Timing is everything

Ask anyone... they'll always say timing is everything. Here's a video from the scene of a fire that happened this weekend in my home town.




The tenant, who has been living in the home for about seven months, suspects the fire was caused by faulty wiring in the attic. She said there had been other problems with the unit, and that complaints to the owner had been ignored.

The previous tenant was my daughter.

Speechless

I just can't add anything to the pictures and story that appeared in today's news. Because I'm afraid the story will eventually disappear from the internet, I decided to cut/paste it here.

For now, however, here is the story as found on Sympatico.ca.

Inspired, perhaps, by the fad of Worst Driver shows on television, a Bentley driver decided July 27 to turn the lane in front of Monte Carlo's Place du Casino into a game of bumper cars.

The female driver, allegedly at parking lot speeds, accidentally ran her $380,000 Bentley Azure convertible into the side of a $100,000 Mercedes S-Class, ricocheting and ramming a $215,000 Ferrari F430 and pushing a $70,000 Porsche 911 into a $200,000 Aston Martin Rapide, reports the Daily Mail.

A crowd of tourists quickly swarmed the scene to ogle the carnage (estimated damage: $60,000 total) and presumably point and laugh at the driver, who during the collision managed to block her car's doors. Almost all of the cars require new fenders and bumpers.

Photos of the event have induced cringes on the faces of auto enthusiasts worldwide. Please view with caution.

I traced the story back to the original article in the Daily Mail, where, of course, British humour made the story all the more readable.

What was he thinking?

Israel gets a bum rap everywhere in the world. There are probably not many countries that would just want to be "left alone" more than Israel. Despite propaganda from many quarters, most reasonable people realize that Israeli's in particular, and Jews in general, are not out to start trouble.

So, why would some psychologically disturbed hothead like Anders Behring Breivik go and do something so STUPID AND EVIL in the name of anti-Islamic and pro-Zionist causes? Did this person believe his actions would bring positive attention to the plight of Jews?

When terrorists go around doing bad things in the name of Islam, the press is quick to point out that the majority of Muslims are peace-loving. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, because, strictly speaking, the number of terrorists numbers in the thousands, not the millions.

However, journalists are not likely to make the same argument for terrorists who support Israel (and I'm not even sure that Breivik is even Jewish). No, in the case of pro-Israeli terrorists, you can be sure that one or two bad apples (I have a hard time coming up with more than a dozen or so incidents of willful mayhem by people claiming to support the Zionist cause) won't be labeled as being the exception rather than the rule.

I fear that this incident will do much to spoil things for Israeli public relations.

Amy Winehouse is dead - is anyone really surprised by this?

I didn't know her music. I did know her reputation. I also knew (from YouTube) what a sorry state she was in when she attempted to open her European tour in Serbia. Just how bad do you have to be to be booed off the stage by your own fans?

So am I surprised that she died young? Not really. Although it won't be made official until after an autopsy, does anyone have any doubt that this death was self-inflicted (by drug or alcohol overdose, or something else)?

The last death of a star that took me by surprise was that of Karen Carpenter. I wept openly at her death - unaware that she even had an eating disorder. Her talent was real and unique.

There are other current stars whose deaths wouldn't come as a shock. But I'll leave those thoughts on the back burner - until the proper time to pull them out.

If it ain't broke, don't break it!

I went into my Windows Live Mail account today and saw a whole bunch of useful emails (no, really) that were sent by a company that I use for some of my domain registrations. I decided it would be a good idea to create an email filter, so that emails coming from this company wouldn't get overlooked in my general inbox and could be placed into their own folder.

I've created email filtering rules lots of times, so it's not like I don't know how to do it. Yet, when I tried to create a "New" filtering rule, nothing happened.

I lock my browser down pretty tightly, requiring permission to run scripts, display popups, etc. So naturally, I thought there might be a problem with that. Well, no matter what I allowed, the darn filtering rule screen would not appear.

So, I switched to Internet Explorer, a browser I avoid like the plague. Still, with this being a Microsoft product, I expected it would work with their own email program. NOT!!

I then searched to see if I was the only person having this problem, and thankfully, came across a post from someone who had not only experienced the problem, but had found a way around it. It seems that Microsoft, having made some change to Windows Live Mail, broke the filtering mechanism.

Click here for his excellent solution. I should say that, in order for his solution to work, I had to access my hotmail account using Internet Explorer, since the described solution did not apply to Firefox.

Elton John is coming to town

Tickets went on sale Friday morning for an Elton John concert scheduled for September 10th. Ever since I heard about the concert, I had been waiting for Friday morning so I could be early in line.

I forgot... and now, the show is sold out. At least, I think it's sold out, because every time I tried to buy a ticket, the box-office website told me there were none in that price bracket! But, I guess I shouldn't feel too badly. According to the newspaper, the lineup for tickets started more than 24 hours in advance of the box office opening; and I had many more important things to do and places to be during that period. Still, I had hoped to snag a couple of tickets to surprise my wife.

And the winner is...

David Byrne, from Essex, Ontario! Essex is just outside Windsor, my hometown. And in tonight's online press (and probably tomorrow's front page), news that David Byrne beat fellow Canadian Kent Eger of Regina was a bit unexpected.

After all, Kent Eger had been at or near the top of the money leader list during the main competition. Heading into tonight's finale, he would have probably been the odds-on favourite to win the competition.

But things got rough for Kent almost from the very beginning. Going into "Stage 2" of the competition, David had a commanding money lead. Kent would have to beat David on three straight holes to win the competition.

Kent managed to win the first hole of the second stage. But a poor drive put him behind the eight ball on the second hole, and he ended up losing to the younger, less experienced David.

What I really enjoyed about this final was the demeanour of the competitors. Maybe it's because they're Canadians; but there was no trash talk, no taunting, no haughtiness; just an engrossing competition between two gentlemen golfers. Kent was gracious in defeat, David humble and surprised in victory.

I wish all the best to both golfers, and hope to follow David's progress when he takes part in his PGA appearance next year.

Gimme a break!

Can you believe it? Going into its final week, the "Big Break - Indian Wells" golf challenge has only two contestants left standing - both Canadians!

I've only watched this show for the last four or five seasons, so I can't say whether there has been a Canadian winner prior to when I began watching. I can say that in seasons I've watched, there has almost always been at least one Canadian in the field, but none ever made it this far.

Whether the winner turns out to be David Byrne, from neighboring Essex, Ontario, or Kent Eger from Regina, Saskatchewan; the real winner will be Canadians who will feel a bit of pride at being guaranteed a one-two finish in the game.

Heck, after tonight's episode, the online version of our local newspaper featured a story and picture featuring David. Tomorrow, no doubt, he'll be front page news.