May 30 - I have to go in to work this afternoon but should be back around 1 a.m.

I do have the secret to working the night shift: endure (aka just do it.) Sigh. More later.

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May 26 - Sorry for the silence, I'm back on midnights and trying to duck the garlic and pointed wooden thingies ... oh yeah, and trying to sleep while everyone is determined to be really, really noisy.

Posting will be somewhat sporadic over the next couple of days while I work on being awake and coherent simultaneously.

The good news is that I am supposed to be on this shift until the end of June, which means some kind of internal routine should kick in. (I have no proof this will happen, but it just seems logical.)

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May 21 - There's a new blog in MuNu called Memeblog. It's your one-stop reference for carnivals and memes in the blogosphere.

Do not forget to check out the Carnival of the Canucks. It's being hosted by Ghost of a Flea and this week's theme is Fat, drunk and Canadian.

Fix bayonets! God bless our British allies. (Read the post and follow the link - it's a shiver moment.)

Today in Canada marks the official beginning of the Victoria Day weekend which is the biggest, bashing-est, drinking-iest, planting-est weekend of the year! Many folks up here will likely spend this weekend talking about the Stanley Cup finals which finally has a Canadian team in it. (Yes, it is spring in Ontario. Yes, it is odd to watch a hockey game in May. We do it anyway.)

Go Calgary!

Today is "Lend Me Your Links Friday" over at West Coast's Absinthe and Cookies, so I'm linking to her link. If you don't visit her daily you should, because visiting her site is much like visiting her at home, curling up up in a chair and chatting about all kinds of different things. It's hard to convey warmth over cyberspace, but she does it. She also gives good advice.

Paul has been busy pointing to the stupid, the atrocious, and the pathetic today. Good. Grief.

Is this really a coincidence? Or this? Now you know why it's Occam's Carbuncle.

Andrew Coyne is still missing, but his commenters aren't. (Must mean something that I keep checking back just to see what the commenters have been up to.) (Update: mystery solved by Trudeaupia.)

Expat Yank is still keeping on top of events from England Today's posts include one about a BBC reporter who was let out unsupervised. (We all hate when that happens ...)

Inside Europe: Iberian Notes also demolishes a reporter, this one from La Vanguardia.

On an intellectual note, Victor Davis Hanson is grading the war in today's post.

I've saved the best for last. Kate of SmallDeadAnimals wrote the ultimate response to that portion of the population that has been leaving comments and speculation and whatnot about that video and all things idiotarian in our comments sections.

Henceforth, I may elect to respond to weirdness in a soft-spoken, Clint Eastwood-y voice "Don't mess With Texas".

We're everywhere, even in Toronto.

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1 Cheers for the many links, Debbye.

Posted by: Paul Jané at May 21, 2004 11:26 PM (TjysC)

2 Thanks, sweetie There was a stereo "awwwwwwwww" from me and Nin when we read your post. And my advice is my life motto [weg]

Posted by: Ith at May 25, 2004 03:07 PM (5FhN3)

3 I think of the three of you whenever I read or hear about dragons [note urls of above commenters!] because you seem exactly like the kind of people who would harness and fly about on dragons. You also make me giggle!

Posted by: Debbye at May 26, 2004 03:11 PM (ov/pG)

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May 20 - I guess this my formal good-bye to mainstream media (unless Justice League shows some spark, and I don't mean the 'shipping) as the last program I regularly watch ended last night.

Some posts marking this sad event from Denise Angel Goes Bye Bye and Laughing Wolf It Will Be Alright.

The rabid fan following must seem weird to those who didn't follow Buffy the Vampire-Slayer and Angel, but when you think about it, it isn't the least bit strange.

In the pre-Sept. 11 world, there was little admission in the entertainment industry that "evil" and "soul" existed much less were significant. Those things were canon in the Buffyverse.

Remember how the news media pundits gravely stated that "irony was dead?" That may have been the first thing that made me belly-laugh after Sept. 11, because I was on strictly moderated Buffy and Angel forums that dealt forcefully with spoilers, flaming posts and off-topic discussions.

Buffy in particular told stories within a framework of metaphor and sub-text, so discussions about the sub-text of the show merged sub-textually with discussions about Sept 11 and the existence of evil which had suddenly leapt from the realm of fiction to a gaping hold in Manhatten.

And, at times, it seemed the only one who didn't "get it" was Joss, because Buffy that season focused on growing up, not because we "wanted" it but because we "needed" it. It's no accident fans called it the Season from Hell and regretted that Buffy had been resurrected. And Spuffy. I'll never get over the long season of Spuffy and those three pathetic evil-doers.

I could so clearly see the demise of irony. Oh yes indeed.

Angel, on the other hand, had an arc that seemed tailor-made to a post-Sept. 11 audience. It told of a good man who knowingly lapsed into evil in his fanatic quest for vengeance. I have no idea how Keith Szarabajka regarded his Holtz character, although the name of his official website might be a clue.

The Holtz arc remains and will probably always be an all-time favourite of mine, and along the way we got the MacOracle and one of the best death scenes of all time.

Angel also gave us "Numfar, do the Dance of Shame."

People who want to examine this from an intellectual perspective might wonder why the same fan base seemingly exists with the three Whedon vehicles, Farscape, and Babylon Five. And a fairly good number of posters were overt Gilbert and Sullivan fans before Gunn had his upgrade. (It was an Iolanthe thing over Connor's mixed heritage. Don't ask.)

I'm off to work, but left some mild spoilers and more analysis in the extended section ... more...

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1 The hazard of squeezing posts in between breaks at work I never got past asking about Lorne killing Lindsay. I was surprised Eve didn't betray them to get her immortality back, but she stayed true. I always liked tha character of Lindsay, but I wasn't as emotionally invested in him as I was with Wesley. I watched Wesley grow and change, and I felt a connection to his story. I cried a lot last night Now all I have left is Stargate.

Posted by: Ith at May 20, 2004 09:23 PM (5FhN3)

2 Did you manage to catch the 2nd season finale of Justice League on YTV? I missed all but the last 20 minutes. And they aren't rerunning it any time soon.

Posted by: Dave Ruddell at May 21, 2004 02:01 PM (PgtWq)

3 But Ith, must I remind you that you were going to get her clothes? We had all worked out, remember? Dave, I am not sure which episode was the season ender. The last ep I saw was the conclusion to Hereafter, which had some nice Conan touches but wasn't at the level of Knight of Shadows. I should visit the web site (we seem to get the episodes months after their US release.) Time to write to Toon and YTV asking for a return of Batman: The Animated Series I guess.

Posted by: Debbye at May 21, 2004 05:36 PM (PELMg)

4 Justice League, as in DC Comics? Heck, I canned WB and their lousy station fare when they canned Birds of Prey, well, except for the occasional Smallville, but have not even caught much of that recently. Awaitin' syndication, I suppose.

Posted by: Tiger at May 21, 2004 06:04 PM (G5PGV)

5 Oh yeah! I'd totally forgotten. I would have traded the clothes for Lindsay [g] I'll have to settle for Loreli Gilmore's clothes on Gilmore Girls now.

Posted by: Ith at May 21, 2004 07:22 PM (5FhN3)

6 I too liked Birds of Prey, which was my first clue that it would get dropped. (Buffy and Angel were the exceptions, and even Buffy was dropped by WB and picked up by UPN.) That psychic ability also worked with the Fox shows Firefly and Brimstone, and the greatly missed Space: Above and Beyond. I tried to get interested in Smallville, but it never took. On the other hand, that's probably why it is still running. I seem to have some kind of reverse-Neilson rating thingy attached to my set.

Posted by: Debbye at May 21, 2004 10:39 PM (PELMg)

7 The season finale was a 3 parter called Starcrossed, wherein Hawkgirl's people visit the Earth...

Posted by: Dave Ruddell at May 22, 2004 07:15 PM (/rhDe)

8 Thanks Dave, only now do I remember reading some spoilers for a episode about something along those lines ages ago, and some speculation about Hawkgirl's relationship to Hawkman (because in the comics she was his wife, or something?) and if it would put the eternal triangle into JL. Seems to me that YTV began Season 2 mid-November, so maybe Starcrossed will re-air in the Fall. (Sure, I'll wait that long! Off to fan sites.)

Posted by: Debbye at May 22, 2004 09:13 PM (HM4Jw)

9 You, like me, are a "Killer Of Quality Television".

Posted by: Ith at May 25, 2004 03:08 PM (5FhN3)

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May 20 - Thanks to J.M. Heinrichs, for sending this: Prisedent Yasser Arafat.

I was puzzled, admittedly, until I read the site.

Update: That isn't a typo in the title.

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May 17 - Seems there are 101 books that are recommended reading and people are 'fessing up, as this title suggests: (Well, I think I caught the 1952 movie version on cable around 2am once....)

Many of the books on this list that were assigned reading in high school and university (and often both) back in "my" day, so I don't think numbers give anyone bragging rights but might reveal age maturity ... more...

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May 13 - Harvey of Bad Money is now happily settled into his new home at Bad Example.

Change your bookmarks, and visit him at his new home.

Also, Rachel Lucas has returned to the fold and is as impudent as ever.

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May 11 - I'm still working the graveyard shift, and apologize to everyone for being absent. My excuse is simple: lack of sleep, but this morning I finally mastered the art of sleeping six consecutive hours! (That is more important than it may seem ...)

Previously I had noted some articles and kept them in draft form about things that will appear below this post - things that maybe I'm marking more for reference purposes than because I have anything terribly important to say about them.

My apologies for unanswered mail and to any commenters that have been overlooked. Rumour has it that this is our last week on this shift and everything will go back to normal (ha!) next week.

I think I still need a bit more coffee ...

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I'm running late for work, and although I didn't get any posting done today, I did get a lot of sleep ;-)

Thanks to all the commenters. I'm sorry to say that I read enough stupid cracks about Canadians on other sites to know that the misconceptions go on both sides of the borders.

I'm off to work. Go Flames!

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1 You misspelled "Sharks".

Posted by: Ted at May 06, 2004 09:02 AM (blNMI)

2 ...and it looks like Calgary did find the way to whup Detroit's butt after all

Posted by: Warren at May 06, 2004 08:07 PM (sqrex)

3 Remember when Al-Qaeda assassinated anti-Taliban leader Ahmed Shah Massoud on Sunday, September 9, 2001? Now they assassinate the anti-Al-Qaeda Chechnya provincial governor Akhmad Kadyrov on Sunday, May 9, 2004. I so hope this is not a harbinger of bad things to come.

Posted by: Tim at May 10, 2004 08:35 AM (vU15y)

4 Tim, it does seem a bit ominous, now that you mention it. Ted, I'm a California native but when it comes to hockey, I'm all Canadian! Warren, I have to admit that Detroit losing was good news in an otherwise bad hockey week! (Old rivalries never die, nor do they fade away. Boo Philly!)

Posted by: Debbye at May 11, 2004 06:12 PM (lOIqs)

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May 3 - Say what you will about shift work, I was never happier to go to work than yesterday evening and miss the last period of the Leafs game. As David suggests in a post from yesterday, "let's pretend it never happened."

My eldest picked me up from work late last night (early this morning?) and we went over to His Apartment to talk and drink some beer. In the course of the conversation I found myself nagging at him about something which, like much of his life, is none of my business. I apologized, but even so ... I wonder if that "mother reflex" ever really goes away. I've been working at it for a couple of years now, and whenever I think I have it licked, it sneaks up behind me and I find myself talking too much.

I'm going to be working the graveyard shift all week, which is all new for me, and I don't know how long it will take me to get used to it and how it will affect posting.

I don't proofread well off a monitor even in the best of circumstances, and I made enough mental slips last week to prove conclusively that sleep is a friend with which I must spend much more time.

For today, I'm going to put a couple of links up as my brain seems willing to read - it's trying to write coherently that has me jammed.

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May 1 - Sorry about yesterday. Some family things came up, and between that and finishing my damned taxes I got utterly derailed.

How about them Leafs? I woke up on the couch to a lot of hooting and hollaring, but it wasn't for another Leaf goal, it was for Tie Domi's post-game comments.

I only have time for a few short posts before I go to work, but my blogroll is full of excellent bloggers.

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