Categories
Uncategorized

The enbalming starts in five minutes

I’m quite surprised that I got a couple of email requests to comment on
the death of former president Ronald Wilson Reagan, as there are a
number of better qualified commenters from all parts of the political
spectrum, many of whom have already posted their thoughts. I suspect
that there are two reasons they think I might want to comment:

  • He was a supporter and admirer of President Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos’
    strong anti-communist stance was a good thing, but staving off
    communism by suspending the Philippine constitution and turning the
    country into a dictatorship is completely missing the point. When
    Corazon Aquino led the “People Power” revolution in 1986,
    he tried to get her to compromise with Marcos — not very likely, as he
    had ordered the assassination of her husband (who said “the commies did
    it”).

  • I saved his ass time and time again in the video game Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, a martial arts/platform jumper game in which you must save “President Ronnie”:


    I fought through 7 levels of Ninja, defeated Karnov,
    saved your sorry ass and all I get is a burger?!
    Damn, this Reaganomics sucks.

Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Crazy Go Nuts University Party at Lava Lounge This Thursday

If you live in Accordion City (that’s Toronto, folks) and are a Crazy Go Nuts University
(that’s Queen’s University, folks) almnus (that’s a male graduate,
folks) or alumna (that’s a female graduate, folks), you might be
interested in an alumni (that’s plural for alumnus/alumna, folks)
social at the Lava Lounge
this Thursday. It starts at 9:00 p.m. and runs through the night. Be
sure to arrive reasonably early since Lava, being one of the more
popular destinations on a street that is itself a popular destination, tends to fill early.

I’ll be the guy with the accordion, the beer and the Queen’s Applied Science ’91 jacket.

Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

“Give Me Liberty” Party This THURSDAY [Updated]

Update: I mistakenly reported the party as being on Friday, but Jeff Kahl points out that June 10th is a Thursday. I just assumed that one throws street parties on Friday.

The neighbourhood in which Tucows is located [PDF
link] is called Liberty Village, named after the east-west Liberty
Street, which runs right through it. It is an industrial area that’s
largely been turned into an office area for the high-tech, design and
entertainment industries, some offbeat places to go (The Academy of Spherical Arts, Joe Rockhead’s, Liberty Cafe, and home to a number of Toronto’s quirkier citizens (including Cory Doctorow,
who used to live in a large
Disney-meets-tiki-lounge-meets-bookworm-themed warehouse
space near the bottom of Fraser Street).

This Thursday, the L:iberty Village BIA (Business Improvement
Association) is hosting a street party called Give Me Liberty. There
are posters for this event all over the neighbourhood promising three
of the things I like most: “Cold Beer. Hot Food. Cool Music.” The fun
starts at 3:00 p.m. and runs until 9:00.

Here’s what the poster looks like — click it to see their site:

I’ll see if I can’t find out more — I’ll bet that Matt and Brenda from down the street know something about this.

Categories
It Happened to Me

Weekend Update

The weather has started to behave a little more like it’s supposed to
today, so I’m running out to do some errands and play. I’ll try and get
some follow-up (especially for the entry on standardized testing) written this weekend.

Speaking of the entry on standardized testing, may I direct your attention to this Colby Cosh entry, written in response to my entry and your comments? (Thanks for the response, Colby!)

Categories
In the News

“My party’s leader came to talk about tax cuts, but all I got was this embarrassing photo”

One job I’d hate to have right now: the PR wonk for the Conservative party who has to spin the photo below:


  It’s as if Quentin Tarantino directed “Grumpy Old Men”! “Uh…we’re great! Um…and..we’re straight! And…uh…ah, screw it, rhyming slogans are for homos…” ** POW **

It appears on the front page of today’s National Post and shows an unidentified (and unbalanced) Conservative supporter punching Bob Smyth, an activist from Canadians for Equal Marriage. Apparently Smyth was heckling Conservative party leader Stephen Harper during a speech and the supporter decided some smiting was in order.

The Toronto Star reports:

As
Laurie Arron, 41, and Bob Smyth, 58, heckled the Tory leader during his
speech, an unidentified senior citizen punched Smyth and attempted to
hit him with a small wooden signpost.
Police ejected both Arron
and Smyth and Harper said afterward that he regretted the tussle and
wished that people would “treat each other respectfully.”

Strangely enough, there’s no mention of the police ejecting the guy who actually threw the punch. Good call, jackasses.

Categories
Uncategorized

Same great blog, brand new URL!

The Farm — the blog I’m paid to write — has a
new, more sensible, URL:

http://farm.tucows.com

The original URL, http://dev.r.tucows.com
will always work, but at least this one’s a little easier to
remember.

Categories
Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Just asking

I have a couple of questions that are at least tangentially related
to issues being brought up during this, the federal election season
here in Canada:

  • Education: Could somebody please tell me why standardized testing
    is supposed to be a bad thing? Keep in mind that I’m not talking about
    any specific standardized tests, but the actual concept itself, which
    seems to get a number of people’s knickers in a knot. I’m actually
    having trouble seeing why it’s as bad as the it’s-the-end-of-education
    crowd (whose Venn diagram circle has severe overlap with the I-majored-in-underwater-basketweaving crowd) says it is.

  • Toronto Island Bridge/Bizjet airport: Could somebody please tell me why the island bridge, if built, would do more harm than good? (I admit that I bounce back and forth on the Island Airport issue from month to month).

Feel free to use the comments; that’s what they’re there for.