Isn't this the same guy who has the power to overrule CRTC decisions?

Tony Clement's Twitter feed continues to blow my mind. Earlier today he was talking about the songs he was playing on guitar, reminiscing about attending Super Bowls past, and now he is providing Canadians with access to American Super Bowl ads that are blocked from Canadian broadcasts of the game.

In one of Clement's latest tweets he provided a link to a YouTube account that seems to have copies of the Super Bowl ads that can be viewed world-wide (or at least in Canada).

I really wonder if Clement gets the irony of this last tweet.

The same guy who just used his Twitter account to announce that he would be encouraging the reversal of a CRTC decision is now using the same account to complain about another policy in the same policy area. Given that Clement is clearly aware of the popular opinion on the matter (people want to see these ads as part of the live broadcast) and that he is a member of a government that seems to claim that they want to represent such views, maybe he might consider using his Twitter account to announce that this policy will also be subject to further review or reversal.

By the way, is this now the position of the current government on Super Bowl ads?

Score
Cameron 17
Neil 0

Law and Order channel

A few months ago our apartment signed up for cable TV (because it led to a drop on our monthly telecommunications bill). This is the first time I have had access to cable in quite a number of years.

Now that I have had a few months to peruse cable's offerings I am amazed that in my years away from cable the offerings have gotten no better. One can still have a ridiculous number of channels and find many hours of the day when there is nothing to interest a particular viewer (or set of viewers). How is this possible? How has the situation not improved over the past 10 years? Have we now been pumping out hour upon hour of quality content for the better part of the last 60 years? Given this immense back catalog of cheap content shouldn't there always be something tolerable to watch?

Law and Order and its various spin-offs seem to be a brand that alone could be used to rectify such a problem. Why not just have a channel that is dedicated to continuously playing Law and Order re-runs. According to my quick calculations there are currently about 953 episodes of the various shows (with more added weekly) so that means that it would take about 5 weeks to go through the entire oeuvre. Of course, as more episodes are added this period would lengthen.

The benefit of such an approach would be that for a relatively broad swath of the viewing public (as indicated by the longevity and popularity of these series) there would always be something to watch.

I guess the real answer to my own question is streaming content. More surprising than the fact that there isn't a channel dedicated to Law and Order is that there are still even channels at all. Who wants to watch things on somebody else's schedule when the technology exists to allow them to watch the same content on their own schedule? Anyway, as our cable provider doesn't provide on demand streaming content I will have to be content to just watch less television content than I might if they actually provided access to content I wanted to see.

(Sorry, this was a little less structured then originally intended.)

New Spamming Technology

It seems that over the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of experiencing a new type of spam - text messages sent to my Google Voice number. Fortunately, because the service is free, this doesn't cost me any money or much time (at least yet). What is troubling is how they happen to have gotten my number (unless they are just generating numbers). It is also troubling to think that this could start happening on a more widespread basis and that web-based services could start text spamming actual phones in such a way that would be almost untraceable (though I know to what end they would be working with such an approach).

While looking through my spam texts I happened to come across a mysterious message that I received a few months ago.



[Embedded audio]

I have no idea where this came from or what the caller was getting at. Hopefully they eventually found the person they were looking for.

Call From Santa

It seems that Neil got a call from Santa today. Talk about being lucky.



[Embedded audio player]

I wonder if you too (or a loved one) might also get such a call.

Balcony Garden Update 3

It has been a few days, so I thought I would throw up a few more photos of our balcony garden. In the interim, I planted a few more seeds. I planted a few more pots worth of peas, one pot with radishes, and a few pots with sage. It is still too early for any signs of growth to be visible, though I expect the radishes to be making themselves known in the very near future.



For a fast growing vine, the thunbergia seems to be rather slow growing, or maybe I have unreasonable expectations. I guess the good news is that these plants are actually making progress after a very slow start.



The scarlet runner beans next to the column are definitely starting to take off. In the past few days a few of the runners have become tall enough to start making their way around the column. Actually, aside from only a few of the plants, most of the plants seem to be working their way along one of the two strings I have wrapped around the column for them to grow along. I guess give the slow start it shouldn't be too surprising that none of them are showing signs of blooms or beans.



The tomatoes are continuing to grow taller with every day. Also, more of them are showing things that I assume will eventually turn into blooms, though no blooms are presently visible. A few days ago a friend reminded me that there is some kind of pruning recommendation when it comes to tomatoes, so that energy is directed towards fruit production rather than stalk production. Unfortunately, I don't exactly know what I am supposed to prune. I guess I will have to head back to one of the books I have from the library about growing vegetable indoors.



The peas are growing slowly, but still growing. I think that at least part of the problem is that the soil in which most of peas are planted is less than ideal. None of the plants in this soil seem to be thriving. I wonder how much larger the pea plants will need to be before they start producing peas.



The beans in the planter seem to be growing more quickly than any of the other plants. One or two of the plants seem to be able to produce 2-3 inches of new growth on a good day. The yellow beans, though not as tall as the scarlet runner beans, are also growing quite nicely. The tall, thin pot to the left of the planter has the recently planted radish seeds. The pots to the right of the planter have the recently planted peas.



The pepper plant seems to be fine. I have seen no evidence of spider mites since I moved it outdoors and gave it a few doses of anti-spider mite treatment.



As a point of information, these photos were taken yesterday. I wasn't able to post them in the hours after they were taken, as I typically would, because we lost phone and internet service for a few hours yesterday. Fortunately, by about 1:00 AM this morning everything was back to normal and we were able to resume our web 2.0 lives.

A Few Quick Notes 288

-So far today has been great. The skies are clear and the temperatures are a few degrees above zero. Unfortunately I spent much of the day indoors and was unable to take advantage of the great weather.

-I did take a trip to the grocery store largely to take advantage of the weather, so I guess I can't claim that I didn't at least get a few minutes of good times and fun in the sun.

-Our Ultimate game was a bit of a boondoggle yesterday. Shortly after we arrived we learned that our captain had given us the wrong time and that weren't in fact scheduled to play until an hour and twelve minutes later.

As the two teams playing the game prior to ours were short players, so Neil and I, along with two other teammates, ended up playing as subs.

The consequence of our playing two games, instead of one, was that we were rather tired by the end of the second game, at least I was. This turns out to have been rather significant as our game was quite close until the last few minutes, by which point I was in no position to hustle as much as normal.

-Aside from playing extra Ultimate, the other consequence of the delay was that we were delayed in returning to the apartment. Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal, but as it turns out Neil and Rebecca had invited a couple over for games. So instead of all three of us being here to assist with the hosting duties, only Rebecca was here to handle the heavy burden that is playing a game with guests.

-Man, do I ever need to get back to work on my paper. It is supposed to be 7500 words and I definitely don't have that many yet.

-Google is now offering a new service called Google Voice, which is basically just a new version of GrandCentral. The big downside seems to be that they no longer offer free calls to Canada, the upside is that I should now have free texting capabilities.

Unfortunately, membership is presently only available to those with GrandCentral accounts, but you may way to keep an eye out for the opening of the floodgates because I get the feeling that this will be a pretty useful service (particularly if you are in the US).

A Few Quick Notes 278

-We have had temperatures above zero for more than 24 hours as this afternoon. Noticeable results of such conditions include significantly diminished snowbanks and ice sheets. With a few more hours of such weather it seems possible that we could lose most of the snow that we have been accumulating since the new year. On the other hand, Environment Canada is predicting that it will drop to -13 tonight, so much of this melting will likely be halted in the relatively near future. Aside from the above freezing temperatures, things have been pretty gray for most of the day, and at times a little drizzly.

-Neil has shocked me with two more blog posts. Maybe he will manage to creep up on me and still win the blog-off. At this point I have to concede that it is within his reach.

-I may have mentioned yesterday that I am feeling a little under the weather, a condition which has carried over to today. The two most significant consequences of this condition are an inability to concentrate on school work as much as I might like, and that I won't be able to play in this evening's Ultimate game. A third notable consequence is that I have been sleeping much more than usual. Yesterday I ended up taking three naps and going to bed early (of course, then I spent a while tossing and turning).

-A few days ago we had a several hour power outage. Though I didn't realize it at the time, Neil has since informed me that this even messed up our phones so that one of the cordless phones is no longer functional and a wall unit doesn't function at full capacity. Neil is hoping to get some new phones on his way to Ultimate, which will hopefully solve our phone problem.

Blog-off
Cameron: 34
Neil: 20

1-900 Meteorologist Service Now Available in Canada

I was somewhat surprised to learn that Environment Canada is now offering a 1-900 number for private, one-on-one consultations with a meteorologist. If this is something that interests you, it seems that all you need to do is call the number (1-900-565-5555), agree to pay $2.99 per minute, and talk away.

Aside from not wanting to pay $12.00 to hear about a storm that either won't come or is in the midst of striking, I am not sure how I feel about such a program. Something about the arrangement just seems a little off-putting. I wonder how many people actually use this service and what type of information they provide in such situations but then don't include in their free services.

Most importantly though, I really want to know how many times Weather Canada gets callers who are hoping to reach a more traditional 1-900 service. Do these callers keep talking because they are too embarrassed to admit that they were actually looking for something a little juicer than a one-on-one weather forecast?

Sint Maarten: Day 7

It seems that at some point I started to misspell Sint Maarten and have since had trouble keeping straight which vowel it is that I am to double. Amazingly, no one mentioned my very noticeable misspelling of the name in the titles of these posts (as nice as that would have been). Hopefully now that I am aware of the problem I will be more vigilant and eliminate any such problems before I post them.

******

Not surprisingly, several things about Sint Maarten are a little different than they are in North America. One of the most noticeable changes is that while doors do have door knobs most function only as handles as there is no catch for them to pull in. The problem with this design, at least as far as I can see, is that it means that doors always have to be locked or they will be pushed open by moving air (such as wind or a draft). Fortunately, some bathroom and bedroom doors are equipped with more traditional mechanisms.

Toilets also tend to have less powerful flushes. This is likely to conserve water. As much of the drinking water is produced through various desalinization processes this makes sense. As water is expensive and difficult and expensive to produce its use should be minimized. Strangely, this seems to be just about the only gesture towards reduced consumption and environmental abuse that I have yet seen.

******

Unlike the previous days this week my father had to be on campus before 7:30. This change in schedule meant that he did not wake me up for breakfast before he left for the morning, allowing me to get another hour and a half of sleep.

Upon waking I again proceeded to blow a substantial portion of the morning with various internet based activities (a few of which were actually useful and related trip). Eventually, I did manage to get ready for the day and make it outside.

I walked to Mullet Beach and made my way out on the rocky outcropping above the snorkeling grounds. While sitting alone on the rocks I was able to watch the rocks and the waves. One impression I had was that the water seemed particularly clear. Many of the rocks were clearly visible from high above the water.

Soon enough I received a call from my father indicating that he would be heading home for lunch. I climbed back down to the beach and then walked across the golf course and home. We ended up having sandwiches and odds and ends for lunch,

After lunch we made our way back to the university building. The main justification for the trip was so that I could stop by the library and get a tour. As I had previously met the librarian and suggested this, it wasn’t too much of a problem to arrange this once we arrived.

Wendy showed me the physical components of the library and also discussed many of the administrative decisions that she had made since arriving. As my library experience hasn’t been all that varied, this was a nice experience. I was particularly glad that she showed me her catalogue and associated system as it differed from the system with which I am most familiar but seemed quite functional and affordable.

While sitting in her office talking to me, Wendy received a call from her husband. It seemed that someone had chained a dinghy to their dinghy instead of the piece of cement, forcing Bob to tow it to their boat. When the person returned to the site they would find that their dinghy was missing. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have any means of identifying the dinghy to let the owners know what had happened. Presumably they were able to work this matter out within the next few hours.

After departing from the library, and then the university, we returned to the apartment where, based my assessment of the conditions earlier in the day, we decided to go snorkeling at Mullet Beach. Almost as soon as we arrived we saw that the water wasn’t as clear as our previous visit. The water was so cloudy that we were prevented from seeing most of the fish in the area. I also wonder if the slightly altered conditions either changed the behaviour patterns of the fish, or caused them to relocated as I know that I should have been able to make out many of the bigger fish, had they been there.

Though we were not satisfied with the conditions we did stick it out for a while. Eventually, when it became clear that things weren’t about to improve and when it also became clear that we were both fogging up more than normal we decided to head in. As we were making our way back to the beach I looked down and saw a stingray type fish. While the animal was partly obscured by sand it was quite easy to make see the outline of the fish, including the stinging tail. When I came up to tell my father about my sighting he had to re-adjust his equipment before he was able to go back down. By the time that he was able to make it back in the water the stingray type thing had vanished, though not without alerting me to the dangers of the seemingly tame sandy beaches of Sint Maarten.

We both decided to spend a little more time on the beach after our snorkeling adventure. For the most part this meant sitting near the shore and allowing the waves to push or pull us. The result was that, once again, I ended up with sand all over my body, including my ears and my hair.

After cleaning up we made our way to Simpson Bay to look for the local post office and scooter rental locations. While we were able to find both, neither were open and neither included hours or operations or any indications of when they would be open again.

As we made our way back to the Cupecoy/university area we started to look for restaurants. After an unsuccessful scanning we decided to head to the Thai place in the casino. Once in the restaurant one of the first things we noticed was that many of the dishes weren’t really all that Thai, but just generally from Asia. While both of our meals were tolerable, neither of us was particularly impressed with our dining experience. The general consensus was that Cheri’s Café was a much better experience in terms of both food and service.

The casino itself was the next item on the evening’s agenda. While we didn’t have any plans to play, I had wanted to see what the inside of a Sint Maarten casino looked like. Not surprisingly, slot machines and various video terminals predominated. The 1 cent play machines were particularly popular with the patrons that were there while we were. Sadly, the various table games were not in operation during our exploration. From the tables that were present it was clear that this was a much smaller part of their business than the slots and related machines. Another surprise was the number of poker tables that they had. If I recall correctly they seemed to have at least six of these tables, which seemed large considering they only had about 10 other tables.

We then returned home and spoke to my mother and sister via Skype. After the call we started another game of rummy. Part way through the game we decided to have the previously purchased coconut as a snack.

We went on the balcony to smash it open. I was filming while my father was in charge of smashing. When my father first threw it down, the coconut bounced so high it almost went over the rail and off of the balcony. A second throw had similar results.

It then became clear that we should probably remove the outer husk of the fruit before we tried to smash it. With a large kitchen knife my father was able to cut into the husk to create openings that allowed him to tear it open, and eventually remove the soft protective elements.

Once the protective coating had been removed the coconut cracked on the first attempt. Both of us then tried some of the meat. I was somewhat disappointed in the eating experience. The meat was not particularly tasty, nor was it even easy to remove from the hard shell. This caused me to wonder if coconuts that they serve as beverages are slightly different in terms of maturity than those they serve as fruit, but I haven’t really been able to answer that question.

Eventually, we were able to get back to our rummy game. After only a hand or two we noticed that we had a call on Skype. It was my mother and sister. Though I have no idea what they were calling about, we did manage to talk about names of places on the island.

After the call we were able to return to the rummy game, this time to see it to its end. Unfortunately, I gave my father the victory in the dying moments of the final hand.

We then called it a night and went to bed, in an attempt to keep to our daily schedule (which resembles Newfoundland time).

A Few Quick Notes 160

-Today has been a beautiful day. The temperature has also been quite reasonable today, not like some of the frigid days of this winter. Unfortunately, some of the streets are still filled with snow from Saturday’s storm. This makes walking around town a little more difficult than normal.

-If my count is correct, I am now 6/25 on my Roll Up the Rim coffee cups. So far I have won one donut and a number of coffees. The general consensus among my fellow classmates seems to be that winning a boat would just be a pain in the ass, particularly as most of us don’t have anywhere to store such an item, or a car with which to move it.

-The aforementioned storm caused most of the schools in Montreal to be closed today. Apparently, they had to do some work on snow removal before they were willing to send kids outdoors.

While I think that this was probably overkill, this isn’t as bad as the fact that CBC is reporting that the extreme number of school closures this year (3) is making it difficult for teachers to fit in the year’s required content. At the moment, at least this is what is being reported, the schools will likely re-schedule in-service days rather than add days to the end of the school year.

I can’t believe that this is an issue (though I know that it is in many jurisdictions), as we all know that elementary school isn’t so much about learning a list of things, but about socialization and day-care. Missing 3 days, or even several weeks, really isn’t that big a deal at the elementary school level, one has years to make it up, and likely will without problem. I know that missing the last six weeks of grade six because of a teachers strike has not been a problem for me (though it may explain why I still can’t do long division).

-Last night I was doing some reading about library education and thought that it was somewhat disappointing that many of the complaints people had about such education many years ago are largely the same complaints that my classmates have today. I guess people like me are at least partly to blame, we see these problems and then proceed to do absolutely nothing about them (except complain privately).

-A few weeks ago I tried to make some falafel from scratch. While the final product was edible, it certainly was nothing that I would want on a regular basis. This did get me thinking about home-prepared falafel options though.

A few days ago, while shopping in Lobos, I saw a falafel mix for $1.20. Not only was this about the same amount of money that I would pay for the raw ingredients, but it was also in a format that would give me some sense of what the pre-cooked product should be. At the moment I am in the midst of letting it stand, which is to be done before the cooking process is to take place, but after the mixing process has occurred.

My current concern is that the resulting mixture will not be thick enough to form patties, as directed on the box. I may have to add some flour, or other thickening agent, to achieve the desired consistency (though this would then screw up my chance at figuring our the desired consistency based on the pre-made mix).

-As some of you, our vast readership, may have noticed, we now have new buttons at the top of the right side bar of the blog. These buttons, when pushed, allow you to contact us (we each have our own buttons). At least in my case, this button will direct you to a voicemail service. We should be able to post particularly good voicemail messages to the blog for others to hear.

Reconnected to the World

After close to ten days, Nithum and I finally have an internet connection in our apartment. As one may have guessed, this period of time without such a connection was not intentional. Rather, the process of transferring our account from our old apartment to our current place of residence did not go as smoothly as we expected.

We first noticed that there was a problem when our phone did not work when we plugged it into the socket. Without phone service we expected that our DSL connection would not function properly. Fortunately within a day or two phone service was restored, though we were still not able to access the internet.

After several days and many phone calls later Nithum learned that simultaneous to our move there had been an equipment change and that our old modem would no longer work and that a replacement had been sent. Once acquired, the new modem also failed to work as we had been lead to believe it would. We were then informed that our line had to be checked, something that was to be accomplished within 48 hours.

After about 72 hours we learned that our line had just been checked and that the appropriate repairs had been made. Nithum was then told that after sitting for 19 hours the line would be functional. Fortunately, after about only 6 hours of the line sitting unused we seemed to have internet service.

Time after time Nithum was given timelines and told things that, in retrospect, appear to be complete fabrications. By the end of the experience the things he was told just sounded as though they were being made up by call center employees so that they would not have to deal with providing any actual service.