I make this entry only to demonstrate to the world that it is possible to completely reverse the timing of one’s day: a week ago I worked late one night, and ended up not getting to bed until 4:05 a.m. This morning I awoke at 4:05 a.m., in time to catch the 6:05 a.m. flight to Boston.

So far I have not had a nervous breakdown, but the day is early.

As you can see from the statistics page, Saturday was the busiest day ever for this site, with 1,182 page views. Hello new visitors, whoever you may be. Welcome.

Earlier today our trusty western chargé d’affaires Johnny overwrote a photo on the PEI Visitors Guide while doing some maintenance on the site. We didn’t have another copy of the photo easily available and although we could wait until Monday to grab one from the backup, that would leave a hole in the site.

Enter the The Internet Archive. Pop over the to their website, enter the URL of the missing photo, and blammo, there it is.

Neat.

One of the more interesting projects I’ve been involved with on the web is Island Music Radio. Streaming PEI artists, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The song goes:

I had never thought to ask you
How you happened to get such a name,
But along the coast there are places
Where you’ve earned yourself quite a fame.

You talked a line, Johnny,
Nothing was true, Johnny,
You tricked me good, Johnny.
From that first day.
I hate you so, Johnny,
How you stand and grin, Johnny
take that pipe out of your mouth, you dog.

And so, slowly, I learn to embrace the concept of Johnnyness. I’m not there yet, but the road is shortening.

Oh yes, I forgot how I started: Johnny’s website is back in action.

As I derive a substantial part of my income working with magazines and periodicals, I take more than a passing interest in the health of the magazine publishing world.

And so I was saddened to hear of the death of Talk magazine. Although I wasn’t a regular reader, I did enjoy the magazine from afar, especially in its wacky early days when it tried to emulate a European magazine in style and format. Talk will be missed.

As for what happens to good magazines when they die, witness the Saturday Night magazine website today:



Not a pretty site. Although certainly truthful: ceci n’est pas une site web.

It must be hard to be a travel agent these days, what with everyone thinking that you’re irrelevant now that it’s possible to book most everything, anywhere, on the Internet.

And I must admit, for about the last 5 years I’ve not used a travel agent for anything: I’ve probably booked $50,000 worth of air travel for myself and my extended family during this time, using the Air Canada website and Expedia websites to book, and a variety of other sites, like CheapTickets and Travelocity to comparison shop.

And I’ve done pretty well. For short trips — Toronto, Boston, New York — I can’t see any reason to do anything else, especially now that travel agents are starting to charge processing fees as their commissions get cut more and more by the airlines.

But this is not a story about not using a travel agent.

In the middle of February the wee family and I are going off the beaten track for real (at least the beaten track as defined by “usual destinations for parents of 15 month old children”) and heading to Thailand for about three weeks.

When we made the decision to travel, I sent off faxes to three travel agencies here in Charlottetown. The only agent to reply in suitable detail was George Stewart at Admiral. I got an almost instant acknowledgement of my fax by return email, and a choice of three itineraries within 12 hours. Over the next 2 weeks, George fiddled and twiddled with the itineraries in response to our whims, and today we wrote out the Big Cheque (it’s cheap in Thailand, getting there is another thing altogether!).

I found dealing with George a pleasure: he’s entirely email immersed, and responds quickly, usually within an hour or two. He didn’t bat an eye at any request we made of him.

If you go to Expedia and search for the lowest published fare from Halifax to Bangkok, they’ll tell you it’s $1917. Travelocity’s lowest published fare is $1902. Of course those are only published fares, and when you start looking at actual seats available on actual planes, you start getting quoted fares in the $3000 per person range.

George got us tickets on Air Canada and Japan Airlines for $1500 each ($1200 for wee Oliver).

So we dealt with a local business, saved money, and earned some peace of mind from dealing with someone who knows the territory. I’ll probably continue to book my own flights to Boston and Toronto, but for anyone else, George is my man.

There are three David Moses in the Internet Movie Database.

David Moses (I) you have to wonder about: he is reported born on April 10, 1962, yet he is also credited with playing the role of Technician in the 1969 Raquel Welch movie Flareup (at age 7) and the role of Robber in a 1972 episode of Sandford and Son (at the age of 9).

David Moses (II), no birthdate, has one credit: the role of Ned in the animated series Eckhart.

Similarly, David Moses (III) has only one credit: writer on the mid-1990s television series Caroline in the City.

Which Davis Moses would you rather be? And is there actually only one?

Catherine said the other day that she had no idea how old she is: she looks at other people, everyday or famous, and has no concept of how old she is in relation to them.

I realized I suffer the same problem.

So I did some basic famous people research.

I was born on April 5, 1966.

Nancy McKeon, who played the rebellious ‘Jo’ on The Facts of Life was born the day before me.

Robin Wright was born three days after me.

Cynthia Nixon was born on April 9th, 4 days after me.

Stephen Baldwin, the youngest of the Baldwin brothers was born a month later, on May 12 and four days after that came Janet Jackson.

Helena Bonham Carter was born later in May, and Julianna Margulies was born in early June.

I’m also the same age as Dr. Dre, Cindy Crawford, Edie Brickell, Kurt Browning, John Cusack, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mike Tyson, Luke Perry, David Schwimmer, and Kiefer Sutherland.

I can’t say that many on that list came as a surprise to me, although generally I think I feel younger than most of them (this is probably because they are famous, and thus appear to have achieved more in a shorter time).

Here’s an interesting idea for a website: take a list of, say, 100 famous people and present them one by one, giving the option of selecting “older than me” or “younger than me” and then average out the results. Anyone?

From CNN: “I do not find any reason that this would happen again,” Tubb said. “He fainted due to a temporary decrease in heart rate brought on by swallowing a pretzel.”

Saturday Night Live, or reality?