Given the current state of the economy in the US, I am suspending all blog postings until further notice. I encourage all other bloggers to join me in a show of solidarity. Blogging will resume when the fundamentals of the economy are more sound.

A lot of Americans seem to have an inherent suspiciousness of all things Canadian. I know, I know…they say “eh” all the time, they refer to round pieces of ham as “bacon”, and they stole the term “dollar” from us to use for their currency. But let’s face the facts: if McCain wins in November, we all may have to start thinking about heading north, so it’s good to find out a bit about the country and its traditions. Some of you may think of Canada as a larger version of Alaska, but I assure you there is more to it. Let’s start with the simple things. 

I was in Montreal about a year ago on vacation. It was a short vacation, only a few days. However, I did have one unforgettable experience. I was in a small lunch joint, eating a sandwich and fries. It was a crowded restaurant, and you had to share a table with other folks. My table mates were speaking French, but one of them turned to me and asked for “le vinaigre”. When I gave him a blank look, he pointed to the glass bottle at the end of the table. I passed it to him and watched with amazement as he sprinkled the clear liquid on his fries.

Vinegar on fries? Seemed like a crazy idea to me. Sure, I know ketchup has vinegar in there. And there are those salt and vinegar potato chips. I stuck to my Heinz and forgot about the incident, but recently its been creeping back into my conscience. One day, faced with a plateful of fries and an empty ketchup bottle, I raided my closet and managed to find a bottle of vinegar. To my surprise, it tasted pretty good…cleaner and simpler than ketchup.

Give it a try, eh?

Sometimes the solutions to technical problems are not technical at all.

The standard iPhone headphones are quite basic and their sound quality is mediocre. However, they do have a really nifty feature, which is that the in-line microphone doubles as a squeezable button to pause music, advance to the next track, or to answer or end a phone call. It’s quite convenient. I was thrilled to find the Etymotic HF2 headphones, which add the same feature to high quality earbuds. They worked extremely well for several months when suddenly the left earbud stopped working. After some over-the-phone diagnostics with the technical support, the company agreed to replace my set with a completely new pair for free (as a side note, technical support at this company seemed to be one person…when I called early in the morning, I was told “she’s not in yet”).

This morning, the very button that I was so happy to find on these headphones stopped working. Dismayed, I prepared to make another call to Ms. Support, but first did a little detective work. Since every other person in my office seems to have an iPhone (and a couple even have the HF2s), I grabbed a neighbor’s headset and found that it, too, had a non-functional button when paired with my iPhone but both it and my own headset worked fine on his phone.

After lengthy exploration (yes, I should have been working), I discovered that lint had made its way into the bottom of the headphone jack and was preventing proper contact. If your headphone jack is clean, you should see a white circle at the bottom of the jack if you hold it up to the light (this is on an iPhone 3G – haven’t tried it on the old one). If you can’t see it or if its partially obscured, you’ve got lint. An extended paperclip and some digging removed the offending lint and my iPhone is back to normal.

I can’t help it. I’m a political junkie. I have the CNN Political Ticker, Politico, and the latest poll results on RealClearPolitics on constant reload. But I realize that some people actually have to sleep. Or so I’ve heard. Anyway, the bottom line is that I stayed up through all the speeches, the confetti, and commentary to bring you the concise summary. Here goes.

Democratic National Convention

Day 1 – Commentators spend most of the day wondering if Ted Kennedy will show up. He does. Surprisingly, no one seems to wonder if Michelle Obama would show up, but she does as well. I thought she was going to give a speech but she turned out to be a warm-up act for the Obama kids, who stole the show.

Day 2 – Hillary Clinton gives her acceptance speech. Except she didn’t win. Doh!

Day 3 – Bill Clinton talks like he and Obama go way back. Hillary running for president? Oh, we were just getting Obama ready for the election. Kinda like training. Biden comes on stage and tells America his plan for helping the country: telling everyone to get back up on their feet after they’ve been knocked down. Says “champ” and “folks” a lot.

Day 4 – Extended tribute to MLK. Then someone remembers that Obama happens to be here too and lets him speak. Unlike previous speeches where he was vague about his plans for the country, he clarifies that he “gets it” and reassures us that he will “pay for every dime.” Demonstrates his leadership ability by pointing his finger at the camera and looking really serious.

Republican National Convention

Day 1 – Cancelled.

Day 2 – Bush appears on a large screen…it’s kind of creepy, almost like he’s Big Brother spying on his own people (wait a sec…). Lieberman comes out and tricks the republicans into cheering for Bill Clinton.

Day 3 – A parade of speakers. Romney sneers at the rich east coast elitists (wait a sec…). Huckabee makes some wisecracks. Giuliani insults community organizers. I think this is some sort of VP audition. McCain then puts on some sort of practical joke where he pretends that he’s selected someone with no national experience who has been Governor of Alaska for less than two years to be his running mate. I don’t think it worked that well – it wasn’t even obvious that he was joking, but come on…

Day 4 – McCain’s POW story is told by about 10 different people. The man himself then comes out with his standard green background and gives a long speech about how he’s right and the other guy is wrong.

The best part of both conventions is that each one consisted of several days emphasizing party unity and attacking the other party followed by a speech about how the candidates will emphasize bipartisanship.