March, 2009:

l’objet petit a

Daniel Miller has a new EP out, l’objet petit a which can be heard and downloaded for free. If you haven’t checked out his blog lately, I like the tweaked redesign as well.

I turn 35 on Wednesday. Wendy invited a couple of people to go bowling with us this weekend (life is easier when I get Mark to plan my birthday parties) and I got an odd card from the National Bank of Canada with who I hold my mortgage with. I am assuming that after the [...]

Feeling a little better

Mar 8th, 2009

by Jordon.

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Two weeks ago almost everyone in my department was getting sick. When I did payroll on Friday, I joked that the entire $3 billion slush fund that the Tories and Liberals are arguing about was needed just to pay our departments sick time. About the same time my staff came back, I got sick and [...]

One Good Example, One Bad Example

Mar 7th, 2009

by Jordon.

4 comments

Newsweek is pointing to Canada as an example to follow in terms of banking regulation. The legendary editor of The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, once held a "Boring Headline Contest" and decided that the winner was "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." Twenty-two years later, the magazine was rescued from its economic troubles by a Canadian media company, [...]

Contextless Links

Mar 7th, 2009

by Jordon.

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GM pegs its recovery to a return to booming sales—sales that were based on an inflated market. The decline is worse than it was at any point during the deep recessions of the mid-1970s and of the early 1980s. Brooks shares the White House’s responses to his column critiquing the budget. Photo gallery from inside [...]

Saskatchewan at war with Canada

Mar 7th, 2009

by Jordon.

2 comments

I never knew but I am off to buy a Victory Bond right after I post this. The Prime Minister appeared to be on a war footing while at a press conference to announce a highway project in Nova Scotia. "We have to define what victory means in Saskatchewan," said Harper, when he was asked [...]

I am sicker

Mar 5th, 2009

by Jordon.

1 comment

than our dog after she raids the garbage. When a man suffers, he does not suffer alone. In other words, pray for Wendy (who I have made sick as well).

From the keys to the executive washroom to cleaning the executive washroom

Mar 4th, 2009

by Jordon.

1 comment

The New York Times has a good article about some laid off executives taking survival jobs just to pay the bills. In just one illustration of the demand for low-wage work, a spokesman for U.P.S. said the company saw the number of applicants this last holiday season for jobs sorting and delivering packages almost triple [...]

The Final Edition

Mar 4th, 2009

by Jordon.

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I found this 20 minutes video of the last month of the Rocky Mountain News both beautiful and sad to watch. Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo. On one hand it was superbly done. On the other hand watching people grieving the loss of their jobs and an institution that has published daily for [...]

A Gallery of Fountain Pens

Mar 3rd, 2009

by Jordon.

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AKMA has been blogging a bit about fountain pens and has awoken my inner pen geek. Since I live with other pen geeks, it hasn’t been a problem. He poured fuel on the fire yesterday by creating a photo set of his fountain pen collection with a historical description of each pen. His pen puts [...]

The collapse of farming

Mar 3rd, 2009

by Jordon.

1 comment

James Howard Kunstler is predicting that farming could be the next industry to go down The net effect of the failures in banking is that a lot of people have less money than they expected they would have a year ago. This is bad enough, given our habits and practices of modern life. But what [...]

Remembering a simpler time

Mar 3rd, 2009

by Jordon.

3 comments

I am getting stuff ready for a quick trip to Chicago in eleven days and am getting all of the stuff ready that make the trip easy. Over the years I have become a lot better packing my carry on which makes a big difference but here is what I carry on trips now. In [...]

A brush with death

Mar 2nd, 2009

by Jordon.

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Wow, I just about lost almost 9000 posts and seven years of my life here a couple of hours ago when my WordPress installation crashed. I really need to backup my database. Anyways the blog is back online sans some images and until the weekend will likely have some damage to it. Until then there [...]

A request of City Hall

Mar 2nd, 2009

by Jordon.

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Instead of calling my mandatory registration fee a Dog License, why not call it what it is, a Tax on Dogs. While you are at it, an off leash park with access to the river bank would be appreciated as well.

What’s wrong with Jay Cutler?

Mar 2nd, 2009

by Jordon.

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Shutdown Corner has a post on what is going on with the Denver Broncos and their Pro-Bowl Quarterback, Jay Cutler. They quote Peter King in his Monday Morning Quarterback column. Quoth Peter: I heard one other interesting thing Sunday: Cutler asked for a trade shortly after the Broncos lost offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates — Cutler’s [...]