The war to control the questioning continues on Parliament Hill. About two dozen reporters walked away from a scrum opportunity on Tuesday after the PMO insisted on taking names from a list.

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The Anaheim Mighty Ducks started flapping their wings tonight, but the Edmonton Oilers hung on for a 5-4 win and 3-0 hammerlock on the series, with Game 4 set for Thursday in Edmonton.

That, I would note, is a day off for me, so I can actually watch the game and drink beer like a (not-so) civilized human being. :)

The third period was pretty wild. After 40 minutes of 1-0 hockey, the two teams scored eight goals in the final 20 minutes.

Fernando Pesani of the Oilers managed to extend the lead to two goals (5-3) when he scored off a face-off with almost six minutes left.

However, Teemu Selanne, the Ducks' scoring leader over the playoffs, potted one with 1:45 left to narrow the deficit once again.

Trite as it may seem, the bottom line is the Oilers didn't blow it, even though the Ducks poured it on.

Right now, it's up to Anaheim whether this series continues to Game 5. Can the Ducks motivate themselves to play the way they did in the third, or have they decided in their own minds that they aren't the better team?

I'm looking forward to see how much the critic-battered The Da Vinci Code's numbers drop from the May 20-21 weekend (although next weekend is a holiday in the U.S.).

In North America, the opening weekend box office was $77 million US, which is far from a record.

Worldwide, the number was $224 million US, which according to an AP story on CTV.ca, is second only to Star Wars: Episode III.

The two big countries for non-U.S. box office? Italy (home of the Vatican) and Spain (land of the Inquisition). It was a smash hit in Poland too (Hmmm: Any notable Catholics come from there? :^) )

One co-worker who saw it said it was, and I quote, "pretty bad." Some scenes that were supposed to be very tense triggered involuntary yucks in the audience, he said -- something I've never viewed as a good thing.

Just to put a wild guess on the record, I predict that The Da Vinci Code will pull in about $35 million US next weekend.

As an aside, Harper's Magazine once had a "forum" with movie marketers to talk about their dark craft. They all agreed the penultimate achievement is to make a bad movie open at number one. The only thing better is to have it open at number one, then see it drop like a stone the next weekend as word-of-mouth takes hold.

Right now, I suspect The Da Vinci Code marketing team is dreaming about a place of honour in the Movie Marketer's Hall of Fame. :)

Here's the link.

If you come across any cool World Cup links, please either drop me a line (the link's at top right) or leave a comment on this post.

An NYT feature on the complicated marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

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Carlos Alberto, Brazil's captain in 1970, tells BBC Sport his top picks for the World Cup, as does Carlos Alberto Parreira, Brazil's coach.

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From AFP via Yahoo! News:

The French have been voted the world's most unfriendly nation by a landslide in a new British poll published. They were also voted the most boring and most ungenerous.
 
A decisive 46 percent of the 6,000 people surveyed by travellers' website Where Are You Now (WAYN) said the French were the most unfriendly nation people on the planet, British newspapers reported.

The Germans have no to reason to celebrate the damning verdict. They came second on all three counts.

WAYN's French founder, Jerome Touze, told the papers he had been stunned by the thumping condemnation of his compatriots and sought to blame it on Gallic love-struck sulking.

"I had no idea that the French would emerge as such an unfriendly country," he said.

"I think our romantic 'moodiness' is misunderstood and I will be sure to pass on the message to my family and friends back in France to be a bit more cheerful to tourists in the future."

Italy was voted the world's most cultured nation with the best cuisine, while the United States was named the most unstylish with the worst food.

Sorry, no word on where Canada fit into the picture.

As an aside, I have some relatives who were born and raised in France. They once went on and on about the reason the Germans hated the French was because the French were simply better than them in all aspects of the human experience: They know how to dress, how to eat, how to converse ... name it, and the French are better at it than the Germans.

And one thing I can say about the rellies: Their scarves are always impeccably swirled around their necks! :)

Draw what conclusions you will from that anecdote.

Germany worries about a rising tide of neo-Nazi extremism, something that might be driven by the World Cup 2006, which starts June 9.

An excerpt from the BBC story:

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has urged extra vigilance from the public to help tackle a rise in far-right extremism.

He said there should be no "no-go areas" for foreigners, as he presented an official report showing a rise in neo-Nazi violence last year.

A Turkish-born politician, Giyasettin Sayan, is in hospital following an apparently racist assault on Friday.

There has been growing concern about racist attacks ahead of the World Cup.

Former government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye drew criticism from politicians after suggesting that black people should avoid parts of the former communist East Germany.

German police have warned that far-right groups are planning to use the World Cup as a platform to win publicity.

This short BBC story looks at the flow of heroin from Afghanistan's Helmand province to Britain.

Helmand is where more than 3,000 British troops will be based starting in June.

That province produces more than half of Afghanistan's opium. However, the second-biggest province for opium production is Kandahar, and that's where Canada's troops are based.

Not a must read, but it drives home the point that drugs fuel the insurgency in Afghanistan, and that the moment Western aid ends with respects to alternative crops, Afghan farmers will go back to what they know best: Cultivating opium poppies.

My post on how Guy Goma's 15 minutes weren't quite up is No. 9 on www.google.it's 'guy+goma' results!

Here's the headline, in Italian, on the translated page:

Minuti del Goma del tipo 15 non erano abbastanza in su

So, to all my Italian visitors, Benvenuto!

The Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui sheds no tears for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch legislator recently caught out for lying on her refugee application and who will lose her Dutch citizenship as a result.

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A study just published in American Politics Research has linked repeated watching of The Daily Show with lower opinions of politicians and the electoral process itself. Good heavens!!

But first, let me ask the following: Is that a good or a bad thing?

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Susan Delacourt, Ottawa bureau chief of the Toronto Star, uses her discerning eye to deconstruct the TV performance of Guy Goma, the guy who went to the BBC for a job interview and found himself an on-air pundit.

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The Edmonton Oilers beat the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 2-0.

They have now won six straight and hold a 2-0 lead in the NHL's Western Conference final.

The Ducks haven't won at Rexall Place in Edmonton in something like seven years.

Guess where they have to play their next two games?

This series looks less and less interesting -- and it's making me look like a pessimist.

An interesting feature by the Globe and Mail on the neverending fight to get a company's draught tap installed in bars -- and kept there.

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A few more tidbits from a Globe and Mail story on the closing of three rep cinemas:

Jerry Szczur, who owns the Fox and Paradise and helped to start Festival Cinemas Group 30 years ago, says he is considering selling his two cinemas and retiring. "Their problems are my problems too," he says, referring to the McQuillans. "It's not like it used to be." ...

Last month, Camera, a new Queen Street West bar-cinema experiment partly owned by Atom Egoyan, stopped its daily screenings. The ones that remain, such as the Bloor, the Regent and the Mount Pleasant, are seeming more like survivors than thrivers in an increasingly unworkable market.

For reference, here's my earlier post on this topic.

NYT public editor Byron Calame looks at an April 25 NYT story that claimed some airlines were looking into standing-room seating.

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A reasonably amusing story about a 24-hour fitness club in New York City.

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw Easy Rider on Thursday -- and learned the Royal Theatre will be shutting down as of June 30, its future unknown.

But let's forget the Royal's fate for a moment and talk about why Easy Rider has staying power. IMHO, it's in part because of the near-perfect marriage of image and song that also captured the spirit of its times.

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The mighty Oil managed to get two pucks past the Anaheim Mighty Ducks' wunderkind goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. Fortunately, the Ducks only scored once on the Oil's Dwayne Roloson, and so Edmonton takes a 1-0 lead in the NHL's Western Conference final with its 3-1 game victory.

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If you wish, check out a CTV.ca feature I wrote on the the Tories and the gun registry. The article looks at the politics and philosophical reasons for the decision to weaken the gun registry by excluding long-barreled weapons.

Philosopher Julian Baggini waxes rhapsodic about the long-running cartoon TV series The Simpsons.

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My least-favourite number in the whole wide world today is 0.967 -- which, by the sheerest of coincidence, is the save percentage of Anaheim Mighty Ducks goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov in the playoffs so far.

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Oopsie. A phenomenously successful religio-conspiracy potboiler, by all accounts practically written for the screen, has apparently been turned into a $125 million US snoozer. Does it get any better than this?!?! I love schadenfraude! :)

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British police have discovered a sex cult based on an American professor's 1960s sci-fi novels.

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Kofi Annan steps down as the UN's Secretary General at the end of this year. Let the games begin!

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The Beeb on the surging violence in the southern provinces of Afghanistan.

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Information Commissioner John Reid argued Thursday that the Conservative government's proposed Accountability Act actually takes a few steps backwards in some ways.

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The Royal screened the 1960s classic Easy Rider this evening, and going in the door, I saw a sign on the door that said it would be closing as of June 30.

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 I didn't catch the full item, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper might not not be attending the annual press gallery dinner.

On CTV Newsnet, CTV reporter David Akin noted the PMO and the press gallery have been sparring recently over who gets to ask questions at scrums and news conferences.

The PMO wants to pick the reporters whose questions they'll answer. The gallery wants the journalists to ask the questions and for the prime minister to answer them.

"So far as we can remember, only Pierre Trudeau snubbed the press gallery dinner, to make the point tht he was not very happy with his coverage at the time of his marriage to Margaret Trudeau," Akin said.

The next gallery dinner is scheduled for Nov. 25.

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Tuesday the American media needs a "spine transplant."

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The BBC reports officials in Afghanistan's Khost province, which adjoins the border with Pakistan, are accusing Pakistani intelligence of actually aiding Taliban and al Qaeda militants who wish to cross the border.

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The Oilers win!!

And move on!!!

(see this prescient posting)

So, who am I cheering for in the Western Conference finals? The Oil, of course!

But I'm actually fairly dispassionate and analytical about these things, so I'll offer some considered thoughts on Friday about their matchup against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

If you liked Dose, it has left the fishwrap medium and will now only be available on the online and mobile platforms.   more »