The December issue of YANKEE has a piece about Massachusetts singer-songwriter Lori McKenna. YANKEE is making a free MP3 of her song If You Ask available. It’s a worthwhile download.

I’m now convinced that there are episodes, perhaps induced by sunspots or other amorphous forces, that cause sudden surges in technology-related problems. In the past 48 hours we’ve been experiencing DNS problems, server problems, network problems, and AOL email problems. Everything appears unrelated to everything else. Technology, of course, is expected to break. Why does it have to happen all at once, though?

A few notes gathered in the field today:

• The café at the Friendly Pharmacy (down on Water St. on Charlottetown’s waterfront) is no more. Word from the pharmacist is that they needed the space for a new doctor’s office.
• Honest Tea is back at the University Ave. Shopper’s Drug Mart. At least for now. There’s no longer any trace of Bottle Green, which appeared to have replaced it.
• My dentist (the excellent Dr. Don Stewart at Cornwall Dental Clinic) gives out free Oral B “sensitive” toothbrushes. Presumably he gets these for free from Oral B in return for the exposure. Except that it seems as though you can’t actually buy the same toothbrush in stores. Weird.
• All of the Murphy’s Pharmacies appear to be tied together with a common inventory system (hence you’ll often be prompted “do you want me to check the other stores?” if a particular store is out of stock of something). Interestingly enough, when I requested a product that none of the stores carry regularly, the clerk at their West Royalty Pharmacy branch told me that they could order it in and it would be there tomorrow. This makes me think they’re tied into some giant drug warehouse that they can tap into at will.
• The Pharmasave at Ellis Bros. shopping centre that, as reported earlier, is moving to much bigger quarters next door, still hasn’t moved. Looks like construction is taking a little longer than expected.

We experienced a brief server outage here due to disk crash on our main DNS server. Things are back to normal now, but you may have had either difficulty getting here this morning or, if you arrived, have noticed weirdness in the sidebar.

The Chronicles of Narnia film opens later this week, and so we need to decide whether it’s a good idea to take 5-year-old Oliver or not. Here’s how the film was rated in various places:

• British Board of Film Classification — PG plus “Contains mild threat, battle and fantasy violence.”
• The Nova Scotia Alcohol & Gaming Authority’s Film Classification Division — PG
• Alberta Film Ratings - PG plus “May Frighten Young Children.”
• Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification — PG plus “Mild fantasy violence, Some scenes may upset young children.”
• British Columbia Film Classification Office — PG plus “frightening scenes violence.”
• Ontario Film Review Board — PG plus “frightening scenes; violence; not recommended for young children.”

So, the western world’s general consensus is “young kids will get scared.” Hmmmm.

Did you know that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has an Office for Film and Broadcasting that is, among other things, “…responsible for reviewing and rating theatrical motion pictures.” They have a page of current reviews that is updated weekly. Their reviews are surprisingly well-written and I suspect they would be quite useful if you were concerned that your movie choices mirrored your religious ones; they haven’t reviewed Narnia yet, but here’s their capsule review of Shop Girl as an example:

Shopgirl — Languidly paced story of lonely and lovelorn Saks salesclerk (an appealing Claire Danes) who, after a tentative fling with a nerdy, awkward font artist (Jason Schwartzman), meets a wealthy older man (Steve Martin) and commences a no-strings-attached affair that proves only fitfully satisfying for her. Director Anand Tucker’s adaptation of Martin’s novella — though striving for old-fashioned Hollywood gloss and a bittersweet tone about people’s search for connection — feels patently unreal, and the characters (although human in their imperfections) display less-than-commendable behavior, though the ending would seem to be morally sound. Smattering of crude language, brief profanity, partial and rear nudity, sexual situations and banter, a permissive view of premarital sex and condom use. L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.

Any review that begins “languidly paced” deserves some credit; their review of Syriana starts “Intermittently engaging but mostly confusing political thriller…” which earns them even more. The Catholic Church in Australia has a similar office.

If you’re looking for more “film reviews from a religious perspective,” check out Focus on the Family movie review site. Their reviews are somewhat more strident than the Catholic Bishops’ are, and they’re much less well-written. Here’s a snip from their Shop Girl review:

Shopgirl brings Steve Martin’s best-selling novella to life by painting a poignant, painful picture of the consequences of soulless sex. Even as Ray’s and Mirabelle’s bodies unite, we see that sex alone is not enough to sustain a relationship. The film shows that physical intimacy promises a depth of emotional connection that it can never deliver apart from a lasting, committed relationship.

If you want to jump right in to the hard-edged “this is truly evil” film reviews from the religious perspective, it seems like Dr. Ted Baehr’s reviews hit the mark. Described as “a ministry dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles, by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices,” Baehr pulls few punches. While our Catholic friends think Syriana simply “mostly confusing,” Baehr rates it “Abhorrent” and says, in part:

Very strong humanist, socialist, politically correct worldview with very strong anti-capitalist and Anti-American content that demonizes big oil companies and the U.S. government for Middle East oil interests by painting them as materialistic fiends and heartless profiteers, as well as some very strong anti-biblical and anti-Jewish elements that depict Christian theology and Western philosophies as failing worldviews and empathize with Islamic terrorists.

Seems like this might be a case of “if Ted doesn’t like it, count me in” — I’m all for demonizing big oil and the U.S. government. His take on Narnia, which he calls “Absolutely Thrilling!” and rates “Wholesome,” begins:

Very strong Christian worldview with clear incarnational allusions to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only way to break the power of sin and defeat the powers of darkness, slightly mitigated by a strong empowering of human beings and a very slight failure to include the full sacramental references of the book and the Creator references to the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, as well as a couple of politically correct nods, including a statement dismissive of war, a nod to defining the contents of a healing potion given to Lucy, a modernist view of women in allowing Susan to fire a bow and arrow in war, and a slightly attenuated mention of the Creation, not the Creator, in the coronation of the four children (these discrepancies are all very minor, however, because they are presented in a context where the Christian perspective of the novel dominates); no foul language; action violence and scary creatures that may be too frightening for younger children, including bombing of London, battles with wolves, swordfights, ugly creatures, the witch stabs Aslan to kill him, and many battle scenes; no sex; minor upper male nudity; no alcohol; smoking a pipe; and, nothing else objectionable.

In case you’re keeping score, that’s one very long sentence. And perhaps that sentence is enough to keep me home watching Sesame Street with Oliver instead; scary scenes is one thing, but there’s no way I want him exposed to something as dangerous as a “modernist view of women” or “a statement dismissive of war” to say nothing of “a slightly attenuated mention of the Creation.”

Sigh.

Here’s a 5-year chart (courtesy of Yahoo!) showing the value of the Canadian dollar vs. the U.S. dollar:

I know next to nothing about the currency market, and even less about trend lines and predicting, but it seems pretty clear to me that, all other things being equal, we’re heading for equivalence sometime in 2007.

Here’s a federal issue that it’s hard to know how to get behind. Certainly governments have marketed the lower Canadian dollar in recent years to those in the U.S„ especially Hollywood and tourists, as a reason for doing business with us — “your dollar goes farther,” etc.

As this benefit quickly slides away — which, if I understand economics correctly, is a generally good thing, economy-wise, as it means that others think Good Things about Canada, and thus consider our currency worthy of owning — I wonder what the federal stance should be now.

At some point does having a more-valuable currency have more of a downside than an upside?

Sudden need to procrastinate leads me to ponder: what is the oldest Prince Edward Island-hosted Internet domain name, still in active use?

My first domain name registration, crafts-council.pe.ca for the PEI Crafts Council, was approved on June 26, 1993. But the Council switched to peicraftscouncil.com after I left the organization, and the original domain is no longer in use. So that doesn’t count. Kevin O’Brien registered farmctr.pe.ca for the Farm Centre (and the Fan2000 project) on May 6, 1993, but it’s gone too.

My first personal domain name registration, for digitalisland.com, was 11 years ago, on November 3, 1994. But that domain passed off to the mainland back in 1999, so it doesn’t count either.

The University of PEI’s upei.ca shows up as being registered on Oct. 24, 2000 in the WHOIS database, but I know its registration pre-dates that (and maybe all else?) because my email address in 1993 was caprukav@atlas.cs.upei.ca. A check of comp.mail.maps suggests its real registration date was Jan. 11, 1988, which I dare say makes it the oldest.

Of PEI Internet Service Providers, it’s surely isn.net that is the winner here: it was registered on January 6, 1995. All of ISN’s contemporaries — PEINet, Cycor, Auracom, et al — renamed themselves or moved off Island years ago.

Other early PEI domains that are still in use:

• hollandc.pe.ca (Dec. 10, 1991)
• gov.pe.ca (Jan. 15, 1995)
• dclchem.com (Feb. 4, 1995)
• city.summerside.pe.ca (Aug. 28, 1995)
• edu.pe.ca (April 24, 1996)
• piping.pe.ca (May 9, 1996)
• islandtel.pe.ca (May 9, 1996)
• athi.pe.ca (June 25, 1997)
• library.pe.ca (June 25, 1997)
• theguardian.pe.ca (Dec. 1, 1997)
• city.charlottetown.pe.ca (Sept. 8, 1997)

What have I missed?

Perhaps the rest of the world has been listening to Tegan and Sara for years? I just heard them for the first time on DNTO last week and I immediately bought Where Does the Good Go from iTunes.

Island fiddler Roy Johnstone has been a friend and client for many years. Last week we moved his website from an aging manually-constructed collection of HTML pages to the open source Drupal (which is equal parts wonderful and damningly perplexing).

The switch will let Roy take the site out for a ride as never before: Drupal makes podcasting easy, for example — you just attach an MP3 to a page and the page becomes a podcast.

If you’re a fan of Roy’s, or prone to becoming one, watch the site. There’s also an RSS feed in place, which will not only let you listen to Roy’s podcast experiments, but will also alert you to any upcoming performances.

Clip attached to give you a taste.

It seems that most of the excitement in my week happens on Saturday mornings. With Oliver. This week:

• We bought iced tea from Haida Arsenault-Antolick, working at Karin LaRonde’s stand at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market. Haida is the Green Party candidate in Cardigan and I can’t imagine a better opponent for Laurence MacAulay.
• We decided to split a smoked salmon bagel instead of ordering two. To pull this off I had to unilaterally declare today “Sharing Day.” As such, if you feel an urge to share, today’s the day to do it.
• It being Sharing Day and all, Oliver made me take four of his Baby Einstein DVDs into the office and put them on the silverorange DVD sharing shelf for Isaac’s new baby Saul.
• We revisited the Home Depot, but decided that we couldn’t fit an 8 foot by 3 foot piece of hard insulation in the car.
• We made out usual stop at the Ellen’s Creek Plaza Formosa Tea House. If you sometimes pine for the Formosa of olde, when it was small and on University Ave., I highly recommend visiting the new location, for, although it’s in an otherwise dreadful strip mall, it faithfully recaptures some of the spirit of the original.
• We stopped at Mark’s Work Wearhouse to buy a new belt for me. Found a good belt, but the line at the cash register was 8 people deep, and there seemed little hope in getting out in less than 20 minutes, so I dumped the belt and resolved to shop for one in the quieter climes of downtown Charlottetown.
• With the Christmas play only a week away, Oliver is managing a pretty decent rendition of “We Three Kings.” Although it comes out a little bit like “We three kinds of Orient Car.”

More from the frontier next week.