The Nickel Film Fest wants you . . . to drive drunk around the town, apparently

Passing this message along from someone who can't figure out to post on the blog~ wah whha.... Wish I was in town!

on

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12th

The Nickel Independent Film Festival will hold its first ever
SCAVENGER HUNT FUNDRAISER!

UPDATE RE: GRAND PRIZE:

-2 nights accommodations in a 4 bedroom chalet at the INCREDIBLE Humber Valley Resort on the west coast of the island

-A $100.00 gift certificate to the WONDERFUL Ship Inn

-4 Dozen beer from the FANTABULOUS Quidi Vidi Brewery

Holla!

Words into Pictures: Phil & Sue's Snowy Vancouver.

Those of us in snowless climates at the moment wouldve loved to have been in Phil & Sue's position this past week- headed for an unexpected snow day. For those all too accustomed to cold weather at the moment, this must be a bizarre concept. Yet, you'll still want to see this gallery. . . snow is truly beautiful.
A cbc photo gallery of Snowy Vancouver

The 12 days of Christmas

If you're planning on big-pimping with your true love this Christmas (Phil & Hinchey...I'm looking at you!).... it's gonna cost you even more- so you better get on it now.

a True Love wanting to buy the 364 items involved in all of the verses' repetitions would have to pay a record $85,233 this year, up from last Christmas's $82,381.

While prices for the partridge, two turtle doves, three French hens, six geese and seven swans remained the same as last year, higher wages made the lords a-leaping, ladies dancing and pipers piping costlier.

"After years of stagnation, wages for skilled workers, including the song's dancers and musicians, have increased as the labour market has tightened," said Jeff Kleintop, the chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management.

See the cbc story here.

My favourite detail? "As always, the partridge is still $17." Sweet!

Snowing

what?

Paul Wells on Quebec as a nation

I don't always agree with him, but he's often spot on: the Inkless Wells. weblog. The entry on the Quebec as a nation retardery yesterday is definitely spot on, so I'll reproduce some of it here:

In St. John's, last time I was there, it was far easier to buy the flag of the once-sovereign country of Newfoundland than of Canada. In Alberta the quasi-maybe-one-day-separatist Alberta Alliance is buying membership cards for Ted Morton so he can become the next premier of Alberta. In every Mohawk village in Quebec there are people, some occasio[n]ally armed, who do not recognize the sovereignty of any white nation, be it Quebec or Canada. In Montreal it's the easiest thing in the world to find people who feel only Canadian, or who feel no allegiance to any place but their beautiful city. Or to their neighbourhood. Or their children.

So to be delicate, it is not helpful for the prime minister of Canada to reach in among those nested, often competing claims of national allegiance to pluck out one, more or less entirely so he can enjoy a relatively peaceful day at the office.

He is right. Where do we draw the line? I suspect we're all fairly proud Newfoundlanders here, and I'd say our place in Canada is at least as distinct as Quebec's. But, cultures are independent of nations, and the only raison d'etre for this entire Quebec inanity is to lead the way to being a Capital N Nation, independent of Canada. That everyone is pandering to Quebec (and this is one of the few times that the pandering has really been without merit, in my opinion) is just silly. 75 seats in the house be damned.

Bell Island Boom

From the wikipedia entry on Bell Island: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Island


The Bell Island Boom
On April 2, 1978, there was a loud explosion on Bell Island that caused damage to some houses and the electrical wires in the surrounding area. Two cup-shaped holes about two feet deep and three feet wide marked the major impact. A number of TV sets in Lance Cove, the surrounding community, also exploded at the time of the blast. Weather men confirmed that atmospheric conditions at the time were not conductive to lightning. The blast was heard 45 kilometers away in Cape Broyle. Apparently U.S. Vela satellites picked up the event. The incident was investigated promptly by two representatives from a U.S. weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, according to the news media.(1) It has been speculated that the explosion was ball lightning. However, a recent documentary aired on The History Channel about electromagnetic pulse weapons speculated that it may have been a result of top secret experiments by either the Russian or U.S. governments, involving high energy beams focused into the ionosphere.

I really hope someone can come up with a joke about how my mother may have caused this.

The race is on

There are only 3 Canadian WW1 vets left, one is 105 and 2 are 106. The last one gets a state funeral, it would be easy to the 105 year old but my money is on the the oldest 106 year old, he's got the winning instinct, the other guys don't have the heart (literally and figuratively) to contend.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/11/21/state-funeral.html

le fantome

Who remembers this? Who could forget this--?-- c'est ici notre question.

Zut alors!- je ne peu pas parler pour chaqun de vous, mais pour moi, un de mes romans le plus adore des journees d'ecole est:

Maigret et le Fantome

I've recently had the realization that if I start teaching in Texas, I may have a better chance of getting a job by trying to teach french! This realization is a shock to me, hehehe, because it had never crossed my mind- but I am surprised how many schools actually teach french, as well as german and spanish. So, I will continue to go about my student teaching in English literature this spring, but this is definately at the back of my mind.

And, if it comes to this- maybe my kids will eventually be able to grasp the brilliance of Simenon & Maigret!

One-word movie review for Casino Royale:

Great!

BOIL WATER ADVISORY

What? Are we in Harbour Grace? Or perhaps Marystown? Or even Badger? No, my friends, we are in Vancouver, British Columbia and thanks to the recent torrential rain storms, 2 million people now have to boil their water, us included. Well, I boiled some water. Twice. Then I put it through the Brita jug. Once I did all that, I took one look at the water and went straight to IGA and bought 4L of bottled water. Would YOU drink water that looked like this?!



Needless to say, this is stupid and we can expect to enjoy the boil water advisory for at least four more days.

Yipee.

200,000 fans witness U2 Sydney stopover

cocobutter's favorite rapper's favorite rapper doesn't even get a mention in the summary below, a summary of a highoctane, brassy extravaganza that occured last night, and that including the band u2, which was attended by everyone from bono's brother albert to the aus huddlas to none other THAN your favorite rapper's favorite rapper, Kanye West, who was the opening act for a musical extravaganza--just mentioned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no surprise guests? no encores? a 20minute set? that just means pure kanye, no distractions: read on chum[p]s//

Tuesday 14 November 2006

More than 200,000 fans have revelled in the amazing Sydney stopover of the Vertigo//2006//Tour at Telstra Stadium.

The extravaganza over three concerts makes Sydney a worldwide U2 hotspot. Croke Park in U2’s home town of Dublin is the only other stadium venue to host three shows since the Vertigo tour kicked off in San Diego in March 2005.
The high usage of Major Event public transport services, the respect shown for each other and Stadium staff and, of course, the atmosphere created by massive crowds each night were essential ingredients in the event experience.

And U2 lived up to their billing as the world's premier rock band with a spectacular showcase of music and light.

Tthe soaring sounds of U2 carried the nights to a rarefied musical plateau where Bono reigned supreme.



Up close and personal: Bono with the fans at Telstra Stadium

The U2 frontman captivated his audience with a mix of showmanship, simply brilliant songs and social conscience. Bono made an impassioned plea for the fans to think of the plight of Africa, and urged them to join the "make poverty history" campaign.

The U2 repertoire included favorites old and new, with 'Pride (in the name of love)' drawing a powerful and heart-felt response.



A beautiful day: the amazing lighting of the Vertigo//Tour//2006 concert

The song list for the second show went like this;

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
Until The End of the World
New Year's Day
Beautiful Day
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Sometimes
Love and Peace
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride
Where The Streets Have No Name
One
Zoo Station
The Fly
With or Without You
The Saints Are Coming
Desire
Kite

The U2 concerts were Sydney's hottest entertainment events for 2006, and the rush was on to witness this gigantic spectacle of music and light.

Raincoat blogging

As promised, albeit some time ago:



Aside: why is our blog named 'period' now? Luke, I'm looking at you.

The Rooms with a View

I came across a wonderful reflective piece on the Rooms today in the Telegram. The author did a great job summing up the importance of this new building as an institution for our culture; as a new stage to communally represent and discover our culture; to expose our artists; and to offer them an opportunity to collaborate with each other and interact with artists from around the country- it gives them a new stage, and we reap the rewards of that, I think.

I love that the gallery finally showed us all that Christopher Pratt has really been doing, and that it is now celebrating the illuminated glory of the work of Mary Pratt. I love that Lisa Moore wrote the catalogue for Thaddeus Holownia, and that every time you turn around at the Rooms, someone is holding up our own streets next to those French or English streets we once thought were supposed to be more famous.

Check out what she has to say. I'm curious what people think in general of the Rooms, if you've seen the new photography exhibit (I saw him lecture on his photos at Mount A. & that was pretty spectacular), and how the Rooms could be improved.

Victory! >?

What are people thinking about the Elections here in America yesterday?

Was it time for a change? Are the Democrats going to do anything with this apparent victory?

And let me here about Donnie Rumsfeld, babay!

& RIP Kinky Friedman :(

K-Fed is K-Fucked

With great delight I break the story on the huddle that Britney Spears has filed for divorce from Kevin Federline. Man, didn't we all see this coming! He co-hosted MuchonDemand yesterday and it was brutal. I watched his performance at the end and when he wasn't short of breath, he was able to mention his shoes at least 3 times in the song. Apparently he had to "beg" a promoter not to cancel his NYC show recently. A city of over 8 million people and only 300 showed up (mostly friends, people given free tickets, or foreigners) to a 1,500 capacity venue. More people have seen Ishtar for christ's sake! I could get over 300 people for MY album release party! When's the next casting call for The Surreal Life?Doogie is gay, K-Fed's getting dropped, what's next? It's a good day for pop culture.

A new huddle

Hey all~ well, I hate to divert any attention from the post below [which so many have yet to comment on ;( ] But maybe we all need a diversion.

I took yesterday to really mess around with some ideas for the HH, the first time I've taken that time in weeks (haha, although, man, did I WASTE so much time... bloody computers).
The new Header is complements of Ms. Jill S. (although I stole it without her permission). And I hope you like the layout. Phil and I agree, it's pretty slick.

But, inspired by Biocurious' new redesign , I have been fiddling around with some graphics, and wondering what y'all are thinking.

Here's a look- please use your imagination~ for example, I would add the semi-transparent frosting to all the text. (click on it to enlarge)

I'm also thinking what it would look like in 'panelled' form- like a panel for the main text, and a seperate one for sidebar.

None of this is of any consequence, of course, but it's good to have a new look sometimes, so let me know what you would like to see here.

Coming Home

Hey dudes. I'm on my way to Newfoundland, I'll be there around noon tomorrow for about a week. My nan's dying so I'm going home to say goodbye then to help with the funeral. Maybe we could get together for an evening? Expect a call from me!