Oliver is forever misplacing his headphones. Generally they end up under the sofa, or inside the sofa, or on the side table, or under a pile of books. Sometimes space aliens take them for awhile. Headphones locating has been a substantial source of stress in our daily life.

So we installed a headphones hook.

Problem solved.

It’s been 20 years now since Island Tel began its brand transition to Aliant, and 16 years since Aliant completely retired the brand names of its merged component regional telcos, yet vestiges of the old name remain.

Like this telephone booth in the Atlantic Superstore in Charlottetown (located, ironically, just a few hundred metres from Island Tel’s former headquarters). The logo is one that existed during the transition between Island Tel and full-on Aliant, designed in that regrettable era of globes and a swoops.

I was reading The New Yorker profile of Glenn Greenwald this morning, and read, just before I put it down to go across the street to the office, this characterization of the relationship between Greenwald and Edward Snowden:

On Instagram, Greenwald posted a photograph of Snowden eating an ice-cream cone. Snowden had told me, “We’re not like buddy-buddy. There’s a distance. We don’t talk about our personal lives. We don’t call every Wednesday and say, ‘Hey, you want to play bingo online?’ ”

Five minutes later I walked outside and, frozen in the ice between the sidewalk and the road, I spotted this cast-off bingo card (not a winner):

I have not said the word “bingo,” nor thought of bingo, in a long time; now it’s everywhere.

Also, how would you play bingo online with someone?

Every Saturday afternoon, en route to Crapaud, Oliver and I have lunch at A&W followed by a drink at Starbucks.

The drive-thru line at Starbucks today was really long, so we opted to go inside to order, and I was asked for my name by the order-taker.

“Pete,” I told her, using the pseudonym I fall back on for such purposes.

Seeing through my charade—he’s obviously not a Pete, she realized—my cup was labeled BEET.

I was hopeful that I would be able to tap into the free wifi at the Crapaud Public Library this afternoon to watch the speeches at the PC leadership convention.

But the library was closed, the wifi locked down, and I was out of luck (why all Islanders don’t simply have automatic wifi access at all Island libraries, without bureaucratic rigmarole, I do not understand).

My consolation prize was the opportunity to sketch the library entrance from my position in the driver’s seat of my (increasingly freezing cold) Jetta.

Today seems like an opportune time to resurface the email I got from Jeff Bezos in 1995 after I sent a suggestion to Amazon customer support. Back then he and I were both mere mortals; I still am.

The blog of the Architect of the Capitol in Washington, DC is an interesting new find for me; I found today’s post, Cast in a New Light: The Capitol Bronze Shop particularly interesting:

Additional workers hired for the Capitol Bronze Shop included founders, chasers, bronze filers, finishers and laborers. They initially cast ornamentation and small works of art and later produced more practical fixtures such as hat hooks, hinges, heat registers and keys.

If the maintenance and restoration of national capital infrastructure is your jam, you may also be interested in the ongoing work to rehabilitate Centre Block in Ottawa.

The shrouded exoskeleton around the western end of Province House was lit up last night like a large scale art installation. Tetris!

With the talk about the scourge of bottled water this week, let’s not forget that people like Leo Broderick and Mary Boyd have been calling for its elimination for years.

The Pendergast family has been an important presence in our life on Prince Edward Island: they are an enormously talented bunch, whether concerning matters of food, books, music or philosophy. And among the kindest lot you’ll ever encounter.

The talent has made it to the next generation: young Shane Pendergast–you may remember him from the film he made about John Bil–is an entrant in the CBC Searchlight competition, and you can vote for him right now as easily as clicking right here, listening to his track (you don’t have to listen to it to vote, but it’s a good track, and you should), and clicking Vote.

You can do this, apparently, up to once a day.