Well, I’ve finally succumbed to the might of the almighty Google. For years I’ve been using shared web hosting for dups.ca, duleepa.com and all my varied sites. Most recently this site has been hosted by site5. When it comes to my email, it too has been hosted by these shared hosting packages. That all ended today, at least when it comes to email.

Shared hosting is great, it’s cheap and it’s easy to maintain. Shared hosting is also crap. Over the past year site5’s servers have been bouncing around like a yoyo. The folks try hard, they mean well, but if one of the hundreds of people on my little corner of the site5 world decide to run a a script that brings the server to its knees, well that also brings my site crashing to the ground. Admittedly, not being able to access dups.ca isn’t exactly the end of the world. I’m thinking you all can read my blog when the gremlins have been banished from the server. However, losing access to my email, well, that’s much more annoying.

In comes Google Apps.  So for the low low price of free, you can change your MX entries over to the GoogleBorg and presto-chango, my email is now being hosted at Google. With this fantastic service and probably much better uptime than site5, I can create 100 accounts each with 6.5 GB of space. Really, I don’t know how much I can complain about that.

You want to do the same? Simply go sign up for Google Apps (you can choose from free to premium, I don’t need premium), once you sign up, you need to prove you own the domain. This can be done with a a html file on your site or a CNAME entry in your DNS. Once Google verifies your ownership, go and change all your MX entries over, create your accounts and over a couple of days all the name servers in the world should catch up. That’s it, easy as pie. One thing though, if you intend to use IMAP to read your email, check the documentation, Google uses non-standard IMAP ports and stuff which is not mentioned in the non-troubleshooting area of the IMAP documentation.

All hail Google.

Folks, a quick update here that the CBC Radio Interview with the St. John’s Morning Show is now online (you need RealPlayer btw). My friend Craig Welsh (who has been the recipient of many of my drunk dials over the years and now lives in Nunavut) and I chat with host Jeff Gilhooly about the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial.

By the way as added incentive for those on the fence… Craig did actually submit an entry this year!

Check out the interview and now, one final call for entrants for the 2008 Drunk Dial. Wherever you are, give us a call, tell us a story, sing us a song.

Okay so you have two nights left to get your entries in. So first a status update then a teaser Drunk Dial recording…

I will say that this first officially public St. Patrick’s Drunk Dial has been just AMAZING… we have many more entries and lots of people phoning in to just hear our voice greeting.

So Monday March 17th is the Feast Day of Saint Patrick. This is it folks. This is what Guinness has had you training for all year. Now put your wit and clumsy dialing fingers to the test and give us a call and tell us about it. Or, tell us a story, sing us a song…

Don’t call your spouse with a drink in your hand, call us: +1 317-644-6963

So you want to know what the entries are like? Well, I saw on some message board that people were wondering if we would give ourselves the prize. Well, categorically, the people who will be judging will not be allowed to judge any entry they appear or have a hand in.

So in that spirit and to encourage better drunk dials, here’s one from my St. Patrick’s Day Party. We had Rockband going and someone suggested I sing Faith No More’s Epic like my dad might do it.

So here is Dups and Mike Mannion’s entry for the 2008 St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial in the “not going to win a prize” category:

• Epic by Dups No More (MP3)

Yes folks, check it all out, the St. Patrick’s Drunk Dial is now officially open! So far we have New Jersey, Maine, and Portland checking in, but I hereby declare the full festivities open!

You have from now till midnight Pacific on the 18th March to get your entry in for it to be eligible for judging.

Some links:

• St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial Official Site
• Laptop Magazine article on the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial
• The official Rules
• The History
• Last Year’s Winners…

Okay, so I’ve heard that the CBC interview will air on Monday morning at around 8:20am Newfoundland Time on the Newfoundland Morning Show, as for other publicity, well I was quite surprised when I got a message from Joanna Stern with Laptop Magazine based out of New York.

Well, apparently they wanted to chat about the Drunk Dial, so check out the interview… I like the bit about Mothers Against Drunk Dialling… I can see Ann Martin joining up for sure brandishing a big broomstick and running after me to take me down with a severe ear pull for my brazen behaviour!

Now, I say again… go out there and participate in the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial 2008! +1 317 644-6963

A question I’m sure that is going through many minds this year. And if it isn’t, what’s wrong with you?

Okay, perhaps you haven’t heard about the contest. Fine. Here are the details, go enjoy a few drinks this weekend, toast Saint Patrick and give us a call at +1 317 644-6963. There are more details on the St. Pats Drunk Dial web site.

This year has seen a few firsts. I’m using Skype-In to record all the messages and in fact had the opportunity to choose a 317 area code in commemoration of March 17th. This year also saw our first radio interview for the contest. Jeff Gilhooly of the CBC Morning Show in St. John’s Newfoundland gave us a call and interviewed myself and Craig Welsh. Unfortunately I keep waking up late in Montreal and keep missing the broadcast. I think it might have run yesterday or today, if anyone has heard it give me a shout will you?

So what are you waiting for? Get those St. Patrick’s Day plans a-ready! For those in Montreal, the party is at my place. I heartily invite all who I know  to have a good time and most importantly, dial the number and give us a story or two!

This is the question being voiced by many of my Albertan friends this week after the most recent Alberta elections which saw the provincial Conservatives return to power. The Tory party has ruled Alberta consistently since 1971. This time the party under new leader Ed Stelmach gained 72 of 83 seats in the legislature.

All this was after so many pundits, so much media hype, so many people claimed it was time for Alberta to have change. What happened to all the change?

One friend messaged me afterwards and said how is it that after winning 52.7% of the popular vote, Albertans were left being represented by 87% Tory representatives? How representative is that for the province?

Is it a democratic government when most of the people are not proportionally represented?

If you had a group of ten people and you asked them what they should do, would you consider it valid if only four people decided for the group? That would leave the majority of the group silent. In Alberta’s case, it is potentially a case of the silent majority. In these elections a scant 40% bothered to vote.

Why then are the majority of Albertans so reluctant to vote? And why after all this asking for change, vote for the party offering the least dynamic options for change?

I have a few theories, some of which I’m surmising through my 6 years in that province.

1. A lot of Albertans are not from Alberta. They have no allegiance to Alberta nor do they see participating in Albertan politics to be their right or want. Many have come to Alberta to seek their fortune in this modern oil rush. Many will return back to their provinces.
2. The better off tend to be silent and want the status quo. There are a lot of Albertans who have done quite well over these last years, they do not want change and that really is what “Conservative” means. As you amass wealth and property, owners of such do not want any dramatic change which will place danger upon their income. It’s case of tuning out instead of tuning in. Even the message of “change” probably shut down many thought processes.
3. The people of Alberta are generally “happy”. By “happy” I mean that the majority of people are probably fed, have clothing, make a decent living etc. In any society, control can be gained by means of making that society happy. Even Hitler talked about giving people “Arbeit und Brot” or “Work and Bread” and with that he claimed no one would oppose the government. (I am in no way claiming the Alberta Tories are Nazis). Revolutions only happen in societies where the majority of the people are unhappy.
4. Another friend espoused the idea that oil economies breed totalitarianism. If you look around the world you will see that most oil economies have a tendency to move to a unitary party state. I do not know why. In Canada, the same has happened in Newfoundland and Labrador with Danny Williams’ Tories.

As to the question of whether this is democracy, the answer depends on whether you believe that democracy is the idea of power being in the hands of people or the power being in the hands of rule by representatives of the majority of people.

In this case Alberta is ruled by its people and the people that have been asked by the voters. The reality is that the majority did not vote. How democratic that is I’m not entirely sure, it depends on whether that majority would have voted differently.

There is a real danger for the Alberta Conservatives. If they get wrapped up in the notion that the majority voted for them, they could place into play lots of policies which will alienate them from the majority that did not vote. Remember an unhappy society wants revolution, a happy society wants evolution and status quo. Steady Eddie better do by right by the majority that fell silent this past Monday.

I think I’ve visited San Francisco more than any other city in the United States, and I must admit, I love the vibe of that city. So without further ado, may I introduce you to yet another set of images from my most recent visit, all from downtown San Francisco.  And before you think me crazy, the reason for the pictures of the adult nightclubs is that this is real history! I kid you not, it was at the Condor nightclub that strip clubs first went topless and later in the sixties went bottomless. Yes, real history there folks!

Enough of this, take me to the Photo Album -> Downtown San Francisco.