Internet blogger James Aiken's entire blog is various excuses about being too busy to blog. When Aiken started his blog, www.thesmokingbow.com, he envisioned it as a record of life along with insights he had about various topics along the way. Also as a way to keep family members scattered across the country abreast as to what was keeping him busy. The title of Aiken's blog, "The Smoking Bow", was a reference to his favourite weapon in video games, a bow and arrow, and a homage to his favourite website, www.thesmokinggun.com. Aiken started the blog in January 2005 as a New Year's resolution after being inspired by an anonymous coworker's witty blog that had circled around the office recently that made light of office politics at Rexon Insurance where Aiken worked as a claims adjuster. Aiken purchased a copy of the blogging software Movable Type for $200, registered his domain for $19.95 and paid local web hosting company Altrus to host the blog for $16.95 a month. All told the blog has cost Aiken $525.05 to date.
The blog started out very promising with Aiken stating in his first post that he planned to blog at least once a week, more often if something interesting happened, and that he was looking forward to using his blog to keep family members around the country informed with what was going on in his life. Immediately following his first blog post he emailed his entire address book the URL of his blog and altered his email signature to include a link to the blog. Aiken immediately regretted sending the URL to his entire address book as he inadvertently emailed it to his boss and basically ruled out blogging anything critical about his employer, which was something Aiken had planned to do
Undeterred, Aiken posted another entry on his blog one week and one day after his first post. Already breaking his self imposed rule of posting at least once a week. This post proved to foreshadow blog posts to come. It talked about how Aiken had intended to post to the blog within the week but had become "tied up at work". This post, like all posts to come, stated that Aiken had been busy since the last post but only vaguely alluded to what was making Aiken so busy, in this case work, but offering no specific details.
It was not until February 13, 2005 that Aiken made another blog post. This post, his longest to date, again mentioned that he had been busy lately and had no time to post updates. He also mentioned that he and long time girlfriend Amy Jones were planning on going out for dinner for Valentine's Day, but never stated where they were going out for dinner. The post also indicated that he planned on posting more frequently to his blog. This would be the first of many unfulfilled promises to post more regularly to his blog.
Aiken's next blog post came April 27, 2005. This post again cited unknown activities that were keeping Aiken busy, a brief mention of the improving weather and brief playoff predictions for the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs. It would be almost six months until Aiken's next blog post.
The September 18, 2005 blog post, aptly titled "Been Busy", this time more specifically blamed a source of Aiken's busyness. The season Summer was blamed for keeping Aiken away from his blog for so long. Aiken alluded to a two week vacation in July as another cause, but gave no further details of the vacation other than it was spent on the beach, the location of the beach remains a mystery.
The next post came on December 13, 2005. Again the post cited Aiken's continued busy schedule and primarily blamed a holiday this time, Christmas, for the infrequency of blog posts. The post also indicated that Aiken would be traveling to visit family for Christmas but neglected to mention where exactly he was traveling or on what dates.
Aiken didn't post again until January 12, 2006. This time there was no direct blame of the source of Aiken's busy life, it merely mentioned that he had "been busy lately". He talked about the family members he had seen at Christmas, but again neglected to mention where he had actually spent Christmas. Aiken also resolved to post more this New Year.
January 12, 2006 was Aiken's last post to his blog. The source of his most recent blogging absence is a mystery and to the three people who regularly check his blog: his mother, father, and the Google web search indexing robot, it is dearly missed. To date each blog post has cost Aiken $87.51 making it one of the most expensive blogs per post on the Internet.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Harper To Offer Cabinet Positions to Entire Liberal Caucus
Stephen Harper has expanded his cabinet from twenty-six to fifty-seven. However, none of those positions have immediately been filled. Prime Minister Harper indicated that the positions will be filled when they have found appropriate candidates. Harper then strongly hinted that he felt those candidates would come form other parties. Some pundits have speculated that the additional thirty-one cabinet positions are being used to lure more Liberal MPs or MPs from other parties into the Conservative caucus. Assuming all thirty-one new cabinet positions are filled with MPs from other parties the Conservatives will be able to form a majority government. Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois leadership have cried foul that the move is a dirty trick to attempt to form a majority government and an affront to democracy. Harper maintains that the Conservative Party is an umbrella party and anyone is welcome, that seems to include MPs that were elected under other party banners mere weeks prior.
The Conservatives offering cabinet positions to members of other parties follows in the wake of former Liberal David Emerson switching parties days after the election to join the Conservative cabinet. Some of Emerson’s constituents are calling for him to resign and run in a by-election, Emerson has indicated he has no plans to do so. It is unclear how Emerson would fare as a Conservative in his ridding, the Conservative candidate finished third behind the winning Liberal, Emerson, and the second place NDP candidate. Conservative leaning news papers who supported the Conservatives in the election have offered muted commentary, with none condemning the move. This is in stark contrast of the papers long and inflammatory comments after Belinda Stronach crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals, also becoming a cabinet minister.
Political Scientists warn that the move could increase cynicism in an electorate that is already brimming with it.
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