Thinking of New Orleans

This building is in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.



Everytime I pass it I can't help but think of the much grander buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans...



Obviously the residents/owners of this building feel the same way and were compelled to hang out the banner shown.

The Good Ol' Hockey Game

The Globe reports on hockey fandom.



What's weird is that I'm completely the opposite - for the first time in a while, I'm actually looking forward to the NHL season.

Let me explain.

Eleven years ago my employer at the time moved me from Vancouver to Toronto. This was right after the comeback Canucks had made their almost Cup-run in 1994. Everyone was giving me the same old "how could you leave Vancover for grimy old Toronto" yada yada yada - this from people who'd never been east of Calgary...but I digress.

I went east with the idea of experiencing the REAL hockey fandom of the Leafs and Canadiens - not the latté-licking, bandwagon-jumping temporary insanity of the west-coast hockey fan once one of their teams makes it past the first round - you real hockey fans in BC KNOW WHAT I MEAN - and was looking forward to actually having a beer in one of Don Cherry's drinking establishments and staying 'til one in the morning for the double-header to be over on Saturday night.

So I went east...

...during the strike of the '94-'95 season.

And the sports bars were empty on Saturday nights.

Eventually I found other things to do. When hockey came back, I didn't give a damn anymore, except around the occasional game that happened to fit into my schedule, rather than me making any kind of special arrangement to move my activities around seeing a game...

If it was on TV, I'd watch a couple of minutes, get bored, then pick up a book or surf the net...There would always be another game on somewhere.

The NHL had lost me. Like Star Trek had lost me with too many shows of questionable quality, the NHL had lost me with too many teams of questionable quality.

For years I couldn't really care about NHL hockey at all. I can't even tell you who the last five Stanley Cup winners were.

Then the NHL went away.

They gave me time to miss them.

I know I know. This wasn't about me. Intransigent owners, greedy players, unions and management run amok, yeah yeah yeah.

But the result is the same. I began to MISS them.

I'm actually planning to watch when it comes back, which is a damn sight more than I wanted to do before the interruption happened.

Could it be that polls and surveys might be wrong?

Go Canucks!
Go Leafs!
Go Avalanche!
Go Bruins!

The Emperor Will Be Displeased

Future Giant Laser Threatened by Cuts



Talk about life imitating Star Wars.



"How am I going to blow up Alderaan with four measly laser beams!"



You'd think if they'd already spent $2.8 billion on it and are about to see the fruits of completion that they'd cough up the remaining change to finish the project.

Now if we had a mobile space station to mount it on...

High Tech Catholics

Ah, the 21st century precautions for secrecy that have to be taken when choosing a new Pope.



I wonder if Vegas is posting odds. A sacrilegious thought, I know...



I wonder what kind of ringtones the Conclave would have on their phones.

Bastard

Girl, 5, thrown onto Toronto highway unconscious, on ventilator in hospital

Warning: Some damned explicit language coming down the pipe here...



This man may have been this little girl's biological sperm-donor but there's no fucking way he can lay claim to the title father. I'm coming real close to saying that it's a good thing that this son-of-a-bitch is dead. If I were on the roadway and saw him do this to a defenseless child...

I hoping that there's a special place in hell for this bastard.

"But he was going through a rough time" some of you want to say. "Have you no sympathy?"

For attempted murderers? No. When I hear the term "murder-suicide" I usually think that it would be best if the losers who contemplate this sort of action skip the first step and just eat a bullet. It would save society a lot of grief and would allow us to have sympathy for the "poor bastard."



Great. Another shining example for the courts to consider when men who actually are good fathers try to get visitation with their children. Thanks a lot, asshole. I'll say it now - Glad you're dead fucktard, couldn't you have skipped the part about harming your own daughter?



Right, because nothing says "fit parent" better than death threats and killing those that you are responsible for. I hope for the police officers involved that there wasn't a moment when a sniper could've taken a head-shot and ended this thing without harm to the little girl. The guilt that that moment could carry would haunt me for the rest of my life if I were in their shoes.

I love the implication: difficult divorce = irrational behaviour = potential explanation of murder/suicide... What the fuck? Oh, it's the court's fault. If only he had been granted more time with his daughter he wouldn't have tried to kill her!!

---

Poor little girl.

If she survives this, she'll have to live with the knowledge that it was her own father that tried to end her life. The only consolation will be that this asshole won't be in her life to fuck it up.