Saturday Night

We had a bunch of friends over last night and since the weather cooperated, we had the get together outside. We try to do this every year so we can catch up on what is happening with everyone. It was a slightly smaller gathering than in the past, I think partly because some people wanted to stay home and watch the hockey game. The game was on here anyway but I taped it as well. It was a very exciting game which the Canucks won eleven seconds into overtime. Alex Burrows had a great wrap around goal after beating the biggest defenceman in the league with the Boston goalie getting caught way outside his net. Game Three is tomorrow night in Boston.

Many are saying the Canucks will win in four straight but I do not think it will be that easy. I still predict Vancouver in five or maybe six.

Today I am a little under the weather from having too much fun last night. My downfall was when I pulled out the bottle of tequila that our friend Les dropped off when he was here. It just tasted too good!

Here is Burrows just after his winning goal! A very funny thing just happened. Les just posted that the Bruins had won!!?? I think Les needs a new TV!

Windows 7 SP1

I noticed there was an SP1 upgrade ready for Windows 7 and started the install on my almost new laptop. I did this before Googling all the problems it can create if not done precisely right, like failing to boot and giving a black screen of death!

This can happen if you do not reboot as soon as the installation completes. By chance I was watching and rebooted as soon as it asked if I wanted to so the Microsoft Gods were smiling at me tonight. I am up to date!

The Tide Is Turning

Now that  Vancouver has won game one of the Stanley Cup Finals I can take some time for some other far more important stuff.

I was watching the news tonight and a remarkable statistic came up. The majority of Americans now support the right of same sex couples to marry! Yes, a majority! And in some States, a huge majority! New Yorkers support Same Sex Marriage by 58 to 36%! The other 6% have no opinion.... How can you have no opinion?

Anyway, the tide has turned in this latest Civil Rights battleground. All across the USA people are coming to their senses and realizing that the arguments presented by "The Sky Is Falling" alarmists are exactly what they appear to be: empty arguments. It does not threaten opposite sex marriage, your marriage will not be declared invalid. School kids will not be taught that Obama will force them to marry someone of the same sex, your kids will not be taken away from you and given to a same sex couple to raise. And no, it will not lead to your being allowed to marry a horse no matter how deep your affection. In other words, the sky is not actually falling.

It is not much of an issue here in Canada. Same sex marriage has been allowed since 2005 and I have never heard of anything negative coming out of it. It is no big deal here. I have no personal stake in the issue but I support it because it is the right thing to do. Most of my gay friends do not seem to be too interested in getting married. I can understand their hesitation after they have had all that time to watch the effect of marriage on their straight friends. Anyway, if they ever did get married, it would be one heck of a party!

Obama is still sitting on the fence on the issue. He is still saying "god is in the mix" and that he supports something "almost", "sort of like", "just about" real marriage although he also says his opinion is "evolving". Not good enough! It is all or nothing! This is your last chance to get on the right side of history. Change is very near. Evolve already!

Here is a chart showing the change in public opinion in the USA since 1988 . Pretty conclusive.

 

It is however, no time to sit back and celebrate the apparent victory. There are many other issues that need addressing. Transgender rights need fixing and kids are being bullied to the point of suicide because they are gay or are perceived to be gay. One State just passed a law preventing the words "gay" or "Homosexual" to be used in school curriculum! We are all the same regardless of sex, color, sexual orientation or expression. None of us are any superior or inferior to anyone else, we all have the same rights. That is what it is all about and it is up to all of us to take a stand.Obama must be reminded that he was elected to represent and protect the rights of ALL Americans.

Game On!

I had an early dinner so nothing will pull me away from the TV. Game one starts in 15 Minutes!!!

Advantage Vancouver so far! Both goalies deserve a raise!

After first period 0 - 0. Fairly evenly matched. It will be a good game. Come on Canucks!!

0-0 after two! Vancouver's power play is not clicking! I predict next goal wins game.

GGGOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Raffi Torres with 12 seconds to go in regulation time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another Thing...

One other thing for Bloggers to check is their "Spam" comments file. These are comments that Blogger has tagged as spam and has not published. I checked mine for the first time in ages yesterday and found it held six comments, four of which were not spam. They are now published but long after the readers posted them. Sorry...

I do not edit comments, even from people who do not particularily like me, unless they are spam.

Blogger

Just a quick note to Tim in Seattle who asked a question but did not leave an email address: Setting up a Blog is actually quite easy and totally FREE! Go to Blogger or Wordpress on the Internet and they will guide you through the process step by step. You can be blogging within minutes and the Blog layout you initially set up when you start can be changed later.

I started with Blogger because that was what most or all of the Mexican Bloggers were using. If I was starting over I think I would use Wordpress which might be a little harder to learn but is more stable with fewer outages and little glitches like Blogger is going through right now!

Blogger is having conflicts with Firefox browser when used in some versions of Windows. I can use it normally with my Windows 7 laptop but my desktop Windows XP computer cannot communicate with my Blog or allow me to leave comments on other's Blogs unless I use Internet Explorer or Chrome. I refuse to use either of those but my friend Donna found a workaround by loading the IE Tab add-on and loading Blogs in a fake IE environment. She also had more instructions if this first solution did not work. Luckily for me, it did work. Hopefully they will fix the problem soon as all my Blogging friends are trying to talk me into switching to Wordpress and the learning process would have to start all over again!

Gil Scott-Heron, RIP

American poet - songwriter, R&B artist, 60's activist Gil Scott-Heron "The Godfather of Rap"  has died. Here is "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", the song he was best known for. When this is over click on the 1:17 clip at the bottom left of the video window. It is a recent interview with Gil. Interesting.

Temporary Blogger "Fix"

My Blogger friend Donna has found a fix for this problem. It involves installing an add-on to Firefox and opening the Blog in a phony Internet Explorer environment. It seems to work. Details can be found on Donna's Blog here.

&$%#@ Blogger!

I seem to be unable to access my Blog from Firefox! There is no Dashboard or “New Post” button at the top!
I am posting this from Windows Live Writer to see if this works.

EDIT: OK, Windows Live Writer works. A couple of other folks are having the same problem and it seems to be a conflict between Blogger and the latest version of Firefox.

At least I have found a workaround until they fix the problem!

I can get at the Blog with my Windows 7 machine. It is only Windows XP that is having trouble.

The "Other" Series

I am cheering TB Lightening tonight to tie the series then cheering Boston in game 7 because I would rather see them play the Canucks (I think). Either way I want Tampa Bay and Boston to beat each other up before their series is over!

Scalpers are already selling Stanley Cup tickets for $3000 each. One Vancouver hotel is waiting for the dates of the games to be announced and will be offering a suite with two tickets. They have not determined the price yet but better check the limit on your credit card.