After three straight weeks of work, most evenings and both weekends, it was wonderful to get away. Anne and I went up to a beautiful bed & breakfast in Penetanguishine, Canopy of Trees. We had a great and relaxing weekend, cross-country skied in Awenda Provincial Park, and walked around the town’s Winterfest celebrations. On the way back home we stopped for lunch at St. Marie among the Hurons.
This morning on my way to work it felt like we’d been away for much longer than 2 days…
I liked this one… Anne and I really enjoyed the COC operas we saw this month: A Masqued Ball and Jenufa.
Well, it’s a disappointing week for content consumers, with the Eldred v. Ashcroft case decision coming down firmly on the side of Disney and the established content industry. The lawyer for Eldred (and the side of good), Lawrence Lessig, is in understandable anguish over having lost probably the most important case of his career, poor guy.
Ug, I’m all tired today. I had the best of intentions — go home, do laundry, cook dinner, relax — but got sucked back into Europa Universalis again. My new campaign’s going much better than the last one. After stomping the Scots, I signed onto a war against Spain which the French were waging. I managed to capture the centre of trade at Flanders and hold it for about forty years before Dutch nationalism rose to the point that keeping it was untenable. Meanwhile I switched over to Protestantism and send streams of colonists to the east coast of the U.S., founding substantial colonies from the Carolinas up to Manhatten. While Flanders was filling my coffers I managed (after many, many frustrating checks) to get Hanover as a vassal, drastically improve my relations with Denmark, and trade maps with the Portugese who’ve already got trading posts in Indonesia. My next step is going to be exploring the Indian Ocean from my newest colony in South Africa, and trying to figure out how to weaken the French who’ve managed to conquer Flanders from the Dutch and are maintaining a half-million strong ground force. It’s 1569, Elizabeth I is on the throne, and there’s almost 200 game years of play to go. What a great game!
So… I had to stop playing at midnight and have something to eat before bed. So like I said, I’m all tired today.
Anne and I had a busy but useful weekend. Friday night we joined the Usual Suspects for dinner at Joyce’s. Maddy apparently used up most of her sick baby fitfulness during the day, so was able to make an appearance and steal the limelight once again. Ian cooked up a very nice chicken dish and we finished the evening by drinking the bottle of ice wine I’d given them as an engagement present.
On Saturday Anne and I wet up to Sporting Life and fought through the S.U.V.-born crowds to the cross-country ski department, where she got a complete package for a not-unreasonable price. We picked up the skis yesterday, and are looking forward to getting out next weekend and hopefully heading to Guelph the weekend after. We also stopped at Future Shop and picked up a new microwave for me, to finally replace the old dead one. The new one is sleek and very nice, and thank-you’s to Mum & Dad and Grandpa for the Christmas cash that paid for it!
Other than that, not much else happened. We watched Alien and Aliens on Saturday (and Anne showed considerably more backbone than Dave Lasby at the scary bits). We played Scrabble (and Anne won). We played on the computers (Anne on Civilization 3 while I started a new campaign in Europa Universalis, and this time conquered the Scots right off the bat).
Apparently a backlash against S.U.V.’s is picking up momentum. Can’t come too soon for me: it’s ridiculous (1) that these things are treated as pickups (2) that pickups are allowed to have crappy fuel mileage and (3) that governments aren’t making reduction of oil usage a national priority. There are now a couple of ads on U.S. television drawing the connection between S.U.V.’s and the War on Terror, and I hope they’re making Mr. Bush’s friends in Texas squirm.
Third post of the day on this topic. Check out this wonderful article on the current state of the liberal movement in the U.S.. God knows how or why, but the NYTimes seems to have put it in the Travel section. Hilarious.
Here’s an important part of this article:
Then the last panelist spoke. He was an Iraqi dissident named Kanan Makiya, and he said, ”I’m afraid I’m going to strike a discordant note.” He pointed out that Iraqis, who will pay the highest price in the event of an invasion, ”overwhelmingly want this war.” He outlined a vision of postwar Iraq as a secular democracy with equal rights for all of its citizens. This vision would be new to the Arab world. ”It can be encouraged, or it can be crushed just like that. But think about what you’re doing if you crush it.” Makiya’s voice rose as he came to an end. ”I rest my moral case on the following: if there’s a sliver of a chance of it happening, a 5 to 10 percent chance, you have a moral obligation, I say, to do it.”
The effect was electrifying. The room, which just minutes earlier had settled into a sober and comfortable rejection of war, exploded in applause. The other panelists looked startled, and their reasonable arguments suddenly lay deflated on the table before them.”
