we can talk about North Preston's Finest and East Preston's Finest

I was a bit surprised on CBC supper hour news last week to hear the words "North Preston's Finest" spoken. I thought maybe it was a slip or an editing error on the air. You had to watch for it a bit. But it's online too here and here.

It seemed to be a self imposed taboo for the last few years for any local print or broadcast news outlet to ever speak of the rival Preston gangs North Preston's Finest aka NPF and East Preston's Finest aka EPF. I mean I generally don't know anything and I know about NPF and EPF. so the media certainly knows. and I've known going back to the liquordome brawl way back. It's so weird watching the news over the years and its like after hours club shooting here, Preston shooting there, Mineville shooting somewhere else and the media chooses to mislead the public just talking about some unspecified "gang" activity while for whatever reason leaving out key information about specific rival gangs.

Consider some of the other coverage. The media pretty much publishes detailed org charts on the Spryfield Marriott and Melvin groups and everyone is ok with it. and it's not like people apply labels to Spryfield as a whole over it. It's just an activity that a tiny percentage of Spryfield people are involved in. so why the code of silence all these years over NPF and EPF? well I guess now the word is finally out so perhaps we'll be hearing more of them in the months ahead.

KB Tactical Laser Tag

A little while ago I tried out KB Tactical - Mission Based Laser Tag with the kids. It was really good! Better than I was expecting. It's part of Kartbahn. My younger son had wanted to go for some time. We were at Kartbahn one day and it was a lot of people at racing so we decided to give the laser tag a try.

We had a good time. The laser tag weapons they use are advanced and have a great feel and are a blast to use. The setup of the missions is well designed fast paced and fun. The layout of the arena is good for strategy and exercise and lots of action.

It's not all that well known to me at least that it's there and there's really good laser tag in Bayers Lake but there is. I recommend it and we're planning to go again.

Graph TV and some shows

on facebook and old friend from back at SupportSoft posted a link to Graph TV. it was fun to play with it and type in some shows. I'll mention a couple here


Californication is pretty accurate. First season good, second season ok, then steadily downhill. After the Mia storyline played out the show was just silly. I can't believe I watched it through season 4, or was it S5 when I finally gave up? may have been S5, S4 was horrible until about the final three episodes when they recaptured some awesomeness and suckered me into another season.


Friends is not very accurate. nobody will seriously say the final two seasons were 85-90% as good as the first two. the last two seasons were unwatchable. The Chandler-Monica storyline was terrible on every level. I didn't even watch the finale, what was the point? There must be some sample bias in the Friends episode ratings. By the end only the hardcore fans were left and still voting 8 and  9, while many like me just voted with their feet and stopped watching.

Still the early Friends did have some moments. I liked how actions tended to have far reaching and unexpected consequences. Chandler unprofessionally falls asleep at a meeting at work and is dispatched to Tulsa Oklahoma.  Ross enjoys a short fling while on a break from Rachel and is never able to live it down. the fallout lasts years and ends up defining the remainder of the show.  Ross acts like a big shot at a pricey restaurant topping up Goodfellas tip and ends up having to pick up the entire cheque.  Monica and Phoebe get their catering business going and then Monica lands her dream chef job at a restaurant and abruptly throws the catering and Phoebe under the bus.

new home page - Protopage

so my Yahoo home page that I'd been with for many years just abruptly vanished this week. thanks Yahoo!

I don't know why Yahoo would shut down the home pages. they hadn't added any features in years except more and larger ads. so they can't be spending much time or money on it. I've seen many thousands of ads off my Yahoo home page and even clicked on a few here and there over the years.

oh well so I have to move on. after a bit of searching for a new home for my bookmarks and rss feeds I found some good reviews for Protopage. I'm now set up with Protopage as my new browser home page. It was very easy and even a little bit fun to work with. Like I said I don't have a lot of content, just links to the sites I visit most days like Dilbert, and some RSS feeds for news and such. I now get a lot of news, especially local news, from Twitter.

For the news feeds I wanted to cut off Yahoo so they don't get any ad impressions off me. I went with CTV news feeds to start out to give them a try. my feeds are top stories, Canada, world, and Atlantic Canada.

so +1 to Protopage I recommend.

early Steynamite Christmas shopping

Readers here will know I'm a fan of Mark Steyn. For a long time at his site I somehow didn't realize Mark Steyn's Passing Parade is actually a book. I've read some of his obits from the book and they are really good.

I've already read America Alone and After America and they are great books. So I was going to get the Passing Parade anyway. Then I realized there's at least one other person I know who I think would enjoy the passing parade too. So I can also get another copy as a gift.

So far so good. This was looking to later this year. Then the Michael Mann lawsuit came along. what a nuisance. but I wanted to help out in my small way so I got my gift certificate which I'll use some of in a few months.

Olympic hockey semi finals

Like quite a few I watched the Olympic semi finals today. work from home can be useful at times. of course I'm glad Canada won over a very good USA team.

I overheard a guy at the fish and chips place said the game was boring. I wouldn't call it that, but the game was a bit different than in 2010. it didn't seem as fast or intense as the 2010 showdown. it had more the feel of a preseason game. except for Phil Kessel who was flying around. it might as well have been a women's game for how little checking there was. also as Don Cherry pointed out a defenceman let a USA forward blow past him on the outside in the first period, something that never happens in an NHL game.

I got thinking there may have been a couple of factors in the reduced intensity.

first the John Tavares injury is such a shame. but it's a reminder these guys are here as volunteers and they need to stay healthy for their real jobs in the NHL. so the players may have been motivated to take a bit off, avoid collisions and stay safe

after the 2010 gold medal game which was a generational event and incredible dramatic game it's pretty hard to follow that. so this was possibly a very good game which happened to be the match after the memorable 2010 tilt

there's a bit and switch element. in 2010 we were told this was the last time the NHL players would be in the Olympics. the final time it would be the best versus the best, nation versus nation, a place in history on the line. so that added a lot of intensity to the 2010 event. and yet here we are only four years later and the NHL players are already back. and they'll be back in four years. the players were scammed four years ago and now they see it for what it is. another tournament.