ARSONIST SENTENCED

"It was nothing personal," says Bank Street arsonist

Original article: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/blotter/story.html?id=883103fd-f40a-447c-abd8-87f15badb6f8

I meant to take photos, but when I arrived on the scene the camera batteries were dead. :(

OTTAWA - An Ottawa man has pleaded guilty to breaking in and setting a series of fires that caused more than $7 million in damage to a Bank Street building.

Assistant Crown Attorney Dallas Mack told court that Mr. Gill was captured on surveillance cameras entering the building through a rear door on Sept. 15 at about 11:27 p.m.

He also broke into offices belonging to the Canadian Cooperative Association on the fourth floor, smashing picture frames with a crowbar and prying and smashing open cabinets before stealing camera equipment, Inuit carvings and other items.

Fire officials later determined that there were five separate fires set in the Defence Contract Management Agency's office and three fires set on the fourth floor.

Mr. Gill then returned to the building a second time on Oct. 1, walking through all the offices and floors to see the damage he had caused. After stealing some more items, he again set fire to the fourth floor offices, Mr. Mack said.

In your yard I am the Ferengi man

Daler Mehndi's internet following was spurred by the music video for "Tunak Tunak Tun", which gained its popularity due to Mehndi's wild dancing and has led to many homages and parodies. Mehndi originally conceived of the music video, in which he dances with clones of himself, in response to media statements that he was popular only because of the models in his videos.

One such parody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fSpI4oZoDc&feature=related

I encourage you to watch the whole thing to appreciate the comic genius, but if you can only spare a few seconds go to 3:33 mark... you'll get a pretty accurate feel for it.

Summertime excavation is over

A post to bid adieu to the great excavation project of the summer of 2008. Removing an old apple tree stump to make way for a baby plum revealed a thick layer of asphalt underneath a more modern (less stone - more tar) thin layer. In the end, it would be fit to say that significant portions of the front yard were dug-up and stripped of their bedding of asphalt. The goal grew, when spirits were high and the summer young, to clear the yard of all asphalt. Somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 became the acceptable compromise. The 4:45 sunsets of the week past also had bearing on after-work pursuits.

Rice was able to line-up a paving company already working on a commercial job around the corner. If not for the good fortune of our proximity, we would have been waiting until spring to rid ourselves of our rubble pile. It was time to cut the losses on the stone-aged excavation project and re-level the yard - no small task given the volume of matter removed. In the end, the yard will be healthier, and my accounts of the great rock pile will see its mass be described by increasingly lofty synonyms for girth.

Knowing the effort that created the pile, it was nice to see that it took a team of men and a bobcat to dispose of the sweat of my brow. Good bye pile. You sure as hell won't be missed.

Un-Earth-ing another Kiwipina

Rice happened by another Kiwi-pinoy - once again a Kiwi-pina. Jessica Trisko, Miss Earth 2007.

Her Miss Earth policy platform seems thin. As far as I can tell it is based mostly on "raising awareness" that minute changes in human behaviour will have positive impacts, of some unknown but well-meaning magnitude, on the planet as it hurls towards a climate apocalypse. The second plank is props to Canada for "embracing differences and encouraging understanding".


Ms. Trisko (does one refer to her as the former Miss Earth) is from Vancouver. Her father is of Ukranian/Russian heritage, and her mother is Filipino. Her first language is English, but she also speaks Russian and French. To which Rice would add, and I paraphrase: The dingbat doesn't even know her own language.

Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie

I meant to post this one a while back. The two-month delay has added nothing but seasoning to this little morsel of Americana. The link has been removed from the original website, but I used the magic of Ctrl+C to perserve parts of it:

Naked man walking dog Tasered by Tallahassee police
by nic corbett • democrat staff writer •
September 13, 2008

A 40-year-old man walking his dog in the nude Friday night in northwest Tallahassee was Tasered by police when he became belligerent and refused to follow an officer’s commands.
An officer on patrol spotted the man about 8:15 p.m. in the 2200 block of Hartsfield Road, said Officer David McCranie of the Tallahassee Police Department.

When asked what he was doing, the man told the officer, “Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog,” McCranie said.

Apparently, the man's behaviour was so distressed that he was sent for a mental-health evaluation and possibly treatment.... AFTER HE WAS TASERED.

Anyone who listens to voices instructing him on nude dog walking, should be taken for evaluation right away. And then tasered (hahaha., just kidding about that last part).