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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Danger.

No, it's not weirdos sticking things into treats. No, it's not worrying about kids getting hit by cars as they canvass the neighbourhood. It's the danger to your waistline. Admit it, unless you hate candy you're going to eat some of stuff you bought, if you haven't already. And since it tends to come in mini packages it makes it easier to say "Oh, just one more won't hurt," and before you know it you've eaten the equivalent of two or three chocolate bars at one shot. So beware, or when next Halloween rolls around you'll be able to pull off that Dom Deluise costume you've been thinking about without padding.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

To Gor Or Not To Gor.

It seems that Dark Horse may still be planning to release it's Gor omnibus. Or maybe they aren't. It certainly won't be appearing November 15 as originally planned, and a visit to Dark Horse's website by me trying to find out when the next Blade of the Immortal collection will be released(in February, if you're wondering) turned up no hint of a new release date.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Shop 'Til You Drop.

This week Saskatoon City Council announced it will no longer regulate store hours in Saskatoon. This comes on the heels of requests by several stores, including Wal Mart, for permission to remain open 24 hours a day during December in the run up to Christmas. The way things are going the only days the majority of stores will be closed are Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, and I wouldn't count on everyone following this informally agreed upon prohibition for long.

Personally I've long thought the best way to regulate store hours would be to allow stores to be open whenever they want, but mandate they must be closed for a specifc number of days per year. Want to open on Christmas Day? Go ahead, but it means you'll have to be shut up for some other day of the year. Such a method would be fair to everyone as no one would feel pressured to close for holidays they don't follow, and employees would be assured of a set number of days off along with their manditory vacation time.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

It's Not Just For Dogs.

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Yes folks, we finally have evidence that it's not just dogs who play poker as that classic painting indicates. The cats are in on it too. Hmm, that may explain the way some people play online, they're actually cats.

Friday, October 19, 2007

The Future of Saskatoon Rentals?


(click on the pic for a better look)
With the way things are going this scene might actually happen here in Saskatoon. Large numbers of condo applications are currently under consideration on top of all the conversions of apartment buildings to condos currently going on. Apparently there are no new rental spaces currently planned. You'd think that at some point there would be an oversupply of condos, but even though the Saskatoon real estate market is cooling down slightly apparently there is still lots of demand.
This scene comes from issue 30 of DC Comics Nightwing. The lovely young lady is Bridget Clancy, who was Dick Grayson's landlady at the time. Clancy was born in Hong Kong but adopted by an Irish couple as a baby, hence her "lookin' like Kowloon and talkin' like Londonderry" as she told Dick when he first got a look at her actual face.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Half Time.

I'm there.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Lament For Larry.

The Colorado Rockies are off to the World Series. Too bad they couldn't have done this a few years ago when Larry Walker was still with the team. Of course the real letdown for Walker and Canadian baseball fans was the 1994 baseball strike, which occured while Walker was with the Montreal Expos. There was a very good chance that year that Monteal would have been in the World Series, and having a prominent Canadian player on a Canadian based team in what would have been the third World Series in a row to take place in Canada would have been a dream come true. Instead the strike not only prevented that from happening, but lead to moves that ultimately began the long death of the franchise.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Deaf Ears.

I mentioned in a recent post my nostalgic revisting of shortwave radio. After that I dug out my old receiver and have been taking the occasional listen, such as tonight. But tonight is not a good night to tune the bands. Propagation is terrible right now, so there is little to hear. We're at the low point of the sunspot cycle, and at such times shortwave radio propagation is at it's weakest, and tonight reflects that. Unlike local AM and FM broadcasts shortwave broadcasts, even from the most powerful transmitters aimed directly at you, are not guarenteed listening. You can turn on a familiar frequency at the right time and hear nothing. I wonder how many receivers have been returned over the years by newcomers who didn't realise this and thought their new radios were broken.

I switched to the longwave band, and did hear what sounded like voices. But it soon became obvious this was a mixing product, a false signal created by two strong signals mixing in the receiver's circuitry. After all local talk show host John Gormley isn't heard on longwave, and it would be a miracle to hear a broadcast station from those parts of the world that do have longwave broadcasting on the ferrite antenna in a shortwave portable in the middle of North America. In North America longwave is limited to navigation beacons.

My radio is a circa 1991 example of the Sangean ATS803a. This receiver was one of the most popular units of the late '80s and early '90s due to its reasonable price to performance ratio. Not only was it sold under the Sangean name but also as the Radio Shack Realistic DX440 and several other lesser known names. I remember reading at one point the suggestion that the '803a, and its predecessor the '803 were based on Sony's ICF 2001. You can read one take on the '803a here.

Friday, October 05, 2007

If you blog and play poker...

...this may be of interest to you.

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 5702565



Last year's edition is what got me playing poker. Hopefully I'll do quite a bit better this year.