September 28, 2000

"A Gallant Political Warrior"

pierre elliott trudeau was the first politician i ever voted for, the only politician i felt safe being governed by, the only politician i've ever respected, wholeheartedly. the only one i've ever held sincere affection for. the man blew the stifling cobwebs of victorian/british sensibilities off this country and made us into, not just a modern country, but a just society. he had a vision of canada that was greater than any province, region or special interest group, so let his legacy be a reminder to think inclusively and expansively... a reminder that men like stockwell day, lucien bouchard and mike harris have small, fractious, exclusionary and ultimately harmful agendas. i will always be grateful to trudeau and remember him with respect and kindness. he was a great leader and a good man.

» trudeau 'shaped soul' of canada
» descriptive biography
» our best and brightest
» comments from sperare (added 09/29)
» canadians reflect (added 09/29)
» more individual reflections (added 09/29)

September 27, 2000

if you only visit one weblog today, go here. you'll find enough great linkage there to keep you busy for a week, at least...!

well, what's happened to jonathan...? bloggerland's collective IQ plummets substantially without him around.

September 17, 2000

(sammy here - tracy fans can choose to skip over this if they wish...!)

even though i've been abandoning the greater part of the net lately, i just had to add my $0.2 to the olympics theme... i didn't watch the whole opening ceremony (i taped it though), but i did get to see the end with the last leg of the torch run - it was magnificent! up until now i haven't felt any stirring of national pride at all but to see these fantastic female olympians take the flame up to its resting place for the duration of the games... i could have shed a tear through sheer patriotism. shhh, don't tell anyone.

(ha! i was just trying to find anything about the opening ceremony that i could, my current search engine fave, google, has a cute addition to their normal logo. go check it out, it may only be there for a few days..!)

<searching> nothing on the opening ceremony just yet, but if you want to know about the torch relay, check out this series of photos.

and in all of the olympic hoo-ha going on at the moment, don't forget about the paralympics - these physically and in some case mentally disabled athletes are as good, if not better, than the athletes competing right now.

alright! australia's winning the medal tally right now. 7..! we're beating the americans by 3 (it's 5:11pm EST daylight savings time in melbourne at this moment)... couldn't be happier. ;-) (er... no offense to nathan, my quite american baby. oops...)

September 15, 2000

wow the australian's have really outdone themselves for at least the opening ceremonies of the olympics. it was fun, interesting, beautiful and emotional. some of the most impressive highlights for me included the girl who sang "heroes live forever". she sang huge, but without the screaming hystrionics you get with our north american singers like mariah, celine, christina, or whitney. the dog tap segment was cool too... i guess they have a lot of irish in them or something. the aboriginal segments were great, i completely love real culture (as opposed to citified museum crap), and the way they did the lighting of the torch was so unusual...! when runner cathy freeman lit it, and the circle of fire enclosed around her, i was freaking out; "how's she gonna get outta there...?" 8-) well the torch lifted up and over her. it was as cool as the other games when the archer lit the torch with a single arrow. oh yah, and the stilt people, that was incredibly cool...! however...

it just completely sucks that we won't see much of the games live because of the freaking time difference...! i hope that cbc sportsworld, tsn, or somebody will be playing events live in the middle of the night. i'll try and stay up to watch as much as i can 8-)

it also bears mentioning that the games are an incredibly expensive event to host... how much money was spent building new arenas etc. instead of replacing school-children's old and outdated text books, or instead of hiring more doctors and nurses for understaffed hospitals. i hope there will be some serious trickle down benefits to the infrastructure of sydney and the rest of australia. my own city has a very good chance of hosting the olympics soon but i'm awfully conflicted about it. we've got other things that need to be taken care of first, things that if left untended will lead us to becoming like... like any other large city. (i had an attack of politeness there. *shock*)

September 13, 2000

woo...! RingNet.org is all ready to go, so i'll begin moving the webgoddess and geekgoddess rings outta yahoo on the weekend...

September 12, 2000

if you want to know precisely what is wrong with yahoo's version of webring.org take a look at this list. it's pretty pathetic. i don't know where james finds the wherewithall to actually compile and continually revise this list, as things continue to look worse and worse.

definition from dictionary.com...

ya·hoo (yäh, y-)
n., pl. ya·hoos.
A person regarded as crude or brutish. see synonyms at boor.
yahoo·ism n.

see below posts for many examples of yahooism.

September 10, 2000

read the informative and comprehensive article at richard lowe's internet tips regarding the death of webring.org

from the Y!W (yahoo owned webring.org) TOS (terms of service agreement):

"8(c) With respect to all other Content you elect to post to other publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed."

uhm, hmmm... yipes...?! are they trying to own the content of a ring's member sites, and the ring's name and graphics...?

• official yahoo/webring news

September 07, 2000

read a mythical conversation which takes place september 2002, the 2nd anniversary of yahoo's takeover of webring.

look, an anti-yahoo! webring, running on the ringsurf system.

yahoo took another hit today on the stock market - they lost 5 1/8 points (4.57%). since january, they've lost 50% of their stock and right now their cash flow is rated at -41.98% of industry standard. hmmm.

September 06, 2000

the day the webring died sung to the tune of don mclean's 'american pie'. way to go toddybear, very funny. just pondering how long it will take the folks at pyra to sell out to some huge corp. like yahoo!, making all this bloggy bliss go to hell too, just like webring.org did.

wanna see how goddamned ugly the new ring code everyone who belongs to a webring.org ring will have to put on their sites...? go on take a gander, but don't say you weren't warned. maybe put on some goggles... stand at a distance from your computer. get out a box of kleenex and let your significant other know you'll need a shoulder to cry on...

examples of the new yahoo! webring nav bar

note how it doesn't allow you to insert a link back to your ring's homepage... now go to your webring's list page and note how there's no link to your ring's homepage there either. now go to your webring management and note how they've removed or automated (with no option to turn specific features on or off) so many of the management options that you can no longer manage your ring, in your way. now sit back and realize that your webring has now become a portal leading only to yahoo and that you are simply a figurehead and not really the master of your own ring.

feel that slight bit of pressure to your system...? that's you being smothered by a big fluffy corporate pillow.

well screw it, i'm running my rings from my own domain using a very easy to install ringlink script. any of my ring members reading this should be prepared to start migrating from the old system to mine within 2 weeks.

• official yahoo/webring news
• ringlink
• ringsurf

September 02, 2000

saveastray.com it's just like the hunger site, but you click to save a stray animal instead...! nice :-)

the new changes to the webring system will take place on september 5th - i'll be getting rid of most of my ring memberships... there's no way i'm going to get a yahoo id for each ring membership i have for my seperate websites, it's not worth it. not to mention this server side nav bar that's going to replace our html fragments. no way i'm belonging to any ring that forces me to use anything but a simple text code. as well, i'll be removing the rings i own from the webring.org system and run them from my own server using the ringlink script...so if you belong to the webgoddess, geekgoddess, or geekgirls rings you'd better check your email for updates from me - in a few weeks those rings will be moved out of the webring.org system.