bradm

Forget the plowing, does anyone have a water-ski tow rope and a snowboard we could borrow for the afternoon? Aloha, Brad

I saw Andrew Haydon on Rogers22 the other night (talking about light rail vs. bus-rapid transit), and he said that Ottawa used to have exactly that: an independent transit commission, as Toronto does. Apparently he suggested going back to an independent commission to Mayor O'Brien, but O'Brien did nothing about it. Aloha, Brad

I'd also need each city's cost of living to really make any conclusion from those numbers. (One comparison I found, which admittedly is from a few years ago, ranks Toronto as the 89th most expensive major city in the world to live in, while Ottawa ranks 124th.) Aloha, Brad

Hmmm...a permanent bus strike would also force Ottawa city council to invest a lot more in roads, bridges, parking lots (to handle all the extra cars), and hospitals (more cars = more car accidents) which'd be a great boost to infrastructure, and create lots of jobs. Aloha, Brad

I'm quite sure he knows the perceived difference between the words. The reporter, Laura Lowe of A Channel, made a point of saying that the union was now saying "fair", but in the initial call (which Lowe had made to set up an interview, presumably about something else) had used the word "favourable." She also said it was a situation she hadn't ever encountered before as a journalist. From http://www.atv.ca/ottawa/news_65084.aspx Aloha, Brad

Happy Day, snarf! Aloha, Brad

Apparently, the union head and media person will now only grant interviews to news organizations which, based on reviews of their coverage by the union, have produced reports that are "favourable" to the union; those that haven't produced favourable coverage get press releases, no more. (The word "favourable" was later changed to "fair" by the union head, but it was originally "favourable.") Aloha, Brad

Corrected. My bad. Thanks, V. Aloha, Brad

There's also a listing of a Kevin Breit show at The Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield, QC on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009; also on the bill is CR Avery. I don't whether it's just Kevin, or is Sisters Euclid, or one of Kevin's other projects. Aloha, Brad

I doubt it; I'm pretty sure the thrower was the sole attacker. Aloha, Brad

Tix are $15 in advance. http://www.jambands.ca/sanctuary/showtopic.php?tid/250107 Aloha, Brad

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/14/mccain.senate/ Aloha, Brad

Aloha, Brad

I just had another idealistically wacky idea: instead of giving the big three auto makers $25 billion, why not spend the same amount of money differently? First, give the big three exactly zero ollars. Then take, say, $5 billion and use it as "seed money" (or venture capital) for new or small businesses (defined somehow, like less than $1 million/year in revenue, and/or fewer than 100 employees) or to help the automobile support industries (e.g., parts suppliers) convert to creating new (non-automotive) parts/technologies, take another $5 billion and spend it on health insurance (for, say, three years) for the former big three employees, and use the remaining $15 billion on programs to re-educate and re-train the former big three employees. In other words, use the money to invest in and transform the US economy into something that'll be sustained into and through the next 100 years, rather than try to prop up the basis of the economy for the previous 100 years. Aloha, Brad

There are live recordings of him at http://www.archive.org/details/Matisyahu Aloha, Brad

Some googling led to http://www.xmasmelody.com/ I tried their WinAmp stream, and it worked. Aloha, Brad

A related question: how do people serve/handle the food at Christmas dinner itself? For a bunch of years when I was younger, we had loads of relatives (my Mom's parents, my Dad's parents, etc.) come to our place for dinner, and my Mom, bless her practical heart, would simply lay out the platters on the kitchen table (we'd eat Christmas dinner in the dining room), and do everything buffet style. The first helping was held up until everyone, plates in hand, was gathered standing in the kitchen for grace to be said, and after that, you were pretty much on your own. No passing of food around the table (except for the wine), help yourself to more when you were done, and so on. Aloha, Brad

Henkell Trokken and orange juice during the opening of the presents my Mom's Christmas cookies (IIRC, they're just balls of ground-up Graham cracker crumbs and evaporated milk [chocolate chips are optional], not baked, just refrigerated; you can also roll them in icing sugar or coconut) my Mom's Christmas cake (torn-up chunks of angel food cake, folded into a mixture of melted chocolate chips and whipped cream, then refrigerated over night) Aloha, Brad

Yup. I picked up a copy at a Sisters Euclid show back in November. It's well worth it. :thumbup: Aloha, Brad

Close. The first computer my Dad used was the IBM 1401, circa 1960, which was about the same time (certainly the same era) as the NCR 390. It was the first computer his employer got, and he told me about being in the loading dock of the building when it was delivered (and almost seeing it fall of the forklift). Aloha, Brad P.S. Get off my lawn.

My high school had a single DEC LSI-11 minicomputer, with several (6 or 8, IIRC) VT-100 terminals and DECWriter III console; the first year I got my hands on it, it was running RT-11 (mostly programmed in BASIC coded up on mark-sense cards); it was later upgraded to the multi-user, multi-tasking TSX-Plus operating system, programmed by students mostly in WATFOR-11S (a variant on the FORTRAN programming language, produced by the University of Waterloo), coded both on mark-sense cards and later by editing code on the terminals. Aloha, Brad

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" ranks really low on my list of loathed Christmas tunes, especially that saccharine chorus of kiddy voices. Aloha, Brad

I'd only eat that if it was accompanied by the right dipping sauce. Aloha, Brad

Swizzles is licensed, and they were serving alcohol at Dusty Owl Chocolate Houses in past years. Aloha, Brad

Transit boss answers strike questions I also saw Alain Mercier on a couple of local news programs tonight saying that it was actually the union that wanted scheduling put into the negotiations, not the city, although that doesn't seem to line up with the city's position that the scheduling process is "unfair, unsafe and certainly inefficient." Aloha, Brad