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Category Archives: PopCulture

A Weekend of US-based Technology

Back from a couple days in Minot, ND and some random thoughts about my use/mis-use of technology while there… – first thing I did upon hitting our hotel room was load up Pandora. Or at least I tried to – both the iPhone and iPad apparently still recognized I had a Canadian iTunes account and […]

¶ Posted 08 April 2012 § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: economics, travel, unitedstates

“I am very real” – Kurt Vonnegut Addresses The Teacher and School Board That Burned His Book

A great defence of the freedom to read by my favourite author when a North Dakota community burns his book. More at MetaFilter. In completely unrelated news, we’re off to Minot, ND for a weekend of water slides, shopping and America-only treats like Pandora and Cherry Coke. 😉

¶ Posted 05 April 2012 § Family § Library § Wisdom ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: book, language, travel, unitedstates

Brad Wall Hates Renewables?

So it’s not a secret that a big part of the booming Saskatchewan economy is due to our massive non-renewable sector – potash and oil mainly but also natural gas and other similar resources at the expense of developing the renewable industry in any meaningful fashion. When we say “renewables”, most people think of things […]

¶ Posted 28 March 2012 § MemoryLane § Politics § Wisdom § Work ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: economics, movies, saskatchewan, television

Music Monday – “We are old/And our son took the dog away/And fair enough/Because we are tired all the time.”

I awoke to this song on community radio this morning. The fact that it infiltrated a dream I was having where a librarian colleague of mine (who is actually married to someone else in real life) was walking down the aisle to this song to meet Jack Layton at the altar (he was still alive […]

¶ Posted 26 March 2012 § Humour § MusicMonday § Politics § Sad § Video ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: music

Friday Fun Link – Celebrities Read Tweets About Themselves

(via MetaFilter)

¶ Posted 23 March 2012 § Humour § Technology § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: language, television, twitter

Too Many Tabs Tuesday

Well, based on how slow it’s been lately, either my computer’s dying or I have too many tabs open. Let’s hope it’s the latter as that’s easily solved! Super excited to see Ryan Meili’s name pop up as a strong “definitely maybe” in a recent list of potential NDP leadership candidates, especially since, as the […]

¶ Posted 20 March 2012 § Library § Politics § Randomness § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: book, cool, economics, language, music, saskatchewan, science, wikipedia

On Tipping in Cuba

Chris Turner, author of the Hammy winning book, “The Leap”, has an outstanding article in the latest issue of The Walrus about the unique relationship between Canada and Cuba which captures, way better than I ever could, much of the mixed emotions you feel as a wealthy Canadian tourist in Cuba – are you helping […]

¶ Posted 14 March 2012 § Family § MemoryLane § Wisdom ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: allinclusive, book, economics, holiday, language, travel, unitedstates

Music Monday – “What it take to make you people dance?”

The “walking down the street, dancing” theme is a popular one for music videos, from REM to Hawksley Workman to the classic of the genre from The Verve. Here’s another one from Blur’s guitarist, Graham Coxon…

¶ Posted 12 March 2012 § MusicMonday § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: cool, music

Kony 2012 (and some thoughts on Inactive Activism)

If you’re like me, you probably woke up yesterday to find your Facebook, Twitter and other social feeds flooded with links to a video called “Kony 2012“. Most people posting it didn’t have much more info than that so I didn’t watch it right away – partly because its length (half an hour) and partly […]