This just in from the "It'll Be a Cold Day in Hell" department. Yep, plagiarism - the most heinous crime committed to date by a member of the Bush administration. And the current temperature in Hell? Still a nice, toasty inferno, obviously.

"I think I can, I think I can, I think........"

I created the above post a few hours back, and, 'cause it's bedtime and I'm always curious about these things, I checked StatCounter one last time. All of a sudden there's 64 hits on the site. So, it's mystery time again. Not that I'm not charmed to have all these nice people drop by, however briefly, for a look, but...? Kuala Lumpur? Nairobi? Santiago? Pleasanton (it's in California)? Moose Jaw (where else but right here in the Great White North?)? Welcome to the photos, everybody! I hope you liked something about the site and that you'll come back sometime.

But, what's with the sudden 10x increase? I'd love it if someone out there would drop me a line.

He moved through Chinatown, only one thought in his mind, "Giddes. I've got to find Jake Giddes." He never did, of course.

Nope. Nothing connected at all. Just a photograph.

Well, phew - D.D. Lewis won. The world isn't totally nuts after all.

But, speaking of competitions, I love this story from the N.Y. Times. Let's face it - the only way John McCain's gonna win the election next fall is if he graduates with a Ph.D. from the school in the above picture.

Hands up those who think Keith Moon should be deified.

Now, on the other hand, "There Will Be Blood" (have I mentioned this before?) is a very good movie. Daniel Day Lewis better get the Oscar, too.

Well, this photo has nothing to do with what I'm about to write about. At least, I don't think it does. Maybe by the time I'm done I'll be able to come up with a connection. Oops! It suddenly comes to me - train wreck!

Which would be an at least somewhat appropriate description of "Vantage Point". How were Forest Whitaker, John Hurt, Dennis Quaid and Sigourney Weaver conned into making this hunk 0' junk? Did massive (and I mean massive) quantities of money change hands? Were they given serious doses of hallucinatory medications? Something incredibly powerful had to have been administered to these poor, hapless saps to get them to utter such immortal lines as, "Are you injured, Mr. President?" "I am, but it's not important."

"Vantage Point" is a movie you should do anything in your power to avoid having to sit through. There is nothing - let me repeat that (a little trick I learned from the movie, oddly enough, except that I know when to quit) - nothing even vaguely redeeming about this movie. Not even, as some folks have tried to allow, the grand finale car chase (wow - a car chase for a finale! Who'd'a thunk o' that?!?). Dennis Quaid has spent the better part of the last - I dunno, 20 minutes? - of the movie chasing the Bad Guys (carrying POTUS in their ambulance) through the streets of, um, some city in Spain (though it's really Mexico City). They zip through intersections, up onto sidewalks, hurtle through crowds of people (fear not - not a single Spaniard is so much as grazed), bounce off cars, trucks and concrete, and all at incredibly high speeds complete with smoking tires, 4-wheel drift and a quick drive down some stairs and generally cause a lot of mayhem and, you know what? At the end of it all they've gone an entire seven (yes, that's right, seven. as in 7, as in 5+2, 6+1...whatever) blocks. Seven blocks. Just how bad is traffic in Spain anyway?

I could go on to list even more idiocies in this movie (and, believe me, I'd love to, but it's past 1:00 a.m. and I shoulda been in bed hours ago), but, to sum up - skip "Vantage Point". You know it's a bad sign when the audience spends more time laughing than gasping at a "thriller".

Aren't warehouses exciting? Well, maybe not, but - a sunny day in Vancouver? You darn betcha. Look at those shadows!

Maybe, but too late to save this place. Of course, those of us on bicycles, well... On the other hand, since virtually everything we all consume during the course of a day relies on getting to us via gasoline-powered transport, well......oh, dear.

O.K., I'm sure it's just my terrible grasp of all things economic, but would someone please explain to me how taking money at one point and giving it all back later actually accomplishes something meaningful? I'm sooooo confused.

The original "Where's Waldo?". Hard to believe there are people out there who find biology boring.

Look! Up in the sky! Etc., etc., etc. But, consider this a little preview for all you Olympics fans. Yep, you'll be ridin' one of these at least once or twice come 2010, should you decide to drop on by for a little speed skating, or hockey, or....

Which is an appropriate photograph for the fact that I'm listening to an album (O.K., a CD ripped to my computer) that I first bought (here we go again) nearly 30 years ago (crap, I hate that!). The thing is, I haven't actually heard any of it (other than one track) in about 10 years. And yet, as soon as any given song starts up, it's all there in my mind, right away. Ain't it amazing how this stuff sticks?

I've been a big fan of the New York Review of Books for a long (really, really long) time. Got an interest in art? Literature? Science? History? Politics? Philosophy? Anything? Go buy a copy.

And now, from the "Good Help Is So Hard to Find" file...

Not to mention the "Life Gets Weird" file. According to StatCounter, I had 521 hits on my Wordpress blog today. Excuse me? This is a blog that's gotten, on its best day ever (other than today, of course) 41 hits. On the vast majority of days, the total is more like 15 or 20. Ummmm.....? Exactly. I, too, was mystified, so I started looking at the referring sites. Ever heard of "stumbleupon.com"? I hadn't. Until today, that is. But, maybe that's just a sign of how out of touch I am. Apparently a couple of stumblers-upon did, in fact, stumble upon the site and they did whatever one does to point out such a find, and....... Yikes!

I know, I know - people got hurt...but...well..."A spokeswoman for the bus operator said the driver swerved to avoid one moose before the vehicle hit another one that came through the windshield." You just don't read this kind of thing every day, you know?

I'm telling you, serendipity's a magical thing. Like I was saying yesterday, by the time I get to this blog, I've posted the same picture elsewhere, with no thought (usually) given to what I might write here. And, frankly, until about a second and a half ago, I had no idea that this picture might have a connection to what I'd been planning to remark on today. So....

""Mr. Obama's account of his younger self and drugs significantly differs from the recollections of others who do not recall his drug use."
-- New York Times, Feb 10, 2008"

If this isn't a sign that things have changed, I don't know what is. Barack seems to be trying to claim that he did, he did too use drugs when he was young! His old friends are all going, "Barack? Drugs? Naw - no way, man!", which, during each and every presidential election since the sixties is exactly what any candidate would have wanted their old friends to say. Life's just getting too weird.

The tie-in? The view in the picture is one my highschool pals, Bob and Wayne, and I often looked out over (albeit in the middle of the night) from the "Mountain" in Hamilton while wrecked on acid. We did, we did use drugs in our youth!

I post to three different sites every day - Flickr, a blog on Wordpress, and this one. This one is the last one I post to since the others are just pictures without words (see? you could just go to one of them and avoid all this nonsense). What this means is that I've always chosen the picture I'm going to post here before I actually think about what I might write about. Which means that any relation between the picture and the accompanying blather is pretty much purely coincidental. So......

I mentioned the other day that John McCain, given that he's now the Republican candidate for the presidency, had a chance to tell the bible thumpers where to stick the Good (?!?) Book. Well, so much for that little fantasy. The McCain candidacy - an old wreck parked in front of an edifice slated for demolition. What can I say?

It's faux Smalltown, Anywhere, folks. Well, O.K., it's Main Street, Vancouver, at midnight, but...

And, speaking of Smalltown, Anywhere - it's Hillary! It's Barack! It's Hillary! It's Barack! Who's in the lead? Who knows? They're neck-and-neck, folks. Ain't it excitin'?

What can I tell you? There's just something about abandoned parking garages, you know?

Yep, still diverted by that midnight parkade. They're very weird places when they're empty. Huge amounts of space devoted to nothing but storing empty cars.

Well, it just seemed appropriate - Year of the Rat? Skull of the rat.

Speaking of which, Bitt did. Bite it, that is. So now the burning question is, will McCain finally tell the Bible Belt Blitherers to stuff their holy hypocrisy and hit the road? Does McCain want to do this, would be the associated question. What if he really believes in all the crap those cretins spout? Boy, that'd be depressing. But, this is his big chance. It's not like those morons will turn around and start holding prayer meetings with Huckabee. He's about as electable as the rat at the top of this post. Which means the Cretins for Christ might soon have a choice to make: shut-up or get shut out.

Kinda spooky, huh?

Go rent "Pow Wow Highway". Darn fine film.

Wheeeeeee....it's a hot night in the U.S. of A. tonight. Hills and Bary are running neck and neck as I type this. California hasn't closed yet. In Massachusetts, it would seem that the Kennedy voice - at least when it's Teddy's - isn't quite as powerful as folks might have thought. Hills snuffed Bary there.

On the Republican side, it's looking more and more like Jumpin' John McCain's going to be their choice. Bitt's only taken one state so far - weirdly, it was Massachusetts. Hmmmm.....

The fact that the Reps seem to be settling quickly on one candidate is a bit scary. It would mean Jumpin' will be able to campaign his little brains out from now till November while Hill and Bary have to keep on slagging away at each other till the Final Big Selection. That might not be good.

But, let's face it - come November? will anyone really be stupid enough to vote Republican? I mean, really? Really?

Nothing like a parking garage in the middle of the night for some great photo opportunities. At least, if you're a fan of the "vacant" aesthetic.

Meanwhile, tomorrow's the Big Day in the U.S. The great thing about the Democratic race is that it's a no-lose situation. Hilly or Bary (anybody actually ever called him that, do you think?), it almost doesn't matter. In the first (and most obvious) place, anybody's going to be better than the Chief Chump currently screwing up the country and the rest of the world with it. Secondly, either one's going to lead the country in a new direction - a much, much better direction. Were I an American, I'd be jumping up and down, clapping my hands with glee, champing at the bit to get into a voting booth and vote for whichever one of them the Party settles on.

As for the Republicans, well, with a little luck Bitt will bite it tomorrow, leaving John McCain the poor soul who will go down to defeat next fall. Too bad, really, since McCain's actually a reasonable (allowing for the huge handicap of being a Republican) guy. Hmmmmmmm......an interesting choice for V.P., no? It'd be a darn bold move on either Hill's or Barack's part, but.......dang interesting. And it might have the added benefit of causing a major cerebrovascular accident in Rush Limbaugh. Now that would really send 2008 out on a high note!

Vancouver's a great place to go out for dinner in. It's a small town, and almost anywhere you might go will likely be in walking distance of your home. Which, as long as dinner goes on long enough, will give you lots of opportunity to wander slowly home, taking pictures.

There's a flaw in this story, I know, but....

Oh, and the "title" for this photograph is "Dive". For at least two reasons. Details - it's all in the details.

Life's not fair. In ever so many ways.

Naw, I'm not being cryptic. It's just that some things take longer to explain than a photo blog really allows. Like "life", for instance.

Life can be so confusing, can't it? Up? Down? Coming? Going?

Well, I think I'll go get my hair cut.