlikeable that I'm not sure I can bring myself to watch next week's episode unless someone promises me he's dies horrifically during the show.

sigh Let's just call this mediocre. I have to save some true loathing for next week. And I did laugh at chunks of the show. But clearly a step back from a pretty good start.

Quotes of the Week:

"He's fine, his head absorbed most of the fall." - Mal

"I'm Jake, and this is a senior citizen that I have in my care." - Jake

"I'm trying to prove a point here."
"That you're a dicksmack?" - Mal and Jake. The show's writers are really in love with the word "dicksmack" aren't they?

"I still can't find a Hall & Oates autograph. They're only the best selling duo of all time." - Dez. Ok, I laughed at that because I have a weakness for Hall & Oates.

"Jake, don't be so sookie. It only makes you look worse than you are." - Mal

"Jake, did you do this!?"
"Yes, b'ye. I'm always at that." - Lesley to Jake, after a body goes missing from the morgue. Try not to think too hard how two staggeringly inept criminals managed that feat. Or that they managed to drag it back to the bakery without anyone noticing. Or that no one seems to actually work at the bakery. Don't think of those things at all. The writers thank you.

"If you had anything to do with that, I'll hang you from Cabot Tower." Lesley, still having some anger management issues.

Last Five
1. Crying - TV on the Radio
2. Nobody does it better - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies*
3. Complicated shadow - Elvis Costello
4. Merchants - Idlers
5. Sleep - The Dandy Warhols

Trying out the new camera

2012-01-23T08:08:00.001-05:00

I've been meaning to get a few more photos up on the blog, but the extreme cold we've been having so far this year has kind of killed that idea. I don't like the idea of bring sensitive electronics outside when the temperature is below -30C, which is what we've been getting almost every days for three weeks. Hell, by the time you throw in windchill most days have been hovering around -45C, which doesn't make it easy to manipulate electronics outside. Go ahead, take your gloves off for a few minutes while trying to push buttons. See how they'll feel at the end of it.

It's also mildly annoying because I got a new camera over the holidays. Alas, the Pentax K10 I got several years ago and I never really meshed. My fault, really. I thought I wanted a camera with a bit of weight because I like the feel of it. The problem, of course, is that you then have to drag along a camera with a lot of weight. Also, most of the photos we take are on vacation, so dragging a heavy camera and a bunch of lenses is a real nuisance.

So I decided, to hell with it, did a bunch of research and went with a Luminix FZ150 - it's one of the mega-zoom models of digitals. I'm pretty happy with it so far. The weather in Iqaluit actually "warmed up" on Saturday to around -22C, so here are a few pictures I snapped. These were all taken around 1:30 to 2 pm, for those of you wondering about daylight.

A komatik at sunset...

A quick shot up the bay. I included this one because I also wanted to show off the lens. See the little tower on the island...

This is what it looks like when I up on the zoom. Not bad...

A rare sighting of the majestic snow beast of the North....ie Boo.

Been hard to take the little guy outside much this year, with the cold. So he enjoyed the chance to romp outside for about 15 minutes before it got too cold...

Last Five
1. Like a hurricane - Neil Young
2. Radioactive - Kings of Leon
3. Old enough - The Raconteurs
4. Closing time (live) - Leonard Cohen*
5. Within your reach - The Replacements

Commissions

2012-01-21T11:25:00.001-05:00

Back in 2008 I went to the New York Comic Con and it was one of the great experiences in my life. It's not exactly a shock, but I've been a geek most of my life and I've had a love of comic books since I was seven years old. I'd always read about these magical comic book conventions, but seeing as how I was broke for most of the first 35 years of my life, going to one was never an option.

But in 2008, I got the chance and fell in love with it. I grew up feeling a little more than ashamed of the habit. There's nothing like cracking open a bag of comic books on the way home on the bus, enjoying an issue, and then hearing people laughing at you. I understand comics are a kind of cool thing now, but back in the 80s, not so much. So going to a place where there were tens of thousands of people as happy and eager as I was, well, it was a great experience.

I've been trying to get back ever since. Almost happened in 2010, but money was an issue. Was supposed to happen in 2011, but weirdness with my job situation killed that. I'm hopeful 2012 will be the magic year, but we'll see.

Anyway, one of the things that I got hooked on in 2008 was comic book art. I started a sketch book, but also decided it would be nice to have some art to hang on my wall. This can get to be an expensive habit, so I try to limit to myself to a budget. Because I was planning on buying something in New York, I didn't get anything all year. Then NY fell through, so I figured I wasn't getting anything at all.

Except things happened quickly. First, I fell in love with some of the artwork that Hanie was working on (her Tumblr and Deviantart pages). Hanie and a couple of artists got the clever idea of doing DC superheroines wearing comfortable winter clothing and sweaters, kind of as a rebuttal to some of the costumes the characters were wearing after DC's massive relaunch back in September.

It's, well, cute. But that's fine. I'm kind of going with that theme for the art on my wall. Cathy has to look at it, as well as guests. So I pitched her a few ideas for a commission, she fell in love with one of them and, a few weeks later, this arrived in the mail.

You have to be a fan of Neil Gaiman's Sandman to get it, but it makes me happy. And I'm not the only one, based on what the fine folks at Comics Alliance think as it made their feature Best Art Ever (This Week), which makes me happy.

Hanie, by the way, is phenomenally nice and has prints for sale in her Etsy store. I really think she's a comic artist to keep your eye out for. If you like her work, drop her a line or buy something.

This alone would have made me happy. But a few weeks after I contacted Hanie, I saw a tweet saying an artist whose work I've loved for years was taking some last minute commissions to make a few extra dollars right before Christmas. Ben Templesmith is probably better known for his horror work (30 Days of Night) or the detective series he's working on with Warren Ellis called Fell. His artwork is not, well, cute. But I love it, it was a rare opportunity and I knew the door was going to slam shut quickly because everyone was going to look for a commission given how popular he is.

So I contacted him, he had the time so I pitched him my idea. He liked it and this is now what's hanging on my wall.

Hellboy, in case you were wondering. And a mermaid. I thought a mermaid would be cute, although I did request no nudity with the mermaid. I think Ben did a wonderful job.

By the way, this is the current state of the wall in my office. It's coming along quite nicely, I think.

I know most of you don't get this, or understand why comic book art makes me so happy, but it does. It's a little piece of something I love hanging on my wall, that I can look at when I'm in the office/den. I look at all the pieces and know I have some original artwork, and a story to go along with it, and I smile. Hell, even Cathy likes it, and she's not the biggest comic book fan in the world.

Last Five
1. Square one - Tom Petty*
2. The battle for straight time - A.C. Newman
3. New favourite (live) - Allison Krauss and Union Station
4. Sing your heart out (live) - The Trews
5. Wayfaring stranger - Neko Case

Review: Republic of Doyle, Season 3, episode 2

2012-01-18T23:29:00.001-05:00

Well, the gang's all here for this one. Aside from the regular cast, Tinny make a reappearance, Doyle's ex-wife briefly shows up and Walter makes a much needed return.

Oh, and a brief Doyle ass shot. Man, the CBC censor must really be out of it. Although there was less swearing this week.

Cathy gave me some grief after reading last week's review, saying I laughed a lot at the episode and then seemed to give it a negative review. I thought it was mostly positive, just pointing out that as fun as it was, there was some pretty glaring plot problems.

Keeping that in mind, I went into this week's episode. And I'll say off the top, it was fun. There was probably plot problems, but the sign of a good episode is if you're too busy actually enjoying what's on the screen to not really have the time to go "hey, wait a minute, that makes no sense." And for one hour, Republic of Doyle managed to entertain me enough that I didn't really notice any.

So, in plot one, we have Jake and Mal back to being PIs (hence, the massive reset from the end of last week) doing repo work while Des watches out for them. Except while they're busy bickering, Des manages to get turned into street pizza by a car. Des is ok (well as ok as Des gets), but Jake and Mal, especially Mal, swear revenge. The problem being, after swearing revenge they managed to get sucked into a con man scheme involving what may or may not be a large sum of money.

In Plot 2, Martin Poole returns, looking for Rose's help. Well, more specifically, dragging Rose into the heap of trouble from his latest screw up while guest star Shannon Tweed shows up looking for money he's lost.

In Plot 3, Des manages to figure out that Tinny is back in town, and what's up with that?

I was joking last week that there's a bit of a comedown from special guest star Oscar winner Russell Crowe to Shannon Tweed, known for such movies as Body Chemistry 4 and Indecent Exposure 1, 2 and 3 (although, and this freaked me out, she's also starred in an episode of Murder She Wrote and, wrap your mind around this, voiced a character in SpongeBob Squarepants). But hey, she was fine enough as the gangster chick with the shotgun and a tendency to get whacked in the head. Certainly better than the doofus who was playing the world's stupidest con man...

One of my gripes about Doyle is about how badly handled the women characters are in the show. Not so in this episode. Rose was a lot of fun, showing quite the entertaining temper. Lesley is a lot more interesting this year as a bitter, pissed off and caustic harbinger of Doom. What, you think her predictions that Jake's actions are going to get someone hurt or killed are just idle ramblings? Although considering the cast around Jake have had heart attacks, been shot, regularly kidnapped, hit by cars, nearly blown up from exploding cars (car dealerships in St. John's must love ROD given that one blows up nearly every week) framed for murder raps and god knows what else, I'm not sure how more damage can happen from hanging out with him.

Anyway, Leslie is much more interesting and entertaining being pissed off at Jake than mooning over him.

And Tinny, well, Tinny obviously has a mysterious secret of some sort. And hell, I'm curious. Plus there's the romantic triangle between Des, Tinny and the hot med student...both of whom are completely out of his league. Then again, women on Twitter seem to adore Des, so perhaps rambly doofuses are the new sexy. What do I know.

So yes, a solid and entertaining episode. I would go so far to say Doyle is two for two this season. There was some talk from the cast that it's taken them a season or more to finally relax into the characters and the show. Perhaps the same can be said for the writers. The show is feeling more relaxed and comfortable this season. Not lazy, just like they finally might have broken in the shoes. Here's hoping...

Other Notes:
- Jake and Mal really do work together. The back and forth between them remain the highlight of the show. It must be hard to write in the other characters sometimes, given how well they work together.
- I beg you, more Walter, for the love of God.
- I will give Allan Hawco credit, that must be quite the workout he goes through. The glimpse of ass probably caused blood pressure rates for women (and 10% of men) around Newfoundland to go through the roof.
- Having said that, the scene with naked Jake handcuffed while the cops stood around and laughed at him was pretty funny.

Quotes of the Week:
"It's not my fault you've got your grandmother's arms." - Mal to Jake

"For the record, although I wasn't there, I'm guessing it was Jake's fault." - Jake's ex-wife

"Untie me right now so I can frickin' kill you!" - Rose

"Please utilize any part of my body you find useful." - Smooth talking Des to the hot med student

"I'm a private detective. Danger and intrigue follow me everywhere." - Des

"What's wrong with you?"
"I got hit by a car and I'm on drugs." - Mal and Des

"There's something a lot bigger than that going on."
(Glancing down at a naked and hadcuffed Jake) "Not from where I'm standing." - Jake and Lesley

"Malachy, I know he's your son and all, but seriously, get out while you can." - Lesley

"No wonder you haven't got any friends, you've killed them all." - Lesley

Last Five
1. Real love - David Gray
2. Cloudbursting - Kate Bush*
3. Thousand telephones - Ian Foster Band
4. Family man - Hall & Oates
5. Locked out (live) - Crowded House

42

2012-01-17T07:46:00.008-05:00

Huh, so....42.

I've never tended to make a big deal over my birthday or the significance of numbers. I've had friends freak over 30. I've read articles about guys being upset when they turned 33 because that's how old Jesus was when he died, and what have they accomplished in their lives (dudes, he was the son of God. Perspective) and, of course, 40 is the one where everyone gangs up on you.

I kind of like the idea of 42, in a purely Douglas Adams sort of way. It is, after all, the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I like the idea that maybe, just maybe, at 42 you've gained enough wisdom (although maybe not the meaning of life) to have a better idea of where you are, and still young enough to enjoy it. I like that thought.

As for the year that was 41, well, another one filled with little twists and turns. I manged four trips this year, which was nice. One to Florida, one to Ottawa for a course, one a combination of Ottawa for our sealift and then to Costa Rica for 10 days. And then a trip back to St. John's to visit family and friends.

That's a good year there, I think. It's not so much a "Oh Christ I need to get out of Iqaluit" so much as that I appreciate travelling and seeing places not home more. For years I could never afford to travel while I watched friends go all over the world. Now I have that opportunity and I enjoy it. Age 42 is showing equal promise for trips. Four are planned, but we'll see. Plans are weird things.

Four was a number that had significance in other ways during the past year. It was also the number of jobs I had.

Seriously. And I managed to have them all in a period of about two months.

I'd also like to mention that the turmoil on the job front had nothing really to do with the quality of my work. I was never fired or anything like that. Life just...happened.

As in the job I had most of last year, that I quite liked, was a contract gig. And then things got a little weird with them and they couldn't renew my contract, even though my immediate bosses were making it quite clear that not renewing my contract was a terribly bad idea. By the way, found that out after Cathy and I completed our biggest spending splurge of the year. As long time readers know, our spending habits tend to go with months of nothing, then followed by expenditures that would fry the brains of lesser people as we prepare to resupply for the winter. Oh, and after we bought a new car.

So yeah, no stress there.

Fortunately one of my co-workers gave me a head's up on some work, so I got a month's contract helping out for the local trade show. While that was going on, I got offered a job with Canada Post. Which was lovely grand. I once worked with the post office for a summer about 23 years ago, so I was looking forward to it. I called it a jobcation.

It's not that working with Canada Post is easy. It isn't. There's a lot of manual work and the amount of abuse staff take from customers is unreal. But most of time with the post office was working in back, so it was just the physical aspect I had to deal with. And after years of dealing with deadlines and lots of mental pressure, just going in every day and dealing with sorting mail and packages, it was relaxing.

Of course, it didn't last.

One week into that job and I get a phone call offering me another one. In-between the trade show and Canada Post I'd gone back to St. John's for a week because the parents were laying serious guilt about not seeing them. It had been nearly two years. But while there I had a chance to interview for a job in Iqaluit. By phone.

Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've been back in St. John's, on vacation, while interviewing for a job in Iqaluit.

Anyway, enough time had gone by that I figured without hearing anything that I figured there was no offer happening. Except a week in the post office job I get a call offering me the new position. Which is in my field, has great benefits and pays well. So onwards to Job #4.

I've been there two months, so here's hoping that's the last of the job drama for awhile.

Other than that, we've been doing well. We're content and life is...progressing. It wasn't a bad year, 41. Could have done with a little less job drama, but it's worked out well so far. And hey, I'm still healthy, Cathy is still healthy and things are well, for the most part, with family and friends. Things could be much worse.

Never got the novel finished thought. That's kind of frustrating. Oh well. Maybe that's what 42 is for...

Last Five
1. My city of ruins - Bruce Springsteen*
2. 99% of us is failure (live) - Matthew Good
3. Nutune - Drive
4. Don't get angry - Blue Rodeo
5. Sexy Sadie - The Beatles

Closing time

2012-01-13T12:17:00.002-05:00

Since Cathy and I moved up here more than six years ago, we've had occasion to miss work through...interesting circumstances. Now, by interesting I don't mean, "we're sick and can't go", because that happens. No, I mean circumstances that seem to shut down chunks of the city. Sometimes all of it.

For example, today we woke up around 6:50 with the phone ringing. Not an unusual circumstance as Cathy is the one people call if staff can't make it to school. She then has to find substitutes. Except this morning she was told the school was closed. No reason given. A quick check on the Iqaluit Public Service Announcements on Facebook offered up the reason why:

NOTICE: City of Iqaluit has shut down the city as a result of a water main break (Inuksuk High School). The pipe break has resulted in the city losing more water than we can currently produce. Significant flood from the broken pipe has also occurred. We ask people to remain at home until further notice. We ask that people conserve water and only use water for emergency purposes. Once the pipe has been fixed (unknown time estimate), the City expects to be able to stabilize the situation and begin producing water and resume normal services. City will update residents when new information is available.

Now, we're not in bad shape because our house is on trucked water, our tank was filled yesterday and we're not hard on water use on any given day. As long as we don't do laundry or use the dishwasher and keep showers to a minimum, I suspect we could hold out a week or more in an emergency. I've joked on Twitter that I'm going to start selling off time in our showers in five minute blocks. No takers....yet.

Oh yes, and it's Friday the 13th.

However, a massive water main break does not top the list of odd reasons why things close in Iqaluit. And now, counting down, the weirdest reasons most or all of the city has closed since 2005.

Honourable Mention: Although it was only the post office, and not the entire city, it must be mentioned the chemical spill that closed the place for a day. A package broke open during transit, producing a liquid that caused staff handling the package to feel a burning sensation when breathing and their eyes watering. Staff were sent to hospital and the fire department was called in to examine the package.

Turn out it was a bottle of rice vinegar that had broken. Staff spent months living that one down.

7. Blizzard - Not all that weird, really. And despite where we live, blizzards don't happen all that often. There have been times when the schools have closed and we've looked around and decided they've closed because of the ennui. It happens.

6. Extreme Wind Chill - They won't close the city, but they will close the schools when this happens. In previous years the schools would only close if the wind chill hit -55C. Tell that to your kids when they complain it's too cold to go to school. This year they've "increased" the temperature to only -50C. Schools haven't closed yet, but they've flirted with it. Several days in the last week where the temperatures were around -48C.

5. Busted water main - See above. Also see here, here and here for pictures. CBC's story here and Nunatsiaq's here.

4. Wandering gunman - Has actually happened a couple of times in Iqaluit, although it tends to happen more often in smaller communities. In the communities, everyone hunkers down and stays home. In Iqaluit, they'll just close off large sections of the city.

3. Exploding generators - The City of Iqaluit is powered, if memory serves, by seven generators. So last year, one of those generators was down for repairs and then another one, the most important one, also stopped working. Just in more dramatic fashion. So large chunks of the city were without power. And the power corp was given estimates in days before full power could be restored. So we had rotating power through most of the city. Four hours on, four hours off.

Fortunately, they were able to restore the one down for repairs later that evening and as long as people conserved power, they were able to eke through until the main generator was fixed, several days later.

2. Massive telecommunications failure - There's no fibre optic cable going into Nunavut. So when a satellite a couple of hundred kilometres above the earth decided to have a little hissy fit, Iqaluit residents got a taste of how quickly things can get weird. And be totally out of your control.

With no phone, cell phone or internet, a lot of government offices shut down. Banks closed. Store could only do cash transactions. Interac and credit cards would no longer work. The airport effectively shut down because they used the satellite to communicate with planes (it was argued that was an over-reaction, but few aircraft landed that day, and none of the jets coming from the south). So yes, a jolly bit of madness all the way around.

Again, there was talk that this could last for days, but the managed to get the satellite repaired in about 24 hours. Which was good for me because I had a flight scheduled to visit family in Newfoundland the day satellite service was restored. And because satellite was down, I had no way of communicating with them if I didn't get the flight. SO they would have been very confused waiting for me at the airport.

1. Dump fire - They say the dump is always on fire, to some degree. Well, in the fall of 2010, the degree to which the dump was on fire increased significantly. It increased to the point where there was not only smoke, but quite a lot of fire which could be seen easily from almost anywhere in town.

Which is lovely and all, and most of the time the prevailing wind blew the smoke away from town. But a couple of times the wind blew the smoke into town. To say the smell was unpleasant would be an understatement. But then people had problems breathing. So then the schools closed. And then others complained of breathing problems and that was that. Most offices around town closed and people went home. Except, of course, you could still smell the dump fire just about anywhere in town. Even with our doors and windows closed, and not being in direct line when the smoke blew into town, we could still smell it.

So that was a fun few days. The dump fire eventually died, although I guess it's still probably still simmering away...

And there you have it. What strange new things will happen to close the city? Stay tuned....

Last Five
1. Gatekeeper - Feist
2. The vanishing breed - Robbie Robertson
3. Someday - Tegan & Sara
4. All my own stunts - Arctic Monkeys
5. A hard day's night - The Beatles

Review: Republic of Doyle, Season 3, episode 1

2012-01-11T23:31:00.001-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, I did not resurrect the blog just so I could have a go at Republic of Doyle once a week for a few months. It just happens to be one of the perks.

For those who recall I wasn't exactly wowed with the finale of season 2 of Doyle. It seemed to me a lot of flash and thunder to try and hide just how spectacularly stupid the plot and writing was. Which has always been one of of my beefs with the show. There's clever dialogue, but dear Jesus, some of the character development and plots are enough to make your head explode. Also, Doyle has a tradition (as much tradition as you can have in two seasons) of really bad season premieres. It normally takes a couple of episodes for them to get into a season.

So how will this season start off? You might have heard something about Russell Crowe starring the episode. I swear to God, the only advertising on CBC the last month have been ads for Doyle, Arctic Air and Redemption Inc.

You know what....it wasn't bad. I mean, the ending flopped a bit (the scene in the car between Jake and Mal giving the address to draw out the bad guy....oi) and try not to think too hard about exploding cars not drawing any attention. But really, the best part of the episode tended to be the one-liners and weird character interactions. It's charming, if nothing else.

So when last we left the crew, Jake was being shanghaied into being a cop, Leslie was fired, Mal and Rose went on vacation, Tinny headed over to England and Des was, well, being Des.

Now, six months later, Jake is being an...interesting cop ("You scared a police dog into retirement!"). Mal and Rose took one damn long vacation, not to mention bring back a hell of a lot of rum. Des is going to a fake university (Memorial University's southern campus. All right then). And, in what might be the single greatest story idea in the history of the show, they made Leslie the traffic cop on Prescott and Duckworth Street.

For non-townies, there is no cop there anymore. But there used to be. They got rid of it, oh, 15 years ago, which I always thought was remarkably stupid and short sighted by city council. But seeing Leslie deal with the drivers downtown and screaming at people for "barmping" their horns, that might have been her best moment in the history of the show. Anyway...

Oh yes, and no Tinny. We probably won't be lucky enough for that to last, but enjoy it while you can.

So yes, Jake is up to his usual things, which is causing trouble. Oh, and being assigned to cover a mob guy who has top secret information, conveniently in a big silver brief case handcuffed to him, which might implicate who murdered a federal officer. Meanwhile, Russell Crowe and Alan Doyle and the rest of the Merry Men (literally. They all starred in Robin Hood together) look on ominously. And scheme...

Thus begins the "For the love of God, don't think too hard about this" section of the show. It's Three's Company plotting when you start to. If only one character would show another character a lick of common sense and explain what's going on...but then, the show would have been about 30 minutes long. But yes, lots of fooling around, running around, smacking people in the face - and leg - plus a car chase involving the brief case and the secret discs they contain within.

As I said, entertaining, just for the love of God, don't divert any brainpower to it. That way lies madness.

As for Russell Crowe, well, I don't foresee any major acting awards for this roll. But, you know what, he looked perfectly comfortable as a guy hanging out in St. John's, with his buddies, having a bit of a lark. Which is what this episode was. Nothing wrong with it. Although they clearly spent all their money on blowing up a mini van and getting Crowe to star, which might explain his wardrobe.

And honestly, the guy who played Jimmy really stole the episode from everyone. He was pretty funny.

Oh yes, and that was quite the reset on the show in the last five minutes. Not really a surprise, but really, the last six months of Jake's life as a cop sounded like a lot of fun. More of watching Jake trying to be a cop, at least for a few episodes, would have been entertaining. Instead, back to square one. More or less. I guess we'll see what happens next. Although going from special guest star Russel Crowe to special guest star Shannon Tweed is surely one of the largest swings in acting quality ever seen on Canadian television. But I digress...

And now, the ever popular quotes of the week

"How's the vantage point now?" - Jake hanging Jimmy off the parking garage next to City Hall. Note to non-Newfoundlanders, our city hall really is that ugly.

"If Jake comes over, hide the rum." - Mal, showing good common sense.

"You scared a police dog into retirement!" - Copy guy, as part of the traditional "You're a disgrace to the badge, but we need you" speech required in all cop shows.

"You might be an arsehole and a disgrace to the badge, but I know you would never turn to the darkside." Cop guy, giving the Newfoundland version of the above speech. Also, if you took a shot for every time arse was said in this episode, you were well and truly hammered by the time the final credits rolled.

"You are technically my superior, but if you don't move on I will kick the shit out you." - Leslie, who has some entertaining anger management issues. Also, who knew you could say shit on a CBC show at 9 pm?

"Let's just say if there's corruption on the force, I can't seem to access it." - Jake

"I'm just saying, it's a bit cold. You can get me a sweater if you don't feel like turning up the heat." - Des, actually being amusing and not too annoying. And not scared at all while being grilled by the RNC (who could not have looked more stunned if they tried in this episode. Although the concept that the RNC has snipers and sniper rifles was one that put a cold chill down my spine).

"Nothing funnier than a bayman with a tan." - Jake to Mal

"Does this bag have nuts, because I'm allergic to nuts."
"Hey, me too!" - Des and Jimmy. I have the feeling Des might grow up to become Jimmy.

"You're a tad brighter than your son." - Russell Crowe's character, whose name escapes me.

"I'm half blind and jacked up on whisky and pain killers. Who am I supposed to be pointing this at again?" - Jimmy

"Good to see you again, dicksmack." - Alan Doyle. The CBC censor was apparently passed out from doing shots every time arse was said by this point.

"Do it again and I will douse you in lamp oil and make a tiki torch out of your scrotum." - Crowe. Which is a fairly awesome threat, really.

Anyway, back for more of the madness next week...

Last Five
1. Doesn't have to be this way - Allison Kruass and Union Station
2. Brackett, WI - Bon Iver
3. If there's a rocket tie me to it - Snow Patrol
4. Worried about - Lissie*
5. Katherine kiss me - Franz Ferdinand

Three things

2012-01-09T20:56:00.000-05:00

1. You may have noticed there are now five walruses in the header to the blog. Cathy very thoughtfully went and bought me a couple of walruses for Christmas. I know the little guys have had their fans in the past and I've gotten my share of emails asking where they might be able to buy them. Well, I haven't checked since Christmas, but I know before the holidays they had probably a dozen or so of them left at Malikkaat, an excellent local crafts store here in town (what with the walruses, the boots I bought for Cathy and a few other things for family, they did good business off us this season).

They don't have much of a website, but the basic contact information can be found here. They retail for around $150 if you're curious. Sometimes a bit more, depending on how big they are or if they have accessories (like a drum or hockey stick).

2. This story on a couple in their early 20s trying to navigate having a successful relationship while dealing with the fact that they both have Autism spectrum disorder would be a fascinating enough read on it's own. However, it's the correction at the very end of the story that's become the stuff of internet legend in the last few days. Go here to read about what's being called "the best NYT correction ever."

For that matter, read it and be impressed by the lengths the Times goes though to make sure they get the story right. I know the Times has taken a beating in recent years, accused of being "liberal" or some such foolishness. I just consider it to be a great newspaper.

3. I've put this up on Facebook and Twitter already, but this made me laugh. And given the near overwhelming urge to vomit or move to Mars one feels when looking at the Republican presidential debates, I think laughter is a good thing. Ladies and gentlemen, the Canada Party - America, But Better.

Last Five
1. Don't look back into the sun - The Libertines
2. Real world - Rob Thomas
3. Sea of love - Cat Power
4. Tender is the night - Jackson Browne*
5. Here it goes again - OK Go

Best of the year

2012-01-08T12:05:00.001-05:00

Clare complains that every time I do one of these lists, I inevitably lighten his wallet. Oh well...

No top 10 lists this year. I'm afraid I couldn't list 10 TV shows that I loved, or 10 books that I loved and so on and so forth. Instead, this is stuff I consumed this year and stayed with me until the end of the year. Some of it is a bit of a cheat, as it may have come out in previous years (this is especially true with graphic novels, which often reprint older material), but I tried to be as honest as I could with it.

So here we go, some of my favourites from 2011.

Books

Sadly, my offline reading habits have taken quite a beating in recent years. My glorious plans to read Steve Jobs biography, "The Hunger Games" and Neal Stephenson's new book "Reamde" ended with me getting about 50 pages into "Reamde". It's sitting on the table waiting for me to dive back into it.

But here are some books that I did manage to get though and like.

1. Life Itself, Roger Ebert - Not exactly a secret that I'm a huge admirer of Roger Ebert, so his autobiography was going to be something I snapped up. Despite a bit of a sluggish start, and the suspicion that Ebert is keeping some the truly awesome stories to himself as to not humiliate people still alive, it's a fascinating read. It made me wish I not only had a fraction of the man's writing ability, but also his memory, because the details when recalling events decades ago is astonishing.

2. Fables From the Fountain, Various - One of my favourite authors growing up was Arthur C. Clarke and my favourite book was Tales from the White Hart, a collection of tall tales of science. It was marvelous to think of scientist and writers sitting around an English pub trading stories and tall tales. About 50 years later comes this tribute to that book, with a different collection of writers and scientists telling stories of mysterious government facilities and the dangers of sex with dinosaurs. Funny, interesting and occasionally scary stuff.

3. The Wave, Susan Casey - Probably a cheat as I suspect it came out in 2010, but I read the ebook version this year. Alternately a story about surfers chasing the most insane waves in the world, and the greater occurance of rogue waves and the damage they cause, it's a fascinating read about the changes in the world, plus some pretty crazy people.

Graphic Novels
1. Fantastic Four Omnibus: John Byrne, Vol. 1 - I'm not even going to pretend this is for anyone other than me. For one thing, the bloody book is $140 (considerably cheaper on Chapters or Amazon, but still) and it's reprinting stories from 30 years ago. But for pure nostalgia value, it's hard to beat for me. The Fantastic Four was the first super hero comic I collected, and John Byrne's run is a classic. Even at the tender age of 12 I knew I was reading something different than the other comics I bought every month. Thirty years later it still holds up. Crisp, beautiful art and you can see Byrne's determination to drag greater complexity and maturity out of characters that had been stagnant for too long. Lovely stuff.

2. Stumptown, Rucka/Southworth - I'm a sucker for a good PI story and Rucka does them better than nearly anyone else in comics. Following the story of Dex Parios (Dex is short for Dexedrine, which should give you some idea of the character's upbringing) who is a great PI and a generally good person. Except for her crap luck in gambling, lousy taste in men (married) and her knack for getting beaten up a lot. It's a find a missing girl story with lots of meat, set in Portland. It drips atmosphere, menace and fun. It's also damn smart. Oh, and good on Oni Press for putting it together in a beautiful and reasonably priced ($30 US) hardcover.

3. Amelia Rules: The Meaning of Life and Other Stuff, Jimmy Gownley - I love Amelia Rules and have for years. I know it's supposed to be a "tween" book or some such thing. Except it's smarter than just about any other comic I read in the last year. Gownley can get messages across without being preachy and has a better ear for how kids "sound" than anybody else I've read lately. Oh yeah, and he's a phenomenally gifted cartoonist. Don't let the subject matter of a young girl growing up in rural Pennsylvania throw you...it really is one of the best books out there. I'm already counting down to the next book, coming out in August.

4. The Complete Battlefields, Vol. 2, Garth Ennis and artists - War comics are a fleeting breed and nobody writes them better than Ennis. Featuring three stories - Motherland, Happy Valley and The Firefly and His Majesty - Ennis brings out the personalities of the people going through World War 2. Oh yes, there's plenty of action, but really it's the characters who shine.

5. The Complete Milk and Cheese: Dairy Products Gone Bad, Evan Dorkin - Again, not really sure I can recommend this to everyone, but it always makes me laugh when I read it. It is, honest to God, the adventures of a carton of milk and a wedge of cheese ("a carton of hate and a wedge of spite") who go on violent rampages against whatever is annoying writer/artists Evan Dorkin that particularly day. Violently over the top and more than a little demented, it's still quite funny. And I'm willing to bet Milk and Cheese dish out some much needed punishment to some group you probably hate. Also, kudos to Dark Horse comics for putting together a beautiful looking hardcover book at a reasonable ($22 Can) price.

Television
1. Castle - Yes, Nathan Fillon should be filming the sixth season of Firefly now, but sadly he's not. And if he can't be doing that, then there are worse things to be doing that Castle. It entertains week in and week out, despite a silly premise (detective writer trails detective, they solve murders), and sexual chemistry going on too long (four seasons and counting). Because it is fun, the mysteries aren't bad and there's enough chemistry between the leads that you'll forgive the protracted courtship.

2. Fringe - Still the best sci-fi show on TV by a mile. It's not just that the individual stories of the week normally featuring some kind of science going horribly wrong are great, because they are. It's not just that the overall multiple earths story arc is holding together remarkable well, because it is. And it's not just because John Noble and Anna Torv put off acting clinics last year. It's because no show has as much heart, or the ability to break your heart with ease, on air right now.

3. Storage Wars - Everybody needs a bad habit tv program. One that you can't believe you actually sit down and watch this shit. Storage Wars is it for me. It really does say something about America. I'm not sure if it says anything particularly good about America, but it says something. Besides, you would be hard pressed to make up better characters than the ones in the show.

4. The Amazing Race - Because I've loved it for a long time, because I love watching Americans try and deal with the world out there and because nothing made me laugh harder last year than watching a former professional football player lose his shit cheering on a rabbit though a steeple chase course.

5. Sherlock - I'm not sure you can count three episodes totally about 4.5 hours as much of a TV show, but in terms of quality over quantity, then Sherlock wins hands down. Benedict Cumberbatch is the best Sherlock Holmes in many years (certainly better than Robert Downey's) and normally setting Sherlock in a modern setting is a recipe for disaster. But with some hellaciously smart writing and a fantastic and smart sense of humour, the show works. Season 2 is airing on the BBC right now, but not in Canada until May. I'm resisting the urge to download episodes now. I'm holding out so far. Barely.

6. Honourable mentions - Chuck (the last half of season 4 was fantastic, the first half of season 5 was wretched), Person of Interest (when it's good, it's fantastic, when it's not, it's unwatchable), Republic of Doyle (1/3 of the season was great, 1/3 average, 1/3 awful. Figure out some consistency please. Oh, and write the women in the show better).

Music
1. Live at the Royal Albert Hall, Adele - Look, I know some of you are getting tired of Adele, as massively overplayed as she is. But you have to accept the reality that she has the best voice in music right now, that "Rolling in the Deep" may well be on the only song from 2011 still being played on radio (or whatever) in 2031 because it is that damn good. Plus, she's hilarious. This live concert DVD/CD is a gem.

2. El Camino, The Black Key - Considering it feels very much like rock and roll is dying, or at least on commercial radio (good-bye OZ-FM, rock of the rock, hello Top 40), it's nice to see that The Black Key are going to go down with a fight. Plus, they publicly talk about how much Nickelback sucks. Give them your money.

3. Ceremonials, Florence and the Machine - Adele has the best voice in music, but Florence Welch is right up there. But where Adele feels intimate and confessional, Florence feels...cinematic. It feels bigger. Plus, she's a bit more daring in trying different things than Adele. Regardless, a fantastic album.

4. Seeds, Hey Rosetta! - I understand instrumental rock is not everyone's cup of tea. Hell, I can't get into Broken Social Scene at all and Hey Rosetta! gets compared to them from time to time. But whereas I feel BSS feels entirely too much like wankery (look at what awesome musicians we are!) Hey Rosetta! always feels fun. There's an energy there that puts a smile on my face.

5. Lights of Endangered Species, Matthew Good - If you want meticulously crafted rock music by a man who always sounds like he's on the verge of doing some serious harm to himself or someone else, it's hard to beat Matthew Good. It's not his best album, but it's still better than just about anything else that came out of Canada this year.

6. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, S/T - As long as Noel Gallagher keeps putting out records like this I could honestly give a shit if Oasis puts out another record. "The Death of You and Me" was a better single than anything Oasis has put out in more than 10 years. Considering Liam Gallagher's album with the band Beady Eye left me indifferent, it's no problem to figure out where the talent in the band lay.

7. How to Become Clairvoyant, Robbie Robertson - His last couple of albums, lo those many years ago, made me wonder if he wasn't just done. When I heard he had a new one coming out, I remained pretty skeptical. Until I heard "When the night was young". Then I relaxed. It's not as good as Storyville, but it's in the ballpark. And considering Storyville is one of my all time favourite albums, then that makes this one pretty damn good.

8. Ashes and Fire, Ryan Adams - There's little doubt Adams is a musical genius. His problems included knowing he was a musical genius, being an asshole and not realizing that the world didn't need to hear everything he ever produced. But Ashes and Fire is his first record in years, he's mellowed out considerably and the result is just a finely crafted record that calls back to Gold and Heartbreaker, when he took some time with his craft. As long as he keeps putting out records like this, he can take as much time as he wants.

9. Man of the Year, Sean Panting - I'm always going to like Sean's music unless he screws up totally. Not even close to a screw up, just more excellent pop/rock from one of the best, and most underrated, lyricists in Newfoundland.

10. Bad as me, Tom Waits - Not everything that Waits produces is entirely listenable, but this is just good stomping fun. Cathy hates his voice, but I love it. Unlike other singers whose voices are autotuned into generic trash, Waits is a finely abused instrument of destruction. There's character there. The fact he's also a brilliant lyricist and can craft a song that can make you laugh and break your heart all in 30 seconds, well, those are rare treasures.

Movies
I'm holding off for a few weeks. Because of the way Astro Theatres works, there's a ton of movies right now I want to see that haven't made it here yet. So until they stagger into the local theatre over the next month or two, I'll reserve judgement on the movies.

Last Five
1. God only knows - The Beach Boys*
2. Crazy love - Paul Simon
3. National steel - Kathleen Edwards
4. Cry on demand - Ryan Adams
5. You know you're right - Nirvana

Republican reality show

2012-01-04T23:56:00.000-05:00

I really ought to be getting more enjoyment out of the Republican presidential nomination process happening the United States right now. Few countries in the world can match the US for pure political spectacle and the Republican battle is like the cheesiest reality program TLC or A&E could dream up.

Except, of course, you get the cold, hard splash of reality that comes with the realization that one of these idiots could actually be the next most powerful person in the world. Only three of them - Romney, Huntsman and Paul - are fit to hold public office, let alone becomes the next president.

When Michelle Bachman announced she was dropping out this morning, there was great cackling glee on Twitter and other sites. I breathed a sigh of relief. The way the nomination had been going so far is that each of these lunatics have had their moment to spike in the polls and shine in the sun before crashing down to earth. They were getting close to running out of candidates. I was afraid they might loop back and start all over again, giving Bachman that boost she had late last summer.

I truly believe Bachman might be mentally ill. Remember the crazed character Martin Sheen played in The Dead Zone who one day became president and then started a nuclear war? Stick a dress on him and you have Bachman.

Perry had the dubious distinction of making George W. Bush look like a smart man from Texas. Gingrich is the kind of bully you always hated in school, all grown up. And I understand Paul has his following. Andrew Sullivan, who I respect tremendously, endorsed him. Doesn't mean he's right. I think he would be just as destructive as president of the United States as a Perry or a Gingrich, just in different ways.

As for the current favourite of the Christian right, Santorum is the kind of hypocritical and vile bigot that you would hope that if there is an afterlife that he was a very warm, and pointy, future waiting for him when he gets there.

So there you go. Huntsman is a lost cause, despite looking reasonably sane, because he's apparently one more Mormon than Republican can stomach. Oh yes, and he worked for Obama as an ambassador to China, so clearly he's evil.

So we have Mitt Romney. Who will win the nomination. The rest of the process is just smoke and mirrors to feed the political entertainment industry. And then he'll lose. Why? Because he's the John Kerry of the Republican party. A bland man from New England, with too many flip flops in his background, faced with a president with a machine in place, ready and waiting for him, to destroy him in November. And since the religious wing has been desperately trying to find something...anything to replace him, I suspect most of them will stay home and try their luck again in four years, rather than support Romney. I suspect it's easier to hate Obama for another four years than to stomach Romney for the same period of time.

Let's put it this way, in 2008 Obama beat a very hungry Hilary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and John McCain looking for his last shot at glory. At no point can you convince me that Romney is a scarier threat than either of those two. Nobody, outside of his family, loves Romney. He's just kind of...there. Just like Kerry.

Unless the economy goes catastrophically bad, and pray that it doesn't on the off-chance one of the non-Romney/Huntsman lunatics manages to steal the nomination, Obama is going to win this fairly easily.

The rest is political theatre and entertainment. Don't forget, the money isn't just in the candidates, it's also in the process of covering them. Not much money to be made unless it's "The most important election in American history!" It won't be and it's not.

November feels a very, very long ways away...

Last Five
1. Wheat kings - The Tragically Hip
2. The plains/bitter dancer - Fleet Foxes
3. Racing in the streets - Bruce Springsteen
4. Wolves - Josh Ritter
5. Pickin' it up - Hot Hot Heat*

Waking up

2012-01-01T15:20:00.001-05:00

I suppose the simplest thing would have been to just let the blog do the same thing as so many other blogs....just quietly waste away. The number of blogs that have started and died certainly far outnumber the ones still going. And I'm sure there will be a time when this blog will close up shop. But I like to think I'll actually announce it, rather than just stop writing for the blog and have people wonder what's going on.

Plus, there are a few other things...my work situation has...changed, which I may or may not get into. Regardless, I don't think I'm going to be doing as much writing with the current job. So I might as well use the blog as an outlet again. Plus, I'm hoping the new job allows me a little more freedom to discuss political matters, which I haven't had in quite some time.

And finally, this story tweaked a little something in me. I'm not going to claim I was Christopher Hitchens biggest fan. I don't own any of his books, although I read a lot of his articles especially since he was diagnosed with cancer. It was in this story, where Ian McEwan spoke about visiting his friend, watching his mind at work, and desperately trying to finish a piece of G.K. Chesterton before hitting up on the ultimate deadline...

...I'm just saying, if reading that doesn't put all of your excuses about why you're not writing into perspective, then nothing will. The man was half out of his mind with pain, and the other half under the influence of morphine to deal with the pain. And yet he kept writing.

I'm no Hitchens, not even close. The man was a singular intellect and writer. But if he could keep writing while nearly dead, then I have no excuse to pick up writing again. It's just laziness. So onwards.

I'm not going to try and write something every day, but I will try and manage at least three times a week. I'm also going to take another look at my much maligned and abandoned novel. I spoke with a friend of mine about it in October, who is a better writer than I am, and he gave me the succinct advice that was needed - cut the last three to four chapters that aren't working and start all over again, from scratch. That's a massive pain in the ass, because there's some decent stuff in there. But as better writers than I have said, writing is all about murdering your babies. It might be fun, but if it's not working, then it has to go.

Anyway, there will be stuff coming up - what's happened the last four months, a review of the Harry Potter series (I just finished a marathon of all eight movies), my favourite things of 2011 and anything else I can think of.

Last Five
1. Bad reputation - The Hit Girls
2. You wouldn't like me - Tegan and Sara*
3. Can't buy me love - The Beatles
4. Rattling locks - Josh Ritter
5. Does he love you - Rilo Kiley

Next year

2011-12-04T23:04:00.000-05:00

I've debated what I'm going to do with this blog. It's currently sitting here like a rather uncomfortable blob, not doing much. People keep coming by and poking it with a stick, but typical of most blobs, it's not doing much, so they kind of shuffle away.

It's not dead, although evidence is obviously quite to the contrary given how long it's been since I've posted. I've decided to give it one last try, starting in January. We're going to relaunch with a plan. And if it doesn't work, well, I'll let you know if the blog is resembling Norwegian parrot so you don't have to keep coming back and asking what's happening.

So, January or bust. Tune in and see if I can pull a rabbit out of my hat.

Little things

2011-09-20T23:56:00.000-04:00

I don't have anything particularly profound to say about the Newfoundland election yet or a seat prediction. I could pick apart the different policy platforms of the parties, but others are already doing a good job of that. Although I am pleased that the one common thread is that party's seem to be going through great pains to explain exactly how they're going to pay for the promises they're making. You can argue whether or not if they're dreaming in technicolour, but I'm at least glad to see the debate happening.

People in the province have, for way too many years, just gobbled down hook, line and sinker whatever politicians promised about how we're going to do all these wonderful things for you - more teachers, more doctors, pave all your roads - but have always failed to mention how they were going to pay for all of that. We're all in a reality where promising to do stuff isn't enough anymore....how you're going to pay for it and is that the best way to spend that money is also important.

As for the rest, well, I remain slightly shocked the NDP are ahead of the Liberals in the polls. But percentages mean nothing in this race. If the NDP is going to have a shot, I think they're going to have to run a smooth, smart campaign, focus where they can win and pray for a late breaking wave like what happened federally and steal a bunch of seats in the St. John's metro area.

Having said that, they're still making some amateur hour mistakes. They launched their campaign on Monday near a construction zone. Yes, I understand you're try to make a point about housing for seniors, but make it in a quieter place. TV and radio reporters are important, and they have special needs. When you're staging your press event or media availability, you have to take these things into account.

So noise on Monday was a problem. Doing a policy release at 3 pm, which is deathly close to deadline for TV reporters (it was later bumped back to 1:30), having an event inside but not providing an audio system or lights for camera crews, producing a sign for the event that someone running for class president in junior high wouldn't use...

It's stupid little stuff like that which will kill you in a three week election campaign. It makes you look amateurish, which will eventually show up in the coverage. This election is all about showing the NDP are ready for prime time. Well, time to start acting like a professional campaign.

As for the Liberals, the only thing that jumped out at me is that perhaps when launching a campaign focussing on rural Newfoundland, doing it from St. John's is not the best way to do it. If you absolutely need to do it in St. John's because you want access to the town media, then at least go to Petty Harbour or Portugal Cove or something. Better still, launch it out on the west coast or something. Not exactly a stroke of genius there...

I haven't seen any bonehead stuff from the PCs yet, or complaints from reporters covering the campaign. Which means so far they are running a conservative, smart, straight forward campaign. Which is what you would expect. This is theirs to lose and they know it.

It's early days yet, so we'll see how it goes. But so far, I think it's pretty much going as expected. Which is to say, kind of boring.

Last Five
All from "Patton Oswalt's Finest Hour"

Free tuition is a dumbass idea

2011-09-15T22:10:00.000-04:00

With the provincial election getting ready to kick into gear back in Newfoundland, I am perking up a little more about what's being said. Yes, there is this minor patronage controversy, but I honestly think no one will give a shit about this. It's not going to swing any votes. It's the type of controversy only reporters and political junkies really care about.

Having said that, the notion of free tuition, as proposed by the Newfoundland and Labrador chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students or bringing back student grants as proposed by the NDP, certainly caught my eye.

Mainly because they're both pretty stupid.

I have some knowledge about this as I was involved in student politics for awhile in the mid-90s, including serving on the CFS national board of directors for about six months until I came to my senses. Look, I know CFS is a lobby organization and there's a provincial election happening. So yes, they're going to lobby the parties to try and get things that will benefit students. I understand that. It's their job.

But free tuition is what you want to shoot your load on?

OK, first thing first. The poll saying 80 per cent of people support free tuition is bullshit. I'm sure 80 per cent do. I'm also willing to bet you would get similar numbers if you poll people if they want magical fairies to arrive at their house and perform oral sex on them. Ms. McCormick argues this means Newfoundlanders want this. But I wonder if the poll asked what priority Newfoundlanders place on getting free university tuition. I'm betting it's not even in the top 10.

Free tuition has always been a dumb idea. And don't point to Europe because what works there doesn't mean it will work in North America. I am absolutely convinced free tuition would be abused and a post secondary education would not be taken as seriously as it should be. I know people who dropped $20,000 in student loans and still spent most of their time in university fucking around and didn't even graduate. Hell, my last two years at MUN, where I was spending my own money, was essentially me screwing around because I was having to much fun at the Muse and I had a girlfriend I didn't want to leave behind when I graduated. Now if people are willing to waste their own money, or money they're going to have to pay back, imagine what they'll be like with free money thrown at tuition.

Free tuition will not help produce more quality graduates in Newfoundland, which ought to be the goal. It'll get more people in university, but that doesn't mean they'll graduate, and it doesn't mean you'll get a more educated workforce.

Why CFS is choosing to focus on this, instead of improving the quality of education, or working on forgiveness after graduation, which are both achievable goals, is beyond me. You keep your powder dry for an election, and this foolishness is what you choose to blow it on. Dumb.

As for the NDP and grants....sigh...Grants were a mess back in the early 90s when they were finally phased out. I'll bet they would be the same now.

Because I think you should try and offer up some solutions rather than just shooting down other peoples...here's my idea.

If you complete your degree in a reasonable manner (a four year degree should be done in no more than five years barring medical/family crisis) then you get a percentage of the money spent on tuition refunded to you. This happens if you're on student loans or not. There's no reason why if you manage to pay your own tuition and get through university that you shouldn't get the same breaks that someone who pays for their education through loans. Let's say a one-third tuition rebate.

There you go...you have a tuition freeze right now. Tie any future increases into the projected inflation rate over a five year period so students can budget how much tuition will go up while they're at university. You get a refund upon the timely completion of your university degree. You have student loans to assist while going to university. By god, if you can't get a university degree and manage your debt upon graduation reasonably with all those breaks, then they should probably take the degree back from you.

Last Five
1. Hey Jude - The Beatles*
2. So distant - Matt Mays
3. I'll cry instead - The Beatles
4. Fully completely - The Tragically Hip
5. Three sunrises (live) - U2

Boats

2011-09-05T15:48:00.003-04:00

It's September, which means the last parts of summer for people in southern climates. In Iqaluit, fall is now in full force and we got a reminder the weekend that fall is basically a very brief concept. Let's take a look at the view greeting me today as I was walking the dog.

Yeah, that's snow on the hills across the bay. Happened over the weekend, which is pretty depressing, but welcome to the north. Actually, if you look closely, you can see a tiny spec on the bay...

Which is clearly a sailing vessel of some kind. Seeing a boat with a sail on it is a pretty unusual site in Iqaluit at the best of times, but in early September, well, I think the crew is starting to push their luck a bit being in the kind of vessel, that far north at this time of the year. It was a pretty miserable weekend anyway, with lots of high winds and cold.

Which probably didn't make it that much fun for the guests on this vessel either.

Yeah, a cruise ship came into the bay on Saturday, although I didn't see her offload any passengers until Sunday. Not the best weekend in the world up here for visitors. This time last year we were berry picking in our t-shirts. This year we had to turn on the space heater in the living room on Saturday to break the chill in the house.

A friend of mine is convinced we're going to have a brutal winter this year to make up for the easy one we got through. Last year it was raining at Christmas and the bay didn't freeze until January of this year, which is easily two months later than normal. Karma being what it is, he's convinced this year will be punishment.

I kind of hope that he's wrong about that. If for no other reason than I've checked the boating schedule and it appears our sealift boat won't be getting into Iqaluit until October 4th at the earliest. It's possible we won't receive out order until as late as October 17th. Which would mean unloading that box with snow on the ground and it being possibly very cold.

So if we could have another of those weather hiccups this year, at least until November, that would be awesome.

Last Five
1. The river in reverse - Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint
2. Last night of the world (live) - Bruce Cockburn
3. Munich - Editors
4. Fire on the mountain - Rob Thomas
5. Ion square - Bloc Party

Rationing

2011-08-30T23:55:00.000-04:00

So yes, I did the post about Moving to Iqaluit the other day and I certainly could have did an update yesterday. And it would have been "strange things are going to happen in Iqaluit. You might as well start getting zen with it now."

Monday's bit of weirdness was over power. In order for there to be power in Iqaluit a number of generators are needed. They also require a lot of work because most of them are old. As it happens one of the generators was down for maintenance work. Which would make it a phenomenally bad time for the main generator in town to have a little meltdown. Which is none the less what happened yesterday.

So the city was suddenly face with the problem of having a substantial energy demand and not enough working generators to meet that demand. Now, in Toronto maybe you rush out to the warehouse and get the part you need to make the main generator work. Or perhaps you put a call out and the part arrives on a special charter a few hours later.

This is Iqaluit. Things don't really work that way. So in order to get the part needed, the power corp. was talking about it taking a few days. Full power might not be back until Wednesday. Which, in Nunavut speak, probably meant Thursday. So this meant power rationing. The company issued a press release outlining a schedule where one part of the town would get power for four hours, the other part wouldn't. The exceptions were the hospital and the airport.

So immediately madness sets in around town. Work schedules go out the window because most businesses and offices had to close if there was not power. Stores are trying to figure out to open so that people can buy supplies, but make sure their produce doesn't go bad.

Oddly, there was a lot of griping online about not being able to get a cup of coffee. Oh, and water supplies got weird around town as well. For example, we couldn't do anything with water without power. We needed electricity for our water pump to work. So, full tank of water, no way to really to get it to where we needed it to go.

So yeah, it was shaping up to be an interesting and dramatic few days. I figured people were going to start gnawing on each other's bones if power wasn't restored by Wednesday. Nothing like not having a regular source of power to make people really unhappy.

Fortunately we got a little miracle around 8 pm last night. They got the generator down for maintenance up and working again. So there's power, although I suspect it's been hanging by a string the last 24 hours. They're begging people to be careful with power.

So all is right in the universe at this moment. And it could have been worse...the power went out in August. If it had gone out in February, people would have taken to burning their neighbours for warmth.

Anyway, these things happen from time to time. So consider it one more thing to mentally prepare yourself for if considering a life in the arctic.

Last Five
1. Ball and biscuit - The White Stripes*
2. Sunny came home - Shawn Colvin
3. Longest time - Billy Joel
4. Spike (live) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5. Your ex-lover is dead - Stars

Moving to Iqaluit FAQ, v 4.0

2011-08-28T21:13:00.002-04:00

Towards the end of 2008 I wrote a post called "Moving to Iqaluit FAQ". I did it because I thought I had a bit of knowledge to share having done this myself and having lived up here a few years.

Since then it's become the most read post on my blog. It's to the point that I know some locals give out the link to people thinking of moving here because they think it's the best resource available. I still get messages left there thanking me for the information and I've had several people email me to thank me for the post and to ask follow-up questions. Which is both very cool and quite gratifying to know it's helped people.

This is the fourth version of this post. I keep updating because information keeps changing and people keep coming up with new questions. Once again, if you can think of anything I've missed, please add it in the comments section. And if I've missed something or get something wrong, then I beg you indulgence.

The biggest change this year is that I’ve reorganized how things are laid out. Rather than listing the questions and answers as they occur to me, I’ve put them into categories. Hopefully this should make finding the information you’re looking for a bit easier. I'm also adding some pictures, so you can get an idea of what Iqaluit looks like during different times of the year.

And, as always, if you speak to someone who has lived here for 20 odd years and what they're saying contradicts what I'm saying, I'd go with them.

Iqaluit – What is it like?

Should I move to Iqaluit?
Answer. Why not? There are certainly challenges to living here, but there are perks and advantages as well. It's a nice place to live, there's a good sense of community and the place is growing quickly. It's a lot different now than what it was even six years ago. The challenges, however, are a bit different than what you might find in other cities in Canada.

So what are the main challenges?
Answer. There are 5 things, right off the top, you need to know.

A. It's cold up here. No kidding, but people still fail to take it seriously sometimes. I've seen people walk off planes in February wearing a leather jacket, which is insane. The coldest I've experienced is -62C with windchill. Every day you get warmer than -30 from December 1 to April 30 is a gift. So make sure when you come up here you have the proper winter gear. More on that later.

B. The daylight up here can mess with your mind. It doesn't get completely dark in the winter, but during the darkest part of the year, you're only looking about six hours of daylight. During the summer, the sun does set, but it never gets truly dark. All that daylight can mess with people as much as all that darkness. So if you are sensitive to these things, take it into account. The darkness can make people tired, cranky and depressed. All the daylight can make people wired insomniacs.

C. Things are expensive. A case of a dozen Pepsi is about $15. A large bag of chips is $6. A smallish honeydew is about $10. Gas is about $1.30 a litre. A mechanic will run about $100 an hour. A return plane ticket from Iqaluit to Ottawa costs about $1,600. There is that shock the first time you walk into Arctic Ventures or North Mart. But odds are you're making good money working up here anyway. And there are ways to save some money on food. More on that in a minute.

D. The amenities you're used to in the south are likely not here. There is no Wal-Mart. There is no mall. There is no book store (but there is a library). There is no full time vet. So if you like those things, well, you're going to have to adjust or reconsider coming here. However, we now have a Tim Hortons so, you know, all is right in the universe.

E. You are isolated. There are only two ways out of town - boat and plane. You're not getting to another city by skidoo. And the bay is frozen seven to eight months of the year. So airplane it is. Montreal and Ottawa are three hours away by plane and a normal ticket these days is $1,600. There are seat sales, but even then, a ticket is still around $1,200. So unless you're rich or work with the airlines (who give huge discounts to employees), you're not popping down to Ottawa for the weekend.

And the good things are?
Answer. There's a nice sense of community. For a small city (forget Stats Canada estimated of 6,400, the population is between 7,000 and 7,500) there's a decent arts scene. If you love the outdoors and can't stand cities anyway, then there's a lot to be said for Iqaluit. Hop on a skidoo for 15 minutes and you're in the middle of nowhere. It's a growing community and there are lots of opportunity.

Do you like it up there?
Answer. We still wouldn't be here if we didn't. That's not a flippant answer either. The one thing about Iqaluit is that you will know within a couple of months if you're going to like it here. There are people who only came up for a few months and 20 years later are still here. And there are people who come up for 1 year contracts and don't last three months.

We like it here. We're comfortable and happy and we've bought a house and a new car. We came up here with a five-year plan that would have taken us to 2010. We're now into our second five-year plan. We have friends, we like our jobs, we're paid well, the cold doesn't bother us much (unless it gets silly cold, like -50C or so) and we're comfortable. We have more freedom to live and do things we want by living in Iqaluit than if we had stayed in Newfoundland.

Getting Here

What airlines fly here and what’s the difference between them, if any?
Answer. There are currently two airlines operating into Iqaluit from Ottawa - First Air and Canadian North have operated up here for years. A third, Air Canada Jazz, used to fly here, but pulled out in August, 2011.

Idiotically, both arrive and leave at virtually the same time, so there's no real benefit of picking one of the other in terms of timing.

You can use Aeroplan point to book tickets out on the airlines. However, be aware that they do heavily restrict the number of seats on each flight. I think it’s no more than four. So if you’re going to use Aeroplan, off-peak and in the middle of the week would be your best bet. On the upside, an Aeroplan ticket to Ottawa can be had for as low as 15,000 points, which is a steal considering how much a ticket can cost. It’s one of the reasons why Air Canada pulled out – no one was buying tickets, they were all using Aeroplan.

The prices are obviously very expensive, but there are perks. For one thing, both airlines feed you, which is nice. And they do have one very good thing that you should feel free to ruthlessly take advantage of – luggage. Each passenger gets two bags with a 70 pound limit. It’s $50 a bag after that. I’ve personally traveled up here with five bags before – So that’s 210 extra pounds of personal belongings for $150, which is a lot better than trying to mail things up.

Obviously this depends on you being able to do this from Ottawa. If you’re flying from Winnipeg first, for example, then you’re going to have issues. Also, there’s no guarantee all your bags will come up on the same flight. It’s might take a day or two for them all to come up. Still, if you need to take a lot of things, you should take advantage of this.

Getting Around

Do I need a car?
Answer. It wouldn't hurt. Iqaluit is a bit of a sprawl and it's hilly. You can certainly get around walking, but when it's -50C, ask yourself how much walking you really want to be doing. There are no buses, but there are taxis, which run at a flat rate of $6 per person. Taxis will stop for multiple people, so don't be surprised if you're sharing a cab with three or four people.

Also, a car might not be the best thing for you. Snowmobiles and ATVs operate freely within the city limits. You might want to consider one of those if you plan on travelling out on the land a lot.

How can I get one?
Answer. You can buy new and used cars up here. For example, Driving Force is now selling Ford (mostly Edge and Escape), GM (mostly Terrain and Equinox) and Suzuki (Grand Vitara's, I believe). They do the warranty work on those vehicles, which is a big advantage. For example, we bought a Chevy Equinox this year. We paid more than we would have if we had bought it down south, but between the hassles of licensing and getting it shipped up north, I figure it was worth a few extra dollars. We had been looking at a Suburu Forrester, but they don't have anyone to do warranty work. Something goes wrong, even under warranty, you're on your own.

There are also plenty of posters kicking around offering ones for sale. The best time for buying one tends to be around June, when people are most likely to move south (end of the school year). Or you can buy one down south and ship it up. This will cost at least $1,500 and probably more, depending on the size of the vehicle. Make sure you have a block heater, a battery blanket and remote starter installed. Vehicles are normally shipped up on the sealift out of Montreal.

Normally I would say a 4x4 with a bit of ground clearance would be a good option because of the number of dirt roads. However, a nice chunk of Iqaluit was paved during the summer of 2009, so the roads should be much better now. However, I suspect 50% of the community's roads are still dirt and the potholes during spring (ie. June) can be huge.

Also remember that this level of cold is hard on vehicles. Get used to being friends with your local mechanic and get used to the idea of large bills for simple things. For example, an oil change, which you can get done in Wal-Mart down south for about $25 will likely cost about $100 or so here.

There are insurance companies that operate in town. Try Nunavut Insurance, for example. I believe Royal Bank also does insurance. Motor Vehicle registration is located in Inuksugait Plaza. Vehicle registration is some insanely low price like $40 a year. However, they do not send out reminders, so it's up to you to notice when your vehicle registration has expired. Local Bylaw lives to pull over people who have not updated their plates.

Food and Supplies

What's a sealift?
Answer. The sealift runs from approximately June until November each year, which is when there is no or little ice in the bay. Boats run up all kinds of supplies and if you wish you can ship things up this way. Furniture, cars, building supplies and food just to name a few. Many people in town take advantage of the sealift to ship up a year's supply of dried goods. It's a way to save some money by buying in bulk. There are a number of businesses that will help you with that. For example there is Northmart or I Shop 4 U. If you want to go and buy all your supplies yourself in Ottawa, TSC can help you ship it up.

The sealift is also interesting to watch. There are no real port facilities in town and the tides can vary by as much as 10 metres. That means the vessels anchors out in the bay and, at high tide, barges run back and forth between the vessel and the beach. It's a bit odd to watch.

I'm a vegetarian. Can I still be one in Iqaluit?
Answer. Yes, but it will be a bit more expensive. Both North Mart and Arctic Ventures get fresh produce in on a regular basis and both cater a bit to vegetarians by offering some soy and veggie foods. Fresh produce is expensive, but after awhile you'll learn to ignore it. There is also Food Mail, which can help out.

What's Food Mail?
Answer. Recognizing that healthy, fresh food can be a expensive in the North, there is a program in which healthy food can be shipped up from down south at a subsidized rate. Significant changes to the Food Mail program are currently in progress. Previously Canada Post ran the program, but earlier in 2010 the federal government announced changes. Rather than explain at length what those changes are, go to this website which should be able to answer most of your questions.

Let’s just say that Nutrition North Canada is controversial and not beloved by everybody in the North (do a Google News search). Food security is a big issue up here that people take very seriously. I suspect there will be more changes and tweaks to the program before all is said and done.

How much would I spend in groceries a month?
Answer. No idea. There are a whole host of factors that would play into that. How much food you need, how many are in your family, if you did a sealift….

Cathy and I spend around $150-$200 a week. This is mostly for bread, fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and other perishables. We get most of our dried goods from the sealift, so we rarely buy cereal, pasta, sauces, soft drinks, etc.

Also, there does come a point when you’ve been up here long enough that you cease noticing the prices. There are only so many places in town you can buy groceries and you have to eat. Odds are you’re being paid well. So you buy what you need and try not to think about how much it costs.

Are there things I really need to bring with me before coming up?
Answer. You can actually get most things you need either in Iqaluit or by ordering online. There are also good yard sales, especially in the spring, from people selling things as they head south. Also, Iqaluit Sell/Swap on Facebook has become huge in the last few months. You have to ask to sign up to the group and I wouldn’t recommend doing it until you move here, but you can find all kinds of items for sale there.

However, I recommend buying your cold weather gear down south if possible. It is expensive up here. And buy proper warm weather gear. What will get you through a Newfoundland winter, for example, won't cut it up here. Get coats, boots and gloves that are rated for temperatures around -70C. And your coat's hood should be fur trimmed. It makes a huge difference in keeping your face warm. Also get the proper boots and gloves, although I recommend getting a nice pair of fur mittens once you get here.

Clothes selection is somewhat limited, but you can order online. People will quickly give you their recommended sites for order, but we've ordered from Eddie Bauer, Land's End, Tilley and l.l. bean with no problems. Furniture is also expensive, but you have to weigh that against the cost of shipping it up. Be careful shipping anything with glass in it up here, as glass tends to not travel well. The Source is here if you need electronics, although items are more expensive than if you bought it down south.

I would bring enough entertainment to keep you amused for a few months until you get settled in. So if you like video games, bring them along. If you like books, bring some of your favourites. If you like movies, bring some of your favourite DVDs.

We brought plants with us up here, which was silly because stores sell plants. We brought lots of books, which was silly because there's a perfectly good library here. Not to mention Chapters and Amazon offer free shipping over $25. Whatever you don't take with you, odds are you can get it here or get it sent to you.

Bring an open mind. It helps. Iqaluit is about 60% Inuit, 40% non-Inuit (and of those, most are Newfoundlanders, Quebecois and Ontarians). It's a different culture and way of life.

Finally, bring your patience. No kidding, things operate at a different speed up here. This is still a growing, developing territory and government. Things work at a slower pace. If you want things done right now a lot, you will lose your mind because it's not happening.

Employment

How easy is it to get a job in Iqaluit?
Answer. Depends. Crappy answer, but it depends on your skills. If you're a nurse or doctor, you will be welcomed with a ticker tape parade. If you're curious about the jobs available go to the Government of Nunavut site, Nunatsiaq News or News North.

It's also worth remembering that some places, and I'm thinking specifically of the Government of Nunavut (everyone calls it the GN), but others follow it as well, having hiring priority procedures in place. For example, with the GN, land claim beneficiaries get first crack at all jobs. If no one is qualified in that "first tier" then the next tier is long-term northerner (ie. people who have lived in Nunavut for at least one year) and then it's pretty much everyone else. So just because you see a job that you think you're really qualified for it, don't believe you're a lock for it and don't get discouraged.

Some jobs will come with perks, such as relocation costs being covered, air fare, housing, etc. It never hurts to ask, but don't go in expecting all of these things. There are still plenty of positions that need to be filled, but they're not scrambling quite so hard to fill everything these days.

Housing and Utilities

How hard is it to find housing?
Answer. Again, depends. If you get a job with the federal government, then odds are they provide it for you. If you get one with the GN then some jobs come with housing. Remember it's easier to get housing if it's just you or your spouse. When you start involving kids, pets, etc, it gets that much harder to find housing. Still, these position will give you a house/apartment and rent will be deducted from your check, but the GN does pay for a portion of it.

Also, the GN is increasingly getting into offering a housing subsidy. What does this mean? It means they won't find you a place to live, but they will give you $400 per family towards rent or a mortgage. Go here if you want to learn more. Please make sure which they are offering you, as I've had some emails express confusion.

If you're coming up here to work on construction sites or with a local business, odds are they're not giving you housing. Which means you have to find it on your own. A small, one-bedroom apartment will set you back roughly $1,700 a month. A 2-bedroom apartment cannot be found for under $2,000. Check Northern Properties and Nunastar for some of the rental proprieties available. Iqaluit Online lists some of the proprieties for sale, among other things. You can also try Used Iqaluit.

Could I just buy a house?
Answer. Sure. In fact, we bought ours in December of 2009. Average house price is around $375,000 for a three bedroom house. There is only one real estate agent in town, John Matthews. You can reach him at 867-979-1343 (he has no website). A lot of houses are private sales, which means either finding them online or, just as often, wandering around town and reading the bulletin boards.

Housing in Iqaluit also has some issues you may not encounter elsewhere. All houses are built on stilts due to shifting permafrost. Some may find the idea of a house with about 10 feet of open space between it and the ground...disconcerting. Not all houses are on water and sewer, which means trucked water. There are land leases to deal with. I wouldn't recommend buying a house when first moving up here. It's really a move after you've been here a few years first.

Are there banks in town?
Answer. CIBC, Royal Bank and First Nations all have branches with ATMs in town.

Is there high speed internet service in town?
Answer. Yes...sorta. It's very slow high speed, certainly slower than what you're likely used to down south. Northwestel and Qiniq both offer internet. Keep in mind that it is expensive. In the summer of 2010 NorthwesTel changed their internet.

Their High Speed Iqaluit Classic service gets you download speed of 768kbps, upload speed of 256kbps, 2 e-mail addresses, 5GB usage cap ($25 per GB of additional usage, charged in 0.0001 GB increments). Their High Speed Iqaluit Ultra includes the following features: Download speed of 1.5mbps, upload speed of 384kbps, 5 e-mail addresses and 10GB usage cap ($25 per GB of additional usage, charged in 0.0001 GB increments). That goes for $120/month. By the way, those are...optimistic speeds. Don't be the least bit surprised if you come nowhere near them. Bitching about NorthwesTel is practically a recreational activity.

I also cannot emphasize this strong enough - watch your usage per month. NWTel are not kidding around with that cap. I've heard too many horror stories about people coming up here, not knowing about the cap and downloading all their movies, TV shows, music and whatnot and running up an internet bill into the hundreds. 10 gigs goes by quick. As someone who has blown his cap more than once, trust me on this.

Qiniq is around $60 a month with a cap around 2 gigs. I know very few people in Iqaluit who use Qiniq. They mostly serve other Nunavut communities that NWTel does not deal with.

Also, there is Xplornet, which you can ask about at the Source. Go here for more information online. It's a dish attached to the side of your building. We switched to this in May of 2010 after being frustrated with NWTel. It is not for everyone. It involves having a satellite dish attached to the side of your building, and signing a contract of 1-3 years. However, if you're a long-term resident, I would recommend looking into it. Their three year contract gives you internet at the same speed as NWTel, the speed is better and there is no cap. (well, there is, but not a seriously evil one like NWTel has). The main downside with Xplorenet is that the signal can be disrupted by rain and snow, which is a nuisance.

Our phone bill is around $50 a month. That's for regular service and our long distance calls. It's not great, but all right.

What are the utilities like up there?
Your main utilities will be Nunavut Power, Northwest Tel, Uqsuq (if you need heating oil), along with water and sewer. Is it going to be more expensive than what you pay for down south? Yes. However, it won’t be as much as you might think as things like power and oil are subsidized to reduce some of the sting. They’re all fairly reliable. Most of the city is on water and sewer, although some of it is not, which means trucks. Basically, once the red light on the front of our house goes off, the water truck will swing by and fill up the 750 gallon tank in our house. Another truck comes by and empties the sewage tank located under the house.

We’re on truck supply, which isn’t bad at all. Some people hate it, but it’s just as easy to have pipes freeze underground as it is for a water truck to flood your house or a sewage truck to hit blow instead of suck (the later has happened to someone I know).

Social Activities

Are there bars in town or is it a dry community?
Answer. There are several bars in town - The Storehouse, the Kicking Caribou and the Legion (which is supposedly the most financially successful one in Canada). There are also a couple of private clubs, like the Racketball Club and the Elks. Several restaurants also serve alcohol. Neither myself nor Cathy are big drinkers, but $5 for a can of beer (no bottles nor any kegs. Which means no Guinness) is around par for the course. There is no liquor store, so if you want to order beer, wine, hard liquor, you need to order it and it will arrive several days later from Rankin Inlet. You can also order it from Montreal. You can also order beer from the Sea Lift. This link gives you some ideas.

Oh, and keep in mind that if you order alcohol, you might have trouble getting European booze, like Scotch or French and Italian wines. The Government of Nunavut banned the importation of European alcohol into the territory as retaliation for the EU’s attempts to ban seal products. Seriously.

What about entertainment and sports?
Answer. It's not Toronto with its options, but there is a lot to do. There are two hockey arenas There's a curling rink (and as a member, I encourage you to join as well) a racquetball club, the Atii Fitness Centre, a swimming pool (which might close soon as it is very old). The first Saturday after Labour Day in September there is something called Mass Registration where you can sign up for everything from ball room dancing, to speed skating, judo, the greenhouse society, etc. If you're in town I highly recommend going to this. The City of Iqaluit lists most of the recreational activities on their website.

There is also a movie theatre - two screens normally showing four movies a week. There are several video rental stores. Cable and satellite is available here, although remember they are pricey. There are things to do; it's just a matter of going out and doing them. If you want to be kept busy, there's plenty of people willing to help you do just that.

Safety

How safe is it in Iqaluit?
Answer. I tend to be a touch anti-social, but other than some petty vandalism, neither of us have had any problems. I think Iqaluit is reasonably safe as long as you're not stupid. If you get drunk and belligerent at the local bar, well, yes, you're going to have trouble. Single women should follow the same precautions they take if they were going out in a major city like Toronto or Montreal.

A lot of the violence you hear about, and I hate saying this, the victim and the attacker tend to know each other. And yes, there are also drug problems in the city. However, we don't feel any less safe than when we lived in St. John's.

Having said that, obviously there are plenty of stories about the troubles in Iqaluit and Nunavut as a whole. There is a high crime rate here. Personally, I’ve found it’s more mentally hard reading about it and hearing what people are going through. It can be more depressing than scary.

Living here

Are there any non-Inuit, non-white people in Iqaluit?
Answer. It's not Toronto or Vancouver, but yes, there are. I'm very careful to use the word "Southerner" to describe non-Inuit in Iqaluit because there are people here who are not white. There's a decent-sized Filipino population, for example. I used to work with someone who came here from Africa. Cathy has a couple of girls in her school who moved here from South America who barely spoke English when they moved to town.

What about medical issues?
There are no private medical clinics, so odds are you're going to Public Health or the hospital to see doctors. There are a couple of dentists. There are several pharmacists. And there is a brand new hospital in town. Serious medical cases are normally sent to Ottawa. We've both been fortunate to not need any real medical attention, so I can't speak a lot about it. However, this one of these things where, unless its an emergency, a bit of patience goes a long way.

Your provincial medical card is, I think, still good for three months after you move up here. If you're staying longer than that, you'll need to get a Nunavut medical card, which can be a bit of a slow process. This is the link for getting your card.

There are also at least two pharmacies in town, although they can be short staffed at times. Again, patience is your very best friend.

What are the schools like?
Answer. That's a touchy one and at least partially because my wife is a teacher. There's no doubt that some parents do not like the school system and move down south because they believe their children can get a better education there. On other other hand, I've met a lot of hard working teachers doing their best. There are opportunities for travel and programs that might not be easily accessible in other parts of Canada. The high school has been making great strides in improving its graduation rate and offers some unique programs. And the government pays for one year tuition at any Canadian university for every four years your child attends school in Nunavut.

But yeah, there are problems. There's stuff that can break your heart. Does that make it any better or worse than some places in southern Canada? I can't really say.

I have young kids who need daycare. How hard is it going to be?
Answer. Pretty hard. The bad joke in town is that you should call a day care to get put on the wait list as soon as the pregnancy test gives you a positive result. Still, if you need some numbers, this is a link to all the daycares in Nunavut. It was last updated December 2009, so bear that in mind.

And yes, you can get sitters, but they go at a premium ($10/hr is the minimum wage, and you won't get one of that) and they can be....unreliable, according to some parents I've overheard. The names of the reliable ones are guarded the same way the army guards gold at Fort Knox.

Some people sponsor nannies to take care of their children. I'm afraid I know very little about that, but there are a couple of dozen operating in Iqaluit. You'll have to do your own research on that.

What are taxes like up there?
Answer. Well, there's no territorial sales tax, which is nice. The only sales tax is the GST, which is currently 5%. There is a payroll tax of 2% which is, let's just say, not that popular.

There are also other tax benefits to living in the north. Some (governments) give a northern allowance, the amount depending on how isolated you are. In Iqaluit it's about $15,000. There's also a northern tax benefit you can claim. Andy Wong, who is a columnist with News North does an excellent column with the paper regarding tax breaks and other financial advice for people living in the north. You have to pay to view it online, but it's worth taking a look at.

For that matter, at least in your first year, it might be worth hiring a tax specialist to help make sure you don't miss anything. We use a family friend down south, although there are people here in town who can help with your taxes.

Is there much interaction between Inuit and non-Inuit?
Answer. As for how much interaction between the Inuit and southerners, well, it depends.

In smaller communities, where there is only a couple of hundred people, I think there's a lot more interaction. But in places like Iqaluit, which has more than 7,000 people, it's certainly pretty easy to keep to yourself and other people from down south if you choose.

Then again, some Inuit prefer to keep to themselves and not deal much with southerners. It works both ways.

We have friends who are Inuit, although more would always be nice. But that's just because we're a bit insular sometimes. Hell, I'm not sure how many close southern friends we have in town, a situation we're trying to resolve.

Like anything, it depends on how much effort you want to put into it. You can have as much, or as little, interaction as you want.

Any other tips?
Answer. Avoid being a racist is a nice start. Sadly, you still get some of that up here. Avoid giving the impression that you're just up here to make a few bucks to pay off your student loan or mortgage and then getting out of town. Go figure, people who live and work here, trying to build the territory, take it kind of personally. Avoid the attitude that you know better on how things should be done. Just because things are done differently up here than you're used to doesn't means they're wrong. Oh, and if you have issues with fur products - like sealskin gloves or fur coats - I'd lose them or keep it to yourself. Many people wear fur because it's warm and comfortable. You can get some very nice things up here at a reasonable price.

And get out there and try things. It's a different world and culture in Nunavut, in all likelihood completely different than anything you've experienced before. So try some seal or caribou. Get out on the land if given a chance. Talk to an elder. Do stuff.

Finally, we both think it's important to treat yourself. It can be hard for some people to live here and living an austere life doesn't help. I'm not saying going out and blow your paycheck every week, but do make sure you take care of yourself and do things for your mental health. Cathy and I like to travel and we try to go on at least one large trip a year - Italy in 2008, Australia in 2009, Costa Rica in 2011. It does wonders for your mental health. Travel might not be your thing, but whatever it is, do it. It helps.

Pets
We're thinking of bringing our pets. Any suggestions?
Answer. First, please be sure they travel well. I speak from experience on this. When we came up in 2005 we brought my cat. He hated travelling, but I thought sedating him with the help of a vet would help. It didn't. He collapsed once I took him out of the crate and died two days later. I would spare you that kind of pain if at all possible.

There are no full-time vets in Iqaluit (there's been rumours of one setting up shop here for the past year, but it hasn't happened yet). There isn't so much as a pet groomer in town. The Legion brings in vets twice a year. However, if there's an emergency, you're going to have to send them down south. The hospital sometimes can help with fluids or stitches if they're not busy and you catch the right person on duty, but they aren't trained to treat pets so don't depend on them.

If you have to send them to Ottawa, realize it's going to be very expensive. For example, our dog Boo had a digestive infection of some kind and stopped eating and drinking early in 2009. We had to fly him to Ottawa, get a courier to pick him up at the airport and take him to the vet, then he was treated plus stayed at the vets for four nights. That was about $2,000. We have no regrets, but just be aware of the costs.

We dealt with the Alta Vista Animal Hospital in Ottawa who can walk you through what you need to do when freaking out. But as there are only a few planes heading south each day. If something catastrophic happens like your pet gets hit by a car, there's a limit to what can be done.

Also, if you're staying in an apartment, realize that many do not allow dogs. They may allow other pets like cats, fish or birds. But dogs are touchy.

I'm not saying don't bring pets or get one when you're up here, but realize they are going to be more challenging to care for up here than down south. For example, does your pet need to go outside and can it handle the cold? Our cut-off with Boo is -30C, which means he can go weeks without going outside (he's paper trained).

If you're thinking of getting a pet up here, then give the Humane Society a shot, although they’ve been having problems lately with money and volunteers. Sadly, there are many dogs who are not properly taken care of. Many are sent to Ottawa for adoption. Although remember that the huskies, while beautiful, are high maintenance and not used to being kept inside. And the sled dogs are not pets, so don't even go there.

There's also no kennels, so if you're going to be travelling a lot, you're going to need to find a house-sitter to watch your place and pet. There are people who do the "House-sitting circuit." Ask around and you might be able to find someone.

Links
What are the list of useful links you'd recommend?
Answer. There are a lot. Here they are broken down by category.

Basic
1. Government of Nunavut
1A. Government of Nunavut Orientation Site
2. City of Iqaluit
3. Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated
4. Iqaluit on Wikipedia
5. Nunavut Blogs - There is an excellent community of Nunavut bloggers. Go read what they have to say about their experiences. And join in yourself.
6. Nunavut Tourism
7. Used Iqaluit

Media
1. Nunatsiaq News
2. News North
3. CBC North
4. APTN News

Jobs
1. Government of Nunavut
2. Government of Canada
3. Listings in Nunatsiaq News
4. Listings in News North
5. Teaching positions

Shopping
1. Chapters and Amazon takes care of your books, DVDs and video games. Free shipping over $25 and only 5% tax makes this one of the best deals in Canada, especially when you take into account their online discounts.
2. Well.ca. An online drug store with free shipping, even to Nunavut. One of the best deals you're going to find.
3. Canada Goose (you can't buy them online, but it does list retailers who will) and Woods Canada for arctic apparel.
4. Costco will sometimes offer free shipping across Canada on certain items. Worth poking around and seeing what you can find.
5. Apple and Dell both have free shipping to Nunavut. They are probably the two most popular computer brands in Nunavut.
6. MEC has good shipping and the quality is good, but be aware their cold weather is often not the best match for the environment up here.
7. Sealift if you want to try and order a year's worth of soup or toilet paper.
8. There are numerous clothing stores online. We're fond of Tilley and LL Bean, but please check carefully how much shipping will be, as it can vary from time to time and on the size of the order. Plus, remember than ordering from the US means you can get dinged with duty or customs, so be extra careful of that.
9. Future Shop was a joke for many years because of their ridiculous shipping rates. For example, asking $15 to ship a DVD. However, they've recently changed their shipping so that it's free if you spend more than $39. There are exceptions, such as large appliances and TV sets, but Future Shop is again worth taking a look at.

And that's all I have for now. If you have any further questions or can think of something I miss, please feel free to add it to the comments section.

A week not to remember

2011-08-24T20:34:00.001-04:00

The last week has been one of those times where I've meant to sit down and write, something massive would happen, I'd want some time to digest what had happened and then something else would happen. The first thing would fall to the backburner while I tried to digest the new thing. By the time that happened, something else would pop up...and it just never seemed to stop.

Last week got off to a perfectly good start. There was a bowhead whale hunt up here, hunters managed to get one in about 12 hours, which made people in Iqaluit very happy. Seriously, it's the happiest I've seen people here in ages. So I held off a bit on posting that, just because I wanted to get some of the pictures from the hunt and I wanted to properly articulate what killing that whale meant to people. I'd read a lot of genuinely stupid comments on the CBC and Globe and Mail websites and wanted to get the arguments just right.

Then, of course, we had the horrible tragedy in Resolute with the First Air plane crash. I'm still trying to process that, as a lot of people are. That was a particularly weird experience. The first we heard something might be going on was when we were buying groceries. One of the cashiers ran out of the store, and all people knew was something about a crash in another community. People thought it must have been a car crash or an ATV.

Then, when we got home, I read as the whole thing unfolded on Twitter. If there is a more surreal way to learn information about a terrible accident, I haven't encountered it yet. But yeah, that crash hit me harder than I expected. I didn't know anyone on the plane, but I guess because we fly so much in the north, especially on First Air. Because of the little girls...

Yeah, that was a rough couple of days.

Monday morning I found to be particularly hard. Part of my job responsibilities include putting together a media monitor of stories in the north. So my Monday morning was compiling all the coverage of the accident, which is a bit more concentrated a dose of horror than I usually like to start my week with.

There was a point in the morning where I had a crash, which meant I lost most of the work I'd already put into the monitor, meaning I'd have to start over again. It was at that moment when news broke about Jack Layton's death. Let's just say there's a sizeable dent in my filing cabinet. At that moment, it was just a bit too much to process...

There's been an awful lot written about Layton, and a lot more will be over the next few days. His letter to Canadians is going to be one of those things that's going to have an impact, I think, for many years to come.

And, stupidly, I had a quote from, of all bloody things, "Batman Begins" stuck in my head. After watching the outpouring of grief from the news of Layton's death and the reaction to his letter. I just couldn't get it out of my mind. And perhaps it's stupid, but here's the quote:

Henri Ducard: But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely.
Bruce Wayne: Which is?
Henri Ducard: A legend, Mr. Wayne.

We'll see how things happen, of course. And obviously I'm not comparing Layton to Batman (although a moustache and the cape and cowl would be kind of awesome). But the way Layton lead his party to its greatest achievement, quite possibly sacrificing his health to do so, then passing away before getting to really enjoy the fruits of what he achieved is the stuff of legend. I think Layton may well become not only a rallying point for those on the left in Canada, but also for those sick with cancer. Time will tell, but I suspect Layton will not fade quietly in the myths of political obscurity.

So yes, quite a busy week. I mean, when you're getting laughs from people's reaction to an earthquake, you're into dark humour territory.

And as I was writing this, Steve Jobs announced he's stepping down as CEO of Apple. As he's been ill with cancer for awhile, it's probably not good news on that front either.

You know, reporters often lament how August is the duldrums and there's no news. I think I need to smack the next one I hear say that. Frankly, I'm giving reasonably decent odds of the world ending before the end of August at the rate things are going.

So if you'll pardon me, I'm going to crawl underneath the desk and hide for a bit.

Last Five
All from "Learn and Burn" by The Sheepdogs

Noseworthy dives in

2011-08-16T23:55:00.000-04:00

I really was going to give the Newfoundland election a pass on writing for a day or two. I do have a couple of other things that need to be brought up on the blog. But today's story out of the province of former Auditor General John Noseworthy's decision to run against the NDP leader in the districting of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi is too good to pass up.

It's not without prescident that an auditor general would pursue political office. Hell, Elizabeth Marshall did it back in 2003. But this one feels a bit weirder and the circumstances are a little different.

I stand to be corrected, but Marshall had completed her term as AG and had been out of office for a few years. Nobody expects an AG to retire and live as a hermit once they complete their term. They're often very smart, very driven people, so a life of retired leisure isn't going to cut it. I get that.

But Noseworthy quit his term as AG a year before it was up, and a few months before an election. So clearly politics had been on his mind for quite some time, even when he was doing his job of checking into the books. Although there's only one non-Conservative seat in the St. John's area - the one he's running in - several of the MHAs declared their intention not to run again. So he could have picked one of those seats.

I really do remain conflicted over it. He's clearly a smart man (probably smarter than 95% of the current Conservative caucus) with an idea of what he would like to bring to government. And someone who wants to get in there and bring better fiscal management to the place and actually has the skills to be able to do this is worth taking a serious look at and a worthy contender for your vote.

On the other hand, quitting his AG job earlier to run for the governing party he was charged with monitoring is just begging for screams of conflict of interest accusations to taint his campaign. Running against the leader of the NDP...well, there's nothing wrong with it. It just feels....tacky.

There's also the matter that if he got elected, there's no guarantees he'll be able to do anything. Least we forget when Marhsall got elected, the first time she challenged Premier Williams on something, she found herself relegated to the backbenches watching people not as clever as she was getting appointed ahead of her because they knew which ass to kiss.

Somehow, I get the feeling Noseworthy isn't much of an asskisser. Also, how welcome is he going to be in a caucus when he has made many of their lives difficult in the past?

So we'll see. One more weird and wacky development in this election.

Next blog post - something other than Newfoundland and Labrador politics, I promise.

last Five
1. I wish I was in New Orleans - Tom Waits
2. Into the white - Pixies
3. A thousand suns - Hey Rosetta!*
4. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (live) - Paul McCartney and U2
5. World of wonders (live) - Bruce Cockburn

Doooooomed

2011-08-15T23:55:00.000-04:00

Way back in the day, when I first started working as a community newspaper journalist, the only stipulation I gave my then editor was that I wouldn't cover car wrecks or accident scenes. I was not, and I'm still not, the kind of person that can go to these things, take pictures and talk to people who have been through a traumatic experience. There are reporters who can, and I've never been sure if I should envy that ability, or pity them for it, but they have it and I don't. I buckled once and covered one car accident, and I hated the experience so much that I told the editor she could fire me if she wanted, but I wasn't doing that again.

And I didn't.

Political car wrecks, on the other, remain deeply fascinating.

So, in a mild shocker Kevin Aylward wins the leadership of the Liberal party. My memory can be a bit of a sieve sometimes, but I'm pretty sure Aylward wasn't that impressive a cabinet minister. When your portfolio, which you're bragging about, includes stops in Tourism, Environment, Forestry and Agriculture, you weren't exactly hitting the lofty heights of cabinet seniority. At best those are maybe, maybe mid-tier cabinet positions. Hell, Environment has long been considered either a place to break in rookies or a place to break the freefall of a cabinet minister who has fallen into disfavour.

So yeah, woo hoo.

I understand there was a real lack of quality choice in this process, but I think this is going to be a very grim season for the Liberals. Probably not helping them is Craig Westcott leaving as Director of Communications less than six weeks before the election. There's a story there somewhere. God knows what it is, but I bet it will be an interesting one in the telling a few years down the line over a few drinks.

So yes, grimness abounding. Aylward is making noises about an October surprise. About the only surprise I see is finding a bookie that would give you odds of that happening. It would require an Act of God or pictures of the premier eating babies for us to wake up the day after the election to Premier Aylward.

I suspect the real race this election is for Opposition. The NDP are feeling cocky. And if people are looking for a place to plant their vote to protest the current government, they may well look to the NDP rather than the self-destructive madness that is the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador right now.

Last Five
1. Rise to me - The Decemberists
2. Bad (live) - U2*
3. Waiting - City and Colour
4. Fine young cannibals - Wolf Parade
5. Sweet talk, sweet talk - The New Pornographers

Well, that was a weird week back in Newfoundland

2011-08-14T16:42:00.000-04:00

No sooner do I go and predict a possible Liberal minority government than all hell breaks loose. That wasn't the strangest week in Newfoundland political history, but it was certainly up there high on the surreality scale.

I kept thinking that I was going to write another blog post about it during the week, but circumstances kept changing so fast I was afraid to write anything else for fear that post would quickly look antiquated. I was following CBC reporter David Cochrane and NTV reporter Mike Connors (both Muse alumni) on Twitter and there were days they couldn't keep up with the swirling rumours.

For those not following the madness, the week went something like this.

1. Rumours start on Sunday that Liberal leader Yvonne Jones might not run in the next provincial election on October 11, barely two months away. Jones had been fighting breast cancer for more than a year.

2. The rumours are quickly confirmed and on Tuesday she announces that due to medical reasons she can't run. Her immune system is too compromised and the election campaign could be harmful for her.

3. The Liberal executive announce their doing an emergency leadership race. Nominations open on Wednesday, close Friday and the executive will vote who the next leader will be on Sunday afternoon.

4. The creme de la creme of fringe candidates come out and announce they're running for the leadership, including a guy who ran for the Conservative leadership earlier the year and a guy who couldn't win his own party's riding nomination a few years ago. Things look grim.

5. Then, like the shot heard around the world, late Wednesday night it breaks that retired General Rick Hillier is considering running. It's one of those things that would have changed everything. Odds would go from a Liberal slaughter to a landslide Liberal victory. The only person more loved in the province that Williams is probably Hillier. One joke says that Dunderdale would defect to the Liberals if that happened.

6. It doesn't happen. Citing family reasons, Hillier opts not to run.

7. Gloom and despair settle on the Liberals. People I've never heard of before decide to run. A couple of former Liberal cabinet ministers from the early 00s rise like the undead and announce they're thinking of running. One, Chuck Furey decides against running. The other, Kevin Alyward, tragically decides to.

This is the list of candidates here. One is reluctant to use words such as "doomed" and "slaughter" before the actual campaign begins, but whoever wins this (Lawyer Bern Coffey is apparently the favourite) has their work seriously cut out for them. They have less than two months to rally a political party that is pretty much broke. They have to introduce themselves to a deeply skeptical public. And if it's one of the political neophytes who have never run before, they're going to have to get used to the pressures of an election campaign on short notice and try and find a seat to run in.

So seriously, good luck with that. That's a huge learning curve and amount of work to do in less than no time, with barely any resources.

I'll come out with a final seat count prediction once the election is called and we'll get an idea of how the new Liberal leader shapes up. But it's not a stretch to see the NDP taking over the role of official Opposition as of October 12. Not much of a stretch at all...

Last Five
Last Five all from "Light of Endangered Species" by Matthew Good

Election prediction

2011-08-07T17:29:00.000-04:00

It's about two months until the election back in Newfoundland and Labrador. Obviously, I'm not on the ground, which means distance is giving me problems in making completely accurate assessments about what's going on back in the old stomping grounds. Although if plans hold I'll probably be back in the province the week of the election, so that'll be interesting.

But I guess distance has its advantages. I tend to look at the election from a different point of view than if I was there. I have a bit more of emotional distance from it. Rightly or wrongly I'm looking at it more from a strategy/game point of view than the "which party is best to run the province?" which is the correct way to look at these things.

So looking at the landscape right now, I'm beginning to form a potentially interesting theory. That we could see a minority government after this election.

Yes, I'm crazy. Hang in there with me for a second.

The province is in a rare bubble where there is no cult of personality type of leader heading any of the three political parties. I honestly can't think of the election where that was the case. Williams, Tobin, Wells, Peckford, Moores and Smallwood all fit that role. People voted for them as much as they did the party. Especially Williams. If he came out of retirement right now and decided to run under the Danny Party this election, no only would about 2/3rds of the Tory caucus defect, he would also still probably win 40 seats.

But Dunderdale, Jones and Michaels are nobody's idea of a cult of personality type of leader. I'm sure they're liked within their party (well, not sure about Dunderdale), but they don't exactly set the public's imagination on fire. That means there's no strong leader to come into a riding and ride roughshod or save a weak candidate. It now means individual candidates are going to have to stand on their own merit more and local issues are going to come much more into play.

That can be potentially very messy. For example, how pissed off are the people in the Burin and Bonavista peninsula areas with the government over the Hurricane Igor response?

And what about St. John's? Both seats went NDP in the last federal election and they're clearly thinking they can get more than their traditional one seat in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. The fact that they have more of their candidates in place at this point in time than the Liberals is interesting. The fact that staunch Liberals like Ed Hollett and Simon Lono are taking as much time bashing the NDP online these days as they are the Conservatives says to me they are concerned they could actually pick up seats.

How many? I could see the NDP getting a half dozen seats, perhaps more. They take a bunch of riding around the city, maybe one in Labrador or something and there you go. So say they pull six or seven seats. That means all the Liberals need is 18 seats or so to make a proper mess of things. It may happen, it may not. But I think in the heat of the election anything is possible.

So yeah, that's my longshot prediction - A Liberal minority government. Although that does depend on the Liberals getting their act together more than they seem to right now. Hell, the other weird thing could be a repeat of what happened federally - a Conservative government with an NDP opposition.

I'm just saying, it has the potential to be the first interesting election the province has seen in more than 20 years. Like anything, time will tell.

Last Five
1. Come on Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners*
2. Matt Eiley - Figgy Duff
3. Killing the blues - Robert Plant and Allison Krauss
4. Surprise - Sean Panting
5. We've got tonight - Bob Seger

Sunsets

2011-08-01T12:04:00.000-04:00

Cathy had the clever idea of framing up a bunch of sunset photos from all our trips. I quite like the idea of taking anywhere from four to six sunset photos, putting the time and location underneath and putting them in one frame. I think it'll look good on the wall.

I'm going through old sunset photos right now (once I get over some technical glitch with Aperture, where it's telling me the master versions aren't there, although I can still see the image on my computer), but I'm trying to figure out which sunset photo to use from the Costa Rica vacation. Through a bit of good luck, we hit an absolutely spectacular sunset on our last day on the Pacific coast.

So, for your reviewing pleasure, here's my list of the best of those sunset shots. I'm curious as to what people think is the best one. I know which one I like best, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best one. Feel free to leave a comment with your vote.

Last Five
1. Look for me - Neko Case
2. Hoochie woman - Tori Amos
3. Turkish revelry - Loudon Wainwright III
4. The forty - Mark Bragg*
5. Distant early warning - Rush

Back again

2011-07-30T18:57:00.000-04:00

So, I'm back in Iqaluit...I'm sure the five of you still reading the blog will be happy to know this.

Obviously the blog has been rather slow the last couple of months. Hell, most of this year. But I think I might be starting to feel a little revitalized. I think the couple of weeks vacation helped. Some may recall in the last blog post I said I would be back in a few weeks. Well, I was vague because I was going on vacation. Normally I have no problem letting people know that because we have someone housesitting. But not this time. We sent Boo off to Cathy's parents back in Newfoundland, which meant the house was empty. I prefer not to mention that sort of thing on the blog.

And then we had communications problems the last week. Apparently while we were away one of the city's sewage trucks clipped our internet satellite dish, knocking it out of alignment. It's back now, but that took a couple of days. And today we had pouring rain and fog, which interfered with reception. So, we've had some issues.

That doesn't excuse most of this year, but I've been doing this blog for about six years. I think a little burnout is entitled.

So, where was the vacation? Well, we managed to pack in quite a bit in two weeks. First up was Toronto, a city ordinarily we wouldn't go anywhere near (Cathy has a near psychotic loathing of the place and 40C with smog during our time there didn't help), but there was a small gathering of old friends taking place and it was good to see them again (even if several threatened me if I didn't restart the blog). That was Sunday.

On Monday we finally got to use the U2 tickets we bought over two years ago. I loved the show, although it was fascinating to read the review the next day. The Sun had a fairly bland recap, but gave it five stars, the Globe quite liked it, but went into more detail. But the Star must have seen a different show, because they didn't really care much for it. Then again, it read like a review of someone who has seen the band every time they've hit Toronto since the 80s. He wasn't impressed, which is fair enough, I guess. But seeing as how it was the first time I saw the band, I was blown away.

After that, back to Ottawa to spend a few frantic days doing our sealift order. That's always a terrifying amount of money out the window in a short period of time. And then we headed to Costa Rica for 10 days.

We've always wanted to go, and rather than plan everything ourselves, we got lazy and used Caravan - a bus tour operator. I'd read reviews about how good they were for ages and we decided to take a chance on them. A very good tour, I must say. Volcanoes, hot springs, lots of wildlife, lots of greenery (returning to Iqaluit was a bit of a shock) and a good time was had by all. Funny, there were 43 people on this tour, and we were the only Canadians. Us and 41 Americans. That was a touch eye-opening. But most were lovely people and a lot of fun.

So, what's next? Well, I'll be putting up some photos over the next couple of blog posts. I may need help with one of them. Cathy and the fantastic idea of doing a frame of a bunch of sunset shots I've taken over the years. I have a couple of great ones from the trip, so I'm curious as to what people think is the best one. A little about what I've been up to the last few months (including a hacking incident) and I may even delve into politics again. Really, there's an election in Newfoundland in October. If you think I can pass that up, well...

And, of course, I have to revamp the Moving to Iqaluit FAQ. New information and I think I'm going to organize it differently. If you have any more questions, now is the time to get them in.

Oh, and finally, happy anniversary to my lovely wife. Six years ago today she said "I do" shortly after I said the same thing. We're celebrating in the traditional way, with me in Iqaluit and her in Mount Pearl. Luck of the draw when you marry a teacher. Anyway, happy anniversary, my love...

Last Five
1. In-between - Josh Rouse
2. Lost control - Grinspoon
3. There's an arc - Hey Rosetta!
4. Flower - Liz Phair
5. Rains on me - Tom Waits*

Ah yes

2011-07-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

Reports of my death are somewhat exaggerated. Let's call it severe blog fatigue. But it's not dead, I promise. He'll, I've had stuff I could write about the last few weeks, but the drive to post it up just wasn't there.

But the blog isn't dead, nor am I going to delete it. I still have great affection for old place, even if cobwebs are setting in and rats are beginning to eye the place.

Just give me a couple more weeks and I promise I'll come back with new stories and more updates.

But thanks for your patience, everyone. I know I've been abusing it something fierce lately.

A hard week

2011-06-08T23:31:00.000-04:00

So yeah, we're having a bad day in Iqaluit. And when I say we, I'm not referring specifically to Cathy and I. For those of you who might have missed the news, we had an....incident here yesterday. You can read more about it here and here.

I've had some friends and family contact me and ask if we're all right. We are. They've asked if we knew the family involved. We did not. However, Iqaluit is 7,000 people. We're not talking six degrees of separation here to find people who were friends and family of the people involved. And if it seems I'm being circumspect with the information, well, the police and media are not giving out a lot of information until family can be notified. And there's enough of a reporter left in me that I respect that. Besides, the mood in town can best be summed up as stunned.

Understand, it's a small town. Rumours are flying fast and furious. Everybody knows the names of those involved and there's plenty of speculation about what happened. But this blog isn't the place for that, so I'm not getting into it. The RCMP will be doing a press conference on Thursday. If you want to know more I'm sure there'll be more coverage then.

This hasn't been a great last 12 months in Nunavut. There's been a lot of tragedy and when you start reading reporters finding it getting too hard to keep doing these stories (Several experienced journalists were on Twitter last night giving details as they learned it and they were obviously distraught) then you know things are getting bad.

We love living in Iqaluit and Nunavut. If we didn't we'd be making escape plans. We wouldn't have bought a house. We wouldn't have just bought a car which is getting here next month. It can be an astonishing place to live. An opportunity you feel lucky to get a chance to experience.

You get tremendous acts of community and willingness to come together. When there was a fire earlier the year that left dozens homeless so much clothes were donated they had to ask people to stop because they didn't know what to do with it. There was a terrible snowmobile accident a few weeks ago that left one man dead and a young woman still in hospital and the outpouring of grief and support for the families involved was nearly overwhelming.

And that's in Iqaluit. It happens all across Nunavut. In the face of tragedy, communities band together to help.

I just wish tragedy didn't feel so commonplace up here sometimes. We love Nunavut. I just wish Nunavut made it easier to love it, that's all. I think the thing that disheartens me the most sometimes is that there are smart people up here trying to figure things out, so that tragedies like what happened on Tuesday are less common than what they are. And they struggle to come up with solutions.

I've always said Nunavut's problems aren't going to change overnight and for a (North American) culture that expects change to happen almost instantaneously and without pain, that's a hard thing to accept. That it could take decades or generations for Nunavut to be the kind of place that people here dream it could be is hard to take.

In the meantime, if you could spare a prayer or, if that's not your thing, then at least a thought for the friends and family who are absolutely devastated by this, then I think that would at least be a start.

Last Five
1. 40 - U2
2. Come talk to me (live) - Peter Gabriel*
3. Do what you want - Hall & Oates
4. Why do you love me - Garbage
5. Ending start - Metric

Jets and comic books

2011-05-31T23:31:00.001-04:00

So most of the day has been people cheering loudly about the return of hockey to Winnipeg. Understand, I could not care less. Hockey is not my sport, at all. I cheer for Vancouver in the finals simply because if I have to read another sports story about how long its been since a Canadian team won the Cup, I might go mad.

Still, you know, good on Winnipeg if it makes them happy. There was a rumour swirling around on Twitter today that they might call the team the Manitoba Polar Bears. Which I don't think is likely, but will result in me cheering against the team whenever they play just because I have a think about polar bears. Although if, in-between periods, they put a live polar bear and two fans out on the ice and the one who survives the intermission gets a prize, that's a team promotion I could possibly get behind.

There's also the possibility of Winnipeg's AHL team ending up in St. John's, which has people all excited and Danny Williams back in the news. Just in case you forgot how much bluster and bullying the man possesses, read this story. Seriously, if he changed his mind and created the Williams Party to run in the next provincial election, not only would he win, but 2/3rds of the current PC caucus would defect to him.

Anyway, I tend to be of two minds on giving the AHL team money. First of all, I think it's going to happen. Williams is making a racket, it's an election year and there's only so much Dunderdale can do to piss off Williams, who is still beloved. I'm not sure about giving money to a professional sports team. Williams can afford the $500,000 so I don't understand what the big deal is for him needing the province to kick in the dollars.

On the other hand, lord knows the provincial government wastes more than $500,000 a year on stupider stuff than a travel subsidy. So I guess we'll see what happens.

But honestly, the thing that interests me the most is this story. DC Comics is rebooting its entire line of comics. Now, something like this seems to happen every few years, although this one seems to be bigger than most, what with all the titles being cancelled and relaunched from #1 (including Action Comics and Detective Comics, which have been running with the same numbering since the 30s.). They're also promising younger versions of the characters and more "real world situations". I expect you can kiss the Clark Kent-Lois Lane marriage good-bye for starters. Robin might be gone. God only knows what they'll do with poor Wonder Woman.

This is all fairly high end geek stuff. If you love the comics, you'll notice. If you don't, you might be somewhat interested in passing, but probably would have no interest in going out of your way to a comic store and checking it out. Which is where the clever bit comes in. In September, when the reboot happens, the same day the physical comic hits your local store, the digital version will be available online to buy.

This was inevitable, is going to piss off comic stores like nothing else, and entirely clever. Going digital was going to happen, but doing it when relaunching the comics to attract younger readers....not half bad. I'll be curious, that's for sure. I could download comics off torrent sites if I wanted, but I like the idea of sampling digital comics online.

We'll see how this all shakes out. More interesting than bloody hockey, that's for sure.

Last Five
1. Hollow - Drive
2. Mushaboom - Feist
3. Falling down blue (live) - Blue Rodeo*
4. Don't let the man get you down - Fatboy Slim
5. Yesterdays - Billie Holiday

Regents again

2011-05-29T22:27:00.001-04:00

Every three years my alma mater, Memorial University of Newfoundland (don't even get me started on dropping Newfoundland from most of the promo products), has the clever idea of allowing six alumi to be elected to the Board of Regents. Now, the Board is the governing body of the university and it has a decent amount of power on deciding how things are going to be run and done at the place. Those six people aren't going to change the world. Most of the 30 members are appointed to the board by the provincial government, so they tend to do whatever those up on The Hill tell them to do. Still, it's a chance for alumni to have a voice and I think it's an important election.

I've run twice - once in 2005 and in 2008. To surprise of pretty much no one, I didn't win. I finished about the middle of the pack each time. I give MUN a lot of shit, but I do love the place, have good memories and the place means a lot. I poke, bitch and complain because you do that to things you love sometimes. And lord knows MUN has needed a swift kick in the ass more than once over the years.

Case in point was the racket that happened around the last alumni election when then Premier Danny Williams and Education Minister Joan Burke blatantly inferred with the selection process for the university's next president. They had no business doing it and, to make matters worse, removed members of the Board of Regents for various reasons before the term. It was, I don't think, ever said in public but if I had to hazard a guess those members disagreed with what the government was doing and, of their troubles, they were removed.

I was pretty pissed with the Regents at that time. At the least they should have all stood up and said "The government doesn't get to decide the next MUN president. There's a process, we're following it so back off." But they didn't because Danny was Danny and it obviously required more balls than most of them possessed to do that. I think they should have resigned on mass, but again, requiring more guts than what was on the Board.

So that annoyed me. The other thing that annoyed me was that the vote totals for those people who ran in the election - and I think there was around 40 - were never revealed. We knew who the top six were. I knew how many votes I got and where I placed. But unlike virtually every other democratic election held in Canada, MUN's Board of Regents alumni election couldn't have the complete vote totals released because it would violate privacy regulations.

Yes, feel free to discreetly cough bullshit over that one.

However, I am pleased to see they've changed the rules on that one. You know what, I'm going to take credit for that one. I had more than one exchange with people at MUN over that, including getting a note from the university president. Not releasing the final totals for all candidates was bullshit and I'm glad to see they've changed that rule.

I thought about running again. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass. I've had friends tell me to just let it rest. Which is a fair point. I was pretty annoying (well, more than usual) for a few months back in '98 as MUN was taking up a lot of my time. Plus, the blog was a lot more active then, I had the radical notion of starting up a Facebook page to try and get people to vote for me (CBC interviewed me over the unique strategy). This time everyone is going to have a blog, Facebook page and god help Twitter. God help us all.

Also, I'm going to be out of the country for the last part of the election. So no, not running unless there is a sudden massive groundswell trying to convince me to run. Which I doubt will happen. But I will pay close attention to those who do run. They're important positions and people should be serious about running and what they want to do when they get elected.

Because if you're not going to go in there and fight and make a racket and try and change and improve things, why bother running?

Something those running should think about, at any rate...

Last Five
1. Honey - Best Coast
2. Ask me why - The Beatles
3. 7 - Prince
4. Me and Lazarus - Iron & Wine
5. Tired - Adele*

Thor!

2011-05-26T23:29:00.000-04:00

1. I'm guessing I should probably do a review of Thor as I am the resident northern comic book geek. I've never been the biggest fan of the character in the world, with the exception of Walt Simonson's run on the series back in the 80s (Now collected in this bad boy which I will own soon enough). A norse God of Thunder is perhaps not the most likely candidate for a movie, but hey, Marvel seems to have a formula down with their movies. Take a basically good guy with lots of power and potential, but basically an dick with daddy issues, throw him into the deep end, watch him become a Man and then a good guy. The end.

So Thor is a fun enough movie. It's probably in my Top 10 all-time comic book movies, but definitely clinging to the bottom of the list as opposed to being near the top with films like X-Men 2, Spider Man 2, Iron Man and the Dark Knight. The acting is fun enough, the story does a decent job of making sense of a norse god walking the earth, Odin is a prick (Odin is a prick in the comics as well), Loki steals scenes like he's supposed to do, Natalie Portman slums along as nice eye candy and Kenneth Branaugh does a good job of making something fun not seem completely weightless.

But if I have a gripe, it's about the 3-D. I think it's a gripe I can have about almost any of the movies using 3-D and Roger Ebert is currently in the middle of a jihad against it on his blog, but he's right. I'm tired of spending extra on a movie that looks really dark and in which the 3-D adds little to it. I'm willing to bet I'm going to enjoy Thor a lot more on Blu Ray when it comes out because I'll appreciate how much brighter and sharper it is.

So a decent start for the comic movies of the summer of '11. And next week's X-Men: First Class is getting early comparisons to X-Men 2, which is a very good sign. Still not sure about Green Lantern. I think it's going to be spectacular, but good or bad I don't know. I still don't know enough about Captain America to have an idea of how that's going to work out.

2. An update for those of you who might possibly care about the banking stuff I mentioned the other day. CIBC seems oddly friendly to me right now. People at the bank certain seem to know who I am, although whether that's good or not I don't know. But they did step up. We got a much better deal at CIBC than RBC (and by much better, I mean 2.5% better at least) so that's enough to keep me happy for now.

I don't know if we're going to use it or not. We're juggling a few things here right now. The car (It's going to be an Equinox), upcoming sea lift order, our vacation and the desire to hammer some money down on the mortgage. Oddly, there is only so much money to go around.

But on the upside, we should have our new Equinox by early July, assuming the ice breaks up on time and the sealift boats stick to schedule. Which is questionable, but you can always live in hope. It'll be the first brand new vehicle for either of us in 10 years, which is pretty exciting. Mmmmmmm, new car smell...

Last Five
1. What you're missing - Sean Panting
2. DNA - The Kills*
3. Way out - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
4. Tightly - Neko Case
5. El Manana - Gorillaz

Being watched online

2011-05-23T23:01:00.001-04:00

I've had a slightly odd encounter with the world of social media last week. And if nothing else proves the point that what you say online can have unforeseen results.

We had a minor crisis last week when Cathy went out to start the car and it failed to do so. Now, we're getting near the end of our time with the vehicle, so there's only so much money we're willing to put into her at this point. So if it was something cheap and simple, no problem. But if it was something catastrophic that would cost thousands of dollars, well, we were going to have a long chat about what was going to happen. Driving Force has one 2010 Equinox left on their lot, so we would have taken a look at buying that.

Now, as it stands, it was a dead battery. We got her towed, a new battery put in and she's right as rain.

But before we knew this, I popped into our bank - CIBC - to make an appointment to talk about a car loan. Now, I've banked with CIBC since I was four years old, however they burned a lot of graces with us back in 2009 when we couldn't get a mortgage with them because they didn't have anyone in town who could help us. The mad scrambling to instead get an appointment at RBC slowed us down enough that someone got a bid in ahead of us, which cost us the house. We were so annoyed we very nearly pulled our accounts from the bank. But inertia got ahold of us and we didn't do it.

So, last Tuesday I go into the bank to make an appointment about possibly getting a car loan. The teller informs me the earliest spot they have is sometime next month.

Understand, I forgive a lot of inconvenience because we live in the north. It's just the way of things. But when I go into a bank and they tell me there is no one available to talk to me about me borrowing money from them, then I get annoyed. Especially since I know at First Nations Bank I could get an appointment in about 10 minutes and at most it would take a few days at RBC, certainly not weeks.

I turned around and walked out of the bank without making an appointment. Later that day I vented on Twitter that CIBC was completely useless because it clearly didn't want my money or business.

Now is when the weirdness comes in.

Wednesday after work there's a message from someone at CIBC waiting for me. I think nothing of it, they're probably trying to sell me insurance again. Except on Thursday there's another message asking me to call them. So on Friday I finally call. They weren't selling insurance. Instead it was someone from their customer service department. Seems they have someone there who monitors social media, like Twitter, for complaints. They were calling to see what the problem was.

I'm still going back and forth on if that's cool or creepy. The jury is out.

Anyway, I had a lengthy vent about the situation, was told that was unacceptable and if I would hold on for a few minutes, they would contact the bank manager to fix the situation.

Ten minutes later, a not entirely pleased sounding bank manager made an appointment with us for Wednesday. So there you go, the power of social media networks in action. Kind of cool, but also deeply weird.

Are we going to stick with CIBC? Depends on what they offer. If it's a tie, no. RBC wins the tiebreaker. But if CIBC comes in a few points lower than RBC we'll stick with them. Money is money, after all. But if we end up getting a loan and going with RBC, that's our mortgage and car loan with them. I think then we ask if we're going to bother sticking with CIBC. Whether they care or not, I don't know. I guess we'll see how much they want us on Wednesday.

Last Five
1. Kiss and tell - Spirit of the West
2. The absence of God - Rilo Kiley
3. C'mere - Interpol
4. Backseat - Jenny Gear and the Whiskey Kittens
5. The union forever - The White Stripes

Ipads, cars and FAQs

2011-05-22T23:42:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I'm not even giving excuses anymore. Let's just move forward with some things, shall we?

1. I forgot to mention that one of the toys I picked up in Florida last month was an iPad 2. It was borderline miraculous I managed to find one, really. I popped in to the Apple store in Tampa and they were polite enough not to laugh at me when I asked. Instead, they pointed out the store opened at 10 and the line-up to get whatever shipment they received that day normally started at 7 am. Which was too stupid for me to seriously consider on vacation.

There was a Best Buy nearby, and they were laughing too when I asked. But on our next to last day there, I popped in at lunchtime on a lark and they had a few just come in. So pure dumb luck.

So how are they? I admit, we picked one up more for travelling than any practical use around town or anything. But the the damndest thing....I really like using it. If we're out watching TV I'll pop in and grab that if I just want to poke online for a few minutes during commercial. I like it a lot. It's a slick little gadget. It's much better than the iPod Touch, which I was kind of disappointed in. The games are fun, the keyboard is pretty easy to use for writing. I downloaded the Kindle app and bought my first ebook (Espediar Street by Iain Banks, which is an old favourite of mine) and I liked the experience of reading it on the iPad.

On the downside, the auto-correct when typing can be a bit annoying and we had one glitch with the iPad not wanting to switch away from the US iTunes store to the Canada one which meant I had to reset it to factory settings.

My laptop is going to be four years old this fall. I was beginning to wonder, in the back of my mind, if I might not need an upgrade this year. Now I'm wondering if I really need a new laptop as long as I have the iPad.

2. As long as we're talking about spending money, we're also in full car-hunting mode right now. I recently test drove a Subaru Forrester, which is a lovely ride. The downside is they do no warranty work in Nunavut. Which means if something goes wrong, we're totally on our own. Which can get pricy in a hurry.

So back to plan b. The only vehicles that get warranty work done in Iqaluit apparently are GMs, Fords and Toyotas. There's a place in town that sells Fords and GMs, so we're now looking at either a Terrain or an Equinox. They're essentially the same vehicle. The main difference is that I like how the Terrain looks and Cathy likes how the Equinox looks. Place your bets on who is going to win that battle of the wills.

It's not ideal, but it's better than going to Ottawa, going through all the hassle of buying it, going through the licensing and taxes and then getting it shipped up and not having anyone to do maintaince work. This way, we can go into Driving Force, tell them what vehicle we want, they'll order it up here and then they'll call us when it arrives on the sealift boat. Much simpler. Probably a little pricier, but you take a certain price hit for not dealing with a ton of hassle.

And yes, I know, GM. I'm aware of the potential downfalls, although both vehicles are well reviewed. But we shall see.

3. And yes, I'll try to get better with the blogging. If nothing else, I need to start gearing up to revamp the FAQ again, which is an annual thing. I've had no less than three people at work tell me they read the FAQ and it helped them decide to move here. That's always good to know.

Last Five
1. Shaking the tree (live) - Peter Gabriel
2. Road trippin' - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
3. I would die for you - Garbage
4. The long way home - Norah Jones
5. Sodium - Ian Foster

Ten election thoughts

2011-05-03T22:30:00.004-04:00

An assortment of random thoughts about the election that will have to tide election junkies over for the next four years.

1. Cleary and Penashue, Newfoundland? Really? I mean, it's not as mind-boggling as electing Bonnie Hickey back in '93, but all right, sure. If that's the way you want to go.

2. By all accounts Siobhan Coady was a hell of an MP. And while it sucks to lose, given the current state of the federal Liberal party, I suspect more than one are glad to be out of Ottawa for the next four years. Also, tell me she wouldn't make an interesting pick as the next leader of the provincial Liberal party. With due respect to Yvonne Jones, I don't think she's going to stick around long after the next provincial election. Coady is an interesting choice. If nothing else, if you've stood up to John Baird, I imagine Kathy Dunderdale and Jerome Kennedy are not exactly scary people to have yelling at you in the House of Assembly.

3. Humour is not something that translates from culture to culture well. I remember being in South Korea and the audience would not laugh at Men in Black until the group of English teachers I was with laughed first. Because they didn't get the jokes (they did laugh a lot at weird moments during Romeo + Juliet, though, including the death scene at the end). It's why Hollywood likes action movies more than comedies these days. It's easier to sell tickets on shit blowing up with minimal dialogue than trying to explain why Zach Galifianakis is funny.

All of which is a preamble to I'm sure there's a punchline to last night's election results in Quebec, but I've never really got French humour. For example, Ruth Ellen Brosseau won her seat despite:
A. Not living in the riding.
B. Going to Vegas in the middle of the campaign.
C. Her riding is 98% French and she can't really speak it that well.
D. Appears to have not even visited the riding during the election.

Yet she got 40% of the vote, won the seat and now gets a $150,000+ a year job, which is a bit of a step up from assistant manager at a pub.

So yes, there's a punchline here somewhere, I just don't get it. Can someone explain French humour to me, please?

4. Although, seriously, the day I would see that much orange on a map of Canada I would assume I had a stroke and was hallucinating.

5. I have something like 170 friends on Facebook. Of those, I have about two who admit to supporting the Conservatives. Most were supporting the NDP and were giddily ecstatic for a chunk of the evening. And I swear, most of them must have went to bed early, because the amount of shock and bile on Facebook this morning to discover that, yes the NDP have a historic high number of seats, but one of the results of that is the Conservatives got a majority.

Why this is a shock is beyond me. I saw enough projections that said if the NDP got 100+ seats it was all but certain they were going to take them from the Liberals and the Bloc and not the Conservatives. Reading Facebook it looked like a bunch of people went to bed with the hot babe and woke up to something....not quite what they were expecting....in the morning.

6. What's the over/under on how much longer Michael Ignatieff stays in Canada? I give it a year.

7. I'm disappointed the Hasselhoff Party didn't make more inroads in this election, but I'm bitter to discover there was a Pirate Party and they got 3,198 votes. I seriously would have been tempted to run for the Pirate Party in Nunavut. Arrrr. Although apparently they're about copyright instead of, you know, actually talking like a pirate and plundering, which is kind of disappointing. Clearly this needs to be addressed at their next national convention.

8. And, you know, the Communists and the Marxist-Leninist Party are never going to form a government if they keep vote splitting like that.

9. Quote of the day, making the rounds on Twitter: "The Conservatives are like Nickelback. No one you know likes them, but they always seem to do very well." - Anonymous

10. The next federal election isn't until October 19, 2015. For those of you who hate federal elections, this is a break. However, you will pay for it with interest as I believe there will be several provincial and territorial elections scheduled for the same time. For example, the next election in Newfoundland after this fall is, I think, October 12, 2015.

Try not to think about the campaign signs.

Last Five
1. Vow - Garbage
2. Pinball wizard - The Who
3. Subterranean homesick alien - Radiohead
4. Semi suite - Tom Waits
5. The long day is over - Norah Jones

Lo, I am risen

2011-05-01T11:45:00.000-04:00

What? Easter was last week? Oooops, sorry...

So yes, Hi. Sorry about that. Certainly hadn't planned on disappearing for quite that long. I really figured at some point the urge to blog again would become over-powering. Figure for sure it would kick in while on vacation. It's not like it was action-packed, but stuff happened that was amusing and worth writing about.

Nope.

Not even after being back for a week, it didn't kick in. So, at some point, you have to give something a kick all on it's own and hope the creaky thing swings back into life.

However, I will not be writing about the Royal Wedding. You can go somewhere else for that.

So, first, the vacation. It went well, I think. A trip to St. Pete's Beach is not meant to be an epic vacation. But it was my first one in a year and it achieved what it was supposed to. We resupplied and we did a lot of relaxing next to the pool or on the beach. Mission Accomplished. Although I think we managed to throw a bit of a scare into Cathy's parents. They've never seen a full-power Northern Power Shop before. It can be a terrifying experience if you're not used to it. It is not unlike a plague of locusts hitting a location. In this case it was hitting an outlet mall south of St. Pete's. Cathy and I even printed off coupons for the stores in the place and had a plan of attack. At the end of it, much money was spent, but we essentially had all of our clothing for the next year.

Oh, and a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Those things are spiffy.

And from there on out, it was mostly about the relaxation. Sure we might pop out for some air conditioning and twacking (window shopping for you non-Newfoundlanders) when the beach got too hot (about 33C every day down there). The ocean was also cooking quite a bit, so I suspect hurricane season is going to be an unpleasant one for Florida. They all kind of know that there, after speaking with some of the locals.

If there was a disappointment in the vacation it was the lack of wackiness. Last year I had a guy dragging a 10-foot cross along the beach on Easter weekend, marginally racist barbers, my first trip to the Wagon Wheel flea market and a stop at the Golden Corral for feeding. This year, no crosses, the flea market was kind of boring, the barbers were more worried about the weather and the Corral was completely unexciting.

Perhaps I'm getting used to Florida. I mean, all the heavy metal tapes and t-shirts disappeared from the flea market. Was there a run on them or something? Although the volume of betamax tapes....I didn't know there were that many left in the world. The only funny thing I heard was a woman saying "well, she went and divorced his ass once he got out of prison." Which was funny only because of the southern accent. I've overheard the same thing when I lived in Clarenville and it was just another day at Sobeys.

Still, here are some pics. A bit of wackiness. And I include the fruit ones just to drove people up north mad.

Enough to make you cry.

It was Sunday. I guess Jesus was busy somewhere else,

I really wanted to buy this for my friend Karin.

Just in case the flea market gets rowdy.

Happy Easter!

So yes, a good vacation and certainly a much needed one. Although I will say this one thing - and perhaps I've been watching too much Fringe - but is it possible that at some point during our flights we were transported into an alternate universe where the NDP is now a real political party. Just asking.

Oh, and here a few photos of sunsets and the beach. Just to prove we were there.

An attempt at me being creative.

Bridesmaids on the beach. Stalking wedding parties was a favourite thing to do with Cathy's family.

Us looking all happy.

The clan. Cathy, her parents and her aunt.

Good-bye Florida...

Last Five

1. Dignity - Bob Dylan

2. Down for the count - Girl Talk

3. The great pretender - Queen

4. Surveyors and cranes - Bob Mould

5. Out of touch - Hall & Oates*

Break time

2011-04-13T00:03:00.000-04:00

I write this on April 12 and it's -25C outside. The winds are calm, so there's no windchill to add to the punishment, but it could hit -39C. This is spring in Nunavut, by the way. Realistically it's another two months until we'll start seeing regular above 0 temperatures. It's never the cold that sinks you in Nunavut, it's the duration of the cold that ends up doing the trick. This has been a short winter by Iqaluit standards because of the massive mild spell we had in November and December.

It's also why we need a vacation. Now, I've been cautioned by a friend about talking about vacations as it has been pointed out that not everyone gets one, let alone the two or three a year Cathy and I can normally squeeze out. Which is true. I recall when working for the Packet and getting a whopping two weeks off a year and my vacation consisted of going to St. John's to stay with one of my parents for two weeks. Because when you're making $19,000 a year, the around the world vacations don't really drop into your lap.

However, we have the money now. It's one of the perks of living up here. And a trip out every now and then is a sanity measure for us. People react different to living in the north. Some move here and they never want to leave. Their idea of a vacation is to hop on their ski-doo, or their boat, and zip on up the bay to spend a few weeks at their cabin. Because, you know, what you need when you live up here is to get away from it all. But people do it and that's cool.

Others come up here and last three weeks. Or three minutes. There's the story, true or not, of a teacher arriving in one of the Kivalliq communities, walking off the plane, looking around and then getting back on the plane and leaving. I repeat this for everyone who ever thinks about moving here - it's not for everyone. And for those who stay, you may love the place to pieces. But I'm willing to bet most still need a break from it all. And that's us. A couple of times a year, it's nice to go somewhere. Somewhere new and exotic if at all possible.

And one of the great...resentment is too harsh a word, but certainly envy, of my late 20s and early 30s, was watching friends go all over the world. I had friends in the UK, Africa, southeast Asia, the middle east, California....everywhere it seemed. I had Clarenville and St. John's.

So we're making up for some lost time. Besides, I haven't had a vacation in nearly a year. The last time I sat around and did nothing was when we went to Florida last April for a week. So yes, a break. Something other than the ice and snow.

So where are we going? What exciting and exotic land are we off to?

Um, Florida.

Yeah, I know. Cathy's parents are there so we're going to go and crash with them for a week like we did last year. Although last year I had a hard time sitting still. I had been unemployed for several months, so I didn't really need the break. This time, I suspect I'll have no problems flaking out on a beach with a book. Or possibly an iPad 2 if I can find a store there that's selling them.

Yes, relaxation is the name of the game this time.

Oh, and in case anyone is thinking the house is unattended for that week, well, we have a vicious attack dog (well, he's a noisy fucker at least), plus a house sitter. So if you were thinking of breaking in, well, no.

I'll let you know if I see any true weirdness. It's Florida and it's Easter, so I'm willing to bet the odds are good.

Last Five
1. Century city (live) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2. On the back of a broken dream - Flogging Molly
3. Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen*
4. Fiesta - The Pogues
5. December - David Gray

Kiss and tell

2011-04-11T23:00:00.001-04:00

When I read this story about Kiss playing Grand Falls-Windsor my first reaction was to mock. Well, all right, I might have already mocked on Twitter. But that was mainly due to the absolutely ludicrous lede. I don't know if it's Ms. Colbourne's fault or if she has a desk to close to Steve Bartlett at the Telegram and suffered a temporary loss in sanity. Look, most people don't consider Kiss to be the most influential rock band in history. Virtually no one does. If you're going to have discussions about most important rock bands of all time then you mention The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin and The Ramones to start with. Kiss is a great rock band in the same way that Def Leppard and Bon Jovi are. And yes, that's meant exactly as backhanded as you think.

Now, the easy thing is to mock the band for playing Grand Falls. I've long had the theory that Newfoundland is the elephant graveyard of rock music. Bands who were big once stagger to the island, trying to desperately grasp one last burst of glory before wandering off into the Atlantic to die. Or shot out of mercy. It doesn't always work. April Wine and Trooper keep playing there despite the best efforts of some to put them out of their misery. But it's rare that a band in their prime plays in the province.

To say Kiss is past their "Best By" date would be an understatement. I'm pretty sure they haven't had a hit in 25 years. Oh, I'm sure it'll be an entertaining enough show for the devoted, but if I was in Newfoundland would I pay $70 to go and see them? Hell no. I wouldn't pay them that much if they were actually in St. John's. Paying to see them in Grand Falls? Not in this lifetime.

But an interesting thing happened on the way to this blog post, which has been brewing for a few days. I read this article from Rolling Stone the other day about Bob Seger. It's a great interview (how the hell is his stuff not up on iTunes) and talking about how he's not doing this too much longer because, well, he's 65 years old and chain smokes and playing for a couple of hours on stage kind of hurts these days. Seger probably hasn't had a hit since 'Breakdown' from the Beverly Hills Cop movie.

For that matter, Jackson Browne is on tour right now doing solo acoustic shows. I have two of the solo acoustic albums and they're fantastic. But again, no idea when he last had a hit song.

Now, I could make the point that I consider both Seger and Browne to be much better than Kiss, but of course, that's a matter of taste. And, I would argue, common sense, but anyway...

So I can't get up on my horse too high about people willing to pay to see Kiss. If that's your thing, more power to you. I'd pay good money to go see Seger in a second. I think Browne was playing in St. John's and tickets were a pretty penny. So logically, I can't really mock if you're willing to drive all the way to Grand Falls and stand outside for hours to watch Kiss play a set.

But understand, I really, really want to.

Last Five
1. American Idiot - Cast of American Idiot
2. The fixer - Pearl Jam
3. Blackbird - Neil Diamond
4. The masterplan - Oasis
5. Take this waltz (live) - Leonard Cohen*

Not so fine dining

2011-04-10T23:40:00.000-04:00

I mentioned we had a new restaurant in town, with the introduction of Yummy Shawarma. I've eaten there twice more since the last time I wrote about it, and I still like it quite a bit, although I need to ask them to go light on the garlic sauce. I love garlic, but it repeated on me something fierce. Plus, I'm sure I wasn't a joy to be around a few hours later.

However, if the fates giveth, they also taketh away. And no, not just with the loss of Fantasy Palace. Cathy and I like going to the Gallery Dining Room at the Frobisher maybe once a month. It's an expensive restaurant, but if we have the money and we're in the mood. This evening we had the added bonus of being able to go and not have it cost us anything. As part of my Glorious Curling Victory last weekend I go a $120 gift card for the restaurant. Which, given the prices at the place, is almost exactly enough for supper for two.

The problem with the Frob is they tend to switch up chefs once or twice a year. And the last few have not had a curb upwards in menu quality. The latest is apparently a big fan of seafood. For example, the only appetizer that was not seafood was a Caesar salad. Most of the main courses are now seafood. They changed the cut of beef for the steak I used to get and it's not nearly as good now. And for $50, I'd like a slightly better quality steak than that. Or, for that matter, more than a few scraps of potato and some asparagus as a side. Cathy spend $30 for essentially vegetarian pasta. Lovely and all, but they at least used to offer to toss in a bit of chicken for a few dollars extra. Not so much anymore.

So yeah, the Frob is off the list for the next little while. Normally not a big deal, but when you have something like seven restaurants in town, losing one is a bit of a blow.

Then again, in about a week's time, we're going to overdose on restaurants. Ever time we go out and friends or family are around, I think they're bemused/horrified by the number of restaurants we go to. I mean, we don't even make the pretence of picking up some groceries. We so rarely get to eat out or sample new foods. So yeah, we'll be hitting a few places when we start our vacation.

And where are we going? Well, more on that next time.

Last Five
1. All you need is love - The Beatles*
2. Your fake name is good enough for me - Iron & Wine
3. Near fantastica - Matthew Good
4. The hands that built America - U2
5. Treasure - Ron Hynes

Blackberries and shawarma

2011-04-07T23:55:00.001-04:00

I've written before that telecommunications up here tend to be a little...different, than what most people experience down south. If I had a dollar for every time I read a tweet saying how much Northwest Tel sucked, I could pay off my mortgage in about half the time. To say there is hatred over NWTel in Iqaluit would be an understatement. It mostly starts with how bad the internet is. If you're paying $120 a month for internet and suffering with a 10 gig cap, you'd at least like the speed to be not disgusting and for it to be reliable.

That doesn't happen very often, alas. Hence our reasons for switching to Xplorenet last year.

The other thing that's cursed on is the cell phone service. Iqaluit only got cell service in the past five years, I believe. I know there wasn't any when we first moved here in 2005. And if you listen to some people around town, what's here now isn't all that great. Let's take today, for example. Blackberry service in town was almost completely useless. And why was that? Because there was a conference in town. That meant a couple of hundred extra people in town, all checking their Blackberry. Which, it seems, overloaded the local network's ability to handle traffic. So there were a lot of grumpy people around town today.

On the upside, we have a new restaurant in town. Anywhere else, not such a big deal. New restaurants don't open every day in Iqaluit. They don't open every year, for that matter. But for some reason, a family decided to open a shawarma and donair shop in town. Everybody is pretty excited by this. Cathy and I have eaten there twice and it's tasty. Judging by the line-up at lunch time today, they're off to a good start.

It does mean the end of another long term establishment in town, though. Fantasy Palace, a long-time coffee shop in town, is no more. So no longer will new arrivals leave the airport, glance to their left, see the name Fantasy Palace and assume it was the local strip joint. It's the loss of a local landmark and the first local coffee shop killed by Tim Hortons. I don't think too many people were surprised to see it go, to be honest.

But hey, shawarma. And the Grind and Brew started serving pizza late last year, which is also not bad. If we could get some good Mexican and Indian food, we'd be all set.

Last Five
1. I will follow (live) - U2
2. In the neighbourhood - Tom Waits*
3. The world we live in - The Killers
4. Talk to me - Bruce Springsteen
5. Living with the masses - Sloan

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 13

2011-04-06T23:14:00.001-04:00

So here we are at the end of the another season. This normally means bad things for the Doyle family. Last year we had heart attacks, a frame up for a murder and Ron Hynes closing out the season. So what's going to happen this time?

Well, Tinny and Des get kidnapped, an old partner of Jake's comes back looking to settle a score and about the only person safe for next season appears to be Jake. Everyone else is up in the air. In other words, another eight months or so of pure torture for fans of the show. Anyway, let's get started.

So it seems back in the day, when Jake was with the RNC he had a partner - Crocker - who was a wee bit of a scumbag. And Jake helped to bring him down. The only thing, of course, is that he got away before they could arrest him. Now, 10 years later he's decided it's time to come back and take care of Jake. And the best way to do this is to kidnap Tinny and Des and force Jake to rob several million dollars for him.

It's an intense episode, which is fortunate because if you pause and stop for a minute and actually start to think about it, you realize it's also a pretty stupid one. I'm tempted to use the phrase "intensely stupid", which is accurate, just not in the way you would normally think.

This has always been one of little annoyances with the show - good stories, but you sometimes get really stupid plot points. Jake's ex-partner kidnapping Tinny and getting Jake involved in a heist he didn't want to save her life is a good idea. It's just the execution that was weird. The robbery was weird, Jake turning on Crocker and getting him thrown in jail feels just like an excuse to get the police involved in the plot and to stage a dramatic jail break later.

Once Rose had it narrowed down to about seven places, that should have been it. No need for the big jail break. Once they knew it was an abandoned warehouse in St. John's they could have gone to the police, who arrest Crocker, organize a big search of the city and that's it. The only way to throw a wrench into that is if Crocker alluded to having a partner watching Tinny and Des. They can't go looking then because a partner at least puts the fear in them for trying something like that. But he never does, which is again, stupid. I know Crocker isn't supposed to be a criminal mastermind, but still...

As I said, intense, but not all that smart. This was an episode that counted on people who are supposed to be smart being very stupid. When the cop at the end compliments Jake for being clever, I burst out laughing.

However, I will give props to a few things. First, Paul Gross looked like he was having a blast being a bad cop. So here's hoping they can find an excuse to bring him back sometime soon. Bring him back instead of that idiot author character.

Secondly, for a show settled into a nice, comfortable routine they certainly blew it up really good in the last 10 minutes. Jake possibly rejoining the police, Leslie fired, Tinny off to Europe and Mal and Rose running off into retirement. Now, the reset button can be hit quick enough, but it's an interesting cliff-hanger to end the season.

A couple of other points.
1. The actual mayor of St. John's, Doc O'Keefe, was in the scene at the Duke. So was John Crosbie. It occurs to me that Andy Jones hasn't appeared in the show yet. If he does, clearly he needs to be the premier. It would be a lovely in-joke, as he was the premier during the movie Secret Nation.
2. Trimmed Navel Beef (the name of the salt meat in the warehouse) was a local band that was quite popular about 10 years ago. Your in-joke for the week.
3. There was clearly a bit of money blown in this episode, what with the big car smash-up on Water Street, plus a Pogues song ("Dirty Old Town") to close out the season and a Bruce Springsteen song ("Mrs. McGrath" off the excellent Seeger Sessions recordings) for the dramatic jail break. I'm always surprised by the music choices on the show. They're mostly excellent, but I always figured they'd use more local music.

I'll do a wrap-up of the season in the next few days.

And now, best quotes:

"Obviously I ended my personal relationship with the mayor when I arrested him." - Leslie

"Dessy’s being a good little housewife." - Tinny

"How is our plucky little PI connected to all of this?" - RNC investigator (blanking on his name)

"I don’t want you to starve, so you can eat my corpse." - Des to Tinny

"I’ve always been one more of a curling fan, myself." - Mal

"Another 50 and I can pretend to be a cop in private." - A hooker out in the Battery to Jake

"I don’t think you should eat 20 year old salt beef." - Tinny to Des

"I love you (pause) You can shoot me later if you want." - Jake to Leslie

"I wanted to kill you for a long time…I just needed something to get me off the couch." - Crocker

"You can shoot me now if you want to."

"Don't tempt me." - Jake and Leslie

"To not getting shot." - Rose

Last Five

1. She will be loved - Maroon 5

2. Burn your life down - Tegan and Sara

3. Bobby Jean (live) - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

4. Glamourous death - The Pursuit of Happiness

5. U.R.A. fever - The Kills*

Three quick things

2011-04-04T23:42:00.000-04:00

1. Clare first brought Indigo's health to my attention a few days ago. I didn't know her as well as some other northern bloggers, like Jen and Clare. But she always swung by the blog, had a few kind things to say or interesting observations to make. I was saddened to hear about her death. It's going to be an absence in the local blogging community, but more importantly it's the loss of a good friend and a beloved family member. My condolences to everyone.

2. When all hell broke loose in Japan last month, I remember reading a quick article with someone saying they were actually more in favour of nuclear power after the incident than they were before. Which was a curious thing to say in the wake of all the panic that was going on. But really, he had an interesting point. The reactor survive a 9.0 Richter Scale earthquake. It was only when the tsunami wave hit and knocked out back-up generators that all hell broke loose.

Geoff Meeker, who writes a media column with The Telegram, did a piece expressing his disgust with a lot of the fear-mongering reporting that happened after the plant incident. But it's this piece with Bob McDonald of CBC's Quirks and Quarks that really impressed me. McDonald explains what happened with the reactor better than anyone else I've read so far and makes an interesting and compelling argument on nuclear power.

I'm not saying let's rush out and build nuclear reactors everywhere. But I think after reading this I'm a little more open to the idea of nuclear power than I was before. And if nothing else, he's a good place to start on any debate on the subject.

3. So after Southwest Airline had a few incidents involving a Boeing 737 I was wondering if there was going to be a warning. Lo and behold, there is. But the thought that crossed my mind was that both First Air and Canadian North use older 737s, so were any of those planes going to be affected?

Thanks to the power of Twitter, I posed that question and got an answer. First Air doesn't, but Canadian North has one. Which I'm willing to bet is being inspected as we speak. So that brings up two things - god love Twitter, which is a brilliant way of throwing questions out into the wild and getting answers. And secondly, both airlines really need to get some new planes. Seriously.

Last Five
1. October - U2
2. From my own true love - The Decemberists
3. Wallet - Regina Spektor
4. Voicething - Goldfrapp
5. Times a thousand - Hot Hot Heat

Not dead, just curling

2011-04-03T21:06:00.001-04:00

First of all, no Republic of Doyle review again this week. Sorry. My curling game got shuffled from Thursday to Wednesday. By the time I got home, there was 20 minutes left, which I watched and seemed fine. But I certainly didn't see enough to review or comment on. However, I will make sure to catch the finale this Wednesday. Can hardly miss the last episode of the season, can I?

But yes, I've actually been busy with curling this week. I haven't written about it much this season because it was a fairly frustrating year. Teams I tried to put together for the mixed championship and the Dominion both collapsed. Every year there is a team that always seems to be caught on the wrong end of the stick when it comes to having games cancelled because teams folded or people are away on duty travel. This year, it was our team.

And then, to put one final kick in the groin, we suffered what was, no kidding, my single worst loss since junior high. We were blown out 12-0 in five ends on the second last game of the season. So when we headed into the play-offs, I was not that optimistic.

And yet, strange things started to happen. Getting regular games gelled us as a team. We won the first game pretty easily. Despite blowing a 6-1 lead, we won the second game. The third game was against the second seed who had smacked us around pretty good early in the season, and we held on against them. Then we faced the #1 seeded team who beat us 12-0 and got a measure of revenge by knocking them out. And then we managed to win the final. We won our league night.

Six years I've been curling at the club and I've made it to the final twice before, but it was nice to finally win one. But what was even nicer was to get one for the rest of the team. Mark, who kept laughing and shaking his head in disbelief that we pulled it out. Troy, who has only been curling for two years. And Ashley, my rock at Third, who ran home to boast to her husband that she's now a curling champion.

I figured that was pretty much going to be the end of it. But we had the Canadian North bonspiel this weekend and we agreed to put a team in weeks ago. But after winning the league championship, this was for giggles. I think we were all hoping to be lucky enough to win a plane ticket (plane tickets are offered up as door prizes. This prevents stacked teams and keeps things a lot more fun) rather than winning the thing.

We won the first game pretty easily, but the second game was against two of the best players in the club, so I figured that was going to be the end of that streak. But we won (secret strategy, make sure they get drunk the night before, have to get up early to work on the ice and play still feeling hungover. I recommend it). The third game went to something ugly called Skip Stones. It's the equivilent of a shoot-out in hockey. Each Skip gets to throw one rock to break the tie. Closest to the button wins. I managed to get my shot about 6 inches further (I nearly killed my sweepers) than the other skip.

And then in the final, we got in trouble in the early ends. I gave the team a motivational speech (I won't say what it was, but it got them to laugh and it got them to kick it up a gear.) And next thing you know, we won the bloody thing. Two championships in less than a week. Unreal.

(And yes, that is a big ass and unsubtle trophy that Ashley is hoisting up there.)

I think if you have to end a curling season, that's not a bad note to go out on at all. Alas, none of us won any of the plane tickets, although we all got nice prizes for winning. I grabbed a $120 gift card for the Frobisher, where I will take my lovely, curling widow wife out to supper when she next wants.

I'll add two other things. First, the Canadian North is an awesome curling event. We can take 16 teams and the spots filled up pretty quick (although we had one drop out last minute due to an emergency). Canadian North provided, no kidding, six plane tickets. Five were door prizes and one was for the infamous frozen foot draw (slide on your bare foot on the ice. Closest shot to the button wins. $5 a shot, all money goes to the food bank). Plus there were tons of other door prizes. I also managed to get a cool 2010 Winter Olympics jacket. I will bet there is no event in Iqaluit where you have better odds of winning a plane ticket (by the time you discount the team who had to drop out, Canadian North employees and a few people who do not show up for the draw, the odds are about 1 in 13 of winning), plus be able to have an absolute blast.

The second thing is that I'd forgotten how superstitious I can get over curling. I haven't written about curling in recent weeks because, well, I was winning and not mentioning it on the blog, so let's keep that going. One of the play-off games happened on St. Patrick's Day so I wore a green shirt. And we won. So I kept wearing that shirt. I wore it for every game except one down the stretch.

For that matter, I had a nice Olympic fleece Cathy bought at a house sale (for 50 cents. Insane) that I wore to a game early in the play-offs. The opposing team stole two points early, then I took the fleece off because I was warm. Next end, we took five. It was never worn at the club again.

And so wraps up curling. I was at the club this morning helping to clean up and put things away. The City brought in the zamboni to try and get the ice off as they need the club for a banquet on Thursday (good luck with that). A rough start, but an excellent finish. Last year when the season wrapped up, I was done and looking forward to the break. This year, well, I'm looking forward to next season.

Last Five
1. Cry on demand - Ryan Adams
2. Alfie - Lily Allen
3. Do what you want, be what you are - Hall & Oates
4. Tick tick boom - The Hives*
5. The red light - Joel Plaskett Emergency

Neutrality

2011-03-27T22:06:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-26T20:54:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-25T00:04:00.000-04:00

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...

2011-03-21T23:01:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-16T23:12:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-14T23:08:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-09T23:30:00.001-05:00

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

2011-03-02T23:37:00.000-05:00

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

2011-03-01T23:34:00.001-05:00

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*

Oscars, Scotties and Twitter

2011-02-28T22:57:00.001-05:00

1. I tried watching the Oscars last night, but good lord that was bad. I mean, I thought last year's show with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin was bad, but this was truly horrible. I think last year's might have been worse simply because of the talent involved. I don't think anyone really expected comedic genius from Anne Hathaway (who was game and trying her best, but had nothing to work with) and James Franco was just a disaster. But Baldwin and Martin are genuinely funny men who bombed more often than not. Still, it was nearly impossible to watch.

There's already talk about who should host the show next year since it's a pretty sure thing Hathaway and Franco won't be invited back. But I think the problem isn't with the hosts. Some genuinely funny people have hosts the show in the recent past and have met with mixed success. There's no way that Jon Stewart or Chris Rock aren't funny. They are. I think it's just the confines of the show that prevent them from truly being able to cut loose. You'll never be able to do a Ricky Gervais style, no-holds-barred type of hosting on the show. It's too "sacred" or some such foolishness. Actually, Gervais's pseudo Oscar speech was funnier than anything on the show.

I haven't checked to see how I did on my predictions. It would mean, in some ways, having to relive parts of the show. And I'm really trying hard not to do that. I suspect not well.

Onwards...

2. I quite enjoyed the Scotties final last night. Down to the last rock, tricky shots and the team I didn't want to win, didn't win. So that's good. But also, I think I just enjoy women's curling more. It's more...human. If you're down three in a final after one end, as Amber Holland was last night, in men's curling you're doomed. Try staging a comeback down by three against a Martin or Howard. Not happening. It's going to be a couple of precise and deathly boring hours.

But in women's curling, things happen. They're still very good, but mistake happen more often. You can stage a comeback. It's just more fun. Just like the junior finals were a lot of fun. It's good when there's some suspense on if the player is going to make the shot. At elite men's level, if Martin or Howard had to get the stone to roll on it's side to make a take-out, I wouldn't be surprised. It's technically impressive and often deeply boring.

3. I mentioned a couple of days ago about the hit the local blogging community has taken and the reasons why people stop blogging. That doesn't mean that social media is dead in Nunavut. Far from it. Twitter has taken off big time, especially in Iqaluit. One of the big complaints about blogger is that almost no Inuit use it. That's not the case with Twitter. I can't say how many Inuit are using it, but certainly a couple of dozen. Which is a couple of dozen more than are using blogger.

Most local reporters are using Twitter now. Several local politicians are using it, although none so effectively as the city's mayor, Madeleine Redfern, who is a Twitter machine. She has her mayor's account and a personal account. And at any given time she's throwing out what's happening in the city, linking to articles or stories she finds interesting, arguing with reporters and any number of things.

It's fascinating to watch. I think it's safe to say she got my vote because of her activity on Twitter in the weeks leading up to the last municipal election.

I'm kicking around there too, for those who are interested.

Seriously though, I'm learning a lot more about my town just listening to people "talk" on Twitter. Some of it is fun, some of it is interesting, some have causes that they are unrelenting about (education, eating animals) and, of course, some of it is junk. And, occasionally, you find someone posting up a link to a picture that's amusing (Sorry Jordan). The poster was put up in the Post Office, incidentally.

Last Five
1. Paddy's lament - Flogging Molly
2. El Manana - Gorillaz
3. The final breath - Ron Hynes*
4. The golden rose - Tom Petty
5. Born in the USA (live) - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

What to watch on a Sunday night

2011-02-27T14:46:00.001-05:00

For my viewing pleasure this evening I have the choice between the Scotties final, the Amazing Race or the Oscar broadcast. I suspect there will be some channel surfing this evening, although Cathy normally hates that kind of thing.

The curling might drop off the radar pretty quick. It starts at 6:30, but I hate watching Jennifer Jones and Team Canada play. I'm wondering if they know they're the most hated team in curling right now? I might stick around and watch the game if it looks like they're taking a beating, but I expect them to win at this point and then go to the world's and choke again.

I hate the Team Canada format, even though I know they're likely going to do something similar in the Brier in the next couple of years. Kevin Koe, the defending world champion, lost in the Alberta playdowns, which is striking some as tragically unfair. I call it curling. I don't think any team should get a free pass to the national championships. But that's me.

Then there's the Amazing Race at 8pm, which could be fun this year, with a bunch of teams that choked or screwed up in previous races getting a second chance. Some of these teams are still going to be dead meat, but there's a couple I'm looking forward to seeing do well. Although, I confess I'm a bit annoyed. The commercials in the weeks leading up to the show indicated two of my favourite teams from last season - the QVC hosts and the Harvard guys who sing - were going to be in this season. And they're not. A pity because they were both a lot of fun.

Finally, there's the Oscars at 8:30. Yes, there's the red carpet beforehand to gawk at the dresses, but that's one of those things you can easily channel surf. As for the hosts - James Franco and Anne Hathaway - I suspect they will be pleasant, safe and utterly bland. You won't see much in the way of insulting the big stars of the day, which is a pity. A little mocking never hurt anyone, and in some cases is much needed.

As for my pick for the winners:
Best Picture - The King's Speech
Best Director - David Fincher
Best Actor - Colin Firth
Best Actress - Natalie Portman
Best Supporting Actor - Helena Bonham Carter
Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale
Best Animated Feature - Toy Story 3
Art Direction - The King's Speech
Cinematography - Inception
Costume Design - The King's Speech
Documentary Feature - The Inside Job
Documentary Short Feature - (No idea) Killing in the name
Film Editing - The Social Network
Foreign Language Film - Butiful
Make-up: Barney's Version
Music: Original Score - Inception
Music: Original Song - We Belong Together (Toy Story 3)
Short Film (Animated) - The Lost Thing
Short Film (live) - The Confession
Sound Editing - Inception
Sound Mixing - Inception
Visual Effects - Inception
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - The Social Network
Writing (Original Screenplay) - The King's Speech

We'll see how well I do. Normally I'm around 70-75% on my picks.

Last Five
All songs from 21 by Adele.

Five things on a Thursday evening

2011-02-24T23:49:00.000-05:00

1. I mentioned yesterday I had a great curling game. And I did. Tonight I had a game so bad I'm hard pressed to believe it actually happened. It feels like I had a bad drug reaction and the whole thing was a nightmare. I can only wish that was the case. I said afterwards it was the worst game I've curled in 25 years. I may be exaggerating, but not by much.

So why mention it here? As a reminder to myself. These things should be remembered so that you do better the next time. And we will. Through some miracle we finished fourth in our league play heading into the playoffs. Now we'll just have to do better. Because if we ever play like that again I'm impaling myself on my curling broom.

2. I got an email from a regular reader of the blog who comes from California, but who has a big time love of the Arctic. Apparently, Nunavut bloggers are not providing her with a big enough fix and I think she might be taking the whole "Godfather of the Nunavut blogging community" a bit too seriously. As much as it might be nice to have the power to whip Nunavumiut bloggers into shape, or leave a horse's head in their bed if they don't, alas I do not.

Still, it's nice to be have people want more of our writing, so we should all try and step up the pace a bit. However, to answer her question about why there aren't more updates, most Nunavut blogs tend to start off as observations by people new to the territory trying to explain to friends and family what this new experience is like. But after awhile you start running out of new experiences, or what seemed bizarre a month ago becomes commonplace.

I've been writing this blog for more than five years. I have no earthly idea how I'm managing that (I'm getting to 2,000 posts if it kills me. I'm about 100 away). But the lifespan of most Nunavut blogs tends to be a year or less.

3. I've been stuck at 99 followers for a couple of weeks now. Some nice person want to tip me over to 100?

4. It feels....uncouth to mentioned the Coldest Canadian contest still going on with everything happening in New Zealand, but the box is still up there in the corner, so if you could click on it and go and take a look at some of the videos, that would be much appreciated. There's only a few days left in the contest.

5. Adele's 21 is quite an album, it must be said. I'm just throwing that out there. Also, Hey Rosetta's Seeds has a song with throat singing in it - "Parson Brown (Upirngaangutuq Iqalunni)" - in case you were wondering. Good song, great album so far. I may do some album reviews this weekend because I think I might be sitting on a mother lode of great music right now.

Last Five
1. Mary - King's of Leon
2. English girls approximately - Ryan Adams
3. I saw her standing there (live) - Paul McCartney
4. Give me Novocaine - Green Day
5. Spanish Harlem - Bowling For Soup

No Doyle, but a chemical spill for your amusement

2011-02-23T23:43:00.000-05:00

Sorry, folks, but after 20 odd straight reviews of Doyle, I'm finally going to miss one. I was off at a make up curling game this evening, got back late and missed the first 15 minutes or so of the show. I mean, it seemed like a pretty good episode and there were a few good moments in it. However, as I didn't see the entire episode I don't really feel comfortable review it. Sorry...

On the upside, we won the game. We're 6-4 this season with one game left. We're in the play-offs, though. It's been such a mixed bag of a season. I'd really like to go out on a high note with this team.

And now, for the big news in Iqaluit today. The post office was subject to a chemical attack. Acetic acid was unleashed at the post office, causing it to be evacuated and the staff taken to hospital to be examined.

Which sounds awfully serious and bad. Except acetic acid is vinegar. Yes, the post office closed because of a package leaking vinegar produced fumes that made staff sick. And no, I'm not making this up. Go here and here for proof.

Now, if the fire department says they made the right call, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Some wags on Twitter today, who were mocking this pretty hard (I may or may not have been one of them) went so far as to suggest this was an excuse to get part of a day off. Not for a second do I believe this if for no other reason than a few hours off is not worth the punishing amount of mocking they're going to take for the next few weeks.

Still, among the highlight of jabs:
- Fire fighters are on the scene with fish and chips to deal with the vinegar spill.
- It's possible it was someone smuggling white wine and Canada Post was so slow it just turned into vinegar.
- The sad thing is, someone probably could have gotten hundreds of dollars for that vinegar in Arctic Bay.
- Trying to get off work early today. Anyone have a spare bottle of vinegar?

And so on and so forth.

So a bad day for Canada Post. Amusing for the rest of us, though.

Last Five
Listening to Hey Rosetta's Seeds Nicole Atkins Mondo Amore.

Helping New Zealand

2011-02-22T22:45:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm linking to a contest about Coldest Canadians and trying to win a trip to New Zealand, but obviously I'm thinking about the people in that country dealing with the earthquake. I wasn't sure what else I could really say other than I'm obviously hoping that there are not too many more deaths and that the country is able to bounce back as quickly as possible. But while reading Neil Gaiman's blog (his wife, Amanda Palmer, is touring in New Zealand right now) he made the obvious suggestion. So go and visit the New Zealand Red Cross page and donate. You might have to be a bit patient as the page is running a little slow.

I hope that means there are lots of people donating and trying to help. If you've been voting in the Coldest Canadian contest then I hope you also take a minute to donate some money to the Red Cross to help out the people in that fantastic country.

Last Five
1. Can't get arrested - Lloyd Cole
2. When you're smiling - Blue Vipers of Brooklyn
3. Heart of stone - The Monday Nights*
4. Mother and child reunion - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
5. Mystify - INXS

The grumps

2011-02-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

So yes, I've been quiet here the last few days. The usual "I can't think of anything to write about", but mixed in with a bit of grumpiness for flavour.

Now, I have been known to produce some pretty good writing if I'm pissed off or in a mood. But this was one of these moods that left me in the mood to not do much of anything, let along write. It was more of a sit and stew and snap mood. I don't think I've updated Facebook or Twitter in days either for that matter. So this is a bit odd for me.

I've never been particularly susceptible to Seasonal Affected Disorder, although I know people up here who get hit pretty hard by it. The lack of daylight, the isolation, the cold can get to you. Now, this is my sixth winter up here and I don't think I've been hit as hard as I was the last week. I think the difference this time around is simply I haven't had a vacation in almost a year. I've had a day off here or there, but a couple of weeks off sitting some place warm, or going some place cool for an adventure (Ottawa, while nice and all, is not the ticket). I think I'm just getting a bit burnt out.

So yeah, that came to roost this week. Just a rough week work wise for both Cathy and I, combined with cold and darkness and it being almost two months before we get our vacation, well, let's just say I was grumpy, Cathy was grumpy and neither of us were particularly nice people to be around. Although apparently I was worse.

We're better now. A weekend of doing almost nothing certainly helped. And, when worse comes to worse, retail therapy can get you over the hump. We both have Future Shop and Chapters gift cards we haven't used yet. I think by Tuesday (it's when new books and movies are released) those cards will be pretty well used up.

I think I've also downloaded about 15 new records in the last few days in the hopes of finding some new music. Not the new Radiohead, though. The reviews are not great and the descriptions of the songs make me deeply uninterested.

We've also been plotting out the summer a bit - the U2 show in Toronto, we're looking at doing a bus tour of Costa Rica. Plus we're trying to figure out what vehicle we're going to buy during our sealift. Right now we're looking at a Subaru Forrester or an Outback, with a Kia Sportage or GM Equinox as longshots.

I guess it's the stuff you do when you're in the duldrums, feeling a bit down and have to do something to get over the hump. We'll get over it. I suspect last week was as bad as it gets. It's February. February always sucks up here.

Last Five
1. Girls on crutches - Hawksley Workman
2. This city is a drag - Hawksley Workman
3. Musical key - Cowboy Junkies
4. When I hear my name (live) - The White Stripes
5. Chainsaw Earle (live) - Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellas

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 6

2011-02-17T07:45:00.001-05:00

We're now at the half way mark of Season 2. Time flies when you're have a medium amount of amusement.

On tonight's Doyle, a rogue wave washes away a fishing skipper friends of Jake and Mal....or was it murder.

Let's just say if you were playing a drinking game and had to do a shot every time a character said "rogue wave" you would have been hammered by the third commercial break.

Also on this week's episode, Jake forgets the important lesson of "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" and Leslie learns the hard way that maybe she should wear a bigger vest.

Not a bad episode over all. If nothing else it was nice for them to get outside of St. John's for a bit of an episode. I'm not saying I want the Doyles to do a whirlwind tour of Newfoundland, but popping down to Petty Harbour for an episode isn't the end of the world. It's a lovely spot. And the mystery wasn't too bad. I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to play out the way that it did, but I wasn't sure the reasons why. So not a bad mystery as things go.

Although that was a pretty dubious explosion. The blue screen was pretty obvious. I guess it's one thing to blow up a limo...blowing up a fishing boat is a bit beyond the show's budget.

As for the subplots....not so sure. It appears the Doyles now own the Duke, which is kind of amusing. Let me just say that $1 million is lowballing how much it would cost to buy that bar by a considerable amount. I'm not sure I believe the idea that Jake would get involved with Christian and a bar again, knowing everything he does about his past. Yes, I understand second chances and Mal is big on giving Christian another try, but still. Then again, I don't have a brother, so I guess I'm not an expert on the lengths people will go for them. But I guess we'll see where that plot goes. Plus, it's the return of the loan shark. I guess Jake paid him off-screen or something from earlier the season.

I still find the idea of a loan shark in St. John's amusing. I mean, they probably do exist, but it's just odd when I think about it.

And then there's Leslie's return. I'm sure they could have found another way for character development than her getting shot, to be honest. That came a bit out of left field. But hey, it gets to kick up the Jake/Leslie/Crown love triangle a notch or three. I also enjoyed how a gut shot is something that gets you out of hospital in about 24 hours or so. Ummm, no, I don't think so.

It really feels like the writers are having more fun with the crown attorney than they are with Leslie this year. It's almost like they really don't quite know what to do with her.

As for the other characters, Rose was back to being magical plot device (why yes, she can get his medical records that fast), Dez wasn't too annoying (please god don't have him singing in a future episode) and Tinny was barely present. So not as good as last week, but not too bad. Although you would think there has to be some fall-out from Tinny's drug running, but maybe not. Doyle's not the best on follow-up.

Oh, and using "Fisherman's Blues" by the Waterboys at the end? Nice touch.

Only a few quotes this week:

"He looks like he’s ready to murder somewhere right there. He needs to relieve his stress, man. Tell him to try meditation." - Dez

"The other buddy went over to the other buddy and cracked him in the head with the tire iron" - Jake practicing his testimony while being distracted by a crown attorney wearing a short dress.

Last Five
1. God - Tori Amos
2. Crazy little thing called ove - Queen
3. River blue - Oh Susanna
4. Smile - Weezer
5. Not to late - Lindsay Buckingham

Voting at Coldest Canadian

2011-02-15T23:00:00.001-05:00

So, there's about 10 days left in the Coldest Canadian contest and I haven't made a grovelling plea for traffic. For those of you who are going "what the fuck are you going on about?" there is a little link on the sidebar. Go forth and click on it. From there you go to the Coldest Canadian website where you can view some videos of people torturing themselves in an attempt to win plane tickets to New Zealand.

I have no video there, alas. If they do this again next year, I think I might as I have an idea, but with the amount of time left for people to vote, I don't think I could catch up with the votes. However, the blogger/Twitterer/whatnot who drives the most traffic to the site also wins plane tickets. That's kind of what I'm aiming for. I was doing pretty well with it at first...about 45 per cent of outgoing traffic was heading to the site, which was good. But it's dropped down to closer to 30 per cent right now. So it's time to change that.

To help you with your voting, I'm giving direct links to all the northern entries so far. And by northern I do not mean, you know, Calgary. Yes, it gets cold there, down to -30C sometimes. However, three days later it coule be 20C. So you're not exactly into long-term suffering there.

I could make an argument that it's not really cold if you have trees, but anyway.

So here are links to videos North of 60:

1. An Arctic Trip to the Beach - Nunavut
2. Very Cold in the Middle of Nowhere - Nunavut
3. North of 60 - Northwest Territories
4. Throwing hot water into the air at -40C - Northwest Territories
5. We love winter - Yukon
6. The Yukoner goes snorkelling - Yukon

If you live in the north and I missed one, point it out to me and I'l add it to the list. In the meantime, go vote and, just as importantly, make sure you use my blog and links to go to those videos...

Last Five
1. Wings - Josh Ritter*
2. Things have changed - Bob Dylan
3. Sisters of mercy (live) - Leonard Cohen
4. Diamonds on my windshield - Tom Waits
5. Gone to hell - Sean Panting

Your Valentine's Day post

2011-02-14T23:24:00.000-05:00

So, a good Valentine's Day here. Cathy bought me this bag, which is awesome. I've been meaning to get a new man bag/satchel and this works quite well. Besides, Tilley stuff is fantastic. It's bloody indestructible and a Canadian company to boot. Yeah, it's pricy, but it's good quality stuff.

Cathy got part of her Valentine's Day gift. She got her Gerber Daisies and I made one of her favourite meals this evening. Sadly, the gift I ordered for her three weeks ago hasn't shown up yet. Deeply annoying. Cathy was pretty understanding - it's happened to her before when she's order things for me - but still.

I understand there are people who hate Valentine's day, thinking it's manufactured and whatnot. I think it all depends on the attitude you have going in. Really, one day a year where you make certain to take some extra effort to do something a little romantic - what's wrong with that?

And now, a video. I posted this on Facebook last night, so if you're seeing this again over there, my apologies. However, I am a huge Josh Ritter fan and really, you ought to be as well. There's a man who should have been nominated for a bunch of Grammy's last night. Anyway, I somehow missed this video before. However, Neil Gaiman put it up on his Twitter feed, I looked at and fell in love with it. A simple song, with puppets, that will break your heart.

And yes, it's Valentine's Day and love is the star of the day. But maybe there ought to be a touch of heartbreak in there as well, just to remind you of how wonderful the love is when it goes right.

Last Five
1. Top yourself - The Raconteurs
2. The wrestler - Bruce Springsteen*
3. You've lost that lovin' feelin' - Hall & Oates
4. Blue light - Block Party
5. Walking with a ghost - Tegan & Sara*

General cluelessness

2011-02-13T21:18:00.001-05:00

I am opting to not watch the Grammy's this evening. Undoubtably there will be a few cool moments there, but the question you have to ask is, is it worth suffering through what will be three hours of almost universal crap just to get to the two or three cool moments?

The answer being, Christ no. Tomorrow I'll got to Entertainment Weekly's website, find out what the highlights were and then find the clips on YouTube or some other site. Judging by the bitching showing up on my Twitter/Facebooks feeds right now, I am not missing much. Besides, Cathy is watching CTV's one year anniversary show of the Vancouver Olympics. Trying to take the remote control away from her at this moment while she's reliving her Olympic buzz would be....ill advised.

In honour of Valentine's Day tomorrow, I shall link to this article that I read this morning because I found it amusing, although in a way that most of you cannot possibly understand. For those of you not wanting to bother to make with the clicky on the link, it's basically a guy in his 20s in New York discovering he has no idea how to date women when he's sober.

So why is this amusing to me? Because I spent my entire university life sober. I did not drink. It was a source of pride with me, for some idiotic reason, that I did not drink. Now, in retrospect I understand I had a few issues going on in my life that made the idea of drinking deeply unappealing to me. Let's just call those issues family related and leave it at that.

But the other thing was, I was spectacularly bad at dating. Friends at that time can relate horror stories of my attempts or my general obliviousness when someone was interested in me. Or my inability to really handle it when I knew. Most of the major relationships in my life, including Cathy, I have managed to stumble into.

But, and I swear to God this is true, it never dawned on me that if I had simply had went out and got shit-faced every weekend I probably would have dated more women. I'm not saying it would have been high quality relationships or anything. But going to George Street and getting drunk....it just never occurred to me. I never....processed that. Every time I went to a bar on George Street all I could think about was how singularly uncomfortable I was and how everyone seemed to be having fun, but I couldn't.

It was because they were all drunk, and I wasn't.

Here's the thing....I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent. But there are times I am deeply oblivious to the obvious. Especially when it comes to women or dating. And, apparently, drinking.

The good news, as I was lamenting my general cluelessness to Cathy this morning, was her response. "Well, it's not like you have to worry about your dating life and how bad you are at it ever again, is it?"

Wise woman, that wife of mine. I knew there was a reason why I married her.

Last Five
1. Put your record on (live) - Corinne Bailey Rae
2. No surprises - Radiohead*
3. Last one in - Dear Leader
4. Higher learning - Sam Roberts
5. Switchblade - Jenny & Johnny

Renewals and curling

2011-02-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

1. So the good news out of Newfoundland today was the Republic of Doyle being renewed for a third season. Not really much of a surprise as the show is averaging around one million people per week (I'd love to know what percentage of those of those are Newfoundlanders or are of Newfoundland origin), plus it's also up against American Idol. And while that show is a shadow of its former self, it still draws big enough ratings.

So that gives them another season to work on the show and keep working on those many quirks I mentioned. And let us not underestimate how much money it brings into the St. John's economy. So good news all the way around.

Tied up in that announcement was also the renewal of a bunch of other CBC shows. Most are not exactly a surprise, but I remain baffled that there is an audience for the Ron James Show, which is pretty unfunny. And I'm downright mystified why Insecurity got picked up for another season. The commercials are so awful that I actually flip away from the CBC when they come on. That follows an attempt to watch the show which lasted about three minutes, just to see if it was awful or if the commercials were doing a poor job of communicating the show. If anything, the commercials were funnier than the actual show.

2. I haven't talked much about curling recently (and there was much rejoicing) because it hasn't been a great season for me. I won't go into details, it just hasn't been as much fun as I would have hoped. I think I'll have to make a few more changes for next season.

In the meantime, I guess I can just a good curling bitch fight while waiting for the Scot and Brier to start. In one corner, Randy Ferbey, who has won just about every piece of curling hardware you can think of. And, if one is being completely honest, more than a little bit of a dick. Curling is one of those pretty tight knit and gossipy communities. I've been to a few events down south. "Dick" is one of the kinder words I've heard use to describe him.

In the other corner, we have Brad Gushue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, dick and it's many variants have also been used over the years to describe him over the years. So the two of them curling on the same team this season at different cash events was a match made in bizarro-land. I think everyone pretty much had the egg timer going on them to see how long it would take to crash and burn.

If you had the first week of February, collect your money. An epic slap fight has broken out between Ferbey and Gushue's rink, with one dick (Ferbey) saying his former teammates were quitters and control freaks, with the other dick (Gushue and his teammate Ryan Fry) was using words like "old" and "immature". Ferbey responded with the maturity one might expect, calling Fry a "puke".

It's entertaining, if nothing else. It's almost a pity that Ferbey is getting smoked in the Alberta playdowns for the Brier. It would have been hilarious if Ferbey and Gushue had met there. We might have seen our first actual brawl at a Brier game. In the meantime, enjoy the bitching and moaning.

As a Newfoundlander I feel compelled to cheer for Gushue when he's at the Brier. There are times I just wish the province could be represented by another elite team that wasn't quite so, you know, dickish.

Last Five
1. A better son-daughter - Rilo Kiley
2. Whip-smart - Liz Phair
3. Tell her about it - Billy Joel
4. Relative surplus value - The Weakerthans
5. Miles Davis and the cool - The Gaslight Anthem*

New Zealand, part 2

2011-02-10T23:26:00.001-05:00

1. So I'm glad to see people are helping out by going to the Coldest Canadian site. I have no idea where I'm ranking in terms of driving traffic, but keep on clicking and we'll see how it goes. Also, big thanks to Megan and Clare for throwing traffic my way. This is more proof of your awesomeness.

In the meantime, I actually have a specific video I can point you towards that I think is deserving of your vote. It's funny and clearly the man is a lunatic. So go to Michael's video and then throw a vote his way. Lord knows the man suffered for his art. I was thinking of doing a video, but I'm honestly not sure I can top that. I'm damn sure I don't want to try.

2. This summer is shaping up to be a pretty interesting one for movies. Just the sheer volume of big budget films means there should be something good out there (odds are Transformers 3 will not be in the awesome category), but it probably means that some of them are going to bomb. There are too many big movies chasing a finite number of dollars.

Given my love of comic books, obviously I'm paying attention to Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America and X-Men: First Class. The Green Lantern trailer is awful, the one for Thor is amusing in a cheesy sort of way. And the only thing I've seen of Captain America is a 30 second Super Bowl clip, which is not the best thing to judge.

The one I figured had the biggest chance of sucking was X-Men: First Class. Because X-Men 3 wasn't great, because it seemed like they were rushing the production and because the premise seemed a bit shaky. However, this is a pretty good trailer. so perhaps there is some hope for it after all. Time will tell.

Last Five
1. Committing fusion - Dear Leader*
2. Got some - Pearl Jam
3. Again and again - Bob Mould
4. Steppin' out - Joe Jackson
5. Reuben - The Be Good Tanyas

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 5

2011-02-09T23:55:00.000-05:00

I saw on Facebook, before this evening's episode started, that this is one of his favourite's from the season. Which is a scary thing to read and all. It's been a pretty mixed bag of episodes so far this season on Doyle. If this is supposed to be one of the best and it tanks, well, it speaks ill for the rest of the season.

Fortunately, it was probably the best episode of the season so far. For one thing, it felt balanced. We have the mystery of the week, which is who is trying to sabotage the wedding. We have Mal and Rose sniping at each other and the drug issue with Tinny is finally resolved, although in a different way than I suspected. Yes, some characters were given the short end of the stick, like Leslie, but I'm fine with that happening every now and then. Every character doesn't need to be in every episode with a big story arc. I'm content with Leslie taking a back seat this week, knowing in a couple of week's she'll get an episode and Tinny and Des will bugger off somewhere.

The mystery of the week was fun and all, even if it was pretty obvious within a few minutes who it was sabotaging the wedding. But just because you know who it was, doesn't always mean you know the reasons why they're doing something. So there were a few interesting things happening along the way until the big reveal at the end. As I said, not the best mystery of the week, but it did give us a fun car chase scene.

Actually, that was a nice piece of writing, with the car chase in the intro, then flashing back four hours, and then coming back to the car chase. I liked that.

As for our other subplots, I'm not really understanding the relationship between Jake and the Crown, but they haven't spent much time fleshing that out. She's mostly "Not Leslie" at this point. Perhaps they'll do something more interesting with her. Hell, I'd like to see a court scene with her and Walter. That could be amusing.

Mal and Rose are sniping at each other over vacations and marriage, which is amusing and does give Rose something to do this week other than supply plot points. Plus the scene at the end was unexpected and kind of sweet. They really need to do more with Mal, because he works well with everyone. When he and Jake and battling, that's fun. When Ma and Rose and being snippy, which is one of the rare times it's happened in the show, it's also kind of fun.

And finally, we have the end, maybe, hopefully, of the Tinny dope subplot. I'll give it credit, I didn't really think it would end with the dope blowing up in the back of a limo. That was unexpected. The scene with Des standing up and finding an out for Tinny was nice, as was Jake confronting her and expressing his disappointment.

But I was kind of hoping she might find her own way out of this without Des and Jake coming to bail her out. That was disappointing. I think there's still more to touch on with this, and we'll see if they do in the coming weeks. The show can be a bit erratic in coming back to dangling subplots. Remember when there were guys chasing Jake around for money he owned them back in the first episode of the season? Haven't heard from them since and, unless I missed a scene, he didn't pay them.

So yes, fun, light, a bit of action and good dialogue. It won't change the world or alter the face of Canadian television, but more of this would be perfectly fine with me.

This week's best quotes:

"You're about as much fun as bingo night at a retirement home." - Rose

"You're just like your mother!" - Mal to Rose

(Shocked looks from Rose and Jake) "Whoa. You're on your own there, old man." - Jake

"You’re a brave man, leaving the top down. The gulls in this town are the size of dogs." - Jake

"Call me old fashion, but the bride catching on fire might be considered bad luck." - Jake

"Oh my god, I just hit a drug dealer." - Des

"Tell me everything Des or I swear to god I will hang you upside down from Junctions balcony until you cry." - Jake

"I will get this confession out of you if I have to waterboard you myself." - Jake

"What is this, some kind of classy intervention?" - Jake

Last Five
1. Leap of innocence - Liz Phair
2. Your eyes open - Keane
3. Just like Zeus - Jenny and Johnny
4. Running for home - Matthew Good Band*
5. The crawl - Spirit of the West

Coldest Canadian

2011-02-07T22:58:00.000-05:00

So funny thing, I have a chance to go to New Zealand.

Yeah, I should probably back up a bit here.

Every now and then I get people who email me and ask if I'm willing to promote or plug something on the blog. For the most part I don't. It's nothing mean, it's just that I haven't done much in the way of anything commercial on the blog. There are no ads. I never even put up the sponsor links from Chapters which I was thinking about. Also, if I mention something on the blog from someone who emails me, I feel a touch responsible for it. So if I mention a new shipping service and it's no good, well, people can come and yell at me for it.

That might be crazy, but there you.

But then I got an odd email on the weekend from a marketing company with a website - Coldest Canadian - that's being sponsored by Air New Zealand. Basically, do a video arguing why you're the Coldest Canadian and you can win a trip to New Zealand.

Which is grand and all. I'm contemplating putting a video in, if I can find someone to shoot it for me. But there's also another contest - the person who throws the most attention to the site via blogs, twitter, Facebook and whatnot also gets a trip. I'd like to go to New Zealand. For one thing, all the Kiwis I met in Australia back in 2009 stated how much Australia sucked and how New Zealand was much better. You just never asked why they were in Australia. That was awkward.

I remember being in the Whitsundays and having a Kiwi guide grumble that if Whitehaven Beach was one of the ten best beaches in the world, the other nine were in New Zealand. How could I not want to visit a place like that?

So, I know I occasionally ask you lovely folks to do things for me, but what I would like is for you to click on that link. Clicking on it a lot would be lovely. Telling other people they should come and visit my site and click on that link would be spiffy as well.

This is going to be a thing for most of February, so bear with me as I don't normally impose, but hey, no one normally waves a trip to New Zealand at me either. So yes, you will be getting regular reminders to go that site via my blog.

For that matter, I'd love to see some of the videos from Nunavut or the north. The Coldest Canadian clearly should come from somewhere in Yukon, NWT or Nunavut. It cannot come from, you know, Toronto or something. Where they freak out if it snows. That would be wrong. So get your videos in. If you enter, drop a line to this post and I'll direct people from here to your video.

As for the rules, you can go to the site, but this is also want they sent me.

------------------------------------

It takes three simple steps!

1. Make a video demonstrating why you believe you are the “coldest” Canadian. It can be funny, surprising, cute, silly, simply jaw-dropping — even metaphorical. High-quality production is not necessary to win. Videos must not exceed 10 minutes in length.

2. Upload your video to The Coldest Canadian Contest website as early as possible. Click the blue “Upload Video” button on the home page and follow the onscreen directions. Please note: while we encourage creativity and even a little edginess (heck, we’ve been known to push the envelope ourselves), there is a fine, but definite, line. Prior to posting, videos will be screened for inappropriate content and uploaded within 24 hours of your submission.

3. Collect as many votes, comments and likes as possible by promoting your video like mad. Get your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours — even your hairstylist — to vote for your video once per day from January 26, 2011 through February 26, 2011. Voters will be entered into a weekly draw for fabulous prizes.

Grand Prize

The winner of The Coldest Canadian Contest will receive:

• Return economy class airfares for winner and guest from Vancouver to Auckland, New Zealand (valid for up to one year from draw date);

• transportation to and from airport;

• activities and tours including sailing in Bay of Islands, Taste of Waiheke Tour, Auckland Harbour Bridge Climb and a Ninety Mile Beach Tour; and

• 3 nights accommodation in a Run of House room at The Copthorne Hotel Auckland HarbourCity and 3 nights accommodation in a Standard Garden View room at The Copthorne Hotel and Resort Bay of Island

Good luck! And may the coldest person (and coolest blogger) win! ;)

----------------------------------------

I'd very much like to be the coolest blogger. So help me out. And if I get to New Zealand I will buy you a souvenir. Promise.

Last Five

1. La cienega just smiled - Ryan Adams

2. Cauchemar - Colleen Power

3. Home before dark - Neil Diamond

4. Concerning Charlie Horse (live) - Great Big Sea

5. Superstar - Sonic Youth*

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 4

2011-02-03T23:07:00.000-05:00

So let us try this Republic of Doyle review again. Although we won't be doing a lengthy review like I had last night. Alas, you just get the bullet points.

• Overall a good episode. The mystery of who committed the murder was reasonably well disguised and there was that much going on that it was kind of easy to overlook who committed the original murder. Not as funny as some of the other episodes this season, but considering how serious last season's finale was, that kind of fits.

• Having said that, it's been nearly a year since last season's finale, and this is the fourth episode of this season. I follow the show reasonably close, but seriously, I had problems remember what was going on with ponzi schemes, reformed hookers and corporate conspiracies. Even with the "Previously on Republic of Doyle" being more detailed, there were too many times where I was going, "wait, what?" I think they were better off dealing with this the first episode of the season, not the fourth.

• It occurs to me that the women of Doyle haven't been treated especially well this season, though. Rose is back to being a walking expository device. Tinny is still being pretty dumb. Nicki is mercifully scarce, the new Crown is just odd and Leslie....the poor girl. Leslie was shaping up as a strong woman at one point. Now, she's being the girlfriend to a secretive mayor, her partner is pissed with her and Jake is still jerking her around while she makes moony eyes at him. The fact that she never solves the cases, just comes in after Jake does it for her is getting a bit annoying.

• It would actually be nice to have a Doyle episode where the women save the day. Or hell, at least have Jake show up and Leslie is there, wrapping things up already with a smirk. That would be amusing.

• One of the commenters from last week's review said that the Crown and the Mayor were obviously married. I dismissed the idea, thinking it would be very bad writing. But it seems this week it's pretty obvious that's where things are going. The mayor keeping Leslie quiet, the Crown having an ex that she just hasn't gotten around to divorcing. It's there.

And why is dumb? Because of a little scene Jake had with Tinny, where he told her he's investigated every boy that's ever come into the house. Do you really think he didn't do the same thing with the Mayor when he hooked up with Leslie? If that happens, it's deeply sloppy writing.

• It seems Christian is going to stick around for an episode or two. We'll see how that works out. I'm not fond of the character, but there is some potential there. Nothing like a brother to get under your skin.

• And now, quotes of the week. The pickings are a little slim this week, what with the humour being downplayed:

"Don’t be a dicksmack, Christian." - Jake. Nice to see some local obscenities make it into the show and past CBC censors.

"Yeah, that’s my style, killin’ old folks." - Jake to Leslie

"What about you and your little Twilight friend?" - Jake to Tinny

"Men are tools and boys are even worse." - Jake to Tinny (that was actually a pretty decent scene)

"I am glad that I had that cleaned." - Jake to the Crown who was wearing his hockey jersey and not much else, who apparently has no problem circumventing the rules surrounding break and enter. Not that Jake appeared to mind.

"I got hit by a car, but believe me, I’m going to forget all about it in about 30 seconds." - Jake to the Crown

Last Five

1. I predict a riot - Kaiser Chiefs

2. Little motel - Modest Mouse

3. I don't want to face it - The Fab Faux

4. My music at work - The Tragically Hip

5. Bottom of the world - Tom Waits*

Delayed: Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 4

2011-02-02T23:20:00.001-05:00

So, I had the episode review all done and was just copying and pasting some of the quotes from this week's episode into the document when I managed to accidentally delete everything I had written. And honestly, I don't have it in me to go back and rewrite all of that this evening. So we'll try again tomorrow, when I'm apparently less stupid. My apologies.

Of caps and the worst writer in Canada

2011-02-01T23:19:00.001-05:00

1. So it seems the prime minister is reconsidering the CRTC's decision to allow the big phone company's to put caps on internet usage. This is not exactly a huge surprise given the massive outrage that's been going on over the last few days as news of the decision got out. This may well be an election year. Good luck to the political party running on the platform that huge telecommunications companies should put a cap on how much music you can listen, YouTube videos you can watch and porn you can download.

We might not be talking about what happened to the Tories in '93, but any party with that platform is going to take a sizeable beating.

The thing that's amused me out of all this is that people are freaking out over the size of the cap being proposed, which I think is around 25 gigs. Which is hysterical. There are people in Nunavut who would beg for 25 gigs. There are those who think the 10 gigs most people in Iqaluit get are pure luxury. So yes, the screaming and moaning about 25 gigs being the end of the world was hilarious, as I'm sure it was to many in Nunavut in recent days.

Having said that, since we switched over to Xplorenet, it's been nice to not to have to worry about caps quite so much. Although I wonder if the caps do come into play down south if it will change how Xplorenet does things, even though we've signed a contract.

I don't see it happening, as I said, or at least at a 25 gig cap. I suspect a compromise of around 100-150 gigs is going to happen. But we shall see.

2. The other thing that caught my eye was this review of Rebecca Eckler's new book. Against all logic and common sense, editors and publishing houses continue to offer Eckler the chance to keep writing and getting paid for it. I've had some unkind words to say about Eckler in the past and regret that they were not more unkind, did not receive wider attention and convince more people that folks who actually pay to read her stuff should be committed to an insane asylum.

Some of the most depressing news I read this year was that this abomination of an advice book was the first of two she has coming out this year. The other is fiction, apparently. And the fact that she's called an international best selling author should be all the proof you need that there is no god. It's not that Eckler is a bad writer, because she is. By every account I've read, she's a bad person.

I would say that the bright side is that if she can get published, surely there is hope for me. But I recall something I read years ago. It might have been from Roger Ebert. It was all the people who would go to the theatre, see a crap movie and go "I should learn to be a director/writer/actor. I can do better than that." But as he said, that's not the goal. Anyone can make crap. The goal should be to go and see Scorsese or Spielberg and try to do better than them.

So pardon me if I try to aim a little higher than Canada's worst writer. I just wish more people could find better writers to read than her. Oblivion is the best place for her. And best punishment.

Last Five
1. Man of two minds (live) - The Trews
2. Gimmie shelter - Rolling Stones
3. Avalanche (live) - Matthew Good*
4. Room with a view - Spirit of the West
5. Monkey - Robert Plant

He's dead....or not

2011-01-31T23:30:00.000-05:00

I meant to mention this last week, but it escaped my mind, but as a comic book collector I feel almost compelled to mention something about the "death" of the Human Torch, late of the Fantastic Four. More specifically, I feel compelled to try and figure out why there were literally thousands of articles appearing about this.

It isn't the first time in recent years that a comic book hero has gotten mainstream attention. Captain America died a few years ago, and yeah, I kinda got that. Marvel did a good job hiding what was coming and considering all the turmoil going on in the US, killing Captain America will get you some headlines. There's also the matter that it was a really well written story. Ed Brubaker spent two years building up to it and the death worked. Hell, he even did a good job on the stories for the next two years after the death. There was more than one comic fan who saw little reason for the original Captain to come back, that's how good Brubaker's stories were during that period.

Alas, Cap's resurrection was the worst part of the story arc. Pity.

We had Batman die a couple of years ago, which nobody believed for five seconds, but still got lots of play. The lead-up was also handled in a confusing way, so was his death and his resurrection was pretty bizarre. I haven't read it, but I also haven't read many good things about it either.

But as for the Human Torch, the publicity around it is just weird. The Human Torch isn't quite in the same league as Batman. Everyone knows he's going to be back soon (The 50th anniversary of Fantastic Four #1 is a year away. Hazard a guess when he's coming back) and it's not like the Fantastic Four is a stranger to death. Go to this site for a genuinely hilarious look at all the times members of the group have died over the years. Not to mention the death of Sue Storm's fashion sense in the 90s. Dear God...

Still, I'm looking forward to reading the story when it's collected. The Fantastic Four were the first super hero comics I ever read. Before that it tended to be comics based on toys (Godzilla, Micronauts, Shogun Warriors). I believe FF #188 was my first one. So yeah, I've loved the characters, even if they haven't been well treated over the years. I'd say over the past 30 years there's been about three really good runs on the series. Current writer Jonathan Hickman might be developing one of those classic runs.

I've been reading the collected books since he started on the title and I'm suitably impressed. He obviously has long term plans for the series, is one of those annoying writers who has so many good ideas that he can just casually toss around brilliant stuff and not worry about developing it further because he knows he has much cooler stuff in his bag of tricks.

We'll see how it all pans out. Apparently the issue is quite well written, despite the massive publicity machine around it. All you can do now is hope the next year or so is well written and so is the Torch's resurrection. And if it gets a few more people to read a good series, I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

But really, how desperate are you to fill copy if your a mainstream media outlet and you're covering this?

Last Five
1. Blowing bubbles - The Pursuit of Happiness
2. Murder city - Green Day
3. Love's grave - Amelia Curran
4. Working on a dream - Bruce Springsteen
5. Part one - Band of Horses

Stir crazy

2011-01-30T22:00:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month I was marvelling at how bizarre the weather was. After all, we were getting temperatures around 0C when the seasonal norms at this time of year were closer to -25C. It was freaky weather. But it was never freaky weather that was going to last forever. The fact it made it as far as January was bizarre. If it had lasted all winter I think we would have been looking at the end of the world.

You'll be happy to know the world is safe. Ever since mid-January the temperatures have been...brisk. At one point this weekend Environment Canada was predicting it would go down to -42C...without windchill. Fortunately it din't think that happened (because Environment Canada predictive abilities are crap), but it's been pretty steady around -30C, and with windchill it's hit as low as -53C in recent weeks.

I am not complaining, by the way. I'll take some cold over risking life and limb on all the ice that was kicking around a few weeks ago. It just means having to get back into your winter routines. Like going out and starting the car and making sure she has enough time to warm up. To remember that the right front tire loses air when it gets this cold so you have to swing by the gas station a couple of times a week to top it up. I have to constantly being touching non-metallic things to ground myself so that I don't A. Electrocute myself or B. Build up enough charge to fry the electronics I use at work, thereby incurring the wrath of the IT department.

Oh, and that break we were getting on our oil and electric bills? I suspect that's over and done with.

But the other thing we're dealing with is Boo. Because it's hovering around -30C that's the cut off point on when we'll let him outside. When you take a dog that's used to getting four walks a day and cut him off, well, let's just say we're dealing with an unhappy dog.

Yes, he's that good at looking pathetic. Every couple of days we take him outside, which gets him all excited until he's out for two minutes and tries to hover off the ground because his paws get too cold (and yes, we know about the dog booties. We have spent about $100 on them because the little bastard is Houdini when outside in his ability to lose them). Being a little dog with a small brain, this lesson lasts about 24 hours before he's either pathetic like he is above or, well, like this:

Which is to say, all that energy he normally burns off with his walks has to go somewhere. So when not in a "my masters hate me and beat me" type of sook, he's badgering us endlessly to throw his "fishy".

We've actually been talking again about getting another dog, to help keep him company. We are at work during the day and I do feel kind of guilty about leaving him alone so much. Plus, he's not the best around other dogs. I've always thought another dog might help with his socialization. We're considering a Labradoodle, but we'll see. There's already a fair amount on our plate already this summer, but we've been talking about another dog for awhile now. So we'll see.

But in the meantime it would be nice if it ticked up a a few degrees - just warm enough so that he can go out for a proper walk and burn off some of that energy. And also so he'll stop guilting us.

Last Five
1. The kids don't stand a chance - Vampire Weekend
2. Songbird - Oasis
3. Laughing with - Regina Spektor*
4. Numbers - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
5. Lazy religion - Young Galaxy

Double dipping

2011-01-28T23:09:00.002-05:00

I'm a bit late getting to John Noseworthy, Newfoundland and Labrador's Auditor General, report. It came out on Wednesday. An auditor general's report is like Christmas for reporters because no government is perfect and there is always waste and mismanagement no matter how diligent the politicians and senior management are.

This report is no different and while there are certainly areas that annoy me, the one that really sets my fuse alight can be found at the top of this story (or you can go to The Telegram's story). The AG found that a lot of teachers who had retired were being rehired and were drawing double benefits. They were getting their pension on top of drawing a salary. And, just for a kicker, they got these positions even though there were qualified teachers applying for the job.

Teacher hiring practices in Newfoundland has long been one of those things that pops my blood pressure up a notch or two. Cathy's made her peace with it and shrugs her shoulders. But the sheer volume of cronyism that goes on with hiring teachers in the province is maddening and this AG's report is proof of that. Are there rare parts of the province where it is hard to get a teacher? I'm sure there. Positions in places like northern Labrador are notoriously difficult to fill. But I'm willing to bet of all of those double dipping positions that about 80 per cent of more of them had perfectly qualified people applying for them.

I remember when I was in town hearing horror stories of teachers with 20 years experience coming back from Alberta and scrounging for 1/8 time positions while someone fresh out of the education facility lands a full-time permanent job. Why? Because they're related to someone, or their parents are best friends with a principal.

It's not quite to the point where there's money exchanging hands, but by god if that actually happened, I would not be the least bit surprised. The system used to hire teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador is deeply broken. I have no idea how to fix it, but the first step ought to be pointing out that double dipping teachers is wrong and an insult to everyone out there working 1/8 positions or teaching in other parts of Canada because there's "no jobs available in Newfoundland." The next step ought to be to admit that favouritism happens way to often when teachers are hired.

I honestly don't think anyone can look at the teaching system in Newfoundland and say the best teachers get hired every time there's an opening. There are a lot of good teachers there, don't get me wrong. But how they're hired can be done better. And rather than the union and the government blaming each other or making excuses, perhaps they might undertake the radical notion of actually trying to fix it.

Last Five
1. Close call - Rilo Kiley
2. Lover's day - TV on the Radio
3. You got lucky - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4. Ohio (Live) - Neil Young
5. Memories and dust - Josh Pyke*

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 3

2011-01-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

The last five minutes of this week's Republic of Doyle were easily the funniest bits of the show. To get there, you had to struggle through some deeply uneven stuff.

The Doyle lads are called into investigate a stalker of JJ, a Newfoundland comedian of the now defunct Cad Fud who made it big 20 years ago when he went to the States. Someone wants him, if not dead, then at least pretty scared. Given how obnoxious he is, Jake appears to be more than a little tempted to help the stalker out.

Among the suspects, JJ's biggest fan, a blogger/reporter, a bitter former Cat Fud partner and another member of Cat Fud who is missing.

Meanwhile, Tinny is being stupid on multiple levels, Jake is trying to flirt with the hot crown attorney and bombing in a charmingly idiotic manner and Leslie is getting nervous about why the Mayor is keeping their relationship quiet. Her partner isn't too thrilled about the company she's keeping either.

The problem with the episode is that we're introduced to JJ who is not only an asshole, but not funny. At all. Jake sees this, but everyone else seems to find him amusing. I was having a flashback, believe it or not, to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip in which everyone is suppose to be awesomely funny, except they aren't. At all. So I spent some time wondering if that was the case here, that they were writing him as being funny, but he really isn't. It was a bit weird.

It panned out later, but at the start, it's just awkward because the guys are supposed to be trying to help an arrogant, primadonna, unfunny asshole. Well, it's a bit hard to really get into a show with a character like that kicking around. So the first 20 minutes or so of the show drag something fierce. Once the mystery starts kicking in full force, it gets a little bit more interesting. However, there are still two more problems.

1. It's kind of obvious who the stalker is. It's the problem with shows like this and the economy of characters rule. You can burn through who is the likely suspect is pretty quick. Although the reasons why were a nice touch.

2. Unless I'm missing something, I think there was another significant plot hole this week. A big deal was made over the fact there was a video tape showing that JJ had robbed much of his material from one of his Cat Fud partners and used it to make it big in the States. Except it was never made clear - was the tape just of a rehearsal or was the material done in public? If the later, wouldn't he have been busted a long time ago for robbing material?

It's continuity errors like that which drive me nuts. It's just sloppy writing.

Having said that, the last five minutes are brutally, gloriously awkwardly funny. Plus a rare good usage of Nicki. Being invited to supper at your ex-wife's house. Awkward. Showing up with a date, extra awkward. Having the ex invite someone to fix you up with and having to sit between the two of them....that's a whole new stratosphere of awkward.

So yeah, that was funny. The scene outside with the cell phone, that was just icing. However, it's also what I mean by inconsistent. That whole scene was brutally funny, but it almost felt tacked on and rushed. There are plot holes and a few too many in-jokes. I really was hoping it would be a little more polished at this point. The show is getting by on charm and funny bits, but it really should be stepping up its game a bit more by this point.

Although, I will note, in a rarity, Jake doesn't get punched in the face or take his shirt off in this episode. Madness! One suspects he'll make up for it in coming weeks.

And now, the one liners:

"Nothin' says 80s like a Mount Pearl Curl, wha…" - Jake, speaking of in-jokes.

"Take your ball and go home, son. She's way out of your league." - Mal

"Those how to inspire your family tapes are really paying off." - Jake

(To the mayor after saving his life) "You can blow up Atlantic Place, we'll call it even." - Jake. (Funny, probably incomprehensible to anyone outside of Newfoundland)

"Call me Tin-Tin once more and you're gonna need more than a cup to protect you." - Tinny

"I have to take this. It's my husband." - Hot Crown Attorney. Ooops.

Next Week: The return of the long lost brother. You know, the one who up and vanished.

Last Five
1. Lay it down - Cowboy Junkies*
2. Since I've been loving you (Live) - Corinne Bailey Rae
3. Just the way you are - Billy Joel
4. Cold hands (warm heart) - Brendan Benson
5. Trip through your wires (Live) - U2

Two-peat

2011-01-25T21:29:00.001-05:00

So funny thing, I seem to have won the Nunie for Best Blog again. I confess, it's a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure last year was my best ever year blogging and after the first day of voting, I'd been trailing most of the way, sometimes by quite a lot.

But then at lunch time, on a lark, I put up a quick note note on Facebook saying that voting was closing in a little more than four hours and if you wanted, I'd appreciate your vote. I was down by about a dozen votes at that point, so I wasn't particularly confident of a rally.

Shortly after I put that up, the damnest thing happened. My high school English Jim Moore teacher decided to rally to my cause, put the link on his own news feed and asked his considerable network of friends, family and former students to vote for me. So began a late rally and surge. If Jim had done that once, it would have been a cool thing, but he posted several times during the afternoon asking people to go to vote.

I have, in the past, said an unkind word or three about my high school alma mater, Booth Memorial. I should, in all fairness, mention there were good things about the place. Someone I spent virtually every day with in Grade 12 reappeared a few weeks ago and today sent a note wishing me luck. And Jim was one of a handful of teachers I had at Booth that I would consider to be among the very best kind - the ones who make you better when they're finished with you than you were before they got ahold of you. And not just from imparting whatever they had to teach from a text book, but all the stuff that happens in-between. Mr. Vincent and Mr. Green were two more who could pull off that particular trick.

I'm not saying I became a writer because of Jim, because I didn't. But I think it's fair to say I would be a worse writer if not for him.

So thanks to Jim for rallying last minute support. Also a thanks to an old blogging friend, Jen Eichenberg, who noted that at 4:40 pm that the blogging contest was tied with 20 minutes left (it was also causing Clare some stress. Two years ago I finished tied with Kate Nova and lost in a run-off. I think he was hoping for that to not happen again). She also managed to rally a few votes my way.

So there you have it, defending blog champion. I think after winning it twice in a row, I might have to retire from competition and go into the Hall of Fame or something. We'll see.

And now a bunch more thank you's. Thanks to everyone who voted in the category, all 286 of you which is a excellent total. Thanks to the other four excellent blogs who ran and who all got, I am thrilled to see, quite a few votes. And in particular thanks to The Arctic Post, an excellent blog out of Chesterfield Inlet who ran neck and neck for most of it. Congrats to M&T in Nunavut for winning Best New Blog and Babes and Bulldogs for winning Best Blog Post.

And finally, to Clare, who runs this thing each year and disqualifies himself when everyone knows he would win it in a cakewalk if he ever allowed his name to be entered. Cheers, my friend.

Last Five
1. Haiti - Arcade Fire
2. How can a poor man stand such times and live (Live) - Bruce Springsteen
3. Let's work - Mich Jagger
4. Sweet child o' mine - Guns 'n' Roses
5. Dance dance dance (Live) - Neil Young*

Blizzards and Nunies

2011-01-23T14:36:00.001-05:00

God love Environment Canada and their mazing predictive abilities. What else could predict a blizzard as it was happening. Seriously, yesterday and for most of the morning they were calling for some snow, and some high winds. We weren't forecast to get a blizzard and yet, as I stare out the window, all I can see is a wall of swirling white.

Oh, and the winds are kicking up high enough that they nearly yanked the screen door on the side of our house off and send it flying off to Greenland. We've managed to fix it. Hopefully it holds. There really is nothing quite like high winds when you live in a house pitched on top of some metal poles.

As someone posted up on Facebook, there is nothing more wasted than a blizzard on a Sunday. Tomorrow's forecast is back to sunny and cold.

By the way, for those wondering about the state of the weather up here, other than the blizzard, its gotten colder over the last week or so, but I think we're still above seasonal norms. The inner bay is frozen enough that snowmobiles have been zipping back and forth on it. However, the floe edge is still within eye sight. It nearly the end of January so I'm imagining that edge isn't going to go too much further out on the bay. One of the potentially interesting consequences of that could be more polar bear sighting. Apparently there was one near Apex this week. Polar bears sometimes hang out around the floe edge trying to grab seals. They normally give Iqaluit a wide berth, but if there are seals near town, that may change. I guess we'll see.

One other thing of note - voting for the Nunies are currently under way. If you've already voted for me, my thanks. If you haven't, you have until 5 p.m. EST on Tuesday, January 25 to cast your vote. I'm currently sitting in third place, so apparently assistance would be lovely. Also, and while I have a fondness for all the best new blog, I would be remiss if I didn't encourage you to take a look at A Deep Fried Slice of Awesome by my good friend, Nicole. As he blog title would indicate, she is awesome, although not deep fried the last time I checked.

And now I will do what any sensible guy would do on a stormy Sunday...go watch some football and hope the snow and wind don't screw up the satellite dish. So far, so good.

Last Five
1. Friends - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
2. Well-alright - Spoon
3. I'm not the one - The Black Keys
4. Too many angels (live) - Jackson Browne
5. Where or when - Diana Krall

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 2

2011-01-19T22:45:00.001-05:00

So, your weekly Doyle review from frigid Iqaluit, where the temperature is around -30C but on the bright side, there is a lovely full moon.

So this week was have an actually quite a good Doyle, a big step up from last week. In fact, it might be one of the best since the show aired. And all it took was bringing back Beloved Canadian Icon, Gordon Pinsent.

Oh, and watching Alan Doyle get smacked in the face a few times worked for me as well. Not sure why that is. Probably best not to dwell on it too much.

So this week Jake gets sent inside Her Majesty’s Penitentary undercover by the police and the hot new Crown Attorney to have a chat with a brother who knows where a priceless stolen diamond necklace is stashed. And he has to get to him fast as his other brother who was in on the heist died of a heart attack. At 30. Which is not suspicious at all.

So yes, there are strange goings on at Her Majestry’s. Complicating things is the return of Pinsent’s Maurice Becker who harbours a bit of a grudge at being in jail because of Jake, his henchmen, played by Doyle, and a corrupt prison guard who is apparently a part time ninja and is also after the necklace.

Meanwhile, outside of jail, Rose’s batshit crazy con artist mom drops in unexpectedly (as in she told Mal she was dead) and Tinny and Dez have managed to stumble into the grow-op business.

The good news is that the main story was pretty funny and had me guessing up until the end. Granted, the end made little sense, but hey, let’s not pick nits to hard here shall we. (If the first brother was out and alive for days, why did he wait to go and get the necklace until the other brother got out? And why did they both wait for the other guy in love with the doctor, who they were going to kill anyway, to get out? And how did the guys at Caul's not know the difference in weight between a coffin with a body in it, and one without?) Doyle in prison works and was amusing. The opening scene was hilarious, although to be honest, wouldn’t you have been just as happy if the entire episode was about the bachelor party? Oh, excuse me, Engagement Party.

And the bit about why Jake was arrested? Priceless. Possibly the funniest bit in the show since we were introduced to Jigg’s Dinner last season (and isn't it about time Jigg's Dinner makes a return appearance?)

So yeah, the main story was mostly fun. Doesn’t give the best impression of Her Majesty’s, what with the corrupt cops, lax security, multiple jail escapes and riots, but oh well. It's not like most people have a happy view about the place anyway.

The bit with Rose’s mom was…fine, I guess. It wasn’t exactly riveting stuff. The jokes Jake was able to get off at Mal's expense were funnier than anything that really happened with the characters directly involved with that storyline. It’s nice to get a bit more of a back story about what a rogue Rose was before she met Mal, I just wish it was more entertaining than what it was.

I really should just stop writing and Dez and Tinny, it’ll save me time and space. Look, from now on, if I don’t mention them, can you just assume I thought I thought whatever it was they were doing was awful and a complete waste of valuable screen time? If they actually do something that isn’t completely annoying and stupid, I’ll be sure to mention it.

And now, the always popular best quotes of the week:

“So bitter, so young.” - Mal

"What a lame party! You should have gotten strippers!" - Rose

“On what charge?” - Mal
“Assaulting an officer (headbutt).” – Jake. Also, kudos to the look on Sean Panting’s face when he realizes what Jake’s done.

“I can’t hear you, your voice is all nasally.” - Jake

“I’m seeing double, which is good when I’m looking at you, not so good when I’m looking at him.” - Jake

“That there’s what you call a self cleaning oven. Turn on the heat and it takes care of itself.” – Maurice Becker

“B’yes are calling you One Smack Doyle. That’s better than Dick Smack Doyle, I s’pose.” – Alan Doyle (sorry, forget his character)

So yes, more of this please, although a tighter ending would be nice. But as long as it keeps being funny and entertaining, I’ll forgive the odd massive plot hole. And apparently Jake is now also required to take off his shirt and getting smacked in the face every episode. It should make the ladies happy, at least.

Last Five
1. Real love - David Gray
2. The boy come home - Matthew Good*
3. Road to somewhere - Goldfrapp
4. Teenage pregnancy - Cake
5. Learning to fly (live) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Blue Monday

2011-01-17T22:49:00.001-05:00

So today is apparently the most depressing day of the year. Thankfully Sarah Hampson smacks around the whole idea pretty thoroughly, which I'm grateful for.

After all, no one wants to read that their birthday is the most depressing day of the whole year.

Suggesting that my birthday is a cause for wanting to slit your wrists is, well, a touch depressing. And pseudo-science or not, as Hampson writes, my birthday has always been low key. The formulation may be junk science, but the reality is that people aren't in a party mood in the middle of January. Which is fine. My birthday always tends to be low key. But the most depressing day of the year? Well, that's a bit harsh.

But it wasn't a bad day for me. Work was low key and unstressful, Cathy took me out to supper and baked a lovely chocolate mint cake for me. I got gifts. I must have had 50 people wish me a happy birthday on Facebook. And most of them were even nice and the ones that weren't, well, I'll get the bastards later when they're not expecting it.

But if that's the most depressing day I'll have this year, then I'll take that in a heartbeat. I'd consult my horoscope about it, but apparently I'm now a Sagittarius, so who the hell knows what they coming year will bring.

Last Five
1. Runnin' out of fools - Neko Case
2. Bandages - Hot Hot Heat*
3. Camera - Editors
4. Run - Rex Goudie
5. Vamos - Pixies

Vacation plans

2011-01-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

It's January, so naturally we're in vacation planning mode up here. Normally we'd be much deeper into it. Funny how when it's -50C and there's four hours of daylight you start hitting travel websites like a lunatic trying to find someplace to go and get warm. However, with it so mild this winter, the plans have not been quite so frantic. Still, with Easter closing it, we need to hop to it, as it were.

So, Vacation #1 is Florida over Easter. We went there last year with Cathy's parents and her family and it was a fun week. Warmth, beach and, to be completely capitalistic, really good shopping. Since the last time I was in Florida I've been working full time. Funny how that takes a toll on your wardrobe. So I need new clothes. Also, if the new iPad 2 is released by the time we get there, we may well splurge and buy one of those.

Also, I don't think I appreciated Florida as much last year. Oh, I appreciated the crazy people. They're entertaining to watch and observe in a strictly "all the lunatics just migrate south, don't they?" sort of way. But last year I'd been unemployed for a stretch so I really didn't need the mental recharge that badly. I was kind of restless, to be honest, which drove Cathy a bit batty.

However, it'll be pushing a year at that point since I've had a vacation, if you don't count the time off for Christmas. So I suspect I'll be ready to sit on a beach with a book and some music and do some serious vegging.

As for Vacation #2, we've pretty much settled on that as well. We knew we were going out around July 11 or so because we have tickets to see U2 in Toronto. This was the show they cancelled last year when Bono had back surgery. The tickets are still good and we've always wanted to see the band. The question was what to do with the rest of the time. We could kill a few days doing our sealift, which is hardly fun. Then I found a link to this website offering bus tours around Costa Rica.

We've been wanting to go to Costa Rica for years, but we wanted to make a serious trip out of it. Go for three weeks or so. However, we just don't have the time for that, so this is almost a scouting trip for when we do have time for the big Costa Rica vacation, whenever that might be. Plus, I think we're feeling a bit lazy this year and trying to do all the planning for a big trip around the country, ehhh. Caravan comes pretty highly recommended, they look like they're going to some interesting places, the hotels look good, so why not. Maybe every few years we can go on a vacation and not do massive logistical planning and let others do it for us.

So that's how our vacations are looking so far. I might try and get home later this year for a few days, just because it's been awhile since I've seen my family. And we're debating going somewhere next Christmas, although after the rolling travel horror show that we saw this past Christmas on the news while we were comfortable in our house kind of is killing that idea. But we shall see.

But yes, vacation. It's starting to become very appealing to me.

Last Five
1. You run away - Barenaked Ladies
2. Morning moon - The Tragically Hip
3. Here today (live) - Paul McCartney
4. The truth - Pursuit of Happiness
5. Amsterdam - Crowded House

Of flags, banned songs and law school

2011-01-13T23:38:00.000-05:00

I swear it's easier to find two or three things to talk about than one big thing. Hence, two things that caught my eye in a moment, but first, a bit of house keeping.

You may notice a new flag at the top of the blog. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on it, although most of it is via Facebook. But I haven't given proper credit. The image is Bull Walrus by Ningeokuluk Teevee from The Cape Dorset Collection, specifically 2008. It's a great piece and I recall wanting it at the time. Cathy couldn't see having a giant walrus on our walls. Besides we went with Kenojuak Ashevak's Grand Entrance that year, which we certainly have no complaints about.

Anyway, if anyone from the Teevee family has a problem with the image being used on the blog, let me know and I'll remove it. But I hope not. It's the best flag I've had in awhile, through no skill of my own, of course.

And now, two other things.

1. You know, when I first read that the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council banned "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits because some idiot in Newfoundland complained about the word "faggot" in the song (I apologize on behalf of my province. There are idiots there, but not normally quite this big) I had a mind to write a lengthy screed saying this was absolutely the stupides thing I had heard in awhile.

Then I remember that I rarely listen to commercial radio anymore. Only when spending the five minutes or so driving back to work and mainly because I don't want to leave my iPod in the vehicle (I'd call the Tracker a truck, but the truck nazis will find and correct me). Once I realized that, I stopped giving a shit. Ban all you want, it's not like many people listen to radio anymore anyway.

2. This story caught my eye just because I happen to have a few friends who are lawyers. Now, they're all doing pretty well, either as lawyers or having moved on into the civil service. But there are several notions in the story about lawyers in the United States that caught my eye. That there are now so many that there is hardly any work for them (I remember reading once years ago that there more lawyers in Los Angeles than in Japan).

Or that the lengths law schools will go to deceive people about their job prospects because law schools are cash cows for universities, even the crappy ones. Or how important one ranking system is. People's careers and universities standing literally depend on how they finish in that ranking system.

I also don't know if I find it reassuring to terrifying that you can graduate from law school and still be a tremendous idiot, like one of the people interviewed for the story. $250,000 in debt with credit agencies baying for his blood, and he couldn't give a shit. I don't know if that's zen or too stupid for words.

It does make me glad I never became a lawyer, though. Thought about it briefly around '98 when the journalism thing was starting to look grim. I had a couple of friends plead with me not to do it, saying it wouldn't be a good fit for me. They were right.

I'm also not $250,000 in debt with a law degree and no job prospects. Jesus...

Last Five
1. Lua - Connor Oberst and Gillian Welch
2. I can't make you love me - Bonnie Raitt*
3. Is there a ghost - Band of Horses
4. Horchata - Vampire Weekend
5. Acid tongue - Jenny Lewis

Review - Republic of Doyle, Season 2, ep 1

2011-01-12T23:50:00.001-05:00

When last we saw the fine folks at The Republic of Doyle, Mal was having a heart attack, Nicky was having another break from reality and threatening to move away, Dez and Tinny were being annoying, Sgt Bennett was conflicted and Jake was heading off to the Duke to have a pint and listen to Ron Hynes after helping his brother Christian escape from the police and a possible murder charge.

So where are we now?

Well, Mal is fine, maybe. Nicky sadly reneged on her promise to leave but seems marginally less crazy, Dez and Tinny are still annoying, Sgt Bennett is conflicted and Jake gets punched in the face twice and in the balls once all before the commercial break. Oh, and the punches to the face were at the Duke, while getting a pint.

So pretty much business as normal.

Christian? Who is this Christian you speak of?

It's six month later, but really, not much as changed. Which is fine and all. Frustratingly, the show also hasn't made the kind of leap I was hoping. The first season of any show, especially one with a shortened season like the one Doyle had, makes it hard to adjust when you see problems that need to be fixed. So I kind of hoped in the second season we might see some of those things....smoothed out. Less Nicky, Tinny and Dez (although I know Dez has his own bizarre cultish following). More Walter, and more of Jake and Mal interacting with each other. They are, as I constantly harped on last season, the best part of the show.

There's a two minute segment when they're breaking into a suspect's house that is about as perfect a couple of minutes as the show has done so far. Just note perfect on their whole relationship. Give me more of that every week and I'm a happy man.

The rest of the show was hit and miss. The mystery of the week was....odd. The whole kidnapping/video thrills thing was a bit weird and didn't work, although the bit with the gun at the end was amusing. Although I'm unsurprised to see the quality of guest actors remains the same. Thank god for Gordon Pinsent next week. The loan sharks thing was amusing, but went nowhere. I'm guessing it'll show up again over the next few weeks, but it was oddly handled.

And Jake in his undies....oh well, something for the ladies to dream about tonight I guess. I look forward to equal time with Sgt. Bennett in the coming weeks.

The show's raw potential is still there. The last 30 minutes were measurably better than the last 30 minutes. That Nicky is not listed in the credits gives me hope that they're reducing her role to be more like Walter's - that of a reoccurring supporting character. And she might work like that rather than trying to wedge a "Nicky is crazy and Jake doesn't know what to do" subplot into every episode. Although more Water would be a good thing. The bit with Jake, Walter and the....woman at the bar was pretty priceless.

This is a touch rambling, but this is what we can learn from the first episode - that the producers clearly looked at the first season and decided that not much needed to be changed. Based on the success of the show, I can see their point. It's a good show, but it could be better. As always, I hope it gets there.

Although give it credit, at least the one liners are still there.
"More pills, less salt beef."
"It'll be a nice change from chicken wings stuffed with ham."
"I don't want you to die. Sue me." "You should be writing greeting cards."
"I listen. I just have a problem with the obeying part."
"What happened to go trouting and having a few beers."

And a few others I forgot to jot down.

We'll see how it goes, I guess. Although I guess it would be hoping for too much for Tinny to go to London, Dez follow her, they have their own spin-off show that I can then not watch.

Last Five
1. Cemetery Jill - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
2. Drive my car (live) - Paul McCartney
3. Whatever's left - Snow Patrol
4. Traffic - Lloyd Cole
5. End of empire - Sam Roberts

A Tuesday assortment

2011-01-11T23:46:00.001-05:00

So, an assortment this evening.

1. Clare has fired up the start of annual Nunie Awards. You may notice on the sidebar that I am the winner of the 2009 award for Best Blog, which I do find kind of cool. You have until January 17 at 5 pm EST to nominate blogs in the Best Blog, Best Blog Post and Best New Blog categories.

I have, in the past, been shallow enough to lobby for the Best Blog category. This time I think I exhibit a bit more grace and merely point out the nominations are open and that there are many excellent Nunavut blogs out there you should consider nominating. This is a fun thing and a chance to go poke around and see and read more about this particular part of the north. Check out my sidebar or go to Clare's Nunavut Blogs page.

2. Because I know all of you are dying for more weather updates, it's been almost resembling normal here the last few days. Temperatures are back closer to seasonal norms and you can actually see the bay freezing in front of you during the day. Great steam clouds are hovering over the edge of the bay, which is kind of cool (you know what I mean). I don't know if the bay is going to freeze anything resembling normal, but I guess we'll see.

Among other weather related things, the cold snap has brought mixed blessings to people in town. The pro is the bay is freezing so people might finally get to use their snowmobiles out there in a few weeks. The con is that everything kind of flash froze after the mild spell last week. Iqaluit is skating rink. And now it's too cold for any kind of serious snow fall. Pro is that the sun is finally shining. During that mild spell sunshine was a rare beast. I have to admit, I'll take a bit of cold right now just to get some sunshine. I feel more alert.

One final thing about the recent weather. One of the benefits of this winter so far is that our heating bill is a fraction of what it was. It'll start taking a hit now, but we've spent virtually no money on heating oil and our electric bill is still reasonable. So it's the end of the world, but at least we won't be broke.

3. This is not north related and all, but I saw this story about The Great Gatsby movie maybe being shot in 3-D and had the very strong reaction of wanting to beat the crap out of Bas Luhrmann. And I'm not even that big a fan of the original novel. I remember reading it at MUN and thinking, as I often do of much classic literature, that I'm obviously missing a point here.

But it just seems like such a dumb idea. It would be like making "Pride and Prejudice" in 3-D (although "Pride, Prejudice and Zombies" does kind of cry out for 3-D). Then again, It's Luhrmann. For every interesting idea (bits and pieces of "Romeo + Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge") you get something like "Australia". Luhrmann should be made to walk to every home in Australia and apologize for making that piece of shit.

Anyway, even with Leonard DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, this feels like a disaster. But I guess we shall see. Still, 3-D.....what a dumb idea.

Last Five
1. Miscellany (live) - The Chieftains*
2. Giant (live) - Stan Rogers
3. Fat lip - Sum 41
4. Fallen angel - Robbie Robertson*
5. Through the dark - KT Tunstall

Just another weird day in Newfoundland politics

2011-01-10T21:43:00.001-05:00

Even by the usually high standards of deep weirdness that Newfoundland politics often produces today was a special one. First we had Joe Hickey, who spent a good part of the weekend making noise that he was seriously considering running for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives. He was going to make the big announcement Monday morning. Lo and behold, Monday morning comes and he's....not running.

Now, you don't need to be of the tinfoil hat, JFK was actually murdered by aliens escaped from Area 51 brigade to come to the conclusion that someone had a chat with Mr. Hickey. Perhaps there was a horse head left in his bed Monday morning before heading out to CBC Radio, perhaps not. Regardless, there was a moment of clarity for Mr. Hickey and he opted not to run.

Except now Brad Cabana has decided to run. He's got the money, he's got the signatures and by God he's in it to win. For those of you outside of the province and may not be familiar with Mr. Cabana, no worries, you're in good company as no one in the province really knows who he is. He only came to my attention a few weeks ago when he linked to my blog.

(Incidentally, Mr. Cabana linking to my blog has produced a lovely traffic spike for me today, as I assume people rushed to his site to figure out who he was. And then followed some of the links. I also assuming having a post with the words "t-shirt" and "Doyle" might have drawn people here thinking I had some Doyle t-shirts. I do not, alas. Sorry if you came here looking for them.)

The latest part of the story is that the PC's might not allow his candidacy as not all of the signatures are valid or some such thing. Cabana is apparently ready to sue to be allowed in. I'm not saying this up there in stupid like, oh, I don't know, saying those weren't gunsights over Congresswoman Giffords district, they were surveyor symbol as Rebecca Mansour, an aide to Sarah Palin, said this weekend. But actively working to try and disqualify someone from running in an election because it's inconvenient isn't all that bright.

That sound, by the way, is Ed Hollett laughing his ass off over all of this.

Look, unless the right hand of God (i.e. Danny Williams) puts it on Mr. Cabana's shoulder and says "this is your guy to lead you" Mr. Cabana has virtually no chance of winning the PC leadership. But if this is legit, then he has the right to try, no matter how inconvenient it might be for the PCs in caucus and Premier Dunderdale.

A guy I know on Facebook said the Tories should view it as an opportunity, a nice big publicity push right before an election. And maybe it is. Or maybe it's a distraction. I guess it depends on which way you swing. But here's my question: What does Premier Dunderdale stand for?

I know she stands for, you know, not screwing up an almost certain election victory in October that Williams has handed to her. But seriously, what's her philosophy? What's her vision for Newfoundland and Labrador? Standing in Williams' shadow for so long it's not like she had to articulate a vison of the province. It was probably actively discouraged. Seriously, I want to know what she stands for and her vision.

And Ed? You're disqualified from this.

If someone can tell me, or point it out to me, and it's a clear vision, awesome. If not, then perhaps she should view this as an opportunity rather than an annoyance who needs to be crushed. Just a thought.

Last Five
1. My beat - Bruce Cockburn
2. If not for you - Bob Dylan
3. She loves you - Gaslight Anthem
4. Love escalator - Bob Mould
5. I hope I don't fall in love with you - Tom Waits*