crazed monkey

A good friend of mine from university will be performing as part of the 2003 Varia Compilation CD release tour at the Ögenix and on vocals with The Scroll. Other bands include Pulse Plant, Scrape, and headlining guests Sylvania. Tickets are $10 at the door, which gives you a copy of the Varia compilation CD.

I have to admit that it’s been a while since anything remotely techno-industrial was “my thing”. Hell, it’s been almost ten years since I willfully listened to anything kids today call “dark”. The music will probably be too loud, which means that I’ll have to turn down my hearing aid. Damned kids! Make no mistake that if Olivia is involved then it will be good. Oh, and there’s a good old-fashioned hotel suite after-party after the show. Look for the most straight-laced guy you can find and that will be me.

Update: I wrote a review of the Toronto launch party for the Varia compilation CD.

Posted on June 6th, 2003 in culture, music - No Comments »

Once again, a Smug Canadian does his best to misrepresent Canada:

Canadians are actually a pretty conservative people, but we do have a somewhat fucked up system which results in a political party with a minority of support receiving dictatorial power over our nation.

I’m not sure which polls he is referring to, but every recent poll I find gives the federal Liberals majority support and an overwhelming lead over every other political party:

• Ipsos-Reid: Federal Liberals (50%) Continue to Hold Resounding Lead (April 27, 2003)
• EKOS: 51.1% of decided voters would vote for the federal Liberals (May 25, 2003)
• SES Research: The governing Liberals managed to increase their support from 48% to 52% over the past 90 days (May 30, 2003)

The interesting thing about those last two polls is the rising support for the Progressive Conservatives and the declining support for the Canadian Alliance, who tie the NDP for third place. Astoundingly, the EKOS poll has the Liberals well in the lead in Alberta, a bastion of Alliance support.

Please don’t take me for a Liberal cheerleader. Far from it. They have become too cocky for the nation’s good and I yearn for strong opposition on both sides of the political spectrum to keep the Liberal machine in check. However, the support is there. Show me a recent scientific poll which places the Liberals with minority support.

This isn’t the first time I have seen someone from the Canadian right attempt to pass fiction off as reality. Why is that? Are they so delusional, so hopeful for a right-wing retaliation that they have begun to hallucinate its existence? Or is this an attempt to manufacture support by repeating the same lies over and over again in the hopes that someone will believe them?

Here’s another one from the reality-challenged right:

Our “leadership” is currently scoring big with a disproportionately powerful and ignorant minority (Quebec) by taking dirty shots at the USA.

Call me naive, but didn’t the Liberals win the last two elections despite not having the support of Québec voters? How are they then “disproportionately powerful”? Couldn’t that title be better attached to Ontarians, given that a majority of the Liberal seats are in Ontario? Or what about PEI, which, I believe, contains the most federal ridings per capita, all of them Liberal. And how can a minority of 7.5 million be completely discounted? I don’t understand.

Silly me, I forgot my right-wing reality blockers! I’ll just put them on and everything will be clear!

Posted on June 4th, 2003 in politics - No Comments »

I have now upgraded this weblog to Blosxom 2.0 RC5. I found myself hacking up the Perl code in an older version to do precisely what some Blosxom 2 plugins have been able to do for some time. I have yet to use any plugins which would be obvious to readers of this weblog, however.

One change I did make was add a new template flavour so that individual weblog entries are rendered alone in their own page with the title of the post appearing in the title of the web page. The resulting URLs make much more sense than the original date-based ones. After all, when viewing the URL few will care when the post was made, but most will probably care what the post is about. A few Apache RewriteRule trickeries later, and nobody is the wiser. It will be interesting to see how having the title of a post in the title element of the HTML changes my Google ranking for certain searchin terms.

Speaking of using HTML properly, I wish I could lucidly explain how to make advantageous use of valid HTML without degenerating into a frothy, rabid mass spewing forth rants on semantic markup, the separation of content and style, and the importance of using proper names, titles and sensible URLs. Restructuring our company website so that it conforms to an HTML standard and makes use of semantic HTML should make it more accessible to search engines and so increase its search ranking. I routinely see this weblog rank higher than definitive web pages for certain search terms, so I must be doing something right. The trouble is, our web guy is of the DreamWeaver school, so I wouldn’t even know where to start. Perhaps when I have some spare time I will take a look at a couple of our existing HTML pages and see how they could be improved.

Posted on June 3rd, 2003 in meta, site - No Comments »

I successfully completed the Becel Ride for Heart this morning, although there was never any doubt in my mind that I would be able to do so. The 30km/h wind coming from the north-west made the 25km climb up the Don Valley Parkway to York Mills a little more challenging than I was expecting, but it also made for a rapid descent back down to Exhibition Place. To get an idea of how much the wind affected the ride, consider that it took me roughly an hour and a half to travel to York Mills, but just over a half an hour to return to Exhibition Place. Despite the wind, my time satisfied my goal of completing the ride in less than two and a half hours. Next year, I think I will try the 75km ride.

If you ever decide to attempt a charity ride like the Becel Ride for Heart, here are a few tips:

• Arrive early so you won’t be stuck behind the slowpokes at the start.
• If travelling with a large group, split the group into three subgroups according to skill level: those who will easily complete the ride, those who will complete the ride with some difficulty, and those who may not complete the ride at all. That way, you are not constantly waiting for everyone to arrive at a checkpoint before continuing. If you’re like me, however, you might not feel the need to wait.
• Follow the rules of the road, which will probably involve slower riders keeping to the right with the left side of the road for faster riders and for passing. (Gee, just like with cars. How novel!) I can’t tell you how many times I was stuck behind a group of people riding abreast in the middle of the road, had to weave around riders because they were in my way, or narrowly missed someone wobbling back and forth because they were travelling too slowly.
• Arrange a location to meet once everyone has completed the ride.
• Do not be afraid to yell at the idiots.

Thanks to those who sponsored my ride. Together we raised roughly $330 for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Thanks also go out to Vic who signed me up for the ride.

Update: Others who were part of our group have written of their experiences. They are:

• Victor Ng: Ride for Heart 2003.
• Frank Yang: My thighs are just killing me, and my ass feels like I just finished a five-year sentance [sic] at Oz.
• Colin Wong: … kinda embarassing when the trailing police cruiser pulls up beside you and asks if you know that you’re officially the last person to finish the Becel Ride for Heart.

Posted on June 1st, 2003 in meta, person - No Comments »