Okay, I’m willing to accept the whole “Magic Ninety Three dot One” thing. I don’t like it, but it’s hard to be critical of a techo-posturing when it’s happening inside the soul-free puffery that is “Great Lite Rock Hits.”

But it appears, at least from the evidence presented on a brief listen to the Halifax CBC afternoon show, that there might be a movement afoot to rebrand CBC Radio One as “CBC Radio Dot One.”

I’m hoping against hope that this was a momentary slip or two by a green host, and not an across-the-board change.

Last night on Compass, Hon. Mitch Murphy, the Provincial Treasurer, engaged in open speculation about his plans for dealing with the provincial deficit. One of the trial balloons he sent up was a new health care premium. Used in some other provinces already, this is a monthly or yearly fee, sometimes income-geared, that is charged as a separate fee to every citizen in return for health care privileges.

I don’t think this is a good idea.

I’m all for paying for health care, and perhaps more than most families, I’m in a position, after the birth of a child, and three major operations for our family in two years, to appreciate the value of having high quality, well-funded health care at our disposal.

I don’t have any problem paying more for health care. As long as the system is well-regulated, available to all, and is client-centred, I’ll contribute happily.

But introducing a health care premium is going to complicate my life, and the lives of my fellow citizens. Needlessly. It’s going to require an entirely new bureaucracy to maintain. We’re all going to have to remember to pay our premiums, and staff will have to be in place to send out invoices, process payments, chase down non-payers. There are going to have to be systems in place at the doctor’s office to handle people who haven’t paid their premiums: do they get denied access? And so on.

All of this seems like a waste when we already have an effective, well-maintained system of filing, collection, and enforcement through the income tax system. A simple administrative change to the provincial income tax rate could achieve the same increase in revenue, without the need to introduce an entirely new level of bureaucracy.

So, Minister Murphy, please consider this as feedback to your trial balloon: charge me more for health care, but do it simply by increasing my taxes. Please.

Edward Hasbrouck provides a helpful update on Amazing Race 5. I can’t wait.

When Steven gets slashdotted, servers catch on fire and pagers go off all over town. When I get slashdotted, nobody notices (including me). This is the price I pay for discussing obselete technology.

Just finished an interesting conference call: Johnny was dialed in to the Reinvented Asterisk server via the VoicePulse DID number in Peterborough, New Hampshire from his home in Vancouver. My colleagues at Yankee did the same thing. I dialed in to the Reinvented toll-free number to get to the Asterisk server. And our colleague Steve dialed directly into Yankee’s office.

Six people. Two countries. Four locations. Worked like a dream, with excellent voice quality.

I just finished taping a segment for CBC Prince Edward Island’s Main Street from here in San Francisco on the “Super Tuesday” primary that’s taking place here, and in 9 other states, today. It should air between four and six in Prince Edward Island.

Next stop, November.

An abbreviated report tonight, as exhaustion fades me quickly soon.

Up at the crack of dawn. Sophie and Oliver find they are moving to North Carolina. Pick up Sophie at UC Davis and head, in the rain, into Berkeley to the chocolate factory. Much chocolate consumed, and I decide that 70% cacao is now my personal minimum. Indian fast food for lunch. Into the hills for verdant memories of [friend, not son] Oliver’s childhood. Across the Bay Bridge for supplementary chocolate and wardriving with my iBook and Sophie’s Pocket PC (very cool). Rendezvous with silverorange boys and two browser savants from the Mozilla Foundation for dinner at the Betelnut on Union St. (recommended by Ian).

Taxi to the hotel. Settle in, only to be summoned to the promise of fun by Dan. Drive Nick to the airport. Only small fun. Drive around in suburbia: many big box stores and fast food restaurants, but little fun. Daniel and I get hit with the bowling bolt at the same time, and we undertake a short but very complicated diversion into alley location, which ultimately fails, but is somewhat fun. Back to hotel. Deep sigh and resignation to sleep rather than Big Fun. Have to live purely on the residual joie de vivre of the futility of it all.

At the Pan Pacific now, tucking in for the night. Tomorrow my last dash of warm coastal freedom before the insane redeye return to snow, snow, snow.

As previously reported, this is a out-of-order episode in my western adventure, stretching back two days to Saturday night.

Saturday night we hooked up with the silverorange boys after all and, based on a recommendation from Peter Burka (present only in spirit), we walked into up, up, up to a Japanese mall food court for sushi in boats. But there was a long and confusing line, so we headed back out into the neighbourhood, and finally settled on a Japanese restaurant across the street.

The general consensus was that the food was excellent. I had a combination dinner of salad, soup, sushi, and tofu steak, and a glass of Kirin beer. During the dinner, a plan to engage in some variation of drunken karaoke emerged, so when we finished at the restaurant, we scoured the neighbourhood for an eligible location. Alas we came up dry, and so walked, somewhat sullenly, back down, down, down towards our hotel.

Once at the hotel, a small burst of new energy pushed us back out the door. There was an aborted flirt with a raucous Irish pub, followed by some aimless wandering. Somewhere along the way, the Burka boys secreted themselves off, no doubt to attend some late-nite Mozart concert. Finally, realizing that the End Was Near, we made a last-ditch attempt to rescue the night by jumping on the Powell-Hyde cable car.

At this point, somehow, I was nominally in charge of the event, and there were many sceptical looks my way as the cable car drew further and further from our starting point, and the Fun Night Activities appeared to be whittling away to nothing. We finally reached the other side of the mountain and, as luck would have it, a jazz lounge winding down for the night presented itself. We had a drink, entertained by smooth piano stylings, and then, satisfied that we had done our best to achieve maximum levels of fun, ventured back out to find our way home.

Serendipity struck as, amidst a “we’re going to need two taxis” conversation, Dan flagged down a mini-van taxi that neatly held us all. It appeared, from my backseat position, to be driven by Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. But we got there in one piece, and a much better piece it was than the crazy NASCAR-inspired taxi ride from the night before.

This morning we wrangled ourselves up for 9:00 a.m., and by all appearances our young colleagues were either all out and about, or still asleep (the only one with concrete plans was Stephen, and I’m sure he’ll report his exciting activities here). We had a moribund breakfast at a deceptively well-decorated café around the corner, walked around Chinatown for a while (our weather has been fantastic, and there’s no salve to the frigid snow-pummelled Charlottetown soul better than a warm morning walk in the sun).

And then suddenly it was time for Johnny and Jodi to head back to Vancouver, and for me to do a complex Bart-to-train dance up to Davis to rendezvous with Oliver and Sophie. By the clock on the wall, the train upon which I write this note should arrive in Davis in 20 minutes. More on our exciting Davis activities, and our chocolate-drenched Monday morning, when next the Internet strikes.

This will be a little disjointed: I’ve already written up a post about our exciting Late Nite activities Saturday, but it’s on my laptop, and I’m writing this on [friend, not son] Oliver’s desktop. So Sunday will come before Saturday night.

We got up lateish this morning, and found the silverorange boys either asleep, off to start their day, or simply not taking our calls. As such, we proceeded to a rather moribund breakfast at a place with an excellent veneer of sunflower goodness and abysmal food. This we followed with a mandatory make-up coffee, and a walk through Chinatown on a sunnny Sunday morning.

Then it was time for Johnny and Jodi to take their leave back to Vancouver, and for me to head northeast to Davis to rendezvous with Oliver and Sophie.

I took the stunningly efficient California transit system [at least by comparison to PEI, with transit that is stunningly absent] — a BART subway to the Amtrak train — from downtown San Francisco to Davis, and arrived around two. Oliver was there at the platform to meet me, and we had a pleasant lunch on the patio, followed by a strong [at least for me] cup of coffee.

We dropped in on Sophie for a bit, and then took a walk through an interesting prototypical community called Village Homes that borders their house (an interesting “backwards” approach to urban planning, with all of the houses facing a common, and the streets a secondary rather than primary feature) and the Davis Wetlands, which uses natural features as part of the city’s sewage treatment process.

Back at Oliver and Sophie’s, we had a dinner of fondue, and then sat down to watch the DVD of Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me, a film by our oddly mutual acquaintance Tessa Blake (for those of you playing the home game: I came to know Tessa through Ian; they came through PEI on their honeymoon, and then came up to Zap Your PRAM; Oliver knows Ian because he followed a link on my website way back when, but also because Sophie’s sister in law used to date Chip, one of Ian’s best friends. It is as complicated as it sounds. And more.)

Tomorrow we’re off to Berkeley to the chocolate factory. It’s also the day that Oliver and Sophie find, by virtue of VIRMP, where they’ll be moving come the end of June.

Stay tuned.

We all woke up at the crack of dawn this morning — me because I’m on Atlantic Time, and Johnny and Jodi because they’re normal. We hooked up with Steven and Stephen for breakfast, and were later joined by Dan and Daniel and Nick.

While the silverorange boys headed off to Monterey to hook up with the elusive Tom for lunch, Johnny and Jodi and I walked down Market Street to the Ferry Terminal, and took the ferry to Sausilito (a Dave Hyndman suggestion — thanks!). Once there we had fantastic lunch of sandwiches at Venice, followed by a candy orgy, fuelled by a broad selection of candies purchased from a bulk candy store that encouraged (against our disbelieving protests) free sampling.

The ferry experience, as Dave mentioned, is heightened by the presence of a full bar on the ferry, offering spirits, wine and beer. As most of our fellow tourists headed to the outdoor deck, we were left with the bar to ourselves, and had a glass of wine (beer for Johnny) on the way back to the city.

Back in the city, we managed to figure out the trolley car system (note to fellow travelers: if you take the ferry, your trolley ride is free — just get a transfer at the ferry terminal before you exit), and rode the entire length of Market Street to Castro Street, heart of the gay village.

Along Castro we had an excellent cup of coffee, met many well-tempered dogs, and were handed pamphlets by supporters of Kerry, Edwards, and Kucinich (it’s Super Tuesday here on Tuesday; listen to Main Street on that day for my report from the ground). We walked back down Market Street and stopped in at Crossroads, a used clothing store. I found an amazing pair of red, yellow and turquoise shoes which, alas, Johnny and Jodi vetoed the purchase of (in retrospect, the turquoise was a little too clown like). Jodi did, however, snag an excellent pair of red shoes and a pair of jeans.

Further along Market Street we found Get Lost Books, a fair to middling travel books store (with an above average selection of travel accessories), and then the pinacle of my shopping day, FLAX, which is. bar none, the best art supply store I’ve ever encountered. I bought an amazing fountain pen (there’s nothing like buying a new fountain pen to enliven the soul) and we headed on our way with minutes to close; I could have spent hours and hours more there.

Back on the trolley to Powell Street, a brief stop at the Apple Store (it opened this morning at 10 a.m. and when we passed by around 10:30 a.m. there were, quite literally, about 2,000 people in the line to get in; at 6:00 p.m. we walked right in the door) where I got to fondle the new mini iPod, and we’re back to our hotel.

The silverorange boys are, at this hour, missing in action, and we may be forced to head out for nighttime Maximum Fun without them.

Tomorrow Johnny and Jodi are, alas, back to Canada, but their absence will be salved by Oliver and Sophie when I travel up to Davis. More later.