I have forever been a fan of the Homestarrunner, but I have to say that Weebl and Bob are just as entertaining, if not more. The latest installment, Email, is well worth the time. Something for you hump day excitement.
Time for Thanksgiving, part one
I’ve known for a long time in my life that there were two things that were celebrated in Canada that we simply didn’t where I grew up back in the states. One of those is Boxing Day, but even that isn’t completely the truth. We had a family friend who was originally from England, and the holiday celebrations we took part in at her home taught me a lot about British traditions as a young kid. Those traditions are commonly found here, so I’m a little up to speed on what’s going on there.
Now, I guess the next holiday I’m talking about isn’t so much the fact that it isn’t celebrated back in the U.S. It’s just done at a different time, maybe even a little differently, depending on culture and tradition. Of course, I’m talking about Thanksgiving[wiki]. Canadian Thanksgiving[wiki], to be exact.
I’m well versed in the history of American Thanksgiving[wiki]. I’ve drawn my fair share of turkeys and Pilgrim hats, watched football games after being stuffed with food, and devoured enough pumpkin pies in my life.
Canadian Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is something that I only know of in its existence. One of those days on the calendar that said, “Thanksgiving (Canada)”. So, why not dive into what Wikipedia has to say about it together, shall we?
The first and original Thanksgiving comes from Canada. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest.
The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Canada. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving, and the first Thanksgiving to have taken place in North America. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him – Frobisher Bay.
At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed ‘The Order of Good Cheer’ and gladly shared their food with their Native-Canadian neighbours.
After the Seven Year’s War ended in 1763 handing over Canada to the British, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.
During the American Revolution, American refugees who remained loyal (United Empire Loyalists) to Great Britain were exiled from the United States and came to Canada. They brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada.
Eventually in 1879, the Canadian Parliament declared November 6th a day of Thanksgiving and a national holiday in Canada. Over the years many dates were used for Thanksgiving, the most popular was the 3rd Monday in October. After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the Monday of the week in which November 11th occurred. Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.
Finally, on January 31st, 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed…
“A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed … to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.” [wikipedia]
Learn something new everyday, eh? At least I feel better knowing more about the feast we are about to have on Monday. We will be celebrating American Thanksgiving in our little home when the day comes. However, we’re going to do it our way. I’m going to try my hand at making a nice lamb roast for Rebecca. However, if I am gainfully employed at that point, then we’re heading somewhere super swanky, nice, and making someone cook that lamb for us.
Obadiah Parker doing a cover of Radiohead’s “Idioteque”
Rebecca posted something about their cover of “Hey Ya” by Outkast yesterday, and while that is absolutely brilliant, I liked this one just as much. And you can find out more about Obadiah Parker at their website.
Covers are delicate things. I’m all for them, as long as you make the song more than just a carbon copy of the original. Of course, there are some folks out there, like bands you find at The Roxy, that it works for. Well, “works” can be taken lightly. Ok, maybe poorly, but you see what I’m getting at, right?
Five blades is worth the time
I am one of those people that loves free stuff. Seriously, who doesn’t? Give me a free cellphone and I’ll use it, granted that it’s a worth while device. Happily, it has been, especially the camera on it.
When we hit the PNE a few weeks ago, I got a free Gillette Fusion from one of the numerous booths that populate the grounds. I’ve been a Mach 3 user for a while now, never giving the idea of more than two blades being worth the time and money. Boy, was I ever wrong.
And the Fusion? That sucker has five blades. Five! That’s nuts, and the crazy thing is how good of a shave I get from it now. Dare I say that I’m a changed man, all because it was free.
I swear that this isn’t a commercial or ad. I just dig a good shave. That’s all.
Reading spam in the newspapers
I had to take a second look when I caught this headline. First off, this was in the Globe and Mail, not in some spam from my email inbox. Secondly, it reads like spam from my email inbox.
Researchers say new drug helps prevent premature ejaculation
TORONTO — A short-acting version of a drug used to treat depression helps alleviate premature ejaculation in those severely affected by the condition, improving sexual satisfaction for both the men and their female partners, U.S. researchers say.
Their multicentre study of more than 2,600 men with the problem found the experimental drug dapoxetine increased time before ejaculation during sexual intercourse by three to four times, depending on the dose.
Dapoxetine belongs to a class of drugs known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are widely prescribed for depression and include such brand names as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. Dapoxetine was specifically developed for premature ejaculation, based on a side-effect of delayed ejaculation associated with its longer-acting SSRI cousins. [globeandmail]
Being that there are not any gross errors in spelling, this seems to be a legit article.
On another note, I find it very interesting that the drug that treats this closely related to anti-depressants. If you catch any commercial about any of these drugs, “sexual side effects” is always a common thing that you’ll hear that announcer voice mention. This is one of those effects, and yes, there are more. It just depends on the person.
It would seem natural to harvest this side effect to “cure this problem” among men, but let me get this straight. You’re going to pay money to take a pill that will help you get a few more minutes of “joy” in your bedroom experience? Seems a bit odd to me, but I bet they’ll make a good amount of money off of it.
That’s the other side of the argument, based on what the article sited as “utopia” for an additional one or two minutes of bliss. People leading the study hope that this ends up having a Viagra-effect, and I doubt that really has anything to do with fighting this long time affliction that humanity has been battling tooth and nail over. It’s all about making money. Apparently curing cancer or AIDS doesn’t have the same appeal.
Slow invasion of Home Depot
I caught word of this via a post on Wired, but imagine this. 225 people walk into a Home Depot. All of their watches are syncronized, and at a determined time, everyone starts moving in slow motion for five minutes. After that, shop normally for another five minutes. And then, freeze for another five minutes.
Improv Everywhere are the folks behind this, but don’t call them a flash mob. Their brand of organized fun is a little more than that. Be sure to check out the page for this “mission” on their website for a great write-up, as well as pictures and videos.
They’re vicious little critters
I have had a long time fascination with squirrels. I know how sad it sounds, but it’s true. I often ask Rebecca if we can have one for a pet, and she has told me numerous times that you are to never feed rodents in the city. I have only suggested doing such things, never actually done it.
A family today told how a squirrel went berserk and trashed their house after falling down their chimney.
Retired engineer Alan White, 67, and his wife Janice, 65, came home from a weekend away to find their lounge had been ransacked, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
The couple initially feared burglars had broken into their home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, but the culprit was found to be a squirrel which had left sooty paw prints all over the room.
The trapped rodent had tried chewing through the window frames and tore the curtain and settee to shreds in a desperate bid to escape. [guardian]
Yeah, it’s never going to happen. It doesn’t help that even I have some sort of struggle with wild animals as pets and all the rest of the things that rights activists would have problems about having such rodents in captivity, blah blah blah.
YouTube goes down; people discover a world outside
I find things like this interesting. I had bandwidth problems most of today, meaning Shaw was sucking big time, but YouTube is something I pass by once and a while. For others, I bet there were some people going through withdrawl.
YouTube, the popular video hosting site, was hit with an outage four almost five hours Tuesday as a result of database troubles.
The site, which allows viewers to tune into uploaded videos ranging from seniors making their homespun video debut to polished user-submitted film clips, went down at 7:30 a.m. (PST) leaving viewers with a tongue-in-cheek graphic of the company’s database woes. Although the notice stated that new features were being added to the site, it turns out that wasn’t the case.
“There are no new features being added today. This page went up mistakenly,” said company spokeswoman Julie Supan. [cnet]
This takes me back to an episode of the DSC a short time ago where the Curry’s were talking about how their daughter popped out of her bedroom one night while MySpace disappeared for some hours. She was forced away from an online world and into the kitchen with her mom. According to the podcast, the daughter was helpful and sweet. At the same time, she had nothing better to do.
When we saw Douglas Coupland at CBC’s Studio One Book Club a few months ago[post], even he stated how he could and would spend all day on YouTube, probably absorbing ideas for his writing projects. I bet there were some offices that experienced an increase in productivity today as well. Oh yeah, that’s what Google Video is for.
Getting chased down by minivans
I let myself fall out of routine this week. Rebecca is going to work an hour early all this week, the plus side being that she gets off an hour sooner as well. That makes for a slight change in how everything works in your day, so I made it a point to get a little more sleep and take a super long run this morning. There’s just something about it that makes your internal sense of well being come back around.
The last block of every run, I burst into a dead of a sprint that my body has energy left for. It’s at this point that your body has expelled the stored fuel that you get from eating meals from the past 24 hours. Just as much as you are digging deep to breathe and keep your legs moving, your body is doing the same with your fat reserves. Pleasent thought, I know, but it’s something that tends to run through my head everytime I hit this point. That, “my god, don’t fail me now.”
Today, there was a brown minivan that suddenly appeared in my peripherial vision. It pulled ahead, slowed up, pulled ahead again, and waved. I noticed her somewhere in the middle there. I knew that this person wanted directions. The nice thing would be to stop and help, so I did.
“Do you know… can you tell me… the intersection of Pender and… um, Davie?”
Her english had a hispanic accent to it. I was fighting to maintain my breath and not spit as I spoke. Getting beyond that thought, I knew this woman had no clue where she was going or looking for.
I’ve lived her long enough to understand that the streets she was looking for don’t intersec at all. From the downtown core to Stanley Park, the area sits on a bit of a penninsula. The streets she was looking for run parallel to each other, on opposite sides of said penninsula. When I asked if she meant Pendrell, she said that must be it. Struggling to breathe through my words, I directed her to where she needed to go.
As she started driving backwards down the street, I continued in the same direction that she stopped me in. At that point, I realized that she is going to be looking for Davie and Pendrell. Those streets run parallel to each other as well, but only a block apart from each other. That’s when I heard horns honking at the brown minivan for going backwards on a two way street. She was lost, and quite possibly insane.
Give, take, and then you sue
Around seven last night, Rebecca was in front of her computer when she told me about an ongoing issue that Kris Krug was dealing with. It might not be so truthful to saying it has been long running or constant, but it quickly escalated last night. I’m incredibly intrigued by the situation, so allow me to explain a little.
Krug made this post back in February that details how Kevin Corazza had stolen photos on Flickr and claimed them for himself. In fact, the photos in question belonged to Krug, and when contacted, Corazza removed the disputed photo sets almost as soon as he was discovered. Then yesterday, Kris got a cease and desist from lawyers representing Corazza.
I checked out the post and went wandering around the photo sets of Kevin Corazza to see if I could find the disputed photos. That’s when I clicked the next picture to view only to have “kcorazza is no longer active on Flickr” pop up, big and bold in the middle of the window, all of this happening within a twenty minute time span.
This makes little sense, and it really pains me to some extent. I often run into the stereotype that Americans (Kevin Corazza) are quite content with pursuing legal action (suing) in order to get their way (money). You won’t hear me disputing this, and the whole situation at hand makes it even more apparent.
It almost makes me curious about getting Kris on the podcast to chat about this a little. The implications from this could fizzle or really try the creative commons license[wiki, flickr] that everyone falls under when they sign up and post on Flickr. There are some copyright issues to hash through on this one.
Update: This has made its way to Digg, and the discussion is getting very interesting. Join the photo hunt on Flickr and see if you can match other people’s photos there to Corazza’s personal website. Amazing…