No this one is not about Greece. We just came back from a little camping trip to Agawa Bay in Lake Superior Provincial Park. Oh, we also bought a new Zoom H2 recorder, so well, as the geeks we are, or, well, as the geek Dave is, it was brought along. Around 11 pm one night we broke out the recorder and did a little podcasting. We talked about a few interesting things, well we thought they were interesting, like a recent clip from the Transpondency podcast, that well sort of umm, well, demanded a comment. Lake Superior Park is really amazing, though even at the camping areas there are bears around, and there is real nature. This is not KOA camping baby. The campground itself was super nice, and it seemed like it was only people that wanted to have fun just hanging out in the wild. Our site was surrounded by pine trees We all (Maddie joined in with us on this one) talked about our camping memories, including Isabelle being left at a gas stattion when she was a kid. Oh, and Dave has a cool hat. We?ll be back next time with Greece, unless we go camping again before we record the Greece episode...

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Well we are back after an eventful few weeks, but more on that later. Today we were off to Cambodia, the land of the Khmer people (and a few Vietnamese, a few Chinese and a few ?others? as they say. One cannot talk about Cambodia without talking about the murderous, genocidal regime of Pol Pot. Dave read a book back in high school called ?Sideshow? by New York Times writer William Shawcross. This book talked about the reasons behind the rise of the Khmer Rouge, and gives a theory as to why they came to power. If you want to know the theory you could always buy the book, or listen. ... As usual, Isabelle was interested in more happy stuff. She has a knack for that. To quote her, ?while I was playing in the fields of Cap-Rouge and being a free and happy child, horrors were taking place on the other side of the planet. I don't know why anyone needs to believe that there is a devil, a fallen angel, a Lucifer when ordinary people are quite capable of imagining worst fates for others than ever one imaginary Diablo, or Shiva, could do...I decided to celebrate the beauty of Cambodia and to call it a celebration of life because now life has returned.? She talked about Cambodian dancing, which is a descendant of Indian dancing it seems. We saw happy people on youtube making cheesy videos, so really maybe they are getting back to normal and not that different from us. After a little break we talked a bit about Podcasters Across Borders 2008 (PAB2008) a conference that Dave attneded and gave a presentation at. Dave had a pretty good time seeing old friends etc. Finally we talked about Dave?s Dad who died on June 2, 2008. Dave learned a lot from RB, and he was always there for us. We miss him, but, he will never be forgotten. RB would be interested to know that Cambodia is unranked by the International Ice Hockey Federation... Next time, it is off to Greece!

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Well Isabelle is back from Morocco, with photos and stories and memories and sand in her clothing. This episode consists of two parts. In part one, Isabelle called Dave on Skype and Dr. smart guy forgot to record her audio, so they had to start over, and oh yeah, her audio was not working, so she was responding to typed questions from Dave. Nonetheless, it was pretty cool. After a little Moroccan music you will hear standard Dave and Isabelle stuff, except that Isabelle has been to this country! We talked about Isabelle?s trip to the desert (see above...) her time in the country, and the stuff she liked (which was most of it) and the stuff she didn?t (which involved putting boiling hot eggs on someone?s neck, you will have to listen to get the whole story there...) I think (this is Dave typing here) that Isabelle is pretty brave to travel to a country all by herself, just thought I would throw that in. It is also cool to hear someone you know say ?I flew in to Casablanca and then connected to Marrakech.? Next time it is time for a holiday in Cambodia! Enjoy.

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Well, we usually take you somewhere, anywhere, that will be fun for you and interesting for us. Instead of a country this time we are visiting Second Life. Yes, SL, the place where people dress up their avatars in virtual spandex and fly from place to place looking for well, we are not sure what. Dave has played with Second Life as he interviewed Cory Ondrehka of Linden Lab on thunderbird six. The Future Play conference always has a presence from Linden as well, so Dave has met people from Linden. Of the two of us, Dave is the gamer, and Dave does not really think much of SL. Indeed, he cannot even figure out why anyone would want to play with it. That said, SL has some real world applications, such as education, and on another t6 interview John Nordlinger of Microsoft talked about how SL can be used with autistic kids, which is pretty close to both of our hearts. There is a dark side to this though. That dark side is that people seem to sometimes fall into SL way too hard and end up meeting people and having affairs with them, as this video shows. This lead us into a discussion of marriage, Dave is actually rather traditional in his views on this topic, Isabelle, not as much. We want to thank all of our listeners over the years, Mark, Bob, James, Mark, Andy, Meg, Rob, Rachel, Katherine, the Dude, Matt, Andre, and of course AmHam, who sent us an audio comment. Next time it is off to Morocco! Literally, Isabelle is going to Morocco! We hope to skype from there and do an episode. Dave, alas, will be at home.

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We have the greatest pleasure to introduce our friend Andy who joined David and I to discuss the art of Taekwondo. The Taekwondo tenets of courtesy, integrity, self-control, perseverance and indomitable spirit could possibly be all that one needs in order to live a balanced life. But doesn?t all sports teach you these same attributes? Maybe so, maybe no...Do you agree or disagree? Then, we talked about the Korean war, technology and sports. Hey, remember that guy who died after playing Starcraft for 2 days straight? Thanks Andy for coming and thanks to everyone who commented on our French episode. Our next episode will be our 100th and for that episode, we have planned something very much unexpected. Stay tuned for number 100. Coming soon to earphones near you. And while you wait, check out these few youtube finds on South Korea...and this one too on tae kwon do... We await your comments ^^...

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Meet the revolutionaries, the leftists, the rightists and the absolutists. David and I discuss past and present French politics, including the new contrat social proposed by Nicolas Sarkozy which Quebec?s Jean-Claude Corbeil wishes to emulate with a contrat moral. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed the original one.) We argue over civil liberties and accomodement raisonnable and la Charte des droits et libertes. We realise that while France and England are now far away countries which do not have much influence in our everyday affairs, we still hold some attachment with these countries. And finally Isabelle ends with a rant about things that bug her about people?s reactions to her French identity. Laissez-nous vos commentaires...Merci...Next, South Korea!

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From Rome to Naples and from Classical times to the ?Cosmic Rot,? Italy has always been a shaper and driver of the Western World. Our discussion led us to fascism, the Vatican, the Garbage strike in Naples, a philosophical-like debate over ?civilizations,? the ability of the Italian people to adapt, and a short discussion about the designs of Daniele Lago. All that from our home, complete with our son Jonathan?s very talkative state and Leap Pad. This discussion will no sure continue onto our next podcast: FRANCE... Finalement!

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This time we are off to Tahiti, an island, well the most important island probably, in French Polynesia. French Polynesia is a self governing territory of France. Indeed, there is talk of a referendum to allow independence from France. This will probably eventually happen. Historically the islands were annexed to France without France even knowing about it, which says something about global communications in the early 1800s. We have a (somewhat distant) connection to Tahiti, as Capt James Cook explored the island, and he also explored the region where Corner Brook NL is today. We lived in CB, so there you are... We talked quite a bit about Paul Gauguin, who famously moved to Tahiti. We were looking forward to discussing his work in Tahiti, then, well, we saw the book (his journals) that Isabelle ordered. He married a 13 year old child while there, then if that was not bad enough, he turned around and left her. This lead us to a discussion of moral relativism, and well, a discussion of how disgusting we thought Guaguin was as a human. What do you think? We recorded this one just after Christmas, so we would like to pass on holiday (whatever holiday you celebrate) greetings to all of our listeners. Don?t forget to visit Bring Da King to bring James Whittingham to PAB 2008. Next time it is off to Italy!

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We tried a little experiment in our recent Praguay recording session, we just set the mics up and recorded live, with special guest star Madeleine (and a little Jon for good measure). Paraguay has a somewhat tragic history, the Chaco War, the War of the Triple Alliance, the brutal military dictatorship of General Stroessner and the general unstable (though improving) situation. today. Stroessner, BTW, was a bad guy. He gave safe haven to Nazi War criminals, and led a long dark time in Paraguay?s history. That said, the country has probably the highest number of Indigenous people (as compared to Europeans) of any country in the Americas. As this is a recently democratic country there are issues, the press is not overly free, this is bound to get better, you have to remember that democracy is a relatively new phenomenon in modern South America. Oddly enough, (at least to us) there is a decent sized Mennonite community in Paraguay. There is a small Jewish community, but really for the most part Paraguay is a Catholic country. Paraguay is unranked by the IIHF. Next time, it is off to Tahiti!

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Another in our fine series of road episodes.. In this one, Dave had just returned from Toronto. While he was there he went to the Futureplay conference (where he was the official blogger) and attended the Toronto Podcast Meetup. The conference was pretty cool, and there were people there from all over the world, including a video game design team from Sweden that made a game for the DS where you serve drinks to bar patrons (seems they know Dave well....) This was probably the first year where someone mentioned that there might be a darker side to games. That said, the conference focussed on the positive. The podcaster meetup included Sage, Katherine, Scarborough Dude, Jay Moonah from Uncle Seth, John Meadows and Mark Blevis (among others). The meetup was a blast, and a great time was had by Dave and the crazy left wing nuts in the Canadian podcasting community.... Next tim eit is off to Paraguay, honestly. Oh, Canada is still ranked number 2 by the IIHF, but we do have the Hockey Hall of Fame which Dave walked by each time he went from his hotel to the conference, so really, we are better than Sweden...

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Ahh Sweden, home of social democracy, a King that is modest, meatballs and ABBA. Yes, we could not help talk about ABBA. Now, really ABBA were and is huge. Dave is not a fan, Dave likes the Hives. Isabelle, well she likes ABBA, and that is fine, if you like that sort of thing. They have, in Sweden, a couple of interesting philosophies. One is basically ?shut up and don?t bother anybody? (jantelagen) and the other is ?you don?t need to overdo it? (Lagom). The second one sounds better to us than the first, but hell, we are not Swedes.... Sweden is very liberal with social policy, and the sort of classic example of a mixed economy. In many ways it is quite Canadian. They are usually pretty quiet but seem to do the right thing (see Raoul Wallenberg for example). Well next it is off to Paraguay (sorry Scarborough Dude...). Sweden, sadly, is ranked one ahead of Canada by the IIHF, at number 1. That is until the upcoming world championships this spring in Halifax and Quebec CIty...

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Ahh Egypt, a mysterious land, the Nile, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Pharaohs and of course Belly Dancing and really lame actors. Egypt is one of those Muslim countries in the Mid East that may give us in the West a little hope, as they no longer officially want to destroy Israel and they are relatively prosperous. Of course the biggest export culturally from Egypt, besides the King Tut exhibit, is probably Belly Dancing. Now some of these people are really good at it, others have a more sensual style, and still others are really horrible... As with most TV and movies from non Western countries Egyptian TV seems to have a style all of its own, a style that is downright horrible... This clip of the actor Adel Emam is the one we talked about, check out how the guy kicks the girl in the butt. Unreal. Plus, what fine acting. Egypt is unranked by the IIHF. Next time it is off to Sweden, who are ranked by the IIHF.

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I was a traveller again these past few days. Iza la voyageuse ! This episode is a phone conversation between Dave and myself describing my stay in ?Ottawa-The-Respectable? to meet Mark Blevis and Andrea Ross of the Just One More Book podcast (- and many, many other podcasts) at the Wild Oat Cafe. I felt like royalty spending time with Lord Blevis and Lady Andrea and their two beautiful and talented daughters. Their 6 yr old and 9 year old both speak French and English and each play the violin and the flute. Plus, they are incredibly smart and vivacious. This show is about my two days in Ottawa. The days were filled with various spheres in my life intercepting one another: history, art, podcasting, food, books, family, friends, life with a big L. Mark and Andrea made me feel part of the family by including me in their lives. I read stories with the girls and helped with French homework. What a delight it was to get to be a part of the everyday organized chaos that represents family life. I also enjoyed the company of Mark and Bob as I was a guest on the Canadian Podcast Buffet and I discussed podcasting at the Ottawa Meetup at the Arrow and Loon bistro with a bunch of rowdy people. Some of the podcasters, I had already seen at the Podcasters Across Borders Conference but for the most part, I did not know anybody. (You have to hear this guys? story about the band Kiss... I still have cramps from laughing so much. What was that guys? name? Was it Andy?) I apologize for all the mistakes I made with names in this episode: I am making sins of inexactitude. You will forgive me, as I was on my way to my Dad?s funeral and my head was in another dimension. Thanks again Mark and Andrea! Merci de tout mon coeur. Et bonjour aux deux petites etoiles qui vous accompagnent.

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This one was, for some reason, difficult to find stuff out about. The country itself is very small, and has a population of only about 100 000. That said, so is Comoros and we had no trouble finding stuff out about that little Island. We mostly talked about the idea of living on the beach, visiting a beach, the whole private island kind of thing (which is apparently available in SVG, for what we imagine is a hefty price). The Pirates of the Caribbean movies were made in SVG, which makes one believe that maybe tourism there will pick up. Isabelle suggested being a traveller, not a tourist, which is good advice wherever you are, even if it is some weird dance competition in Saint VIncent and the Grenadines... SCG are unranked by the IIHF, despite their relationship with Canada... Next tim eit is off to Egypt!

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So back to the warm weather, to the Mid East, to Bahrain. Bahrain is a series of islands in the Persian Gulf. It seems to be a pretty cool place as far as tolerance goes. They allow most of the stuff most mid east countries don?t. You know, like freedom of expression, women?s rights, voting and liquor, all that fun stuff. Saudi tourists show up on weekends, not surprisingly. Now it is not a paradise, as much as it looks sorta like it, there is a real problem there with people coming there to seek their fortune, yet, they don?t, and end up living in shanty towns, with no status, no rights, and no citizenship. There has been a Western influence there for a long time. First the Brits, and now the Yanks. With all of the banking and oil money they have done some amazing things with architecture. It seems Michael Jackson wants to live there, but that umm, the Prince (not the guy that used to be a symbol, an actual Prince) is suing him. Ahh Jacko, when will you ever learn? Bahrain is unranked by the IIHF (though oddly, there is a hockey tournament there each year that foreigners and locals participate in, oh and the Prince buys players from Russia to stack his team). Next, it is off to St. VIncent and the Grenadines!

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