the pod bay door

¦¦ The Captions Game, from the site, Edgecurve, is hilarious. My favorite so far is this one with the baby in the box of styropopcorn.

¦¦ Geoff and I were contacted today by Mairi MacLean, a features writer at The Edmonton Journal today. Mairi is writing a story on blogging for the paper. She interviewed each of us by phone, and her questions were thoughtful and probing. Of course, I’ll be checking the paper tomorrow morning first thing to see if we made it to press!

As well, Geoff and I submitted an edited version of a 2,500 word article we wrote on weblogs and how they might work in the library world. The paper, written for Feliciter, was edited down to 1,900 words, and I’m hoping we can keep it there, and not reduce it further. As well, we’ve been asked to present a session on weblogging for Academic Technologies for Learning, at the U of A. This seems to be happening all too fast!

¦¦ My good friend Robert Runté has joined the blogging ranks. He doesn’t disappoint.

¦¦ I have a remote starter on my car. It’s great this time of year, when the temperature is -25C. I saw The Recruit tonight, and upon leaving, discovered the remote starter decided not to start. So, I’ll be at the retailer tomorrow asking them to fix it quickly, and for free. BTW, it’s -25C in Edmonton tonight.

¦¦ Speaking of The Recruit, I enjoyed it, despite Al Pacino’s way-over-the-top performance. Colin Farrell, the current It Guy, was good without annoying me. A predictable story, but worth two hours of escape and $9.95Cdn.

¦¦ The Morning News’ Guide to New York Jargon is hilarious.

¦¦ The lists on McSweeney’s, brainchild of Dave Eggers, are also hilarious. Try Some Famous Names That Can Replace The Word Yesterday In The Song “Yesterday” by Paul McCartney or Actual Entries From The Scots Dialect Dictionary.

¦¦ One of the first two blogs I started reading in early 2002 was Laura‘s. The other was Geoff‘s. On Laura’s site I discovered a link to brain-terminal, which “seeks to provide thoughtful analysis of the various political, social, economic and technological trends that affect our daily lives.” It is the brainchild of Evan Coyne Maloney. Why he chose the horrid colour scheme will remain a myster. Whatever. Anyway, you must watch the video of his interviews with various NYC anti-war protesters from earlier this month. It reveals that they are passionate, but it many cases, clueless. Of course, leave us not forget that we are seeing only the interviews he chose to let us see. But it makes for entertaining viewing.

¦¦ Daypop is a search engine that searches “14,600 news site and weblog for current events and breaking news.” You can see the top weblogs, the Amazon top wish list items, top news, and the top 40! The Top 40 “is a list of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the world”. At the top of the list is ready.gov, the US gov’t site that helps their citizens prepare for terrorist attacks. The site is odd and creepy, and at best, necessary. The top search, sadly I suppose, is currently “great white.”

¦¦ Terry Jones of Monty Python fame weighs in with comments about Dubya’s latest reason for wanting to bomb Iraq: he’s losing patience.

¦¦ The City has been cleaning our side streets for about a week. My street was
cleaned on Monday. I live in a cul-de-sac, so the grader pushed the snow into the middle until it melts in the spring. Then the little guy followed to clean up our driveway entrances.

¦¦ Read why reality tv isn’t reality tv. Of course, if your cerebral cortext is functional, you already know, but I digress. (No, I’ve never watched any of those shows).

¦¦ Recently it was announced that editors from some of the world’s preeminent scientific publications had discussed the concern of the potential use of new information published in research journals for malicious reasons, including bioterrorism. Subsequently, the editors released this Statement on Scientific Publication and Security.

¦¦ The end of my favorite comic strip, For Better or For Worse (proudly Canadian) slowly approaches. Thanks, Derryl.

¦¦ I know that most US states and Canadian provinces have official flags, crests, birds, floral emblems, trees, songs, mottos, and so on. I didn’t know there were official soils. We’re a bit behind in Canada, with only two provinces on board. Manitoba is apparently still debating the issue. My favorite state whatever list has got to be California. Among others, it has a state insect, state prehistoric artifact, and a state fife and drum corps. Thanks, Mike.

¦¦ In the late 1950s, as US networks began broadcasting selected shows in colour, they would preface each broadcast with a color presentation logo.

¦¦ I successfully installed Moveable Type 6.22 yesterday. The world didn’t end, my web site didn’t implode.

¦¦ Chris Sherman comments on Google’s purchase of Pyra Labs, creator of Blogger. How will this affect blogging? How might this affect you if your blog is supported by Blogspot? The story was broke by Dan Sherman in San Jose.