Urgent Help Required!!!!!

Urgent help required! Where? The Canadian music scene!

Well, not really the Canadian music scene, but the Juno's. Canada's award for outstanding musical talent.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/cp-juno-2009/

I see one of the nominees for best album of the year is "70's Volume 2" by Sylvain Cossette.

70's Volume 2. Best album of the year? Please. Has the Canadian music scene been reduced to nominating an album of remade 70's tunes as best album. Yes, I know, he's from Quebec, and politically speaking, we need to nominate some folk from there, but he's singing the tunes in English. They aren't even his tunes. Volume 2? Is their a Volume 1 album of more songs that are just someone elses remade? Can I get a best album nomination next year if I just convince someone to let me re-do some old "Sing along with Mitch" album?

There has to be better choices in the entire Canadian music scene than a cover album. There just must. Heck, look under the genre specific themes.

Artists nominated for best

Rock album:
Matt Mays & El Torpedo
Protest the Hero
Sam Roberts
Sloan
The Trews

Pop album:
Alanis Morissette
Creature
David Usher
Kreesha Turner
The Midway State

Country album:
Aaron Pritchett
Crystal Shawanda
Doc Walker
George Canyon
Tara Oram

and so on. Rap Album, New Artist, New Group. Surely some of these people, with original content are more deserving of a best album nomination than an album of remade tunes, even if they are well performed and well sung?

The Juno's....

Telecommunications Networking 101

I'm often asked what I do and apparently I do not answer this question well, as after I try to answer it, people often have that "don't have a clue" look on their face as they say "I see". It's quite simple. I design and implement telecommunications and broadcast networks. Primarily satellite based, but can/will do terrestrial networks as well.

As, in looking for something totally different, I stumbled on a Crayola network template for Visio this afternoon, and I was dying to try it out on something... well I prepared this quick Telecommunications Networking 101 single slide course. You might have to click on the image to get a version you can see but I hope it explains it all better than I do!



See, it's easy to understand what I do! I goof off with Visio all day.....

Just Another Day

Out the door into the rising light of the sun. Moving down the sidewalks, along the streets. Into the subway. Zipping along in dark tunnels underground. Into little areas of artificial light. People exit and enter the train cars and head along their ways. Cars and people moving here and there overhead. More dark tunnels, then burst out into the glorious light of day. For an instant. Plunge back into the darkness. Continue along the tunnels. Emerge at a destination. Exit the train. Follow again the sidewalks and streets. Urban pathways made of pavement, concrete, elevators, escalators and steel. Filled with cars, trains, buses, streetcars, trucks and people. Lots of people. People moving along sidewalks and street in organized columns. Coming and going. Leaving and returning. Day after day.

I feel like an ant.

Here's hoping no giant cosmic kid with a magnifying glass finds me today.

The Beltline

Very mild winters' day here. Mixed snow with a little rain. Mostly snow. Very little rain. Not cold at all. Did a hike this evening, after work. After the hike, into the subway to get home. I don't know why, but I find it very amusing to stand in the subway, waiting for the train, water dripping from my coat, hair drenched and looking like I just came from? Rest of the subway riders were all relatively dry, not having walked outside for the past two hours. They all walk by but can help but look. Stare really. Confused questions in their eyes. I find it amusing, but I don't know why. Yes, I do need to find better ways to amuse myself.

The hike was good. 10 to 11 kms. Did the whole thing in 2.25 hours. Not a bad pace at all. Very small group tonight. Only 3 of us to start, and one dropped out half way. Really neat walk on a winters night with fresh snow. Down an old train line and then a loop through the ravines.

http://www.toronto.ca/parks/brochures/walks/DW_Central.pdf

Very quiet, hardly any people tonight. Didn't even need a flashlight as the new snow reflected all the light needed. Winter. It's far more tolerable if you get outside and do things in it.

Hundreds Attend Global Warming Protest

51 Minutes

51 minutes is the time it takes to walk from my apartment to the subway, ride the subway, transferring lines twice to get to the right stop, walk to work and take the elevator to the floor I work on.

It's a long ride. Oddly enough, it's around the same amount of time it used to take me to commute in from Oshawa. Guess I've become very used to 15 - 20 minutes it takes if I drive instead of taking transit.

51 minutes, oddly enough, seems to go by much faster when broken into approximately 15 three and one half minute segments.

Three and one half minutes is around the average length of a song on my MP3 player.

I 100% appreciate this

http://muse-swings.blogspot.com/2009/02/daily-road-closures-due-to-zombies.html

Yes, you likely should not mess with road signs, I know, but it is an amusing prank.

Latibule

Latibule - n. Hiding place.

he found a latibule,
a safe secret place
where the copters wouldn't spot it

Courtesy of Michelle at Crows Feet and her post re "Save the Words"

I used her same, random approach, moved the mouse around with closed eyes, and picked a word.

latibule

A hiding place. I can see why it needs saving. After all, who would be talking about their latibule, if they wanted to keep it a secret? Yes, this word was just far too successful for it's own good! Well, no more. I adopted the word. Heck, I own the word now:



It's up to me to save it. Maybe it needs a new image. To be reborn. The "new" latibule. Perhaps some re-definition. Maybe a French word describing a bull drinking a latte? Or a word to describe when one is lost but won't admit it:


"Yes I know exactly where we are, it's right here on the GPS. Latitude and longitude. See, there we are."

"Latibule. You don't know how to read that thing, give it here!"

I'm sure there's some hope for this word, somewhere. Just give me time...

Why I don't live in Quebec City

Well, there are other reasons but, well, great place to visit....in the summer ;) I was forwarded these pics from a coworker. Self explanatory really...