Last time

Back in January, we didn’t get off so lucky. Well, actually, we didn’t really get off at all–hence the 3 2 loss. We actually pretended to play a little tiny bit better then, too. Or so I kept telling myself, anyway. Funny how all these teams we keep sucking against tend to add up. A few years ago, a win like this might have sent every Leafs fan between here and Toronto into ultra party mode. Now? We just shrug. And I go back to getting things ready for the arival of the girlfriend.

A highschool in Rome actually did something rare for a state-run institution–it came up with an actual brilliant idea. Vending machines that sell condoms, and for cheaper than those which you’d have to drop by the drug store to get your hands on. One would think this to be a good thing–kids that age are probably doing it anyway, might as well minimize the risks, right? Apparently, not if you’re a member of the Roman church. Or, for that matter, its still far too church-oriented government.

The newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference said Thursday that sex was being reduced to “mere physical exercise.” The newspaper, L’Avvenire, lamented that young people these days have no spiritual guidance on sexuality, and that educators are more concerned with “the health and hygiene consequences of sex” than its moral implications.

Good God, they’re fussing about their health! Quick, lock them in confession–yesterday! Now, before someone jumps on me for supposedly saying “to hell with morality”, I somehow doubt that’s going to be the first thing on some kid’s list of worries if they discover, through the experimentation just about everyone was doing in one way, shape or form in highschool–yeah, you, don’t say you weren’t–that they have HIV or some other health complication. Or, as happens far too frequently–yes, even in Rome, there’s a pregnancy involved. Please. You have kids sneaking off to dark places to smoke a joint, and that’s actually against non-religious laws. You have kids hanging out in the woods with various things of an alcoholic nature, in spite of the fact underaged drinking is also against non-religious laws–except in Europe. You’re not going to prevent them from doing the bed sheat tango over some moral or spiritual obligation to keep it zipped or face eternal damnation–particularly if, as is becoming more and more common in North America at least, they’re increasingly more likely to laugh it off as the empty threat it is.

They’re going to drink. They’re probably going to smoke–if for no other reason than just to say they’ve tried it. And if you cram otherworldly reasons why they shouldn’t down their throats, they’re just going to do it and not tell you. And then you have two problems to deal with.

By all means, talk about it with your kids. Tell them why they should really think about maybe not getting naked at 16. Just please, for sanity’s sake, leave the bloody bible out of the conversation. And in the meantime, don’t shit all over a highschool looking to provide those of them who’re just gonna do it anyway with a way to at the very least lesen their risks. Or, better yet, buy them the condoms yourself if it’s that much a concern. You can’t force people to make what you believe to be the right decisions. No, not even your kids. But if you’d spend less time worrying about which direction they’ll be heading in the afterlife and more time lessening their chances of falling flat on their faces from a mistake in their present life, you might actually learn you also don’t have to. Oh, and do both yourselves and your kids a favour while you’re at it. Tell the Italian Bishops’ Conference where they can shove their moral and spiritual guidance. It hasn’t been working well enough for them to be worrying about throwing it at everyone else.

I’ve been reading the In Death series, which is based–again–about 50 years in our future. And, once again, in 2060, it’s all about the flying car, the voice-activated computer, and the robot that does all the routine tasks so you don’t have to. Oh yeah, it’s also about everything from murder to the bad side of New York City. And again, if you follow the traditional fiction trends, you know where this is going. Exactly like they said in the 1960’s about 2010, in 2060 we’re off on our own spaceward adventures–everything from vacations to whatever crosses the mind. For a change, though, at least we’re not at war with some oddly designated alien race or another. Sometimes, I love science fiction. Keep it up, folks. We’ll get a car I might actually be able to drive someday.

I get an average of one of these people knocking on my door on a weekly basis. And, of course, not being able to know who’s there until I open the door, I take a chance it might not be someone trying to sell me something. And every time I’ve done so, it’s been any number of situations from people who’d just like to see my hydro bill, to people who just want to tell me about the green initiatives their particular company/organization/what have you is offering. To one offer I’ve received asking if I’d be interested in locking in my hydro and/or gas prices for 5 years. And every time, my response is the same–I point at the door leading out of the building, with a polite suggestion that they go that way.

I received a grand total of one such offer while living in Ottawa. And they were stupid enough to try pitching that offer to me over the intercom system the building has. They, of course, got hung up on. I don’t have that option here, so to get rid of them, they first have to be effectively standing on my doorstep. I swear, just as soon as I can twist a governmental arm far enough back that it decides it’d be in its best interest to increase disability payments–or just as soon as I can get myself hired again, whichever comes first, my next move will be back to a secure building. Ideally I’d much rather see that type of marketting made illegal, but since that’s not very likely to happen, I’ll take my secure building. Besides, there’s something to be said for having a little warning when you’re getting company–welcome or not. Gives me time to hide my porn magazines. Er, wait, I didn’t say that.

Last time

We might have threatened at one point to win our last game versus the Bruins. Only problem? We didn’t. Rather, we kind of tried to make it look like we were going to, and then promptly fell apart. Kind of like we did last night, giving up the lead for all but the last goal. Well, I guess what goes down must come up. Still, is it next season yet?

Last time

We shut them out in January. Then went back to sucking. Then came the multidirectional trade. And then, more sucking. Now? We’re in the league’s basement and closing in on the last game of the season. On the bright side, baseball starts up in a month. The bluejays can’t do much worse… can they?

A little background on the video: in 1999, Maple Leaf Gardens was officially closed down, and the Toronto Maple Leafs moved to what is now their new home, the air Canada center. Before the last game at the Gardens–a game in which they lost rather badly, there was quite the tribute going on in honour of it. This song, performed before what I believe–my memory fails me at the moment–was a packed house, pretty much sent the message that regardless to where the team plays, or what else ends up changing around them, the team’s still the same. And, they’re still toronto’s team. And, surprise surprise, they’re still not going to be any closer to winning the cup–because they’re still Toronto’s team, damn them.

In other words, minus the hockey references, just like this country. It’s changed a hell of a lot in 20 years, nevermind since 1867–when the original song, not this particular version, was written. But it’s still Canada, and we’ll still call it home. Even if we wouldn’t recognise parts of it from the way things were growing up. This song is Canada, plain and simple. crack open a beer, and let’s kick ass Canadian style. The maple leaf forever, damn right. Now, have a video.

His parents were in Ottawa for their own reasons–I suspect it had a lot to do with a shopping trip and a stop off at the casino, so he belonged to us for the day. He’s almost 6 months old now, and you might argue he looks more like a 9-month-old or older. Already he’s fitting into clothes etc for up to 12 months in some cases. So yeah, spending time with him pretty much took care of the majority of the day. And, yes, was exhausting as hell–but I’ll take it.

It of course meant today was an easy day, with the only thing worth going out for being a trip to the Santa Fe Restaurant for supper–if you’re in the Pembroke area and do not stop in to this restaurant, you’re ripping yourself off. Just sayin’. They do everything from prime rib to Italian to yes, Mexican. Costs a little more than most places, but you’ll probably not be ordering dessert. Or breakfast the next morning. I’ve been home for 2 hours and I’m still stuffed.

There will be nephew pictures posted up here at some point. Most likely, later tonight. As for right now, there’s a hockey game on, caffinated things in the fridge, optionally alcoholic things to be put in said caffinated things, and a laptop that still needs to be tweeked just a little tiny bit. And I need to explode. Excuse me while I go do that.

Last time

I was more excited at the beginning of February, when we shut them out 5 nothing. We’d just landed the trade for Phaneuf, and it looked like we might be staring at a slightly different–more charged up–team. Or maybe they were just fooling us. I can go either way. Right now, though? I’m leaning more towards they were just fooling us. Don’t get too excited, Leafs nation. They’re not done making you sweat yet.

Ottawa City council passed a motion just days after the cuts were announced, urging city staff to enter talks to see what might be done to keep the jobs here.

A few days later, a conference call between city people, the Contact Centre Association of Ottawa and provincial and federal bureaucrats was held. It was decided that they needed to find out more information from the company about the skill level of their staff.

Well now. The city never offered to get involved when Dell closed, nevermind the provincial or federal governments. Although to be fair, it doesn’t sound like Ottawa center management has altogether much faith in its front-line agents in the first place, so perhaps that’s the difference.

Paul Carr, operations manager for Convergys in Ottawa, tells CTV “close to 200 people have already left Convergys. Six hundred are still here and about 200 will still be working here after the cuts.”

Carr actually expected more would have left already, but people in the contact centre say these are not the most highly-trained people and so job options are rather limited..

Now now, that wasn’t very nice, Convergys staffers. Even if it might be true–hey, I’ve seen the results of some of Convergys’s training; I get to say that. Besides, it’s my blog.

Good to know the city’s finally thinking about doing something though to at least compensate folks for, or help them to deal with, the layoffs. How why didn’t that start happening two years ago? Anyone know?

• February was olympic month this year, and the resulting metal haull was kicked off in style by miss Jennifer Heil. There’s confirmation now we won’t be seeing her in future olympics. Hell of a way to go.
• This blog, and nearly everything else public-facing I’ve got my hands in, is hosted by DreamHost. Every so often, they’ll pull a very minor oopsy that leaves me kind of scratching my head. Or, in some cases, scoring a discount. Hey, not my fault I already bought what they were advertising.
• Everywhere you turn nowadays, seems something either made by or hosted by Google’s cropping up. First search, then email, then their own IM service, their own answer to MS Office online, their answer to Map Quest, you name it. I made a crack or two about Google being pretty much all over the place. And, almost as though they were just proving me right, they went out and bought Aardvark–a realtime search engine I’ve been known to use that actually forwards your questions onto other users who might have an answer. Hey, Google, I’m still sorry about that. Seriously.
• Skipping back to the olympics, because we do that, our record breaking amount of gold metals was contributed to by Maelle Ricker. I wrote about it a few minutes after it happened. And she’s still a popular–well, as popular as can be expected for a blog this size–search term.
• I live in either a very tiny city or a very large small town, depending on how you look at it. I still had no idea exactly how tiny, or how slow, we were–until I learned there are actually still places here–big places here–that don’t have DSL yet. Or cable. That they’re still stuck with dialup or nothing. That… scares me. Still.

Fortunately, the month of technical issues has also come to a very conclusive end with the month of February. Although, there’s still the pesky little issue of a laptop that doesn’t quite work the way it should. But, can’t have everything. There’s your look at what we did have in the month of February. I’d say hopefully March ends up a litle better, but I know better. STill, I’l keep blogging. Interested? Keep reading.

Last time

Different result in December. Granted, that was 3 months ago–the team’s been halfway decent and three quarters the way to craptastic since then. But, at least they won that one. Consolation for this round? At least it ended in a shootout.

In yesterday’s throne speech, it was suggested that Canada’s national anthem needs a tiny bit of reworking. Um, what? Specificly, the part that says “all our sons command”. Again, um, what? Now our very own anthem isn’t gender-neutral enough? There’s accomodation and then there’s just overkill. That, well, is just overkill.

It’s been a complete non-issue for as long as I can remember, in spite of the fact we’ve had multiple governments with their own ideas on gender neutrality come in and screw up the country in their own ways. It’s been pretty much exactly the same in that respect, too. Except in the last decade or two it’s been forced bilingual all across Canada, except maybe in Quebec–do they even still sing that one? And now, after it’d been played about 50 billion times during the olympics, there’s talk of rewriting it for gender-neutral purposes. Someone wanna tell them drugs are bad for you?

Hey, if we’re going to rewrite the thing anyway, here’s a thought. Let’s remove or modify that whole “God keep our land” section while we’re at it. Don’t want to offend the non-Christian folks either. Or, you know, we could leave well enough alone and be happy with not having to sing “God save the queen”. I would vote for that option, too. It’s the national anthem–as much a part of Canada as hockey and beer. Don’t mess with it.

Prosecutors said Paul Railton was spotted driving at low speed along a country lane in December, holding his dog’s leash through the car window as the animal trotted alongside.

Railton pleaded guilty Monday to not being in proper control of a vehicle. His lawyer, Paul Donoghue, said 23-year-old Railton acknowledged “it was a silly thing to do and there was an element of laziness” while exercising his lurcher, a type of crossbred sighthound.

Yes, I’m lazy. Sometimes, too lazy. Way, way too lazy. But even I’m not quite *that* lazy. Even if they actually wanted to give me a lisence. Say, can he also be charged with being a contender for 2010’s moron of the year?

Last time

We didn’t do any better in January either, getting beaten up on 4 2 instead of Tuesday’s 5 1. Still, at least this time we only sucked very slightly less. And Burkey pulled the trigger on a trade as a result of it. Will it help? Well… it can’t hurt.