So, Is He Famous or Not?

Reuters has an article about the blogger and supposedly “famous actor” who goes by the moniker Rance. They claim that research indicates Rance is nothing more than a wannabe who used to work at an ad firm in Los Angeles:

Meanwhile, a Defamer reader tried to unmask Rance by researching the term “Captain Hoof,” which appears in the Web address. She came to the conclusion that he was a San Francisco man who worked at an ad agency and once ran a Web site with a similar name — possibly dedicated to an imaginary horse.

The man, who no longer works for the agency, could not be contacted for this story.

While I have no clue who Rance actually is, I do enjoy reading his blog and will continue to do so – even if he’s not as famous as he claims to be.

Update: It appears Rance is a fake.

My Canada

Anna-Maria is in Toronto all this week. I’m off to play Risk with some friends but before I go, here is a little message about Canada (from Joey DeVille’s Accordion Guy):

Joey, a Filipino-born Canadian, writes a spirited editorial in response to a jackass racist blogger at enterstageright.com who asserts that the Canadians who died in the Boer War, the two World Wars, and the Korean conflict certainly didn’t intend for Toronto to be annexed by the “Third World,” and says that the non-whites of Canada are less Canadian, with “no knowledge or affection for the old Canada, in either their hearts or minds.”

Hey “Enter Stage Right”, fuddle-duddle off eh!

Return of the Bloggers

A parody helps change a corrections policy at The New York Times. An online critic’s query ends a career at the Chicago Tribune. Bloggers’ scrutiny is making its mark on traditional journalism.

Online Journal Review on how bloggers are influencing mainstream newspapers.

Creative Commons New 2.0 Licenses

Last night they turned on version 2.0 of their main Creative Commons licenses. The new licenses clarify and refine the initial terms of the 1.0 licenses, and CC has posted good, clear commentary explaining the changes.

Google’s Own Messenger

I know you’re thinking it. If you’re not well you can start now. When is Google going to come out with their own instant message program? They’re obviously working on it. Think about it — they started out with creating the world’s best search engine, then they bought out my favourite blogging service: Blogger, they own a pretty nifty networking service: Orkut and they’ve stated they want to infringe upon Microsoft’s turf. They clearly need to enter the messenger market in order to really pull the mass market of users from Hotmail to Gmail. I’m aware of Hello the IM that Blogger is pushing for the purpose of photoblogging, though I haven’t tried it. But I’m looking for something that can interact with my webmail – a true blue google product. It’s only a matter of time until we see “The Google Messenger”, and I, for one, cannot wait.

Update: Turns out Google doesn’t own Orkut, they are just affiliated. From Orkut’s help page:

Why is it called orkut?

Category: General
Updated: 2/9/2004
Answer
orkut.com is a new social networking service named for the Google engineer who developed it, Orkut Buyukkokten. (Orkut is easier to spell and pronounce than Buyukkokten.) This was created as an independent project and is not part of the Google product portfolio.

Update August 2005: Google Talk has just been released.

The War in Iraq – A Soldiers Viewpoint

I received a forwarded email this morning quoting a blog posting of a letter from a soldier in Iraq.

The gist of what this guy says is that while he is grateful for people “supporting the troops” he is disappointed that they don’t support the war.

My quick response to that is: the people don’t support the war because the reasons used to justify it were lies, it’s a waste of money and people, and it’s not going to make a long term difference.

Of course he supports the war, he’s a gun toting, warmongering soldier who loves kicking ass over there, and he just wishes the American people could understand how fun that is.

Fighting Tickets in Alberta

On the day of my last exam in the spring semester, I raced home from the university so happy to finally be done for summer. I raced home at 105 km per hour according to the photo-radar bastards, exactly 15 km an hour over the posted limit. Now they want me to pay a cool $90 but I’m thinking of asking for a reduction. Gary shares his ticket fighting strategies and unless I’ll lose more money from not working that day, I’ll probably take his advice.

Canadian Election

The “pre-election” spending spree can now become the “election” spending spree, as Prime Minister Paul Martin visited Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and asked her to dissolve the 37th Parliament. Thus setting off a 36 day federal election campaign, ending with the vote on June 28th. This is the first general election for all three of the main party leaders. Slumping Liberal support in polls and a more regional vote should make this interesting. I’m predicating a minority government with the Liberals being the party with the most seats while the NDP and Alliance being on opposite ends of the spectrum fill in the rest of the seats and make sure that nothing is passed.

Backmasking

I’ve decided to add a little something to my backmasking page. So for now I’m working on adding Britney Spears — Hit Me Baby One More Time, Queen — Another One Bites the Dust, and The Beatles — I’m So Tired. I might be tempted to add more after these ones are completed and online. This post would be a good place to comment on other songs you’d like to hear backward samples from (of songs that are known for backmasking).

Update May 23rd, 2004: The new backmasking additions are up.

Update: June 9th, 2004: I just added Pink Floyd’s “Empty Spaces” to the backmasking page.

Anna-Maria’s New Job

Anna got the job at the University that she had applied for. It seems like a pretty great job and she is very excited about it. She will be in charge of the Summer Programs for English as a Second Language (ESL) students. It’s similar to something she did working for the college three years ago only this time she is in charge of the whole program. It will be interesting having us both work at the University – I start my New Media Movie Making Camp in July and she started work today.