about a week ago, markus posted a comment on my blog with the express purpose of finding out who's googling his name. you see, when someone comes to my blog by way of a search engine, i can see that search request, and when the request is for someone in the office, i let them know in case they care.

aileen had been boasting to markus that she'd been googled two or three times already and how his name never came up once (since his name wasn't on the site) so he posted his name in the comments and anxiously waited.

not more than a week later, his first hit. someone was googling for markus templer. and then today, another hit, this time, for pictures of markus templer. after letting him know about this most recent development though, one of his sales coworkers got an idea:

"wanna play a little joke on markus?" james asked. "wait a little while and tell him that you saw another google search for his name, this time for nude pictures of markus templer".

i really must say, my performance was exemplary. i totally had him, but i couldn't believe how good i was at the lying. we still haven't told him, i might just leave it up to james to break the news... either that, or he'll have to read this post.

at the very least, this post should improve his google rank ;-)

edit: As it turns out, there really are nude pictures of markus templer on the internet. just do a google image search and you find this. and yes, i asked. it really is him.

i got a phone call from a computer a couple of days ago. it was the recorded voice of marilyn churley, mpp of toronto danforth inviting me to come out to the ndp kick off party in my riding being hosted in a place called "the opera house" on queen street. i'd been looking for a good opportunity to talk to volunteer coordinators to see if they needed help canvassing, so i figured i should go. besides, i'd never been to a party like this.

it was creepy

now i need to explain that statement, because i don't want to give the impression that i don't support the federal ndp -- i do, but last night was not about politics, it was about hype, excitement and a whole lot of people desperate for leadership.

jack, olivia and marilyn hit the stage to much applause and sign waving. people cheered and called out bits of encouragement as jack readied his speech and then we would all quiet down and listen... waiting for the appropriate moment in the speech to burst back into applause. the whole thing felt more like a gospel church gathering than a political event, with people calling out "shame!" upon hearing about the liberal party's disregard for social services or "that's right!" when jack would mention some of the ndp accomplishments of this last term.

absolute and unwavering support for the three candidates permeated the room and i was left wondering: what the hell are we doing? why are they wasting their time with this crowd when their votes are obviously secured? i guess i don't have a lot of patience for hype.

What people like the George W. Bush don’t understand is that capitalism is not a one-way street. When the demand for workers is high and the supply of laborers is low, the rational solution would be for employers to raise wages, increase benefits, or both to ensure that supply catches up to demand. But that would mean actually spending more money, and we can’t have that.

Instead, employers have found a way to get around their obligations by employing “undocumented” workers (and thus creating a demand for illegal labor). Why are these men and women willing to do the same job that Americans are unwilling to do for less money? Well, they’re here illegally, for one. They probably don’t speak English well and have little familiarity with existing labor laws. They’re doing a job that’s unskilled while under the constant threat of deportation. Sounds like the new face of indentured servitude to me, but the President and his allies are trying to figure out ways to make it acceptable.

did anyone really want an election now? will you be voting any differently this time around? anyone want to make a prediction?

smart money says that the liberals will come back out on top, but how well they do is still up in the air. for my part, i'll be doing all i can to make sure that jack layton's riding stays in the ndp column by canvassing in the dreary weather. and i'm hoping for another minority.

if only they could learn to just sit down and do their jobs... if you're interested in getting more details, cbc has some. about 20min ago they were reading emails from the public. here's one of rex's favourites:

i am so pumped for this election! i just hope i can get a lawn sign before the ground freezes solid.

sometime soon, i'll try to re-setup my election section... maybe this time through someone other than me will use it ;-)

now this is talent in photography.

i've come across a couple interesting links that i thought i'd share.

the first is an archive of a complete email discussion between an american liberal blogger and a rabid conservative the dialogue is at best, entertaining, at worst, very, very sad. ...and then the guy mentions his ford explorer.

the kicker though is the comments on the post. after only a few people mentioning one criticism or another, the division between left and right in america becomes very apparent:

This year, just my wife and two daughters. No having to listen to right wing in-laws. I truly have something to give thanks for.

the other link comes from andrea and rabble.ca, a site i normally avoid due to the rabid and blind leftism, but this article is worth reading. it's an american's thanksgiving thankyou to one of his country's best friends: Canada.

this is what new york city's downtown core would look like if every roof were a green roof. photo courtesy of inhabitat.

before i moved to this city, i had no idea what a green roof was. i'd never heard the term in fact. as it turns out though, the idea is very popular all over north america and it's finally catching on in toronto.

a green roof is basically putting living, green things on the roofs of buildings, essentially attempting to replace the greenspace displaced by skyscrapers and other structures. the green stuff can be anything though, from grass to bushes, shrubs and corn to full-size trees all depending on the amount of support built into the building.

the private benefits include all sorts of cost savings including heating and cooling at all the right times of year, water filtration and reclamation, and a longer lasting roof structure. but the real pluses are on the public side: better air quality, reduced storm drain overflows and urban beautification.

that's why we were all at city hall last night to hear the result of a big study commissioned to get the numbers behind the above and supply recommendations to council about how to get this stuff happening. among those mentioned, were tax breaks and subsidies, requests for funding from provincial and federal grant programs (Kyoto), new bylaws to possibly require them as well as making sure all roofs are built to a code to prevent corner-cutters doing ad-hoc, leaky jobs.

most surprising though was the fact that there was absolutely no opposition. for those who aren't familiar with public meetings at city hall, this is practically unheard of. with representatives from public schools, roofing companies, charitable organisations, environmental lobbies and the general public, there wasn't a single dissenting voice in the packed council chambers. torontonians want this to work.

the only unfortunate part of last night was the lack of emphasis on food production in urban areas. all this attention to green roofs being generated and so many people just want to put grass up there. with propper planning, we could have a green house on most of the towers in the downtown core, complete with vertical wind turbines and solar panelling setup to supply electricity to the grid... but this was a good first step.

it's that time of year again. the teacher is moving all of our desks into new pairings with the hope that we'll learn to mingle more and be less "cliqueish". the mood in the room is a mixture of fear and excitement as the lot of us look around in the hopes of getting placed next to friends and not in the vicinity of anyone too repulsive.

when my turn comes up, i'm placed next to a pretty girl with long, curly locks of sandy blond hair. for my part, i'm terrified -- she's one of the more popular girls in the class and i... well i'm not very well liked at this point in my life ;-) i can't stop looking at that hair though...

over the months we're seated together, i learn to relax. turns out that i don't burst into flame when she looks at me. like any other relationship imposed on two people who would normally not associate, we find common ground and learn how to compensate for each other's weaknesses. i help her with her school work, and she... sings. i am 11 years old and for what feels like the first time in my life i find myself stepping back from my work and just listening to the beauty in the world. before allisen, i don't think i ever really appreciated music.

allisen clements was one of those girls who somehow managed to brighten the room just by being in it. like the girl i met on the subway that one night, she had a way of making those around her want to let go and live... if only for a little while.

whenever i'm feeling too wound up, i try to think of her and so this morning i went googling for her. turns out she works at a community centre in vancouver these days. i guess she's still brightening people's lives ;-)

as treehugger has already pointed out, the city of toronto in conjunction with toronto hydro, toronto events, tev and local business improvement associations ran a light exchange these past few days finishing up last night. the idea was to get the old, incandescent lights out of circulation and replace them with the high-efficiency l.e.d. lights to reduce toronto's overall energy footprint.

just to give you a better understanding of what this means, i'll go through the math:

• one string of normal outdoor lights with roughly 20 bulbs on it chews up approximately 160watts of power, that works out to about 8watts per bulb.
• the smaller lights, normally refferred to as "icicle lights" use approximately ½watt each.
• you can run 35 the l.e.d. lights on only one watt.
• therefore, for the same amount of energy you're chewing up for 20 old bulbs, you could have 5600 l.e.d lights!

now i'm not sure how many old bulbs we took out of circulation last night. our location wasn't all that busy due mainly to the lack of walk by traffic, but even we had two person-sized recycling containers full of old light cables so i'm thinking we saved a lot of power last night... and i got three free boxes for myself so i'm going to see what it takes to hook them all into a solar panel ;-)

andrea in the foreground, some guy who's name i can't remember background left and paul england back-right

nancy and margaret in the foreground, and that's janet, our director behind and left.

my official piece of paper

turns out, if you stick around long enough, the environmental volunteers have a party and officially graduate you. i believe the whole thing has something to do with the required community service hours before you can have a work permit in Canada or something -- i've not really delved into the politics of it all. regardless, we get a lot of new Canadians coming to tev because they need offical hours of some kind. a lot of us however stick around long after graduating, since the work is fun and karmically rewarding.

the ceremony was fun though. the deputy mayor, joe patalone was there to shake your hand when you got your certificate. there was catered food with lots of tasty cheeses and a lot of veteran tev's who'd been with the program for years. janet, jessica, pantalone and a councillor who's name i can't remember also made thier own little speeches as well.

it's nice to see your dedication to something like this appreciated though. being a tev means a lot of long hours in the hot sun or bitter cold talking to a lot of people (some interesting, others painfully stupid) about things the city is doing to make itself better. you put up with ignorant comments from assholes, and get nods of thanks from those who understand why the work you're doing is important, and often you learn new things about your environment. i've really enjoyed my time in the program and intend to stick around for as long as i'm in the city.