I was first introduced to Jon Stewart when he appeared on Jay Leno. For those of you that don’t know, he hosts The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Recently, he wrote a book entitled America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction and went on CNN’s Crossfire to talk about it, and the upcoming election.

I just downloaded and finished watching the clip, and his appearance was priceless, to say the least. He took the opportunity not to plug his book or his show, but instead to roast the Crossfire hosts over what he feels is harmful to America. Basically, Jon Stewart feels that Crossfire has “a responsibility to the public discourse, and [they] fail miserably”. If you are at all interested in the election (and I know you are, sure beats Canadian politics) then I strongly encourage you to download and watch the clip. Good stuff.

You can get a torrent of the interview here, a transcript here, and Jon’s Daily Show monologue following the Crossfire appearance. Enjoy!

From the Edmonton Journal:

Rookie city councillor Stephen Mandel won an upset victory Monday, defeating Edmonton’s three-term mayor in what had been expected to be one of the tightest races in Alberta’s municipal elections.

Bill Smith conceded to Mandel with about half the polls in, stunning some of the supporters at his campaign headquarters, who felt the outcome of the race was still in doubt.

According to the election results, Mandel got 40.68% of the votes, Bill Smith got 32.57% and Robert Noce got 24.93%. Estimated voter turnout was a paltry 41.79%.

Mandel celebrated his win on Whyte avenue this evening – kind of makes me laugh, he doesn’t look like a party animal now does he? Anyway, check out his site, http://www.mandelformayor.org, as I am sure there will be some updates posted.

I am happy Mandel won, I voted for him this afternoon. I hope you got out and made your vote count as well!

Here is a copy of the LA Times article that we appeared in. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t have the sidebar, so our mention really is quite small – but a mention nonetheless! It is also missing the domain name in this version, but here, I’ll help you out:

http://www.blogosphereradio.com

Read: BlogBloke

Aguhhhh!! I cannot believe it has snowed so much already, this sucks! Any it’s only going to get worse according to Environment Canada:

While the heaviest snow has already fallen however another 2 to 5 centimetres are possible before the system moves into Saskatchewan adding to the 15 to over 25 centimetres already on the ground. Visibility is still reduced under the snow and will continue to be a hinderance to travel this evening.

Read: Environment Canada

This podcasting thing has been getting lots of mainstream media coverage lately, and it’s only going to increase. The LA Times today published an article entitled “Pirate radio’s next generation” in which BlogosphereRadio is mentioned.

First came pirate radio, then Internet radio. But in the last month, a new way of circumventing the big, bad broadcast corporations has emerged: podcasts. Tune in to these blog-based homemade radio shows and you’ll hear any number of things: a weekly…

Pretty cool! Unfortunately you need a subscription (or 14-day free trial membership) to access the article.

Hot news of the day? Google has released Google Desktop. Of course, it is still in beta, but so is everything at Google that they can’t figure out how to make money from.

I’ll probably try it out and post a review later.

You know that site Hot or Not? The one where you see pictures of people and you rate them on a scale of 1 to 10? Well, I never would have guessed it, but apparently they have a Hot or Not for blogs. That’s right, you can rate a blog HOT or NOT!

Now if only I knew what made a blog hot…

I went to Reds tonight with Megan and Nick to see the always entertaining Matthew Good perform. The opening acts were both quite good as well – Limblifter (remember them? Ariels vs Lotus) and Auf Der Maur (Melissa the bassist from Smashing Pumpkins and Hole). Excellent show!

Matt Good played a few songs from his new album, “White Light Rock & Roll Review”, as well as some classics. Most notably, he opened with a modified version of “21st Century Living” and closed (pre-encore) with an acoustic version of “Apparitions”.

He also took some time to note his political views, as expected. He has always been quite the political activist, just in a far less flashy way than say, Bono. In addition to slamming the war in Iraq, the current US presidency, and taking some potshots at Ralph Klein, Good promoted ceasefire.ca – a website devoted to opposing the proposed missile defense system.

The show tonight seemed much more lively, and as Nick and Megan pointed out, Good himself seemed a lot more energetic than when I last saw him perform (last year at The Joint). All in all, it was a good time and a great show!

So a funny thing happened yesterday. I started working on my MATH 222 assignment, when I realized that it wasn’t due until next week. No big deal, I just got a head start then (actually, nearing completion). Today, a similar thing happened, but not so funny.

Turns out that at the class I missed last week, the prof announced that the date of the midterm changed from today (when I thought it was, when the syllabus said it was) to Friday. So I made the effort to study last night and this morning, and I don’t even have the exam until Friday. I was not impressed.

The moral of the story is, attend class!

When the Segway HT was finally announced, I was quite impressed. I thought it was a good idea, with some really neat technology. Unfortunately, I don’t think there was a big enough problem for it to solve, and thus acceptance has been slow.

The Segway Concept Centaur, on the other hand, looks awesome:

I can definitely see something like that replacing golf carts, go-karts, or bumper cars. Watch the video, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s like a self-balancing, light-weight ATV.

Like the mythical half-horse, half-man of Greek lore, Concept Centaur combines the best of several technologies to create an innovative whole. The result of exploration by Segway LLC’s product development team, Concept Centaur will challenge the way you think about four-wheeled transportation.

Concept Centaur combines proprietary dynamic stabilization technology with advanced propulsion and suspension systems, and an intuitive user interface to create a unique four-wheel device that is easily controllable on two or four wheels. Its full suspension and aggressive rider positioning provide an exhilarating ride for one or two people while maintaining control over a variety of terrain. Its rugged performance, zero emissions, and quiet operation make it a good low-impact way to explore the world. Its power and versatility make it suitable for a variety of indoor and outdoor recreational and commercial applications.

Now if only they could produce these things for a relatively inexpensive price!