A Few Quick Notes 591

-We're in the midst of another hot and humid day in Ottawa.  As we keep creeping further into September I keep tricking myself into thinking that we'll soon be past such days - but they keep on coming.

-Our squirrel keeps coming back, though it's damage from this morning's visit wasn't as bad as a few visits.  I guess I really need to consider ramping up my cayenne use if I want to got a few days without these guys visiting and tearing everything up.

-So it turns out that the Quebec election was pretty eventful.  Not only did the PQ do a little worse than expected (along with the CAQ), the Liberal outperformed expectations.  At the end of the day the PQ managed only four more seats than the Liberals (and they were about nine seats short of majority territory).  Maybe most impressively, the PQ, the Liberals, and the CAQ all received less than 1/3 of the total vote - though the Liberals and PQ were close with 31% each.

And the least expected development of the night was likely the shooting that occurred at the PQ election night party.  Fortunately I had called it a night by the time this happened so I didn't trick myself into thinking that I should watch the coverage as the details of the shooting emerged.

-Aside from the sinkhole coverage, the big news from Ottawa today is that by 2014 there should be a AA team based here.  While I'm a little bummed out that we'll have to wait another season, I'm definitely looking forward to attending some minor league baseball.

-So if you're looking for some ongoing courtroom drama consider following the case regarding Toronto's mayor, Rob Ford.  It seems that if this conflict of interest based case goes against Ford he could find himself out of a job in the near future, or at least that is one interpretation of the possible outcomes.

A turn towards the absurd

A few days ago I heard about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's negative reaction to Mary Walsh's ambush-style interview at his Toronto home. It was also reported that shortly after the ambush took place he had called 911.

After seeing the relatively tame footage of the event I assumed that the suggestion that hadn't actually dialled 911 was probably true. Who would call the police when a prominent Canadian TV show, busily doing the thing for which they are most famous, was busy doing their thing (even if you might make a reasonable argument that their behaviour was inappropriate)? As one can see in the video, they don't have any interest in hiding who they are or what they are doing.

Well it seems that the suggestion that Rob Ford didn't call the police was completely wrong. Apparently he called the police not once, but twice. It is now being reported that the second call was laced with expletives. Apparently there have now been complaints filled by the dispatchers on the receiving end of these calls.

Mary Walsh, the 22 Minutes correspondent involved in the incident, spoke to a St. John's CBC show about the incident. If you are interested, you can listen to the interview here.

On the Train 2

OMG, we are in Oshawa. Wasn't there a 1980s Canadian movie about minor league hockey that took place in Oshawa?

How is it that we have already stopped twice even though we aren't even out of the Greater Toronto area yet?

On the Train 1

It is just about noon, meaning that Kirsten have been on a Montreal bound train (Toronto was the departure location) for about 25 minutes. So far most of this time has been spent creeping along or in stations not picking up passengers. Hopefully this train will eventually reach something approximating a reasonable cruising speed. Fortunately, since I started this post things have picked up a little in terms of speed, but we are still nowhere near European speeds.

The train on which we are presently riding is slowly working its way into the 21st century. We have wi-fi access, but it is some of the slowest wi-fi access I have ever experienced. As far as I can tell it isn't good enough to allow users to stream videos or do much more than simple browsing. The other way in which the train is super modern is its approach to privacy. Instead of providing traditional bathrooms that have locks and prevent other people from accessing them while a passenger is using them, these bathrooms do away with such archaic notions of privacy and allow other passengers to enter whenever they would like. Amazingly, I even heard the passenger in front of us complain about such a progressive approach to bathrooms and privacy.

We can now see the concession cart approaching for the first time. As we just boarded the train a few minutes ago I think we will likely pass up this opportunity to buy things, though I imagine that this trend will not hold as time passes. I presume that in about an hour or so I will be quite keen to buy a coffee and Kirsten might like something or other (the water and bran muffins we purchased last night are just not that exciting).

I will do my best to keep you updated as our trip progresses.

Just what was needed before the G8 summit

According to CBC there has been an earthquake in Ontario. It seems that this has coincided with the final preparations for the upcoming G8/G20 summit that is to take place in Ontario. I am curious to know if this earthquake will have much of an impact on these final preparations or if other regions in Ontario are short on emergency service workers who have been shifted to Toronto to deal with the massive summit security operation.