I know I do a lot of "does this only happen in Saskatchewan?" posts and comments so I thought I'd pass along a recent AskMetaFilter question about "stag & does", namely "are they only an Ontario thing or do they exist elsewhere?"
And the answer is...Ontario-only and specifically SW Ontario and even more specifically rural SW Ontario for the most part.
I first heard the term in London but thought it was like the joint stag/stagettes that have become increasingly popular here (and elsewhere?) for couples who don't want to do their last pre-marriage party apart.
But apparently I didn't glean the full uniqueness of stag & does which are more like pre-wedding fundraisers for the couple with games and drinks at a local hall or whatever. (The similarity to Manitoba's "socials" is pointed out in the thread a couple times but again, I don't think we use that term in Saskatchewan - at least as a reference to parties for engaged couples.)
Anyhow, it was fun seeing a topic on AskMF that never would've caught my eye if I hadn't lived in SW Ontario!
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Monday, June 16
Saturday, February 9
Roger Marin Jr. at the London Music Club - February 14, 2008, $7, 9pm start
by
Jason
on Sat 09 Feb 2008 10:36 PM CST
Nothing says romance like going to see an awesome independent country-rock artist like Roger Marin Jr. Check him out on February 14 if you're reading this in London (or click the link to see his other dates around SW Ontario.)
Saturday, July 7
Storyteller Coming To London
by
Jason
on Sat 07 Jul 2007 05:46 PM CST
In the course of talking to the performer I've booked for our Summer Reading Club tour, he mentioned that a colleague, Bonnie Logan, will be appearing in London, ON for a similar tour. I said that there are still quite a few people from London and area reading this blog so if he passed along the details, I'd give the performance a plug. So if you're around L'il London, why not go check her out?
Here is Bonnie's schedule at London Public Library.
July 11 9:30 am Pond Mills Branch
11:00 am Landon Branch
2:00 pm Crouch Branch
July 12 9:30 am Sherwood Branch
July 13 9:30 am Westmount Branch
11:00 am Jalna Branch
2:00 pm Central Library
July 14 9:30 am Cherryhill Branch
11:00 am Masonville Branch
2:00 pm Beacock Branch
Wednesday, June 27
Toronto Is The Facebook Capital of the World
by
Jason
on Wed 27 Jun 2007 08:11 PM CST
A MetaFilter thread discussing an essay entitled "Viewing American Class Divisions Through MySpace and Facebook" leads to this interesting nugget:
Toronto has the most Facebook members of any city in the world (that's absolute "most", not even per capita. This means TO outranks much larger cities including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Canada has a pretty strong showing in the Top Ten overall as well - Vancouver is #5 and Calgary is #7 and Montreal is #9. Friday, June 22
Friday Fun Link - Does Internet Filtering Work? (June 22, 2007)
by
Jason
on Fri 22 Jun 2007 01:03 PM CST
In keeping with the topic of the day over at my other most favourite site on the Internet, LibrarianActivist, here’s a report on internet filtering from the National Coalition Against Censorship which is admittedly, a bit dated, having been produced in 2001. But it gives an excellent overview of many of the issues and problems being discussed in the wake of the LPL's board to look at increasing the use of filters in their library. And an update of the report in 2006 shows that the same concerns with internet filtering software remain to this day. Here are some examples of what happens when you filter: Monday, May 14
How I Got Into Hawksley Workman
by
Jason
on Mon 14 May 2007 10:09 PM CST
Someone re-posted a mini-review I did on my blog of the Hawksley Workman concert we went to in London last May. They posted it on a message board dedicated to Hawksley Workman but some of the commentors who responded to the post apparently got the impression I was a new fan for some reason.
This is quite far from the truth and since it's a pretty funny story, I thought I'd post the true history of my Hawksley fandom going back to a concert in Waterloo in 2000, probably when some of the posters on that board still thought Raffi was the biggest thing in music </grumpy old man> (Oh, and nobody ever posts when I put out blatant calls for comments but if you're so inclined, I'd love to hear your stories of how you got into your favourite bands or memorable concert experiences.) Okay, on with the story... Through my work, I was sent to a conference in Toronto in June 2000. The person who did the same job as I did but for the Book Publishers Association of Alberta instead of the Saskatchewan Publishers Group, wanted to go to a concert by some guy I think she says is named "Hawkeye". One catch is it's in Waterloo and we're in Toronto. I keep putting her off all week, trying to get her to find somebody else to go, saying "it's Toronto - there must be ONE band we could see here instead!" and making various other excuses. Finally on the day of the concert, she really starts hammering me. We'd seen Lou Reed at the Hummingbird Centre the night before and she goes "Okay, that was cool. But now imagine seeing Lou Reed when he first started with the Velvet Underground. That's what going to this concert will be like. And in twenty years, when Hawkeye's doing a tour like Lou just did, you'll be able to say 'I saw him when...'" Hmmmm... Maybe she's serious and it's not just some singer she's got a crush on after seeing him once in Edmonton? (She had earlier admitted to me that she tends to do that sometimes!) But now, it's getting later in the day and once we've fulfilled our conference obligations, we get the hotel concierge to help us figure out what we should do - we could take a bus to Waterloo but have no way to get back (unless we happen to find someone driving back to TO), paying a cab a lump sum but that would be WAY too expensive. I even ask the concierge what time he gets off and if he owns a car/wants to go to a concert? No dice. Sophie wants to rent a car and I have to admit this is probably the best option. But another catch - she doesn't drive which is why she's so insistent about getting someone to go with her. "At all?" I ask, seeing maybe an ulterior motive for why she wants me to go so badly. "Okay Jason, here's the deal. If you say you'll drive to the concert, I'll pay for the car rental. I'll pay for the gas. I'll pay for your ticket to the concert. I'll buy you a beer when we get there. And I swear, you will not regret this!" Holy crap, I think - she's willing to spend somewhere north of a hundred bucks for a $7 concert. Yep, she's serious all right! I finally give in and agree to go with her. By now, it's past 6pm and all downtown car rental locations are closed. (I'm secretly glad because one of the reasons I was so resistant is that I was nervous about having to drive in downtown Toronto and also on the 401 in a rental car. Up until then, driving in Calgary once as part of a long wedding procession was the biggest driving challenge I'd faced. Otherwise, my experience was limited to dirt roads and "Regina Rush Hour" ie. three cars at a stop light at 5 p.m.) We catch a shuttle to the airport where the car rental agencies are still open. She rents a car no problem and we head off - for Hamilton. Oops, wrong turn immediately after leaving the airport. Finally get to a gas station and get straightened around. Hit the highway and the 401 (with a line from the Tragically Hip running through my head: "You don't fuck with the 401") is everything I'd heard - 120kph is the average speed, people are whipping past me even as I do that, the traffic is super heavy, tons of semis (which I've since learned that people in Ontario call "transports") even on a Saturday night and when we finally get to Waterloo, I somehow manage to miss the proper exit - twice! - and have to keep backtracking. We're not even sure exactly what time the concert starts and it's now 10pm. Neither of us say it but there's a good chance this whole adventure will lead to us (maybe) just catching the encore. Or worse, turning around when we get there because the concert is over. Finally finally finally, we get to the Jane Bond Cafe (to my memory, a small house converted into a pub/hangout-type place with seating for maybe 50? Someone who knows it can correct me or expand a bit.) Some performance artist from Montreal is on stage talking about masturbation and why men should have breasts and other similar topics. "What have I gotten myself into if this is the opening act?" I remember thinking, still a fairly sheltered prairie boy (unlike the well-educated world traveler I have become six short years later!  ) I'm hoping she's the opening act but who knows? I go up to the bar to ask but Sophie doesn't come with me. I'm already a bit steamed thinking this whole trip was for nothing and this makes me even madder. Now she's embarrassed of me or something? I order a beer and ask "Has Hawkeye played yet?". "No, he's up next," the bartender replies, looking at me strangely. I look back and Sophie is standing by a pillar, just sort of staring at me. She's probably PO'ed, thinking that my hesitation about whether to come or not means we missed the concert. I smile and give her a thumbs-up to show that Hawkeye is still to come. As I sip my beer, I look around at the crowd in the packed venue. Mostly college-aged kids filling every seat in the house. The performance artist finishes and after a brief intermission where people shuffle around, buy more drinks and the room gets even more full if that's possible, Hawkeye comes out on stage (such as it is - not even a raised platform at the front of the room if I remember correctly) and introduces himself. "Hello, my name is Hawksley Workman..." I'm carrying my camera (film, not digital in those days). This is a photo of what he looked like that night:  And it hits me - why Sophie didn't join me at the bar, why the bartender looks at me funny when I ask if Hawkeye had played yet. Hawksley was standing at the bar right beside me and probably even heard me! Sophie held back because she was too intimidated to come near her idol so I was left to bask in my own naivity (as usual.) I don't remember what songs he played first - I think it was "Maniacs" - but from the first notes, I was like "whoa! Sophie wasn't lying. This guy is amazing." The theatrics of early David Bowie. The originality of Lou Reed. The vocal range of Freddie Mercury. The romanticism of Sinatra. All rolled into one. I'd never heard of him before but the assembled college kids in the overflowing cafe obviously knew Hawksley well. They sang along to every word and he often stopped singing to let the crowd carry the tune. He went off on wild tangents about the stars and his father, make-up and exit signs, cellular phones and silence. Sophie pointed out her favourite song "Don't Be Crushed" when he played it and I was taken by "Safe and Sound" which perfectly captured for me the feeling I often get on a long drive at nightfall on the prairies with Shea in the passenger side asleep beside me. Magic - there's no other word. He finished and to top it off, Sophie ended up bumping into somebody she knew from Edmonton and I still remember their exchange. Sophie: "Isn't that wild that we'd bump into each other here at this show a million miles from Edmonton?" Him: "Well, when you think about it, not really. You and I are similar ages, we have similar tastes, we have similar backgrounds. Of course we're going to bump into each other - it's not as big of a coincidence as it seems." (As somebody who's really interested in the concept of coincidences, that's stuck with me.) So anyhow, we sat and had a drink with him and his friends, gaining entry into this tightknit group of people. We left at closing, me buying the Hawksley CD on the way out. We listened to it all the way home over and over (thanks, rental car with full options!) and even the fact that we get totally lost trying to get back to downtown Toronto to drop off the car (if we'd gone directly, I think we would've been okay. But Sophie's friends gave us "shortcut" directions which are probably great on a weekday to avoid all traffic but not so good at 3am in the dark with no real map in the car) and we ended up driving around till 6am, stopping at more than one gas station and/or doughnut shop to get directions. But this only served to prolong the night (plus I didn't care - Sophie had to work at 9am, I didn't!) Since then, I've seen Hawksley probably a half a dozen times at various venues - fairly intimate venues like the Aeolian Hall in London and the Exchange in Regina to big folk festival and bar settings. It's always great but I think of a friend who talked about the thrill of going to see a movie "blind" - having heard no publicity or reviews, good or bad, and what a thrill that can be if the film turns out to be a good one. That's how I first saw Hawksley Workman - I had no preconceived notions (you'd think Sophie's raves would've influenced me but until he stepped on stage, I honestly thought I was just being a chauffeur.) In the end, simply amazing! Monday, March 26
Buffalo Burgers - Shea's Recipe
by
Jason
on Mon 26 Mar 2007 04:07 PM CST
Buffalo was rare to non-existent from what we could tell in Ontario. One of the specialty meat vendors in the Covent Market Garden told us that this was because Ontario didn't have the land to raise them like we did out west.
Made sense to us but if you don't eat a lot of buffalo (yes, I know - properly bison in North America) you are missing out. It's the best tasting meat and on top of that, healthier than pretty much any other meat including chicken, pork and fish (scroll down for the chart.) It's low fat, low cholesterol and low calories. Most bison meat on the market is raised in the wild and organically grown because if there are two things buffalo don't like, it's pens and needles. <groan> I'm very lucky that Shea's family are part-owners of a herd of about twenty buffalo so we get a regular supply (although our last supply had to be stolen right out of her brother's freezer when he wasn't home - don't tell!) Any cut is good - roasts, steaks, etc. - but I have a special fondness for the plain old burgers because Shea makes them so that they're amazing. Her recipe is flexible but here's the gist of it: BUFFALO BURGS 1 lb ground bison meat 10 soda crackers made into fine crumbs 1 egg 1 TBSP Montreal Steak Spice Rub (my mother-in-law taught me to put Tablespoon in capitals in recipes so it's obvious. Great tip!) 1 TBSP Bullseye BBQ Sauce Minced red onion to taste (a thick slice or two for us) A few shakes of Worchestire sauce A good few shakes of hot sauce (we're partial to Cholula Mexican hot sauce) Salt and coarse ground pepper The hardest part is getting the ingredients in proportion so the meat sticks well and doesn't fall apart on the grill but isn't too dry either. Cook on a barbeque and prepare to be amazed. Seriously, when Shea made them the other night, I wolfed down one then another two without even using a bun or condiments. (Er, I shouldn't admit that in public.)   Monday, March 5
About Me (A Timeline of My Life)
by
Jason
on Mon 05 Mar 2007 12:53 AM CST
Following up on my promise from awhile ago to add an "About Me" page to this blog, I decided to do something a bit different than the traditional, paint-by-numbers, paragraph-long business-style bio or the fun but frivolous, paragraph-long informal version that many web sites have (er, no offense meant if that's what your web site has.
 )I used to keep a timeline for my life's major events on my original web page so thought that might provide a good basis for this About Me page. The major new feature are the photos to illustrate each major life milestone. (You can also see a slideshow of all photos at full-size plus some extra photos I didn't end up using for this page although they aren't in chronological order as I can't figure out how to get Flickr to sort photos by filename.) I've been working on this for awhile but Shea's and my anniversary sounds like as good of a day to post it as any. Enjoy!
Saturday, February 3
Randomness (Happy Groundhog Day!)
by
Jason
on Sat 03 Feb 2007 01:57 AM CST
Saskatchewan Round-Up
 Sask Government Insurance, a crown corporation that provides insurance to all drivers in our province, is offering $180 rebates to safe drivers on their automobile insurance and lowering rates by an average of 5% as well (when we already have the lowest auto insurance rates in Canada - why do you think I love public ownership for services like this?) The big question though, with an election looming, is "Calvert Cash" the equivalent of "Ralph Bucks" in Alberta?  The right-wing Fraser Institute think tank has named Saskatchewan as having the third-best investment climate in Canada. That's so strange-sounding, I'm going to repeat it: the right-wing Fraser Institute think tank has named Saskatchewan as having the third-best investment climate in Canada. (The Fraser Institute redeems themselves by attacking the Sask government for being too cozy with unions and for excessive spending. Whew - thought I'd dropped into an alternate universe there for a second!)Nothing is weirder than flipping through the channels and seeing an actor being interviewed in Hollywood and wearing a t-shirt from your small Saskatchewan hometown! Turns out his name is Dustin Milligan, he's from the Northwest Territories, he recently shot a horror movie called "The Messengers" in Indian Head and he's now moved to Hollywood to make his fame and fortune. (Reminds me of doing the Saskatchewan thing and going up to somebody wearing a "Moose Jaw" shirt in Ohio last summer. Turns out "Moose Jaw" isn't just the name of a city in Saskatchewan, it's a clothing company in Michigan. Oops!) The last big celebs to hit IH were Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mischa Barton when she was still relatively unknown. So perhaps some similar good prairie karma will follow this kid? Those three actors were in IH to shoot a movie called "Skipped Parts" and I'd highly recommend it as well as the original book by Tim Sandlin. The subject matter is potentially offensive - young kids experimenting with sex around the time of the Kennedy assassination - but the book is excellent. That's actually where the title comes from - both lead characters are bookish and want to find out what happens in the parts that authors skip in the books that they write. ("Avery carried Simone into the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him with a sweep of his foot." Chapter Two: "When they awoke the next morning...") Internet Round-Up I finally broke down and subscribed to Carbonite (well, its 14-day free trial anyhow) which is an online backup utility. For $5 a month, a small program sits on your computer and automatically backs up any files and folders you designate, working in the background. It technically has no limit to how much you can upload but they suggest not going higher than 50 GB and won't back up audio/video files during the trial period - only if you're a paying customer. I could easily buy a decent hard drive for the same amount as I'll pay for this service for a year (heck, I think I have a hard drive or two kicking around that would work.) That's why I held off subscribing to this service when I first heard about it. But the convenience factor makes it well-worth it - both because it works wherever I am as long as I'm connected to the Net (ie. 100% of the time at home with my laptop and wireless) and not just when I'm at my desk plugged into an external hard drive. Plus the big problem with back-ups is a) the software usually sucks in one way or another, b) you have to remember to do it and c) if you do it, say weekly, you're still at risk of losing stuff in a crash. This service provides near-instantaneous, constant back-up.Foxmarks is a Firefox extension that helps you synchronize your bookmarks between different machines as well as allowing you to access them remotely. I've played around a lot with Delicious in the past month and although it has many features I like - sharing bookmarks, seeing who else and how many people have bookmarked things, I was just never happy with the interface. I'm a librarian - I like folders and think that tagging, although useful to a point, has many disadvantages as well. If Delicious would allow you to view your bookmarks in a tree structure (other than their "tag bundles" which I don't like either), I might use it all the time. But until that happens, it'll be my secondary bookmark service, mostly for saving articles and unique sites I come across that I don't want to make part of my main bookmarks. I'm really liking Reddit as an alternative to Digg - stories seem to be discussed in a more mature manner and be of a higher quality in general. I was looking for an iPhoto equivalent (quiet all you Mac people - I know, buying a Mac would give me the real thing!) as Google's Picasa which we use to manage our digital photos (and like very much) doesn't offer much in terms of creating slideshows. After looking around a bit, it turns out a Microsoft product, Photo Story, is exactly what I was looking for - very easy-to-use, full-featured and intuitive. Plus it's a free download if you own Windows XP. So after playing around with it a bit, I was quite impressed. But it turned out that Microsoft can't help but disappoint. For some reason, I can create slideshows from my digital photos but it won't let me save the project files to work on them later. (If anybody decides to try this program, let me know if you have a similar problem. One online board suggested it was a memory problem but it doesn't matter if I create a slideshow of one photo with no music - no saving is possible. So frustrating!)Anyhow, here's something I banged out tonight while watching the Flames crush the Blue Jackets. I didn't spend a lot of time synching the images and music (though there are a couple cool points where it does seem to match up) and I've just used random images from the past year. Apologies in advance if I used a photo of you that you think is non-flattering or if I used too many photos of you (or not enough.) I can't save the file to work on it later but I'll leave it open on my computer for a few days (barring a crash or something) and if you really feel strongly about not wanting your photo included in this, e-mail me and I'll take it out. Alternately, if you want the original version of the slideshow which is much better quality, e-mail me for that (or if you want any of the individual photos.) Oh, and feel free to put a link or embed the video on your blog too if you want. The code to do so is on the YouTube page.
Monday, December 18
Randomness
by
Jason
on Mon 18 Dec 2006 07:31 PM CST
We Made It!
Well, we made it. Our last couple days in London were pretty hectic with packing and last minute stuff but, like anything, it got done. Dumpster Diving Redux At the start of the year, I couldn't believe how many people threw out perfectly good stuff but by the time we left, I understood why. We ended up selling much of our stuff at a deep discount and what we couldn't sell got left in the apartment where the manager may yet decide to trash it. (If anybody wants a free patio furniture set, go to 1231 Richmond and tell the assistant manager, Shelley, that Jason Hammond said you could claim it from #804. There's also a plastic chest of drawers, a bedside table and a small bookshelf (which was originally a dumpster dive reclamation project.)) Greyhound's Pick-up Policy Apparently "door to door" doesn't mean your apartment door, it means your apartment building's door. So you get to trudge a bunch of your boxes downstairs and then the delivery guy walks then two steps to his van. Rinse, repeat. WestJet's Damage Policy If you're lucky, they forget to ask you to sign the back of the baggage tag waiving responsibility for damage to fragile items. We were lucky... About That Blog Name "Yet Another Library Student's Blog" doesn't cut it anymore since I'm no longer a library student (although I think I could fudge it a bit and say I'll always be a student of libraries in some form. Lifelong learning and all that jazz.) "Yet Another Unemployed Librarian's Blog" is a bit self-defeating (and hopefully won't last too long.) "Yet Another Library Grad Who Also Writes About Poopy Diapers on Occasion" is a mouthful (er, figuratively, not literally...I hope.) "Yet Another Blog Rendered Aimless By The Lack of Anything Exciting To Write About" (On that note, my thinking right now is that I still want to have a fairly strong library focus to this blog although perhaps broadening my perspective a bit since I suspect I won't be up on FIMS minutia for my subject matter anymore.) So suggestions? A Nice Compliment From Somebody Still at FIMS "I am also really pleased that I got to know you a bit, even if it was for such a short time. It is people like yourself that have really changed how I feel about this whole library school thing - a librarian in the making... me?" Which is Better? +10 and rainy/grey or -20 but crisp and sunny? That's an honest question that I don't know the answer to. Five Things I'll (Probably) Miss About London 1. Schwarmas (unless something's changed in the last year, you can't get middle eastern food in Regina at all.) Mexican and Korean and East Indian are available here but not in any great variety as well (like one or maybe two restaurants of each type). 2. Proximity to Toronto and lots of other interesting places to explore 3. Big-name concerts and events compared to Regina. 4. Having a convenience store right in our apartment building. (Maybe I'll put a 7-11 in the basement?) 5. Along the same lines as that last point, 24-hour grocery stores (although I rarely took advantage, it was nice to have the option) (Oh, and all my friends and classmates of course. That's assumed.) Five Things I'm Glad to Have Now That I'm Back in Regina 1. Our house (especially our soaker tub, our own laundry and a dishwasher) 2. Our car 3. All of my books, all of my CD's. 4. Our satellite TV (yeah, I know TV is evil. But man, it's a good 500 channel evil after a year with only basic cable!  )5. The ability to play music or TV or guitar loudly in the middle of the night without worrying about infringing on the rights of others in the building (not that it stopped any of our neighbours!) Saskatchewan Welcoming Committee There's a reason it's called Land of Living Skies...  |
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