the pod bay door

:: Tonya has a new web site, Challenge of the Week: “The purpose of the COTW initiative is to gather together handfuls of people seeking a springboard from which to challenge themselves to make changes – big or small – individual or communal.” It sounds like a good idea, especially if you believe that big changes can only emerge from small beginnings.

:: Cindi posted this cool site which displays the subways systems of the world on the same scale. The images looks like a group of small webs woven by spiders on major hallucinogenic drugs, or a series of strange cracks in glass windows.

:: My mother contributes another story to my family history project:

My mom’s parents were named Marie-Ange and Jean-Charles Carriere, but everyone called them Mary and Charlie. They were wonderful grandparents. As for Dr Robinson, he was around for a long time. Not only did he deliver my mother, he also delivered me!

:: In the 60s and 70s, I lived and died by the Montreal Canadiens. The past 25 years has seen a waning in my interest in hockey, with baseball overtaking it for a number of reasons. Last week, Todd Bertuzzi of the Canucks assaulted Steve Moore in the Canucks/Avalanche game. He’s been suspended, and the Vancouver police are investigating.

The fallout has been predictable and at times, pathetic. Proof that the players are out of touch with their own sport and behaviour comes from listening to Wayne Gretzky, Tie Domi, and others, who call the assault “unfortunate”, and use the crutch of “emotions running high out there” as an excuse for what happened. Had Steve Moore been hit by a car, that would have been an unfortunate incident. What happened on the ice was disgusting, premeditated, unwarranted, stoooopid, and the lowest of the low.

An “unfortuate incident”? Oh, puh-LEASE.
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:: Four of the largest ISPs in the States have filed six lawsuits against hundreds of large-scale spammers. The plaintiffs are Microsoft, AOL, Earthlink and Yahoo. While I’m sceptical about the lawsuits, it’s nice to finally see some serious legal action being taken to fight back against spammers. The lawsuits were filed subsequent to the passing of new anti-spam legislation in the US. Now, can we get the same thing happening in Canada, please?

:: Mercer Human Resource Consulting has released a World-wide quality of life survey, and Zurich and Geneva topped the list for 2004, with Vancouver BC, and Vienna, close behind. Further details of the survey reveal that Calgary is the cleanest city on Earth! It’s not clear from the report which cities from the planet were included in the survey.

:: Nineteen years after it happened, on July 13, 1985, Live Aid is finally coming to a DVD store near you. I remember the show well, watching it on Much Music, and bemoaning the dozens of interruptions by Dick Clark (who announced Phil Collins as an Academy Award winner, which he wasn’t at that time), and commercials and what not. I still have my videotapes of the concerts. Interesting that it took the discovery of pirated DVDs of the concert to convince the organisers to release a legitimate copy, with proceeds going to Band Aid Trust, which still exists to this day. Here’s another Live Aid website.

:: Today in our library, a student was attacked and stabbed in the arm and shoulder by three other individuals, while studying on the second floor. Most of us working in the building weren’t aware anything had happened until afterwards. The student apparently bolted from the library, bleeding profusely. Soon afterwards, Campus Security, the Edmonton Police, and other officials were in the building. Currently, a section of the entrance, and the second floor, are sealed off as a crime scene. The incident made the local news, and a statement was issued by the University. In addition, the students on campus are already discussing it online.

The event and its aftermath left most of us feeling a bit unsettled. In my 25+ years as a librarian, I’ve never experienced anything like this.

Update on 18 March 2004: The Edmonton Journal story has been removed from their website, so here’s an account of what happened from the UA Student newspaper, The Gateway.