Quotulatiousness

March 16, 2012

Last night’s storm

Filed under: Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:31

I had to shut down my computer last night as a thunderstorm rolled in. After the typical flashing and booming, the rain started. After a couple of minutes of rain, it changed to hail. The entire house was ringing with the impact of the hailstones. It continued off-and-on for about an hour and a half. It was so loud that both our dogs were huddled up to me, shivering. Once the worst of it was over, I went to bed.

This morning, I got up and noticed there were still drops of rain sitting on top of the gazebo in our back yard. A few minutes ago, I got up to let Xander out and noticed that the raindrops still appeared to be sitting on the gazebo roof.

They’re not raindrops:

A bit closer:

The entire roof of the gazebo looks like a “No Hunting” sign up north: riddled with bullet holes.

April 8, 2011

Graphic illustrating why I don’t expect my MP to change

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:06

Whitby-Oshawa 2008 votingWhitby-Oshawa 2008 legendHere’s the riding of Whitby-Oshawa in the 2008 election. Notice all that deep blue colour? As the legend says, the opacity of colour indicates the strength of the party in that area. Up in the Brooklin area, you can barely see the underlying road pattern for all the blueness.

You can find how blue (or red, or whatever) your riding is by using the cyberpresse.ca Interactive map (this is now available in English: the original was in French). It’s another illustration of how to use Google Maps to display geographical data in interesting ways.

This time around, I’ll at least have a Libertarian candidate to vote for: Josh Insang is running for the Libertarian Party. Check the LPC Candidate page to see if you have a Libertarian running in your riding.

December 15, 2010

This is a sign of a slow news week

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:54

When the National Post carries a story about someone purloining one of the wise men figures from a church in Brooklin:

Durham Region police reported that the 6′ x 3′ plywood cutout of one of the Three Wise Men was stolen in the early morning hours Dec. 12, and the church had said they would like it returned.

“It’s a bit of an insult,” said Brooklin United Church council chair Rick Barnes.

Mr. Barnes said the thieves were caught on camera, and said they appeared to be “a bunch of kids goofing around and having fun.” The wooden cut-out, which was fastened to a metal post and then attached to the larger constructed scene, would be hard to remove quickly, he said.

“It didn’t take all night but it took them a considerable effort to get it removed,” he said.

Mr. Barnes said that although Brooklin United doesn’t plan to make a big deal out of the incident, it is unfortunate for the church, who have limited resources to begin with.

Brooklin is kind of a quiet place . . . but even here, this isn’t really a big story. Why the National Post bothered to report on it, I can’t begin to imagine.

October 25, 2010

Voting for the right candidates

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 15:37

I just got back from exercising my right to vote for municipal representation. It was a case of trying to find candidates who didn’t copy one another’s homework (and campaign promises).

In municipal elections in Ontario, party affiliations aren’t shown on the ballot, but given the claims I saw in most of the pamphlets and local newspaper articles, almost all of our local candidates are fully paid-up members of the Green party. I don’t know why our school trustees need to be so concerned with things well outside the municipal level of responsibility, but I’d kinda prefer they concentrated on, y’know, the fricking schools in the region, rather than deforestation in the tropics, CO2 emissions, and banning plastic bags.

I ended up not using all my votes, as I couldn’t find candidates for some of the positions who didn’t seem to want to spend all their time stuffing envelopes for Greenpeace rather than running the town and regional governments.

Oh, and a protip for future candidates, especially if you’re late entering the race: not having a website means I can’t look up your positions on anything, and I’m not going to vote for you just on the basis of you having an interesting name.

January 4, 2010

Whitby’s latest dining gem: Cuisine ‘n’ Jazz

Filed under: Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:45

Yesterday afternoon, we braved the bitter cold and drove down to Cuisine ‘n’ Jazz in the AMC complex near Thickson and the 401, to hear some live Jazz. Every Sunday from 2 ’til 5, there’s a jam session which (if yesterday’s example is representative) is well worth the drive. We got there just after 2, and the musicians were already in fine form.

Between the great music and the excellent food, we were well rewarded for heading out into the cold. We’ll certainly be back for more.

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