Contest: Who can find Musie's new blog?

We know she's out there.
Prize: to be determined. We thought an invitation to an Emergency Meeting might be enticing for some, but some ESI members are very shy. Prize suggestions are welcome!

I say it's spring, and I say the hell with it...

No cat, no cradle.

If the shoefitis, wear it

For weeks I saw them dangling there, high above the intersection. But I had no idea why anyone would bother to toss not one but two pairs of sneakers onto the power lines that criss-cross Lisgar and O'Connor streets.

Then I stumbled across the term for this footwear phenomenon: shoefiti. It seems the dangling running shoes have been spotted everywhere from Australia to Poland.

What's it all about? Well, theories abound, from reassuringly innocent to downright disconcerting. Could be kids messing around. A sign that crack cocaine is sold in the neighbourhood. A gangland ritual to celebrate a murder. An act of dissent against government. Or, the most obvious explanation, a vivid illustration of New Wave polysemy.

And then there's this outlandish notion from Eric Nygren, quoted in the Indiana Daily Student. "It's pretty simple," Nygren said. "It's a stupid college thing people do. Somebody probably got drunk and thought it would be fun."

Publog Research: Preston Hardware

Fieldwork by the Research Director and Coyote, Easter Weekend 2007:

Pluses (Features to emulate)

• FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOTS!

Minuses (Features to Avoid)

• FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOTS! TO! COYOTES!

Summary: I realize we normally don't PuBlog non-food establishments, but the Research Director asked if I wanted to ride shotgun in the Bookmobile with him on a consumer survey. And he offered to roll down the window so that I could hang my tongue in the breeze. Really, he had me at "ride". As usual, I digress.

A serious round of research found us at Ottawa's shrine to hardcore hardware cognoscenti, viewing an automated espresso apparatus selling for many thousands of bonez. At the tap of a touchscreen, this gizmo automatically grinds fresh coffee onboard, tamps it into the filter and pumps espresso at a precise temperature and pressure into two demitasses, all untouched by human hands. (Huh. I can do that last part for a lot cheaper. Uh, I digress again.)

The knowledgeable salesperson explained these complexities, then showed it off and gave us FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOTS! -- This was coffee of a velvety blackness to make roadside Elvis painting hawkers weep, with perfect crema and a mellow richness that seems to be taken for granted at every little store along Preston Street, even as certain international chains that shall remain nameless sometimes struggle for the same effect. Gotta love Little Italy...

Ummmm. But. Somebody shoulda warned the sales guy. And the Research Director. I can't think who would be responsible for that.... The RD placed my FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOT! on the floor so I could slurp it. I slurped. I ran in circles. I peed on the Research Director's immaculately polished footwear. (Missed the pant leg, though. I'm proud of that.) Close readers of my solo project may recall that someone inadvertantly let me snarf down too much chocolate about a year ago. And that I reacted predictably badly. People, again: you should never feed a dog chocolate. Even a two-thousand-year-old, semimythical one. Apparently, we must add espresso to this list, too.

Moral: Free espression carries with it great responsibility...