FIGHT DCMA

Hey all, sorry for not too many posts. Been working on about 80 musical projects, including two that I'll be announcing in about 3 weeks. The reason I post today is that the Government of Canada is looking to pass a very restrictive DCMA copyright law. In essence this law will protect the bloated, stubborn major labels while seriously harming almost all aspects of classical and independent music scenes... among others.

From Boing Boing :

Copyfighting law prof Michael Geist takes apart a Microsoft editorial that claims that the Canada has no copyright law even after it received the largest award for copyright infringement in Canadian history. Meanwhile, the Canadian Recording Industry Association has been caught lobbying the Canada's Ambassador to the United States in an effort to convince the U.S. government to increase the pressure for a Canadian DMCA. If that weren't bad enough, Prentice is about to overrule the Canadian Foreign Minister who wants to have a debate on the WIPO copyright treaties before the Canadian DMCA is introduced just like the Conservative government promised in the last election.

Ready to fight back for your digital rights before it's too late? Check out the list of Copyright MPs who are particularly vulnerable on copyright, join the Facebook group, attend a talk this week in Calgary with Prentice, and write to your Member of Parliament and Industry Minister Prentice.

If you have 2 or 3 minutes, I ask that you join the Facebook group or write the letter (you just fill in a form and it sends a letter for you.). This fight is very important and will affect the way Canadians use music, and may damage many of the musical projects I'm currently working on.

See you in a couple weeks!

I'd like mine stir fried with peppers, onions, mushrooms and almonds

48%

EMO Regina

Merry Christmas

From all my crew to all of you, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

People, we need to stop the Tar Sands.

I've long been follwing with an ear about the Tar Sands in Alberta. Basically, for the past while there have been alot of stats showing that the Tar Sands are an environmental disaster. CO2 emissions are rampant and land reclamation has been questionable.

The CBC is currently showing a peice on the news (Catch it again on newsworld at 11:30!) The land cannot be reclaimed, the water is heavily poisoned. Basically it will leave these massive dead lakes full of poisoned water. That water has already been seeping into the water system, poisoning fish, plants and people. Local fishermen have been finding mutated fish, fish with sores and fish with moss growing on them. Scientists have confirmed these finds and say the cases are rampant in some non-oilsands areas. A nearby reserve has a highly disproportionate rate of cancer, and cancer deaths, linked to a certain type of cancer.

THIS IS BULLSHIT PEOPLE! Holy crap, let's talk about the poor getting the shaft while the rich get rich! What are we the fucking 3rd world?! Why are we not civilized enough yet to stop this behaviour?

Take action. Take it now.

Walk - Bike - Take Public Transportation

The City of Regina has made a very wise and hopefully, just beginner move to change some attitudes about alternative transportation.

The first great example is the creation of bike lanes in some of the downtown areas. People have complained about the inconvenience and confusion associated with the lanes. I applaud this. The City has made it harder to drive and made it a far more bicycle friendly downtown. More people will use their bikes instead of cars. Traffic lowers, bikes become more easy, it can just spiral. I encourage everyone to use this as much as possible. Even if you live some distance from the downtown, try the area north of Victoria on your bike at least once this coming summer. No matter where in REgina you live.

Public Transportation. AHHH! I LOVE IT. SIck isn't it? But Regina has a REALLY good bus system from where I live. And I'm learning that it was far more flexible than I thought. And now they have an online trip-maker... you'd be RETARDED not to take the bus at least once a week, but preferrably 5 days a week. Start by going to the mall a couple times, have a nice day, eat a nice meal, take the bus home... and I swear you will feel better about yourself. It's like having a chauffeur, you can just relax and wait for your stop. If you live in another city... give it a try! It's wonderful and you're doing a HUGE amount to cut your footprint on the world and effect on the Tar-Sands.

Small centers, CARPOOL. You will be more prepared for work and will enjoy a better day.

I realize some of your experiences won't be good, and I apologize for that. One of my inspirations for exploring alternative transport came from watching my friend Mark and some of his experiences in Europe. I invite Mark to ride the bus with me when he comes back to Canada, so I can brag about something that's done really well in this province.


And since most of the tar sands oil goes south of the border, please visit http://www.tarsandstimeout.ca/ and participate as much as you can or will.

Yeah Right

Mark showed me this vid this summer, and for some reason I kept quoting it tonight at work. So I figured I'd like to share it with you all... enjoy. Oh it's a bit weird.

(null)

Hello world. I am blogging from my cell phone!

Pilot's World

A self-portrait... I title it Pilot's Wold...

wiitacular!¡!¡!¡?

Ok. So I just got the internet channel on my Wii, and I must say that it is a helluva lother easier than crappy Max Tv internet. I'm finding blogging quite acceptable. Alas, I still can't seem to blog. from my cell phone.

A great feature is the auto complete feature, similar to the T9word feature on texting.

Very exciting, now I don't need to use a computer at all anymore,

Oh my sweet precious darling.

I am a man of many loves. I love many things dearly. My wife, my dog, my stepdaughter... the works. One of my great loves is my little Fender Jazz bass.

It's really one of the most beautiful instruments I've ever played, and I rabidly love playing it. When I'm not playing it, I'm thinking about playing it. I think about is as much as sex. I don't need to send you to the Kinsey institute to tell you what that means. It means not being able to pick up my bass for sometimes weeks at a time can be like a massive case of musician blue balls.

Well tonight, my music mojo is getting her fix.

Yessiree, the only reason I'm typing this is that I need a little break to sit down.

Oh Web 2.0, are you killing us all?

I'm an avid reader of a trio of webcomics by married couple Natalie Dee and Drew. In fact Rhonda and I recently bought a pair of T-Shirts each from them to help support the kickass work they do.

I think one of the most attractive parts of their webcomics is that they are almost the exact age as us and have simmilar interests and social identities, loving music, counter culture, humour, the internet and being stuck in urban centers in rural areas.

I've found that they also have both been showing alot of frustration with the internet of late, and I can't help but identify with them a little. It's this double edged sword. It stems from a real love and appreciation for the internet and what it's become, and a real hate and loathing of the internet and what it's become.

Since the internet's growth has taken a steeper and steeper upward curve every year, my usage and interest has waned in an opposite fashion. My days of being able to spend 8 hours online are long over. There's just too much crap to sift through to find the good stuff, so I end up just sticking to a small handful of tried and true sites and fuck the rest. This is why newer internet fads like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and lately my blogging have fallen to the wayside. I've been finding that quite frankly, real life is a hell of alot more interesting, and I'm getting alot more done because of it.

The ability of any Tom, Dick or Harry to post shit online is not necessarily a good thing in my eyes.

More Pictures of my Baby! - Tool in Saskatoon

My lovely wifey has posted some new "4d" pictures of our baby on her blog. I'm told the 4th dimension scanned is the "Awesome" dimension, and our child is off the charts.

If you would like to view the pictures, please feel free to visit Rhonda's blog at
http://knottyrhonda.blogspot.com/2007/11/baby-pics.html

Got back from seeing Tool in Saskatoon last night. The show actually got a mention on the Tool webpage, which is really awesome. I now wish I'd gotten a poster instead of the T-Shirt, but I like the T-shirt all the same. The show was good, but they were better in Calgary, I blame the sound man.

And I'm still reeling from the Grey Cup win, Saskatchewan sure as shit deserved it.

WE DID IT!!!!

Well we just got back from the mob celebrating at Vic and Albert here in Regina. I've got a pile of videos from the celebration, but this one is likely one of the best.

RIDERS ARE GREY CUP CHAMPIONS!!! WOOOO!!!!

GO ROUGHRIDERS!

Well to most of the people that would read my blog, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know that my beloved Sask Roughriders are in the Grey Cup. I'm totally stoked for the game.

Also, contrary to a popular rumor currently circulating tabloids such as the Star and People, I am still totally fucking rad. That shit just gets better with age, I can fucking assure you.


GO RIDERS!

My Thoughts on Child-Birth

Well we've entered what I guess is the 9th week of the pregnancy, just above 7 months left until we welcome the newest member of our little household. Sometimes it sinks in really hard, it did at the ultrasound. In fact the ultrasound was a really great day, and I've gotten very frustrated at my lack of ability to make it to the followup to come, because I'm obessed with seeing the kid. I can't wait to meet him/her.

I'll admit that I thought pregnancy would be alot less traumatic on the whole family. I'm a wreck of nerves and anxiety. I link lot of it to apprehension about Rhonda's pregnancy-related illness, we've made one late night trip to the emergency room already, and tonight she's mentioned visiting again, which leads me to beleive that I'll likely be visiting her again tommorrow night or later. The nursing types take no chances on these things, and I can't argue with it because I'm glad she's taking care of her health. But I'm a little phobic around hospitals, and so even the smallest issue is blown up in my head.

So I worry about Rhonda and the baby. I also worry alot about Tai. She's got this world of potential. Smart, rabidly artistic and pretty to boot, she's poised to take over the world if she wants to, and the way she dreams to live, she's gonna need to be a conqueror. But we find difficulty with her and school, our work schedules have made it hard to get her in extra-curricular and I think she's suffering a bit socially and personally.

I know that a large part of it is to stop worrying and take some control of the situation, and in some respects I try to, but in others I wonder at my place and ability.


In other words, don't marry fast and get pregnant fast. You can understand someone if you talk long enough, we just needed to talk more first. Marriage is good, pregnancy is hard damn work... especially if you're the one carrying the little munchkin.

Happy Halloween!

Happy H-Day y'all! No big plans here, pass out some candy, and sit around paying some bills. Almost 5 now, no sign of kids yet.

Listening to Kleinbottle.

The World's Top Methane Emitters

1 - China
2 - United States of America
3 - Brazil
4 - My Stepdaughters ass
5 - Canada
6 - Russia
7 - Japan
8 - India
9 - United Kingdom
10 - Vatican City

My Baby's first pix

What a handsome baby, don't you think?

I'm gonna be a daddy!

And he's gonna be the most kickass scuba diving, locksmith, extreme sporting, rock-star with doctorates in medicine, philosophy, curing cancer and kicking ass.

If it's a girl, I'm sure she'll make a good subservient wife and mother.