Geneva Need Not Apply

Ummm, say what? I just found this on the CBC.

The colonels will operate under rules laid down by President George W. Bush for what he called a war on terror after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

This sounds no different to me than when I was in Grade 2 and all the kids each pronounced their own rules to playground tag. Apparently since al-Qaeda is not an official nation there are no touchbacks. Okay, so they're not a nation. But where then does this justify those held in Iraq, and 'suspects' all over the world of various nationalities on apparent whims, or saying the wrong thing.

Apparently if things aren't going your way, you can throw a tantrum (a la unilateral, or bilateral I suppose as Blair bought into the whole thing, miltary invasion) and then do whatever you please, and use every loophole you can find to hold every person imaginable in an attempt to be free of terrorism. The irony here slaps one in the face so hard that you have to wonder where exactly the heads of those 'in charge' really are.

Furnace Friday

Well, I managed to not go to the Matt Good show in St. Catherines last night and apparently missed out on an awesome set, and am now kicking myself. So I went out and spent the money I would have spent there (plus some) on some new speakers to go with my new deck from last week.

I spent 45 minutes installing them in my aforementioned pimpmobile. Not that installing speakers is by any means hard work, but I had a sweat goin in there in no time with all the windows and doors open. I don't really notice it when I'm driving with the windows down all the time (A/C's busted). It sounds solid in there now though. Now I just need to find somewhere to go with it. The plan is to go to algonquin for part of the second last week of August, although there seems to have been an apparent change in enthusiasm for letting me have the van for that week so I'll have to take it as it comes, and offer to cover part of a rental or something perhaps.

Plans for this weekend are to do a little nothing, followed with a dose of nadda, and topped with a serving of zip before we start up drilling again next week, in which I'll probably pump out another 60 hours in 5 days. Especially encouraging are the reports which say this heat and humidity here is going to last thru til early August. While I've stated in the past that I love the heat and all, I tend to love it more for lounging around and not being particularly productive. Not bustin my ass doing rock sampling. It'll be good for me though.

Anyone paying attention will also notice that I've changed my formatting up a bit again. If you've got any comments and criticisms, throw em in comments. Still hoping to make a couple changes in the next little bit, including HaloScan for all those comments I get (and moreso as a new toy to play with).

Happy Friday!

Midsummer Classic

Every year in the second week of July the true legends of baseball come out, and the current star players, that aren't misfortunate enough to be injured at the time, come together and put on an exhibition of what makes baseball a great game. While the intensity of regular season, and moreso post season rivalries aren't desirable, its great to see the guys get together all smiles, with their kids around them, enjoying the game. Obviously, no-one enjoys all the advertisement and marketing involved now, but deep at the core of it, it brings a smile to my face to listen to Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan and Chris Berman talk baseball, while Bobby Abreu puts on a derby clinic. And I'm sure tonight's game will be no worse.

I was privileged enough to go to the '91 All Star Game in Toronto. I was too young to fully appreciate that I was seeing some greats like Carlton Fisk, Dennis Eckersley, Kirby Puckett, and Eddie Murray towards the end of their careers, and recognize the up and coming, and already in their prime athletes like Cal Ripken, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens and Tom Glavine, but I still remember how different the atmosphere seemed from my nosebleed seat behind the right field foul pole. Baseball was a joyful thing for me as a kid. I had, and still have all the cards I could afford as I made money at birthdays and the like. I was too young and naive to understand the money aspect of the game, the big contracts, the trades to save money, perhaps because my Blue Jays circa 1991 were on their way up to back to back World Series'. I just thought these guys went out to play baseball because they were talented enough , and envied them for that, and because they seemed to enjoy it.

Now every other night on Sportscenter you can tune in to listen about doping, or teams threatened with moving because their home isn't marketable enough, or see a pitcher throw some cameras around. But at the All Star break, all that disappears under the stands for 3 days as the fun of the game comes out to play and have fun, and bring out the sandlot style atmosphere, that used to have us emulating our favourite players as kids.

Hot One

Today was something like 42 or 45 with humidex around here, perfectly gorgeous day for sitting around lounging, but instead I spent it in an over air conditioned office at the university. I cringe to think how much of my tuition goes to keeping the buildings at 20 degrees all summer long. I'm glad there's no drilling going on this week though cause today woulda been 14 hours of dust and sweat, culminating in pure exhaustion.

Instead I'm trying to get a game of soccer or something going, but of course everyone will pussy out, and say 'oh yea, I'd love to play, but I'm too tired tonight...blah blah woof woof'. I need to get some exercise after sitting around most of last week being too tired to do anything to strenuous after work. But really though, I just want an excuse to drive around with my new deck in my pimpmobile. Yes, that's right, a 1994 Caravan with body rust starting to take over is the definition of pimp. But it just needs some TLC, and I'll whip it into shape.

After working 60 hours in 5 days last week I'm looking good for having some holidays at the end of August to go camping and maybe do some legitimate work on the van. But that's still over a month away, and if I plan on something its guaranteed not to go down, so I won't set myself up for the fall.

Music Stats 1

I mentioned last week that I'd try to incorporate some of my music stats in here. I'll try to do this on a weekly basis, but we'll have to see what happens.

"...on days like these you gotta find it in some other way..."

Well this week I've gotten myself into helping with a borehole drilling project which means long days in the field, but outdoors. And while the Southern Ontario humidity still distinctly irks some, I am enjoying actually workin up a good sweat at work, even though I'm dog tired when I get home. By the way, if anyone can tell me how a dog gets tired lazing around a house all day I'd be grateful.

Don't have the time to post anything substantial. London won the 2012 Olympics, glad NY didn't get it, because even though its a global event, everyone knows it would turn into 2 weeks of celebrate New York, and further fuck up the city's traffic for those working there to make a living (not that elsewhere isn't similarly affected, but NY is always second city one thinks of when it comes to traffic congestion next to LA).

Found "Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly" via Matt Good. Matt also has a new music blog up.

I need a shower and some food, although I'm probably too lazy to barbecue myself something nice.

Has Anyone Seen Accountability Running Around?

Its been two and a half weeks since I first posted on the Downing Street Memo and almost 2 months since first brought to light, I admit I missed the first boats on that one. But it seems as though the entire American media, and rival parties in government who are supposed to challenge those in power over their actions have missed ALL the boats. The Bush administration didn't even deny the claims of these memos, and yet the whole affair of starting a war with no forseeable conclusion under false pretense has been shurgged off without even a slap on the wrist as though a child had innocently broken an antique vase.

Linda McQuaig questions what exactly it takes to have substantial evidence to hold the Bush administration accountable on. One would think with memos like this substantiated by members of both governments involved would hold some significant weight, but instead Bush keeps plugging on with non-fixed timetables, and doing the Bushy things he does like shrugging off global climate change solutions yet again.

With the impending retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor from the Supreme Court, and the possible resignation of William Rehnquist in the not too distant future, the Democrats if no-one else should be seizing the opportunity to apply pressure, and in doing so hopefully force Bush into choosing middle of the road replacements in the Supreme Justice bench instead of the far right leaning personality that many are fearing. Agenda following personalities, leaning strongly to either side of the political playground will only serve to damage the situation further I feel. What is required are intelligent, honest replacements that will weigh out decisions carefully and thoughtfully with no predisposition or bias, but obviously these days in politics honesty is far more than can be expected by the United States citizens, or observers anywhere.

Oh yea, and Happy 4th of July to my neighbours south of the border.

Improper Technique

I haven't been drinking as much lately as I had been, and it caught up to me Thursday night/yesterday morning. I had myself a mickey of Bombay, just enough to be in a happy daze, and didn't think anything of it, falling asleep watchin some infomercial. When it comes to harder liquor I'm usually in the clear for any kind of after effects, its beer that kills me, but apparently my body felt it should punish me for not drinking so much lately, and gave me one hell of a headache yesterday morn. Granted, I didn't have myself a glass of water or two before I crashed to rehydrate, but like I said, hard mixing usually is good to me. I have narrowed my situation down to two options, drink more, or drink more and accept that I'm getting old. Perhaps a third: drink less and accept that I'm getting old. But that should only be given consideration under the most dire of circumstances.

That said, I didn't much feel like posting about my buddy's fiancee's deformed fish yesterday. Black moores (which is quite the redundant name for a fish) turned orange, orange goldfish turning white, its crazy I tell you. But then the fish are something like 12 years old, so I guess like old people, we can ignore their slight shortcomings with age.

And while not having the motivation to post, I did some browsing around and found a couple gem sites. The illustrator of bunny suicides might be seen shortly on Dr. Phil, but has found a hilarious way to express a twisted personality. And since I find it hilarious I guess that speaks volumes about myself as well.

The second of them was this sweet piece of merchandise. How could something like this not have existed until now? How come I didn't think of this myself? Move over Bill Gates, there's a new kid in town, and they're selling the most flashy, gaudy, and yet stylish belt buckles you will ever see. Those big ass Harley Davidson and State of Texas belt buckles have officially been put to shame and are cowering in the deepest darkest corners of display cases across North America.