As if it’s not bad enough that Charlottetown is clinging to the sinking Spectra raft, this situation is now inspiring Spectra spam. I received this unsolicited commercial email this morning. Wasn’t even addressed to me personally, and the “To:” address was of the person who sent it — classic “send to lots of people with bcc:” signs.

We are a graphic design/web page development firm in Charlottetown currently seeking individuals who possess development skills in the ColdFusion/Spectra environment.

We are not sure if you are aware of the ‘Request for Qualifications’ that the City of Charlottetown has issued regarding the design and development of a ‘Public Web Interface to Historical Property Information.’ Perhaps your company is already preparing to submit an RFQ independently.

[Firm name removed] has a successful track record with the City in development of their interactive, touch screen kiosk last year as well as the design of all the templates for the TownSquare initiative.

We are therefore interested in submitting a proposal in conjunction with a company who has the one element our company lacks; a background in ColdFusion, in particular, familiarity with the TownSquare Spectra environment.

Spam is spam, and it’s as distasteful when it’s seeking Spectra life rafts as when it’s hawking cheap Viagra.

The irony in all of this is that I’m on record as saying “I would sooner cut off my nose than have anything to do with this RFQ.”

Will this ever end?

The best household investment Catherine and I have made so far, save the dishwasher, has been the purchase of four Duracraft Twindow fans from Canadian Tire. These are dual-fan units that sit in an open window. They have a good range of fan speeds (and each side can be set independently), and a thermostat so that you can have them shut off when it gets cool. They’re relatively quite, and they just work and work and work summer after summer.

I keep an AOL account around for testing purposes, so I was able to take their new blogging tool our for a ride. The result: My AOL Blog. Coolest feature is that you can post to the blog from Instant Messenger (and from iChat, if you have a Mac). The templates they provide are banal, but there is some customization available. High marks on the “grandmother test.”

News here has been light of late, mostly because I partially blew out my right hand in an binge of late-night work last week, and I’ve been trying to keep typing to the absolute minimum required. But you can only shut up for so long, so here are some random notes from the middle of the summer.

There’s nothing like a Strawberry Sunrise from COWS on a hot summer night to cool you down. It’s the lower-fat alternative to the Iced Cowpuccinno, which is so much better than the Tim Horton’s alternative that it should really have a better name.

Speaking of COWS, I’ve never been a big fan of the “parody of the moment” style of T-shirt making that they’ve turned to in recent years (witness Amooican Idol). While I’m sure that these shirts sell well, they don’t have the wit of the classics (and I notice that even “Common Cow pays homage to local literary hero” has been rebranded as “Anne of Green Stables”). That all said, I must admit a weak spot for Moora the Explorer (not sold online, so no link).

The general consensus on Cora’s Breakfast and Lunch seems to be: excellent service, good food, a little pricey. I had a bad solo dining experience there last week — basically felt invisible to all wait staff for the duration — but two other visits have been fine. The fruit shakes are very good, as is the mushroom/swiss burger.

Both Atlantic Superstore and Sobey’s (at least in West Royalty) have fresh sushi counters now. After extensive testing, I come out in favour of the Superstore variety: we’ve had too many experiences where the Sobey’s variety is dry and bland. The Superstore has a wider variety, it’s always fresh, and they’ve a good assortment of Japanese accessory foods too (the wasabi dressing is very good).

Interlude, the new cafe on Kent St., has an annoying habit of closing right in the middle of the day on Saturdays. If you’re going to locate mildly off the beaten path (and I admit, it is only mildly off), you have to have consistent, reliable hours. I recoiled to the Formosa on Saturday, and will probably think twice before I Interlude on a Saturday afternoon again.

And finally, after twenty-four hours to think about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that The Russian Ark, which played last week at City Cinema, may be the most boring movie every made. I find going to art galleries a boring and lifeless activity at the best of times; here was a movie that largely consists of film of people walking around an art gallery. So the experience of watching the movie involves watching people watch art. And they’re speaking Russian. And 5 or 6 people are speaking at once. And there are vast and important themes of Russian History being alluded to (well over my head). Call me a plebeian, but after a while I just wanted to shout out. Or hit my head against the wall.

More news once the hands heal…

From today’s Telecom Update:

Spotnik Mobile has agreed to provide 802.11b service in Timothy’s World Coffee cafes across the country.

Some stories, like this one, could be lifted directly from the plot of the Road to Avonlea television series. Xenophobia is not one of the more endearing aspects of the “Island way of life.”

While we are speaking of candy and cultural touchstones: does anyone else remember the WigWag bar? It was a long, thin chocolate bar that consisted of caramel shaped in a lattice pattern, covered with chocolate. I used to buy them at the tuck shop at the Hamilton YMCA.

The tuck shop is something that Catherine and I share: we both had tuck shops figure prominently in our childhoods, hers at summer camp, and mine at both summer camp and at the YMCA. I’ve met a lot of people, though, who look at me strangely when I start talking about tuck shops (or about “tuck,” the products they sell), so I gather the term is not universal.

Go and watch this video guide to chocolate from our friends at Hersheys. I find myself drawn into the world of the vaguely animatronic nature of the young hosts; they both have unnaturally large mouths, and their manner of speaking seems designed for cartoon characters, not regular people.

What’s more disturbing even still is that at Hersheys Chocolate World, you can “explore the art of chocolate-making on a FREE simulated factory tour ride that concludes with a delicious sample.” What is the point of driving all the way to Hershey if the factory tour is simulated, and what does that mean, anyway?

Ironically, I’ve actually been on the tour, and either when I was young it wasn’t “simulated” or I was so young I didn’t notice the conceit.

If things had gone differently — more compatibility, more maturity, a nuance or two or three here and there, events, patience, timing — this could have been my fate.

I took a different path, and so did my ex- Mary Clare. She is happy with her husband Bill, and their daughter Katie Rain (pictured on top of the link just there), living on Cortes Island. I waited, met Catherine, fell in love, moved to PEI, and didn’t become a hippie. Probably didn’t have it in me anyway.

Funny how things turn out.

After orbiting separately around similar technical and design planets for 5 or 6 years, over the past two months I’ve come to know the masterminds behind the secretive silverorange.

Perhaps the most revealing way to discover the silverorange gestalt is to explore their public photo galleries: nick, daniel, isaac and dan.

An anthropological dig through these galleries reveals that these exalted young turks spend an inordinate amount of time hanging around with beautiful women, and traveling around the world.

This is, of course, the stuff of youth, and while I have a beautiful woman to share my life with, and more than my own fair share of world gadabouting, I can’t help but be envious of their youthful insouciance.

What interests me more, however, is the cultural divide that separate us. As much as we take a similar approach to technology and society (which I would roughly describe as “practical, functional and anarchistic”), there are vast tracts of the popular culture that we don’t share in common.

This surprises me. I’ve got a healthy collection of friends who are anywhere from my age to 35 years older than I am, and, in general, I find our popular culture references overlap to a large degree, generally centred on about 1975.

I can draw a broad allusions to Mary Richard’s apartment, for example, and most of my friends will know exactly what I’m talking about. Same thing for, say, the New Adventures of Superman, The Bob Newhart Show, and Airport 1975.

Although we share certain cultural touchstones — Seinfeld is a good one, as are The Simpsons, I must say that, in general, I feel a much wider cultural divide going back than I do going forward.

Some of this, of course, is because of the inherent differences between looking forward and looking back; it’s inevitable to feel old fartesque when you’re talking Archie Bunker’s Place and Joanie Loves Chachi and they’re talking Ali G. and Biggie Smalls.

But, after my [not all that old, but still a little older than me] friend Ann planted the idea in my head, I think there’s something else at play too, which is that the rate of popular cultural acceleration in the last 10 years has increased dramatically. I don’t know how to measure this, or even whether it is true or not, but there’s a certain feel to the notion that hits right.

So I ask you, young people: does this make any sense, and do you feel the same thing going back and forward from your positions in the cultural timeline?