I saw that they had the cutest critters in the pet store: hedgehogs! Best to keep ’em away from balloons, tho’.
Author: scruss
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End Of Suburbia As We Know It
I just watched the documentary The End of Suburbia. It explains, with wit and verve, that the suburban North American lifestyle is something that we can’t sustain. It’s got everything you need in a documentary: earnest Canadians, James Howard Kunstler, Toronto’s wind turbine, Prelinger Archive footage, and even a Cory Doctorow namecheck in the credits.
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baaaaaarp!
I just ate the most amazing chicken roti from Sea Town Restaurant, on Eglinton East near Ionview. Not merely was it at least the size of my head, but it wasn’t the usual saffron-coloured Jamaican curry, but a rich dark brown. It was also extremely spicy; up there with a Madras, at least.
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Single Serve Coffee.com – why?!
We have to wonder why Single Serve Coffee.com – The One Cup Coffee Lovers Weblog exists. We already have th perfect ‘single serve’ coffee in the shape of a coffee grinder and a one-cup caffetière. And there’s no waste involved, unlike a pod machine.
I predict that in five years’ time, the single-serve coffee maker will be the yard sale sandwich toaster of today. The manufacturers will come out with new and incompatible pods, or stop supply altogether.
Remember, there are only two things you need to know about coffee: the perfect flavour for coffee is coffee; the perfect addition to coffee is nothing. Thus endeth today’s lesson.
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i like to caress rusty cameras …
Derek just bought an old view camera on eBay. If you’re quick, you’ll still find the original item listing. Here’s an image of its ground glass:
Now, look at that, and tell me that it’s not the image of David Firth’s disturbing Salad Fingers character?
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iriver corporate nonsense
Worst corporate-speak ever: iriver heart connection
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Quite failing to wave my hands in the air
I can’t be very enthusiastic about Apple (Canada) – iTunes, which launched today.
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b.log III
I like Bob Log III. He sounds like Beck or E in heavy disguise. Some of his music is definitely NSFW, but I think you might like:
- Ass Computer (instrumental)
- Log Bomb
If you like whacked-out electric slide blues, Bob Log III’s yer one mand band.
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Smiling Envelope?!
What’s a “smiling envelope” when it’s at home?
smiling envelope
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livemp3 – convert those big old audio torrents to something listenable
You’ll need Perl, and Config::IniFiles.
Program: livemp3.
A sample ini file so you can see how to set this up: welch_rawlings_shepherds_bush.ini.
At the moment, this just generates output that you’ll need to feed to sh, but it handles renaming, converting and tagging MP3s to my satisfaction.
Update: it doesn’t handle FLAC tags, even though they’d be a good source of metadata. I may look into implementing that some day.
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get mini
from The Mini-Mizer. -
happy st andrew’s day!
I’d almost forgotten about it …
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World Scotch Pie champion named
World Scotch Pie champion named. And it wasn’t me, since it’s not about their consumption.
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The Accidental Terrorist
Catherine and I flew from Toronto to Kansas City on Friday night. Crossing the US border is always a pain at the best of times, but now with mandatory fingerprinting and photo-taking, it’s even worse.
I didn’t think much when my carry-on caused the scanner to throw a conniption, since there was all sorts of digital camera and GPS trickery inside. What made me gasp was that they exclaiming, “He’s got keys in there!”.
So they took me aside, and asked me to open up the top pocket of my luggage. The agent dug out my keys, and turned them over in her hand. I blanched when I realised that my Swiss+Tech® Utili-Key® was still on my keyring. I just about passed out when she dropped the keys back in my bag, and told me to be on my way.
The Utili-Key®, if you don’t know it, is a tiny multi-tool that looks a bit like a key, and clips onto your keyring. Its main feature is that it has a very sharp, 4.5cm blade on it:
You might be able to hurt someone with it. It’s certainly a lot more fierce than the nail clippers or knitting needles they’ve been confiscating.It was a complete accident that this was in my hand luggage. It wasn’t any attempt to prove a point, discredit border security, or anything more than an oversight. I guess my terrorist appearance potential is pretty low (unless you’ve seen my OHIP photo card). Flying with your partner on a wee regional jet is also hardly known terrorist scenario (unless Catherine’s secretly joined the direct-action brigade of the Merched y Wawr [literally “Daughters of Dawn”]). But if an entirely harmless Quaker wind farm designer can get a blade on to a plane, I can’t help but wonder what someone more determined could do.
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too much meat in cowtown
We’re just back from Kansas City. I think we had too much meat at the Hereford House and Arthur Bryant’s.
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I bought some art
I bought a work by Philip Hare at a charity fundraiser for the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture last night.As Joe Bennett said, buying an ornament is a sign of getting older.
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I can tell you now!
Remember how I said that I can’t tell anyone?
Well, today Provincial Energy Minister Dwight Duncan announced the successful projects in the Ontario’s renewable energy RFP. To quote the Bloomberg story:
Wind farms will generate most of the power from these announced projects, adding 355 megawatts electricity to the province. Superior Wind Energy Inc., Erie Shores Wind Farm LP, Canadian Hydro Developers Inc., and Epcor Utilities Inc. are behind the wind projects.
[link/emphasis mine]
As co-designer of the Erie Shores Wind Farm turbine layout, it’s great to see some more wind turbines being built.
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Blog Torrent – Simplified bittorrent by Downhill Battle
Blog Torrent – Simplified bittorrent by Downhill Battle. It’s supposed to work on any PHP-enabled website.
I don’t understand their #1 feature priority:
Mac version. A high percentage of the best bloggers, video artists, and filmmakers use macs. It is crucial to make a mac version of Blog Torrent.
Those bloody Mac users, with their creative haircuts …
(via Boing Boing)
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gmail message limit
I didn’t know that gmail limited messages to 10MB. I found that when I tried to send 15MB of photomontages today.
