Pie Palace

I just got an email from the City, telling me about a public consultation over what the new and improved Lansdowne Park should feature. Let’s hope this consultation works out a little better than the last one.

How do you define success when it comes to a protest? Two weeks ago, when I hooked up with Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP), I would have defined a successful protest as having a bunch of people show up.

In that case, today’s protest against Stephen Harper shutting down Parliament was epic. Sorry, EPIK!!!!1. 3,500+ folks turned out. Speakers spoke. Fists were shaken. Signs were waved.

So what?

Let’s geek out a little bit here. Why hold a protest?

1. To scare the bejesus out of your opposition. Imagine your company pays kids in Sri Lanka to chew asbestos to make iPhones. Everyone likes iPhones, nobody cares about cancer kids overseas. Life is good. Until one day when you show up at work and there are a thousand people burning you in effigy. You may start to consider other ways of making iPhones.
2. To impress the pundits. Media, commentators, bloggers, and other self-declared arbiters of importance will pooh-pooh your cause when they think it’s just you and your mom who care about it. When you and your mom organize a rally that brings a couple of thousand people out, those commentators will change their position. And if they think you’re important, that helps scare your opposition all the more, and draw more folks into your movement.
3. To attract more supporters. It’s really disheartening to feel like you’re the only person who feels something. A rally can help solve that. It’s shows potential supporters that they aren’t alone and they have a group to plug into. Hopefully, it will swell your ranks, and enable future (metaphoric) asskicking on your issue.

All of this said, we’re in a weird place. We have certainly have an opposition: Harper and every power-grubbing prime minister from the past 30 years. But we don’t have an “us”. Yeah, there are 213,178 people in a Facebook group, and three opposition parties doing everything they can to ride our momentum; but there’s nobody at the head of CAPP waving a sword and yelling “CHARGE!”

So what did our protest accomplish?

1. Scared the opposition? Hard to tell. Intrepid PiePalace reporters are busily peeking in the windows of 24 Sussex to see if a night-light was left on. When we find out, you’ll be the first to know.
2. Impressed the pundits? Maybe. Mostly? Definitely.
3. Attracted more supporters? Again, hard to tell. The Facebook membership seems to have plateaued, but it seems unlikely to grow, since it was explicitly aimed at this weekend’s protest.

A sympathetic observer might call that two out of three. An unsympathetic type might call that one out of three. Either way, it’s better than a fail. We’ll know the real result when we see the responses from MPs, the government, and the public.

I just got home from Ottawa anti-prorogation rally. 3,500 braved sub-zero temperatures for two hours to show their support for our Parliamentary democracy. Nothing short of awesome. Well done, Ottawa! (I’ll post pics once I warm up)

BiblioPress publishes reviews from a Bibliocommons-based library catalogue to a WordPress-based blog. In other words: all the time I wasted reviewing stuff on Ottawa’s library website is now made useful because my blog will automatically republish my reviews.

The plugin is something verging on beta software. It works, but its only had limited testing.

The Centretown News is running a story about a municipal party being assembled here in O-town. David Chernushenko is the only member of the coalition who is speaking publicly.

I’m glad to see that David is getting back into politics. Longtime PiePalace readers will remember that I volunteered with his various election campaigns when he was running for the Green Party in Ottawa-Centre. He reeks of credibility and honesty. He’s one of the few people I’ve met who should be in politics.

Having said that, I don’t want to see parties pushing into City Hall. Party politics acts to homogenize elected representatives. Party members must vote according to the party line, and private members’ bills rarely pass. At best, politicians must work within their parties to push ideas forward. At worst, parties are petty fiefdoms that only represent the views and priorities of a small elite.

I wish David the best of luck. He would be a welcome addition to City Council.

And no, that isn’t a membership card in my pocket. I’m just happy to see your new catalog. Your FANTASTIC new catalog.

The crunky old catalog has been replaced with a shiny new BiblioCommons website. With a bit of searching, I managed to track down some info on BiblioCommons:

1. They have a terrible website.
2. Their founder, Beth Jefferson, appears to be a mix of volunteer-ist and entrepreneur (imagine that!).
3. Beth talks about BiblioCommons in a podcast I haven’t listened to yet.
4. They seem to snarf information from Amazon. (Their images come directly from Amazon)
5. I am addicted to annotating books.

As far as I can tell, they don’t have an official API. I managed to find a Drupal module that professes to do BiblioCommons stuff, but I don’t know enough about Drupal to tell what it’s up to.

And their login pages confuse cURL. Boo!

Joe Mamma is currently selling some really nice snowboarding jackets for 50%-75% off. And if you have a wee little skull (unlike me, dear reader), you can also get some pretty slick helmets for redonkulous prices.

City Council will apparently be voting on the Lansdowne Live proposal on Monday. As time has gone on, my out-and-out opposition to the OSEG proposal has tempered from “the proposed plan is terrible, and should be stopped” to “the proposed plan is mediocre, lacking any kind of vision.” Perhaps it was the public consultations that didn’t consult the public. Or maybe it’s the reports that most of Council supports the OSEG proposal.

In any case, here’s hoping that our municipal government puts the Lansdowne Live proposal on ice and runs an open design competition. If OSEG is the best the world has to offer, let’s do it. Otherwise, let’s go with a plan that involves some public space, and perhaps even a few sports fields for Ottawans.

On the off chance our councilors are still listening to what their constituents have to say, I sent the following with letsgetitright.ca.

Please vote against the Lansdowne Live proposal.

The OSEG proposal is unimaginative and would add little to Ottawa’s public life. The plan shown during consultations provides no public space, nothing to attract residents outside of shopping, fewer sports facilities than are at Lansdowne presently, and is financially predicated on the success of a CFL team. Lansdowne must be redeveloped, but the new facility should be something that all Ottawans can enjoy, not just CFL fans and up-market shoppers.

Instead of taking the first proposal to come along, Council should reopen the design competition and choose the best proposal on offer. Please vote against the Lansdowne Live proposal.

Update: One of the Councillors actually responded. Alex Cullen (or one of his minions) wrote back:

Thank you for this – I share your views.
[...]
No matter what corporate confidentiality disclaimer may appear below please feel free to share this message as you wish.

Nice. I dig both the sentiment and the signature.

It looks like OC Transpo is rolling out a new website on November 12. You can get a sneak preview at www.octranspo1.com. The content is pretty much the same, but it’s all web 2.0-y. They seem to have replaced the clunky old travel planner with an all-in-one thing.

Here’s a quick rundown of my experiences with the vendors I used for my wedding. These vendors are in Ottawa, and, for the most part, they did a decent job at a reasonable price.

Venue and catering: The Carleton Golf and Yacht Club hosted our wedding. We were looking for an all-in-one venue that would handle the ceremony, the reception, and the catering. The CGYC clocked in at about $60-$70 per guest. The cost was less than other locations we looked at (notably Strathmere), and the hall was nicer than either the Monterey Inn or Bearbrook Farms. Laurie O’Brien, the clubhouse manager, did a fantastic job at ensuring the reception hall was properly decorated and that everything went smoothly. She (and her staff) were fantastic. Highly recommended.

Transportation: Because our venue was out in the middle of nowhere, we chartered a school bus from Rideau Bus Lines. Their driver knew how to pacify a bunch of drunk wedding goers (turn out the light, natch), was friendly, and knew where he was going. Recommended.

Photographer: We went with Julie Young Photography. She (and her lovely assistant) did a great job at herding the wedding party and composing us into something that I hope is photogenic. We haven’t gotten the final pictures yet, so I’ll hold out on my assessment.

DJ: First Choice Entertainment (613-830-7009) satisfied our music and MC needs. The owner, Greg Fedor, was easily the most energetic vendor we hired. His posse had a good selection of music (even if they didn’t know a good track to foxtrot to), and good equipment. They provided music for the ceremony as well as the reception and dancing. Recommended.

Officiant: Lynne Langille of Exceptional Wedding Ceremonies in Ottawa presided over the ceremony. She did a good job, given the various hiccups we threw at her (collapsing chairs, wrong rings, and a giggling bride and groom). Recommended.

Limousine: We hired Elite Limousine to ferry us from our photo venue to reception/ceremony venue. The driver got lost en route, making us 20 minutes late for our own wedding. Disappointing.

Cake: We ordered cupcakes from the Buttercream Bakery. The cupcakes weren’t bad, but they didn’t have the richness I had hoped for. I can take part of the blame for that – I should have bailed when we did our tasting. Similarly, a cake we ordered for the cutting proved to be pretty bland. What’s worse, a day before the reception, we called them to make sure they had the right address for delivery. They didn’t. Recommended with reservations. If you go with these folks, call at the last minute to make sure they have the right address.

Rings: I tried various jewelery stores, but I didn’t see anything I liked until I went to Magpie. They had a wider selection in styles and materials than we found elsewhere. Their stuff has a bit of a hippy look, but some of us like that kind of thing. Recommended.