Gatineau Park, Que.  October 2009.

Shot at Champlain Lookout.  This is what you’re looking at.

Apparently:

• Margaret Atwood has filmed a cameo in an upcoming hockey flick.
• Canada’s tar sands = Avatar.
• A German reporter slipped security to join athletes in the Olympics’ Closing Ceremonies.
• Here are aerial pictures of the Chile earthquake.
• Academic publishers are seeing strong growth from e-book sales.
• Traces of water have been found in the Apollo moon rocks; proof was right under our noses for decades.
• “The Internet” has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
• This is a collection of choice reaction shots from the Oscars.
• If you “shush” a moviegoer, you might get a meat thermometer in the neck.
• Starbucks is having a midlife crisis.
• After nearly a year, a picture has finally emerged of what went wrong with Air France flight 477.

Fleetwood Mac, “Big Love” (Extended Remix) (6:40)

from the promo vinyl 12”; original version appears on Tango in the Night (1987).

William Deresiewicz, “Faux Friendship” (The Chronicle, Dec. 6, 2009).

Vancouver.  February 2010.

It’s actually “paint.”

Apparently:

• The Loonie is likely to trump the U.S. dollar this year.
• Visible minorities in Vancouver will outnumber white residents three-to-two within 20 years.
• A Russian family has committed suicide rather than return to Canada; believed PM Stephen Harper was controlling their minds.
• Crosby’s golden stick and glove have been recovered.
• The University of Texas has acquired David Foster Wallace’s papers.
• A new biography paints Nina Simone as brilliant and… difficult.
• Vanity Fair has taken a look at the sudden death of The Exile, Russia’s angriest newspaper.
• The iPad could see 50 tablet rivals this year.
  
• This was the moment when a generation of women turned their backs on feminism.
• This is what luxury brand skateboards might look like.
• A person dubbed The Midnight Knitter is terrorizing mystifying a New Jersey town.
• The Price is Right Creepy.
• Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon is 37 today.
• This is the truth about the average Twitter user.  The sad, lonely truth.

Reporter Svetlana Osadchuk, on the mysterious deaths of nine ski hikers in what became known as the Dyatlov Pass incident.  (via DH of PBLKS)

East Van.  March 2010.

Apparently:

• The definitive edition of Finnegan’s Wake will be published next week; includes 9,000 corrections and alterations.
• This is how a book cover is made; six hours of work, cut down to two minutes.
• The Large Hadron Collider will shut down for a year.
• “It’s the Magna Carta of physics!”
• The infamous Oscar interrupter (a.k.a. “Lady Kanye”) has told her side of the story; says she was wronged.
• This is Apple’s secret plan to control the universe; meanwhile, Apple’s going after Google by aggressively defending the iPhone’s intellectual property and disrupting development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers.
• Google Maps has finally added bike routes.
• Pentax is prepping a 40 megapixel 645D medium format camera.
• Annie Leibovitz is finally free; the photographer has signed a deal with a private equity firm that allows her to clear her large debt and retain rights to her works.
• The Guardian has published its obituary for Mark Linkous; PopMatters has done so too.
• Black Barbie is being sold for less than White Barbie at Wal-Mart.
• Justin Vernon has reciprocated Peter Gabriel’s cover of “Flume.”
• People who engage in idle chitchat are more unhappy than those who have profound conversations.
• Voodoo worshippers in Haiti are blamed by some for the earthquake; are all the recent quakes coincidence?

Gorillaz, “Empire Ants” (feat. Little Dragon) (4:41)

from Plastic Beach (2010).

Ansel Adams.

Apparently:

• No one’s cheering now; 10 days after the Olympics, BC has slashed grants to arts, culture, and sports groups.
• Canada’s booksellers are urging Ottawa to block Amazon.com from building a distribution network in Canada.
• Don’t expect to see those familiar Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather, Voice Memo apps included on the first-gen iPad; of course, you could always buy Microsoft’s [snicker] “digital journal” instead.
• The domain “sex.com” is being auctioned; could fetch millions.
• Cellphone apps can be made that secretly pass your personal data back to their creators.
• Later this month, a black hole may or may not swallow the Earth.
• Arcade Fire have announced their first show of 2010.
• 1969 was the year the U.S. army stopped Niagara Falls.
• The Guardian maybe should have thought of a different photo to use in their report on the Vatican’s gay sex scandal.
• Before he was a convicted serial killer, Rodney Alcala did very well on The Dating Game.