Lights, camera ...

Damn well done (not my place). South Harris Road in Pitt Meadows.

Flight over frosty pines.

Tree farm in Langley. Early December.

George Carlin on the American Dream

It's called The American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Watch the clip here.

Great B & W video and tune from Cat Empire

Cos on my feet are shoes for dancing
‘dancing to be free’
my feet they’re paying tribute to
the bobby marley legacy

Against seasonal consumerism? Watch this!

Late afternoon light in the 'burbs.

Taken of opposite skies roughly 15 minutes apart.

The Shinjuku money shot.

You had to be there.

On the menu at this bar? Champagne & burgers (how French!). And you can source the ingredients in Ameyoko-cho.

Akihabara, baby.

Notice the size of the cig butt next to the cell phones - only in Japan!

An all-prairie Grey Cup!

Bombers vs. Riders. Oh yeah.

Bill Clinton & Green Party @ the Vancouver Board of Trade

Yesterday I shook the hand of President Bill Clinton and told him that I work with Elizabeth May who is an old family friend of his. Crowds and cameras all around us, he said, “I love Elizabeth May. I've known her since she was this tall (gesturing at knee height)."

It was a great finale to a phenomenal event.

One reporter asked me, “was the high ticket price worth it?”
I answered, “of course, because he inspired me to give even more to help create a better world. I really think he shook up a powerful crowd, the Vancouver Board of Trade.”

I belong to the Board of Trade and Clinton’s talk was gutsy. He directly appealed to the business community to change the way they make money and reduce their profits to help solve the world’s three big problems:
social inequality, global warming and resource depletion, and ethnic conflicts.

As I walked back to our Green Party office in downtown Vancouver, leaving behind the well-heeled crowds towards the streets lined with panhandlers and homeless people, I thought, “Clinton’s message is exactly right for Vancouver. It’s wrong for such poverty to exist in such a wealthy society.”

And it's wrong for the federal Conservatives to hand out $60 billion in tax cuts to encourage people to simply spend more on consumer goods, instead of using those funds to build decent social housing, combat global warming and support global peace efforts.

Adriane Carr, Deputy Leader and Candidate for Vancouver Centre
(www.votecarr.ca)

Submitted by Adriane Carr on 2 November 2007 - 12:39pm.

On the perfect roast ...

From the archives at Sweet Maria's Home Roasting mailing list:

Turning coffee beans brown is easy. Bringing each bean
to its full potential is a life long journey.

Corny but I'll buy into it.

Top Canadian Albums of All Time

1. Harvest, Neil Young (1972)
2. Blue, Joni Mitchell (1970)
3. After the Gold Rush, Neil Young (1970)
4. Music From Big Pink, the Band (1968)
5. Fully Completely, the Tragically Hip (1992)
6. Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette (1995)
7. The Band, the Band (1969)
8. Funeral, Arcade Fire (2004)
9. Moving Pictures, Rush (1981)
10. American Woman, the Guess Who (1970)
11. Songs of Leonard Cohen, Leonard Cohen (1967)
12. Reckless, Bryan Adams (1984)
13. Five Days in July, Blue Rodeo (1993)
14. Twice Removed, Sloan (1994)
15. Up To Here, the Tragically Hip (1989)
16. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Neil Young with Crazy Horse (1969)
17. 2112, Rush (1976)
18. Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell (1974)
19. Whale Music, Rheostatics (1992)
20. Acadie, Daniel Lanois (1989)

Full story here.

Iron Cup: Italian vs. N.A. Espresso

World Barista Championship judges and internationally renowned baristas do a double-blind dog fight of the best of Italy (must be widely available) vs. the best of Canada and the US (must be available through mail order). Read all about it. Oh yes!

Action shooting

Nature shots

End of Harris on a fall morning. Ridges & cliffs approaching Pitt Lake.

More playing on the Canon G7

Playground (multiple focus points) and nearby bush (macro).

First crack at the G7

Macro of bush outside the house.

100 Mile Cellar - Canadian wine

You'll know Canadian wine has fully come of age when prominent restaurants across the country feature all-Canadian wine lists. While we're not there yet, the signs are promising. Read the 100-mile cellar.

New camera - G7

I picked up this, after T dropped our old Cyber Shot in the sand last weekend. You gotta love the Mac-like name, eh?!

Leopard in the cross-hairs

Latest version of OS X should be here by month end. Maybe.

Conrad Black on the Mercer Report

C.B. joins Rick Mercer's 'Celebrity Tips,' demonstrating how to create waxed leaves for fall decorating. Past notables include:

* Historian and prolific author Pierre Berton, demonstrating how to roll a joint.
* Activist June Callwood, giving pointers on kicking a field goal.
* Literary icon Margaret Atwood, showing how to stop a puck.
* Esteemed actress Shirley Douglas, sharing how to jump-start a dead car battery.
* Rocker Geddy Lee offering tips on safe tobogganing.

Classics, all of them.

Guitars - Simon Jarrett & Blue Morris

More photos of the '07 Maple ridge Jazz & Blues Festival (thanks M. Kalus).

Jazz/Blues in the park

Jazz & Blues festival fashion --> a nice t-shirt and a crazy jacket.

From the desk of Elizabeth May

Today, from the desk of Elizabeth May,

Moving on to national politics. The bad, almost unthinkable news is that Stephen Harper now seems more determined than ever to re-invent Canada as a global warming saboteur meekly following George Bush down the road to climate catastrophe. Witness the events of this week alone. On Monday, the Prime Minister addressed a high-level climate change meeting at the United Nations in New York, where he reaffirmed his intention to ignore Kyoto and stick with his government's thoroughly discredited and hopelessly inadequate climate change "plan". The very next day, he announced that Canada is joining Bush and fellow climate change laggard Australian PM John Howard in the anti-Kyoto Asia-Pacific Partnership. A day later, another bombshell: Canada will push to scrap Kyoto and replace it with a new international climate change agreement based, not on real emissions reduction targets, but on the bogus "intensity" targets that can be reached while emissions continue to rise. This could well rank as the worst three days' work by a Canadian Prime Minister – ever.

$1 Cdn = $1 US

Not sure for how long, but parity is here.

Canon Rock (warning - this clip is addicting)

Click here for a list of all the players. You can click on them individually to see & hear them play the whole song as a solo. How cool is that?
Now, c'mon & grab your axe. I'm going to try and do this on a harp.

Canadian gov't convenes secret net-tapping inquiry

Our government wants access to customer name and address information from ISPs. Read it here.

Update (9/20/2007): Minister Stockwell Day responds to questions.

Canada votes against UN native rights declaration

How the heck did this happen?

From Phil Fontaine: "It's an aspirational document, neither convention nor treaty," he said. "We're talking here about minimum standards that relate to our right to self-rule of our territories."

I almost hear the sounds of another "day of action."

Addition: Here is a well informed, well written blog on the topic (thanks to Stephen Karr @ Business and Human Rights in Vancouver).

Turtle & shark soup (not!)

Blueberry farm along the dike

Welsh tenor?

Sit down for this - it's that good.

Things that go 'boom' in the night ...

Check out Mike K's incredible photos of the Spanish entry in the Celebration of Light Fireworks Festival. Some bird's-eye shots of the infamous crowds, as well.

Don't believe Ottawa's spin on carbon tax.

Click here to read about the Green Party's proposed $50/tonne carbon tax shift plan that has a very low price tag (less than O.1% of GDP) from now to 2010, net zero over the subsequent 5 years and starts turning a profit in 2015.

Summer = lush and Green

This is really a damn fine scotch.

Leafs serious in '07 - '08?

Toskala, the new #1 in TO is great news. Now how about a goal scorer like Smyth or Briere to play on Mats' line?

The lineup

Home roasting - as easy as it looks.

From green beans to grinder ready.

Powerful analysis from Olbermann

The entire [US] government has failed us [i.e. the American people] on Iraq.

Our politics... is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.
Mr. Bush has failed.
Mr. Warner has failed.
Mr. Reid has failed.
So.
Who among us will stop this war—this War of Lies?
To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.
To all the others—presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.

Read the entire piece here.

The seven wonders of Canada - 52 of them!

Will be interesting to see the voting on this. 52 nominations for seven spots as "Canadian Wonders."

My two nominations (Nahanni National Park and the Cabot Trail) made the cut but are up against some incredible competition.

Uh, guys? .... anyone? hello? game's started ...

The truth hurts.

Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back ...

Help find habeas.

Wherefore art thou bees?

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein.

Click here for the story on the decline of the bee.

Never mind "inconvenient truth", this truth is downright invasive!

Read about RFID in clothing, Michelin tires and Gillette razor packages.

Yaletown Brewing Co.

The pride of Yaletown (the beer, not the guy in the hat soon to - almost literally - hit the floor).

Raving fans

How to dry out the floor & drywall around your just-replaced hot water heater.

The Collection

Took a shot of the single-malt collection the other day. Damn, need some Johnnie Green!

Home at last.

Flew coast to coast for work on back-to-back weeks. Slept 4 or 5 hours a night while on the road, ate & drank more/worse than normal and had fair to lousy service in hotels, airports and planes (exception: Canadian security personnel much friendlier than TSA folks - one guy even offered me a chair when I was putting my shoes back on!).

The upside is I got to spend a few 'days-in-the-life' of a traveling consultant, which I appreciate experiencing. I imagine one gets used to it after awhile (one could even grow to love it), but with snow on the US East Coast, inconvenient flight times available from the airlines and productive time lost in meetings and transit, I'd not want to make a habit of it.

Upside #2 - met some fantastic people on both trips. Regardless of how crazy or busy work gets, I have to remind myself that I'm privileged to work with top professionals, many of whom are quietly very decent human beings.

New ride

I pick this up on Wednesday - a 2007 Rondo.

Coffee break

A double shot and the latte it became. The cup is not sexy, I know, but holds good volume.

G-Force (for Mac) meets Jamiroquai

Screen shots of a new visualizer application interpreting Jamiroquai.

Saturday Night Blues

Story starts with a bottle of Johnnie Blue that a buddy bought me for Christmas. First sip and drink(s) came back with an "OK" evaluation. Perhaps the expectation and build-up was too much.
I went 'back to school' last Saturday evening and have become a convert. I had a small glass, then compared with a couple single-malts (all Johnnies are blends) - Glenlivit, Balvenie, Highland Park and a gold medal winner from Japan called Yoichi (I had the 15). Hands down Johnnie Blue. I am a fan of the J.W. Green, though I did not have one on hand to do a direct comparison, but I admit to now knowing what the fuss is all about. Thank-you, Michael.

Pay-per-view

Sounds like something screened privately behind a black curtain, I know, but PPV is the only way to see the Canucks-Sabres game tonight. Friends have it at home, so heading over.