Ah, another sunny weekend. Of course, the one in this photo took place about a year ago, but....this weekend was sunny, too! The problem was, instead of wandering the streets looking for photos, I rode my bike across town to exercise my civic duty. Yep. it was time for the Party of my choice to choose its mayoral candidate for fall's civic election, so I went to mark my ballot for the guy I favour. The ride to the polling place was a piece of cake - all downhill. You know what that means for the homeward ride. Heck of a nice day for it, though.

And, a sad update. Yep, Kansas is at it again. The home of cretinous creationism, unintelligent design, and, well, the winner-take-all prize winners in the "World's Largest Concentration of Stupid" prize, not content with - in their Christian zeal - shooting a doctor practicing legal (that's L-E-G-A-L, which means the law says it's O.K., for those Kansans dropping by) abortion, now they're invoking a 19th century law right here in the 21st century, trying to stop the doc. Kansas - on the cutting edge. Fer shure.

Talk about a high embarrassment threshold! Wowee!

I really don't get out enough, so it's nice to have friends who will occasionally drag me somewhere new. This is a nice place to grab a double espresso and some sort of snack after an afternoon's wander across town. If you're in Vancouver, that is.

Finally made it to see "No Country For Old Men". There won't be an Academy Award for the Coen brothers this year (too dark for Academy tastes, among other things), but there ought to be. Fate - at least, if you have zero luck - walks through this movie in the form of Anton Chigurh. Anton is a very serious man. Mostly. He has his playful side, but, really, you'd rather not meet it. Bad odds. As you might expect with fate.

Some might see Anton as representing Death - and he does - but not purely. That is, you might meet him and still live to tell the tale. Of course, you might not.

And he gives the same response Death must when it comes for someone: "You don't have to do this." "Yes, I do."

No wonder he's nuts.

An "exam-related" photo. The multiple choice portion. Smart students love multiple choice because it's fast and easy. If you can tie your shoes, you can pass a multiple choice exam. Unless the person who designed it was a weasel who tries to trip students up by making the questions and their answers incomprehensible to anyone without a secret decoder ring.

The weird thing is that dumb students love multiple choice, too. That's something I can't figure out. Other than its being a product of student paranoia. They somehow seem to think that multiple choice is "fairer" because it's objective (Their equally un-bright parents seem to think so, too. Witness the rise of "standardised testing".). The answer they give is either right or wrong. There's no room for their teacher's interpretation. Of course, given that most teachers want their students to pass (if for no other reason than not wanting to deal with the hassles that rain down on our heads when someone fails), multiple choice is the absolute worst test design for the, um, intellectually challenged. Precisely because the student's answer is right or wrong. Darn hard to give someone credit for having at least some vague idea of the material being tested. Virtually everyone I know who teaches for a living tries hard to find something - anything! - worthwhile in a sub-optimally-gifted student's answers to essay-style (even if the "essay" is all of two sentences long) questions.

Can you tell I'm in the middle of marking exams?

A sunny, hot Sunday. Commercial Drive was packed (contrary to the way it looks here).