Matthew Rainnie, in a recent post, reminded me, indirectly, of New Games, a book published in 1976 that was, for a time, the bible for the leaders at the YMCA I grew up with.

The “new” in “New Games” meant post-competitive. There were a lot of parachutes and giant “earth balls.” The emphasis was on cooperation rather than competition. And somehow this all existed without the taint of ice breakers: New Games were actually fun, for everyone. It was a Good Idea.

Matthew writes about a family that’s traveling across the country because, as Matthew paraphrases the father, “society is so work-obsessed these days he wanted a year to play with his kids and experience things with them.”

When I read that, I was shocked to realize how seldom we hear people say things like this: he wanted a year to play with his kids and experience things with them.

We have come, more and more, to regard childhood as a protracted entrepreneurship training progam. Even when things that are supposed to be fun, there can be other forces at work; witness this primer for parents from the Arizona Daily Star:

Sure, competition is important. We do live in a competitive society, and it’s good that young athletes get exposed to it early on. With a sensible dose, competition can motivate kids to work hard at improving their skills. Competition is a teacher; it unveils your weaknesses and shows you what you need to work on and where you stand among your peers. But when the drive is to win at all costs, the value of competition is lost.

In other words, competition is important because it helps us learn how to get ahead, beat our neighbours for the plumb job, find our place in the pecking order.

New Games wasn’t about winning, or getting ready for the competitive society, or improving skills. It was about having fun: kids, adults, short, tall, male, female.

Perhaps it’s so surprising that a man would want a year to play with his kids and experience things with them because we’ve become so used to the notion of all time have a goal-oriented, career-directed, purpose, that the idea of just experiencing things, of playing, has become foreign.

That’s too bad.

So, Bravo! traveling family: enjoy your year of play, and here’s hoping you can stretch it into a full life.

The following happened in rapid succession this evening:

• Brother Mike phoned Brother Johnny (using a regular old telephone).
• I tried to get Brother Johnny on the iChat but was rebuffed.
• Catherine and Oliver and my Mother had an video iChat.
• I tried to get Catherine on the iChat but was rebuffed.
• Mike and Johnny finished on the phone, Mike called Catherine.
• Johnny and I talked on the iChat, then on the phone, then on the iChat
• Catherine and Oliver and I had an audio iChat.
• Johnny and I talked on the iChat.

This ain’t your father’s communication.

The first movie I ever saw that didn’t have a happy ending was the 1981 film Gas, starring Donald Sutherland, Howie Mandel, Helen Shaver and Sterling Hayden. I’ve forgotten all of the details of the plot but that Donald Sutherland played a deranged helicopter pilot, and that a gas station blew up at some point.

But I do remember that it didn’t have a happy ending, which was then and still is unusual for a Hollywood movie: about the only time you hear of movies not having a happy ending is when the version with no happy ending returns from the focus groups to get retooled with a new ending.

Tonight, after walking 6 blocks through a blizzard, I saw another one: Beyond Borders, the Angelina Jolie picture described as “an epic tale of the turbulent romance between two star-crossed lovers set against the backdrop of the world’s most dangerous hot spots.”

The movie has some gripping scenes (of “the world’s hot spots”), a sometimes interesting but mostly over-acted performance from Clive Owen, and a performance from Angelina Jolie that is either brilliantly ironic, or utterly embarassing. Mostly, though, it lacks any sort of character development (i.e. we are left with little understanding of why the “turbulent romance between two star-crossed lovers” like each other, and when (or whether) they actually got to spend any time together to find out), a plot the integrity of which didn’t survive the edit process, and a powerful, emotional social message that is all but completely diluted by movie’s end.

But it doesn’t have a happy ending, which, if nothing else, is brave. And probably explains why the film was playing at City Cinema and not the popcornoplex up the road.

Take the $10 you would spend on the tickets and send it to Oxfam instead. Then go home and have your own turbulent romance. The world will be a better place than if you saw the movie.

There’s no foolin’ around here when it comes to getting the snow off the streets:

Sunday, December 7, 2003 at 2:18 p.m. on Prince St., Charlottetown, looking up towards Grafton Street. Visibility: 0km; temperature: 1 degree C; pressure: 100.4 kPa; wind: NE57 km/h gusting to 74km/h.

Current forecast: Snow at times heavy occasionally mixed with ice pellets. Local blowing snow. Amount 15 cm. Wind increasing to northeast 50 km/h gusting to 90. Temperature steady near plus 1.

Over lunch today I was reminded of the day I parked in the Premier’s parking spot by mistake.

About eight years ago, I was delivering some computers to the Legislative Assembly, and I pulled right up to back driveway to unload. I was inside for no more than half an hour, and when I came out there was a carefully written note under my windshield wiper:

You are Parked in the Premiers Parking Spot

It was signed simply “Commissionaire.”

That was it.

That note, in its own small way, was responsible for keeping us on Prince Edward Island. I saved the note, and it’s sitting beside me at the computer as I write this.

One of the things that the hipnocrats and I discussed at the putative blogger meeting was music. I admitted to having stopped paying attention to popular music about 20 years ago, and asked for an update on what was going on.

This prompted me to try and remember, this morning in the shower, all the 45s I’d purchased before I was 18. There weren’t many of them:

• You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone (with He’s a Rebel on the B-side)
• Baby Come Back by Player
• Da Doo Ron Ron by Shaun Cassidy
• The Rose by Bette Midler
• Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes

I also owned a copy of Barry Manilow Live.

I realize, as I type this, that I was (am?) a complete music dork. And this is me, son of a man who owned Sgt. Peppers, Clouds and an excellent collection of jazz music from the 60s and 70s.

Who knows where Oliver’s musical tastes will lie.

I will note, simply for the record, that the big “bloggers meetup” here in Charlottetown represented a watermark in the long slow slide of weblogs into irrelevance. Not even Will, who organized the meeting was in attendance. If the guys from silverorange hadn’t been at the Churchill Arms already anyway, it would have been just me and Johnboymorris. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but two bloggers does not a rallying cry make.

So it’s over now. Dan James thinks the Next Big Thing is cuisine.

Back in March I wrote about Sports Night, a show on ABC that ran from 1998 to 2000. At the time, the boxed set of the complete series had just been released. Last night I was able to rent it for the first time from That’s Entertainment (our gem of an independent video rental store here in Charlottetown).

And last night, in an irrational display of stayupitude, I watched 9 episodes in a row, starting from the Pilot.

I was as compelled — maybe even more so — by the second viewing as the first. This is truly great television.

Am I deluded? Am I the only one that thinks the Sports Night raised the bar for situation comedies, and that nothing else since has come close?

Today, as Catherine is off in Orwell eating lunch with her weaving and spinning friends, Oliver and I have worked out a strict regimen of “one episode of Caillou, one episode of Sports Night,” interspersed with house cleaning.

I’m in the later stages of moving my operation 4 blocks away to the new silverorange/Reinvented mediaplex on Fitzroy Street. One thing I have to do is move my business telephone line.

If I switch to Eastlink as part of making the move, my monthly phone bill, for identical Centrex service, will go from $44.70 to $32.50. And Eastlink won’t charge me anything for installation.

If I stick with Aliant, they will charge me $110 for the move, plus $35 to install a phone jack.

Over a year, then, sticking with Aliant would cost me an additional $291.

Is there any compelling reason for not doing this?