I found this set of pictures that are advertisements for what is likely Metro News (they share the same logo but I could not credit either the photos or find similar advertisements on the Metro websites. The photos for the ads seem to be all hosted locally by the sites I found them on.

Slight break there … having felt bad about ending my last sentence with a preposition and not being able to credit the original photos I went looking again for some reference to the ads. I finally found the ad agency and their miserable web site. The ads on the site (if you find them) are the same photos but with French text. And they are for the Metro newspapers.

Anyhow, I like the ads–even though they are preying on my desire to “Think For Yourself” in order to sell me a product that is a newspaper and (almost be definition, these days) a vehicle for expressing the opinions of the controlling corporation and editorial staff. I guess that is ironic; except that it worked.

Click on the pictures below to go to the Ads of the World web site that hosts and describes the ads.

Apparently we have an Innovation and Technology Sector Council on PEI that is “committed to providing leadership in Human Resources Development and Strategy in the IT Industry of Prince Edward Island.” This is, no doubt, the best kept secret in Prince Edward Island. They are obviously providing the kind of leadership that is stealthy … sort of a leadership by laissez-faire. The good news is that they are sponsoring a job fair at the Atlantic Technology Centre tomorrow (March 26).

When I heard about the fair I took a look at the web site I was pleasantly surprised by the list of companies to be advertising their wares to prospective employees. I was also hoping to get a glimpse of the girl holding the “pen-that-looks-like-a-cigar” with a come-hither-Mr.-Clinton look. I am pretty sure she is working for one of the companies that will be displaying their wares.

UPDATE:
I went to the job fair and it was predominantly (though certainly not entirely) staffed by HR types that were looking for resumes and not able to provide particularly detailed descriptions of what sort of person was desired by their company. There were a couple of notable exceptions. The girl with the cigar/pen in the picture was noticeably absent.

There were more tables than I expected and they were even relatively crowded into the basement atrium (can there be an atrium in the basement?) of the ATC. Not too bad for a first crack at a job fair. Next time, maybe with a bit more space and a somewhat more cheery location, I can see the possibility of it turning into a somewhat valuable way to meet prospective employers and employees (and maybe the girl with the pen-thing).

One of the great benefits of living “in the country” is the abundance of animals that we get to see from time to time. The drawbacks are there as well if one considers the amount of fox poop that manages to find its way onto the lawn and the shells that are dropped onto the roof by birds hoping to extract the innards of smashed mussels and clams.

We also get to see some rather interesting sights. Last summer we found the head of a relatively large trout in the back yard. Something had caught and eaten the tasty bits and left the rest for us to avoid with the lawn mower.

A couple of years ago we had an amazing experience when driving down the driveway after a relatively large snow storm. The driveway had a bank of about two feet on either side and the entire lawn and fields were covered in a deep layer of soft snow. When we drove down the driveway we were rounding a bend (it is a long driveway) when an eagle took flight directly in front of us–about fifteen feet away. As we had the children with us we took the time to waxy poetic about the size and beauty of nature and our good fortune to be able to see an eagle that close; and it was close. After restarting the car and moving down the driveway some more we saw a second eagle take off–Wow. Again we commented on the majesty of nature. We were good parents after all. It was then we noticed that the entire driveway was covered in blood and feathers. It was gruesome. The eagles had made a kill in the field and dragged it to the nearest firm ground (the driveway) and proceeded to dismember and eat a duck (I think). The entire trench of the driveway was blood and gore. Our young daughters were not so struck on nature at that point and we were forced into a long lesson in survival of the fittest that would have made the Lion King rationalization of death as a circle of life seem, well, childish.

We are beyond that now. We are well into the realization that meat is animals and animals eat each other.

Three days ago my youngest daughter saw an eagle kill a raccoon in the front yard. I want to mention that again: an eagle killed a raccoon in my front yard. After the requisite blood and gnashing of talons the eagle picked up the raccoon and starting flying away–an eagle can carry a raccoon. The eagle found the raccoon heavy and dropped it before it cleared the trees in the front yard. A raccoon is heavy for an eagle. The eagle moved a slight distance off to (I don’t know) study the problem when along came Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox looked at the late Mr. Raccoon and picked him up in his mouth and trotted off over the bank and down to the river. A raccoon is not heavy at all for a fox.

I manged to see everything except for the initial kill as my daughter got us to come and see the event. This was a first for me. It was amazing (in that holy-smoley-that-is-gruesome-yet-I-can’t-look-away sort of way).

The kids also were able to explain to me that the animals were not angry with each other and not being mean or cruel at all. They were just eating, you know?

I love living in the country.

Oh, and here is a reference to the above phrase.

After the joy of suffering through Registerfly being a bunch of irresponsible drunken-acting certainly-being-somewhat-evil corporate entities causing me to go crawling to ISN to save me from the horror of attempting to get my domain names back I am now in yet another domain name piece of love.

Eastlink has purchased ISN and found me to be an undesirable client because I live outside of the area to which they supply Internet access. For this reason I have been told they are not willing to continue to supply me with either web hosting or domain management. Gotta love that logic. Anyhow, I have managed to find a home for web sites and a company that will let me manage the domain names and have moved everything.

When I attempted to get my domain names from Eastlink they were suitably corporate and told me to write letters to a corporate email address explaining my predicament and they would do the appropriate routing of the problem to get me a solution. After a few days of no luck I decided to follow the tactic that worked so well with ISN. I searched for the email address of the person who used to take care of things at ISN (I kept that valuable address) and sent off a quick message. I got the response and the information directly.

The domains are changed (with some DNS updating still to come … maybe by the time this is posted) all before Eastlink managed to respond to my email to the corporate behemoth was returned or acknowledged. I sent off a second message suggesting that they did not need to take any (further) action.

Eastlink may end up being a great supplier for ISN customers (the ones that they keep) but I will miss ISN even though I was only with them for a relatively short time.

I am a sucker for online quizzes. This one is not particularly challenging as far as logic quizzes go but I like it because it uses a little man that looks like Dilbert. Besides, I got it right. It appears to be an advertisement for a book, by the way.

I have been enjoying Jeeves and Wooster a great deal lately. I am watching the episodes in order and am now midway through the third season–just lovely. I am enjoying the way the characters have evolved into a level of mutual respect (or at least some self awareness from Wooster). Of course I am not the first person to enjoy the brilliance of P. G. Wodehouse (the author of the books on which Jeeves and Wooster is based). In fact, in the old days I used to use the Ask Jeeves website (now simply Ask.com) as the source of all knowledge. I love Google but I miss the differences in search engines and I loved the butler picture.

This is all a lead-up to the fact that I recently read an article on code refactoring using the P. G. Wodehouse method. This would be yet-another-over-simplified-response-to-a-complex-problem article if it were not for the fact that I am currently appreciating the value of Wodehouse’s writing (and the acting of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie … genius) and also that Douglas Adams, a deity in his own geeky-literary right, makes mention of the Wodehouse method of revising. The idea of sticking printed pages around a room is unorthodox but it is very visual and that is important for a good many people, including me.

Using Wodehouse’s technique to improve code is not the most obvious of choices and I have my doubts that it is even practical with a large project (though tacking folders to the wall and then dealing with the work one folder at a time might be interesting) but given the level to which Wodehouse’s writing excelled it might not be such a bad thing to try.

Now, try to judge me kindly in my posting of it.When my mind turns to coding it turns to little else. I have my little routine that involves tea and reading a few regular web sites and then coding. So, I am finding coding to be at the forefront of my mind. With no more ado, have a comic.