Haven't posted here in a while, will try and do better...

Saturday on me way back from getting some groceries I ran into the Liberal candidate for Trinity-Spadina, Christine Innes knocking on doors on Shaw Street, and talked with her for a bit. I saw her last election at the All Candidate meeting and was very impressed with her, and still was ( Read more... )

Like EYE Weekly argues this week, Rob Ford seems to be governing in a pure populist mode. If people say "We do/don't like this" he acts on that, whether is makes sense or not ( Read more... )

The cover story of EYE Weekly today is about the Center of Inquiry and its head, my friend Justin Trottier! There's a few annoying bits but generally the article is quite favourable to CFI, atheists, and the Extraordinary Claims campaign, coming soon to a TTC bus near you. Read the article here.

A good holiday that's unfortunately now over.

Started on Xmas Eve with dinner with my brother, moon_custafer and green_trilobite, and the Peter Cushing version of the Sherlock Holmes story The Blue Carbuncle (which takes place at Xmas). On Xmas day Dave came over with a bag of junk food, I had previously gotten a chicken and some vegetables for dinner, and we watched all 26 ( Read more... )

I got an early Xmas present at work this week. As most of you know, I've been doing Technical Support at work for most of this year, which has been OK, but definitely not what I want to make a career out of. This week I got moved back into Projects (which is what I've been doing for nearly all of my time at MSC and Mechanical Dynamics before that ( Read more... )

The Center for Inquiry here in Toronto has kicked off its Extraordinary Claims campaign, a follow-up to the Atheist bus ads two years back. The goal is to point out the need for fact-based evidence for, well, just about anything. Is believing in Bigfoot really any different from believing in Allah or Yahweh? If you think it is then why ( Read more... )

I have a gift-giving etiquette issue I'm looking for advice on. I'm a little leery about buying friends subscriptions or memberships for magazine/museums/etc as Xmas presents, even if I think they'll enjoy them, because they run out after a year, and then said friend is sort of under pressure to spend the money themselves to renew them. I feel like ( Read more... )

Here's a great article (grabbed from my friend Paul) on all the good David Miller did for Toronto. He will be missed.

Friday night was the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair on if religion was a positive force or not, held at Roy Thompson Hall on the behalf of Munk Debates and broadcast via the internet around the world by the BBC. My brother and I saw it at the Center for Inquiry, which was packed full and beyond for the event ( Read more... )

Saw for the first time Fritz Lang's classic M at the Lightbox Tuesday. Not the best print, but an astonishing film.

M is considered by most to be the first serial killer movie (with Peter Lorre as a child murderer), and Lang's first talkie. While he now has sound, Lang still uses the power to silence to great effect in the film with long wordless ( Read more... )