Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2007-12-18

Venue: A remote corner of a place that is not the Usual Spot

Present: Fourth Dwarf, Coyote, Conch Shell, the Chair
Absent with notice: Agatha, Independent Observer

Minutes by: 4D

1) What to do about [Redacted]
a) Who are they?
4D: Can't be any of us. You're all too bone lazy, I'm not, but (a) I'm too busy with my plowing contracts, (b) I hate wordpress, and (c) I wouldn't have done such an exact matching of aliases.

CS: What about Aggie?
4D: Are you kidding?
Coyote: She doesn't have the HTML skills.

The Stats Team discuss [...... ..... Redacted ...... .......]. Although they have deployed techniques matching those of the Las Vegas CSI team, they have no useful information.

Speculation swirls around various possible candidates:[..... ....... ..... Redacted ..... ....... .... ......], but settles mainly on [... Redacted... ]:

• [... Redacted... ]
• [... Redacted... ]

Coyote suggests domain-squatting [... Redacted... ].com
4D suggests this would be mean and pointless
Coyote says "Yeah. And...?" He then counter-suggests creating a [...Redacted...] blog.
4D: or [ Redacted... ]

b) One person? or more?
Consensus: Too soon to tell,but [... Redacted... ].

c) Do they know that we know?
The Stats Team point out [.... ..... ..... ... Redacted... .... ...... ....].

Coyote: And I [... Redacted... ].
4D: Huh?
Coyote explains [... Redacted... ]:

[... Redacted... ]

d) So what do we do about them?
Consensus: [... Redacted... ]
Chair: I'd like to see some cash in an envelope.

2) Tiana's Prize
Coyote asks what we're going to do about it. 4D reveals that Agatha had entrusted him with the task and abjectly apologizes for not having completed the mission. He is sure that one of his plowing contracts will take him close enough to her neighbourhood to complete the mission before Christmas.

3) Love on the Internet
Conch Shell tells us of the tragic story of the 13-year-old girl who killed herself recently after a neighbour mom impersonating a 16-year-old boy online told her she'd be "better off dead". We discuss various people we know who have fallen in love with people through their emails and then dropped them soon after meeting in person. It is suggested that this would be an excellent topic for CS to blog on.

CS: Yes, I'm going to post very soon. [The others all act as though they believe CS.]

4) AndrewZRX
4D asks if we should invite Andrew ZRX to post more. There is a brief discussion that notes:

• the high quality of Andrew's posting and the ZRX motorcycle; and
• the grossness of the placenta picture.

Unanimous: AndrewZRX is welcome to post again.

5) Contests
CS: We should have more contests.
4D: Like what?
CS: I like the Street Names one.
4D: huh?
CS: Renaming streets...
Coyote: or coming up with other blogs with street names, like "the Kent Street Incontinents"
All agree this has possibilities.

The Chair suggests a battle of the group blogs. 4D suggests we create avatars in World of Warcraft and take on all comers. Others seem less enthused.

6) Doomsday Machine
Chair: We should set up a Doomsday Machine. If we don't blog within a certain time period, the blog deletes itself.
CS: That's a great idea.

4D and Coyote look at each other and shake their heads.

Coyote: Right. More pressure to blog.
4D: Why do the two people who never post love this idea while the ones who do post hate it? Oh, of course, if the blog was deleted, there would be no pressure to post at all.

CS: I am going to post something soon. Really. [The others all act as though they believe CS.]

7) Life Coaching
4D explains he will be doing some postings related to life coaching and will be encouraging participation in this project from the other ESIs. Coyote gets that look on his face that means he wants nothing to do with this plan and thinks trouble will ensue.

4D: Don't worry, Coyote, you don't have to play if you don't want to, but you will want to and in fact, you'll be the most active.

8) Florence Appointments
With no discussion, The Elgin Street Irregulars appoint:

• Independent Observer as Director of Italian Affairs; and
• Audrey as ESI Cultural Liaison Officer

9) Conference Call with Aggie
4D briefs Aggie on the highlights of the discussion.
Aggie: Did Coyote get slammed for his rogue activity with the [Redacted]?
4D: Of course not. Only the Fourth Dwarf gets slammed for rogue activity.
Aggie: Right. Everything sounds great. I'm glad to see you're on it.

4D relays this and the others are pleased.

Aggie says something unintelligible. 4D asks her to repeat.

4D: Someone out east is slap happy?

Aggie: No, a blogger from the Far East says the ESIs are getting sloppy.

4D and Aggie have a brief exchange about what a loser this blogger must be. Everyone waves goodbye even though it's a telephone.

4D relates the sloppiness charge. The others express outrage.

4D: You know what? It's true. We have gotten sloppy. Coyote - using 4 words where 3 will do. Chair - sometimes it's days before we have a new movie in the sidebar cam. CS - I don't need to say anything to you, do I?

The others all hang their heads downcast for a moment as they reflect on this.

CS: But still. I am going to post something soon. Really. [The others do the usual thing.] And y'know what? Remember how it used to be when we started two years ago and we'd talk for hours about this stuff and it would bug other people so we'd have to change topics? And now so much has changed? But we're still into it and it still holds our interest.

Business is adjourned so the ESIs can discuss the "affairs" of those who are not present.

Bank & Somerset...

...reopened to motor traffic at 9 a.m this morning, after being blocked two months ago when Somerset House partly collapsed during renovations. Vehicular response: immediate, enthusiastic. We await the inevitable legal endgame with interest.

Announcement

The Elgin Street Irregulars are pleased to announce* the appointment of the Independent Observer as Director of Italian Affairs. The IO and Audrey, ESI Cultural Liaison Officer, have spent the last few months establishing the blog's world headquarters in Florence.

"My goal is to raise awareness of the ESI brand in Italy," the IO said. "Currently the blog gets three or four hits a month from Italian visitors, most of them winding up here by accident, or attracted by one of Aggie's recipes. With some sustained effort, I can help double or even triple those numbers by the year 2011."

Working from the historic San Lorenzo district, the IO has been busily conducting outreach activities at Osteria Pepo's trattoria and the nearby Dublin Pub.

"It is demanding, difficult work," added the IO when finally reached this week. "But make no mistake, demanding and difficult are my middle names."

* Pending approval at the next Emergency Meeting

Photo: Visits to the resting place of Galileo, also handy with a telescope, will prove inspirational to the IO as he assumes his new duties.

The mathematics of Larryness

Hi, class! I'm Prof. Coyote. My image consultant tells me this mortarboard crampin' my ears makes me look erudite. These charts 'n graphs, too. I was gonna round it all off with some really thick rose-coloured glasses I found in the waste can behind City Hall, too, but an odd little bald dude yelling, "Preciousssss!" came running up and snatched 'em away from me at the last second. Hope ya appreciate the effort.

I see from our last pop quiz that some of you are baffled as to what the hell informs the mental processes of certain mayors. Today's lecture may enlighten you regarding hiz, uh, honor's, public relations strategy last week, during which first the Ontario Provincial Police charged him, and then his famed "zero means zero" tax-increase promise became, oh, FIVE PER CENT. Whether anything similar could enlighten the mental processes of Mayor Lex to hisself is a whole 'nother kettle of kryptonite. I digress, in an absent-minded professor kinda way. Okay, movin' on...

Taxes: After nailing down that long-expected tax increase, Lex declared it was at least as good as zero because the rose-coloured glasses are off, he's learned lessons, become a better person. Exactly how is unclear, not for the first time - nor likely the last. (Council said four-point-nine, but we statistical coyotes always round up wild guesses, 'specially ones based on imaginary fat cashflow from provinces that have already said they ain't payin'.) All it cost the citizens of Ottawa for a new, self-improved Larry was a few hundred thousand bucks. Bargoon! We should be grateful. And as the bar graph below shows, on Planet Larry we so are!
Criminal Code Charges: Stay or go? Hizzoner says he believes with every fibre of his being that he's innocent and eventually can prove it in court. Well then. It must be so, because he's proven himself so astute-like already. But then he promised to consult with citizens as to whether he should stay on while dealing with this (strictly personal) matter, blah, blah, blah. After spending a nanosecond polling family, good friends and close supporters, he announced he'd stay. Those people form a statistically-significant proportion of the city's population, do they not?

Well, really, lately, any politician who utters the ol' 'public consultation' gag in this city is telegraphing in technicolor that it's all about pretend. But geez. Does the guy not have the decency or attention span to properly pretend to pretend? Meantime, more exacting polls place 'go' and 'stay' in a statistical dead heat. Even with all of hizzoner's family, friends and supporters bulking up that latter category. Not quite a clear endorsement, but hey: the pie chart down there proves that family, friends and supporters are any well-grounded politician's most important constituents, outweighing all others. That's what democracy is all about.

Swagger: Ooh! Remember when he promised to make Ottawa 'a city with swagger?' Like it's a good thing? Never understood that myself, though other lecturers at Irregular University gave it a shot. Despite Marlen Cowpland's wardrobe, Ottawa remains pretty much a gray-flannel, button-down kinda place. Okay, possibly it actually dresses more eclectically than that these days, but it's still discretely self-effacing. Yet my Oxford Big Word Thingy, Canine Edition, defines 'swagger' as 'behaving with an air of superiority, in a blustering, insolent or defiant manner; now esp to walk or carry oneself as if among inferiors, with an obtrusively superior or insolent air...' I don't get it. That's not an image anyone 'cept maybe some kinda outta-touch narcissist would want. Uh, oh, wait...!
Now class: remember all of this. It's on the final exam, possibly in three years. But maybe sooner.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I am reliably informed that Reykjavík, Iceland, is the world's northernmost national capital. I am rather less reliably informed that a whole buncha Scandinavian countries (Both Helsinki and Stockholm f'rinstance - and this, people, is the gosh-darn problem with wikis...) appear to claim that distinction for mainland Europe.

Therefore, we in Ottawa are mere pikers. Pissants. Poltroons. Hell, there's still half a continent north of our latitude. Which isn't to say we don't get a little winter once in awhile.

Take today. Media weather types are all a-tizzy. Not sure why. As another blog so recently noted, approximately: "It's Canada. It's winter. Suck it up." Amen.

After last month's string of cranky eco-rants, I promised myself I wouldn't go all David Suzuki on your asses anymore, at least for awhile. But hey. Our federal environment minister? The one that had his face rubbed in it? Severely? By the world in general? In Bali? Last week? He's still doing his gosh-darn twisted-boy-scout best to speed up global warming. Enjoy this great weather while you can.