2005-11-14 - 23:58

"M" as in manatee

I thought that I had discovered the best news story of recent memory with this gem from CFRA last Thursday:

Environment Canada is trying to determine if a tornado ripped through Hamilton yesterday. Witnesses reported seeing a funnel cloud moments before a roof was ripped off a school.

However, today revealed a new winner in the form of this New York Times description of the Burmese government suddenly moving shop. The whole article is comic gold. A few choice facts are that (a) the government informed the foreign press of the move but didn't tell their own people through the state media; (b) they told diplomats that urgent business could be handled by fax but there's no fax number yet; and (c) the schedule of the move may have been determined by astrology. Hands down, though, my favourite quote is the following:

The junta's physical move into a fortified retreat reflects what many experts on Myanmar say is a bunker mentality in the face of what it may see as a bewildering and antagonistic world.

So, as I understand it . . . the fact that the entire government moved to a fortified mountain bunker may be indicative of a bunker mentality. And this analysis could only come from Myanmar experts? Gold, Jerry!

I remember now that I haven't done a real update here in ages. So far, autumn has been pretty straightforward. The main victory was finally fixing the duct work leading to the extension, which required a few trips to the crawlspace. It turns out that I'm not claustrophobic; I'm not sure if I had put that to the test before.

I also got the chimney fixed a while back, which was just a matter of money. Overall, most of the main things that I wanted to do to the house this year came together, although a couple of ideas slipped due to limited time or (more likely) funding. After filling twenty-eight bags of leaves, I think the fall work is mostly wrapped up here.

Looking ahead to winter, we settled on the double family tour for the holidays. I'm taking off the last two weeks of the year for vacation. Laurie and I are heading to Halifax on the 17th to hang out with my folks, then flying to Toronto on Boxing Day for a very quick visit with her family. Assuming that the plan holds from there, Laura is driving us back to Ottawa a couple of days later, so she can visit us for the year end, leading up to the Fourth Annual House of Chi New Year's Barbecue Classic.

Since my last post here, I did some work on my other site, tidying up my concert listings. I now detail all of the bands for each show on the main table; and I think that the final product is more useful and prettier.

The latest addition to my reviews is another recap for Controller.Controller. That was a very fun concert. Nirmala was not the healthiest, coming off laryngitis; and her vocals were definitely strained. The band still kicked ass, though, and the crowd was a lot bigger and livelier than it was at the band's last visit to Zaphod's. I even stayed after the show for a change, since tons of Laurie's friends were there.

I still have a couple of shows in the works for this year. It looks like I'm missing Bad Religion this week, as their stop at Capital Music Hall sold out while I was debating whether to go. I've seen them once before, though, and tickets for this one were 35 bucks plus service charges, which was a deterrent.

On the plus side, though, Carolyn Mark is actually playing Ottawa for a change, instead of Wakefield, so I should finally get to see her much-heralded live set. Also in the works is a December pairing of Kiss Me Deadly and My Dad vs. Yours. I liked Kiss Me Deadly the two times that I saw them in Montreal. (Their old web site actually linked to my review of the first of those shows. A review that is much easier to find on my redesigned concerts page, I hasten to point out.) It has been a while since I've seen the My Dads play, so that would be good, too.

Less certain is whether I will get a chance to see Buck 65 doing his free DJ set, given what I am told is an extremely limited capacity. It's too bad that we didn't get a real Buck concert in Ottawa this year. His Bluesfest gig was stormed out and he's only coming back this time as an opener for the Barenaked Ladies, which didn't interest me. Maybe next year.

In conclusion, screw Fox for cancelling the best show on television. (Or screw the general viewing public for not watching.)

J.