The Newsroom

My older daughter and I went on a Daddy-Daughter Date today, and saw BOLT! It was very fun. The hamster - Rhino - stole the film. The throwaway scene with him riding on top of the kayak had tears streaming down my face. I would fully endorse Rhino getting his own sequel film.

I was at a major grocery retailer yesterday - five days after Christmas - and the Valentine's Day candies were already out.

So we're back from our week-long excursion to Manitoba for Christmas with my wife's family and then my family. Good times were had by all, although we're all coming back a little under the weather. Good thing I have most of the rest of the week off. I got to see the UFC show on Saturday at my brother and sister-in-law's condo (complete with 42-inch widescreen TV). Very good show with both title matches having surprise endings with new champions. However, it sets up Brock vs. Mir II later this year, so it's all good.

Back when I worked for the Edmonton Sun, I had a tradition of reprinting the Christmas story in my column on the Monday before Christmas. It always got a lot of appreciative response from readers. So I thought I should start doing that here as well every Christmas. So, today, a tradition returns! And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; be

A tradition returns.

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Leaving on Christmas vacation today. But don't despair. Due to the miracle of scheduled posts, The Newsroom will remain (a little) active for the next two weeks.

What are the odds?

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And a total blast from the past. I put this CD in a few weeks ago and realized again how good it was. Casting Crowns or someone should do some White Heart covers.

As a point of comparison to the Bride version (below). I think I prefer Bride's actually. The harder rock version works better.

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Toronto Sun Family: 1971 - 2008: TorSun cuts? Could (today) be Black Tuesday for the Toronto Sun? Tipsters say an undisclosed number of employees who arrive at work Tuesday will leave as the latest victims of Quebecor's hatchet. "It ain't over," one Sun vet said of the cutbacks that have ravaged the Toronto Sun since Quebecor bought Sun Media in 1999. "No one knows who yet, but it is supposed to be big," said another newsroom staffer. Another TSF tipster said staff could be cut by 10%. UPDATE: Unfortunately, this story is entirely true. . Sun Media Announces Workforce Reductions Last update: 10:45 a.m. EST Dec. 16, 2008 TORONTO, ONTARIO, Dec 16, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- As a result of the fundamental transformation under way in the newspaper industry in recent years and the accelerated deterioration of economic activity affecting its print media revenue sources, Sun Media Corporation, Canada's largest publisher of newspapers, has announced that i

I remember Petra doing this ages ago. This version is pretty cool.

Misfires: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr. Face Bomb-Making Charges For 'Delgo' Delgo's $916,000 gross is the lowest ever by a film that opened on more than 2,000 screens — 2,160 to be exact. Its $424 per-theater average means that some showings of the animated sci-fi fantasy in more competitive markets likely played to audiences of fewer than five people at a time. Update: It's worse than expected !

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Courtesy BeltFanDan, AKA PawNtheSandman.

Oh yes ...

Ordering information is here . TNA has a picture of the replica belt here .

Maybe it's because I'm 40 ... or maybe it's the fact that Spike TV has the rights to all the Star Wars movies and replays them constantly ... but I came to the realization recently while watching Attack of the Clones for the 483rd time that the Star Wars prequels are absolute dreck, and should never have been made. Even Revenge of the Sith . Embarrasingly bad. The original trilogy is fine. Indeed, the first Star Wars movie is still a classic, and I will love it forever.

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An appropriate song for the Christmas season.

TNA Wrestling has announced that they will soon be selling replicas of the TNA World title belt. Word from someone who knows is the replicas are going to be of high quality. More details and pictures as they become available. Next week, TNA Wrestling will be offering incredible replicas of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for sale at ShopTNA.com, the official online merchandise store of TNA! TNA will take delivery of an extremely limited amount of the replica championships, which will go on sale immediately at ShopTNA.com in time for Christmas delivery. Talk about an awesome holiday gift for your favorite TNA Wrestling fan! The replica titles are made to the same size and specifications as the real TNA World Heavyweight Championship, fitting up to a 46 inch waist and weighing nearly 5 pounds! These limited-edition titles are an amazing reproduction of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, currently held by "The Icon" Sting.

Because not every great Christmas song is a classic hymn.

Sorry, but I've been too dumbfounded by what's been going on in Ottawa to post. And I'd tell you what I think of it all, but I don't like to use such vile language on my blog. I have standards, you know.

So ... a 10-fold increase in my traffic year-over-year makes me pretty happy. Not bad for my little humble corner of the Internet. Click graphic for larger image.

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A whole whack of Hungarian Partridges showed up in our backyard this morning.

1972 - Minoru Tanaka , Japanese pro-wrestler 1967 - John Layfield , American professional wrestler 1955 - Howie Mandel , Canadian comedian 1949 - Jerry Lawler , American wrestler

Awesome.

The Google search string, "what's cool on the interweb" resulted in a hit on this site.

YouTube Embraces Widescreen Paves the Way for Hollywood Features - Webmonkey As we pointed out last week, YouTube is now offering HD quality video on select movies. But one of the hallmarks of HD video is the widescreen aspect ratio (16:9 rather than 4:3) and now the YouTube site has been updated so that all video is now displayed in a new widescreen player. As the YouTube blog notes, this means that the vast majority of videos on the site — which were uploaded as 4:3 — are now displayed with black bars on the sides (the empty space not used by 4:3 videos). Two things: 1) Now, all I need is a free video editor that will actually let me edit the widescreen video that my digicam will let me shoot ... except I don't shoot in widescreen because I can't edit it. 2) This puts YouTube ahead of the WWE in terms of providing me with easily-accessible widescreen content. Not that I'm bitter.

Ad: Canadia-- Come for the Chicken, Stay for the Toilets! Swedish tourist: We came here for the chicken, but will remember it for the toilets. Swiss Chalet Toronto Canadia Overheard by: Glad I didn't go downstairs... via Overheard Everywhere , Nov 25, 2008

So ... has anyone noticed a drop in telemarketing calls since the federal do not call registry came into effect? Me, neither.

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Attending religious services ‘cuts death risk by almost 20 percent’ - Health – Lifestyle – MSN India Attending religious services ‘cuts death risk by almost 20 percent’ Attending religious services can reduce mortality risk by approximately 20 percent, a new study from Yeshiva University has revealed. The research team led by Eliezer Schnall, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of psychology at Yeshiva College of Yeshiva University analysed the religious practices of 92,395 women aged 50 to79, participating in the Women Health Initiative. After examining the prospective association of religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and strength and comfort derived from religion with subsequent cardiovascular events and overall rates of mortality, the researchers found that those attending religious services showed a 20 pct decrease in death risk.

UFC champ Anderson Silva denied entrance into Canada UFC champ Anderson Silva denied entrance into Canada Kenny Florian attends autograph session in Kamloops; Silva turned away at border Catherine Litt, Kamloops Daily News Published: Friday, November 21, 2008 KAMLOOPS - Last summer, it was a troupe of dancers from Papua New Guinea who were turned away by Canadian border agents. Now it's a mixed martial arts fighter from Brazil. A planned visit to Kamloops by UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva was abruptly halted Friday when Canada Border Services denied the athlete entrance into Canada.

I don't understand this. The WWE has been broadcasting their events in high definition for nearly a year now. But their DVDs are still formatted in the standard 4x3 aspect ratio. I bought the No Mercy DVD this month, and was quite disappointed to learn that it was not presented in 16x9 widescreen. And this isn't like the weird Wrestlemania DVD issue, either, with the DVD deciding (depending on your TV) whether to show the event in widescreen or not. (See this post and comments.) As far as I can determine, No Mercy has no widescreen option. It's formatted in 4x3. But it's framed in 16x9. Which makes for some very poor viewing of some of the action when both wrestlers disappear off the screen because they're in the portion of the 16x9 framing that gets chopped to make it 4x3. This is ridiculous. Every Hollywood movie I own on DVD is in widescreen. Even UFC has put out regular DVDs formatted in widescreen. So, WWE, what's your excuse? EDIT 11:27 a.m.: O

Sorry for the dearth of posting this week. It was a very busy week at work, and I didn't have a lot of time to be trolling the Internet looking for fun things upon which to comment.

Mars Phoenix: 30 Mars Phoenix Discoveries NASA Will Never Show the World Click the link. Funny awaits.

HowStuffWorks "Using Your Lightsaber Around the Home" Using Your Lightsaber Around the Home Although a lightsaber is typically used as a defensive weapon by Jedi knights, the availability of lightsabers on consumer sites such as eBay is growing. It is a sad fact of life, but if a Jedi knight falls on hard times, his lightsaber is one source of quick cash. He can always build another one. If you are lucky enough to acquire a lightsaber, you are probably purchasing it for personal defense purposes. A lightsaber completely blows away a can of pepper spray as a deterrent in muggings or robberies. However, many new owners are pleasantly surprised by the many domestic uses of a lightsaber around the home or office. Let's examine a few of the more common applications here, and then you can use your imagination to come up with others.

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Apparently, Ric Flair is coming to Edmonton in February. Ticket information is here . I have to admit, I found out about this reading the stats for my blog, which contained a number of search strings looking for info on Ric Flair coming to Edmonton. And judging from the ticket prices, I'm not likely to be going.

It's time for my regular public service announcement on where to watch UFC fights in Edmonton, Calgary or elsewhere in Alberta. All that info can be found at this link right here .

The big fight is this Saturday, and here's my entirely unscientific look at why (insert fighter's name here) will win. Randy will beat Brock because: He's Randy Freaking Couture. He always finds a way to win. He's way more skilled and talented in the Octagon than Brock. Did I mention he's Randy Couture? Brock will beat Randy because: Have you seen this man? No, seriously. Did you see him destroy Heath Herring? He's HUGE and POWERFUL and will rip Randy's arms off his body and beat him into submission WITH IS OWN ARMS. As far as my own personal prediction, I'm sitting entirely on the fence on this one. I can see Brock bull rush Randy, clock him, take him down and pummel him. I can also see Randy keep his distance, run Brock ragged for five rounds and win a decision.

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Yes, Vanouver . Site of the 2010 Winter Olympis .

This finally arrived in my mailbox today after a too-long wait to get it over the border. Fortunately, it was absolutely worth the wait: a total of 21 tracks (including 6 downloadable) on the CD, and a live concert DVD with its own bonus features, and it cost me less than $20. (See? That's how you sell people on actually buying music: Give them lots of stuff for a decent price. On a per-song cost, this album is absolutely cheap.) Comatose is a great rock album, and the live version is just as good. Gotta love any band that uses orchestral strings to back up crunchy alternative/arena rock. I got through most of the DVD tonight, and I'm listening to the album on my iPod as I type this, and this is going to be one of those albums that I play over and over and over again until the CD melts in my car stereo. And right now, I'm enjoying the heck out of the multi-vocal "Yours to Hold" which features pretty much everyone in the band taking turns on the song, including th

Umm ... HOLY CRAP! U.S. military can regrow human limbs, organs U.S. military can regrow human limbs, organs 'Nanoscaffolding' has succesfully regrown fingertips and organs on test subjects Vito Pilieci, Canwest News Service Published: Friday, November 07, 2008 OTTAWA - American military researchers say they have unlocked the secret to regrowing limbs and recreating organs in humans who have sustained major injuries. Using "nanoscaffolding," the researchers have regrown a man's fingertip and the internal organs of several test subjects.

IMG_5607.JPG Originally uploaded by ae!

Darth Toaster: May The (Break) Fast Be With You | Gadget Lab from Wired.com The Darth Vader Toaster is pretty bogus: any real Jedi would just slice his loaf with a Light Saber and it would fall ready-toasted, needing only a quick slathering of butter and jam (blueberry for the good guys and red, red, raspberry for those on the Dark Side). But until the Light Saber becomes a common part of the culinary toolkit (a true multi-tasker, we might add) then we'll have to settle for this junky plastic toaster, the result of pouring black beads into the mold-maker instead of the usual white. It's exactly the same as a normal thrift-store toaster, only it has the addition of a Darth Vader shaped element which appears to char the Dark Lord's visage into your breakfast bread. And we mean char -- in the picture the center section looks almost inedible.

I'm trying to buy a new watch. I found a really sweet titanium-carbide gold watch from A Certain Watch Company. So I start researching the best price for it. I find it at an online store for $215. But they don't ship that brand of watch to Canada. I call my local jewelery store. They can't get it for me because A Certain Watch Company doesn't sell that model in Canada. I find another online store, and, yup, they won't sell it to me because A Certain Watch Company doesn't authorize American watch models to be sold outside the US. And, of course, A Certain Watch Company's Canadian website doesn't have the particular model I want. I could, however, get someone in the US to buy it for me and mail it to me, but I can't actually BUY it from Canada. So ... I want to give A Certain Watch Company money and they won't let me. Dumb.

Welsh Road Sign Features Email Auto-Reply Instead of Correct Translation | Gadget Lab from Wired.com What happens when people place too much trust in technology? Sometimes, the result is dangerous (sheep-like belief in GPS, for example). Other times, the layers of hilarity are startling. Take this story, a tale of bureaucracy and institutionalized ignorance from Wales.

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Your humble servant's blog had its best month ever in October, smashing my previous hits and page view records, on the strength of approximately 10 billion hits related to Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock. Nonetheless, I'm not complaining. (Interesting that Site Meter credited me with 2,787 hits in October, and 4,059 page views, while SiteCounter gave me 3,167 hits in October, and 4,417 page views. No wonder I like SiteCounter better ...) What's nice, too, is that by being on Blogger and having my pages getting properly indexed (thanks in part to Google Analytics), I'm now getting a fair number of hits based on archived content, as well as being in the top 2 or 3 search results on some fairly unique and niche search strings (like "Relient K Trading Spaces").

GOSPEL MUSIC ASSOCIATION CANADA - News CALGARY, AB ─ It was a Starfield sweep at the 30th Annual Covenant Awards on Friday, October 24. Duplicating what fellow British Columbian Brian Doerksen accomplished only last year, Starfield won all six categories in which the band was nominated.

Otherwise known as "That song used to advertise Trading Spaces on TLC."

I can't believe this song is 20 years old. I still remember driving my Hyundai Pony down to the University of North Dakota to see them in concert. s

Last night, I discovered the "Notes" feature on my 4th generation iPod Nano, which effectively lets me turn it into an e-reader. With the help of this website (or this one , which does the same thing), you can turn pretty much any text file into a series of notes files that can be put on your iPod, complete with hyperlinks from one file to the next. It's very cool.

Hmmm ... watching this older clip ... the Houston We Are Go CD may have been less "live" than advertised ...

Pepsi's New Logo: What Went Into the Update - Advertising Age - News I'm still partial to the 1971 logo myself.

Love this song.

Pepsi: Move To Japan So You Can Drink Yogurt Pepsi Japan is a unique country with an adventurous palate, the perfect place to try out new Pepsi Yogurt flavor, aka "Pepsi White." Reader Danny who sent this in says, "The flavor was quite sweet, and closer to that of 7-UP with some slightly milky tones (not really yogurt, just milk). Overall it was good, if odd." In this concoction, it would appear culinary scientists have discovered found the absolute gastronomical inverse of Crystal Clear Pepsi. Congratulations, Science. Click the link for a photo of Pepsi White.

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The new ECW belt is available for pre-order from WrestlingSuperstore.com. It should be available in January. The new Divas belt won't be shipping until March of next year.

"Strikeforce on NBC" draws record 1.1 million viewers | MMAjunkie.com This past Saturday's airing of "Strikeforce on NBC" topped out with more than 1.1 million viewers, the California-based organization today announced. In other words ... a mixed martial arts group that only hardcore fans know about, that airs in most markets in the middle of the night, now has almost as many viewers as TNA Impact, which airs on prime time. Yeah, TNA sucks.

I normally don't post this until Saturday, but my site stats are showing the search strings appearing much earlier than normal, so what the heck. Here's my semi-regular public service posting on where to watch UFC pay-per-views in Edmonton . I have to say, if the number of search strings looking for info on UFC 90 is indication of overall interest in Anderson Silva versus Patrick Cote, this PPV may do surprisingly good numbers.

It's an amazing work of art. I don't like the red leather, and the design seems to be derived from the IWGP title. And it has aspects of the UFC and WEC designs as well. EDIT: TNA has pictures here , here , here , here , here , and here . SECOND EDIT: And the pictures are up on DMB.com .

No, really, that's the rumour . Why not? If any city deserved to have two terrible hockey teams that never win the Stanley Cup, it's Toronto.

Yup . UFC is basically the only MMA game in town now. Bye, Kimbo. Now if only Dana White would open a women's division, Gina Carano could get a job ...

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Apparently, backpedaling and getting hit amounts to a win in UFC these days ...

UFC has a three-hour free show on Spike TV tonight, headlined by Michael Bisping vs. Chris Leben. The show is from the UK, so Bisping is going to be a huge crowd favorite ... which makes me want to see Leben upset him and cut a big heel promo afterwards.

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Weird Al: Forefather of the YouTube Spoof Posted using ShareThis

Vote early, vote often.

Oh yes.

Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web Posted using ShareThis

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We spent the day in Red Deer yesterday watching my nephew's Christian college team play in a volleyball tournament. It was very interesting at times watching a bunch of Christian colleges play volleyball - no swearing, no taunting, and at one point, the opposing team's coach informed the referee/judge that a ball the ref had called in was, in fact, out, and that cost his team a point. Honesty. Gotta love it. There was a bit of sporting culture shock when the tourney started. I was unaware that they had tweaked the rules of volleyball so that there is a point awarded off every serve, and not just for the team serving. That makes the games go a lot faster. But the big news - at least to me - was that one of those "Welcome to Red Deer" type signs on Gaetz Avenue proclaimed that Red Deer is a nuclear-weapons free zone. It's good to know that when the bombs start to fly that Red Deer can hold its head high and say, "No thank you!" before being vaporized into

There's another UFC pay-per-view rerun on Spike TV tonight. This is the one with George St. Pierre's title defence against Jon Fitch (Spoiler: GSP won). But more importantly, it featured Brock Lesnar beating the holy you-know-what out of Heath Herring. (Spoiler: Duh.) Definitely worth putting on the DVR and burning to DVD.

As of this afternoon, I'm the proud owner of a new 16 gig iPod Nano. It is very small. But it holds more stuff than the hard drive of my first desktop computer.

This afternoon, someone from WWE.com (that would be, World Wrestling Entertainment) Googled "wwe divas belt replica" and landed on this humble web page. Now, I'm just thinking ... wouldn't someone who works for WWE know how to buy a replica of their own title belts?

I have to admit ... I've been hot and cold on the Newsboys. Way back when, I liked their connection to Steve Taylor and their goofy, humorous songs, and thought they were funny and thought provoking. Then I kind of lost touch with them and what I did hear from them was more worship-oriented music, which was fine for what it was, but there are a billion bands that do worship music and it didn't exactly gravitate me towards their CDs. Then I heard the live version of "I Am Free." That song single-handedly got me back into listening to the Newsboys. I'm not a rabid fan (they'd be no higher than my fourth or fifth favorite band right now), but I've got enough of an appreciation of their music to spend a few bucks on the new Houston We Are Go live CD/DVD. Well, that and my general love for live albums. I'm still watching the DVD (literally, as I type this), and I've listened to most of the CD. It's really good. Nothing surprising. The Newsboys have

Right click here for a free version of What Child is This from the band's new Christmas CD.

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Well, that was a thumbs down show if I've ever seen one. We all got to see an MMA promotion die on live TV, and it wasn't pretty (even if it was pretty funny). Between the technical glitches, the WALKING~! and the brutal main event that utterly exposed Kimbo Slice as a goof, it was not EliteXC's best moment. It may have been their last moment. When you think back on pivotal moments in mixed martial arts, remember Ken Shamrock's eyebrow laceration. It killed an entire promotion. On the plus side, last night's show was good for my hit count, generating nearly 600 hits in the afternoon and evening.

There's word going around the MMA world right now that due to a cut suffered by Ken Shamrock, his fight with Kimbo Slice tonight is off. Well, bye EliteXC. Nice knowing you. UPDATE 5:59 p.m.: The fight is OFF. The commission doctor has ruled Ken unable to compete due to a cut over an eye. No replacement has been named yet. UPDATE 6:18 p.m. The latest from Dave Meltzer's play-by-play on figurefouronline.com Nothing has been said to the live crowd about the main event. This has changed six times in the last several hours, but as of this moment, the scheduled main event is not happening. Frank Shamrock is still at the announcers desk and at this moment is getting ready for a stand-up but as of 15 minutes ago was awaiting word if the commission would allow him to do the main event or if Slice would accept him as a new opponent. Petruzelli's match with Aaron LaRosa hasn't happened yet because Petruzelli is also a possible opponent for Slice. UPDATE 6:31 p.m. Apparently,

It's all fights all night long tonight with Elite XC's third (final?) CBS prime-time special featuring Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock in what may be a 9-second destruction of poor Ken. And UFC is countering on Spike TV by showing the recent Rampage Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin title fight PPV that sent poor Quinton for a time out . Fortunately, staggered feeds and digital cable means I get to DVR both of them and don't have to choose one or the other. And I have to say, I'm loving the fact that UFC is giving me all these PPV shows for free. It's saving me a bundle of money, and I can burn them to DVD before deleting them, saving me having to purchase the DVD as well.

Within a day or so of Facebook permanently updating everyone to the "new Facebook," a friend of mine changed her status update to bemoan all of the people bemoaning the new Facebook. She said that complaining about the new Facebook was such a "first world" complaint. In other words, only people like us in North America, full of affluence and without any real worries in life, could be bothered by a different interface on a piece of free software we are using. Fair point. However, my issue with the redesign is not a complaint per se about how it looks, but how it functions - or doesn't function. Since the switchover, I have found Facebook to be very buggy in all sorts of ways. The news feeds are often 18 hours behind, or are weird mixed bag of brand-new updates plus stuff that is three days old. It doesn't update my Google Reader feed automatically anymore, forcing me to manually import stuff every once in a while. Stuff like that. And there seems to b

From the new album, Ending is Beginning.

newsboys LIVE trailer from Inpop Records on Vimeo .

Starbucks newest item is hot, chocolaty The new hot chocolate is different in that it's more chocolaty, and less based on milk, than the original, which will still be sold. The new blend contains four types of West African cocoa.

The CRTC's "Do Not Call List" registration form can be found here . As of 6:40 this morning, my attempt to register my home phone number resulted in a "This service is not available. Please try again later" message. Guess their servers are being slammed right now.

My brother's episode is up on the Comedy Network website .

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Hurricane Kyle targets US-Canada borderline Canada posted a hurricane watch and tropical storm warnings in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick provinces, and a hurricane watch was also in effect along the coast of the northeastern US state of Maine. Well, I'm sure he'll find some way to get some laughs out of it. Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy living in a landlocked province utterly devoid of humidity.

Lesnar-Couture rumors appear to be untrue Posted using ShareThis There were a lot of panicked people in the MMA world yesterday as rumors were floated by a usually reliable poster on the Internet that Brock Lesnar was injured in training and his Nov. 15 Las Vegas match with Randy Couture would be canceled.

...Back When It Was a Swedish Colony Actor #1: I can't believe that Barack Obama is getting away with running for president! I thought you had to be born in the United States. Actor #2: He was born in the United States. Actor #1: Nooooo! He was born in Hawaii! Equity Audition Center New York City, New York via Overheard in the Office , Sep 25, 2008

Tolls taken off Coquihalla Posted using ShareThis My trips to Tacoma just became $20 cheaper.

Colby Cosh reviews Google Chrome.

See? I told you Downhere's new album is good! Their best album so far? In many ways, yes, though each Downhere album has had its share of pop/rock highpoints. At the very least, Ending Is Beginning further cements the band's place in Christian music for their artful expressions of our faith. Downhere has hit their stride with this album, and assuming that their following continues to grow, it appears that we can expect continued excellence from them for years to come.

OK, I promised a review of the album tonight, and circumstances have conspired to make it shorter than I wanted it to be. No song-by-song review. Just some overall thoughts. It's a fantastic album - sonically and lyrically. I think my favorite song at this point is Don't Miss Now , which has a great piano hook and some stunning harmonies, and actually reminded me of a post-Peter Cetera Chicago song at times. One thing I noticed listening to it going to work this morning is how some of the songs on Ending is Beginning would have not sounded at all out of place on a Starfield album. (That's a compliment, by the way - to both bands.) Finally, Chris Sligh has some very kind words about Ending is Beginning . I think, "You must, must, must check out this album" pretty much sums it up.

A review of Downhere's Ending is Beginning .

Tomorrow is the release of Downhere's new album, Ending is Beginning . I'll be getting that one off iTunes before I head into work tomorrow. I also have three other albums headed my way in the mail: Skillet's Comatose Come Alive CD/DVD ; Newsboys Live: Houston We Are Go CD/DVD ; and Toby Mac's Alive and Transported CD/DVD combo . Hey, I'm a sucker for live concert albums. Plus, I need some concerts to watch on the iPod while we do our long drives to visit family.

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The Research Behind Exercise Music - Men's Health Whistle While You Work Out Do your treadmill sessions drone on like C-Span? Instead, think MTV and crank up some tunes. A new study from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia confirmed that listening to your favorite music will help you push harder in your workouts. Men who listened to music while going hard on an exercise bike for 10 minutes pedaled 11 percent farther than those who listened to silence or static for the same amount of time. Click the link above to read the rest.

10AM The Photocopier Picked My Pocket Session leader: Now at this point, if you've been convicted guilty of a felony crime, I'll have to ask you to leave. (one woman starts to walk out of crowded auditorium, abruptly stops halfway) Woman: Oh, wait! What is counterfeiting? Session leader: Mam, were you guilty? Woman: Yes. Oh, wait. No. The trial's still going on. Mebane, North Carolina via Overheard in the Office , Sep 18, 2008