There I was, standing on the street chatting with my friend BJ, when a long motorcade of black cars pulled up in front of us.

Shadowy figures emerged from the front and rear vehicles and spoke into their lapels while scanning we bystanders carefully.

After a few moments, the door on the middle car opened anh the Prime Minister stepped out, gave a wave, and was spirited into the shipping entrance of the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

See also, Billy Joel in Moscow in 1987 singing Pressure.

I’ve been meaning to move the summer things into the back shed for the last month; my procrastinating was finally overtaken by the first snow.

Saturday is supposed to be 10°C and sunny, so I may get a reprieve.

While he’s not part of an organized fundraising effort, Oliver’s participating in Movember nonetheless.

I popped in to Brìgh Music & Tea after lunch today for a spot of chocolate (they carry Katlin’s, and it is excellent).

It turned out to be a bustling day in the shop, with guitars being sold, and tea being offered, and questions being answered.

Between tea and chocolate I happened upon a Mano Percussion shaker, tucked away in a hidden corner, and, what with it being reasonably priced at $9.38, and the Reinventorium currently lacking a house shaker, I added it to my bill.

As I was settling up, personable co-owner Mary MacGillivray asked me to remind you all that they are open every day through Christmas Eve for all your holiday shopping needs. And until Christmas Eve they have a “buy 1 bag of loose leaf tea, get the 2nd free” promotion.

So now you’ve no excuse not to put a ukulele under the tree, and to infuse your home with the pungent aroma of their Berry Berry tea.

The Bookmark ordered some Paper-Oh A5 Cahier Circulo notebooks for me; they’re a lovely design and, like all Paper-Oh products, are solidly constructed.

They ordered more than I need for personal consumption, so if you’re in the market, grab them while you can.

The Bookmark, by the way, is killing it in the notebook department: be sure to check out the display near the back cash that showcases some new lines.

The exoskeleton at Province House gained lights this week, and in doing so continued its drive toward resembling the set of a Ridley Scott film.

Back in April I wrote about the curious case of South Shore Villa, a community care facility in Crapaud, PEI that’s bisected by the Queens County-Prince County boundary; in this map it’s shown as property 775072, right in the middle, and the county line is shown in green:

My friend Ray was instrumental in the development of South Shore Villa back in 1990, and, knowing that I’d be in Crapaud again yesterday, I asked him if there was any obvious physical manifestation of the county line boundary on the property.

Ray told me to look for a concrete pole in the forest in front of the facility and, sure enough, that’s exactly what I found when I went looking yesterday:

The pole was set there, Ray tells me, in the spring of 1990; it’s in remarkably good shape for a 27 year old piece of concrete.

I love marks on the earth that make the fictional non-fictional.

If you’re out and about looking for the pole, set your GPS for 46.2371944 N, 63.5054333 W and you’ll find it. Or if you’re there as you read this, you’ll know right where you are on the surface of the Earth.

After several years of germination in the USA, Amazon is bringing its Echo line of “smart speakers” to Canada. You can order now for delivery on December 5.

We’ve had a grey market Echo in our living room for most of this year; if I had to ballpark how we use it I’d say:

• 65% “Alexa, turn on the living room light” and “Alexa, turn off the television” – voice commands that control appliances plugged into WeMo outlets.
• 25% playing music from Spotify (“Alexa, play music by Bjork”).
• 10% checking the weather, querying Wikipedia, and various other skills.

Among the “various other skills” are two that I’m particularly proud of, as they’re ones I created:

• “Alexa, ask Farmer’s Almanac about today” – get a brief daily update from The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
• “Alexa, ask City Cinema what’s playing tonight” – find out what movie is playing tonight at City Cinema in Charlottetown.

Both skills are also usable from Google Home and Google Assistant (just say “Hey Google” instead of “Alexa”); Google’s devices have been available in Canada for most of the year, and you can pick them up in places like Best Buy.

One of the ironies of developing the Alexa skill for City Cinema is that Amazon gives me a credit of $100 a month against my Amazon Web Services bill. I used Amazon Web Services to host this website (and City Cinema’s), and the monthly bill for a reserved EC2 instance is must less than $100 a month. As a result, I haven’t paid a bill for AWS since February, and I’m gradually accumulating more and more credit.

Train signaling tokens:

The operation of a bidirectional single track line has obvious dangers, the most serious of which is the possibility of two trains colliding from opposite directions. The simplest method of controlling such a line is to have only one train operational, on the basis that a single train cannot collide with itself.