This year’s election was a very interesting one for a couple of reasons. First of all, the polls closed at the same time for most of the country, with Atlantic Canada being a little bit ahead, and BC being a little bit behind. That meant that polls closed here at 7:30 local time, and at 8:30 local time in Manitoba etc. This was instituted as a sort of response to the internet. There used to be an election results blackout on local media until the polls were closed, but people would just go to “unofficial” resources on the internet to get their illicit information (which wanted to be free?) The end result is that the election was not decided before the polls closed here for a change - not that it would have been anyway, since it was such a close one overall.

Another interesting thing is that the Liberals are not only in a minority position, but when combined with the NDP (a more natural alliance than any of the others out there) they’ve got exactly half of the seats. I suspect that there will be another election within a couple of years, though it’s tough to say for sure, because the Liberals have to be a little bit scared that they might lose the whole shooting match next time out — it was a near thing for them this time.

Overall though, I’m happy with the way things turned out, as the incumbent in my riding was dethroned, which means that my MP is no longer an outsider. The previous MP had been kicked out of his party for various reasons, and that gave him approximately zero political clout. Writing him a letter accomplished nothing. I’m not saying that the new MP will be able to accomplish a whole lot more, but at least he won’t just be talking to himself in Ottawa.

[Edit] Uncle Robert - your ISP rejects mail from me because of some assinine attempt at spam filtering - just so you don’t think I’m ignoring you.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Thanks for the civics lesson. Now listen to me, if Marge Simpson goes to jail, I can kiss the chick vote goodbye. And if I go down, your gonna break my fall.” - Mayor Quimby

The interview went ok, but not super fantastic. I don’t think I got the job, but who knows. I’ll find out later this week. If I don’t mention anything about it, you can safely assume that I didn’t get the job.

The heat has arrived again, just in time for Summer. It’s supposed to get up to 28 today, and 30 tomorrow, with similar temperatures predicted through Friday. Makes me glad that we have air conditioning. There are places in the world where air conditioning is the rule, rather than the exception. Saskatoon is not one of them. For those few weeks a year that we use it though, it’s much appreciated. Back when we used to live in an un-airconditioned apartment in a bad part of town, we used to go to the afternoon matinees just for the cool air. I don’t remember what movies we saw, but I’m sure we endured some stinkers, just to keep cool.

Erin and I finally beat Champions of Norrath on the weekend. We’d been basically at the end for quite some time, but hadn’t had a chance to play it. We came across a funny bug though, which cost us a lot of our fancy equipment that we’d been carrying around for a long time. We dropped it whenever we got to a new area, then picked it up before we’d go to the next level. In this instance, we picked it up just before the boss battle. When we died, the equipment was gone, and we weren’t carrying it. Unfortunately we didn’t notice it until after we’d saved, so the equipment was gone for good. Kind of funny, when you think about it. I have a knack for finding strange stuff like that, which is what makes me a good computer programmer — I can test stuff for all kinds of strange behaviour — but it still sucks.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Trust me Marge, with today’s modern cars, you can’t get lost! With all those Silicon chips ‘n stuff…” - Homer

The DVD burner arrived yesterday. Pretty quick. The only problem is that the blanks haven’t arrived yet, so there’s not much I can do with it. :)

Wish me luck, I’ve got a job interview this afternoon (for an internal position.) I figure I have a shot at it, if I don’t blow the interview. It’s far from guaranteed though. We’ll see how it goes anyway.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Bart: “Hey, how do you get this thing to play blackjack?”
Frink: “Stop that, you’re hurting it.”
Bart: “So how’s it supposed to work?”
Frink: “Well…”
Bart: “Boring! Am I on the internet?”
Frink: “No, you can only access…”
Bart: “Boring! What’s that fire for?”
Data: “The hard drive is crashing at an alarming speed!”
Frink: “No more pictures!”

So, despite the fact that I’m not a huge fan of the telephone, I signed up with Free World Dialup over the weekend. I’m just using their free software phone, so I’m only available when the laptop it running, and the program is open. Anyway, it’s a neat thing. My number is 438415.

This is why I shouldn’t use song titles as my post titles - I can’t get the song out of my head now.

It’s strange, because today feels like Friday and Tuesday at the same time. With it being Thursday, that’s an odd feeling. I don’t mind Thursday feeling like Tuesday, because that means that the weekend is sneaking up faster than I expect. Feeling like it’s Friday just means that tomorrow is going to feel like Saturday - at least until I get out of bed. It’s a strange thing.

Oh - now that I got the song out of my head (typing that brought it back… geez.) Anyway, I remembered the other piece of news that I wanted to talk about. I ordered a DVD burner the other day. I said for a long time that I wouldn’t buy a DVD burner until they could burn dual layer DVDs - so I could backup my DVD collection properly. I honestly didn’t think that would ever be a reality. Turns out I was wrong, because the DVD burner I ordered burns dual layer DVDs. The only drawback is that the dual layer blanks are 1) unavailable anywhere I know of, and 2) expensive where they are available (Asian countries apparently, and some places in Europe.) I have great confidence that they will eventually be available more widely, and significantly less expensively though. My primary motivation is for being able to burn DVD quality versions of the William slideshow that we gave out for Christmas, and backing up the thousands of pictures that are currently stored on hard drives.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh Lis, she’s already drawn me to her with her beautiful siren-song…” — Bart

The fine folks at Team17 announced a long time ago that they wouldn’t make any more worms games. At least I remember reading that somewhere. Maybe they just said that Worms Armageddon would be the last 2D Worms game. At any rate, they’re coming out with a new one — Worms Forts: Under Siege — looks interesting

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Helen Lovejoy: “Honey, wake up. Honey, it sounds like Ned Flanders is having some sort of crisis.”
Reverend Lovejoy: “Oh. Probably stepped on a worm.”

News flash! The NHL doesn’t own the Stanley Cup. Could you imagine what would happen to the NHL if it were taken away from them?

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Yoink” - Snake

There are apparently a bunch of Eye Toy games planned to come out in Japan. According to GameFAQs, there are a total of 9, including the already released “Play” and “Groove.” Information on the games is pretty sparse, unfortunately.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’d like to apply for a job. Any job! If you don’t have a captain I could be that.” - Homer