I'm not a firearms expert or anything, but if I were gonna try to shoot somebody from two-fifths of a mile away? I think I'd probably take a little self-improvement time and try to get out in front of that meth habit first. (In the back of my mind, I can hear Homer Simpson's immortal reply: "But I'm angry now!")

One of the attractive qualities of baseball is that even minor figures can attain a permanent place in the life of the game by influencing play or equipment. Free-swinging Panamanian giant Fernando Seguignol, who hit 10 homers in 162 at-bats for the Expos in 2000 and was later a gaijin favourite for the Nippon Ham Fighters, appears to have found his claim to immortality.

From Again With The Comics, the Al Williamson-inked tale of a guy who just would not shut up about the goddamn robots. (Warning: may contain traces of political metaphor.)

Point on the North Atlantic coast nearest Tbilisi, Georgia: Lausvnes, Norway
Approximate distance between Tbilisi and Lausvnes: 3,320 km
Approximate distance from Signal Hill, Nfld., to Muxía, Galicia: 3,400 km
Other countries with a potential claim to NATO membership on the basis of being as close or closer to the actual North Atlantic than Georgia: Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Nigeria, Chad, Egypt

My Friday Olympics column is now online.

Vice founder/refugee and facial-hair impresario Gavin McInnes reports from Canada's human-rights battleground. Comment-thread highlight: random guy watches Ezra Levant take apart his personal inquisitor on YouTube, declares "That nerdball goofus is a motherfucking badass."

Last week I wrote about the growing trend among senior pop musicians: performing their own classic albums live in concert. This week it'll be almost all Olympics all the time. Told myself I wasn't gonna do it, then broke like a reed under deadline pressure. First out of the gate: ruminations on those 16- or 14- or 12-year-old Chinese gymnasts. (Er, unless you count this tiny piece of Canadian Olympic Committee-bait.) More to come in Friday morning's Post.

Apparently the funniest thing in the universe is Louis C.K. completely frightened out of his gourd. This is as surprising to me as it is to you!

Former newspaper columnist and editor Ric Dolphin has started a weblog about his current "sabbatical" as a carpenter's helper on a building site in the suburbs of Edmonton. Although his first foray as an adult into the world of semi-skilled labour comes at the end of a string of professional misadventures, it's hard for me to know how sorry to feel for Ric—I have a sneaking suspicion he'll earn about 75% more than I will this year.

His experience, which he is recounting with all the colour, vigour, and (above all) observational ability he used to bring to the editorial page, provides a window into the economics of Alberta's energy boom: if you know which end of a hammer to hit with, or you can learn in under an hour, there's a job for you here. He has decided to live inside this news story for a while instead of just telling it. Don't let them tell you the New Journalism is dead!