Long time, no talk! I hope doctoring is going well, married life is treating you swimmingly and your decision to leave politics behind continues to be the right decision.
I suspect I know your answers to those questions which makes this next statement a hard one to make. But with the announcement of Pat Atkinson’s resignation today, I think you need to strongly re-consider your decision to leave politics. In fact, I think you need to throw your hat in the ring for the Saskatoon-Nutana NDP nomination.
There are numerous reasons why I think this makes sense:
Pat spoke of the need for party renewal as one of her reasons to make this decision now. In recent NDP history, no one has represented change more than you.
I can’t remember if he ever formally endorsed you but I believe Pat’s father (a well-known NDP’er in his own right) supported your campaign so there’s a nice connection to the current seat holder.
Last but not least, you inspired a number of people in the NDP – both current and new – with your leadership campaign and many of us still want to see your approach to politics reflected as much as possible in our party. There are others carrying the torch of revitalization but seeing you in caucus this November would obviously be the best way for this to happen!
I don’t have any knowledge of the current situation in Saskatoon-Nutana – whether they have potential candidates campaigning already or any other internal factors that could influence your decision.
And I know that choosing to throw your hat back in the ring would be a difficult decision for all number of reasons – personally as well as the hit you’d take for changing your mind and going back on your declaration that you didn’t want to be part of the nasty and divisive world of politics. But even one of our greatest premiers had a similar set-back in 1982 and went on to a great political career.
Okay, my Atheist Xmas series of posts is done but I just had to share this song which has one of the best lines ever (see post title)!
Pace and I were dancing around listening to music the other day and this song from my England semester abroad came on. I immediately thought of the reference to Batman in the lyrics and how impressed Pace would be. But upon further reflection, I realised that Pace, who’s starting to have a habit of saying some pretty wild things to get a reaction, maybe shouldn’t be dancing around his daycare singing this song!
(In terms of saying inappropriate things, there are more and more stories of Pace doing this with every day that goes by including two examples from today alone. When Shea picked him up from daycare, Pace apparently asked if we were having “pees and poops” for supper – before laughing hysterically at his wit. Then, after supper, he said a strange quasi-profanity involving Jesus, bums and carrots that left Shea and I killing ourselves with laughter – even as we were trying to point out that comments like that might just be considered offensive by some – in a way that wouldn’t encourage him to do it more!)
As opposed to a “sausage party“, a bacon party would be something I would be very excited to attend! 😉
In fact, if queried, I would likely say that bacon is one of my favourite foods – definitely top five anyhow. (Shea and I have been known to cook up four pounds of bacon at a time then sub-parcel it for freezing and easy future use. I will die young but I will die happy!)
So reading about a Redditor (they love the bacon on Reddit – there’s even a sub-Reddit dedicated to “the other, other red meat”) who had a Bacon Party with prizes for the best dishes and accompanying photos, well, let’s just say you may have heard of “food porn” but those photos are like “artery porn”! 😉
Technically, not done with the popular Hipstamatic iPhone app but another camera app that’s just added a bunch of filters.
Still cool to know what Pace would look like if he’d had his photo taken in the 70’s! (Er, I think Polaroids still exist so maybe that’s not a question that needs answered come to think of it.)
The nature of the Internet is changing and developing constantly and one of the most significant evolutions is the nature of commerce online.
Now, there’s always been commerce online and most definitely since the web entered the popular consciousness in the mid to late 1990’s. I remember buying a book from Amazon somewhere around 1997 just to try out what was then, a pretty radical new service. So the development of e-commerce, in all its forms, from Amazon to Ebay to Paypal is one aspect of what I’m thinking about.
But there’s also the changing nature of how people relate to the Internet. I think we’ve reached a point where a lot of the earliest Internet users, steeped in a mentality of “free” have begun to acknowledge that maybe not every single thing online is going to be free (well, unless it’s something offered by Google!)
Those are a couple of the thoughts that popped into my head when I came across an AskMetaFilter thread asking it’s very tech-savvy community “What web services are worth paying for?” To me, some of these answers are sort of like someone who believes in free music and “information wants to be free” still choosing to buy the albums of their favourite independent artists rather than downloading them for free.
Here are the sites and online services I support financially…
NetIdentity – provider for my specialized e-mail address (jason@hammond.net) and also hosting for my old blog (though this is included in the fee for my e-mail as a legacy service)
iTunes – I buy apps for my iPhone – probably about $50 worth over the past year. I also buy the odd song or album – even ones I could probably get for free with a bit of effort. (Note: Making it very easy to to find and download music is the solution to piracy in many ways.)
NetFlix – we’re on the one-month trial right now but will likely keep it and have just last night canceled all but a couple channels on our satellite system. Made me realise that cable TV may be going the way of the CD in this new digital universe.
Carbonite – I have a subscription to Carbonite to provide a cloud-based backup solution to my local back-up solution.
Wikipedia – I’m on record as saying that Wikipedia and Youtube (not Google, not Facebook) are the two sites I could not live without. So I decided to put my money where my mouth is this year, not only making a donation during Jimmy Wales’ annual end-of-year fundraising campaign but signing on for a small monthly donation as well. (I’d encourage you to do the same – what’s $5 or $10/month for one of the greatest information collections in human history?)
Reddit – this year, Reddit implemented a freemium model for members who wished to pay a small fee to receive additional services. I donated in the first go-round and will likely become a dues-paying member next year when my initial contribution expires.
Amazon.com – I make the occasional purchase from Amazon and a variety of other online sites ranging from WestJet to Dominos pizza.
Groupon – has recently come to Regina and Shea and I made our first (and so far only) purchase to buy a groupon for a swanky local restaurant for ourselves as well as a couple to give as gifts.
Flickr – Shea has a Flickr account but it hasn’t been updated since last spring. It’s on the To Do list though – honest!
LibraryThing – $25 for a lifetime account can’t be beat!
Michelle sent me this link before Christmas but I still think it’s worth posting. Reminds me of when Pace opened a gift bag containing pyjamas last year, threw the clothes over his shoulder then kept digging while asking “Where present?”
I’d bookmarked this clip of all of Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits played at once as something that would make a humourous Music Monday post someday. Revisiting it, I realise it also does a great job of replicating the way that my head feels right now I hate being sick…
As I posted on Facebook on New Year’s Day, there was a time when puking all night on New Year’s Eve meant you’d had a “good time”. But this year, it wasn’t such a good time since Pace caught a flu bug and spent the night in bed between Shea and I, puking into a bucket every half hour on the hour. Then, to top it off, he passed the bug onto his dad who spent the next day in bed…only leaving its warm comforting confines to stumble to the bathroom.
One of the strangest things about this bout of illness was seeing how many of my Facebook friends across the country were posting updates about their own battles with the flu. Sort of reminds me of how Google plotted reported cases of H1N1 on a map to help track the spread of the disease.
