Hello, pretties.

You might notice that our blog's layout is all messed up and helter-skelter and that posts and comments are missing and that there are lots of missing pages.

This is what we call an 'upgrade'.

See, the old blog that totally worked and everything looked just fine and it was completely okay in every way? It had to go.

We're all about change for change's sake.

So, some caveats:

1. Links might be broken.
2. The feeds have changed addresses.
3. We still haven't imported our Haloscan comments.
4. The blogroll remains to be imported.

In short, everything will be generally broken for a little while. Except Toronto, Kingston and Halifax. They're staying on Blogger until we get better at this whole site migration dealie.

Leah is leaving the blogosphere. And it's because you're all just so boring. What did we tell you about boring Leah, pretties? We warned you not to bore her. But you didn't listen. So sayeth the Leah:

"My own problem with the blogosphere is not that it's selling out to the mainstream, but that most of it is spectacularly boring. The dominant quality is tedium: writers without editors, fact-checkers or paying subscribers to keep them in check."

Oh, and besides, she searched for herself on Technorati and (gasp) found that the genius of her craft and her merit as a novelist were not recognized by the jealous hacks of the weblog world:

"Countless chat rooms full of bitter unpublished writers venomously slagging published ones -- their terrible spelling, poorly constructed sentences and outrageous amounts of displaced hatred and envy a testimony to why they became bloggers in the first place."

We're disappointed, of course, that Ms. McLaren did not chance upon our humble little site and its annals of Leah fandom. We're quite convinced that her assessment would have been entirely altered had she found our blog, which is now certified to be One Hundred Percent Free of Displaced Hatred and Envy (we even have the receipt from the exterminators).

But anyways, disappointed though we are to be part of the McLaren-maligned blogosphere, we are at least relieved to have the company of the entire pedagogical professional in the shadow of Leah's stern glare:

"...Much like teachers who teach because they can't do, the blogger blogs because he can't publish."

But though she throws darts at teachers, we are relieved to see her spirited defence of the meritocracy of publishing. Thank goodness a system exists where only the most talented writers are given column ink, free of the nepotism of influential family members.

This was almost a farewell column, pretties, as we prepared to depart the cold and Leahless expanses of the blogosphere. But then -- praise heaven! -- we found a loophole.

"...Which is exactly why I'm swearing off the blogosphere for good -- except, of course, for the celebs in bad outfits."

Thank heavens! We're able to keep going, so long as we ensure that trashy celebrity fashion remains within our editorial mandate. We will be spending our evening trawling Go Fug Yourself and Oh No They Didn't for material to draw the gracious eyes of Her Leahness to our humble little diary.

David Emerson has been laying low, working on a coherent explanation for a Tory cabinet minister was elected in a riding where less than 20% of voters cast their ballots for the Conservatives.

But apparently it's now standard practice to fly a bevy of civil servants to accompany ministers on partisan firefighting missions. At least seven bureaucrats are in Vancouver with Minister Emerson as he works on his 'regional files'.

From today's Globe:

"The official reason given for Mr. Emerson's departure to Vancouver was that he needed to work on regional files. His ministerial portfolio includes the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Olympics.

'The [Prime Minister's Office] hasn't told him, 'Disappear,' ' one government official said. 'He has a lot of B.C.-sensitive files. And since the House is not sitting, he has to tackle those files in B.C., obviously.'

Federal officials could not say whether similarly sized contingents followed any other ministers.

But one acknowledged his own skepticism that Mr. Emerson needs to be in B.C. to work on provincial issues. 'I suspect he is meeting his constituents because there's a lot of flak coming out of there.'"

Jay Abramsky wins the Key To The Ghetto for 'excellence' in property management. Rabidoux has obviously never set foot in 207 Wellington, aka The Ant Colony, aka Casa Del Unfinished Subflooring.

Peace out, Homies.

Ten grand buys CFRC a year of existence and a lifetime of ink on Duncan's neck.

The City of Kingston wants a First Capital Day logo. We suggested John A. Macdonald drunk, holding aloft a bottle of gin and singing 'God Save Our Glorious Queen', but were rebuffed. Perhaps y'all can do better.

There's loving your place in the ghetto, and then there's paying a few hundred grand to ship a ghetto house down the seaway to Oakville.

It's a total indictment of our social life that we're now nitpicking the details of 24. But seriously, some of these subplots are beginning to strain credulity. For instance, Samwise gets his keycard boosted by his junkie sister and skeletal boyfriend, and he's all calling them to whine and ask for it back? In the very same episode, they break DOD-level crypto in a few seconds. Yet they can't figure out how reprogram a door lock?

The rest of the episode was fairly solid: POTUS caves in to the terrorists, helping them with their Russian-Assassination Plan. The Russians dramatically air-kiss everyone. Jack coldcocks Curtis and jacks his SUV. Jack takes out three guys with machine guns and downs a helicopter with a pistol. Chloe and Bill and Audrey all try to distract the hobbit so they can secretly help Jack. The hobbit throws Bill into lockup. Audrey stomps her feet. Chloe pouts. The Emperor's Royal Guard drag Bill away. Back at the mid-century-modern ranch, FLOTUS decides to throw herself into harm's way.

Meanwhile, over at Fox's official website, some 1,973 members of the viewing audience think that it is a wise strategy to get into a car that is being targeted by Chechnyan terrorists: