Who The Heck Wants To Play Rockband...

.

....When You Can Actually Play In One.

Which is what I did last night.

Sort of.

I have this young friend, a fellow-science geek at the top of his game, who recently built himself a sound-proof studio in his garage.

And last night we played.

And within 3 minutes (OK, maybe 4 if that's how long it takes to get through a very, very bad cover of this) I was 18 all over again.

****

As for today?

Well, I've landed with a thud back right smack-dab back in the early part of my sixth decade.

And as for my throat.

Well.....

It's about a hundred or so.


OK?

.

Darkness Will Always Be The End Of Summer For Me

AreTheyStillRacin'
OutAtTheTrestlesVille


Which is also my real New Year.

Because every time I open my book, it just means more work for me and mine too....

Or some such thing.

OK?

.

Words of Wisdom From Bigger E....

.

"August?..... I dunno....It's kind of like Sunday."

Sure is.

.

What Is He Doing In There?

SometimesLithiumIsNot
EnoughVille


Just charging the batteries for one last run at RailGate's big return....

Perhaps Sunday Night with The Swell Season and Black Francis on the lawn in the Malkin Bowl will be that last jolt I need to get going again for real.....

Serious stuff that pixie-dust, no matter where it comes from or when it arrives.

****

Talk to you all about heavier stuff soon enough.

In the meantime, our good friends Laila Yuile and Norman Farrell have an interesting new venture going down here, as does Ian Reid here.



______
For those wondering about the state of 'The Three Buskateers'.....Bigger E. now has a busking license to call her own and is playing at Granville Island quite regularly these days ....So if you're down there shopping keep an eye and/or ear out for her.....Me, the proud Papa?...You betcha!


.

Charlie Brown And The Gang Are HST Exempt...

....Who Knew!

What the heckfire am I talking about?

Well, as our good friend North Van Grumps has informed us, it would appear that a certain brand of 'Peanuts' are HST-free:

"Here on the north shore, at the local Wildbirds Unlimited store, they have a note on the counter, for all to see, that their shelled peanuts are Province HST free because they meet another high standard, this time set down by the Federal government...... they're salt free."

Ha!

.

Gordon Campbell's Harmonized Sales Tax...

....Is Now One Month Old.

So........

Has the price of one single thing that you buy gone down yet?

Why do I ask?

Well......

Remember the StatsCan report that predicted Mr. Campbell's Stephen Harper-assisted tax would cost the average family $521 per year?

That number WAS predicated on prices falling.

And if they don't?

Fall, I mean.

Well.....

The cost could be, in the estimation of Paul Willcocks, something on the order of $1800 per year for a family of four:

"....Basically, the HST will cut taxes for businesses by $1.9 billion a year and increase the taxes paid by individuals and families by the same amount - something like $460 a year per person...."

Finally.

Please remember also that, as our commenters recently established, a number of the heads of those businesses in this province that are reaping the benefits of this act of corporate welfare gave Mr. Campbell literally millions during the last two election cycles.

Happy BC Day!



_____
Oh, and don't forget, the Fraser Institute's attempts to low-ball the impact of this egregious act of corporate kleptocracy was completely discredited right out of the gate. Interesting that, don't you think, especially given that it would appear that the fine folks from the FI have been the number one button-pushers of the fact-challenged noise machine that was designed to discredit Statscan on the longform census issue.


.

Japan's Loss Is Our Gain

TedBaxterWasNeverANewsman
InkStillStainsSomeWretchesVille


Because our good friend, and good old fashioned newsman*, the reverand paperboy is coming home......

Which is good news indeed.



______
*Of course, the good reverand also knows all the right moves in the new media too.

.

The Hardest Writing Journos In Lotusland...

SomeWretchesAreStained
WithInvisibleInkVille

______

Post-show update at bottom of post....
______

....Are On The Radio This Morning

Yup, that's right.

It's pixel-dust wretches Holman and Oberfeld, together on the same radio show.

You can catch it live here starting at 8:00am Sunday morning.

Or catch-up with it later on the pod, here.

****

Now......

Here's the thing.

A journalist who works hard is not the same thing as one who writes/reports hard.

Although the two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

But getting both in the same package is getting pretty darned rare.

Especially 'round here.



______
That's the legendary, and long gone, hard working/hard writer Mike Royko in the clip above....Another lifelong dualist of the form, Daniel Schorr, just passed away last week.
Post-show update: One of the items that came up was the recent 'interesting' goings on at the Oil and Gas Commission.........Now this fine Commission, and the fine folks who have worked for it and/or its predecessor, is something I've written about before, including back in those long gone times when the Blogasauri stomped on the Lotuslandian Terra and the Fraser River flowed East (ie. in 2004).....Anyway, the discussion on Mr. Holman's show this morning led me to exume a report from Auditor General that was published back in February of this year (warning pdf)....Lots of interesting gloves-off stuff in there....More to come later.

.