It's nice to be the Yankees

Down a potential Hall of Fame catcher? Just grab another one.

Need help in the outfield or left-handed relief? "Madge, get me the Pirates on line one."

Are the Jays for real?

The only answer possible is "I don't know" although it is tough to see them catching all three of the teams in front of them. However, there are signs of hope. If A.J. Burnett can realize that, even if he's apparently not being showcased for a trade anymore, he's still on display for next year's free agent market, he might pitch every game like he pitched last night's. The great Roy Halladay seems back on form. And while the offence is still pretty darn poor, there's even good news there: the plague of double plays seems to have abated. Here's a list of the numbers of DPs for the Blue Jays at selected points this season:

Games / DPs / Rate per 162 games
36 / 45 / 202.5
47 / 55 / 189.6
66 / 76 / 186.5
106 / 107 / 163.5

The major league record is 174 (set by the 1990 Red Sox), and it looked to be in serious jeopardy for a while there.

Let's hope that Rolen and Overbay can start hitting, and it might be an interesting September.

SuperHappyFunTimeHooray!

Your blog crashes the interwebz!

Reboot?

Y/N

This is something you may find entertaining if not mildly psychotic.

I bring it up because our dog had the misfortune of being called a 'Pookie Doo' on many occasions before I found this video.

Also, there is a severe lack of video on this blog.

This is a Link. 

This aired.

Like, on television.

I could question the frame of mind these people were in at the time, but it seems a little too obvious .

Hehe. <3

The Coolest Iron Chef

Let's face it, Iron Chef America is so OTT as to be a guilty pleasure for those of us who make it appointment television. Nevertheless, you can't deny that Mario Batali is the coolest of the Iron Chefs (or is that Chevs? No....). Although Masaharu Morimoto comes close - I loved the episode where he had to taste all of the peppers before he used them because he hadn't cooked with peppers before - and what's with the English voice-over when he's actually speaking English? As evidence of Chef Batali's pre-eminence, however, I offer not only his undeniable cooking skill, but also his taste in music, and the fact that his wife works for a goat farm. Goats are, of course, the coolest of the domesticatos. They're cute, friendly, and produce some very excellent cheese, which is also lower in fat than cheese made from cow's milk. So let's all listen to some Joe Strummer, enjoy some goat cheese and get ready for the next ICA battle. I hope it's Battle Goat Cheese.

Breaking legal and language news

It's good to see this sensible decision from a Greek court about the use of the word "Lesbian". Had they ruled otherwise, we could look forward to similar suits from the people of the Caucasus, and maybe even everybody in India. While we're at it, the people of York should look into the use of that word by those "New Yorkers" or at least the magazine of the same name. It's all so confusing.

Harass a Heron

We had another great year of wildlife viewing at Wigamog Inn in beautiful Haliburton, Ontario. We canoed into a nearby marsh where we played a rousing game of "harass a heron" and got some great pictures. We also participated in a few rounds of "distress a deer", "bother a bluejay", "trespass on a turtle", and "frighten a frog". It wasn't until we returned home, however, that we were able, once again, to "confuse a cat" without fear of reprisal. We have been vacationing at Wigamog for about ten years now and recommend it for a family holiday: http://www.wigamoginn.com/.

Frank, a whole different cat

Not quite as motivated, shall we say. Until he sees a chance for escape, that is.

It's all about the beer, part II

In an update to a previous post, all US concerns about the purchase of Anheuser-Busch were washed away by enough money added to the deal. As is commonly the case, The Onion's editorial cartoon gets it right. [If you don't see the cartoon as satirical, please navigate away slowly and delete this blog from your bookmarks....]

Polly, kickin' back

I'm fairly certain that this cat works far too hard and drinks too much coffee.

Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland is a very accomplished writer, he is the writer of the book that inspired the hit T.V. series JPod. And at the end of this T.V. series the main character's girl friend goes into a coma which is another book he wrote entitled My girlfriend in a coma. He has written many other books of the fiction and Non-fiction variety. Fiction titles include The Gum Thief and Hey Nostradamus. The one I am reading now is The Gum Thief. Which is about a girl who works in Staples and is at the end of her goth phase. But her colleague is writing in a diary. The diary is actually her colleague pretending to be her and the scary thing is he is getting her right.

Midgets with Timbits

Yes, there is a real story behind Midgets with Timbits. As part of my job, I travel throughout the Greater Toronto Area. A few years ago, I had to go to Hamilton for a meeting. As you may or may not know, driving almost anywhere and doing almost anything in Hamilton is more than unusually irritating. I say this with love and respect, since it is my father's ancestral home. The city, especially downtown, has, shall we say, a certain "flavour". I don't think it would make an especially good ice-cream flavour. So after my meeting, I'm desperately trying to escape the surprisingly dense gravitational pull of the downtown core, and circling ever more frantically through the maze of one-way streets, confusing street signs, lanes that appear out of nowhere and go nowhere, and looking for a clear path to the highway and freedom . Driving through Hamilton, you have to notice that every corner contains a Tim Horton's. On this particular day, however, I was in no mood for coffee. Stopped, finally, at a stop sign at yet another corner, I caught pedestrians crossing out of the corner of my eye and settled to wait. As I cast around looking for street signs that might give me a clue as to whether I was actually heading in the right direction, at the right time of day, in the right season, I realized suddenly that it was taking the pedestrians an awfully long time to get across the street. In irritation and, let's face it, nascent panic, I narrowed my focus to the offending pedestrians, only to discover that they were, in fact, little people. Carrying Timbits. Only in Hamilton. So, I apologize for the term "midgets". It just makes a better band name.

Please no more journeys

The Steven Truscott story is one that I remember from a very young age, well before I had any clue what it was really about - my father was from Goderich, became a lawyer, practiced with a Donnelly and was a big fan of Arthur Martin, so it was a big deal in my house when I was a kid. If the whole story teaches us anything it's how bad an idea capital punishment really is, but that's a whole other issue.

For this post I'm really only concerned about one thing: is our Attorney General a New Ager or just possessed of very, very bad diction?

From the Chatham Daily News:

Bentley said there will be discussions with the federal government about sharing the compensation costs as recommended in Robins' report.

"It was important once we had reached a conclusion in this matter that we provide Steven Truscott with our decision as quickly as possible," he said.

"We are doing what we can to bring to a conclusion this remarkable aspect of Mr. Truscott's life journey," Bentley said.

"It is my hope Mr. Truscott and his family will now be able to spend all of their time on the rest of life's journey."

Canadian lawyer and law professor James Morton on his blog reports the same comments as follows:

Truscott's legal saga was an "unprecedented" and "extraordinary" journey, Bentley said.
"We are doing what we can to conclude this journey," he said.
"It is my hope that Mr. Truscott and his family will now be able to spend all of their time on the rest of life's journey."

Does anyone else find reference to all this as a "journey" a bit jarring, let alone the rather odd repetition of the word? Maybe it's more of a forced march through various parts of our legal, political and journalistic systems over a half-century?

Maybe it's Butters

So I'm guessing the creators of South Park owe the Ramseys an apology?

Music

Today I will be talking to you about the newest music on my Itunes Library. The newest thing is Modern Guilt by Beck. This album features ten new songs by Beck. They are Orphans, Gamma Ray, Chemtrail, Modern Guilt, Youthless, Walls, Replica, Soul of a Man, Profanity Prayers and Volcano. Beck's crazy style of music writing is just enough to pull off his latest album. Another of my favourite bands is The Offspring, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. The southern californian punk band has done it again. The best songs as recorded by Itunes are Hammerhead and You're Gonna Go Far, Kid. Now it's time for me to sign off. Bye.

Band Names

Over the period of about three or four months our family has created a list of band names that we think future bands may find interesting. Some of these are weird albeit pretty strange but here thay are anyway. The first one is Emo Squirrel, next is Midgets with Timbits, Those Darn Young People, Moist Apocalypse, Gooedup, The Screeching Tweens, Cheese to Numb the Pain and finally Heartwash. My top three would be Those Darn Young People, Moist Apocalypse and Heartwash. That's all for now bloggers. Bye.

It's all about the beer

This story is fun too. While neither Molson's nor Labatt's produced anything worth drinking for a few years before they were acquired, it's kind of fun to see the zombified corpse of Labatt's screwing up a deal for the maker of Bud. So let's recap - Anheuser-Busch says that the jolly Belgians and Brazilians shouldn't buy them because InBev acquired a Cuban distributor when they bought a Canadian brewer, and it's not clear how they'll be able to comply with the U.S.'s anti-Cuba laws?

Everything you need to know about derivatives, greed and human behaviour

Just read this article by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books from January. It's excellent reading, and has only gotten more relevant since. Without descending to cliches about hanging together or separately, we're all in deep trouble if the ends of the economic spectrum keep pulling apart - and also if we forget that the "free" in "free market" isn't synonymous with "unconstrained"!

Well, here's a blog, then. Let us see what kind of wacky and/or insightful commentary can be placed here.