The world doesn’t offer many experiences as lonely as closing the back cover of a really good book. You’re re-emerging from the most solitary of pursuits, and for just a moment, you hover on the border of the universe you live in and the universe you’re leaving — a liminal territory with a population of one.

That’s how I felt a few minutes ago, as I turned the last page of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. It opens with the best explanation for jet lag that I’ve read yet:

Read on…

Just a quick post to second Arieanna’s rave review for Raviolino, the take-home pasta store in Kitsilano. Wonderful people, deliciously fresh pasta and sauces, very reasonable prices.

These folks stock restaurants across the city with pasta, which is a pretty fair endorsement in itself. My tip: try the stuffed mezzaluna pasta. They’re unbelievable.

Here’s the front page of Google News Canada a few moments ago (click to get the full image).

That lead story deals with the Terri Shiavo case. But it doesn’t come from CNN, the New York Times, CTV, the CBC, Reuters or even Fox News. It comes from Lifesite – a heavily biased site that describes its worldview this way:

Read on…

Wow. If the folks in Natural Resources ever run low on coal, they could always check out that motherlode at one end of their minister’s aorta:

Federal cabinet representative John Efford has been accused of political meddling in a case involving a former staffer with a complaint heading to the Human Rights Commission.

Rodney Mercer, a former aide in Efford’s office in Ottawa, was dismissed last summer. He claims his diagnosis of epilepsy and a seizure he suffered led to his dismissal, just hours after he notified Efford’s office.

- CBC Newfoundland & Labrador (First noted by Paul Wells)

According to Mercer, his severance pay was slashed after he complained about his dismissal to the Canadian Human Rights Commission… where one of Efford’s closest allies was subsequently appointed.

And indeed, the CBC has two letters signed by Efford posted on their web site: one dated August 5th, authorizing six months of separation pay, and the second dated two months later, cutting that amount in half.

Charming.

I suppose in some ways I should be happy about this news from the New York Times:

Beginning next Thursday, as part of a reorganization of technology news coverage, the weekly Circuits pages will appear in Business Day, with David Pogue’s column on the front page of that section.

The Game Theory column will move to the Weekend section, beginning on April 8. The Online Shopper column will return on April 14 in a section to be introduced that day.

Circuits will also appear several times a year as a special section, beginning with a May 4 issue on wireless living.

In a way, it’s a sign that the technology that dominates so much of my life is moving into the mainstream. (Remember those brief, shining years at the end of the 1990s when it was actually cool to be a geek? Maybe they could return!)

But this is pretty clearly the end of the Circuits section as we know it. And that breaks my heart, because Circuits has been one of the great constants of my life with Alex. She introduced me to it, part of her cunning scheme to get me hooked on the Times. (It worked.) And when I was freelancing, we’d while away many a Thursday morning at Caf?© Zen poring over Circuits between cups of coffee and the fluffiest pancakes in Vancouver.

Sic transit gloria Thursday, Circuits.

Whoops. Tonight’s American Idol is a do-over, because someone put up the wrong voting codes. Zillions of teeniboppers (aging and otherwise) will be getting refunds on their text messaging charges; the producers have enough egg on their faces to make a meringue the size of Utah; and Mikalah Gordon had to see her unbearable performance repeated on national television.

But don’t feel sorry for them. Feel for the poor media buyers who’ve had to juggle madly in a flurry of ad rebookings with one of the hottest shows on TV. Here’s a question: was this a bonanza for advertisers, or a disaster?

There are any number of lists of caf?©s offering free WiFi in Vancouver. But one has just jumped to the front of the pack, combining the power of Google Maps and the brilliance of romeda: Vancouver Wifi Mug.

Check it out (using something other than Internet Explorer, I’m afraid – Firefox or Safari will do fine). See if your mind doesn’t start churning with nifty ideas of your own for things that could be mapped the same way…

…or as I’m calling it, Beverly Hills 120-over-80.

I hope my first impressions are wrong, and that it’s a huge hit for Sandra Oh. She blew me away in Double Happiness, and I’ve heard great things about her in Sideways. (I know, I know… I’m supposed to have seen it by now. Just wait ’til you have kids of your own.)