the pod bay door

.: I was in Calgary overnight, visiting Chris and Debra. In the evening, after driving through what felt like most of a seemingly abandoned Calgary, we arrived at the cinema to watch Brokeback Mountain, a good film about a love story between two sheep herders, which as one might expect, ends tragically. We finished the evening sharing some very delicious takeout from a local Chinese food outlet. It was warm in Calgary, and I couldn’t sleep last night because the room I was in wouldn’t cool down. There is little to no snow throughout most of the southern half of Alberta, while the east is getting hammered by another snowstorm. We need snow cover to protect the land from erosion and to prevent drought. Driving back from Calgary, it was brown landscape everwhere.

I was hoping this would be a relatively quiet week. Next week, when work resumes, will be a return to choreographed insanity.

.: Reuters has issued its 40 Best Pictures of 2005. Most of the choices are good ones, with the exception of a picture of Madonna, which for me has no place on this list. Check out Time’s Best Photos of the Year 2005. (Update: I agree with Katie’s comment that the pic of Courtney Love doesn’t belong on the Reuters list as well.)

The very foggy view from Wayne Gretzky Drive in Edmonton, Monday, 3 January 2005, 2145 hrs, driving on the Capilano Bridge over the North Saskatchewan River.

:: Rather than create more entries, I’m going to add to this one, so I can look at this picture for a while. Cindi has links to a number of great sites, some funny, some sad. I saw the Sorry Everybody site on Michael Moore’s page the other day. Americans can send photos of themselves to the site. Each picture features the contributor showing a written apology for the rest of the world to see, for the Nov 2 election results. Those of us in the rest of the world can send a photo with a message of support, including my fellow Canadians. Some can get very creative; perhaps they watched the opening credits for Napoleon Dynamite. A soldier who served in Iraq apologized. Texans are sorry. Yoda understands. Babies are upset, as are scientists, cats, dogs.

:: Sree Sreenivasan has gathered together the year’s best web tips, as reported in the Web Tips column on Poynteronline. Sreenivasan also has a site for “sharing tips on various topics“, such as photography, Google, hoax sites, and graphics and image sites.

All web tips since Sept 2001 are listed here.

:: The 10 worst ideas of the fall 2003 television season include the dumbing down of The West Wing, and the full-frontal assault of the three Law & Order franchises, both of with which I agree. While you’re at it, check Lost Remote, a television blog founded by Cory Bergman. And in case you missed Paris Hilton on SNL two weeks back, here’s the transcript of her brief sketch with Jimmy Fallon during Weekend Update. It’s totally brilliant and funny.