Although there had been deaths before, and there have been deaths since, Challenger was the first one I remember, and so holds a special place in my space-lovin’ heart.

The next two weeks, I’ll be posting unadorned links of interest. Enjoy!

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He did this twenty-three years ago, today.

In (hopefully) six days, they get to face off against the best in the east.

Oh, wow.

And I might be able to get to a game. Oh, I can dream…

I can’t really fault them, though. Although many of the enthusiasts out there probably weren’t even literate the last time that the Oilers made it to the conference finals — apparently on a goal scored by their now-coach, for some perspective — that hasn’t stopped them, and shouldn’t stop them, from taking some enjoyment from the event. I’ll admit, I don’t get the whole “pride in the team” thing — we have little to do with them winning, except in the sense that we provide the pay that keeps the team here, and the live crowd is like a creature of its own, goading through sheer force of adrenaline. The average man on the street, however, contributes nothing directly. So, the pride thing… Well, whatever works.

Me, I think back to the Dynasty and note that this is the way an underdog team makes a run at the Cup.

Yeek, that’s a workout. It might be the circuitous sentence structures, it might be the content. But either way, it’s hard going.

So, of course, I grabbed some Lagavulin 16-year scotch to sip as I educated.

Life is pretty good.

Oh, and in other news, my local hockey team beat their local hockey team. And what a game, it was. Wow.

In yet other news, did anyone notice the geographically-relevant link list down and to the right? I’ve added “Sites near me” to the sidebar. It’s possible that there’s even a useful community of bloggers in Edmonton. Although, odds are slim.

Mere seconds (about two) after the seat reservation system came online, I clicked through and got… denied.

I’d use a hockey metaphor, here, but none seem to be coming to mind. And they’re all goofy anyway.

So, I’ll have to wait to see another playoff game, I guess. Bummer.

Yes, it’s a swaglist. Sue me, it’s my website.

(On a related note, by the way, Char and Simon will be getting posting setup at Morruz when they take off. So you’ll all have to read it for their travels, too. I hope that Simon will post there, with a link over from his usual haunts, so that the travel docs can be kept together.)

Anyhoo.

So, there’s a few techie things that I’ll get out of the way ASAP. I’m looking for a Microsoft Bluetooth (wireless) mouse. I’m also looking for some kind of USB2 external hard drive in the medium-large range. Nothing insane. Last, but not least, I’m interested in a couple of computer games. For Windows (sad, but I installed Windows on the laptop just this weekend. I’m a sucker for techie playthings, what can I say). The games are HalfLife 2, and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Heh.

Books are cool, too, of course. I’m low on literature, despite Amy’s best efforts to swamp me

Anyway, that’s about it for the technolust. I don’t know why people keep saying I’m hard to buy for, since I usually make it pretty clear what I want.

Mind you, I’ve got nothing on one of my site’s tenants when it comes to letting cobwebs collect. It’s too bad, too, because he’s a good writer. Char and I spent a late night there the other day, and had a blast. As expected, of course. I’m concerned that they may not feel the same, though, because I have an uncanny knack for finding (not causing, I hope!) flaws in any electronic device that I go near . Their coffee maker spat up, and the next day their gamecube wasn’t playing nice with their VCR. I swear it’s not my fault, but the correlation between my presence and these issues is a bit disturbing.

Anyway, I’m just ticking along, here. I tinkered with the blog layout again. I decided to try something I ordinarily find to be a bit hard on the eyes — the black background + white lettering scheme — and get REALLY geeky. Isn’t that a slick death star?

Other than work, I do little. I’m still poking at the programming environment of OS X, looking for a way to make my iTunes reconciler work. I imagine that once I get through the “how the hell do the GUI programming tools work?” steps, I should be cackling.

Yes, it’s going to be one of those posts.

There’s a couple of interesting incidents out in the wilds (I hesitate to say “hinterlands”, but mainly because I don’t think that way of Austria, and I don’t want to lump them in with the rest of the places at issue) of the world. You may have heard of them. There’s the (by now) infamous incident with the Danish editorial cartoons causing riots and bloodshed… Oh, sorry, no. Just to be clear, that bloodshed? Those riots? The threats? Those are the works of madmen, not cartoonists. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to differentiate the two.

Anyway… Back on track… There’s the cartoons, and then there’s this twit over in Austria, deliberately flouting their laws against Holocaust denial to promulgate bald-faced lies about the occurrence of the Nazi extermination of some large number of Jews.

So… What’s the most common refrain? Well, on one hand we have people who are all for freedom of speech, and then on the other hand we have people who are all for freedom of speech.

What the fuck, you ask?

Well, see, that last group “believe in free speech, but…”

Beware of anyone who prefaces a statement with that line. They probably don’t have your best interests at heart, and they’re a liar, to boot.

Here’s the skinny, and I know that this comes as no news to most of those that read here, but nonetheless: Free Speech means (and, in fact, rests firmly upon and is rendered meaningless without) the right to say things that terrify, disgust, demean, insult, and verbally violate all that you hold dear. The more offensive an utterance is, the more important it is that the speaker be free to say it, without fear of violence or of censorship. That isn’t to say that they should be immune to censure — that’s how mind-blowingly stupid pronouncements like “Auschwitz’s Crematorium Two, the site of half a million deaths, is ‘a mere legend’” should be greeted. Ridicule is another good response. As is simply ignoring the speaker. But silencing your critics is… well, there’s a couple of interesting 20^th century events that might be informative on the subject. I leave that, too, as an exercise for the reader.

In short, freedom of speech is not just freedom to agree with the people who have more guns.

Char and I, sitting in our apartment, noticed a strange siren from outside the door. Turns out our building isn’t really all that well-equipped with loud fire alarms. Not that I mind; I’d notice them. Char, however, would not, if she were sleeping…

But I digress.

So, one of the 19th-floor penthouse suites was aflame in a serious way. Fire licking at the roof, smoke sheeting out. I wish I had a camera. Or, for that matter, apartment insurance.

I’m pretty pleased with the fire department — less than one hour from alarm to all clear.

Nifty stuff, this whole “Fire” thing.

Updates inside… Turns out that the fire was, in fact, confined to the balcony of the suite. Hockey equipment + careless smoker == no hockey equipment + lots of smoke.

You live, you learn, I guess.

How are voters supposed to make informed choices, if all of the reasonable alternatives — plus the NDP — aren’t allowed to present their platforms?

The Green Party is the first party I’ve seen that has ever given me reason to re-examine my fairly hard-line conservative bent. They’re basically the other side of the coin, for me; where the Conservative party satisfies my sense of fiscal and civil responsibility, the Green Party emphasizes a fair number of intellectual property and personal freedom policies that I support, as well. It makes it a hard choice, and even more so because I live in one of the two ridings in Alberta that elects a Liberal, which brings my own personal distaste for strategic voting to the fore.

Let’s just say I’m not 100% certain to vote Conservative this time around.