Michael Powell

It always seemed a missed opportunity that it was *before* security. Some of us want to dip a half hamburger bun in sauce while changing planes.

Beyond all of the very obvious reasons to not be on Twitter, using a site that requires an account to see posts is not a very good way of posting public/government information. Login requirements remove *the original utility* of posting stuff there.

Isn’t the plan to interline?

We’re here. Because we’re here, because we’re here.

A parking levy *is* a congestion charge.

It’s all academic. A city that would consider any of this would also see the value in properly supporting transit on its own.

I have wretched hand writing. But I just double spaced, wrote big and managed to get through. It all got easier when I realized they would keep giving you more booklets if you asked.

For me, the biggest thing is that a tracking a congestion charge is a lot of infrastructure. Parking is an outcome of cars, so adding cost to that has the same effect.

At least in a city like Ottawa. New York would probably be different.

Absolutely! I actually don’t care if it is a direct customer charge. Just add it to the tax bill.

Easiest way to do this would be to add a parking levy. $x per space, with it being higher for monthly rentals. It should nudge people from driving *and* increase parking flexibility for when people do need to bring a car.

Right now all the incentives push people to monthly parking.

His advice is to look beyond the now:
"If you have political will that is designed to destroy and they have the power to destroy, it is almost futile to try to push against the destruction. Instead, you have to get through the dark age by sort of deciding what the Renaissance is going to look like"

Fun with year end lists: Pitchfork has Cameron Winter's “Heavy Metal” as the third best album of the year but the 16th best Rock Album.

They are playing Bluesfest. As with any Canadian tour in the summer, if you see Ottawa “skipped” on a date list it’s usually because the Bluesfest lineup hasn’t been announced yet.

That doesn’t change other points about Lansdowne, obviously.

Wow this is crazy Trump just released an Executive Order eliminating Halalflation

It’s pretty strange to try to vote electronically while sitting in the opposition lobby, no?

We really just need more carousels.

It's from the infamous Simpsons scene from 22 Short Films About Springfield, but Superintendent Chalmers, labeled "Me," says "May I see it?" and Skinner, who is labeled "Hudson Valley Clouds" says "No" and it refers to the fact that I can't see the goddamned northern lights right now.

Here's the biggest PSE story you haven't heard yet: the Canada Student Grant for low-income students is being cut from $4200/year to $3000/year as of next August. It's implicit in the budget tables but the government is too chickenshit to actually say so directly.

I feel like I say this every year but I really need people to hear it. Halloween is the best American holiday. Just kids outside welcomed into their world, marching around together, showing off their costumes to the elderly, parents meeting parents, neighbors catching up with neighbors.

This game is like I got caught smoking a baseball and now I have to smoke a whole pack of baseball

(I do think the ban on hinged garbage cans is stupid and caught even me by surprise.)

The real story here is Ottawans’ inability to count to three.

Lisa: We got beets!

We spend so much time comparing it to the NFL that we sometimes fail to appreciate that it's one of the very few forms of homegrown mass cultural entertainment that brings Canadians together, which is something you might want to lean into right now.

It’s ok to put the phone down.

It used to be the city would book a hall
or something and let people come and talk to the experts that planned this to understand it. You’d see the usual suspects, and maybe even meet some new people.

I guess a website you have to log into does some of the same stuff.

No way these end up closed and boarded up and the subject of 25 years of desultory talks about how to get them back to what they were in 2025.

For any casuals heading to one of these shows, spend some time with Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory, and you’ll be ready for the bulk of the setlist. Plus you’ll be better acquainted with two of the great rock records of all time.

At least this *got* built, unlike the Albert portion east of City Centre that was "to be completed by RTG after the train opened"

I forgot about bottom writing!

Alt weeklies were a basically perfect medium, and it’s too bad nothing really replicates that.