Sweet.

No cavities.  It had been a year without a dentist visit.  Before that it was about 5 years.  It brings major anxiety for fear of the classic no-floss verbal embarassment, or the dreaded sugarspot cavity in those back molars.  Now I can sit back, eat my candy corn, and feel the crisp ridges that divide my bottom teeth.  Almost feels like I just got my braces off.  Sweet relief.

Happy hohos.

Hope you’re breathing, hope you’re eating great food, hope you’re having those warm family feelings, hope you’re having those awkward family feelings, hope you didn’t get too much, hope you ate too much, hope you’re sleeping in your childhood beds in cold rooms, hope you had some whiskey, hope you partied with your cool uncle, hope you felt grateful for your fortunes, hope you sang some songs, hope you didn’t listen to shitty soulless Christmas music, hope this year was better than last year, hope you have solid and weird love in your life that only you fully understand, hope you get your “you” time, hope you got your beauty sleep, hope you got respite from waking up in the dark to go to work, hope you feel lucky to be alive.  Love you guys, thanks for reading my utter shit.

The trailer supercut.

Here’s another one, THE movie trailer.  They’re playing a practical joke on us, 4 minutes is long time.

Can we enhance this?

Hate me – I’m using the word meme.  Loving this genre that’s around YouTube these days.

Social value.

Low risk, low returns.

Hellooooo.  Here are some more of those links on a white webpage, just for you.  It’s been a little while, but I trust this will tide you over.  Just insert those witty comments you already have in your cultured, educated grey matters.

Science

• How tone deafness works – this has always fascinated me because it’s something we get or we don’t get.  Most of us are lucky.  Plus watch a video on the science of singing.  I still sing way too much.  I’m like the fifth member of Here Comes Treble.

• I am more of a man than you – Turns out testosterone does not lead to aggression and risk taking, but rather could lead to qualities like fairness.

• The psychology of social status – and why it continues to be the largest motivator of human behaviour.

• Taking bets on the God particle – LHC scientists are betting on when they discover the infamous Higgs boson particle.

• Ask a physicist about time – interesting questions about that crazy dimension.

Environment/Energy

• Electricity from space – California gives the green light to beam solar power from space.  It’s a bit unsane that unsane news comes from our typing boxes every single week.

• Environmental assessment virtuosos rejoice – Amongst environmental moustache tweakers, the Mackenzie Delta pipeline has been a monumental case study for environmental assessment.  Looks like things will not be moving forward any time soon, if at all.

• Tar sands pollution worse than expected – water pollution equivalent to a big oil spill, every year.

• Gategate – scientists responds to those climate emails.   THOSE.  The press needs to stop using two words – crisis, and gate.

• Oregono – Oregon advances use of wave power off their coastline.

• 100% renewables by 2030 – California professors say it can and could be done.

Politics/News

• Google ready to be a phone maker – the next cool step is when they let you talk on Voice over IP for free.  That means no more cell phone minutes, just a device that can connect to the internet so you can talk on your phone via Skype for free.  I’m worried and excited.

• Stephen Harper – nation builder of the decade ? – For some the answer is yes.

Food

• This is going to be my market – on St. Clair West, a retrofitted heritage building, local seasonal food.  Hello to you, Wychwood Barns.

• Lord Kitchener, made entirely of meat – for the K/Wers and the mustard fans.

• The local food debate – more proof that local food isn’t always better for the environment.  It’s always grey kids, je me souviens.

• Q&A with the yoda - top American chef Thomas Keller stops in to chat about his new book in Toronto

Music/Entertainment

• The lists are in.  Oh they’re in – Rolling Stone outlines their favourite albums and songs of the decade. I WUV WOO RS!  The crowning of Kid A across the board makes me so incredibly giddy.  Because I get it, and so do millions of others, and that is something to celebrate.

• The renaissance of Kids in the Hall – they’re baaaaaaaack and they look funny!  Kids in the Hall – Death Comes to Town.

• Jason Reitman – an independent voice that Canada can claim as 50% their own.  Maybe.

• The Yellow Bird project – thanks to friends, you can check buy tshirts designed by your favourite musicians, and proceeds go to charity.

Concerts à emporter.

Vincent Moon and his Blogothequers do it again.  Ironically cliché, Phoenix acoustically performing 1901 in Paris.  I like zem, very very moosh.

The Guilty.

Our love affair with the Internet ends up emitting 2 percent of global carbon dioxide—roughly the same amount as air travel.

What to do?  I can’t feel any more guilty about my life than I already do.

Andrew Sullivan.

Great writer, big politico of the smart conservative variety, smart guy.  Here’s his latest blog post about why he’s leaving the traditional conservative movement:

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

And increasingly, I’m not alone.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Does this make me a “radical leftist” as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn’t leave the conservative movement. It left me.

Of course the left has its issues – messy political correctness, interventionism, sometimes even lacking common sense.  But he’s 100% right and he said everything I’d want to say to an unaware hard righter.  I’m glad someone like Andrew Sullivan can call out the spade on his back.