Words Versus Images.

I spotted this billboard on a bus this morning, and immediately noted what could be considered a problem. This is supposed to be encouragement for you to worship God. Yet the arrow on the "U turn allowed" sign points downwards, which can be taken to mean that "getting closer to God" is actually bad for you. Yes, that sign may be accurate to real life, but it belies the message they're trying to get across. It would be more appropriate, in more ways than one, if the arrow pointed upward instead.

For those of you not familiar with it the United Church is a uniquely Canadian church, founded from a merging of several Protestant groups in 1925. It is Canada's largest Protestant denomination, but how much longer that will be the case remains to be seen. The church has shed quite a few members over the years as its clergy and beliefs have become increasingly liberal, leading to more conservative members finding other places of worship.

Welcome To Saskatoon.

With fall classes about to start at the University of Saskatchewan, Kelsey Institute, and other schools in town there will be a lot of folks coming to live in Saskatoon for the first time. So hello to anyone of that description who might be reading this blog. I hope you find your stay here successful.

Better Late Than Never.

I really should have posted this last week when he was here. Oh well, here's a shot of Dudley during his yearly visit to Saskatoon. It's too bad I don't have some more lively shots of him that would reflect his behaviour around a crowd, but I never seem to end up with any.

Drain The Syrup.

Tuning around the shortwave bands tonight I listened off and on to Radio Japan in Japanese on 5960 khz between 0200 and 0300 UTC. The program was a music program, which should have been nice. Unfortunately most of what they played was treacly versions of Okinawan shima uta, including a version of Shoukichi Kina's classic "Hana." Schmaltzy strings are perhaps appropriate for some sorts of music, but Okinawan classics isn't one of them.

Tribute.

Les Paul's death yesterday at 94 has of course prompted numerous tributes. Some are in places you might not have expected, such as Jeph Jacques' webcomic Questionable Content. Of course this is because Jacques is a musician himself.

I first became aware of his death in a very appropriate place, the Saskatoon branch of Long and McQuade Music. I didn't strum any Les Paul guitars yesterday however.

Power.

This evening as part of the change I got for spending a twenty I received a ten dollar bill with the serial number pretext BTU. This struck me as very appropriate. BTU is short for British Thermal Unit, which is a measurement of energy. A bill is the monetary equivalent of a unit of energy. We use dollars to indicate the strength of the economy, the value of transactions, and so on, just as a BTU is used to measure the heating capacity of a heater, the cooling ability of an air conditioner and so on .

A Tip For Mark Steyn.

You could save yourself a lot of time and effort, yet make the same amount of money, if you just wrote "THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING TO GET US! WAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!" over and over again for many of your articles. After all that's all they really amount to.



Nativist arguments have had a boring consistency for two centuries or so, namely that the hated Other is going to outbreed "us." In the past it was the Irish and the French, today it's the Muslims and, in the US at least, Mexicans and other Latin Americans. I'm sure that people will be saying the same thing about whoever the "enemy" is 50 or 100 years from now.

Loud.

I just came back from having supper with my parents and aunt and uncle at the Saskatoon branch of Original Joe's Restaurant. We all liked our food, but the restaurant itself is loud. Very loud, which is kind of a turnoff for me. I wondered at one point if the waitresses end their shifts with ringing ears. Management seems to favour short skirts on their waitresses, as only one was wearing pants. It certainly looks a lot different from the Burger King it used to be.

Gas In Saskatoon, August 7, 2009.

Gas in Saskatoon is currently 103.9 cents a litre. Problems with an Alberta gas refinery may be the purported reason for the increase.

Reports Of My Demise...

Wait, has anyone actually seen any?

Yeah, I'm still around. I just haven't gotten around to posting anything for a bit. There will be a post tomorrow, so there will be at least two this month.

And by the way, birthers! Ha, made your search engine hit refer!