Author: dave Page 69 of 75

That’s the premise of this very interesting video.

Take a look and see what might happen down the road.

I don’t know much about the group behind this intriguing piece. But it sure is interesting. And technically, very cool. Go ahead and click to see see the piece. It’s about eight minutes long.

Now I’ve done it. I’ve been trying out Firefox, which is a new Web Browser from Mozilla. It’s an open source creation, and if that doesn’t mean much to you, you might not be that interested in the rest of this post.

For years, I’ve used Internet Explorer to surf the web, putting up with many of the weird things it does, and worrying about security issues. Then I switched to a Mac and started using Safari, which I am very happy with. Safari is from Apple, and it’s a really nice application.

But there’s been a lot of buzz in the press about this new browser, so I thought I’d give it a try. One of the things that intrigued me was the ability to browse using tabbed pages. Safari also offers this, but for some reason I haven’t been able to figure out how it works. But in Firefox, it’s easy. And very effective. I find myself using Firefox almost exclusively now, although it’s only been a couple of weeks.

My biggest problem is that I had built up a big batch of saved bookmarks in Safari…and now I’m adding new ones in Firefox. I wonder if there’s a way to import or export one or the other? If anyone knows how I could bring my Safari bookmarks over to Firefox, I’d love to know. I’m still not sure whether I’ll switch to Firefox permanently, but I’m liking it so far.

Well, sometimes there just isn’t quite enough fuel in the tank…and that’s what happened to Westdale tonight. They dropped a tough decision to Sarnia Northern in the bronze medal game at the OFSAA tournament. The final score was 45-40. That brings their season to a close on a bit of a sour note, losing two games in a row. But once the tears have dried, the girls will be able to look back at a very successful year.

In the bronze medal game, Westdale ended up losing three starters with five fouls each in the fourth quarter, and they just didn’t have enough juice to overcome a late game deficit. They were leading at the half by four points, but a 6-0 run by Sarnia to start the third sealed the game, as it turned out. Oh well…it was a great season.

Kelly continued her impressive performance. She had a great tournament, proving that she belongs at this level. She gave consistently strong defence when asked to step in and I expect she’ll be one of the leaders next year. So that’s it for basketball for now…back to rowing.

Of course, Kelly being Kelly, one sport at a time isn’t nearly enough. As well as being busy every day with rowing, Kelly will also be playing on Westdale’s senior girls’ volleyball team! So perhaps another OFSAA tournament is in the works in about three months time?

Well, it was a tough game, but Kelly’s basketball team, the Westdale Warriors, came up just short in this morning’s semi-final game at the OFSAA tournament. They lost 47-37 to top-ranked St. Thomas Moore, also from Hamilton.

So that means they’ll be playing for a bronze medal tonight at 6 pm against the loser of the other semi-final between the third Hamilton team in the tournament, St. Mary’s and Sarnia’s Northern Collegiate.

It’s been a great tournament. But today, Westdale was a little flat in the opening minutes, giving STM the early lead they needed. While Westdale outplayed STM in the second half, they couldn’t score and take advantage of STM’s mistakes. So that 10 point early lead held up right to the end.

Tonight’s game should be good one, as Westdale has got something to prove to its fans. They could have beat STM if they had played the way they did Friday night. So I’m hoping that’s the team that shows up tonight.

Since so many of you seemed to like the Proud Papa stuff for rowing, I thought I’d add one today for Kelly’s Basketball. Kelly’s team, Westdale, from Hamilton, is in the Ontario Senior Girls’ AAAA championships this weekend. The OFSAA tournament is being held this year in Hamilton. As of right now, Kelly’s team is 2-0, and doing all right.

They play tonight at 7 pm in the quarter-finals, and now the games are getting really tough. The quality of the play is exceptional and there are no easy wins from here on. It’s sudden death all the way. The link above will take you to the scoreboard page of the tournament, which they’re keeping fairly up-to-date.

Kelly is having a great tournament. She’s playing a solid back-up centre role and her defense has been extraordinary. It’s a real treat to watch the games. Too bad they weren’t being broadcast, so I could tape them and pass them along to some of you. But I’ll try to keep you up-to-date over the weekend on how things are going.

The quarter-finals are tonight (Friday) at 7 pm. Then the semi’s are at 10 am Saturday, and the Gold and Bronze medal games are Saturday night. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

FRIDAY NIGHT UPDATE — Westdale won! They beat a very strong Toronto Etobicoke team with an inspired surge in the first half to catch up, then pass the Gators. And once again, Kelly came off the bench with strong support at the centre position. In the second half, they held on to lead at 3 quarters, and pull it off in the fourth. The final score was 74-66, thanks to some great foul shooting. They play the semi’s Saturday at 10 am!

Are we taking this whole President’s visit thing too seriously? I mean really, he’s just coming to chat. And yet our security forces have created the largest security operation in our history (according to one news report) to protect one man. Hmmm…Does anyone deserve that?

The CBC is doing an interesting item all day today. This link will take you to a blog from Ottawa reporter Paddy Moore, who’s walking around Ottawa with a blackberry and a camera phone, filing constantly. It’s kind of interesting, although he seems to always be struggling to find a decent place to see what’s going on. Not too exciting, but worth a look.

I guess I should be more excited about all this, but somehow, it just seems like so much nonsense. Sort of a case of everyone taking themselves way too seriously. I can’t help but compare what’s going on today to what is happening in Kiev. There, thousands of people are milling about, with police virtually nowhere to be seen.

Speaking of Kiev, Salon.com has an interesting item comparing the way that election fraud is treated in Ukraine with what’s happened in Ohio. Take a look.

The Globe and Mail’s Stephanie Nolen wrote about the plight of women in the Congo last weekend. I wanted to provide a link to her story, but the Globe now has a paid subscriber policy, and this article is now only available to those with “Insider Edition” subscriptions. I don’t have that…nor, I suspect, do many of you. What a shame, because Nolen’s story is worth reading.

Nolen is an astonishing reporter. Her work from Africa has been without peer in the Canadian media, at least, as far as I am aware of. And her newspaper, the G&M, deserves praise for funding her activities. Her travels around Africa, and most recently, the Middle East, are always interesting. In fact, the whole Globe foreign correspondents group deserves kudos.

Anyway, Nolen’s articles on the travesties that have befallen the Congo in the last decade are sobering reading. If there is a hell on earth, this would appear to be a good candidate. What has been done to the citizens there during the seven-year civil war, and in the months since a “peace” deal was reached…words fail me. Especially the horrors inflicted on the women. Nolen’s brave reporting is without embellishment. She wraps up the truth and delivers it in clear, precise tones. You are left as the reader to form your own judgements. I can only imagine the personal hardships that she has gone through to interview her subjects. She hints at it occasionally, but never dwells on it. Yet it must be an amazing story on its own. I hope she tells it one day in more detail.

While the first story is no longer available in the free edition, the second and third of her four part series are on the website. (I’m not sure how long these links will be active.)

Well…perhaps not just for the holidays. The CBC in Saskatchewan puts out a package of card each year, with the images supplied by their loyal listeners. Here’s the link to this year’s version.

Disclosure note: I was one of the esteemed judges this year, and I’m happy to say that all of my picks made it into the final 12. As you’ll see, the range of photos was pretty impressive. And be sure to check out the rest of them. There’s pages and pages of really interesting stuff, all contributed by listeners of the Morning Edition in Saskatchewan.

One interesting thing I noted was how few of the pictures had any people in them. Seems like Sask people really like that big sky country, and they’re sure in love with the landscape. For all those Ontario folks who ask me what’s so attractive about my home province, I think I’ll just point them to this picture gallery.