the blog quebecois

I read a couple of days ago a very complimentary newspaper piece (National Post?) about the NDPs web presence, The Orange Room. I didn't give it too much thought at the time but saw an ad for it later and clicked on it to take a look.

Hmm. The picture at left is from a caption contest that the site is running. Mere words were not enough for this Dipper, one Rob Cottingham, who brings his mad Photoshopping skillz (beyond what was already done, unless Harper has a previously unseen Brownshirt uniform) to the party, giving Harper a . . . puppet? elephant's trunk? bazooka? for his arm.

Whatever. I'm just relieved that someone's taken the title of Canada's Worst Photoshopper™ off my hands.

like, about six feet under if you're prone to slippage.

The man in question is working on the second floor from the top, third window from the right. I had to shrink the picture, so he's a bit tough to make out. Larger, vertigo-inducing pix here.

Via The Presurfer

My computer has a love/hate relationship with YouTube. When they aren't getting along I can only watch two seconds of any particular video (it usually clears up after I reboot, but I haven't had a chance today). I therefore commend sight unseen this parody of those creepy Kids for Obama videos. Iowahawk seldom (well, never) disappoints.

The Telegraph:

Abraham Lincoln: A victim of buttbuttination?

Not an extract from an essay by a particularly poor history student, but a selection of the nonsense phrases created by automatic software designed to remove offensive words from articles posted on the internet.

The phenomena, known as “The Clbuttic Mistake” after a mangling of the word “classic” that is believed to be the first identified instance of the problem, can be found on tens of thousands of websites.

I gotta say, I sympathize with the donkey these days. More Third World adventures in transportation here. (Site loads a popup ad, which you can skip through by clicking a button at the upper right.)

Bart Bonte is a Belgian programmer who produces charming little games without much in the way of instructions; the idea is to discover the rules for yourself. In this (click the image or here) you are presented with various screens. In the one pictured you click on the purple duck to advance to the next level. But I leave you to discover the game's other secrets.

Bonte's website here. He reminds me of the even-more-whimsical Ferry Halim.

Warning: SFX and music -- the latter can be muted with a button at upper left.

I have absolutely no idea what this picture is about, and the accompanying text isn't much help, being that it's in Farsi, which, believe it or not, I don't fully understand. But be it noted that that doesn't stop me from spending hours on Iranian websites, hoping that someone will post an interesting photo, even if I can't understand it. The things I do for my readers.

Michael S. Malone:

The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun - for the first time in my adult life - to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I’m cut. I am a fourth generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kansas during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian). My hard-living - and when I knew her, scary - grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I’ve spent thirty years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national by-line before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist”, you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you ten different ways to color variations of the word “said” - muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. - to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

Via Ace of Spades

Ian Robinson:

Jake did not whine.

He did not say it wasn't fair that the other kid was bigger. He didn't say football players should be handicapped to make things "fair" by, perhaps, tying the giant nose guard's right foot to his jock.

All he did was joke and flash the grin that says: We tried. We lost. They were better today.

If only the political elites in the country could summon such a becoming dignity.

After getting her not unsubstantial butt handed to her on a plate during the recent federal election, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May did what my son and his teammates refused to do.

She whined.

*

Time for the obligatory Halloween post. Picture courtesy of Ray Villafane, whose elaborate pumpkin (among other things) carvings are here. Inspired to try your own hand? Go here. (Warning: Sound effects when you advance to the "done" screen.

Or for your reading pleasure: The 23 Best Horror Games. Note: These aren't playable Flash or Java games; rather, reviews of commercial game releases for the computer or console market.