Here are the nominees for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars:

• Atonement
• Juno
• Michael Clayton
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will be Blood

If you have seen any of these movies, please tell us where and under what circumstances. For example, for me it’s:

• Atonement - British Airways flight from London to Boston, January 2008, tiny 8 inch seat-back video screen.
• Michael Clayton - Empire Theatres Studio 8 in Charlottetown, December 2007, the hated “Theatre 8” down at the end of the hallway, the one with the old seats and the tiny screen.

You can leave yours in the comments.

On my car trip home from Sackville, NB last night I listened to Radio-Canada’s excellent jazz program hosted by André Vigeant. One of the songs they played last night was a Sidsel Endresen interpretation of the Police song Shadows in the Rain, from the Christof Lauer & Jens Thomas album Shadows in the Rain: The Sting Project. It took a little detective work to find this out — the playlist tool on the SRC website didn’t have last nights show available, so I worked through the artist list on the show website.

You can listen to a clip of the song here (and a clip of the original Police version here).

Sidsel Endresen is a Norweigan jazz singer with a fantastic voice. If you’d like to hear her in person, you can catch her on May 23, 2008 at the Panorama in Eidsvoll. The Jazzland Recordings website has a lot more information on her other recordings.

Remember the office tower proposed for just up the street from my office? Well using the plans provided by the developer to the City, and making some educated guesses to fill in the gaps, I was able to use Google SketchUp to create a 3D model of the proposed building:

You can download my model (and improve on it, I hope). Google SketchUp is a free download and is available for the Mac and the PC. It occurs to me that this sort of 3D modeling should be required from developers for all variance applications.

Let’s all take a moment today to pay homage to Tom Regan, who, back in the early 1990s, took the Halifax Daily News online, making it the the first newspaper in Canada available on the “information superhighway.”

Tom moved on to the Christian Science Monitor and then to National Public Radio where he is the author of The NPR News Blog.

The Daily News shut down today, replacing itself with the same kind of generic “free daily” you’ll find across Canada and around the world.

The Internet Archive has the Halifax Daily News website as it was in 1997 safely stored away so we won’t forget that it was, in its time, a pioneer.

The City of Charlottetown sent along a letter to our landlords here at the office about a proposed development that’s slated for the empty lot two doors up Fitzroy Street:

The City of Charlottetown has received an application in accordance with Section 4.29, Other Variances, for a variance to the property located at 96-100 Fitzroy Street (PTD #’s 344085, 344101 & 344093) which is zoned Downtown Mixed User (DMU), to allow an increase in height from 39.4 feet (12.0 metres) as required by the Zoning and Development Bylaw, to 98s feet (29.8 metres). The pupose of the variance is to permit the construction of a seven story office building. The proposed height of the building from grade to rooftop is eighty five (85) feet. The proposed height of the building from grade to the top of the mechanical penthouse is 98 feet. The proposed building will also be constructed to the property line or zero (0) setback. The attached map shows the location of the proposed structure on the property. In regards to parking the developer is proposing off lot parking or cash-in-lieu or a combination of these options as determined by Council.

As a property owner within 100 meters of this application, you are being notified of the requested variance. The City solicits your comments with respect to the proposed variance. If there are any objection(s) we would appreciate receiving the reasons for the objection(s) within fourteen (14) calendar days of the date of this letter. In accordance with Section 4.29 the City Planning Board will consider this application at its next regular meeting and may then recommend to Council to grant or deny this variance. Written comments on this application should be submitted no later than 12:00 noon on February 19, 2008.

If you have any questions in regards to this proposed variance, please contact the Planning Department at 629-4158.

The lot in question has been empty for the past few years; formerly it was occupied by a rather dilapidated building which was torn down. In recent years the lot was used as a parking lot for construction workers building the Jean Canfield Building across the street, and last fall the parking lot was closed and an 8 foot high plywood fence was built around 3/4 of the lot. This is what it looks like this morning:

Nominee for “Best Blog Post Title of the Year,” at least so far: Diana Barry turns her back on Charlottetown, chooses Evil Dead instead. Which contains the quote:

In my heart I want to return to the Island and have the magic again, but in my mind I know Evil Dead is the way to go.

A review of new devices that visually show energy usage. See also this WIRED article from 2001 about the “Viridian Electricity Meter.”

I’ve always called the spoons that accompany tiny cups of espresso “tiny spoons.” It seems they actually have a formal name: demitasse spoons. A demitasse, appropriately enough, being “a small cup of coffee” according to Oxford. A favourite part of our trip to Lisbon last year was finding a hardware store down near the train station that sold “tiny spoons” for 30 cents a piece. They were flimsy, and had burs on the edges, but I bought a half dozen and I treasure them.

Often when transiting through a larger airport like Heathrow I’ve spotted airplanes that have “Star Alliance” branding rather than the branding of an individual airline. And I’ve wondered what exactly these airplanes are. Thanks to the excellent Star Alliance Brand Book, I now have my answer:

Here you can download the specification sheets for the Star Alliance promotional livery that need to appear on 3% of each carrier’s international fleet.

The so-called “promotional livery” is explained in more detail in this 2002 press release:

Star Alliance is the only airline alliance that consistently displays a promotional aircraft livery. The flying billboards, featuring Star Alliance’s unique symbol, are highly visible at airports and in the air, and serve to build Star Alliance awareness and stature around the world.

First Scharffen Berger got purchased by Hershey and today comes the announcement that Coca-Cola has acquired a 40% stake in Honest Tea.

While I can understand the pure business rationale for the additional cash and resources that these kind of acquisitions allows smaller “boutique” manufacturers, they also seem to ignore that part of the attraction of the products they make derives from the fact the independent style and approach taken to produce them. For me it’s always been as much about the politics as it has been about the atoms.

“Honest Tea by Coca-Cola” will no doubt taste the same as little old independent Honest Tea. And it will probably be a lot easier to find (yes, I’ve complained about this very fact). But it will also now be tinged, at least for me, with the after-taste of Coca-Cola and the foul multinationalness that represents.