Teen Fighting in Orangeville...Live on UTube.com

TORONTO — The strange phenomenon of students engaging in violent fights just so they can post videos of the clash on the Internet is something for parents to deal with, not Canadian lawmakers, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday.Orangeville District Secondary School in Orangeville, Ont., a small town north of Toronto, is the latest to have its students featured in fight videos posted on popular websites like youtube.com.“As parent, I think it is completely reprehensible,” McGuinty said.“The only word that comes to mind is it's sick for people to attack each other as some form of entertainment, either for themselves or for others to somehow, in some perverse sense, enjoy later.”

globeandmail.com : Teens posting schoolyard fights on-line

Wow.

This is sort of funny. Sort of.  It's a good thing that good old Dalton is going to stay out of it... it's completely a parental issue, not a legal one.

Fight Club 2.0?

technorati tags:Orangeville, teen fighting

Update on 2006-09-26 22:41 by jules

Apparently this is a hotter topic than one might have thought of at first glance, considering there have been over 130 people looking for utube fighting, and hitting here.

Funny - it’s bigger news in canada than it seems to be in the US…. and my guess is that the more media attention it gets, the more kids will want to be filmed fighting. It will turn into a “most views” competition. A vicious circle of popularity and parental angst.  The on-line version of american idol. Without the cheezy tv hosts.  We’ve created a culture where very little is shocking.  And when you come across something with real shock value, people tend to gravitate to it, atleast when you are young.

It’s all about desensitization of the nation. 

Silly grown ups.  You are adding fuel to the fires. It could be worse. They could be stomping on kittens.  

Avec les Yeux d'Oiseau (with Bird Eyes)

… this sentence perfectly describes my visit to Rimouski….. with bird eyes.

It’s perhaps been the hardest 24 hours of my lfe, yet, perhaps I wouldn’t have it any other way. I had dreams that it would have been easy, yet, those were quashed when my *translator* made it known to all who came in contact with me, that I understood better than I spoke. Then the jig was up, as they say…. and i spent the better part of the day PAYING ATTENTION to everything that was said. And, of course, there were tests.

Can I say… Mme Davis, tu n’as pas me fais du favour, avec le francais.

I was hoping to write a great thank you letter, to the french teacher I had through out highschool (6 years of french, when there were only 5 years of schooling)… throughout those years, the general consensus was that we were learning “french from France”… well, Tres Bien!!!�� BUT I WILL LIKELY NEVER GO TO FRANCE!!!!!!!  There is only so much that you can do with Le Petit Prince.  The fact that I can conjugate verbs 5 ways from Sunday doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when faced with 5 Quebecers talking at once.

How about learning Quebec French???? Wouldn’t that be a novel idea? Crazy, isn’t it?? That the Ontario school system would teach Paris French, not Montreal French. The Ontario School system has created a whole generation of students who can faire quite reasonable in France, but not in out own country…… It’s no wonder that Quebec wants to separate….. Sweet Mary, Mother of God. The wee baby Jesus is crying now, because of my poor french.  And to not put the whole blame on the Ontario Public School system, the University of Guelph didn’t do any better. In fact, the University of Guelph French courses were extremely below the quality of courses I had in High School. Still….

Alors, comme Scarlet O’Hara, demain c’est une autre jour. Et Mme Davis, “Bonne Chance a Quebec.”

technorati tags:les yeux comme une oiseau, Gwen Davis, Ontario French Programs, Rimouski

reflection

reflection
Originally uploaded by julebule.

Weekends in Appin often result in a plethora of photos. The trick now, is to capture moments that are new. Ones that i haven't already done to death. I'm surprised that this mirror has evaded me. Until now.

When Canadians Act Like Americans...

Four Canadians dead in Afghan suicideNOOR KHANAssociated PressKANDAHAR — A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops handing out candy to children in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing four and wounding many others, NATO officials said. The Taliban said it was behind the blast.The attack in Kandahar province's Panjwai district came a day after NATO declared an end to a two-week offensive aimed at driving Taliban militants out of safe havens in the same area. More than 500 insurgents were reported killed in the Canadian-led operation, which NATO described as a success despite continuing violence in the south.

globeandmail.com : Four Canadians dead in Afghan suicide

We will invariably be treated like Americans. No offense american folks...

As if we needed another reason to get out....We don't need any more reasons to NOT be in this stupid war.

technorati tags:Canada, war

The Art of Packing...

… I’ve been procrastinating for the past few days. Packing. Rimouski. Flying. Driving. All those other activities have been mulling around my head, I’ve not had a chance to concentrate on the packing part. Other than to throw 3 Eddie Bauer non-wrinkle shirts in the wash.

So now I’m thinking, 6 hours till take off, i should pack something. It’s cold in the woods of Rimouski. I better bring boots.

technorati tags:Rimouski, Boots

Web 2.0 Directory - Go2Web20.net

Thanks to Mark Evans for this link - the directory of amazing web2.0 appications.  It's intensive, and exhaustive, not to mention attractive.

Holy moley.  You could spend hours fiddling around here.  The trick question is, how many apps would you COME BACK to?

technorati tags:web 2.0 applications, Mark Evans

Spammers Shut Down? Or Just Delayed?

Four e-mail spamming ops shut down(15 Sep 2006)The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has shut down four illegal e-mail spamming operations, including one that offered the opportunity to "date lonely wives," the agency said....

ITWorld Canada - The online resource for Canadian Information Technology professionals.

Funny, that the FCC has to get involved to shut down spammers.  In my past experience, if you were a spammer in Canada, as soon as you sent out more than 100,000 emails, you were breaking a gazillion terms of use policies with the ISP, even if you were a wholesale hosting customer. I would have thought the same rules would have applied.  And if there weren't rules to that effect, some light bulb would start creating them as part of the terms of service in the contracts.  Silly loopholes.  Nothing feels better than shutting down someone who's in breach of the terms of service.

It's the little things that can make your day.

technorati tags:SPAM, ISP

Canadian Telecom Hall of Fame?

The Canadian Telecom Hall of Fame will induct six new members next month: Rogers Communications CEO Ted Rogers; radio entrepeneur Edward Rogers Sr.; walkie-talkie inventor Donald Hings; rural telephone pioneer Leila Wightman; lawyer Ernie Saunders and public phone advocate Francis Dagger.

Mark Evans :: Main Page

I thought for sure Mark was joking, but sure enough,  there *really* is a Telecom Hall of Fame.  In Canada, no less. With awards, and a website and everything. Now I really have seen everything. Wow. I think I'm going to be speechless now.

technorati tags:Canadian Telecom Hall of Fame

Bloggin' Pressures

Funny, how if I am negligent on posting, especially in my telco section of the blog, the subscribers drop off like flies..... it's a fickle blog world.

At some point, life will just start getting completely in the way.  Already I am feeling the tingly guilt of not contributing enough. Silly me. 

technorati tags:blog pressures

Switching VoIP providers/Switching Broadband Providers

Well folks, tomorrow is the big day. After 3 weeks, we are swapping out Sympatico High Speed (no link needed) for Aurora Cable Internet

3 weeks of not being able to run 2 VPNs and a VoIP phone.  Silliness. So out it goes. So much for install fees.  After struggling again today, for the last time, i breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that it's only temporary.  I give.  The towel has been thrown down.

Up next, replacing the Primus VoIP for Vonage VoIP.  I know not to bite the hand that may one day feed me ;-)

technorati tags:Bell, Primus, ACI, Vonage

Technorati Spam

I feel dirty.

I looked.  I looked at the whole technorati results page, and it didn't hit me till the end, when I was wondering where all the real results were.. and it hit me.  It was ALL spam.

I was looking to see what people were saying about using VoIP on their cell phones.... and all i ended up with was garbage.  Mind you, I have a good lead on a vintage wedding dress, and a supplier for Zoloft. Ask your doctor if Zoloft is right for you?

How do we get around this sort of nonesense?  Can Technorati do something to filter the bad from the good?

Yeesh. Disappointing.

technorati tags:Technorati, spam

Creepy Disney Fruit

Disney-branded fruit and veggiesDisney has partnered with Imagination Farms, a produce distributor that sells cartoon-branded fruits and veggies, to fill the produce aisle with Disney-brand fruit. Other companies' characters -- SpongeBob, Taz and others -- will also appear on fruit this year.

Boing Boing: Disney-branded fruit and veggies

This development freaks me out.

Can there be any other more shameful way to exploit kids and parents and pander to their basest, commercial urges?  Sure!  Wrap a banana in SpongeBob Squarepants parephenalia... then kids will eat it!!!

Good God. The little baby jesus is crying.

What happened to to the good old days, when parents were parents, and kids were kids, and family life was not a negotiating-sitcom inspired democracy?

Eat yer damn plain banana and stop whining.

(Note: expressive curse words have been deleted)

technorati tags:Disney Fruit, Fruit of the Devil, Parenting

Alead of the Curve with Pandora?

Wow, it's rare that i'm ahead of the curve on neat techno bits....but in this case, it's true!

I've been using and raving about Pandora for about a year now, and just over the weekend, the cool kids wrote about what could arguably be the niftiest music learning and discovery application ever. 

It's rare that i sit down infront of the computer, and don't pop open a tab of Pandora.  Even at work.. it's so very atomatic now... it's become second nature.

technorati tags:Pandora

August 31, 1997

9 years ago....Princess Diana died.

But in 1888 - August 31st was the date that Jack the Ripper claimed his first victim. Hmmm. That's a little more bizarro.

technorati tags:Princess Diana, Jack the Ripper, August 31 1997

Head Feels Tingly All The Time

…. just one of the searches that was performed by the great unwashed internet masses, that managed to show up at this site….

Odd.

Nice, but odd. Sort of makes me feel all tingly.

technorati tags:tingly

Strange Referrers

Ok, I give.

How is it possible that I am getting referred visitors from this site: www.carmda.org/affordable-progressive-insurance.html

I don’t get it. It’s freaking me out.

really.

technorati tags:Strange Referrers

Where All the Cool Kids Hang Out - The Cool Hunter

A huge thanks to Nick Fothergill for pointing me to this site.  The Cool Hunter is actually full of coolness. In fact, I could go so far as to say it's the neatest site for new stuff.  Ahem, yes, better than tech crunch :-(

You want to see the goods.  I know you do.

the cool hunter - home

technorati tags:the cool hunter, tech crunch

Google 3D

Holy cats! Imagine if this little device was hooked into all the neat shopping and comparison websites, and you could point and shoot your way to finding the best deals on what you wanted. This device acts like a camera, and with full wi-fi support, can talk with the google backend to find out information on what you are looking for.

I just wasted 4 days of my life looking for the best deal on patio furniture, and ended up going back to the first place I went into. Sheesh!

technorati tags:Google Point and Aim, Comparison Shopping Tool

Katrina Who?

With the passing of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the news media has blown a bit of a breeze into the sagging public interest sails of Katrina. Over the weekend, the Globe and Mail had a great covering of what had changed, and the fact that the majority of the folks hadn’t returned, and the staggering percentages that have risen with respects to poverty, housing, healthcare and education. Only 18% of the schools have re-opened. Although, it’s not perhaps as staggering as it sounds, as only a pittance of people have returned. So few in fact, that the percapita income has risen 19%.

The Discovery Channel had a few good exposes this week as well, and so little has been accomplished in the past year, and some much has been exposed in terms of government bungling, I’d be surprised if it didn’t still looked like a wartorn country in another 5 years. One journalist compared New Orleans to Beiruit. Geeze, how crappy can that make people from Beirut feel? :-(

technorati tags:Katrina, Hurricanes

An Interesting Observation of the Health Care Industry

Funny story for you.

The Wiz is on the phone right now with the receptionist from the Neurosurgeon's office, she's on him to come back and get the results of a few tests - and he has to "come into the office", he can't set up a conference call with the doctor to get the results.  He's got to drive 3 hours for the dr to tell him he's fine.  It's "policy" that the patient has to be FACE to FACE with the doctor.

Now this brings me to an interesting question about the healthcare industry, technology, and billing practices.  Is it possible that doctors can't "bill" for patient visits unless the patient is actually sitting in the doctor's office?  Is it possible that a "conference call" doesn't count as a billable service?  Is it possible that there is so little adoption of technology, and so little regard for people's time, and such a high self-opinion of the folks in the mdedical community, that they can simply just make policies that suit themselves?

Wouldn't it be neat, if instead of having to drive for 3 hours in rush hour traffic to get medical results, that you could fire up IM, and plug in your trusty web cam, and get your results from the comfort of your home?

That's just crazy talk.

technorati tags:Canadian Healthcare