the pod bay door

.: We’re knee-deep in snow and have been freezing our butts off in sub-zero temperatures for the past few weeks. Edmonton endured a few days of temperatures in the -30C range, which felt like -40C with the windchill factored in. -40C is equal to -40F; that’s where the two temperature scales meet, so yes, it was feckin’ cold indeed. For the most part, I’ve been dragging myself to work, surviving each day with enough energy to return home and sleep rather than head to the gym.  Driving can be a nightmare, but thankfully the City of Edmonton has been able to increase the number of contracted snow cleaning services in the past couple weeks, so at least the roads are passable. The 7-10 day forecast is for temperatures to return to average figures for this time of year, which is around -5 to 0C, much more tolerable.

.: The past few months I’ve been reading more than I have in years. When at the Y, I work out on an upright cycle, and read a lot there. The titles I’ve read recently include:

The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue: A Child of the Fifties Looks Back by Robert Klein
The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System by Siva Vaidhyanathan
The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz
The Film Snob*s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Filmological Knowledge by David Kamp with Larwence Levi
Hip: The History (P.S.) by John Leland
In Praise of Slowness: How A Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honoré
The Keep by Jennifer Egan
New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer by Bill Maher
Queenan Country by Joe Queenan
The Rock Snob*s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge by David Kamp and Steven Daly
Sloth: The Seven Deadly Sins by Wendy Wasserstein
The Stanley Kubrick Archives edited by Alison Castle
The Truth (With Jokes) by Al Franken

I am currently reading Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, David Javerbaum, et al, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I’m maintaining my own library catalogue using LibraryThing.

.: HDNB played a gig last week at The Fox in Edmonton, in the -40C atmosphere of a late Sunday evening. Kudos to the 15 hardy souls who braved the mean-spirited weather to come down and watch us play a couple sets of tunes.

.: My secondment at NINT has been renewed until January 2008. 2008…would you believe I will be eligible to retire in 2008? I can’t believe it, either.

.: The province in which I live, Alberta, has a new leader, Ed Stelmach. Stelmach won in a runoff vote on Saturday to become the new leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and the next Premier of Alberta. It was a stunning defeat for the big business candidate Jim Dinning, and a rebuke of the ultra-right wing, US-born and bred candidate, Ted Morton. Any Albertan could vote if he or she was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta; a membership cost $5.00. Predictably, thousands of people in the province joined, as did I, just to be able to vote, and in the end, to elect Stelmach and defeat Dinning and Morton. Stelmach is a moderate, something this province hasn’t seen in decades, and he appears to be a decent human being, unlike the retiring buffoon who is our current Premier. I will celebrate the day Stelmach is sworn in, because we will finally be free of Ralph.