Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web

...is also known as Yahoo. See the early online versions of some famous websites at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Web Pioneers website.
ZZzzzz......(snork)...zzzzzz...

In this old post, Colby Cosh has an interesting entry on how his bed entices him into oversleeping:

As a result of the peripatetic sleeping, my bed has become an instinctive locus of only very deep sleep. My mother didn't help matters by buying me new sheets for Christmas that are made from some insanely soft damn material--I think it's the down from goose fetuses whose parents were fed on silkworms, or something. Basically when I crawl into that bed, there's no leaving for a good long time. I have to have my schedule cleared out for the next 48 hours if I even think of lying down there. There could be smoke alarms going off, a cop outside the door counting down from ten into a bullhorn--it wouldn't matter.

I have a story too. When I was a boy I slept very soundly in a queen sized bed, so soundly that I could sleep through everything.

In 1980, Mount St. Helens in Washington state became an active volcano again. It erupted spectacularly, spewing ash that rained throughout the Western U.S. (I have a pill bottle of the ash that my family saved when we went down to look at the moonscape that the volcano created.) I also need to mention that in my family's living room, we had giant stereo speakers, 3 feet high by 3 feet wide.

On the morning of the biggest Mount St. Helens eruption I was sleeping in my bed when, due to the unusual atmospheric conditions, a sound wave from the volcanic eruption, "KABOOM!", hit the house. My parents sat bolt upright, convinced that my younger brother had knocked a speaker over or climbed up on top of one of the speakers and done a head-first face plant through the floor of our house. (Think of being just under a low-flying jet as it breaks the sound barrier.)

I learned about all this second hand. I slept right through it all.

(I still find, sleeping in my twin bed, that I need a sound 8 hours a night pretty consistently. I'm told that I can snore as loudly as a local sawmill.)

I wonder if Colby has ever slept through a volcanic eruption in his super-comfy bed. Yet, I will take his word that he can sleep very soundly.

On that note...good night. :)

Quoting Michael Jenkinson:

Best news story of the day: Picking your nose and eating it is good for you. No, really. I may actually get a column out of that soon.

Monday, March 29, 2004

Number 98 with an anchor

Blogger Naked Maja posts on the LP The World's Worst Record Show and adds some suggestions of his own in his bottom 20.

I've commented on this fine (?) album myself, here and here.

Sunday, March 28, 2004

"This album cover was made because not enough people in Tino’s hometown hated him."

One website picks The Ten Worst LP Covers ever. Lots of Gospel LPs, unfortunately.

Saturday, March 27, 2004

NHL au Cosh

I'm pleased to mention that Colby has relaunched his special Hockey Playoffs Page. In the meantime, I am considering whether I will have to make a Faustian bargain with a Mr. Applegate to ensure that the Canucks make it past the first round.

Starting at left wing...Joe Hardy!

Friday, March 26, 2004

Not that Dick Clark, unfortunately

I give this blog post an 87, because it has a good beat and it's easy to dance to.

It's amusing too. :)
Watch as Peter Mansbridge shows up at this blogger's house with a baseball bat

A new link to a conservative blog on the CBC: cbcwatch.

Thanks to Kathy for the link.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Good thing I don't live in Edmonton

Kevin Steel has decided that his blog has thawed enough after an Edmonton winter to start posting again.
It's...alive! [sound of booming thunder, close up of face of Dr. Frankenstein lit by lightning :) ]

I'm happy to report that The Western Standard's website is up and running which means that the magazine is finally out. Cool. Now if only I can find a newstand west of Edmonton that carries it.

Huzzahs to my ex-colleagues Kevin Steel and Terry O'Neill who are contributors to the magazine and have articles posted there.

Update: I'm happy to report that Ezra et. al sent me (as a former AR subscriber) a freebie of the first issue. Thanks :) Got it in the mail today, if Ezra's mail-room minions are keeping track. It's cover dated March 12 and went to press before Stephen Harper was elected Conservative leader last weekend.

And Victor Olivier, my old Record colleague is back writing The Record and like AR's, this Record is chock full of obits.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

They Saved Hitler's Brain was already picked?



Friday, March 19, 2004

Liberals can't leave hockey alone

More of Colby's reflections on the Todd Bertuzzi affair:

"The historically aware hockey fan knows how much progress has been made at transforming hockey into an elegant game of skill; but the liberal demands perfection now, in sport as in the world. It's a perfection the liberal considers attainable by simply writing the right rules; his naive credo transfers readily from law and politics to the microcosm of sport....
And sport demonstrates the awful stupidity of this faith in man's perfectibility. "

Thursday, March 18, 2004

All you ever wanted to know about poop.

A CUP story on an online catalogue of research papers on preserved excrement is posted here.
Soccer was invented by Satan!

...or so John Derbyshire thinks.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Pray to be eaten first!

Here is an H.P. Lovecraft inspired parody of a Jack Chick tract.

Still prefer Antlers of the Damned and this Mystery Science Theater themed Jack Chick spoof, but Who Will Be Eaten First is adept, albeit depressing.
Spiked at TAS

Kelly Torrance finds what is perhaps the first explicitly right-wing TV cartoon.

Monday, March 15, 2004

What's your result?

Schroeder
You are Schroeder!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Links to other B.C. blogs...

...are posted here.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Watch his blog as in a future entry he has coffee with J.D. Salinger

Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin meets Jack Chick. Mr. Akin, a former cartoonist, also has a picture of Jack Chick in cartoon form.
Back to summer school for me

New York University's digital journalism course will let you blog for credit, as having your own blog is part of the course.

Saturday, March 13, 2004

What Colby said

Colby Cosh is writing all that I would have like to have written on the Todd Bertuzzi suspension. Please pay him a visit.
[sound of spit take]

I'm reading between the lines in this Human Events story on the Western Standard by a friend of Ezra Levant's. Emphasis mine:

"While the Western Standard is launching on the Report's subscriber base, Ezra Levant's personal flair and charisma and his penchant for taking issues head-on in spite of potential controversy, along with the young, fresh group of Canadian conservatives that Levant has already recruited, will ensure the Western Standard has a very different flavour from the now defunct Alberta Report....

....But, Levant is not only a publisher of a new Canadian conservative magazine, he is also a ray of light for many grassroots conservatives that continue to diligently work towards defeating the Liberals in Ottawa.


I wish Ezra Levant well, but there's much to be said for Ted Byfield's old "I'm just a newsman, not a highfalutin' journalist" approach. A "ray of light"....oy gevalt. Well, I don't think Ezra has aspirations to be the next Enver Hoxha. Mr. Levant should ask his friends to go easy on the hyperbole until everyone figures out for themselves that he is a useful labourer in the fields of the Lord.

Thanks to Kathy for the link.

Friday, March 12, 2004

I'm not great at math, but this doesn't seem right...

How could a gospel quartet have five members?

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Overreacting

The Denver Post throws in its two cents on what it thinks should happen to Todd Bertuzzi:

"The league should ban Bertuzzi for life from any association with professional hockey, much as Major League Baseball did with Pete Rose for gambling, a far less serious offence."

I agree that Bertuzzi should be banned for the rest of this season, but this editorial loses all perspective. How is it that betting on baseball in a premeditated way, when you are a coach in a position to make sure that your bets pay off, is worse than losing one's temper in the heat of the moment and hurting another player?

It's no wonder that Todd Bertuzzi threw himself on the mercy of the court of public opinion in a public statement last night. He will soon find that the NHL is pandering to Americans like that Denver Post editorialist who have no love of the spot and don't understand it.

We can't expect the land where pucks glowed blue on TV broadcasts to understand that hockey can be violent, but NHL players are punished appropriately when they go overboard, just like in other sports. Will the Post call for a *lifetime ban* on baseball, NFL or NBA players who use their fists to hurt another player? Hardly. Readers would point out that these sports punish these sorts of things appropriately with fines and suspensions when they do occur and laugh at the paper's folly.



Monday, March 08, 2004

Not exactly The Passion

Only Kathy could follow a post on her recent purchase of a shortwave radio with a post linking to The Exorcist in 30 seconds with bunnies.
"....Incidentally, although Doc Rampage recommends 7-Eleven highly in general, he does not recommend it for a first date. Not if you are planning on a second date...."

A restaurant review of...
7-Eleven.

Friday, March 05, 2004

We have a winner!

John Derbyshire has reminded us of the best-named Soviet politician ever.
Too bad that Alberta Report isn't around to comment on this

Tooker Gomberg has died in Halifax.

Thursday, March 04, 2004

But can we get our ship to go?
Please, make it so, PLEASE make it so.


If Dr. Seuss wrote for Star Trek: the Next Generation
mmmm...

For the next few days, this link will tell you how to make Olive Garden stuffed mushrooms, or rather a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Pass the collection plate

Kathy's swell Relapsed Catholic blog could use some donations.

Let's hear swishes, not klunks! :)

Monday, March 01, 2004

"With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good" Department

Michael Jenkinson buys an Ugli.