Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Exorio, Regis et Reginae mundi

Doing a quick catalog over the weekend, I realized that a number of people who are a significant part of my own life are in the midst of a process (decision-making, administrative or otherwise) that will drastically change the shape of their life in the next four to twelve months.

These are people who I have had the pleasure to watch grow into the magnificent people that they are today. What strikes me about these people is that they are about to embark on endevours that I believe will allow them to rise to the same level of prominence that I have seen them rise to in their student lives. I am immensely proud of all them.

To them I say, "Good luck and take care." However, I doubt they will need much of the first blessing.

In that spirit, here is today's question:
What event arguably had the greatest impact on the hematological structure of North America? (10 points)

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Mater tua tam obesa....

Today in the background of my work, I had the video of British MP George Galloway giving testimony to the US Senate regarding allegations that he reaped financial gains from the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program. From what I saw, Lil' Georgie, as he has allowed me to call him, more-or-less traveled 5900 Km just so that he could walk into the Senate Chambers, stick his foot straight up the US Military-Industrial Complex's well appointed ass, plant a Union Jack and declare America as a commonwealth to be ruled under the crown once again.

Consider a sample (I had a really hard time choosing between all the good quotes):

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of Defence made of his."


In the Immortal words of my esteemed coworker: Those sucka's got served.

Question:

Connect the 'sport' of falconry to the activity of sports card collecting, stamp collecting, etc. in a single word*. (15 points)

*I am looking for one word in particular, don't be a technocrat.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Salve, calceum lambens!

Isn’t Canada a fantastic country? We often tease the Americans for having two virtually indistinguishable political parties reigning over the land (although the distinction between the two is becoming more apparent in the 21st Century, ‘praise Jesus’). However, now Americans can shoot back at us with similar claims of having political parties difficult to demarcate. After all, when someone can come in second place for the leadership of one political party only to change teams fourteen months later to the very team your party is trying to bring down. Belinda Stronach must be do-or-die in favor of gay marriage or she must really want to be a cabinet minister. One way or another, it's a very Churchillish move for her, and that can never be a bad thing.

But how irresponsible was it to let Stronach go? Aside from Harper himself (now that would have been a coup), Stronach was the worst person that could leave the party, after all, she's a high profile Conservative and she's good for the party (read: she’s a woman and she’s filthy stinking rich). Shame on Stephen Harper for not keeping her happy. Then again, I don’t want the Conservatives running my federal government, so I guess I owe Harper one this time. Although the comments coming from Harper about Stronach today were pretty disgusting. But, if any and all chances of me being Prime Minister when it seemed so close were abruptly yanked from under my feet, I’d probably be spitting venom, too.

What a funny couple of years it has been in Canadian politics.

Two Random Notes:
  1. 'Brothers in Arms' by Dire Straits is an awesome album, if for no other reason than the titular track. Its a song that works especially well if you are going to be swearing at God in Latin and then putting out ciagrettes on the floor of a church in a show of defiance and mislaying veneration.

  2. I have always known that the open steppe, fleet horse, falcon on your wrist, and wind in your hair is not the pinnacle of human experience. But last night, it came to my attention that crushing your enemies, driving them before you and hearing the lamentations of their women is not, in fact, what is best in life.


Two questions today:

  1. Name two non-historical films that the writer of the not-so-hidden film quote in my post has directed. (5 points)

  2. Name the largest berry. (15 points)

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Urbes malorum virorum

I have often said that political levels, in order of importance are listed as such: Global, Federal, Provincial/State, Student and Municipal. Facetious, yes, but I’m really only half-joking. By this I am not promoting student politics, I am relegating municipal politics. Henry Kissinger once said that the reason student politics are so vicious is because the stakes are so low. By that rational, municipal politics must be something akin to Ragnarok. Arguments are chiefly centered over administrative pros and cons, rather than the philosophy of governmental direction or the shaping of national or regional cultures. The most contentious of issues are infrastructural and promotional in nature (with the exception of gay marriage, which is an anomaly in this political arena). City government is a steady, scandal-free place where, unless you are the mayor of New York City, you wield limited political power and do little more than sign zoning agreements, cut ribbons and discuss how fantastic your own city is. By and large, municipal elections are where the simple minded go to govern. It is then surprising that in major American cities over the last few weeks, municipal scandal has recently hit an apex, giving American voters yet another breed of politician to keep their eye on. A quick roll call of the cast of “All-American Urban Outrage 2005”:

  • Spokane’s Republican and publicly anti-gay rights mayor Jim West is caught up in a embarrassing (to say the very least) set of allegations surrounding his activity on the chat rooms of colloquially unambiguous website gay.com, where it is alleged that he offered a number of young men jobs in the various departments of Spokane City Hall including, ironically enough, the Human Rights Commission.

  • The mayoral campaign of Richard Daley, mayor of the Windy City and home of Karl Winslow, was apparently funded, at least in part, by payoff money, in a case similar to our own wonderful sponsorship scandal.

  • Detroit Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick racked up a cool $210,000 on his city-issued expense credit card in the past 33 months, mostly on food. Really, really good food. The majority owner of the restaurant where Kilpatrick racked up a $1,200+ bill during his term was convicted yesterday of funneling money to:

  • Philadelphia Treasurer Corey Kemp, who was also convicted of 27 criminal counts, including fraud. The investigation in this case (conducted by the FBI) spawned 79 charges across 5 defendants. Yeeesh.

  • Dick Murphy, Mayor of San Diego, has resigned because of a 1.37 Billion dollar deficit in the pension fund of the city. A new election will be held on July 16th, where it is expected that Donna Frye, a surf-shop owner and current city councilwoman, who came dangerously close to winning the recent mayoral race via write-in votes, will succeed him.


Today I will start testing you all with a question per post. The questions will be all over the place in terms of content (read: whatever I want), but they will be worth points, which I will be keeping track of. Submission rules will be on the right side.

Here is your first question:
In almost every language on earth (especially the non-western languages) the word for female parent starts with a certain sound. What is that sound? (10 points, this one is easy).

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Additamentum

Robert Rodriguez has been given the green light to direct two sequels to Sin City. This is great, good and possibly poor news. The good news is that the original movie was kickass, so in theory, sequels are slices of fried gold. The possibly poor news is that of the six books that are standalone stories, the best three were in the first movie, and the remaining three are very similar, but still pretty good. It'll be great to look at, but it might get a little repetitive. Pursuant to the poor news, the great news: since the other stories don't quite meet up with the ones used in the first film, it would not be unreasonable to expect new stories from Mssr. Miller. Booyakasha!

After repeated listens I have decided that the version of "No Quarter" recorded by Tool is better than the original version recorded by the mighty Led Zeppelin. I'm sorry if you don't agree, but that song was recorded twenty-seven years too early. And too quietly.

In life, there is no greater feeling than experiencing the last thing you expect but the only thing you want at the perfect moment.

Ea qui longiquate desiderare

Sunday night I spent some quality time with an old friend of mine, where we had great conversations, both serious and amusing, and cooked some fine, fine steaks. While it was great to sit down and eat a nice hearty meal in good company, I believe I would have made more of it had I known it may have been one of the final opportunities (but not THE final opportunity) for me to do so, at least for a long time. That is either my own fault for not doing so, or my memory revising the evening into something less than it actually was after the influence of my recent discoveries sunk in. But, the food was great, and I rarely get to spend time alone with this person despite spending many long nights and weekends with them all throughout a previous SU year. Good luck on the interview (if you get one, that is).

Yesterday was the first day of the Students’ Union’s 2005/2006 operational year. This is now my third ‘first day’ that I have bore witness to, and by far the most surreal. The first day in the office is an interesting paradox of youthful ambition. In the eyes of all the new employees, especially those who have recently escaped the dungeon of retail or service industry jobs, you can spot a boundless energy willing to jump at the opportunity to simply do anything relating to their newly acquired positions. The tasks that they will find menial and pointless in shy of three months appear like some kind of grand adventure upon which they are ready to immerse themselves into. However, since the SU Executive is never around for the first few days of term (due to their executive retreat), so none of the “Associate Vice Presidents” have anything to associate vice-preside over, and since they have no real authority, they can’t just head down to the Legislature/University Hall/Michael’s Craft Store and start kicking ass and taking names. So they sit and they read final reports of years past, which in hindsight, seven or eight months from now will appear as a cautionary tale, but when they first read may seem like needless pessimisim from a worn out predecessor. Other than that, they spend their time reading anything they can to acquaint themselves with the office desk and people they will be trapped with for at least a year. I’m overcome by the urge to tell them that they’ll be victim to some pretty nasty stuff over the year (everyone in those offices will be at one point or another and they will all want to quit at some point or another), but they wouldn’t believe me at this point anyway, so I let it go. The service directors lounge about and start to figure out exactly what their job is, while subordinates look woefully at them for something to do. But this year was just another day at the office for me, my work on Sunday was no different than my afternoon work Monday, and I did all the things I normally do, except provide minimal guidance to a new co-worker who does not appear to actually need any. I hope when I started this job I was as on top of things as he is.

Final note: Between Thursday and Sunday, I believe I have slept better than I ever have before. I have discovered this over the last two nights, which provided me with a basis to draw such a comparison.