I was never a big fan of the WB series Felicity. I will admit that I watched it several times — maybe more — during the first season, mostly because it spoke to some latent post-high school angst stuff buried deep inside me. But after that season things started getting weird and I could no longer muster the energy required to sort out Noel and Ben and who was the flavour of the week and so on.

Tonight, though, I stayed up ‘til 2 a.m. and watched the series finale of Felicity in KTLA Los Angeles (hence the late hour). And it wasn’t bad. They did use the familiar Wizard of Oz crutch of a feverish dream leading to some lucid time travel fantasy.

But they also did a much better job at “review of the 5 years of the series through flashbacks” than most any other series that has attempted the same. And this, in turn, provided me with a useful catch-up: I skipped four seasons of the show and caught up on all the various threads in one handy 2 hour package.

I have spent an exhausting six months watching Seinfeld. Exhausting because it’s on most prominently at 12:05 a.m. (i.e. the 12:05 that comes just after midnight). Watching because somehow I largely missed Seinfeld in its original run (there was a dark period of 3 or 4 years in the somewhere where I had a small black and white TV that only picked up CHEX, a sort of toy CBC station in Peterborough). As a result of this, Seinfeld has always seemed like some deep dark secret pool of cultural references that I didn’t quite get.

I’m happy to say that after this tiring marathon (in recent weeks it’s been 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. on Fox Rochester, and 12:05 a.m. on ASN), I believe I’ve now seen every episode. And so while I’m not yet at the stage where I’ll turn away from an episode of Seinfeld if it throws itself at me, I no longer feel the need to pursue the affair. Thank goodness.

That said, I have cause to wonder why in the panoply of digital channels there isn’t The Seinfeld Channel. There’s a channel that plays only westerns, one that plays only action movies, one that plays only Dave Chalks Computer Talk and other annoying tech weirdnesses. There even appears to be a channel based almost entirely around reruns of Three’s Company and Hogan’s Heros.

So why not The Seinfeld Channel? I suspect that it’s the kind of channel that people actually would pay $2.95 a month to subscribe to… just think: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you turn to, say, channel 345 and you can watch an episode of Seinfeld. No more waiting until after Spin City or ATV Nightside. All Seinfeld, all the time.

If there are any impressarios reading, I’m ready and waiting to sign up.

In a move that has shocked some village residents and that echos its recent acquisition of Callbeck’s Home Hardware, the APM Group today announced that it had completed negotiations to acquire the Village of Hunter River, Prince Edward Island.

APM president Tim Banks said he is excited about the acquisition. “I’ve driven through Hunter River many times, and have always realized that it is underdeveloped; with our retail and construction expertise, we’ll have Hunter River turned around by the end of the year.”

APM plans to introduce better lighting, friendlier customer service and a better selection of exotic fruits and vegetables to the village. It is expected that the present site of the Irving gasoline station will be converted to a manufacturing plant for reproduction antique wheelbarrows.

While tightlipped about details for the project, APM officials did hint that some of the residents of the village may have to be relocated. “Hartsville is barely full, and New Glasgow has some spare room,” said a company source, “we don’t anticipate much resistance.”

Part of a planned expansion by the APM Group in 2002, the acquisition of Hunter River has renewed rumours that the company is planning to purchase the communities of Crapaud, Eldon and Dundas. APM representatives had no comment on these rumours.

Country of the day: Niue. Who knew?

In response to the terrific demand for Toby Mcguire merchandise, we’re happy to offer the following hot photo. Click on the photo to order.

Tobey Maguire
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Framed   Mounted

I received a Word file in Ukrainian this morning that started as follows:

It is alas written in Ukrainian, which I do not read, write or speak. I’ll have to start cultivating some Ukrainian friends. Perhaps my brother Steve who, in Saskatoon, lives in one of the epicentres of Ukrainian-Canadianess.

Allan Rankin, David Weale, Perry Williams and Brad Fremlin are combining their considerable talents this summer to present Here On The Island: A Harvest of Stories and Songs.

They’re up every Saturday night at the Harbourfront Jubilee Theatre in Summerside. It should be a good show.

About 10 years ago, when my hands started to curl up and die from too much typing in anti-ergonomic positions, I sought solace in the arms of anything that would lessen the impact of 8 hours a day at the keyboard.

A new chair helped, as did adjusting the height of my worksurface, raising the height of my monitor and purchasing a Microsoft Natural Keyboard.

But the real wrist-killer in my life was the computer mouse: I have big hands, and the dainty little smallest common denominators that are standard issue with new computers were killing me.

Thank goodness I found Contour Design, a small New Hampshire company (all good things come from New Hampshire, it seems) that makes eight varieties of the Perfit Mouse, 5 for the right-handed, 3 for the left-handed. Using a sizing chart on their website, you can buy a mouse that’s the closest thing you’ll come to custom-fit. I’m a large.

I’m on my second Perfit Mouse now (the first one was a serial mouse and while it’s still in tip-top shape, I needed a PS/2 mouse, so I bought another one). No single purchase has done more to alleviate my pain and suffering from computer use.

It’s not easy to buy from Contour Design — their website is kind of dorky and confusing, and you must pay gobs of duty and GST if you have a mouse shipped to Canada — but it’s worth it.

One of the great things about working in the Composing Room of a daily newspaper was that we got to see the classified ads before anyone else did. I snagged both a great apartment and a mediocre accordion this way.

The EarlyBird token is a way for civilians to get the same one-up.

I think this is a good idea.

Speaking of interesting popular science writers, there’s a profile of Oliver Sacks in the April WIRED.