Maybe a good idea: Red Dot Campaign | Say no to Junk Mail.
Month: January 2008
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hot chocolate
The Carolina Chocolate Drops rocked Hugh’s Room last night. They’re just your average banjo-playing, jug-blowing, fiddling, throat singing, kazoo-playing, charlstoning, Highland mouth-music’ing, bones-rapping, reso-guitar-picking, beatboxing trio …
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the analogue hole
I have a bunch of Catherine’s old family recordings to digitise (do people still do that – sit around a tape recorder and make recordings?) and I had recorded one of Ken’s shows on minidisc, so I needed a relatively clean way to get analogue audio onto the computer.
I ended up getting a Griffin iMic, a small USB audio input device. The sound quality is remarkably clean; here’s a sine wave recorded from CD to minidisc, then recorded on the iMic:
The iMic seems to work with all Mac audio software as an input device. The free Final Vinyl recording sofware is pretty, but a bit buggy and annoyingly, only works when the iMic is connected. I just use Audacity, and have done with it.
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Ravenswood Opening
Yesterday — five years after the WindShare turbine started generating — Sky Generation‘s Ravenswood wind farm was officially opened. Ravenswood is the first wind farm built under the Ontario Standard Offer program, and four of its six 1.65MW turbines operate under that system. The other two turbines supply power to Bullfrog.
Tom Heintzman, Glen Estill and Martin Ince.
The Mayor, the Landowner and the Energy Minister cut the ribbon.
Glen explains the SCADA to Gerry Phillips, Ontario Energy Minister.
Here’s what Glen said about the opening: Grand Opening of Ravenswood.
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recursive headline
This CBC headline baffles and delights me: Review of mailboxes leads to review of mailboxes
Following a safety review that led to the replacement of many end-of-driveway mailboxes, the P.E.I. Department of Transportation is setting its own guidelines for the safety of the new super mailboxes.
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nice chips, shame about the hours
What’s it with good east end chippies? St Andrews (Ellesmere and McCowan) closes at 8pm, and Duckworth’s at 7:30.
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Ken Reaume | Wavelength Music Series + Zine
Interview: Ken Reaume | Wavelength Music Series + Zine
January 20th 11pm – 18th, 2008Ken Reaume– at Sneaky Dee’s (431 College St, Toronto)
“Four Horses” CD release
This hCalendar event brought to you by the hCalendar Creator.
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moicy!
The Holy Modal Rounders documentary DVD, Bound To Lose is now available for us international types. But the price? $28 in the US balloons to $40 elsewhere. At that price, I’d expect Peter and Steve to deliver it in person!
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you’re a tube, Leo …
I caved to the tone craving, and ended up buying a Fender Champion 600 all-tube combo amp. It’s nice; just the right volume level for the basement, and even dimed (or duodimed, since it goes up to 12) it’s unlikely to raise too many complaints.
But filling in the registration card was a problem. Tell me what’s wrong with this question:
Hint: it’s not the content …
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soan papri frenzy
I had this Indian sweet last night. It’s good; better than that, maybe. It’s an ultra-friable milk, sugar, flour and nut delicacy, with a strange layered consistency. If you thought that tablet melts in the mouth, this positively vanishes. Good stuff — I shall look out for it.
Update: I found it. Two stores within five minutes of the house have it. When it’s in little squares, it’s soan papri. When it’s in little cakes, it’s soan cake. Either way, it’s good. -
poem
The Mower
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be carefulOf each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.— Philip Larkin
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stuck inside of T.O. with those K.C. blues again
With fresh memories of Arthur Bryant’s, I tried Phil’s Original BBQ (838 College, at Ossington). It does a very creditable BBQ brisket, and the got sauce has the right mix of vinegar and burn. Not so sure about the sweet sauce, which has enough sugar and cinnamon to make french toast happy.
There’s blues on the sound system, and the service is quick and friendly. The bread’s maybe a bit too good – hey, if Wonderbread works for Bryant’s – but maybe it’s the closest you’ll get to KC BBQ without driving 1600 klicks.
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Jeremy = teh smrt!
Jeremy Clarkson thought it would be a good idea to publish his bank details to show that the whole thing about identity theft was hooey. Not such a good idea.
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my hero
Machete-wielding grinch caught on tape deflating Christmas display
… But their Christmas card to Calgary, as they call it, was ruined early Thursday when a man came up the hill at about 3:30 a.m. and began slashing the inflatable Santa, polar bear and Christmas train with a machete.He also dismantled a sound system playing Christmas music.
Dude, if anyone was playing Christmas music in my neighbourhood at 3:30am, it’s probably just as well I don’t own a machete.
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and many were the kilojoules
A new Tim Hortons across the road from my office isn’t going to help a carefully-controlled diet. This is just as well, as I don’t have one.
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nothing says Happy New Year …
… like coming home to a brick through the kitchen window.
The place was a mess, but the police and the insurers are being helpful.
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unhungry in lansing
We went to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, MI yesterday on the way home. It was about lunchtime, so we asked the staff for recommendations. The nearby Mama Bear’s Café was closed, so we took up another recommendation: the Golden Harvest.
Oo-aw, it was good. Where else can you munch on a perfect smoked turkey reuben while there’s Olivia Tremor Control cranked on the stereo? The Golden Harvest even has a MySpace page.