Mark Bellis

Beau's All Natural Brewing Company, Vankleek Hill, Ontario

2012-01-14T22:49:00.000-05:00

Makes "Bog Water", a 'Gruit' out of Bog Myrtle grown locally - it can't be called "Beer" as it has no hops. It only makes the "Bog Water" in the fall, but they had some that was mixed with a lager that didn't really taste special - I think the hops would mask a lot. I tried taste some of the leaves but they had dessicated so I will try the fruit of the bog myrtle next time I find some.

Aurora Borealis

2011-10-24T22:26:00.003-04:00

Intense Red Section near Zenith
(Images enhanced in gimp)

Aurora Borealis, IS0 6400

Randi in Montreal, September 29, 2011

2011-09-30T01:16:00.006-04:00

Randi spoke at the Centre St-Pierre in downtown Montreal - I think the centre still belongs to the parish! Sign that you are in downtown Montreal: Audience members said "Tabernacle!" when he did the levitating matchbook trick.

Randi cannot be photographed. When wearing his Borsalino hat.

He'd been making jokes about not appearing on photographs like a vampire during the post talk autograph/photo session. He'd also flirted with girls who wanted to get their pictures with him, even though he's been out of the closet for a while!

I'd unintentionally set the camera to a slow exposure! I complemented him on his hat, which is the same brand as Pierre-Elliot Trudeau used to wear. He brightened up immediately at the mention of Trudeau's name. "A wonderful prime minister! Great man" he said.

With flash and the famous flying pig pin.

One version of the dowsing device that doesn't work at all. Randi said that similar devices have been used in Afghanistan to detect explosives, with fatal results.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/231-a-direct-specific-challenge-from-james-randi-and-the-jref.html

An interesting report on these specific models

Friends for Life Bike Rally

2011-07-28T17:34:00.000-04:00

Support Person Brian Lawrence hands out refreshments at Friends for Life Toronto-Montreal Rally (660km) - about 300 riders!

http://www.bikerally.org/

For All Your Paranormal Needs

2011-07-14T22:31:00.000-04:00

PERSONAL SENSES PARANORMAL SOCIETY of Prescott, Ontario at 146 King Street West. I went in - they were friendly. The office used to be a travel agent and had really old cabinets built into the wall.

Poster warning of non-working traffic lights, Tokyo area, after earthquake

2011-04-21T15:46:00.000-04:00

This is a poster designed by someone who works at a university in Tokyo! I helped a very little! Sleeping things just have a empty bubble in Japanese comics, instead of the ZZZZs we use. Since power cuts are going to continue in the eastern region of the main island of Honshu for the foreseeable future, the traffic lights might not be working. Artist: Yuki Nishimiya

Just Rusty

2011-02-19T21:09:00.000-05:00

1944 Nickel

2011-01-10T19:58:00.004-05:00

I found this in my change! It's an 1944 nickel - these were made of steel plated with chrome in order to save copper and nickel for the war. The 'V' is for victory, and I guess the torch is a reference to the torch in "In Flanders Field". The chrome wore off easily and the steel quickly rusted. Around the rim of the reverse of the coin there are tiny Morse code dots and dashes that say "We Win When We Work Willingly". The Morse code for the letter "V" was used in allied propaganda broadcasts - the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony - Duh Duh Duh Daah - is V. It was used in Norman McLaren's "V for Victory" in 1941.

I can see a murder suspect's videos!

2011-01-08T19:20:00.000-05:00

Jared Lee Loughner's Youtube videos have only gotten a few hundred views as of 7.19 pm EST.... rambling incoherent things. In the old days, as a reporter the best I'd get was "He was real quiet" but now we've got their rantings posted all over the place. I'd watch them but my cat is tapping my shoulder and wants to go play.

"The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I'm getting used to it now" Talking Head 2011

2011-01-01T17:29:00.002-05:00

On the Seaway there is a section between Quebec, Ontario and New York State called 'Smugglers' Alley' - lots of heavily armed smugglers operate there - this is the sound of .30 or .50 calibre machine guns firing to welcome in the New Year - the lights you see are not muzzle flashes, just navigation buoys. There were times in the early 90s where you'd here this all the time, but now I only hear it on New Year's.

New Year's Eve Fireworks in Alexandria Ontario

2010-12-31T22:47:00.000-05:00

Rachel Davis

2010-12-22T22:06:00.002-05:00

Looking through old files I found a photo of Rachel Davis, a girl I knew who'd been shot to death in Vancouver after she'd gone to the aid of someone she didn't know who was being beaten outside a club in Gastown. She'd shielded the victim from the blows, but unfortunately that someone was a drug dealer who'd just called his buddy to get a Glock and then began firing it into the crowd, killing her and Richard Hui, and injuring four others.Vancouver Province Story

She was like that! I saw her being protective of girls who'd gotten too drunk at parties....

I interviewed her dad for the Star - first time I've ever covered anything serious where I knew the victim personally.

If you are trying to break up a fight, don't get BETWEEN anybody, even if they are smaller than you - they can attack you without warning - you should stand away at a safe distance and phone police.

Her family set up an award to commemorate her at racheldavis.ca

Too cloudy to see eclipse, solstice in a few minutes

2010-12-21T18:23:00.000-05:00

I went out just when the eclipse began then went back to bed - at near total eclipse I went out again, but it was too overcast! Solstice in 10 minutes! Solstice and Lunar eclipse on the same day!

Chickadee scavaging deer carcass

2010-12-16T19:17:00.000-05:00

I didn't know that Chickadees would eat deer remains!

Kid with Traffic Cone on Head

2010-12-11T14:23:00.005-05:00

Not shown - car that fell in pothole that was marked by this cone (just kidding!)

100000 Mark Note Hyperinflation

2010-12-09T13:29:00.001-05:00

After the First World War, the Allies asked Germany to pay them damages for the war (It finished paying this year, 2010). Indirectly this lead to hyperinflation, where the German Mark became almost worthless. The hyperinflation and the occupation of the Ruhr almost certainly helped the Nazis take power in 1933.

2010-12-02T22:38:00.002-05:00

Speaking of Hitch, sorry I missed him in Toronto last month!

Remembrance Day

2010-11-11T21:32:00.012-05:00

My grandfather Thomas John Williams was in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Great War (WWI). He died before I was born. He said that on Christmas Day in 1914 the Germans came out of their trenches and crossed into no-man's land to sing Christmas Carols and play football. They called him "Tommy". Less politely his comrades called them Krauts.
This is oral history from my family, so I can't be sure that he was there or was just telling what someone else had told him, however, this is a historic event that has been well documented - see Christmas Truce

Cat in the bag

2010-11-05T16:40:00.001-04:00

Rusty likes getting into shopping bags and going for a ride.

Stop thief at Wal-Mart

2010-10-01T21:56:00.000-04:00

Boy being chased by a fat blonde lady in the Wal-Mart - he was stopping and taunting her - I wasn't sure if it was a robbery - she was swearing at him - it was a robbery! He had grabbed her wallet and jumped the fence but he let her get close and taunted her since he knew she couldn't catch him.

Christopher Hitchins Was DEAD.

2010-08-06T19:02:00.000-04:00

August 6 may become the atheist Easter as Wikipedia listed the Portsmouth Pundit as having died that day. Hitchens, suffering from cancer, did get better around suppertime EST. This is why you should never use Wikipedia as a primary source!

Fused Elm

2010-07-07T16:13:00.001-04:00

Somewhere near the Bay of Quinte someone joined two elms together maybe a century ago! There is an article on Husband and Wife trees in Wikipedia.

Plus ca change plus c'est la maimed chose!

2010-07-06T16:20:00.000-04:00

Old houses being hauled away east of Toronto to be replaced by abstractions of Victorian homes....

Fox on Fairway

2010-07-04T09:42:00.000-04:00

No idea what it was doing on a driving range!

Toronto Home Baked Pies

2010-06-30T13:58:00.000-04:00

At the city limits on the east side of Toronto.

Olympic Hockey

2010-03-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

The country is more excited than when Henderson's 1972 goal won the Soviet-Canada series!

Quebec Gazette June 21 1764

2010-01-10T17:49:00.000-05:00

This is the a copy of the first number, printed June 21, 1764 of the oldest continually published newspaper in North America. The Quebec Gazette eventually became the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph and is still published! I saw the original and it was in good condition - I think it was printed on hemp based paper and was brown but not crumbly. Here is the link to the pdf file: http://www.scribd.com/doc/25000544/Quebec-Gazette-June-21-1764

How to download BBC videos in Ubuntu

2010-01-08T13:52:00.001-05:00

It's nice being able to keep a copy of a video for reference on your own pc - you can't do this with the BBC's site using the firefox add-ons that work with youtube, but you can in Ubuntu's Linux using get_iplayer and flvstreamer - both of which you can find in Synaptic Package Manager (it's "get-iplayer" , not "get_iplayer" in Synaptic).
Then follow the instructions here: http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/documentation and if you just want to download from the BBC News' website go down to this section:

get_iplayer --modes=flashnormal
  --pid 'tv:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8104086.stm'

(put in the url of the page you want the embedded video from)

It will copy an .avi file to your home folder.

Huzzah!

2010-01-01T00:12:00.000-05:00

The sound of a 50 calibre machine gun firing! It's New Years! I only hear it on New Years - they might even have tracer rounds...... wonder what the owner does with it the rest of the time.

Asian Canadian girls remarkably cheerful about getting STDs.

2009-12-31T22:39:00.000-05:00

It's just a bad choice of a stock photo - I think I saw the same pair of models on a earphone package. One would expect a more serious expression on the cover of a pamphlet dealing with a virus that can lead to cervical cancer!

H1N1 intimations of mortality

2009-12-30T19:01:00.000-05:00

A little boy was looking at an elderly man leaving the clinic after the flu shots - he asked "Look at the old man - Why is he old?". His mother said everybody, including him, was going to get old.
"I don't want to walk with a cane!" he said.
"Maybe if your bones stay strong and your spine stays straight you won't have to." she said.

I had both the H1N1 and the seasonal flu shots today - neither has given me any real discomfort. There were a lot of Mohawks at the clinic, since the news says that natives are most affected by this virus.

Tilley Socks do keep their promise

2009-12-29T15:44:00.000-05:00

Tilley Walking Socks are supposed to have a three year guarantee against holes - mine did get one only a few months after purchase - it didn't look like hole developed from wear - it looked like some type of chemical had eaten away the material - but they did replace it with a new pair although I only mailed in one damaged sock and did not charge me for postage.

Stew Cameron

2009-12-28T11:21:00.001-05:00

Stew Cameron - possibly the only victim of Socred inspired terrorism - was a cartoonist who published editorial cartoons that enraged the Social Credit premier of Alberta, "Bible Bill" Aberhart in the early 1940s. Stew's house was torched by persons unknown while he was away. But he mostly specialized in cowboy cartoons - here's a detail from "Square Dancing", date unknown.

Cariboo Cameron House

2009-12-27T17:57:00.001-05:00

Cariboo Cameron was a miner who struck it rich in the goldfields of California and British Columbia. His wife had died after childbirth in a mining camp and he shipped her home in an alcohol filled casket. Cameron had to bribe Tammany Hall appointed custom clerks in New York to get the casket home and had to exhume her after a newspaper claimed that she was not in the casket and that she was still alive since he had sold her into slavery - supposedly the grass wouldn't grow for years near her grave in Salem church after they'd dumped out the alcohol. This is his home in Summerstown, Ont - the head of the scotsman is said to be him and the woman his wife Sophia.

Cat under the Table Cloth

2009-12-26T20:42:00.000-05:00

Rusty gets under the table cloth

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T10:40:00.000-05:00

A Christmas Carol

2009-12-23T22:12:00.001-05:00

An old article for the season

Salvation Army Barbershop

2009-12-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

Salvation Army Barbershop

Ubuntu AMD64 and flash

2009-12-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

If you have a computer with a AMD64 processor you can install a free Ubuntu operating system and get the benefit of 64-bit processing (basically it's faster) without getting a Windows Pro OS.
One mistake I made was when I installed Adobe's flash for AMD64 was not removing the nspluginwrapper which let 32 bit flash, which I had previously installed, work with a 64 bit system, as suggested by Softpedia.
Not removing made it hard to click on the play and volume buttons using youtube and other video sites.
All you need to do to fix it is run Synaptic Package Manager, look for nsplugin and remove it and the other programs that work with it. Youtube now worked fine and I didn't need to reinstall anything.

Winter Gear

2009-12-17T12:58:00.000-05:00

Winter Clothing

It was about - 20 this morning, with a wind chill. The face mask is thin neoprene, so it doesn't absorb water from your breath and turn into ice.

Why is there a cowbell on the desk of the speaker of the Irish parliament?

2009-12-16T09:23:00.000-05:00

Recently, Paul Gogarty, a Green Party member of the Dáil, the Irish Republic's parliament, said "F**k You" to fellow member Emmet Stagg.
Lots of commentators thought it was quaint and compared it to James Joyce - it wasn't and bringing up someone's Irishness whenever they behave like a jackass in public is stupid. (Saying 'dat' and 'witdraw' instead of 'that' and 'withdraw' is just an Irish accent, not a sign of feeble mindedness, and doesn't excuse misbehavior!)
I was wondering why there was a cowbell on the speaker's desk - it isn't a cowbell, according to Edward Canavan, spokesperson for the Irish parliament, who said it was the Ceann Comhairles Bell, a half-size reproduction of a bell that was found at "Castle Island, Lough Lene, Castlepollard, County Westmeath in 1881", and presented to the house in 1931 by the widow of Major Bryan Cooper, a former member.
(Image of Ceann Comhairles Bell taken from homepage of the oireachtas, (Irish Parliament))

When will we fall?

2009-11-15T17:57:00.000-05:00

I never went to Berlin when the wall was up. I only crossed the Iron Curtain once, when I was in Hungary in 1982, and the boundary was a lot easier to cross than it had been. In my friend's village he had a reel-to-reel tape recorder with a tape that his friend had sent him - he'd taken it to an English teacher because he couldn't understand it - she couldn't understand it either. It was the Sex Pistols. I told him what they were saying - when they got to Holidays in the Sun with the line "I'm looking over the wall and they're looking at me" he said he'd been in East Berlin and gone to the place where West Berliners could look into the East - Brandenburg Gate? - and he stood looking back at them too.
"When will we fall?" - Back in 1977, even as late as 1989 we thought that we'd be the ones to fall, the wall would be up forever, or the world would end in a nuclear war.

free geocities no more

2009-10-26T17:16:00.000-04:00

I started posting my stories and blog on Geocities after starting off on Compuserve's personal web page sometime around 1996. And now it's gone!
Yahoo! could have made Geocities into what Facebook is now years ago.

Roman Polanski Ironic Post

2009-10-19T17:07:00.000-04:00

I am soooo annoyed at the Swiss for arresting and continuing to hold genius Roman Polanski without bail. So annoyed that I'm eating Troblerone and Lindt chocolate bars and thinking of buying a swatch.

Call in the Bin

2009-09-07T22:07:00.000-04:00

Caline de Bine is an expression one hears in Quebec and Eastern Ontario, sort of like "Gosh Darn It" - if someone with a French-Canadian accent said "Call in the Bin" it would sound exactly the same.

C and S toke on the beach

2009-09-02T18:10:00.000-04:00

It's a form of compressed tobacco - strawberry flavored in this case. The hookah is called a shisha - up till a few years ago it was only middle easterners who smoked them, but there are trendy clubs nowadays. S started talking to me about the loss of the library of Alexandria, c... hmmm... 300 A.D? which was the lede used by an NPR story talking about how Google wants to be the new library of Alexandria that I heard on the radio about 20 minutes later. Synchronicity? Naaahhh..... common theme and I listen to the news all the time.

C's tat reads "Pursue your dreams to the stars" in English.

Cohoes Falls

2009-08-17T20:43:00.000-04:00

Cohoes Falls,

In Upstate New York

Faux Teutonic Demonic

2009-08-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

A carnival in Belleville - a lot of the funhouses I have seen seem to have come from Bavaria or Austria, where they take Carnaval seriously - this one obviously isn't but tries to be...

Lurid Cover

2009-07-04T22:57:00.000-04:00

50 cents in 1963!

2009-07-01T20:02:00.002-04:00

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum)

2009-06-21T19:29:00.000-04:00

I think the flowers it's drinking from are Dame's-Rockets. I think it looks more like a bumble bee. Batesian mimicry?

Rusty the Kitten vs. Ministry of Truth,

2009-06-20T13:44:00.000-04:00

Rusty the kitten jams Radio China after the unpleasantly named China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre noticed this week that there was porn on the internet and the gov. of China blocked some Google searches.

cmos battery connector tip

2009-06-19T17:30:00.000-04:00

I tried splicing the wires from a cmos battery that I need to change from a two socket to three socket connection - it's hard! Then the guy at the store told me you could change the connector just by lifting the tabs on the plug - it's hard because it's so small, but easier than splicing - lift the tabs with a small screwdriver put under the side of the tab away from the entry and gently pry up - the wires should have the indentation facing down as shown. You might need magnifying glasses!

Irridescent cloud

2009-06-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a rainbow cloud and the sun with a ring.

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

2009-06-14T12:13:00.000-04:00

I've watched the Evil Dead movies dozens of times, but I walked out of Drag Me to Hell - it was just too mean - starting off with gypsies cursing a Mexican boy to be dragged to hell by a demon because he stole a piece of jewelry his parents tried to return - this is just plain nasty - Gypsies, better called Roma, still live under persecution in Europe - and the Hungarian woman that is implied to be gypsy is a grotesque, snot-filled caricature.
In the Evil Dead movies the grotesque things were done to or by demons, not just confused old ladies.

Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus)

2009-06-09T14:03:00.000-04:00

Pileated Woodpecker looks for grubs in stump.

2009-06-01T19:10:00.000-04:00

A faun in the afternoon! It was sitting near a stream - the mother was probably nearby. Eyes are blue.

Signs of Spring

2009-04-16T16:47:00.000-04:00

Yellow Perch are spawning

Red head is male - trying to attract mate by strutting.

The Garter snake has awoken from hibernation.

The Colt's Foot is the first showy flower of spring.

Beavers gathering food

2009-03-01T15:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a beaver leaving its lodge to gather food - they eat bark!

They eat bark - birch, maple, willow.

Dogs in Back Window of Car

2009-02-28T12:44:00.001-05:00

Dogs in the parking lot of Walmart.

Voluntary Obama Post

2009-02-20T21:00:00.000-05:00

During yesterday's visit to Ottawa, President Obama didn't meet the general public at all, except when he jumped out of his car to shop and get cookies - there were only American reporters that were in his press pool with him, which means that the Prime Minister's Office didn't know it was going to happen - where Obama stopped is a few blocks away from the US Embassy in Ottawa, so they must have told him where to stop and shop. Prime Minister Harper and the new Conservative Party have had strong connections with American conservative groups. The official part of Obama's visit had the lowest visual presence of any major head of state visit I've seen - the people who had stood for hours on Parliament Hill only saw him waving for an instant behind bullet proof glass.

It's about time somebody did that!

2009-02-16T20:15:00.000-05:00

(image via Happy Famous Artists)
Hirst did the jewel encrusted skull called "For the Love of God" which it was claimed sold for 50 million pounds to undisclosed buyers (I'm doubtful - I haven't seen any proof that much was paid, and you'd need a forklift to deliver that much in cash) - this sculpture by Eugenio Merino sold for a more reasonable $41,290, and as Hirst threatened to sue a 16 year old, who was ordered to fork over his 200 pound profit by a British copyright group, for selling some derivative artwork, I couldn't think of a nicer guy for the subject of satire.
Here's Merino's Website.
I've just joined his fanclub!
Update September 5 - and the kid has been charged for stealing a box of pencils from Hirst, who claimed that since the pencils were part of a display they were worth half a million pounds.
A desktop sized version of this sculpture would make a swell action figure....Morally Bankrupt Man?

Velentine's Day Cat

2009-02-14T13:04:00.000-05:00

Walking on Broken Ice

2009-02-04T22:35:00.001-05:00

The ice formed before much snow fell - it is very clear this year!

Chinese New Year Stamp

2009-01-30T19:58:00.000-05:00

Lazy Cats

2009-01-24T16:41:00.001-05:00

Finally

2009-01-23T10:28:00.000-05:00

1215 > 9/11 !

Mandatory Obama Post

2009-01-22T18:58:00.000-05:00

Learn English the Obama way! This is a collection of his pre-inauguration speeches with a booklet with translation and CD for Japanese learning English. Something that I doubt they'd do with Bush the Younger.... you'd have to explain why nuclear was transcribed Nu Ku lar. Sells for about $ 10 US

Update - made the BBC News on the 28!

New Year's Day 2009

2009-01-01T19:31:00.001-05:00

Always with the lens flare!

Merry Christmas 2008!

2008-12-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

Graffiti, Lowertown, Quebec City, Quebec

2008-12-20T16:25:00.000-05:00

Graffiti, Mail St-Roch, Lowertown, Quebec City, c. 1989

Lady Cadogan's Illustrated Games of Solitaire

2008-12-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

Circa 1914, Art Deco Style

Just in Time for Christmas! Sympathy for the Devil!

2008-12-10T13:52:00.000-05:00

Really? Sympathy for the Devil wine just in time for Christmas??? Let everyone have a chance to have a liver like Keith Richard's ! (from the Rolling Stones' Wine site ).
(They could be very nice wines anyway - the Okanagan valley does make good ice wines)

Old Photo - Monarch Butterfly

2008-11-19T14:23:00.001-05:00

Older photo of Monarch

More fall colours

2008-11-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

Red Squirrel eats Black Walnut

2008-11-16T17:30:00.000-05:00

Black walnuts are hard to crack!

tapped sugar bush

2008-11-13T13:19:00.000-05:00

Sugar bush, with lines to tap the sap permanently in place. The lines lead to a building with the evaporators that make maple syrup.

Burritt's Rapids

2008-11-12T14:09:00.000-05:00

A village on the Rideau Canal system, first settled in the 18th Century. A lot of log cabins still are in use in this area - this one has had a modern extension. The marmalade-coloured cat is a resident of the general store.

Fall Colours, with plane

2008-11-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

Part of the Rideau Canal system near Ottawa

St. Paul University Fall(ing) Leaves

2008-11-10T13:37:00.001-05:00

St. Paul University, Ottawa, falling leaves

Pumpkin patch scarecrow

2008-11-07T13:35:00.001-05:00

Just before Hallowe'en - pumpkins for sale - good year for pumpkins.

Turtles in November

2008-11-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

Catching the last rays of sun, the Midland Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta marginata) will spend the winter hibernating in the mud at the bottom of the pond - their blood chemistry will change to let them survive freezing weather.

Puffball Puzzle

2008-10-21T20:50:00.000-04:00

Another sign of Fall - puffballs... but these were right next to this mushroom:

Green Glowing Plastic Skull Halloween Decoration

2008-10-20T22:31:00.000-04:00

Cheap! Covered in Plastic Crystals! Powered by two AAA batteries. Does exactly what it's supposed to do, unlike the Mitchell-Hedges Skull of Doom

Post election late thoughts

2008-10-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

Yes, the CTV Stéphane Dion interview was bad journalism, particularly right before the election - the question that Dion stumbled over was hard to understand even in English, and it's not news that Dion doesn't speak English very well. I'd have explained the question in French and let him answer in English.

Fall Colours

2008-10-18T21:24:00.000-04:00

St. Raphael's Ruins

2008-10-17T20:37:00.001-04:00

The stonemason's art laid bare.
Ruins of St. Raphael's Church, Ontario. Often used as a venue for concert - acoustics remain impressive.

Laying Cable

2008-10-16T17:25:00.001-04:00

The Danish barge Henry P. Lading going upriver to lay 7.9 km of cable that will connect the Wolfe Island wind power project near Kingston to the main grid

Josiah Henson House

2008-10-15T17:38:00.000-04:00

Josiah Henson's house, near Dresden, Ontario. Henson escaped from slavery to Upper Canada, which at the time was the only territory where a former slave could not be captured and forcibly returned to a slave state. He founded a colony for freed slaves and was the model for the lead character in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

He was a Mason and belonged to the Detroit lodge - he made this chair. I don't know if the three links meant he was also an oddfellow.

Oil Wells that began well

2008-10-14T13:46:00.001-04:00

These are the jerker lines that still drive the wells at the first commercially exploited oil field in the world - the oil is still used to make lubricants. The jerkers lines are logs or planks swinging from posts that radiate out from a central engine in the field - this was before it became possible to motorize each pump. The plant is supposed to be something that grows a lot in oily soil.
And in 50 year, the industry had grown to become the 20th Centuries dominant force. Now that it has reached the peak production stage, what will happen?

Shorn Sheep Self Scratcher

2008-10-13T16:50:00.000-04:00

Instead of lawn mowers at the Oil Museum of Canada they have sheep, who over the past 150 years have learned to use the jerker lines as power assisted scratching posts.

They give us free air time, let's make it look like they overcharged us.

2008-10-09T14:22:00.000-04:00

These are two free airtime political broadcasts from the CBC for this year's federal elections:

Marijuana Party - Shouldn't he been as high as a kite when he was reading a poem that compared Harper to Hitler and Conservatives to Nazis? It didn't have that much to do with the party's sole purpose, legalizing marijuana. Saying "Homeboys" sounds silly if you have a Canadian accent, even if you are black. They couldn't get Tommy Chong?

First People's National Party. First use of an exposed nipple in a campaign since Kim Campbell's memorable 'wardrobe malfunction' of 1993. (Sorry I cropped it - didn't want to flag for adult content)

The Conservative's ads, which they paid for, are pretty bad - the 'won't someone think of the children' mother with child praising Harper's tough-on-crime stance and the elderly man wearing what looked like a Royal Canadian Legion blazer and medals - that's something that implies an endorsement by the Legion, and it's not clear that they have taken any position on the elections.

Red Skies Morning

2008-10-08T15:31:00.000-04:00

Phallic Fungi, or the attack of the Dog's Dong

2008-10-07T15:56:00.000-04:00

It did look like what would grow after it had been raining men for a while. These are from the stinkhorn family, probably the Mutinus ravenelii - they erupt overnight from the soil with slime bearing head that insects feast on, spreading their spores. They were gone the next day, when I came back with a better camera.

Sign of Fall

2008-10-06T11:16:00.000-04:00

Taken a few years ago, probably early September. The Monarch Butterfly will fly south to Mexico to lay eggs and then each generation of Monarch will fly a little further north until they get to Canada and do it again.

2008-10-05T20:45:00.000-04:00

Carte de Visite - the Livernois studio operated as a family business for more than a century in Quebec City - J.E. (Jules Ernest) Livernois was the son of the founder. I found one photo by him of the Prince of Wales when he visited Quebec City for the 300th Anniversary in 1908. He may have been appointed photographer to the Prince of Wales as the three feathers badge on the back of his card would suggest. Also I found this tintype of three women with this Carte de Visite but I don't know if it is from Livernois' studio. Click to see the enlargement to see the hand coloured pink on the cheeks.

More like a tart than a pie!

2008-10-02T11:46:00.000-04:00

These are candies I found at the Pacific Mall near Toronto. It says "Mandarin orange pie" from the Hyuga region in Japan - they really are pastries about two inches across. And it's educational!

Elizabeth May in Cornwall

2008-09-26T13:54:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth May jumping on and off a regular VIA train at every stop, giving a speech and jumping back on. TVA guy asks her to speak in French. She said she was against "les coutures" (Clothing Fashions) rather than "Les coupures", the cuts to social spending.

you can't live forever

2008-09-21T12:21:00.000-04:00

I love lurid covers from the 1950s. Harold Q. Masur was a lawyer and President of the Mystery Writers of America. On Bookmooch:

Poet Cop

2008-09-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

Hans Jewinski was a Metro Toronto Police officer who wrote poetry - quite serious solid poems about street life in a large city:
"You died holding
the needle of your life
measured out in bags
too pure even for your
habit to support"
- Death in an Echo Chamber, Poet Cop, 1975.
(Also giving it away on bookmooch - see above or contact me.)