Well, the internet taketh away, and the internet giveth back. I logged off Saturday morning, went to log back on an hour or so later, and couldn't. Now, I can. What's changed? Danged if I know.

I'm sure I could think of some snarky connection between "convenience" and, oh, say the Harper government's plan for doing something (i.e. nothing) about global warming, but, hey - after a totally charming Friday evening, followed by a day of brilliant sunshine and blue skies - my mood's too good to slag Stevie.

See? Life's not all decayed buildings and bad news.

Hmmmmm, not so Edenic after all?

Here's an up-date on yesterday's comments regarding our Crazy Conservative leadership's handling of the Afghan prisoner problem. Which, as you read the story, you'll see goes from "There's no problem," to, "O.K., there's been a problem, but we fixed it a few days ago," to "Well, actually, we fixed it just yesterday," to, "Um, right, we're working on fixing it and expect to finalise the fix in the next few days," back to, "Problem? There's no problem." You have to love these guys, especially if you're a George Bush fan - they actually make him look competent!

See? Even the poorest end of town has its nice part. Granted, this is the extent of it, but...

Usually I'm given to mockery of, or ranting about, the criminal cretinism of G. Bush & Co. - let's face it, at their level of both criminality and cretinism, they're easy targets - but, today, it's our very own Canadian Allia..., damn!...Conservative Party. Yes, they've finally been forced to release a report they had denied the existence of. They were forced to do so through the magic of the Access to Information Act (an Act the Conservatives truly hate). The Conservatives have been going on and on about how rosy the picture in Afghanistan is, and how kindly and gently the Afghan security forces treated any prisoners we turned over to them. The report suggests that the Conservatives, as is their wont, have been fibbing. Although, maybe they've just agot a more Bush/Gonzales idea of what constitutes torture and murder (oh, yay - I managed to work in those two boneheads after all).

Who have, of course, not been inactive. This just in from the New York Times. Life would be just so much easier for Dumbya and Alberto if they could just arrest anyone they felt like and stick 'em in a hole till hell freezes over. Why, oh why, must these bleeding heart lawyers insist that D&A actually obey the law? It's so inconvenient.

A slightly different view of yesterday's chaotic scene. What I want to know is, did the three people who had been sitting at the table leave via the ladder? Through the door? Or did they just walk out past the junk?

Meanwhile...O.K., Dog People, start checking out your dogs. Which way are those tails wagging?

It was just another day in reno-world...

You have to admire some people's optimism, don't you? I wonder if any production companies have actually used the building. And, given the neighbourhood, I wonder how many pairs of jeans that billboard has sold.

It's all about scale, isn't it? One little doorway, up to which one truck can back and have its cargo unloaded one box at a time. Looming in the background, 2 cranes that can each lift an entire truck, literally, full of goods into (or out of) a ship's hold in minutes. Isn't modern technology wonderful? Probably depends on which end of it you're on. That "scale" thing again.

More cheering news on the Virginia tragedy. Yes, apparently it's as easy to buy heavy weaponry in Virginia as it is to get an extra side of fries at the fast-food joint of your choice. It'd sure be nice if voters would start holding politicians to account for giving the NRA everything it wants.

No, you can't ride your mountain bike full speed down this trail. It's shared with little old folks, dogs, kids and the occasional horse (not to mention photographers). But, you can take a pleasant walk.

So, apparently, even if you do build it, they still might not come.

Now that's a confusing hunk of machinery.

O.K., the Virginia thing. One - "he was a loner". No! Really?!?

Two - the amazing stupidity of the "gun people". "If more people'd'a bin carryin' guns, there'd'a bin a lot fewer daid." People actually wrote in to the New York Times's "Comments" page associated with their articles on the event saying that.
Would it be so terrible to at least have a minimum I.Q. requirement for gun ownership? Nothing too strenuous - just higher than that of the average small mammal.

There you are - the answer to the ever-pressing question, "What goes on in the depths of a massive convention centre/hotel on a Sunday afternoon?". Evidently, not much. I knew you'd want to know.

And, since it's been another "Big Night at the Movies", go get/see "Volver". Gotta love Pedro Almodovar.

Wires. If you live in an urban area, they're everywhere. And, unless you're one of those photographers who thinks nothing of Photoshopping out ugly details of reality, they really mess up a lot of otherwise good shots. So, I decided to photograph the wires themselves. Yes, I'm fighting back.

By the way, "The Science of Sleep" is a brilliant movie.

A bit of a break from my usual urban fare. After all, we're all going green now, aren't we?

This is the back end of a bookstore. Now, is it just my mood (too much red wine), or is the irony obvious?

Tony's demise is being publicised in the strangest places. Although, you have to admit, this location has a certain "Hoffa-esque" flair.

A demise worth celebrating, however, is that of Don Imus's show. He who lives by the stupid remark, funnily enough, dies by the stupid remark.

The world took a sad hit today - Kurt Vonnegut died. The first book of his that I read was "Player Piano". I read it when I was, oh, fourteen? Fifteen? Good book, though at that age my appreciation for life in the corporate world was still a little under-formed. And then along came "Slaughterhouse Five". Anybody out there not read "Slaughterhouse Five"? At the time (for those just arrived on this planet), the Vietnam war was in full swing, two Kennedys had been shot, as had Martin Luther King, not to mention that the National Guard had summarily executed four antiwar protesters at Kent State, and Richard Nixon reigned in America. They were not optimistic days. Which is, perhaps, why Vonnegut's phrase, "So it goes," rang so true. The good guys were losing in a very big way. Kind of like today. Except, of course, that today it's even worse. Feel free to supply the tagline.

Looks kind of peaceful, doesn't it? Too bad it's the entrance to one of the older wings of Vancouver General Hospital - unless you work here, odds are there's not a lot of fun waiting on the other side of those doors.

So, off I go in search of things to photograph. The weather's a tad gray, but that's O.K. - better light, right? As soon as I get to the part of town I want to take pictures in, the gray turns to actual rain. No problem! I need a new MP3 player, and there's a store with one I've been looking at on sale. Of course, they're out of stock. Defeated, I head home. Naturally, as soon as I'm back in my neighbourhood, the sun comes shining through. But! I also find the MP3 player I was looking for (or so I think). Yay! I buy it. I take it home, thinking it's a Sansa player. I start going through the package - hmmmmm, no mention of Sandisk or Sansa. Sure looks like one, though. Hmmmmm.... Get on the web, look up Sandisk's site, search for the model - ain't no such thing. Uh-oh. Look more closely at the thing. No actual manufacturer at all. An instruction book from hell. Back to the store tomorrow. Life's just so hard, isn't it?

Of course, nothing like having to install motion sensors in one's apartment in order to ward off unwanted, possibly violent, visitors. Jeez.

This is my Easter picture. It was just so obviously the right choice.

Easter, for those of us in the "Nonbeliever" category, presents a lot of interesting aspects. For example, how did a holiday celebrating death-by-torture, an early version of "Dawn of the Dead", and chocolate bunnies and eggs ever come into being? The "death-by-torture"+"Dawn of the Dead" thing I can kind of get (guy, unjustly killed comes back for revenge - of a very sneaky sort - on his killers), but what's with the chocolate bunnies and eggs? That it seems to me, is a central mystery of Christianity.

I also like the fact that, depending on how you interpret the "three days" thing, you can see the story as the origin of the Protestant work ethic. If it's three days, inclusive, then Jesus got up on Sunday, but, if it's three days exclusive, then he got up on Monday. "Come on, Jesus - another Monday, another work week, let's go..."

Phew! Back in touch with the world. It's really a problem being the absent-minded sort. I changed credit cards (same company, different number) so, naturally, the old number went dead. Which meant no more auto-payment to the ISP, which meant they shut me down. Oops.

And, just to make sure today, too, is covered....

You'd never catch me in a place like this. Books? Bah!

Meanwhile, in case you've been wondering, my ISP seems to have died. Working fine yesterday morning. Not at all by yesterday afternoon. Sooooooo, there might be a brief interruption in this fabulously exciting blog.

There's a lot to be said in favour of spring, isn't there?

Interesting gardening style, don't you think?

Nice to see the Bush administration taking a couple more good hits - the Supremes dumped on the EPA, Alberto Gonzales cancels his vacation plans to study up ways to explain his lies in regard to the federal prosecutor firings. Given the high-powered lawyers who are coaching him, how much do you think Al's studies are costing taxpayers? Given that, according to him, he did nothing wrong, what's he need the coaching for? Aside from all that evidence suggesting that he did, that is.

Meanwhile, up here in the Far North, our current fearless leader and his team seem to be working hard to figure out a means of scuttling gay marriage. Apparently they're suffering from a confusion between things said and acts committed since they're trying to claim that a minister's refusal to perform such a ceremony is simply an exercise of that minister's freedom of speech. These guys just won't quit. One thing having no brains will do for you - fabulous persistence. I'd use mules as an example, but I don't want to insult them.

Wandering around town these days, I feel like I'm on a sort of pre-emptive archaeological mission. My guess is that this place will be gone within the year, replaced by a huge, soulless condo tower. It will join the dozens already built over the past 10 years.