Well that was an interesting election don’t you think? Especially since the Liberals and NDP did not win enough seats to form a majority, and so must seek the support of the Bloc (Duceppe has pledged support). All in all, I think we’ll be back at the polls sooner than the party leaders are willing to admit.

And while Martin pointed out that there has been successful minority governments in the past, such as the government led by Pearson that adopted our Maple Leaf flag, the average lifespan of such governments is about a year and a half. Especially taking into consideration the party leaders we have today, I give the new minority at best a year and a half of existence. During that time period, I am willing to bet nothing (relatively speaking of course) will get done.

In fact, I think the only thing that might get accomplished is another referendum in Quebec. I say bring it on, and I hope the separatists win. If you don’t want to be in Canada, get out you ungrateful bastards!

Now the real question is this: will the drama of this election finally be more interesting than the corresponding American election? Not likely!

Today is election day, get out and cast your vote! I suppose I was one of the 20% undecided when I went to vote this morning, so it was kind of a decide on the spot sort of thing. I decided to ignore my local constituents (would have voted Conservative) and to ignore party platforms (would have voted Green) and instead based my vote on who I would want as the next Prime Minister of Canada.

Go Team Martin!

One of the things I have been working on lately is my own application for posting to a blog using a Tablet PC! I did some searching and really only found two applications that do this so far; BLink! which has no website or download to try and to my knowledge has never been released, and WebCamNotes which worked well but didn’t do what I wanted it to. I also don’t think WebCamNotes was really designed to be an ink blog tool.

I now have the application working with .Text blogs and hopefully I can make it work with others sooner rather than later. Soon as we get the whole server situation figured out, I will create the website and make PostInk! available to download.

Posted using PostInk

Among the many commonly held stereotypes about Canadians, one of them is that as a whole, we are an indecisive country. We are fence sitters, unwilling to go entirely one way or another. Well tonight, after reading about Monday’s election, I discovered that our indecisiveness could select our next prime minister!

Did you know that the Governor General could decide who the next prime minister is? Neither did I until I read this article. It’s quite extensive, so I recommend you read it. Basically it says that if no party wins a majority, the Liberals can seek the confidence of the House, even if they have fewer seats than the Conservatives. Yet if Martin’s government is then quickly defeated in a confidence motion, Adrienne Clarkson could choose to either call another election, or appoint the Conservatives the task of forming government.

Interesting indeed. And all this time I though the Governor General was just a figurehead left over from the days of British rule.

I acquired a lot of music yesterday, almost 400 tracks, including the Spider-Man 2 Soundtrack. I also made my first music download purchase yesterday from Puretracks.com where I bought the old Lostprophets album, the new Social Code album, and Fefe Dobson’s single “Don’t Go”. The experience wasn’t as bad as I expected 🙂

Anyway, get the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack! It’s really, really good! There is a total of 15 tracks on the disc, and the overall sound is loud rock. My two favorite songs so far are “We Are” by Ana, and “Ordinary” by Train. Some other great ones are “Lucky You” by lostprophets, “Gifts And Curses” by Yellowcard, and “Did You” by Hoobastank. Another track that is quite good is “Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional. You can see the full track listing here.

I am really glad the soundtrack is great because the movie is sure to be amazing! Like I said the overall sound is loud rock, but unlike The Punisher OST, this one is energetic and upbeat for the most part. One surprise would be Maroon 5’s “Woman”, which sounds like the Maroon 5 you would expect, so it sounds slightly out of place with the louder songs around it. All in all, excellent soundtrack!

I also got the new Velvet Revolver album yesterday, Contraband, and it is really good too! Definitely recommended.

My apologies for the delay on this one, but my site was down all of yesterday. Soon everything will be on the new server and it’ll be all good once again 🙂

Happy Belated Birthday Sharon! To celebrate, I think you should start a blog 😉

Kaley Cuoco is very hot!

After getting back into town tonight I went to BP’s with Dickson and Andrew. After dinner we met Megan and Nick at the theater to see the new movie Dodgeball.

If you only see one comedy over the summer, see this movie! (well, see Shrek2 also, but this one rocked). It is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time – I was laughing so hard at one point I couldn’t see the screen anymore because of the tears welling up in my eyes!

I kind of expected this one to be a trailer-movie, but don’t be fooled. The trailer is extremely funny, but its just the tip of the iceberg! The movie is full of many more funny scenes and sequences. Like Andrew said, whoever wrote the script for this movie was a genius.

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!

So I am writing this a little after the fact, but that’s what happens when the work starts! Friday was a busy day, and extremely hot in Victoria. The temperature outside was easily over 30 again, so it was kind of nice to have air conditioning all day! My job consisted of taking pictures of the various presenters and events, selling CSLA t-shirts, and doing the minutes for the two AGM’s that were held at the end of the day.

After the meetings ended, Martin, Jenninfer, Toni (Jenn’s friend) and I went for dinner at the house of one of Jenn’s past graduate students. We had delicious salmon off the barby and went through about four bottles of wine. It was delicious!

This morning was early as I had to be at the conference center for 8:30. After locating the t-shirts and getting them put away safely I basically got to enjoy the free food, take pictures, and listen in on the sessions until noon. My flight left Victoria at 2, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. Such wonderful weather!

All in all it was a great trip for me – more relaxing than work which is nice for a change. Victoria is definitely a place I would visit again!

Ah the last day of rest before the work begins! Today was another relaxed day. I met Martin at noon and we went for lunch and wandered around downtown, checking out the various shops and eateries. Eventually we decided to cross the bridge and check out the view from the very swank Delta hotel – awesome view, facing the Empress and legislature buildings. We took the ferry back which was neat.

After relaxing in the hotel for a bit it was time for dinner and we just checked out a little cafe and had salad. Much too hot out to eat anything too heavy. After going with no Starbucks for the first part of the trip I hit two different ones today! Nothing like a good Frappucino on a hot day 🙂

Tomorrow I being my role as cameraman/secretary. Should be interesting! I just hope the conference center is air conditioned!