Pop Culture Victim
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Beefy.
Another post of point-formish random thoughts. Partly because everything's a bit scattered as of yet, and partly because I don't have very much that is substantial to say.
- I've starting almost training again, (sort of) in preparation for my trip in April. I decided last night that I should at least try and maintain some skill with my fists and feet. No pattern work (an experiment in memory) but most of the rest. Also, exercising in one's home in one's underwear is oddly comfortable. Pulling a muscle in your arm shadow-boxing is not.
- I helped an older lady pull a carton of soy milk from the shelf at Loblaws yesterday. She assured me that "with my kind of sensitivity, [I'll] go far in life." That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
- I am coming to the realization that I am in the grip of a media addiction, and I'm following current events more and more. Other than the headache induced by certain letters to the editors by profoundly over-sensitive people and those with nothing better to do than criticize trivial things, I feel fine.
- Perhaps as a direct result of the above, I am starting to harbour a rather deep resentment of our government and in fact, all bureaucracy period. Some of this has to do with Sheila Fraser's latest report about the 9-11 security bungling, but more in a "straw that broke the peon's back" kind of way. Most has to do with experience in the public service. No news yet on whether I'm going to snap and start blowing things up, but I'll probably bring this up again sometime.
- Perhaps as a direct result of the above (which is a result of the one above that!), I'm agreeing more and more with socialist libertarian ideals. Kicker is that "socialist libertarianism" (or libertarian socialism!) is probably better known as anarchism. Not the "CAUSE CHAOS!", Sid Vicious type, but the happy, utopian type. Still no word on if I'm going to start playing with dynamite, but again, I'll probably write more about this sometime later.
- Despite what you may have read two points ago, there is the occasional speck of gold for all the crap that the river rushes along.
- I need more movies. Zip has decided to completely ignore me now, so I'm giving them exactly one chance to get things working. If they don't do something by the end of the week I'm going to switch to another system. Still not giving up on the Internet movies, but this is discourageing to say the least.
- I've now learned that Alton Brown's book won some award for being a "reference" cookbook, which makes me want it all the more. Why can't the paperback edition just come out already? In a related note, I had a couple of burgers tonight and tried them Good Eats style, one of which at AB's recommendation of bun + meat + mayo + pepper. That's it. It was surprisingly good, but I feel like a culinary criminal for eating ground beef that wasn't cooked to the point of grey sterility and am now typing under the impending doom of food poisoning.
- Turns out that in addition to the retirement luncheon for the retiree in my office, it is increasingly likely that Friday afternoon will be spent drinking as well. This also gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but probably for different reasons.
- Henry Rollins is a surprisingly deep person. Seems he does spoken word concerts, acts, writes and publishes poetry. Also doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs or any of the other destructive (but fun!) habits of other rock stars.
End of the pointiness!
My link queue is massively long, so I'm doing a bit of an expungatory purge here. Unleash the net!
Stopping internet pedophiles - a two-part story over on Wired. I for one am in full support of these guys, mainly because I think the ends justify the means. At least in some of these cases. It all depends on context, you know.
More Wired goodness, and really cool beans at that. There's a reason I did my coop paper on telecom, and it's because of really cool things like this.
I seem to have a fixation with Wired today*. Yet another neat piece about wireless, this time about blogging from your phone. While I'm not the hugest fan of having phones that think they're music players (or game systems, or cameras, for that matter), it would be awfully nice to be able to see something cool, take a picture of it and post it, all right then and there.
*Strange coincidence is that I also decided not to buy the magazine ever again today. All the articles are available on the net, so my money is going elsewhere.
Another article on online music. Seems that Apple and Napster (and Wal-mart and Puretracks and on and on) have some overseas competitors. I haven't checked out some of these sites (I hope they're still around!) but they just might be worth investing in.
Buy a CD recently and find out there's a whole bunch of extra content for your computer on it? This isn't new stuff. The whole concept of recording staticy screeches to a tape that goes in your computer sounds both totally insane, and yet oddly compelling.
Synaesthesia is the concept of blurring senses. Things like smelling the color blue, seeing Beethoven's 9th (the music, not the notation/sheets), etc. This project is basically the visualizations you have in Winamp, WMP9, etc, only done to the n-tillionth degree, and at DVD quality. For best results, I should think a heavy drug trip would be in order.
If I were a depressed, gothic, death-obsessed, Poe-like artist, the last thing I would want around me would be a talking balloon that repeats what I say in a high-pitched voice. Poor Strindberg. Sucks to be him, strangely amusing for us.
YAPC, otherwise written as Yet Another Photoship Contest. This one is a bit better than most, and works on some more subtle tricks.
Last one, a list of very strange band names. My favorites are Alcoholocaust, Jesus Chrysler Supercar, UFOFU and Zulu Leprechauns. If I were a superhero, i would go by the moniker Zulu Leprechaun.
Yawn. Time to relax. G'Night! ¶ 5:32 p.m. 0 comments
Another post of point-formish random thoughts. Partly because everything's a bit scattered as of yet, and partly because I don't have very much that is substantial to say.
- I've starting almost training again, (sort of) in preparation for my trip in April. I decided last night that I should at least try and maintain some skill with my fists and feet. No pattern work (an experiment in memory) but most of the rest. Also, exercising in one's home in one's underwear is oddly comfortable. Pulling a muscle in your arm shadow-boxing is not.
- I helped an older lady pull a carton of soy milk from the shelf at Loblaws yesterday. She assured me that "with my kind of sensitivity, [I'll] go far in life." That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
- I am coming to the realization that I am in the grip of a media addiction, and I'm following current events more and more. Other than the headache induced by certain letters to the editors by profoundly over-sensitive people and those with nothing better to do than criticize trivial things, I feel fine.
- Perhaps as a direct result of the above, I am starting to harbour a rather deep resentment of our government and in fact, all bureaucracy period. Some of this has to do with Sheila Fraser's latest report about the 9-11 security bungling, but more in a "straw that broke the peon's back" kind of way. Most has to do with experience in the public service. No news yet on whether I'm going to snap and start blowing things up, but I'll probably bring this up again sometime.
- Perhaps as a direct result of the above (which is a result of the one above that!), I'm agreeing more and more with socialist libertarian ideals. Kicker is that "socialist libertarianism" (or libertarian socialism!) is probably better known as anarchism. Not the "CAUSE CHAOS!", Sid Vicious type, but the happy, utopian type. Still no word on if I'm going to start playing with dynamite, but again, I'll probably write more about this sometime later.
- Despite what you may have read two points ago, there is the occasional speck of gold for all the crap that the river rushes along.
- I need more movies. Zip has decided to completely ignore me now, so I'm giving them exactly one chance to get things working. If they don't do something by the end of the week I'm going to switch to another system. Still not giving up on the Internet movies, but this is discourageing to say the least.
- I've now learned that Alton Brown's book won some award for being a "reference" cookbook, which makes me want it all the more. Why can't the paperback edition just come out already? In a related note, I had a couple of burgers tonight and tried them Good Eats style, one of which at AB's recommendation of bun + meat + mayo + pepper. That's it. It was surprisingly good, but I feel like a culinary criminal for eating ground beef that wasn't cooked to the point of grey sterility and am now typing under the impending doom of food poisoning.
- Turns out that in addition to the retirement luncheon for the retiree in my office, it is increasingly likely that Friday afternoon will be spent drinking as well. This also gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but probably for different reasons.
- Henry Rollins is a surprisingly deep person. Seems he does spoken word concerts, acts, writes and publishes poetry. Also doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs or any of the other destructive (but fun!) habits of other rock stars.
End of the pointiness!
My link queue is massively long, so I'm doing a bit of an expungatory purge here. Unleash the net!
Stopping internet pedophiles - a two-part story over on Wired. I for one am in full support of these guys, mainly because I think the ends justify the means. At least in some of these cases. It all depends on context, you know.
More Wired goodness, and really cool beans at that. There's a reason I did my coop paper on telecom, and it's because of really cool things like this.
I seem to have a fixation with Wired today*. Yet another neat piece about wireless, this time about blogging from your phone. While I'm not the hugest fan of having phones that think they're music players (or game systems, or cameras, for that matter), it would be awfully nice to be able to see something cool, take a picture of it and post it, all right then and there.
*Strange coincidence is that I also decided not to buy the magazine ever again today. All the articles are available on the net, so my money is going elsewhere.
Another article on online music. Seems that Apple and Napster (and Wal-mart and Puretracks and on and on) have some overseas competitors. I haven't checked out some of these sites (I hope they're still around!) but they just might be worth investing in.
Buy a CD recently and find out there's a whole bunch of extra content for your computer on it? This isn't new stuff. The whole concept of recording staticy screeches to a tape that goes in your computer sounds both totally insane, and yet oddly compelling.
Synaesthesia is the concept of blurring senses. Things like smelling the color blue, seeing Beethoven's 9th (the music, not the notation/sheets), etc. This project is basically the visualizations you have in Winamp, WMP9, etc, only done to the n-tillionth degree, and at DVD quality. For best results, I should think a heavy drug trip would be in order.
If I were a depressed, gothic, death-obsessed, Poe-like artist, the last thing I would want around me would be a talking balloon that repeats what I say in a high-pitched voice. Poor Strindberg. Sucks to be him, strangely amusing for us.
YAPC, otherwise written as Yet Another Photoship Contest. This one is a bit better than most, and works on some more subtle tricks.
Last one, a list of very strange band names. My favorites are Alcoholocaust, Jesus Chrysler Supercar, UFOFU and Zulu Leprechauns. If I were a superhero, i would go by the moniker Zulu Leprechaun.
Yawn. Time to relax. G'Night! ¶ 5:32 p.m. 0 comments
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
My clipboard is broken.
Not a real clipboard, but the one in my computer. This is important, since I like copying and pasting things, and now I can't do this. I don't know why, but it seems to fix itself every now and again, so I'm hoping it does. Bleck. Long day today, namely because of the paper that I haven't done until now. To recap: work, work, work, work, work, lunch, work, work, work, work, work, bus home, buy rollerblades, buy fud, read comics, eat, write paper, write more, write, write, write, do dishes, write paper more, write, write, write, start writing blog. That pretty much puts us at the now, where I am still here typing this for the amusement of various parties, the most important of which being myself. As a fellow fencer I know often says, "I can't believe in God, since that means there's something more important than me."
Getting my rollerblades was interesting. For one, I got the cheapest pair available, since I figure that they're only going to be used for about 4-5 months or so. For another, I gave up on the help at Sport Expert. They're not experts there... not even close. The only helpful advice I got from the guy was that I needed to rotate the wheels. Otherwise, he simply checked what my size was and left me to try them on. Fortunately, the pair I tried fit rather well, so rather than agonize over purchasing something that would undoubtedly cost me more, I just paid and left. Not being the hugest fan of safety equipment and reasonably comfortable with my skating ability, I am going to forgoe the whole "pads" thing and just hit the street. I figure if everything is fine, I've saved myself at least 20 bucks, and if not, a little head trauma is a small price to pay. It's twenty dollars here, people!
....now!
I am going to dispense with the links now, furthering this whole "middle" kick I've been on recently, mainly because I might tire of manually entering the links and decide to quit early. If not, you get more content which is a good thing. Or something... I dunno.
Ah, what it would be like to have schitzophrenia. Now I don't wish this disorder on anyone, and I feel bad for those that suffer from it and hope that a cure or new treatment is found quickly. That aside, imagine how exciting it would be to be firmly convinced that the psychics were out to get you! Intrigue and suspense around every corner... secret agents in every shadow... it would be like a movie! That, or terrifying. Either way, now you too can have a glimpse into the mind of a schitzophreic through messages hung from fences.
This one was hard to type. Where's tinyURL where you need it, eh? (Requires a functional clipboard, so not helpful here.) Anyways, hurray for vibrating fishing poles! And boy, does it catch fish! Kudos to whomever that buys this wondrous item and fishes with it proudly. (Wash it first though, eh?)
News from the front? Well, sorta. Given the charges facing Michael Jackson, this is probably rather unsurprising, but still funny. At least I think so. I mean, c'mon! It's about a guy that turns into a car! With a kid in the car, and therefore him! I would, however, like to see the version that Kevin Smith would end up making, just out of curiosity. (Smith said he would like to have made the movie in retrospect, but it would be nothing like what Jackson wanted.)
I can't think of anything else to say right now, other than I was a bad tenant and started to break in my new skates in my apartment. Left a few marks on the floor, but didn't break anything. Other than that, I'm going to go relax. ¶ 8:11 p.m. 0 comments
Not a real clipboard, but the one in my computer. This is important, since I like copying and pasting things, and now I can't do this. I don't know why, but it seems to fix itself every now and again, so I'm hoping it does. Bleck. Long day today, namely because of the paper that I haven't done until now. To recap: work, work, work, work, work, lunch, work, work, work, work, work, bus home, buy rollerblades, buy fud, read comics, eat, write paper, write more, write, write, write, do dishes, write paper more, write, write, write, start writing blog. That pretty much puts us at the now, where I am still here typing this for the amusement of various parties, the most important of which being myself. As a fellow fencer I know often says, "I can't believe in God, since that means there's something more important than me."
Getting my rollerblades was interesting. For one, I got the cheapest pair available, since I figure that they're only going to be used for about 4-5 months or so. For another, I gave up on the help at Sport Expert. They're not experts there... not even close. The only helpful advice I got from the guy was that I needed to rotate the wheels. Otherwise, he simply checked what my size was and left me to try them on. Fortunately, the pair I tried fit rather well, so rather than agonize over purchasing something that would undoubtedly cost me more, I just paid and left. Not being the hugest fan of safety equipment and reasonably comfortable with my skating ability, I am going to forgoe the whole "pads" thing and just hit the street. I figure if everything is fine, I've saved myself at least 20 bucks, and if not, a little head trauma is a small price to pay. It's twenty dollars here, people!
....now!
I am going to dispense with the links now, furthering this whole "middle" kick I've been on recently, mainly because I might tire of manually entering the links and decide to quit early. If not, you get more content which is a good thing. Or something... I dunno.
Ah, what it would be like to have schitzophrenia. Now I don't wish this disorder on anyone, and I feel bad for those that suffer from it and hope that a cure or new treatment is found quickly. That aside, imagine how exciting it would be to be firmly convinced that the psychics were out to get you! Intrigue and suspense around every corner... secret agents in every shadow... it would be like a movie! That, or terrifying. Either way, now you too can have a glimpse into the mind of a schitzophreic through messages hung from fences.
This one was hard to type. Where's tinyURL where you need it, eh? (Requires a functional clipboard, so not helpful here.) Anyways, hurray for vibrating fishing poles! And boy, does it catch fish! Kudos to whomever that buys this wondrous item and fishes with it proudly. (Wash it first though, eh?)
News from the front? Well, sorta. Given the charges facing Michael Jackson, this is probably rather unsurprising, but still funny. At least I think so. I mean, c'mon! It's about a guy that turns into a car! With a kid in the car, and therefore him! I would, however, like to see the version that Kevin Smith would end up making, just out of curiosity. (Smith said he would like to have made the movie in retrospect, but it would be nothing like what Jackson wanted.)
I can't think of anything else to say right now, other than I was a bad tenant and started to break in my new skates in my apartment. Left a few marks on the floor, but didn't break anything. Other than that, I'm going to go relax. ¶ 8:11 p.m. 0 comments
Monday, March 29, 2004
Hooters is vastly underrated.
No work done on paper. Did end up going for beer and wings with a friend of my dad's though. He suggested Hooters, and I didn't have any problem with that. I'm not the hugest fan of the chicken wings there (I prefer Boston Pizza's) but the breasts were nice. I'm quite surprised that the girl serving the table one over from us was able to fit into her top, but the laws of physics continue to amaze me even now. Again, not that I have any problem with this...
Right into the links we go!
So where do you fit on the spectrum? See, you might have heard of the political compass, which charts you based on your answers according to the Authoritarian/Libertarian and economic Left/Right scales. Now that has merit, but it's not too useful. I would much rather be a Elf-Ninja (I think... still not sure) than a Socialist Libertarian (which I believe I am, but I'm not going into that right now). So where do you fit on the Elf/Dwarf and Pirate/Ninja scales? (And despite what you may have heard, you can't be a ninja-pirate. Half-and-half maybe, but not both.)
I'm pitifully late on this, since my link queue is rather long, but I'm posting nonetheless. Good job there, with the whole "thinking plan through" bit. The funniest part is that in the version I saw in the Citizen, they had an additional blurb about a man who tried to kill himself by driving into a snowbank. When police went to check to see if he was ok, they found that he had also slit his wrists and had a boa constrictor around his neck. He ended up surviving; guess he didn't try hard enough.
I must see this movie. My curiosity is such that I must view with mine own eyes the evidence that Jack Chick has mounted to prove that without Jesus I am doomed. If the comics are any representative, it would make for some entertaining viewing at the very least.
Finally, as a bonus for giving you a rerun about the cross thing, here's some panda porn. Regardless of your opinions on the mighty animals, perhaps things are just meant to be when you need to educate them on how to screw to save their species. Just a thought.
Esperanto!
Sometime in the late 1800s, some Polish guy decided that for people to co-exist peacefully, we need to have a common tongue. To fix the problem, he decided to make his own, and the result was Esperanto. It is indeed pretty easy to learn, since I picked up a chunk of it just going through the primer my co-worker showed to me today. Kind of like a Spanish-lite. I don't know if it counts as a dead language though. Does anyone learn this as their first language and teach it to their kids? I can't imagine they would, but one never can tell with these things... If I ever become fluent (not bloody likely) I will be sure to pass on my mighty knowledge of this underappreciated (one could say rightfully so) speechcraft.
And that's that. Sorry I don't have more, but other than ogling girls over beer and wings and hockey, not much happened today. It was very nice out though, so I think either today or tomorrow I will be purchasing myself a pair of inline skates. I'd get a bike, but then I'd have to find a junker or worry about selling it when I leave, and rollerblades I can just pack up and ship or something.
Oh! I just remembered - I fixed my phone jack! Picked up the part from Radio Shack and spent about 15 minutes lying on the floor stripping off the old busted one and rigging up the jack of the future! Well, not really, but at least I don't get disconnected anymore, and I also don't have a phone cord running across my room. Not as nice as wireless, but one does what one can. The odds might be in my favor for upgrading to a laptop though. My dad has mentioned that he would like to either upgrade his comp or buy a new one, and since I know he'll get a slightly used, middle class rig, I might be able to pawn mine off and get a new shiny portable sucker! This would be very good indeed, since I could then try and weasel my way into getting some wireless action going, and from there, the sky's the limit! Muahahahahahahaha!
Sorry. Anyways, lunch needs to be made, so I will go vanish now.
Poof. ¶ 7:54 p.m. 0 comments
No work done on paper. Did end up going for beer and wings with a friend of my dad's though. He suggested Hooters, and I didn't have any problem with that. I'm not the hugest fan of the chicken wings there (I prefer Boston Pizza's) but the breasts were nice. I'm quite surprised that the girl serving the table one over from us was able to fit into her top, but the laws of physics continue to amaze me even now. Again, not that I have any problem with this...
Right into the links we go!
So where do you fit on the spectrum? See, you might have heard of the political compass, which charts you based on your answers according to the Authoritarian/Libertarian and economic Left/Right scales. Now that has merit, but it's not too useful. I would much rather be a Elf-Ninja (I think... still not sure) than a Socialist Libertarian (which I believe I am, but I'm not going into that right now). So where do you fit on the Elf/Dwarf and Pirate/Ninja scales? (And despite what you may have heard, you can't be a ninja-pirate. Half-and-half maybe, but not both.)
I'm pitifully late on this, since my link queue is rather long, but I'm posting nonetheless. Good job there, with the whole "thinking plan through" bit. The funniest part is that in the version I saw in the Citizen, they had an additional blurb about a man who tried to kill himself by driving into a snowbank. When police went to check to see if he was ok, they found that he had also slit his wrists and had a boa constrictor around his neck. He ended up surviving; guess he didn't try hard enough.
I must see this movie. My curiosity is such that I must view with mine own eyes the evidence that Jack Chick has mounted to prove that without Jesus I am doomed. If the comics are any representative, it would make for some entertaining viewing at the very least.
Finally, as a bonus for giving you a rerun about the cross thing, here's some panda porn. Regardless of your opinions on the mighty animals, perhaps things are just meant to be when you need to educate them on how to screw to save their species. Just a thought.
Esperanto!
Sometime in the late 1800s, some Polish guy decided that for people to co-exist peacefully, we need to have a common tongue. To fix the problem, he decided to make his own, and the result was Esperanto. It is indeed pretty easy to learn, since I picked up a chunk of it just going through the primer my co-worker showed to me today. Kind of like a Spanish-lite. I don't know if it counts as a dead language though. Does anyone learn this as their first language and teach it to their kids? I can't imagine they would, but one never can tell with these things... If I ever become fluent (not bloody likely) I will be sure to pass on my mighty knowledge of this underappreciated (one could say rightfully so) speechcraft.
And that's that. Sorry I don't have more, but other than ogling girls over beer and wings and hockey, not much happened today. It was very nice out though, so I think either today or tomorrow I will be purchasing myself a pair of inline skates. I'd get a bike, but then I'd have to find a junker or worry about selling it when I leave, and rollerblades I can just pack up and ship or something.
Oh! I just remembered - I fixed my phone jack! Picked up the part from Radio Shack and spent about 15 minutes lying on the floor stripping off the old busted one and rigging up the jack of the future! Well, not really, but at least I don't get disconnected anymore, and I also don't have a phone cord running across my room. Not as nice as wireless, but one does what one can. The odds might be in my favor for upgrading to a laptop though. My dad has mentioned that he would like to either upgrade his comp or buy a new one, and since I know he'll get a slightly used, middle class rig, I might be able to pawn mine off and get a new shiny portable sucker! This would be very good indeed, since I could then try and weasel my way into getting some wireless action going, and from there, the sky's the limit! Muahahahahahahaha!
Sorry. Anyways, lunch needs to be made, so I will go vanish now.
Poof. ¶ 7:54 p.m. 0 comments
Sunday, March 28, 2004
This has nothing to do with the following.
I adopted a cute lil' ninja fetus from Fetusmart! Hooray fetus!
Thus ends another week, replete with all the insult, argument and abuse that just comes so naturally. You have no idea how hard it was to settle on something witty for that last sentence.
Not too much happening, and for a very good reason, as I'm still procrastinating. I dutifully follow the item of the Creed that states "I know the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but wait/wait/plan" so this is just the logical extension. Watched a bunch of Good Eats, did not attempt another omelette, fenced a bit, and managed to salvage what is left of my love for You Don't Know Jack. See, once upon a time there was a company called Jellyvision that made really entertaining trivia games. They had a really great variety of questions and topics, all done very stylishly with a very sarcastic host that would make fun of you the player at every chance. They published their games under Sierra, and made quite a few of them, including movie and television flavours. Even had a lite version of the game that was played over the web. Now, however, naught remains. The sequels gradually got worse, and it was only by pure chance that I found a copy of Volume 6 - The Lost Gold. The game still kicks ass though, providing entertainment for up to 3 people and still covering the gamut of "where high culture and pop culture collide." Now I happened to think this game was one of the best trivia games period, and one of the more entertaining ones period, but this love was not shared. A friend of mine used to (perhaps still does) have the TV and movie editions, but those would be of less consequence since they would be rather dated. The general knowledge editions are certainly still applicable though, and Volume 6, while it's individual games are rather short at 6 questions plus the Jack Attack, provides me with a somewhat lacking trivia boost. I mean, where else would I get to exercise my knowledge of the colors of cartoon animals, or the musicians at Woodstock? Sure, there's Know It All over at Boxerjam, but it doesn't quite compare. I am, however, quite good at the matching questions.
But that's really neither here nor there. It might be thither, but I'm not sure. I am fairly certain, though, that I have deciphered what it takes to be a gourmet chef, and I am also fairly certain that I don't have it. I have learned this from watching so much Good Eats, and it strikes me that all one needs to do is make everything from scratch. Buy your basic ingredients fresh, and make everything from them. From stocks, to sauces, to condiments, to entrees - everything. Now I know that I am not a gourmet, since I don't, indeed can't, do this. I just don't eat enough, and would be forever plagued with leftovers, which due to not having preservatives, would spoil right quick. Also, I don't quite have enough kitchen gear to manage this, since a lot of recipes seem to need blenders or ricers or slicers or some other neat gadget that I want, but have not yet bought. I could probably afford it all, except that I will have to empty my flat in 5 months (is it really that soon?) to go home. I have made my peace with this, however, and have let the issue slide.
I've also been noticing how pessimistic people are lately. I'm no exception. As you've probably noticed, there's a lot of bitching that goes on in this space, and I'm trying to figure out why. If you listen to people talking, most discussions will eventually turn to discussing the negative. I mean, there's only so much that folk can talk about if only approaching matters from a positive aspect.
"I really liked the way that movie turned out!"
"Yeah, me too."
"..."
"..."
At some point, somebody has to mention something that was contrary to their tastes so that the discussion on the topic progresses. Either one person voices a complaint and a debate starts with participants taking opposite stances, or mutual derision commences with both parties talking about how much something sucked. If this doesn't happen, the conversation will probably change topic and the cycle repeats. As I work out theories, I'll post them. Of course, I could just forget about this whole thing and mark it up as one of those observations that have no point. I do that a lot too...
Oh, those British...
Bunny on a Stick is one of those blogs that I've discovered, found interesting, engaging and funny, and then promptly ignored. Well no longer! I shall give it the recognition it deserves! (I still probably won't read it, but at least I've given it a link now.) The blog is run by two middle-aged women, and centers on celebrities and pop culture. They do gossip on talk shows and the like, post unflattering celebrity photos and "hot beef sandwiches", and review award shows, albums and movies. At worst, check out the unflattering celebs in Features (on the right under the beef), since the majority of them are pretty entertaining.
The Americans get to research all the cool stuff. Just once, I want to see Canada come up with a way to record your dreams, or track people by the way they blink. Oh well. I suppose this is only to be expected when you don't budget 400 billion dollars towards national defence. Although how a giant zeppelin to watch over the populace could be realistically implemented without violating the privacy of citizens is beyond me.
Another Wired news-byte, another stupid attempt to foil file-sharing. Now I guess the RIAA home invasions are no longer such comedy. This is old though, so the situation might be different now. I doubt it, but there's still hope.
Lastly, I bring to your attention a happy little service called TinyURL. Basically it shortens any URL you give it to something more manageable.
Ie. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62637,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 becomes http://tinyurl.com/yuq6b
Nifty, no? ¶ 7:58 p.m. 0 comments
Thus ends another week, replete with all the insult, argument and abuse that just comes so naturally. You have no idea how hard it was to settle on something witty for that last sentence.
Not too much happening, and for a very good reason, as I'm still procrastinating. I dutifully follow the item of the Creed that states "I know the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but wait/wait/plan" so this is just the logical extension. Watched a bunch of Good Eats, did not attempt another omelette, fenced a bit, and managed to salvage what is left of my love for You Don't Know Jack. See, once upon a time there was a company called Jellyvision that made really entertaining trivia games. They had a really great variety of questions and topics, all done very stylishly with a very sarcastic host that would make fun of you the player at every chance. They published their games under Sierra, and made quite a few of them, including movie and television flavours. Even had a lite version of the game that was played over the web. Now, however, naught remains. The sequels gradually got worse, and it was only by pure chance that I found a copy of Volume 6 - The Lost Gold. The game still kicks ass though, providing entertainment for up to 3 people and still covering the gamut of "where high culture and pop culture collide." Now I happened to think this game was one of the best trivia games period, and one of the more entertaining ones period, but this love was not shared. A friend of mine used to (perhaps still does) have the TV and movie editions, but those would be of less consequence since they would be rather dated. The general knowledge editions are certainly still applicable though, and Volume 6, while it's individual games are rather short at 6 questions plus the Jack Attack, provides me with a somewhat lacking trivia boost. I mean, where else would I get to exercise my knowledge of the colors of cartoon animals, or the musicians at Woodstock? Sure, there's Know It All over at Boxerjam, but it doesn't quite compare. I am, however, quite good at the matching questions.
But that's really neither here nor there. It might be thither, but I'm not sure. I am fairly certain, though, that I have deciphered what it takes to be a gourmet chef, and I am also fairly certain that I don't have it. I have learned this from watching so much Good Eats, and it strikes me that all one needs to do is make everything from scratch. Buy your basic ingredients fresh, and make everything from them. From stocks, to sauces, to condiments, to entrees - everything. Now I know that I am not a gourmet, since I don't, indeed can't, do this. I just don't eat enough, and would be forever plagued with leftovers, which due to not having preservatives, would spoil right quick. Also, I don't quite have enough kitchen gear to manage this, since a lot of recipes seem to need blenders or ricers or slicers or some other neat gadget that I want, but have not yet bought. I could probably afford it all, except that I will have to empty my flat in 5 months (is it really that soon?) to go home. I have made my peace with this, however, and have let the issue slide.
I've also been noticing how pessimistic people are lately. I'm no exception. As you've probably noticed, there's a lot of bitching that goes on in this space, and I'm trying to figure out why. If you listen to people talking, most discussions will eventually turn to discussing the negative. I mean, there's only so much that folk can talk about if only approaching matters from a positive aspect.
"I really liked the way that movie turned out!"
"Yeah, me too."
"..."
"..."
At some point, somebody has to mention something that was contrary to their tastes so that the discussion on the topic progresses. Either one person voices a complaint and a debate starts with participants taking opposite stances, or mutual derision commences with both parties talking about how much something sucked. If this doesn't happen, the conversation will probably change topic and the cycle repeats. As I work out theories, I'll post them. Of course, I could just forget about this whole thing and mark it up as one of those observations that have no point. I do that a lot too...
Oh, those British...
Bunny on a Stick is one of those blogs that I've discovered, found interesting, engaging and funny, and then promptly ignored. Well no longer! I shall give it the recognition it deserves! (I still probably won't read it, but at least I've given it a link now.) The blog is run by two middle-aged women, and centers on celebrities and pop culture. They do gossip on talk shows and the like, post unflattering celebrity photos and "hot beef sandwiches", and review award shows, albums and movies. At worst, check out the unflattering celebs in Features (on the right under the beef), since the majority of them are pretty entertaining.
The Americans get to research all the cool stuff. Just once, I want to see Canada come up with a way to record your dreams, or track people by the way they blink. Oh well. I suppose this is only to be expected when you don't budget 400 billion dollars towards national defence. Although how a giant zeppelin to watch over the populace could be realistically implemented without violating the privacy of citizens is beyond me.
Another Wired news-byte, another stupid attempt to foil file-sharing. Now I guess the RIAA home invasions are no longer such comedy. This is old though, so the situation might be different now. I doubt it, but there's still hope.
Lastly, I bring to your attention a happy little service called TinyURL. Basically it shortens any URL you give it to something more manageable.
Ie. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62637,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 becomes http://tinyurl.com/yuq6b
Nifty, no? ¶ 7:58 p.m. 0 comments
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Viva la procrastination!
I have a report due in a few days. On the 31st, specifically. I have the beginnings of a list that might at some point turn into the actual report, but there is still a lot of typing that would need to be done prior to having something suitable to email. All this is for my coop term report, and despite having all the giddy implications of a "how I spent my summer vacation" type dissertation, it is not fun in the slightest. Quite frankly, there are many many things I would rather do. But, as they say, the show must go on, and in this case, show is used somewhat liberally. Hopefully my work ethic will dig itself out of the grave I buried it in at the beginning of the year and manage to whip the rest of me into shape before Wednesday.
In other news, I'm getting increasingly hyped up over Worlds of Warcraft. When I first heard about it, and indeed, up to about a month or so ago, I didn't really pay it much thought. Sure, the beta's out, and yes, it's MMOGing done Warcraft style, but other than that it was just a blip on my mental radar. This pretty much changed almost overnight. First, one of the local SCAers here apparantly games with the Blizzard development team in EQ and has been playing with the alpha for some time now. She, of course, had nothing but good things to say about it, and this started piquing my interest. Second, Sean, of Force Monkeys fame, who stays in touch with us, the rabid fanbase, via the FM Forums, is in the beta and has been posting screens and pimping it off over there. Lastly, and probably the one that got me the most excited, was the lengthy description on Penny Arcade about how humane the game is. From the way crafting is handled (or even how much crafting there is!), to the way that down-time works, it looks like Blizzard is on their way to another classic, or at the very least, a solid game that addresses a large number of the shortcomings of the genre, while still providing all the gameplay one would expect from such a title. See, if you look back, there isn't too much that the Bliz has done that is truly revolutionary, but the titles they do put out are so polished and so smooth that one can't help but be addicted. Now if only they would release it this year...
Two more details before moving on: 1) I heard the phrase "naked mole rats" used in a casual phone conversation the other day, and 2) I have the strangest feeling that I've read a phrase that ends in "STOMP STOMP STOMP!", but it could have been "CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!", or in fact anything that ends with -omp. I don't know why, and it bothers me.
I should really do away with these
Speaking of reports, the thought has often crossed my mind of submitting something like this. I never do, but boy is it tempting...
I respect Korn. Not only do they rock a fair deal (not quite my kind of rocking, but rocking nonetheless) but I am apparantly in agreement with them regarding the state of the music industry. Keep rockin' Korn, keep rockin'.
When origami meets Gundam. Makes me wish I had a printer so that I could make some of these things! Note that you probably won't be able to read this page. Just click the links and then on the PDF icon and all should be made clear. ¶ 6:05 p.m. 0 comments
I have a report due in a few days. On the 31st, specifically. I have the beginnings of a list that might at some point turn into the actual report, but there is still a lot of typing that would need to be done prior to having something suitable to email. All this is for my coop term report, and despite having all the giddy implications of a "how I spent my summer vacation" type dissertation, it is not fun in the slightest. Quite frankly, there are many many things I would rather do. But, as they say, the show must go on, and in this case, show is used somewhat liberally. Hopefully my work ethic will dig itself out of the grave I buried it in at the beginning of the year and manage to whip the rest of me into shape before Wednesday.
In other news, I'm getting increasingly hyped up over Worlds of Warcraft. When I first heard about it, and indeed, up to about a month or so ago, I didn't really pay it much thought. Sure, the beta's out, and yes, it's MMOGing done Warcraft style, but other than that it was just a blip on my mental radar. This pretty much changed almost overnight. First, one of the local SCAers here apparantly games with the Blizzard development team in EQ and has been playing with the alpha for some time now. She, of course, had nothing but good things to say about it, and this started piquing my interest. Second, Sean, of Force Monkeys fame, who stays in touch with us, the rabid fanbase, via the FM Forums, is in the beta and has been posting screens and pimping it off over there. Lastly, and probably the one that got me the most excited, was the lengthy description on Penny Arcade about how humane the game is. From the way crafting is handled (or even how much crafting there is!), to the way that down-time works, it looks like Blizzard is on their way to another classic, or at the very least, a solid game that addresses a large number of the shortcomings of the genre, while still providing all the gameplay one would expect from such a title. See, if you look back, there isn't too much that the Bliz has done that is truly revolutionary, but the titles they do put out are so polished and so smooth that one can't help but be addicted. Now if only they would release it this year...
Two more details before moving on: 1) I heard the phrase "naked mole rats" used in a casual phone conversation the other day, and 2) I have the strangest feeling that I've read a phrase that ends in "STOMP STOMP STOMP!", but it could have been "CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!", or in fact anything that ends with -omp. I don't know why, and it bothers me.
I should really do away with these
Speaking of reports, the thought has often crossed my mind of submitting something like this. I never do, but boy is it tempting...
I respect Korn. Not only do they rock a fair deal (not quite my kind of rocking, but rocking nonetheless) but I am apparantly in agreement with them regarding the state of the music industry. Keep rockin' Korn, keep rockin'.
When origami meets Gundam. Makes me wish I had a printer so that I could make some of these things! Note that you probably won't be able to read this page. Just click the links and then on the PDF icon and all should be made clear. ¶ 6:05 p.m. 0 comments
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Late.
I should really go to bed. I'm not going to bed though, because I'm a little too wound up right now. Hopefully typing will let me settle down, but somehow I doubt it. Oh well, doing it anyways.
Ottawa is a really cool city at night, especially during the fog. I was walking over the canal on the way to fencing tonight, and I just had to store Parliament in my memory as "cool things to see". Just the way everything was lit up, from the spotlight coming out of the middle, the Peace Tower all lit from within, and the roof of the east (not sure...) building all lit from underneath made everything look quite wicked. Add the fog to that, with the clouds forming almost a halo over everything upgraded the image from wicked to jawdroppingly wow. It's times like that that I wish I had my digicam now, but then the fiscal part of my brain reminds me of the extra taxes should I buy it in Ontario. Also, since I can't take it to/from work right now, and since that's probably when the majority of my photos would be taken, there's not much point as of yet. Soon though... soon.
In a side note, apparantly one of my marks from last term, specifically CMPE300, (the only real software engineering course I have taken so far) got upgraded from a B to a B+ as a result of the U of A's relative incompetence with the newly-adopted 4 point letter-grade system. This pleases me. ¶ 9:17 p.m. 0 comments
I should really go to bed. I'm not going to bed though, because I'm a little too wound up right now. Hopefully typing will let me settle down, but somehow I doubt it. Oh well, doing it anyways.
Ottawa is a really cool city at night, especially during the fog. I was walking over the canal on the way to fencing tonight, and I just had to store Parliament in my memory as "cool things to see". Just the way everything was lit up, from the spotlight coming out of the middle, the Peace Tower all lit from within, and the roof of the east (not sure...) building all lit from underneath made everything look quite wicked. Add the fog to that, with the clouds forming almost a halo over everything upgraded the image from wicked to jawdroppingly wow. It's times like that that I wish I had my digicam now, but then the fiscal part of my brain reminds me of the extra taxes should I buy it in Ontario. Also, since I can't take it to/from work right now, and since that's probably when the majority of my photos would be taken, there's not much point as of yet. Soon though... soon.
In a side note, apparantly one of my marks from last term, specifically CMPE300, (the only real software engineering course I have taken so far) got upgraded from a B to a B+ as a result of the U of A's relative incompetence with the newly-adopted 4 point letter-grade system. This pleases me. ¶ 9:17 p.m. 0 comments
Like the short bus, only not.
Less content today, since it's Thursday and I must be going. I read the paper a lot, since I can, and lately I have noticed some things. There are a lot of easily offended people out there. Just read the letters section. Every single day, almost guaranteed, there is someone who took offense to something that I (and I hope most people) would consider trivial. For example, one letter complained about Nickelback asking for women's underwear to be thrown on stage (the letter-writer claimed it was appalling - little did she know the band was autographing the items and auctioning them for charity, with the non-sellers being donated to women's shelters). Another claimed that a Discovery Channel show was endorsing and promoting sexual experimentation (and she hated that the title of one show was "Orgasm"). And don't even get me started on all the stuff that came up after the Superbowl.
Seems one can't do anything these days without someone taking offense, and I don't mean just saying that someone doesn't like something. That's just stating one's opinion or tastes. I'm talking about writing in to the press that something they read violated their morals or shocked them beyond compare. Also, for some reason I can't help but laughing anytime anyone says "shame on you!" Maybe I'm twisted, but that just strikes me as a really funny phrase. Which is odd, since quite possibly we need more shame in our system. Say, the scarlet letter kind of thing. Ohio seems to be leaning in that direction now (from BoingBoing), but I feel things should go further. Bring back the stocks. Make every sexual predator and mugger spend a few days outside with their head and arms in a board getting made fun of by every passerby and their Grandma. Cruel and unusual punishment? Damn skippy. Would you be more likely to break the law if you knew you were going to be the subject of ridicule and torment from the general public? I don't think so. Shame is a very powerful force, much more so than the "imprisonment" in what is essentially a resort that is the current norm, and I think that if the legal system can actually start making ne'er-do-wells ashamed of what they do, we might start working towards a better system. Of coures, there is the possibility that one could go completely bat-nutty from being in the stocks and go break the law even worse sometimes. I'll have to think about that. Of course, I don't expect people to listen to me. This is the internet after all.
Quickly now, there isn't much time!
Really have to go now, so I'll just toss up some spots of interest.
I have fond memories of this book, and they resurfaced a while ago for no reason whatsoever. Does it mean something?
I also vaguely remember this show from much, much earlier days. When I think back now, I'm quite frightened. Investigate at your own risk.
Want tattoos but are scared of needles? Check it. I'd probably buy one just out of curiosity if they weren't so damn expensive...
So yeah. Fencing. Ciao. ¶ 4:28 p.m. 0 comments
Less content today, since it's Thursday and I must be going. I read the paper a lot, since I can, and lately I have noticed some things. There are a lot of easily offended people out there. Just read the letters section. Every single day, almost guaranteed, there is someone who took offense to something that I (and I hope most people) would consider trivial. For example, one letter complained about Nickelback asking for women's underwear to be thrown on stage (the letter-writer claimed it was appalling - little did she know the band was autographing the items and auctioning them for charity, with the non-sellers being donated to women's shelters). Another claimed that a Discovery Channel show was endorsing and promoting sexual experimentation (and she hated that the title of one show was "Orgasm"). And don't even get me started on all the stuff that came up after the Superbowl.
Seems one can't do anything these days without someone taking offense, and I don't mean just saying that someone doesn't like something. That's just stating one's opinion or tastes. I'm talking about writing in to the press that something they read violated their morals or shocked them beyond compare. Also, for some reason I can't help but laughing anytime anyone says "shame on you!" Maybe I'm twisted, but that just strikes me as a really funny phrase. Which is odd, since quite possibly we need more shame in our system. Say, the scarlet letter kind of thing. Ohio seems to be leaning in that direction now (from BoingBoing), but I feel things should go further. Bring back the stocks. Make every sexual predator and mugger spend a few days outside with their head and arms in a board getting made fun of by every passerby and their Grandma. Cruel and unusual punishment? Damn skippy. Would you be more likely to break the law if you knew you were going to be the subject of ridicule and torment from the general public? I don't think so. Shame is a very powerful force, much more so than the "imprisonment" in what is essentially a resort that is the current norm, and I think that if the legal system can actually start making ne'er-do-wells ashamed of what they do, we might start working towards a better system. Of coures, there is the possibility that one could go completely bat-nutty from being in the stocks and go break the law even worse sometimes. I'll have to think about that. Of course, I don't expect people to listen to me. This is the internet after all.
Quickly now, there isn't much time!
Really have to go now, so I'll just toss up some spots of interest.
I have fond memories of this book, and they resurfaced a while ago for no reason whatsoever. Does it mean something?
I also vaguely remember this show from much, much earlier days. When I think back now, I'm quite frightened. Investigate at your own risk.
Want tattoos but are scared of needles? Check it. I'd probably buy one just out of curiosity if they weren't so damn expensive...
So yeah. Fencing. Ciao. ¶ 4:28 p.m. 0 comments
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
I think I might live in "interesting times".
Supposedly there's an ancient Chinese proverb that says "May you live in interesting times." I don't know crap about the validity of that, since most things that sound nicely esoteric and profound get attributed to the ancient Chinese, but it's cool to say, and mostly accurate. Today was definitely... interesting, and I think I know why. More on that in a bit.
I received the following email when I got home today. It was from the me circa about 11:00 am this morning. I am now feeling better, but I do not yet have a sombrero.
Lo and behold, things did go back to being horrible, and was I ever glad to get out of work today. I think I dislike my job to an enormous degree. Seems that the good bits are far too infrequent, and the bad bits just make it seem like the worst day ever. This, of course, all vanishes immediately as soon as I step outside of the building, similar to wiping a brush over the chaotic whiteboard that is my emotional slate. Goes from "covered with the scribblings of a schitzophrenic" to "clean, white and serene" within instants, and it is this that makes me think I hate my job.
My idea of work is to not work. That doesn't make sense, I know, but within my perspective it's logical: I don't want to say that I work, I just want to say what I do. I mentioned some of the characteristics of my uber dream job before, but now I have compiled a list of all-time Top 5 dream jobs. I came up with the following.
5. Software Engineer. This is what I'm trying to become through school, and I still don't really know what the position actually is. Could be management, could be consulting, could be scheduling/coordinating. I only put it on the list because I was stuck for things that could be better.
4. Chef. I think being a culinary master would be really cool. You get to create, you get to build, you get to express, all with a medium everyone can respect and understand. I may have already mentioned that there is nothing so universal as good food, and I think being able to tap into that and manipulate it with the utmost skill would just be the tits.
3. Game Developer. I like games, and being able to actually create worlds for people to explore and interact with would be very cool. Note that I include all gaming in this, not just video games.
2. Journalist/critic. Because I like doing things and then talking about said things. I like giving my opinion on stuff. I like sampling lots and lots of various works, products and creations and then being able to tell you if they're good or not. The biggest reason though, is that I like learning about new things and investigating, and this would give me a medium to do that.
1. Webcomic artist/Internet commentator. In a nutshell, what Penny Arcade (among others) does. I base this entirely on what I perceive their work to be: a combination of artist, critic, journalist and celebrity. There's more to it, I know, and quite possibly this could be the worst job in the world to have, but I doubt that. The money's probably not that good, but from what I read, it's apparantly enough to support the majority of my habits. Pimping off your stuff and sitting at con desks all day long could be slightly dull, but I would probably get a big charge out of being a celebrity of sorts. The biggest draw that I see is not really having a schedule. Working on what I like to do when I want with only marginal restrictions would kick ass. That and getting to see/hear about/play the latest in games before everyone else. Like I said, I don't have the full picture, and there's no doubt in my mind that PA is the exception, not the norm. Do recall though, that this is a list of dream jobs.
So with that out of the way, I am going to remain where I am, doing what I am doing for the immediate future. Same goes for my subsequent job with RIM, followed by school.* My ultimate future, on the other hand, has been under much consideration. I will definitely be finishing school, since whatever I do, it will involve computers and the internet somehow. I think they're just too cool to ignore. The (substantial) rest of the story though, is in much deliberation. I would really like to have one of those jobs I listed, but I feel I lack one of the necessary talents: creativity. Rather, artistic, cohesive creativity. I don't think I lack creativity in general, since I can think of things no problem. The difficulty is in expressing and communicating it, and to go further, in world-building. I read an article today that kicks so much ass my bottom will be sore for weeks. It essentially states why, if you like comics, you probably also like RPGs and video games. They are the new wave. But that's neither here nor there, and my main beef is the creativity aspect.
*I tried creating a schedule today for my upcoming term, and oh God does it look painful. I have three more school terms to complete, and they will either be 6 courses, 7 courses and 7 courses, or the more likely 7-6-7 scenario. That is bad, unless you're going to or are done with university, whereupon I don't need to tell you that since you probably know. Most students take about 4 courses per term. Arts can take as low as 3. Engineers try to kill themselves with twice that. So I am probably faced with something along the lines of nine-to-five nearly every day, and probably far too loaded down with assignments and labs than is otherwise healthy. The things I do for a career. This little asterisk-note (which I seem to be making more and more of now) is essentially the reasoning behind my past-self's "courses and schedules suck" comment.
This doesn't have anything to do with the post, but it divides things up just swell
The artistic creativity I mentioned basically means I don't know how to make the words that are the funny or the story-telling, and I also don't draw good. I've been meaning to make a webcomic for some time, but I haven't for a couple of reasons: arms and words. Quite frankly, I can write these posts no problem, but fiction is something else. So is comedy, and I don't think my capabilities for producing either are up to the task of comicry. I know, I know, you never know until you try, but not being able to try is also indicative of failure. As for the arms, well, I just have trouble with them. Heads and torsos are fine, but the limbs are complicated. Again, practice would make perfect, but we come back to the "unable to try" stuff. The thought of just going for broke and tossing up what comes to me has popped into my skullbox, but everytime I try to do that I come up dry. No cute characters, no cunning stories, just rantings and ramblings that are nicely suited to blogging, but not webcomicry.
(Aside: I just had the best idea for a domain name, and if at all possible, I want it: webcronomi.com. Just pronounce the whole thing without the 'dot' and if you get it you'll get it. If not, you won't. It's a secular thing. Also, please don't steal it or I will have to be either clever all over again or fall back on my last idea of scribblism.com.)
I'm going to stop now, for fear of slagging this post down even further with my depressive misgivings about my talents. If I ever do figure out what my dream is and go for it though, you'll be the first to know. Instead, I'm going to go on about how my day did a 180-degree turnaround when I got home. First, my hat arrived. Yeah, this hat. On one count, I'm glad that I got something in the mail successfully, and on another count, it's a really cool hat. I am wearing it now, and have been doing so since I opened the package. I will need to get a haircut though since it makes my sideburns go all crazy and Wolverine-like, which isn't the most flattering thing for my image methinks. After that, I went grocery shopping and picked up what I needed for a new variant of sheppard's pie, which I made tonight. The pie is one of my comfort foods, and to make it far more successfully than before, and with veggies to boot, made me feel much better. Also, I found a bunch of new links that will probably amuse some when I post them (will be a while though), including this article. It's the same one as before, but I'm pimping it twice since I think it's so good. Also, in an unprecedented bout of attribution, the link was from Alas, A Blog! (sidebar) so you can see where I get most of my links. I'll be doing more of this in the future, since I've been reading that to not do so is immenesly disrespectful and internet folk look down on it.
Basically, things go from sucktastic at work, where I am tired and frustrated (usually at Netscape, since it neither reloads properly, nor displays pages right, and the only way to get to the Javascript console is to type "javascript:" in the address bar and it tries to thwart you nearly every time!), to pretty kickass at home, where I am none of the above. This could be because of my job, which I still think I dislike, or also because of internet withdrawal. I am a downright crack-fiend junkie, and being disconnected all day might be taking it's toll. That's due to the job though, so perhaps it is my employment after all. (Now that I think about it, I go without the net all day when I'm at school, so it's definitely the job.)
And before you explode because I bitch about work again, here's some links.
I agree. Based on what I read in the summary, and especially the cited sources of corruption of the system, that is.
Sheer lunacy. Further proof that people are far to insecure for their own good, and place entirely too much faith in rules, regulations and policies. Well, probably not, but it seems that way sometimes. I mean, rules and stuff are fine provided the rules make sense and are well-founded, but these things should be taken in context or things just get dumb.
I can't tell if these are serious or not. I mean, at first glance they're fine, but as you read on it gets kind of surreal.
Finally, something just plain hilarious. I was banking on a decent note to finish on, and stupid people don't get too much funnier.
Wow. I'm exhausted from typing now, so I'ma prescribe myself some "doing dishes" followed by Beyond Good and Evil. Missed Corner Gas, so I have to get some chair time in somehow. The IKEA chair demands it. ¶ 6:25 p.m. 0 comments
Supposedly there's an ancient Chinese proverb that says "May you live in interesting times." I don't know crap about the validity of that, since most things that sound nicely esoteric and profound get attributed to the ancient Chinese, but it's cool to say, and mostly accurate. Today was definitely... interesting, and I think I know why. More on that in a bit.
I received the following email when I got home today. It was from the me circa about 11:00 am this morning. I am now feeling better, but I do not yet have a sombrero.
This is a letter to myself in about 9 hours, since I will not be able to remember this otherwise.
I am on the verge of a brain-implosion. Among the things threatening to destroy my little utopiverse that has established itself in my skull are:
- the absorption of an endless amount of frustration with bureaucracy. I can't stand the bloody things ordinarily, but recently I have been stewing in a pot of wrath created from the culmination of the entire careers of my co-workers, and all the bitterness and resentfulness towards the shoddy organization of our federal government that entails.
- my further and further hatred towards Netscape 4.x as a browser. Not only it is anal to code for, but it is old and broken as well. This software is crap and should have been off the market years ago. Why people still use it is testament to stubbornness and ignorance of the average computer user. Yes, I realize that upgrades have nasty tendencies of going wrong and being far too frequent, but there's a difference between needless upgrading of
software and using programs that were in use back in the Internet Dark Ages. Netscape 4 is the browser equivalent to the stupid neighbour you've had for years and barely tolerate, yet never move away from.
(I'm having trouble now, since writing this is making my anger fade.)
- being insanely tired, both literally from lack of sleep, and also of my job. Sometimes it seems like April won't come soon enough, and it always seems like 3:45 won't come soon enough.
Well, it took long enough to write this that my anger has faded. It will, of course, resurface by the end of the day, but come quitting time everything seems to just blissfully slide away. This is why my bitching about things that happen during the day always seems lackluster. People don't remember unpleasant things, especially pain, that well. I think it's a survival mechanism. Anyways, I'm good now, but at least try to remember what things were like at about 11:00 this morning.
P.S. Courses and schedules suck as well.
Lo and behold, things did go back to being horrible, and was I ever glad to get out of work today. I think I dislike my job to an enormous degree. Seems that the good bits are far too infrequent, and the bad bits just make it seem like the worst day ever. This, of course, all vanishes immediately as soon as I step outside of the building, similar to wiping a brush over the chaotic whiteboard that is my emotional slate. Goes from "covered with the scribblings of a schitzophrenic" to "clean, white and serene" within instants, and it is this that makes me think I hate my job.
My idea of work is to not work. That doesn't make sense, I know, but within my perspective it's logical: I don't want to say that I work, I just want to say what I do. I mentioned some of the characteristics of my uber dream job before, but now I have compiled a list of all-time Top 5 dream jobs. I came up with the following.
5. Software Engineer. This is what I'm trying to become through school, and I still don't really know what the position actually is. Could be management, could be consulting, could be scheduling/coordinating. I only put it on the list because I was stuck for things that could be better.
4. Chef. I think being a culinary master would be really cool. You get to create, you get to build, you get to express, all with a medium everyone can respect and understand. I may have already mentioned that there is nothing so universal as good food, and I think being able to tap into that and manipulate it with the utmost skill would just be the tits.
3. Game Developer. I like games, and being able to actually create worlds for people to explore and interact with would be very cool. Note that I include all gaming in this, not just video games.
2. Journalist/critic. Because I like doing things and then talking about said things. I like giving my opinion on stuff. I like sampling lots and lots of various works, products and creations and then being able to tell you if they're good or not. The biggest reason though, is that I like learning about new things and investigating, and this would give me a medium to do that.
1. Webcomic artist/Internet commentator. In a nutshell, what Penny Arcade (among others) does. I base this entirely on what I perceive their work to be: a combination of artist, critic, journalist and celebrity. There's more to it, I know, and quite possibly this could be the worst job in the world to have, but I doubt that. The money's probably not that good, but from what I read, it's apparantly enough to support the majority of my habits. Pimping off your stuff and sitting at con desks all day long could be slightly dull, but I would probably get a big charge out of being a celebrity of sorts. The biggest draw that I see is not really having a schedule. Working on what I like to do when I want with only marginal restrictions would kick ass. That and getting to see/hear about/play the latest in games before everyone else. Like I said, I don't have the full picture, and there's no doubt in my mind that PA is the exception, not the norm. Do recall though, that this is a list of dream jobs.
So with that out of the way, I am going to remain where I am, doing what I am doing for the immediate future. Same goes for my subsequent job with RIM, followed by school.* My ultimate future, on the other hand, has been under much consideration. I will definitely be finishing school, since whatever I do, it will involve computers and the internet somehow. I think they're just too cool to ignore. The (substantial) rest of the story though, is in much deliberation. I would really like to have one of those jobs I listed, but I feel I lack one of the necessary talents: creativity. Rather, artistic, cohesive creativity. I don't think I lack creativity in general, since I can think of things no problem. The difficulty is in expressing and communicating it, and to go further, in world-building. I read an article today that kicks so much ass my bottom will be sore for weeks. It essentially states why, if you like comics, you probably also like RPGs and video games. They are the new wave. But that's neither here nor there, and my main beef is the creativity aspect.
*I tried creating a schedule today for my upcoming term, and oh God does it look painful. I have three more school terms to complete, and they will either be 6 courses, 7 courses and 7 courses, or the more likely 7-6-7 scenario. That is bad, unless you're going to or are done with university, whereupon I don't need to tell you that since you probably know. Most students take about 4 courses per term. Arts can take as low as 3. Engineers try to kill themselves with twice that. So I am probably faced with something along the lines of nine-to-five nearly every day, and probably far too loaded down with assignments and labs than is otherwise healthy. The things I do for a career. This little asterisk-note (which I seem to be making more and more of now) is essentially the reasoning behind my past-self's "courses and schedules suck" comment.
This doesn't have anything to do with the post, but it divides things up just swell
The artistic creativity I mentioned basically means I don't know how to make the words that are the funny or the story-telling, and I also don't draw good. I've been meaning to make a webcomic for some time, but I haven't for a couple of reasons: arms and words. Quite frankly, I can write these posts no problem, but fiction is something else. So is comedy, and I don't think my capabilities for producing either are up to the task of comicry. I know, I know, you never know until you try, but not being able to try is also indicative of failure. As for the arms, well, I just have trouble with them. Heads and torsos are fine, but the limbs are complicated. Again, practice would make perfect, but we come back to the "unable to try" stuff. The thought of just going for broke and tossing up what comes to me has popped into my skullbox, but everytime I try to do that I come up dry. No cute characters, no cunning stories, just rantings and ramblings that are nicely suited to blogging, but not webcomicry.
(Aside: I just had the best idea for a domain name, and if at all possible, I want it: webcronomi.com. Just pronounce the whole thing without the 'dot' and if you get it you'll get it. If not, you won't. It's a secular thing. Also, please don't steal it or I will have to be either clever all over again or fall back on my last idea of scribblism.com.)
I'm going to stop now, for fear of slagging this post down even further with my depressive misgivings about my talents. If I ever do figure out what my dream is and go for it though, you'll be the first to know. Instead, I'm going to go on about how my day did a 180-degree turnaround when I got home. First, my hat arrived. Yeah, this hat. On one count, I'm glad that I got something in the mail successfully, and on another count, it's a really cool hat. I am wearing it now, and have been doing so since I opened the package. I will need to get a haircut though since it makes my sideburns go all crazy and Wolverine-like, which isn't the most flattering thing for my image methinks. After that, I went grocery shopping and picked up what I needed for a new variant of sheppard's pie, which I made tonight. The pie is one of my comfort foods, and to make it far more successfully than before, and with veggies to boot, made me feel much better. Also, I found a bunch of new links that will probably amuse some when I post them (will be a while though), including this article. It's the same one as before, but I'm pimping it twice since I think it's so good. Also, in an unprecedented bout of attribution, the link was from Alas, A Blog! (sidebar) so you can see where I get most of my links. I'll be doing more of this in the future, since I've been reading that to not do so is immenesly disrespectful and internet folk look down on it.
Basically, things go from sucktastic at work, where I am tired and frustrated (usually at Netscape, since it neither reloads properly, nor displays pages right, and the only way to get to the Javascript console is to type "javascript:" in the address bar and it tries to thwart you nearly every time!), to pretty kickass at home, where I am none of the above. This could be because of my job, which I still think I dislike, or also because of internet withdrawal. I am a downright crack-fiend junkie, and being disconnected all day might be taking it's toll. That's due to the job though, so perhaps it is my employment after all. (Now that I think about it, I go without the net all day when I'm at school, so it's definitely the job.)
And before you explode because I bitch about work again, here's some links.
I agree. Based on what I read in the summary, and especially the cited sources of corruption of the system, that is.
Sheer lunacy. Further proof that people are far to insecure for their own good, and place entirely too much faith in rules, regulations and policies. Well, probably not, but it seems that way sometimes. I mean, rules and stuff are fine provided the rules make sense and are well-founded, but these things should be taken in context or things just get dumb.
I can't tell if these are serious or not. I mean, at first glance they're fine, but as you read on it gets kind of surreal.
Finally, something just plain hilarious. I was banking on a decent note to finish on, and stupid people don't get too much funnier.
Wow. I'm exhausted from typing now, so I'ma prescribe myself some "doing dishes" followed by Beyond Good and Evil. Missed Corner Gas, so I have to get some chair time in somehow. The IKEA chair demands it. ¶ 6:25 p.m. 0 comments
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Food Network must hate me.
I like Good Eats. It's a show on Food Network by Alton Brown, whom I've mentioned before (long time ago though) for being one of the coolest TV show people period, let alone a decent cooking show cook guy. So imagine (really stretch your brain for this one) my surprise when I see Good Eats available for immediate piracy and viewing over on Suprnova! After the double-take, I snatched up all the files, but being so intruiged, I decided I needed more. A quick Google later and I'm at the site for the release group, clicking madly at all the episodes I can possibly get. I'm not sure if there's a way to rationalize this in my mind. See, I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to give up most forms of pirating. Music, of course, will always be done, simply because I'm spiteful and resentful, as you may have already read. Movies, since I (techincally) can rent them a lot* are not usually my choice of targets for download due to the joint reasons their size, the fact that I am waiting to see if Hollywood will be stupid like RIAA, and my sentiments to watching films on my PC. I just don't like it. A movie needs a comfy seat and suitable distance to the screen, and watching from a desk chair 8 inches from my monitor/cancer-ray-box is only to be done as a last resort. This leaves comics, games and TV, and the comics I can at least make happy in my little world by seeing it as a library. I don't see that large a difference between going to the library and downloading a comic, reading it and then deleting it. I'm not spreading the joy (so to speak) and at one point a copy of the comic was bought (I hope). Games are usually the domain of my PS2, with the sole exception of UT2k4 right now, so it's usually not a problem, and when it is, it's an old habit I can just shrug off. TV shows are the only ones that cause slight problems, since I probably would pay to see them on TV if I could. I don't, however, want to pay for all the rest of the crap shows out there that I could watch, should I choose. As a result, the few series that I like, I pirate. Trailer Park Boys, Family Guy (although I do plan on purchasing the DVDs for that one, along with...), Futurama, Invader Zim, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Good Eats, and so on and so forth down my list of immensely qualitous, yet equally bizarre television tastes (you can Google those yourself, I'm too lazy to link them all). I'm also downloading the pilot to Deadwood, since it looks kind of neat, for a western and all. All in all, I'm really glad I have unlimited bandwidth, since Bittorrent is going nutty tonight!
*I put the caveat in there, since Zip has been so far unsuccessful in updating my rental queue and sending me the next titles on my list. The ones I have "rented" and are currently impeding this process were eaten by the vicious postal service and have not been cleared yet. My ire increases.
On a similar, but lesser beat
You might recall the Grey Album, which I mentioned a while ago, as being a remix of Jay-Z's Black Album. Well some other DJ has now made another, similar remix, only this time it's of Metallica's Black Album, aka their self-titled. I've only heard the preview track, but it is in my queue to download. I only mention this because on his site, DJ Halfred gives thanks to people, including Metallica. He also asks that they "please don't sue [him]". Which, of course, as we all know, due to the link being on some prominent blogs, will eventually reach Metallica and they will respond with a vicious lawsuit to the face. With a knife. Made of poison. Such is the extent of their hatred of people that take their music without persmission, which I'm guessing the poor DJ did not. I'll let y'all know what be his fate, whether it be boiling oil, or the mere death by a thousand cuts.
Being a big fan of Brazil, I thought I would recognize Jonathan Pryce should he turn up in other roles. I tend to do that with the actors that are in leading roles in my favorite movies. But when I was reading Tagline (on the sidebar now) I read that Britney Spears wanted to be a Bond girl. Totally ludicrous in my mind, but in the same page, Al (I think...) challenged me (as in readers, not me personally) to name the Bond villains or the henchman from the Brosnan-era films. I was immediately able to say Janus, since Sean Bean rules, but kind of stuck for the rest. Renard, from The World Is Not Enough, eventually surfaced as another, but being stuck again, I clicked the link to the "dopey guy from Tomorrow Never Dies". Guess what? It was Pryce! Scrolling down his filmography, I also saw he was the governor in Pirate of the Caribbean! This probably seems dumb now, but lemme tellya, it floored me about 3 hours ago.
Make with the links already!
Fine. For your impertinence, I command thee to gaze upon the FROG!!!! I don't know how it happened, and this thing creeps me out. It's like a Biblical sign of the apocalypse or something. Maybe we can start expecting giant flaming censers to fly at us from space, and locusts can rise from the Abyss to attack the sinful, and the 7-eyed, 7-horned lamb can- Ok, I'll stop.
An interesting musing I found on Alas. Why are people so fixated on the crucifixion? Unfortunately, if there was some profound comment on this, it has vanished since I put this in my link-list. Give it a read, or don't.
Are you an activist? Do you feel lonely? Want a quick fix through online dating? Your fears have been allayed. This is so niche, that I don't know if I can give an opinion on it, but I'll try. See, I read somewhere that if you put something in your blog, it should have your opinion along for the ride, because otherwise, why post it, right? So that's what I try to do with the links. Sometimes, it doesn't work, mainly due to either forgetting what was so special about the link, or just not feeling like it at the time, but mostly I think I give my spin on things. Well, look at that. None of that was about actforlove.org, now was it? Silly me. Mustn't have tried hard enough it seems.
So that's that. Now if you'll excuse me, I must learn how to make better potatoes from Alton. ¶ 5:34 p.m. 0 comments
I like Good Eats. It's a show on Food Network by Alton Brown, whom I've mentioned before (long time ago though) for being one of the coolest TV show people period, let alone a decent cooking show cook guy. So imagine (really stretch your brain for this one) my surprise when I see Good Eats available for immediate piracy and viewing over on Suprnova! After the double-take, I snatched up all the files, but being so intruiged, I decided I needed more. A quick Google later and I'm at the site for the release group, clicking madly at all the episodes I can possibly get. I'm not sure if there's a way to rationalize this in my mind. See, I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to give up most forms of pirating. Music, of course, will always be done, simply because I'm spiteful and resentful, as you may have already read. Movies, since I (techincally) can rent them a lot* are not usually my choice of targets for download due to the joint reasons their size, the fact that I am waiting to see if Hollywood will be stupid like RIAA, and my sentiments to watching films on my PC. I just don't like it. A movie needs a comfy seat and suitable distance to the screen, and watching from a desk chair 8 inches from my monitor/cancer-ray-box is only to be done as a last resort. This leaves comics, games and TV, and the comics I can at least make happy in my little world by seeing it as a library. I don't see that large a difference between going to the library and downloading a comic, reading it and then deleting it. I'm not spreading the joy (so to speak) and at one point a copy of the comic was bought (I hope). Games are usually the domain of my PS2, with the sole exception of UT2k4 right now, so it's usually not a problem, and when it is, it's an old habit I can just shrug off. TV shows are the only ones that cause slight problems, since I probably would pay to see them on TV if I could. I don't, however, want to pay for all the rest of the crap shows out there that I could watch, should I choose. As a result, the few series that I like, I pirate. Trailer Park Boys, Family Guy (although I do plan on purchasing the DVDs for that one, along with...), Futurama, Invader Zim, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Good Eats, and so on and so forth down my list of immensely qualitous, yet equally bizarre television tastes (you can Google those yourself, I'm too lazy to link them all). I'm also downloading the pilot to Deadwood, since it looks kind of neat, for a western and all. All in all, I'm really glad I have unlimited bandwidth, since Bittorrent is going nutty tonight!
*I put the caveat in there, since Zip has been so far unsuccessful in updating my rental queue and sending me the next titles on my list. The ones I have "rented" and are currently impeding this process were eaten by the vicious postal service and have not been cleared yet. My ire increases.
On a similar, but lesser beat
You might recall the Grey Album, which I mentioned a while ago, as being a remix of Jay-Z's Black Album. Well some other DJ has now made another, similar remix, only this time it's of Metallica's Black Album, aka their self-titled. I've only heard the preview track, but it is in my queue to download. I only mention this because on his site, DJ Halfred gives thanks to people, including Metallica. He also asks that they "please don't sue [him]". Which, of course, as we all know, due to the link being on some prominent blogs, will eventually reach Metallica and they will respond with a vicious lawsuit to the face. With a knife. Made of poison. Such is the extent of their hatred of people that take their music without persmission, which I'm guessing the poor DJ did not. I'll let y'all know what be his fate, whether it be boiling oil, or the mere death by a thousand cuts.
Being a big fan of Brazil, I thought I would recognize Jonathan Pryce should he turn up in other roles. I tend to do that with the actors that are in leading roles in my favorite movies. But when I was reading Tagline (on the sidebar now) I read that Britney Spears wanted to be a Bond girl. Totally ludicrous in my mind, but in the same page, Al (I think...) challenged me (as in readers, not me personally) to name the Bond villains or the henchman from the Brosnan-era films. I was immediately able to say Janus, since Sean Bean rules, but kind of stuck for the rest. Renard, from The World Is Not Enough, eventually surfaced as another, but being stuck again, I clicked the link to the "dopey guy from Tomorrow Never Dies". Guess what? It was Pryce! Scrolling down his filmography, I also saw he was the governor in Pirate of the Caribbean! This probably seems dumb now, but lemme tellya, it floored me about 3 hours ago.
Make with the links already!
Fine. For your impertinence, I command thee to gaze upon the FROG!!!! I don't know how it happened, and this thing creeps me out. It's like a Biblical sign of the apocalypse or something. Maybe we can start expecting giant flaming censers to fly at us from space, and locusts can rise from the Abyss to attack the sinful, and the 7-eyed, 7-horned lamb can- Ok, I'll stop.
An interesting musing I found on Alas. Why are people so fixated on the crucifixion? Unfortunately, if there was some profound comment on this, it has vanished since I put this in my link-list. Give it a read, or don't.
Are you an activist? Do you feel lonely? Want a quick fix through online dating? Your fears have been allayed. This is so niche, that I don't know if I can give an opinion on it, but I'll try. See, I read somewhere that if you put something in your blog, it should have your opinion along for the ride, because otherwise, why post it, right? So that's what I try to do with the links. Sometimes, it doesn't work, mainly due to either forgetting what was so special about the link, or just not feeling like it at the time, but mostly I think I give my spin on things. Well, look at that. None of that was about actforlove.org, now was it? Silly me. Mustn't have tried hard enough it seems.
So that's that. Now if you'll excuse me, I must learn how to make better potatoes from Alton. ¶ 5:34 p.m. 0 comments
Monday, March 22, 2004
Mmmmm... 50% of my daily fat intake...
Yeah, McCain's International pizzas, as cheap and convenient and tasty as they are, are apparantly the devil incarnate when it comes to nutrition. 1/4 of the pizza, according to the back of the box, contains 25% of a person's daily fat intake. This does not seem so good, especially when you consider that the pizza is still small enough for me to need to eat half of it. There's more fat than carbs in this thing though, so I guess it's Atkin's friendly. Don't quote me on that though. Still, compared to the PC Wood Fired pizza (which are small and barren enough to be a meal for one, that one being me, unto themselves), these things are actually quite good. Unlike most oven-pizzas, they actually have toppings, and the crust doesn't taste like petroleum-laced cardboard, which is always a plus. Also, I got to store the remaining half in a plastic bag, instead of my usual, classier Ziplocware. I don't know why that's a good thing, but it is.
Segues, now available without a recall!
Speaking of segues, I don't have any. To quote Greg Froops (sp?) "follow me down the happy trail of topic-changes!" I was watching Rick Mercer tonight, and it turns out he shot most of the show that wasn't in the studio in Edmonton. So now I am homesick after watching all the shots of WEM and the U of A, and he even did his rant on Groat Bridge! As usual, pity may be sent in denominations of 10s and 20s.
Also, I was cruising through HMV, and the discrimination in pricing really seemed to jump out at me today. See, in HMV, and most stores, you have this constant clash between the "flavour-of-the-months", the "always-in-seasons" and the "shelfwarmers". The flavours are the ones with all the stickers on them, and because they're being pimped off to you with great fervor, they are at a great price, and unfortunately are almost always crap. You get the odd deal, but mostly it's just the hot new releases from last month bundled with the crap nobody buys (with good reason). The classics, in contrast, are the good movies that have a strong following in the mainstream. They're mostly good movies, well loved by all, and priced reasonably. The ones I have the beef with though, are the shelfwarmers. These are the diamonds in the rough that nobody ever buys, but it's not because the movies are obscure. See, HMV must think that because these movies are so obscure, nobody will ever buy them, and therefore they must charge more to make up the loss on the few units they do sell to those desperate enough. How else can one justify charging 80 dollars for The City of Lost Children? It's just a simple 2-disc collector's edition, so why is it so much more than the rest? Black Adder was the other one. Yes, it's 860 minutes of the series (the whole thing!), and there is only one copy on the shelf, but 150 dollars seems a little steep to me. Of course, I could just be really cheap.
More segues! They explode when they fall over!
What else was I going to talk about? Oh yes. It's probably just me, but I think it seems really quite egotistical and rather snobbish to try and use all your names. I mean, Micheal Clarke Duncan, F. Murray Abraham, Seann William Scott, you guys are all great actors, but it just sounds really hoity-toity to have three names. If anyone goes up to four, I'ma shoot something.
In the same lines of arrogance, did it not occur to the U of A to perhaps TELL THE STUDENTS WHEN YOU CHANGE ENTIRE COURSE STREAMS??? I get an email today from Kevin the Mighty IBM Guy, who I share courses with, and apparantly the one course that was the target of all my hate last term (and which I did the best in, ironically*) has been removed from the program. This angers Calculon, and I wish the utmost burning to be inflicted on those responsible. Kevin has sent an inquiring email in the direction of the EE Dept head though, and I hope he gets answers, since without further explanation, I have no clue how to schedule my classes. Do I get to use the now-removed course as an option? Should I try and catch up since a number of other courses were slid back to compensate? To make things worse, there was a typo in the calendar, so I'm only reasonably sure that one of the courses I need to take is indeed that course. On top of all that, the course everyone was giddy about not having to take has wormed its way back into the calendar, but that could be because the decision was relatively last minute. Argh. This is so confusing, and I really wish that heads would roll something fierce.
*See, despite how much I hated EE340 (active circuit component stuff; diodes, transistors, etc) it turned out to be the style of course that I excel in, compared to the other courses I was taking that were not of the weekly assignment plus labs plus lectures mold, and I think that has a lot to do with it.
Links, since I'm rather spent
The Museum of Bad Art. This whole institution was apparantly started by one painting, featured prominently on the front page, and I must agree that it is the worst painting I have ever seen. I hope that whoever that painting was of has erased all connection between them and that "artwork".
I should apologize. I thought I was done with the anger and annoyance, but this link just reinvigorates it. For various reasons, this just pisses me off and makes me sick. I'm not going to go into why, but if you've gotten my opinion on corporate sponsorship, ads, marketing and the whole music piracy can of worms, you'll probably have a decent idea. Warren Ellis put it best when he said:
I'm really really late on this one, but I just wanted to point out that I find some perverse, twisted pleasure in knowing Martha Stewart will be in jail. I'm a horrible person for it, and you can flame me if you must, but it still gives me a mild warm feeling. Perhaps it's because she just seemed so smug and self-assured on TV. I could make a crack at redecorating the mess hall with whatever you find around your cell, but I'll refrain. Sort of.
Unwind-ind-ind-ind
I'll finish with random thoughts.
- We need more muppets. Muppets Tonight was a good start, but more is needed. Also, have the special guests actually contribute to the show. That could help. And the "yep yep yep yeeeeeep nope nope noooooope" guys should get more airtime. They rule.
- Don't even try singing along to The Darkness. Not only do normal guys need to castrate themselves, but once you actually read the lyrics and find out what the song is about, the whole listening experience changes.
- I am so totally in support of the sentiment expressed by today's Sinfest.
- IGN should market whatever they're drinking to think that their site looks good when it's all McUglied. Because it looks like purple crap.
Gleh. Going to play Playstation. G'way. ¶ 6:57 p.m. 0 comments
Yeah, McCain's International pizzas, as cheap and convenient and tasty as they are, are apparantly the devil incarnate when it comes to nutrition. 1/4 of the pizza, according to the back of the box, contains 25% of a person's daily fat intake. This does not seem so good, especially when you consider that the pizza is still small enough for me to need to eat half of it. There's more fat than carbs in this thing though, so I guess it's Atkin's friendly. Don't quote me on that though. Still, compared to the PC Wood Fired pizza (which are small and barren enough to be a meal for one, that one being me, unto themselves), these things are actually quite good. Unlike most oven-pizzas, they actually have toppings, and the crust doesn't taste like petroleum-laced cardboard, which is always a plus. Also, I got to store the remaining half in a plastic bag, instead of my usual, classier Ziplocware. I don't know why that's a good thing, but it is.
Segues, now available without a recall!
Speaking of segues, I don't have any. To quote Greg Froops (sp?) "follow me down the happy trail of topic-changes!" I was watching Rick Mercer tonight, and it turns out he shot most of the show that wasn't in the studio in Edmonton. So now I am homesick after watching all the shots of WEM and the U of A, and he even did his rant on Groat Bridge! As usual, pity may be sent in denominations of 10s and 20s.
Also, I was cruising through HMV, and the discrimination in pricing really seemed to jump out at me today. See, in HMV, and most stores, you have this constant clash between the "flavour-of-the-months", the "always-in-seasons" and the "shelfwarmers". The flavours are the ones with all the stickers on them, and because they're being pimped off to you with great fervor, they are at a great price, and unfortunately are almost always crap. You get the odd deal, but mostly it's just the hot new releases from last month bundled with the crap nobody buys (with good reason). The classics, in contrast, are the good movies that have a strong following in the mainstream. They're mostly good movies, well loved by all, and priced reasonably. The ones I have the beef with though, are the shelfwarmers. These are the diamonds in the rough that nobody ever buys, but it's not because the movies are obscure. See, HMV must think that because these movies are so obscure, nobody will ever buy them, and therefore they must charge more to make up the loss on the few units they do sell to those desperate enough. How else can one justify charging 80 dollars for The City of Lost Children? It's just a simple 2-disc collector's edition, so why is it so much more than the rest? Black Adder was the other one. Yes, it's 860 minutes of the series (the whole thing!), and there is only one copy on the shelf, but 150 dollars seems a little steep to me. Of course, I could just be really cheap.
More segues! They explode when they fall over!
What else was I going to talk about? Oh yes. It's probably just me, but I think it seems really quite egotistical and rather snobbish to try and use all your names. I mean, Micheal Clarke Duncan, F. Murray Abraham, Seann William Scott, you guys are all great actors, but it just sounds really hoity-toity to have three names. If anyone goes up to four, I'ma shoot something.
In the same lines of arrogance, did it not occur to the U of A to perhaps TELL THE STUDENTS WHEN YOU CHANGE ENTIRE COURSE STREAMS??? I get an email today from Kevin the Mighty IBM Guy, who I share courses with, and apparantly the one course that was the target of all my hate last term (and which I did the best in, ironically*) has been removed from the program. This angers Calculon, and I wish the utmost burning to be inflicted on those responsible. Kevin has sent an inquiring email in the direction of the EE Dept head though, and I hope he gets answers, since without further explanation, I have no clue how to schedule my classes. Do I get to use the now-removed course as an option? Should I try and catch up since a number of other courses were slid back to compensate? To make things worse, there was a typo in the calendar, so I'm only reasonably sure that one of the courses I need to take is indeed that course. On top of all that, the course everyone was giddy about not having to take has wormed its way back into the calendar, but that could be because the decision was relatively last minute. Argh. This is so confusing, and I really wish that heads would roll something fierce.
*See, despite how much I hated EE340 (active circuit component stuff; diodes, transistors, etc) it turned out to be the style of course that I excel in, compared to the other courses I was taking that were not of the weekly assignment plus labs plus lectures mold, and I think that has a lot to do with it.
Links, since I'm rather spent
The Museum of Bad Art. This whole institution was apparantly started by one painting, featured prominently on the front page, and I must agree that it is the worst painting I have ever seen. I hope that whoever that painting was of has erased all connection between them and that "artwork".
I should apologize. I thought I was done with the anger and annoyance, but this link just reinvigorates it. For various reasons, this just pisses me off and makes me sick. I'm not going to go into why, but if you've gotten my opinion on corporate sponsorship, ads, marketing and the whole music piracy can of worms, you'll probably have a decent idea. Warren Ellis put it best when he said:
"Fuck Apple, fuck Pepsi, fuck American youth, fuck Green Day, fuck whoever sold "I Fought The Law" to advertising and fuck you too. Fuck you very much, fuck off and die."
I'm really really late on this one, but I just wanted to point out that I find some perverse, twisted pleasure in knowing Martha Stewart will be in jail. I'm a horrible person for it, and you can flame me if you must, but it still gives me a mild warm feeling. Perhaps it's because she just seemed so smug and self-assured on TV. I could make a crack at redecorating the mess hall with whatever you find around your cell, but I'll refrain. Sort of.
Unwind-ind-ind-ind
I'll finish with random thoughts.
- We need more muppets. Muppets Tonight was a good start, but more is needed. Also, have the special guests actually contribute to the show. That could help. And the "yep yep yep yeeeeeep nope nope noooooope" guys should get more airtime. They rule.
- Don't even try singing along to The Darkness. Not only do normal guys need to castrate themselves, but once you actually read the lyrics and find out what the song is about, the whole listening experience changes.
- I am so totally in support of the sentiment expressed by today's Sinfest.
- IGN should market whatever they're drinking to think that their site looks good when it's all McUglied. Because it looks like purple crap.
Gleh. Going to play Playstation. G'way. ¶ 6:57 p.m. 0 comments
Sunday, March 21, 2004
But what about the maple syrup?
Story I forgot to tell from Thursday: I was heading back from the diner, and I passed these two skater-types talking, only one of them had a unicycle. You don't see too many unicycles around these days, so it was remarkable. Anyways, I continue past, and shortly thereafter he passed me on his unicycle and nearly bailed from trying to balance going along the curb. As we both approached the intersection, the light turned, so rather than dismount from his wheel, he started hopping on spot, and turned out to be rather proficient at it, given that the alternative was to fall off and roll into traffic. Anyways, unbeknownst to him, but knownst to me, another (third) guy came up behind and to the left of Unicycle-guy. The light changes, and Uni-guy goes to start pedalling off, but instead falls off and manages to shoot his unicycle at the 3rd guy behind him. It was rather funny to see someone smug enough to be in control of a unicycle suddenly lose it and fall down at the drop of a hat. That's it. Just someone falling down.
The whole thing actually reminds me of a story another friend of mine told me. He was driving down the road going home and while stopped at a stop light looks over to the sidewalk. He sees a kid walking home from school or something, and for no reason starts wishing the kid would slip on the ice and fall on his ass. Somehow his psychic powers must have done something, because the kid did indeed biff on the ice and my friend had a good laugh about it.
Yes, watching people get injured, especially when said injuries are self-inflicted is really funny somehow, and the reason I mention this is because Steve-O is coming to town. For those that don't know, he was one of the more insane cast members from Jackass, and while star Johnny Knoxville got to do the more high-profile stunts, Steve did probably the craziest, like having his ass-cheeks pierced together. With that in mind, I have yet to decide if I want to go see his show. It could be quite entertaining, but on the other hand, some of his stunts I would definitely not want to see in person. Namely the stapling things to himself. That one in particular just gets me.
I have a monkey in my trunk
So PocketPCs can now look like iPods. Or maybe they could but not anymore. See, this link is from a while ago, and I don't remember if the company that made the faux-iPod veneer for your PocketPC has be righteously sued and ordered to stop. Wouldn't be surprised if they were though.
I like random humor. Hence the following. One. Two. Three. No further explanation is either needed, nor possible.
Finally, for those that know about the "Developers developers developers..." Steve Ballmer speech, and the new iPod ads. The idea to combine the two has no doubt crossed many an animator's mind, but here it is.
So yeah. I'm getting picked up in a bit to go out for dinner again. This time I'm actually going to my aunt's place, since my mom's staying there while in town. More free food! Yeay! ¶ 2:35 p.m. 0 comments
Story I forgot to tell from Thursday: I was heading back from the diner, and I passed these two skater-types talking, only one of them had a unicycle. You don't see too many unicycles around these days, so it was remarkable. Anyways, I continue past, and shortly thereafter he passed me on his unicycle and nearly bailed from trying to balance going along the curb. As we both approached the intersection, the light turned, so rather than dismount from his wheel, he started hopping on spot, and turned out to be rather proficient at it, given that the alternative was to fall off and roll into traffic. Anyways, unbeknownst to him, but knownst to me, another (third) guy came up behind and to the left of Unicycle-guy. The light changes, and Uni-guy goes to start pedalling off, but instead falls off and manages to shoot his unicycle at the 3rd guy behind him. It was rather funny to see someone smug enough to be in control of a unicycle suddenly lose it and fall down at the drop of a hat. That's it. Just someone falling down.
The whole thing actually reminds me of a story another friend of mine told me. He was driving down the road going home and while stopped at a stop light looks over to the sidewalk. He sees a kid walking home from school or something, and for no reason starts wishing the kid would slip on the ice and fall on his ass. Somehow his psychic powers must have done something, because the kid did indeed biff on the ice and my friend had a good laugh about it.
Yes, watching people get injured, especially when said injuries are self-inflicted is really funny somehow, and the reason I mention this is because Steve-O is coming to town. For those that don't know, he was one of the more insane cast members from Jackass, and while star Johnny Knoxville got to do the more high-profile stunts, Steve did probably the craziest, like having his ass-cheeks pierced together. With that in mind, I have yet to decide if I want to go see his show. It could be quite entertaining, but on the other hand, some of his stunts I would definitely not want to see in person. Namely the stapling things to himself. That one in particular just gets me.
I have a monkey in my trunk
So PocketPCs can now look like iPods. Or maybe they could but not anymore. See, this link is from a while ago, and I don't remember if the company that made the faux-iPod veneer for your PocketPC has be righteously sued and ordered to stop. Wouldn't be surprised if they were though.
I like random humor. Hence the following. One. Two. Three. No further explanation is either needed, nor possible.
Finally, for those that know about the "Developers developers developers..." Steve Ballmer speech, and the new iPod ads. The idea to combine the two has no doubt crossed many an animator's mind, but here it is.
So yeah. I'm getting picked up in a bit to go out for dinner again. This time I'm actually going to my aunt's place, since my mom's staying there while in town. More free food! Yeay! ¶ 2:35 p.m. 0 comments
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Found something!
Found something worthy of posting. Parkours. Basically you just use the city as a jungle-gym and try and run through, over and around things as fast and as fluidly as possible. One of the reasons I think living in Britain would be really neat. It's also big in France and Germany I hear. Unfortunately not so much in Ottawa. It's a shame, since I would really like to learn how to be an urban ninja. That would just be cool. ¶ 4:02 p.m. 0 comments
Found something worthy of posting. Parkours. Basically you just use the city as a jungle-gym and try and run through, over and around things as fast and as fluidly as possible. One of the reasons I think living in Britain would be really neat. It's also big in France and Germany I hear. Unfortunately not so much in Ottawa. It's a shame, since I would really like to learn how to be an urban ninja. That would just be cool. ¶ 4:02 p.m. 0 comments
Waiting for the inevitable.
So I'm sitting here, waiting for my mom to arrive. I've cleaned the apartment, put all my junk away, even mopped the kitchen. Somehow, I fear that this will not be enough, and I will be reprimanded for living in anything short of an Intel clean room, completely with bunny suits. On the other hand, I just might shock her for managing to keep the place relatively disease-free. We shall see. In the meantime though, I wait. I wait, and I try to think of something to talk about.
Futility, Inc.
I'm re-written this post twice now, and this is the third revision. It seems anything that I want to say just isn't working right, so I'm giving up and moving straight to the links and such. Perhaps more inspiration will await me there.
The Cheeseburger Bill. Surely you've heard of it. Personally, I think that it's a good idea, but not really implemented very well. People do need to start actually taking responsibility for what they do and not sue their way to a better life, but I think an outright ban is a little bit too much of a firestomp reaction. More thought and actual reform of the legal system would be far better, but I doubt that would happen anytime soon.
How the world works, really:
This scares me. In fact, I am tremendously glad there are not more pictures, since if there were I would likely go look and then I'd have to try and expunge negative images out of my brain.
You know the Prince from Prince of Persia? How he can run across walls and jump his way up passages and in general be a total ninja? People can actually do that. To quote a fellow Force Monkey, "what's the point of living if people can just go all PoP on you?"
What the hell, one more should do. If you think you've ever had a stretch of bad luck, just watch Farm Sluts. I always though Meet the Parents was the best example of the proverbial "bad day", but this tops it by a mile.
So yeah. Lousy post, but there's still some entertainment to be found. Now I'm going to continue waiting for my mom to come and take me to dinner. Ciao. ¶ 2:43 p.m. 0 comments
So I'm sitting here, waiting for my mom to arrive. I've cleaned the apartment, put all my junk away, even mopped the kitchen. Somehow, I fear that this will not be enough, and I will be reprimanded for living in anything short of an Intel clean room, completely with bunny suits. On the other hand, I just might shock her for managing to keep the place relatively disease-free. We shall see. In the meantime though, I wait. I wait, and I try to think of something to talk about.
Futility, Inc.
I'm re-written this post twice now, and this is the third revision. It seems anything that I want to say just isn't working right, so I'm giving up and moving straight to the links and such. Perhaps more inspiration will await me there.
The Cheeseburger Bill. Surely you've heard of it. Personally, I think that it's a good idea, but not really implemented very well. People do need to start actually taking responsibility for what they do and not sue their way to a better life, but I think an outright ban is a little bit too much of a firestomp reaction. More thought and actual reform of the legal system would be far better, but I doubt that would happen anytime soon.
How the world works, really:
This scares me. In fact, I am tremendously glad there are not more pictures, since if there were I would likely go look and then I'd have to try and expunge negative images out of my brain.
You know the Prince from Prince of Persia? How he can run across walls and jump his way up passages and in general be a total ninja? People can actually do that. To quote a fellow Force Monkey, "what's the point of living if people can just go all PoP on you?"
What the hell, one more should do. If you think you've ever had a stretch of bad luck, just watch Farm Sluts. I always though Meet the Parents was the best example of the proverbial "bad day", but this tops it by a mile.
So yeah. Lousy post, but there's still some entertainment to be found. Now I'm going to continue waiting for my mom to come and take me to dinner. Ciao. ¶ 2:43 p.m. 0 comments
Friday, March 19, 2004
Addendum der people came after me.
Couple of things I forgot to mention earlier:
- Finished Maximo, and here's a 25-word review: Short but fun game that recaptures the spirit of true old-school gaming. Hard, but fair, and has some really great boss fights. Worth 20 dollars.
- Got talked at by a psychopath on the bus this afternoon, and it took all the effort in my body to not attack him after he told me the stories of the "fucking cocksucker what got him to do all the fucking work on this fucking hardwood floor" and the troubles that ensued, all topped off with the anecdotes of how he chased after a cat that tried to scratch him and threw it at a screen door, and how his dad threw a (different) cat in a fire. The fire was in a stove. I hate bus people. ¶ 8:20 p.m. 0 comments
Couple of things I forgot to mention earlier:
- Finished Maximo, and here's a 25-word review: Short but fun game that recaptures the spirit of true old-school gaming. Hard, but fair, and has some really great boss fights. Worth 20 dollars.
- Got talked at by a psychopath on the bus this afternoon, and it took all the effort in my body to not attack him after he told me the stories of the "fucking cocksucker what got him to do all the fucking work on this fucking hardwood floor" and the troubles that ensued, all topped off with the anecdotes of how he chased after a cat that tried to scratch him and threw it at a screen door, and how his dad threw a (different) cat in a fire. The fire was in a stove. I hate bus people. ¶ 8:20 p.m. 0 comments
And flip and spin and dosey-do.
Came across this... well, somewhere. I don't remember. One of the blogs I read. Maybe BoingBoing or diepunyhumans.
To be honest, I think you'd be hard pressed to cram more phenomena in there. You have your alternative sex lifestyle, your exhibitionism, your flashmobbing, your internet dating... it's all just a big mishmash. Makes you wonder what'll come next.
Penny Arcade has me off on a tangent.
A rather crazy, silly tangent involving peanuts. Or perhaps pie. Spy pie. Yes... spy pie. See, I was reading about Pandora Tomorrow, and the multiplayer for that game sounds so freaking cool, it's... hm. I can't think of a word to describe the coolness that would describe the 21st-century Spy-vs.-Spy-James-Bond-Tom-Clancy gameplay this seems to encapsulate. Hang on, I need a nugget.
There. I'm going through a "use up the food in my fridge before it takes over" phase, so I dissected some chicken thighs and made my own McNuggets to toss into my spaghetti-and-meatballs tonight, thus making spaghetti-and-nuggetballs. Yeah, it's as silly as it sounds, but tastes pretty good while being easy to make. Anyways, I was trying to invent a word to describe the impression I have of the new Splinter Cell, and I have come up with... not much. Maybe spy + cool + the hungarian word for "mercenary ninja"?
What also perked me was the all the stuff on UT2k4 I've been reading. So much so that I want to try the game. And by try, I obviously mean pirate. Harr.... I figure that the aggregation of "I won't be playing it much anyways", "It's easy to get", and "I have a deflated sense of ethics" form the "I'm gonna get this game now" quotient so needed to mosey on over to Suprnova and grab a torrent. I give my thanks out now to the fine folks at Sympatico who give me the bandwidth to do this. You are also forgiven for my unreliable connection, since that is actually the fault of a shoddily-rigged phone jack that I must kick now to get it to work. Oh well. Combine that with the fact that I might actually be getting my mail again, and the visit from my mom tomorrow, and things are going upwards steadily, despite the best efforts of the taxman.
Yeah, see fencing was cancelled last night because of a Senior's Tax Clinic. So instead of swordfighting, we just headed over to the diner and chatted over some milkshakes and stuff. I learned about a store on Elgin called Sugar Mountain that seems to kick total ass due to the carrying of obscure and trivial merchandise like the men-at-work lunchbox. I will visit sometime.
asdf is your new god
This made my snarfle my club soda so hard I think it came out my ears. The thought of a collapsible mammal just causes glee.
Kickin' drum animation spawned from a contest put on by Rockstar Games.
This is the coolest phone-PDA-gizmo evar. I must have one, and anyone who volunteers to purchase me one will be forever my best friend. At least until the next model comes out.
Shorter post today. Blame the movies and videogames. Everyone else does. ¶ 6:26 p.m. 0 comments
Came across this... well, somewhere. I don't remember. One of the blogs I read. Maybe BoingBoing or diepunyhumans.
Dogging combines technology with swinging, cruising and voyeurism. To wit: Crowds big and small watch exhibitionist couples who've met on the Net have sex in cars, and sometimes join in.
To be honest, I think you'd be hard pressed to cram more phenomena in there. You have your alternative sex lifestyle, your exhibitionism, your flashmobbing, your internet dating... it's all just a big mishmash. Makes you wonder what'll come next.
Penny Arcade has me off on a tangent.
A rather crazy, silly tangent involving peanuts. Or perhaps pie. Spy pie. Yes... spy pie. See, I was reading about Pandora Tomorrow, and the multiplayer for that game sounds so freaking cool, it's... hm. I can't think of a word to describe the coolness that would describe the 21st-century Spy-vs.-Spy-James-Bond-Tom-Clancy gameplay this seems to encapsulate. Hang on, I need a nugget.
There. I'm going through a "use up the food in my fridge before it takes over" phase, so I dissected some chicken thighs and made my own McNuggets to toss into my spaghetti-and-meatballs tonight, thus making spaghetti-and-nuggetballs. Yeah, it's as silly as it sounds, but tastes pretty good while being easy to make. Anyways, I was trying to invent a word to describe the impression I have of the new Splinter Cell, and I have come up with... not much. Maybe spy + cool + the hungarian word for "mercenary ninja"?
What also perked me was the all the stuff on UT2k4 I've been reading. So much so that I want to try the game. And by try, I obviously mean pirate. Harr.... I figure that the aggregation of "I won't be playing it much anyways", "It's easy to get", and "I have a deflated sense of ethics" form the "I'm gonna get this game now" quotient so needed to mosey on over to Suprnova and grab a torrent. I give my thanks out now to the fine folks at Sympatico who give me the bandwidth to do this. You are also forgiven for my unreliable connection, since that is actually the fault of a shoddily-rigged phone jack that I must kick now to get it to work. Oh well. Combine that with the fact that I might actually be getting my mail again, and the visit from my mom tomorrow, and things are going upwards steadily, despite the best efforts of the taxman.
Yeah, see fencing was cancelled last night because of a Senior's Tax Clinic. So instead of swordfighting, we just headed over to the diner and chatted over some milkshakes and stuff. I learned about a store on Elgin called Sugar Mountain that seems to kick total ass due to the carrying of obscure and trivial merchandise like the men-at-work lunchbox. I will visit sometime.
asdf is your new god
This made my snarfle my club soda so hard I think it came out my ears. The thought of a collapsible mammal just causes glee.
Kickin' drum animation spawned from a contest put on by Rockstar Games.
This is the coolest phone-PDA-gizmo evar. I must have one, and anyone who volunteers to purchase me one will be forever my best friend. At least until the next model comes out.
Shorter post today. Blame the movies and videogames. Everyone else does. ¶ 6:26 p.m. 0 comments
Thursday, March 18, 2004
From the depths of Bell I stab at thee!
Er, Bell-Sympatico that is. They're my ISP that keeps going down lately, most recently being last night, hence the lack of update. I sent off an email about it at work today, but when I got home I think I found the problem. Turned out to be (well, possibly be, since I'm not sure yet) a dodgy phone jack. So now whenever my connection fails I need to try jiggling the plug or something. It seems so tritefully analog. On the plus side though, I may have mail going again, since I did receive both my phone bill and new credit card this afternoon. Now I can spend to my heart's content, while earning grocery points the whole time! Hurray for food!
Stuff I was going to write about but couldn't
So my ideas that I jotted down and was planning on writing about were as follows:
- i feel stupid
- american idol is crap
- legal dark age
- the specials
The stupid remark is actually a direct result of the source of the second remark, being American Idol. I was watching Corner Gas, and Idol comes on after that, so I figured why not watch an episode. Up until then, I had not actually seen a full show, and figured I'd at least see what it was about before casting my scalding judgement upon it. Now I wish I hadn't. 10 minutes in and the smart part of my brain had hijacked the whole works and made me turn it off. See, when a show starts looping around from good to bad to so bad that it's good, to so bad that it's wildly successful, it tends to make fun of itself. The Simpsons did the same thing. See, in the beginning, the very beginning, on the Tracey Ullman show, they sucked. The animation was poor, and the humor was crap. Then it got syndicated and it got worse, to the point where they were good again. Really good in fact, and they stayed that way for a while, wavering slightly in quality but staying quite funny, until about the 13th season or so where they peaked in quality. Then the show kept getting worse to the point where they made fun of themselves, and now the show isn't very good at all. It has thrice-looped to bad again. Idol on the other hand, started right at the "so crappy it's incredibly popular" point, and has only gotten worse. I tried watching The Simple Life a while ago and had a similar experience.
See, the bit I saw had Paris and Nicole putting milk in bottles. They lost a bunch of milk from their own incompetence, and tried to fill the difference in the bottles with hose water. Then I blacked out for a while because my brain revolted and spared me the horror of the rest of the show. When I came to, the TV was off, but the damage had been done. I think I lost about 15 IQ points that evening. With Idol last night, it wasn't as bad, but still intense. When the host tried to do a voiceover to the recap of the previous episode, making fun of Simon the whole time, I struggled to raise the necessary intelligence to change channels. I rolled through a bit later against my better judgement and caught a sound bite of the host saying "the 10 minute results show we stretched into an hour special" and nearly lost my sanity. To admit that the show is crap on national TV, yet still pull in the ratings to warrant several sequels is too much. Safe to say, I don't think I'll tune in again. Ever. Well, perhaps when they don't take themselves seriously, like at the beginning, since I think that's the biggest issue with the show. Everyone talks about having their dreams made or broken and launching a wildly successful career in music doing what they love, but the whole thing is essentially a glorified kareoke contest, and I can usually go hear just as talented people down at the pub on Thursdays. You know what happened to the previous idols, with all their fame and fortune and wildly successful music careers? Yeah, me neither.
To finish up with the remarks I kind of ranted over, the "legal dark age" was going to be the start of a bit on how the legal system really needs to get with the times. I didn't bother thinking it through and don't think I will, but it basically amounted to how the legal system needs to get their proverbial heads out of their asses and wake up. The world is changing, and the law needs to progress to reflect that. You know emails and chatting and websites and all that funky online stuff the kids are on about these days? None of that's legally binding unless it's on paper. You can't keep legal records in a database and transfer it between law firms like you can the warranty on your car. No, everything needs to be printed off and filed in hardcopy somewhere. I can totally understand the need for security, given the highly volatile nature of electronic data, how it can change in a nanosecond with the slightest cyber-breeze, but we can work around it. New laws can be drafted. Old laws can be updated. We can make it better, faster, stronger. We have the technology.
Well, at least I hope so. And if not, I think we can get to that point shortly, but only if we stop suing each other long enough to do so. And by we, I was hoping to say just Americans, but I heard today that Canadians are starting to get as litigation-happy as the Yanks. Anyways, look at that, I said I wasn't going to talk but I did. Lastly, The Specials is a superhero movie not quite unlike Mystery Men that I really want to see. That's it. Not much more. Ok, move on.
Hey baby...
From defective yeti:
Wanna go to Mars? Here's the next best thing. Full panoramic view from the Mars lander.
What do you get when you mix Cthulhu with a prostitute? Her! Very creepy, but still kind of cool statue. Wouldn't want her in my living room though. Conversation starters are one thing, but this is a bit too far.
Also, pray that you don't become a zombie when you die. It happens, I hear.
Now go away. ¶ 3:51 p.m. 0 comments
Er, Bell-Sympatico that is. They're my ISP that keeps going down lately, most recently being last night, hence the lack of update. I sent off an email about it at work today, but when I got home I think I found the problem. Turned out to be (well, possibly be, since I'm not sure yet) a dodgy phone jack. So now whenever my connection fails I need to try jiggling the plug or something. It seems so tritefully analog. On the plus side though, I may have mail going again, since I did receive both my phone bill and new credit card this afternoon. Now I can spend to my heart's content, while earning grocery points the whole time! Hurray for food!
Stuff I was going to write about but couldn't
So my ideas that I jotted down and was planning on writing about were as follows:
- i feel stupid
- american idol is crap
- legal dark age
- the specials
The stupid remark is actually a direct result of the source of the second remark, being American Idol. I was watching Corner Gas, and Idol comes on after that, so I figured why not watch an episode. Up until then, I had not actually seen a full show, and figured I'd at least see what it was about before casting my scalding judgement upon it. Now I wish I hadn't. 10 minutes in and the smart part of my brain had hijacked the whole works and made me turn it off. See, when a show starts looping around from good to bad to so bad that it's good, to so bad that it's wildly successful, it tends to make fun of itself. The Simpsons did the same thing. See, in the beginning, the very beginning, on the Tracey Ullman show, they sucked. The animation was poor, and the humor was crap. Then it got syndicated and it got worse, to the point where they were good again. Really good in fact, and they stayed that way for a while, wavering slightly in quality but staying quite funny, until about the 13th season or so where they peaked in quality. Then the show kept getting worse to the point where they made fun of themselves, and now the show isn't very good at all. It has thrice-looped to bad again. Idol on the other hand, started right at the "so crappy it's incredibly popular" point, and has only gotten worse. I tried watching The Simple Life a while ago and had a similar experience.
See, the bit I saw had Paris and Nicole putting milk in bottles. They lost a bunch of milk from their own incompetence, and tried to fill the difference in the bottles with hose water. Then I blacked out for a while because my brain revolted and spared me the horror of the rest of the show. When I came to, the TV was off, but the damage had been done. I think I lost about 15 IQ points that evening. With Idol last night, it wasn't as bad, but still intense. When the host tried to do a voiceover to the recap of the previous episode, making fun of Simon the whole time, I struggled to raise the necessary intelligence to change channels. I rolled through a bit later against my better judgement and caught a sound bite of the host saying "the 10 minute results show we stretched into an hour special" and nearly lost my sanity. To admit that the show is crap on national TV, yet still pull in the ratings to warrant several sequels is too much. Safe to say, I don't think I'll tune in again. Ever. Well, perhaps when they don't take themselves seriously, like at the beginning, since I think that's the biggest issue with the show. Everyone talks about having their dreams made or broken and launching a wildly successful career in music doing what they love, but the whole thing is essentially a glorified kareoke contest, and I can usually go hear just as talented people down at the pub on Thursdays. You know what happened to the previous idols, with all their fame and fortune and wildly successful music careers? Yeah, me neither.
To finish up with the remarks I kind of ranted over, the "legal dark age" was going to be the start of a bit on how the legal system really needs to get with the times. I didn't bother thinking it through and don't think I will, but it basically amounted to how the legal system needs to get their proverbial heads out of their asses and wake up. The world is changing, and the law needs to progress to reflect that. You know emails and chatting and websites and all that funky online stuff the kids are on about these days? None of that's legally binding unless it's on paper. You can't keep legal records in a database and transfer it between law firms like you can the warranty on your car. No, everything needs to be printed off and filed in hardcopy somewhere. I can totally understand the need for security, given the highly volatile nature of electronic data, how it can change in a nanosecond with the slightest cyber-breeze, but we can work around it. New laws can be drafted. Old laws can be updated. We can make it better, faster, stronger. We have the technology.
Well, at least I hope so. And if not, I think we can get to that point shortly, but only if we stop suing each other long enough to do so. And by we, I was hoping to say just Americans, but I heard today that Canadians are starting to get as litigation-happy as the Yanks. Anyways, look at that, I said I wasn't going to talk but I did. Lastly, The Specials is a superhero movie not quite unlike Mystery Men that I really want to see. That's it. Not much more. Ok, move on.
Hey baby...
From defective yeti:
Best Dog-Park Pickup Line Ever
"They say that people look a lot like their pets. And you've got one fiiiine lookin' beagle."
Wanna go to Mars? Here's the next best thing. Full panoramic view from the Mars lander.
What do you get when you mix Cthulhu with a prostitute? Her! Very creepy, but still kind of cool statue. Wouldn't want her in my living room though. Conversation starters are one thing, but this is a bit too far.
Also, pray that you don't become a zombie when you die. It happens, I hear.
Now go away. ¶ 3:51 p.m. 0 comments
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
I hate my mailman.
Really, I do. According to Amazon.ca, my order of a couple of books was delivered on March 12th, that being last Friday. Then it was delivered again yesterday. Now I think "That's funny", because for having been on the supposed receiving end of two orders, I have no more books in my possession than I did last week. So I chalk it up to yet another package I haven't gotten, and go talk to Amazon. ARGH!!!!!
I'm rather pissed off enough to spit about this whole mail situation right now, to the point where I actually lodged a complaint with Canada Post. This is exceptional for a couple of reasons. One, due to my rather large sense of cynicism, I am of the opinion that lodging complaints with large companies, especially government, doesn't work. You will jangle bells at the support end, maybe get the management all uppity about giving better service, but once that demand for quality trickles back down to the people actually responsible for your happiness with a service or product, they don't care anymore and just go about their day. Maybe once in a while things get bad enough and generate enough noise to warrant a fix, but I am doubtful that this is the case in my situation. More than likely, this will continue for a while. (It is of note, however, that lodging complaints with small companies does work, because you're usually dealing with the person responsible. Only by getting in peoples' faces can one get results, so if I start stalking my postal worker, you'll know why.) Second, even if I were of the school of thought that complaining into massive bureaucracies got anything accomplished, I don't tend to complain formally. Sure, I'll bitch a bunch to friends because that's fun, but actually complaining formally is usually too much work for my lazy ass.
The thing about this part is that I'm now rather desperate. I want my movies. I want my books. I want to be able to shop from home. I want to get my job offers in the mail. In short, I want my postal service to (gasp!) serve my my postage mail. Novel concept, isn't it? From the way my conversation on the phone with CP went, it sounds like they've noted the fact that my yapping is not agreeable, and I am listed as an upstart to the Master Mail Computer. Like I said, I have no hopes that this will do anything, but if by the end of the week I don't have all this sorted out, I will be making another complaint. Followed by another, and so on until I start getting things in my letterbox again. Otherwise, I'll just have to boycott my mail entirely, ala Kramer on Seinfeld, and see what they say about that!
Soup!
Makin' soup tonight. This is different from my stew of yesterday, because it takes roughly an eon to make. In fact, it's still cooking over on the stove as I type. Fortunately, I'm going to be tossing all this together with some bread and stuff and end up with a soup sandwich in a bowl, or so the plan goes. It remains to be seen if things will fall into place.
In other news, I'm thinking about subscribing to Modern Tales. It's an online, subscription-based webcomic repository, and since I've started dabbling in actually paying for things I get on the 'net, it's looking rather appealing. I signed up for a Bitpass account recently, since it was only like 5 dollars, and have been reading some pretty decent stuff. I'm all caught up on my Apocamon, which is super-cool, and have read Wary Tales and The Right Numbers as well, both being quite great. Now I have my sights on Kicking Hitler to Death and a few others over at MT, and I think I just might go read them. I mean, I can pay for just a month, read what I want and stop, right? It's only like 3 dollars anyways! Go micropayments!
[Insert roughly hour long break where I go finish and eat my soup. It kicks ass.]
Go soup sandwich! Turned out just as I'd hoped. Anyways, micropayments was my last ramble-bit, so I go on about it. Basically you sign up with Bitpass, and then you can sell your stuff for a quarter. Or a nickel. Or even a penny. Seriously, I think you can even go to sub-cent denominations. It's like the days of "lemonade stand - $.05" when you were a kid. Try flipping some letters backwards to get the whole effect. Regardless, the difference is that on the internet, you can make it up in volume. I mean, if Penny Arcade were able to successfully charge their 30,000 visitors 10 cents each for the privilege of reading Penny Arcade for a whole month, they'd have an extra three grand a month coming in. That's not too shabby. Downside is that that isn't very realistic. Sure, lots would pay, but lots also wouldn't, since it's not as seamless as it could be. If you could just flick a dime at your monitor, it'd probably be a done deal, but as it stands you need to sign up for Bitpass, which basically requires Paypal, which requires a credit card. Got all those? You can be off micropaying for things in about a minute. No? Tough. In an ideal world though, where everybody can just "click!" and whoosh, someone just got a nickel, I think micropayments would be a veritable force to be reckoned with. Apple is doing this to some extent with iTunes ($.99 per song is really rather chump change) but partly because of all the bloody copyright bullshit they need to go through, the service barely breaks even. Still, it's a promising glimpse into the future of internet commerce. Go read some of Scott McCloud's stuff for more info. I recommend "I Can't Stop Thinking!" or the later bits of Reinventing Comics.
Caliente!
Wisconsin has the dumbest quarter ever. It is adorned with the ever-incredible cow, cheese and corn that makes up all that is cool about Wisconsin. And it's not even a man-eating cow, or laser corn or nothing either.
Holy sexual innuendo Batman!!! It's the plucking Rainbow Orgy! I can't believe that this was broadcast to kids, and nowadays even hinting that you might see a nipple is a whippable offense. Censorship, I tellya! It's censorship!
If you watch TV (which I don't, really) you might have seen the Spongmonkeys on the Quizno's ad. They live here. Go watch the kittens, or maybe listen to the moon song until your ears bleed. The viking kitties rock hard tasty abs though.
So that's that. More bitching about my mail and some soup-related nonsense. Be forewarned though, it is entirely probable that I will bitch more about mail in the future. Otherwise, I could detonate. It happens to me sometimes. Like Ger, but different. ¶ 4:58 p.m. 0 comments
Really, I do. According to Amazon.ca, my order of a couple of books was delivered on March 12th, that being last Friday. Then it was delivered again yesterday. Now I think "That's funny", because for having been on the supposed receiving end of two orders, I have no more books in my possession than I did last week. So I chalk it up to yet another package I haven't gotten, and go talk to Amazon. ARGH!!!!!
I'm rather pissed off enough to spit about this whole mail situation right now, to the point where I actually lodged a complaint with Canada Post. This is exceptional for a couple of reasons. One, due to my rather large sense of cynicism, I am of the opinion that lodging complaints with large companies, especially government, doesn't work. You will jangle bells at the support end, maybe get the management all uppity about giving better service, but once that demand for quality trickles back down to the people actually responsible for your happiness with a service or product, they don't care anymore and just go about their day. Maybe once in a while things get bad enough and generate enough noise to warrant a fix, but I am doubtful that this is the case in my situation. More than likely, this will continue for a while. (It is of note, however, that lodging complaints with small companies does work, because you're usually dealing with the person responsible. Only by getting in peoples' faces can one get results, so if I start stalking my postal worker, you'll know why.) Second, even if I were of the school of thought that complaining into massive bureaucracies got anything accomplished, I don't tend to complain formally. Sure, I'll bitch a bunch to friends because that's fun, but actually complaining formally is usually too much work for my lazy ass.
The thing about this part is that I'm now rather desperate. I want my movies. I want my books. I want to be able to shop from home. I want to get my job offers in the mail. In short, I want my postal service to (gasp!) serve my my postage mail. Novel concept, isn't it? From the way my conversation on the phone with CP went, it sounds like they've noted the fact that my yapping is not agreeable, and I am listed as an upstart to the Master Mail Computer. Like I said, I have no hopes that this will do anything, but if by the end of the week I don't have all this sorted out, I will be making another complaint. Followed by another, and so on until I start getting things in my letterbox again. Otherwise, I'll just have to boycott my mail entirely, ala Kramer on Seinfeld, and see what they say about that!
Soup!
Makin' soup tonight. This is different from my stew of yesterday, because it takes roughly an eon to make. In fact, it's still cooking over on the stove as I type. Fortunately, I'm going to be tossing all this together with some bread and stuff and end up with a soup sandwich in a bowl, or so the plan goes. It remains to be seen if things will fall into place.
In other news, I'm thinking about subscribing to Modern Tales. It's an online, subscription-based webcomic repository, and since I've started dabbling in actually paying for things I get on the 'net, it's looking rather appealing. I signed up for a Bitpass account recently, since it was only like 5 dollars, and have been reading some pretty decent stuff. I'm all caught up on my Apocamon, which is super-cool, and have read Wary Tales and The Right Numbers as well, both being quite great. Now I have my sights on Kicking Hitler to Death and a few others over at MT, and I think I just might go read them. I mean, I can pay for just a month, read what I want and stop, right? It's only like 3 dollars anyways! Go micropayments!
[Insert roughly hour long break where I go finish and eat my soup. It kicks ass.]
Go soup sandwich! Turned out just as I'd hoped. Anyways, micropayments was my last ramble-bit, so I go on about it. Basically you sign up with Bitpass, and then you can sell your stuff for a quarter. Or a nickel. Or even a penny. Seriously, I think you can even go to sub-cent denominations. It's like the days of "lemonade stand - $.05" when you were a kid. Try flipping some letters backwards to get the whole effect. Regardless, the difference is that on the internet, you can make it up in volume. I mean, if Penny Arcade were able to successfully charge their 30,000 visitors 10 cents each for the privilege of reading Penny Arcade for a whole month, they'd have an extra three grand a month coming in. That's not too shabby. Downside is that that isn't very realistic. Sure, lots would pay, but lots also wouldn't, since it's not as seamless as it could be. If you could just flick a dime at your monitor, it'd probably be a done deal, but as it stands you need to sign up for Bitpass, which basically requires Paypal, which requires a credit card. Got all those? You can be off micropaying for things in about a minute. No? Tough. In an ideal world though, where everybody can just "click!" and whoosh, someone just got a nickel, I think micropayments would be a veritable force to be reckoned with. Apple is doing this to some extent with iTunes ($.99 per song is really rather chump change) but partly because of all the bloody copyright bullshit they need to go through, the service barely breaks even. Still, it's a promising glimpse into the future of internet commerce. Go read some of Scott McCloud's stuff for more info. I recommend "I Can't Stop Thinking!" or the later bits of Reinventing Comics.
Caliente!
Wisconsin has the dumbest quarter ever. It is adorned with the ever-incredible cow, cheese and corn that makes up all that is cool about Wisconsin. And it's not even a man-eating cow, or laser corn or nothing either.
Holy sexual innuendo Batman!!! It's the plucking Rainbow Orgy! I can't believe that this was broadcast to kids, and nowadays even hinting that you might see a nipple is a whippable offense. Censorship, I tellya! It's censorship!
If you watch TV (which I don't, really) you might have seen the Spongmonkeys on the Quizno's ad. They live here. Go watch the kittens, or maybe listen to the moon song until your ears bleed. The viking kitties rock hard tasty abs though.
So that's that. More bitching about my mail and some soup-related nonsense. Be forewarned though, it is entirely probable that I will bitch more about mail in the future. Otherwise, I could detonate. It happens to me sometimes. Like Ger, but different. ¶ 4:58 p.m. 0 comments
Monday, March 15, 2004
As we join our heroes...
Setting off down the path of internet randomosity is a little like planning a road trip. You start with your first destination, and the rest of the trip is decided as you go, from the top of your head. The difficult bit is deciding where to go first. Do I talk about the stew I made? Do I bring up the latest member of our solar system? Or do I try and address something else completely different?
I just don't know.
I guess one is as good as the other, from the perspective that any one might get me where I need to go. It doesn't matter much, since I don't know where I should be right now. It occurs to me that this whole posting so far is starting to reek of Adaptation. You know, the whole writing about not being able to write? Real Life almost did that once, and one of the Gregs tried to smack the other Greg. I can't remember if it was the cartoonist smacking the fictional Greg, or the other way around, so unless you go read the archives, it will remain a mystery. What will also remain a mystery is the status of my mail.
I hate Canada Post
They are stealing my mail. I'm sure of it, like I'm sure that a tin-foil hat will stop mind rays. It just works that way. See, when I accepted my new job offer, RIM said they would send me an offer package. Last Monday I was told it had shipped. This Monday rolls around and apparantly another one is being sent. Something about a slight change of details regarding relocation or something. Not that I'd know about what the change was from, since I haven't gotten the first package yet. It's been a week! It's not like letters don't fit in my mailbox, since... y'know... they do. I've seen it done. Also MIA are my movies, and those are the ones I deem more important, since I can't keep asking Zip to send me more. I'm supposed to be in possession of Boogie Nights, Ghost Dog and Last Man Standing right now. Boogie Nights alone has been missing for almost a full week now, and I've already told Zip to send me the next one and consider it lost. I really don't want to do that again for the other two movies. Hence, I will be calling Canada Post in the near future. I'm thinking once tonight to find out what their hours are, since their "support" line probably isn't available 24-7. Then I'll call tomorrow at work when I'm at my snarliest, probably sometime in the morning. I might even bring in one of the letters I got for the previous tenant that seem to arrive with more frequency than my own mail. Perhaps the postal service is simply bitter about e-mail and the Internet, robbing them of their correspondence. I mean, yes a letter can send love, but e-mail can send a fascimile of love back and forth about eleventy-thouzillion times before the real deal arrives. Also, I am aware that that is not a number. I made it up just now, so please don't email me about it. Or do, since I can't stop you anyways, and it would be fun to reply to, especially if I don't know who you are.
So yeah. Running, jumping, climbing trees, putting on makeup while you're up there
If you don't get the reference there, it's from Eddie Izzard, one of the more hysterical stand-up comedians out there. He's got a rather crazy thing going on about him, similar to some of Denis Leary's more lunatic stuff. Another great comic similar to Leary is Bill Hicks, only Bill is similar in the "very very very very very very angry explody humor" that Denis does so well. We get to laugh at their frustrations as they vent to the point of almost exploding. I'm still trying to find a recording of Bill Hicks so's I can hear more than just the snippets on Kontraband. But look at me! I'm all off topic! (There was one to begin with, somewhere. Trust me.)
I hate RealPlayer. It sucks ballsack. This guy agrees with me. In it's stead, and in fact in the stead of a great many video players, I use this happy little codec pack here. It, in direct contrast to RealPlayer, does not suck ballsack, and in fact manages to kick RealPlayer very hard in the nuts. It also plays just about bloody everything, from DivX to Ogg.
For those of you who aren't paranoid about flying already, for fear of hijackers, don't look at this! See, the FBI have compiled a document that shows you all the kinds of nasty concealed and James Bond type weapons one can sneak onto a plane. Myself, I can't see anyone trying this at all. I mean, razor playing cards? Crucifix knives? Gimme a break.
For the life of me, I haven't a clue what this was supposed to be about. This isn't the first time I have lost the humor or reasoning behind a link, and I know it won't be the last. The only thing my brain can dredge up about this was something about "spinach warriors". Was that the gag? I haven't a clue, but I give the link anyways. Go look at some newspics.
So yeah, Rick Mercer's Monday Report is on, so I'ma watch that. ¶ 5:39 p.m. 0 comments
Setting off down the path of internet randomosity is a little like planning a road trip. You start with your first destination, and the rest of the trip is decided as you go, from the top of your head. The difficult bit is deciding where to go first. Do I talk about the stew I made? Do I bring up the latest member of our solar system? Or do I try and address something else completely different?
I just don't know.
I guess one is as good as the other, from the perspective that any one might get me where I need to go. It doesn't matter much, since I don't know where I should be right now. It occurs to me that this whole posting so far is starting to reek of Adaptation. You know, the whole writing about not being able to write? Real Life almost did that once, and one of the Gregs tried to smack the other Greg. I can't remember if it was the cartoonist smacking the fictional Greg, or the other way around, so unless you go read the archives, it will remain a mystery. What will also remain a mystery is the status of my mail.
I hate Canada Post
They are stealing my mail. I'm sure of it, like I'm sure that a tin-foil hat will stop mind rays. It just works that way. See, when I accepted my new job offer, RIM said they would send me an offer package. Last Monday I was told it had shipped. This Monday rolls around and apparantly another one is being sent. Something about a slight change of details regarding relocation or something. Not that I'd know about what the change was from, since I haven't gotten the first package yet. It's been a week! It's not like letters don't fit in my mailbox, since... y'know... they do. I've seen it done. Also MIA are my movies, and those are the ones I deem more important, since I can't keep asking Zip to send me more. I'm supposed to be in possession of Boogie Nights, Ghost Dog and Last Man Standing right now. Boogie Nights alone has been missing for almost a full week now, and I've already told Zip to send me the next one and consider it lost. I really don't want to do that again for the other two movies. Hence, I will be calling Canada Post in the near future. I'm thinking once tonight to find out what their hours are, since their "support" line probably isn't available 24-7. Then I'll call tomorrow at work when I'm at my snarliest, probably sometime in the morning. I might even bring in one of the letters I got for the previous tenant that seem to arrive with more frequency than my own mail. Perhaps the postal service is simply bitter about e-mail and the Internet, robbing them of their correspondence. I mean, yes a letter can send love, but e-mail can send a fascimile of love back and forth about eleventy-thouzillion times before the real deal arrives. Also, I am aware that that is not a number. I made it up just now, so please don't email me about it. Or do, since I can't stop you anyways, and it would be fun to reply to, especially if I don't know who you are.
So yeah. Running, jumping, climbing trees, putting on makeup while you're up there
If you don't get the reference there, it's from Eddie Izzard, one of the more hysterical stand-up comedians out there. He's got a rather crazy thing going on about him, similar to some of Denis Leary's more lunatic stuff. Another great comic similar to Leary is Bill Hicks, only Bill is similar in the "very very very very very very angry explody humor" that Denis does so well. We get to laugh at their frustrations as they vent to the point of almost exploding. I'm still trying to find a recording of Bill Hicks so's I can hear more than just the snippets on Kontraband. But look at me! I'm all off topic! (There was one to begin with, somewhere. Trust me.)
I hate RealPlayer. It sucks ballsack. This guy agrees with me. In it's stead, and in fact in the stead of a great many video players, I use this happy little codec pack here. It, in direct contrast to RealPlayer, does not suck ballsack, and in fact manages to kick RealPlayer very hard in the nuts. It also plays just about bloody everything, from DivX to Ogg.
For those of you who aren't paranoid about flying already, for fear of hijackers, don't look at this! See, the FBI have compiled a document that shows you all the kinds of nasty concealed and James Bond type weapons one can sneak onto a plane. Myself, I can't see anyone trying this at all. I mean, razor playing cards? Crucifix knives? Gimme a break.
For the life of me, I haven't a clue what this was supposed to be about. This isn't the first time I have lost the humor or reasoning behind a link, and I know it won't be the last. The only thing my brain can dredge up about this was something about "spinach warriors". Was that the gag? I haven't a clue, but I give the link anyways. Go look at some newspics.
So yeah, Rick Mercer's Monday Report is on, so I'ma watch that. ¶ 5:39 p.m. 0 comments
Sunday, March 14, 2004
It wasn't my fault!
My internet was broken yesterday. As much as it annoyed me, there wasn't much I could do, hence my not posting. Hopefully it will remain much less broken and I will be able to make noise over the web more regularly.
I found this on a blog somewhere, and it never seemed to be on topic enough to put in any of my other posts, so I'll toss it here for no reason:
Now that I read it again, it's not that funny, but maybe if you're 'merican it will be more humorous.
I like tea
My inital fascination with tea has now grown into more of an addiction. Between the orange pekoe stuff I have at work, to the apple cinnamon and vanilla teas I have at home, I figured I would be good for a while. But I started to run out of the stuff I have at home, so I went and got some more apple cinnamon, and on a whim, a variety pack with such classics as English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast (which isn't just English Breakfast with a beer) and Lady Grey (didn't even know the Earl was married). Now I find I'm drinking tea whenever I feel like something hot, and although I haven't dropped coffee entirely, I just might be drinking more tea than coffee now.
I have found though, that while it would be nice to have a book to read with my tea, I have none. I finished Neuromancer, and didn't find anything eyecatching last time I checked the bookstore. I got a copy of Kingdom Come though, but that is a comic, and while still ubsurdly awesome, it doesn't have the same sense of credibility or meatiness that comes with a novel. If the next installment of A Song of Fire and Ice were out, I'd read that, since it is in my opinion the greatest fantasy series ever. Yes, I include in this blanket the Lord of the Rings, Sword of Truth, the impression I have of Wheel of Time (since I've never read it) and a Man of his Word. Those are all excellent series, and all worthy of reading to the fullest, but they don't seem to have the same sense of epic-ness that SoFaI has. I mean, the Lord of the Rings is one of the best books ever, but for the most part, only the last one is really a good read, since I think Fellowship is rather boring (nothing really happens at all in the first half) and Two Towers is odd (the book completely shifts gears halfway through and goes off in another direction). Sword of Truth is also super great, but it really focusses mainly on a central cast of about 5 or 6 characters, and each book is rather self-contained, kind of like a soap opera. A Song of Fire and Ice on the other hand, has about (roughly) about a dozen families of characters (making the grand total about a bazillion), all of whom are important and interrelated in various ways, which makes for a very epic feel. Also, George R. R. Martin is totally and utterly ruthless when it comes to characters and their respective ends, since a LOT of mains die. This almost makes the story more compelling though, since you keep reading just to find out who bites it next, and how. At any rate, that's how I see it. Feel free to disagree, but I probably won't listen to carefully. Next book comes out in August though, so I'll be left in suspense for a while. I might even have to re-read the books (or check the rather complete summaries on the net). Regardless, all the series I mentioned are highly recommended.
CARE BEAR STARE!!!
...or is it scare? Stare sounds more appropriate, so stare it will be. Regardless, I think I might have more respect for the Care Bears is they did this. That would rock bollocks.
Anyone like the Far Side? Anyone like it so much they would make it real if they could? Well, Photoshop can, and people have. Neat looking at if only to see what one can do with photo-manipulation if one puts one's mind to it.
More insanity. This one is almost more of a narrative though. Still doesn't make sense.
Anyways, I'm going to stop now. I'm out of tea, and feel like playing more Maximo, or perhaps reading some more Invisibles (I'm contemplating buying the trades for the series, but I think I'll wait until I buy all of Sandman first, since Gaiman is better than Morrison, but not as good as Moore). Oh, and more tea. ¶ 5:05 p.m. 0 comments
My internet was broken yesterday. As much as it annoyed me, there wasn't much I could do, hence my not posting. Hopefully it will remain much less broken and I will be able to make noise over the web more regularly.
I found this on a blog somewhere, and it never seemed to be on topic enough to put in any of my other posts, so I'll toss it here for no reason:
Moderator: If you are elected president in 2004, what will your administration's policy be in regards to changing the lightbulb?
Kerry: "Like most Vietnam veterans who fought in the Vietnam war, I know a little something about changing lightbulbs, on account of my experience in Vietnam."
Edwards: "No need to change the bulb -- I'll just light up the room with my sunny optimism!"
Bush: "Someone needs to change a lightbulb? Woohoo -- we created a job!"
Nader: "These is no fundamental difference between a lit room and the darkness."
Now that I read it again, it's not that funny, but maybe if you're 'merican it will be more humorous.
I like tea
My inital fascination with tea has now grown into more of an addiction. Between the orange pekoe stuff I have at work, to the apple cinnamon and vanilla teas I have at home, I figured I would be good for a while. But I started to run out of the stuff I have at home, so I went and got some more apple cinnamon, and on a whim, a variety pack with such classics as English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast (which isn't just English Breakfast with a beer) and Lady Grey (didn't even know the Earl was married). Now I find I'm drinking tea whenever I feel like something hot, and although I haven't dropped coffee entirely, I just might be drinking more tea than coffee now.
I have found though, that while it would be nice to have a book to read with my tea, I have none. I finished Neuromancer, and didn't find anything eyecatching last time I checked the bookstore. I got a copy of Kingdom Come though, but that is a comic, and while still ubsurdly awesome, it doesn't have the same sense of credibility or meatiness that comes with a novel. If the next installment of A Song of Fire and Ice were out, I'd read that, since it is in my opinion the greatest fantasy series ever. Yes, I include in this blanket the Lord of the Rings, Sword of Truth, the impression I have of Wheel of Time (since I've never read it) and a Man of his Word. Those are all excellent series, and all worthy of reading to the fullest, but they don't seem to have the same sense of epic-ness that SoFaI has. I mean, the Lord of the Rings is one of the best books ever, but for the most part, only the last one is really a good read, since I think Fellowship is rather boring (nothing really happens at all in the first half) and Two Towers is odd (the book completely shifts gears halfway through and goes off in another direction). Sword of Truth is also super great, but it really focusses mainly on a central cast of about 5 or 6 characters, and each book is rather self-contained, kind of like a soap opera. A Song of Fire and Ice on the other hand, has about (roughly) about a dozen families of characters (making the grand total about a bazillion), all of whom are important and interrelated in various ways, which makes for a very epic feel. Also, George R. R. Martin is totally and utterly ruthless when it comes to characters and their respective ends, since a LOT of mains die. This almost makes the story more compelling though, since you keep reading just to find out who bites it next, and how. At any rate, that's how I see it. Feel free to disagree, but I probably won't listen to carefully. Next book comes out in August though, so I'll be left in suspense for a while. I might even have to re-read the books (or check the rather complete summaries on the net). Regardless, all the series I mentioned are highly recommended.
CARE BEAR STARE!!!
...or is it scare? Stare sounds more appropriate, so stare it will be. Regardless, I think I might have more respect for the Care Bears is they did this. That would rock bollocks.
Anyone like the Far Side? Anyone like it so much they would make it real if they could? Well, Photoshop can, and people have. Neat looking at if only to see what one can do with photo-manipulation if one puts one's mind to it.
More insanity. This one is almost more of a narrative though. Still doesn't make sense.
Anyways, I'm going to stop now. I'm out of tea, and feel like playing more Maximo, or perhaps reading some more Invisibles (I'm contemplating buying the trades for the series, but I think I'll wait until I buy all of Sandman first, since Gaiman is better than Morrison, but not as good as Moore). Oh, and more tea. ¶ 5:05 p.m. 0 comments
Friday, March 12, 2004
Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay. (not by me. from Kontraband.com. -Crowe)
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience,like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
Joseph Romm, Washington
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
Russell Beland, Springfield
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
Roy Ashley, Washington
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Chuck Smith, Woodbridge
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
Russell Beland, Springfield
Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake
Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
Unknown
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
Jack Bross, Chevy Chase
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring
Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."
Russell Beland, Springfield
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other leaving from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
Jennifer Hart, Arlington
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth
Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
Russell Beland, Springfield
The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of
metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free
Chuck Smith, Woodbridge
The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
Unknown
¶ 8:18 p.m. 0 comments
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience,like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
Joseph Romm, Washington
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
Russell Beland, Springfield
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
Roy Ashley, Washington
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Chuck Smith, Woodbridge
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
Russell Beland, Springfield
Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake
Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
Unknown
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
Jack Bross, Chevy Chase
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring
Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."
Russell Beland, Springfield
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other leaving from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
Jennifer Hart, Arlington
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth
Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
Russell Beland, Springfield
The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of
metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free
Chuck Smith, Woodbridge
The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
Unknown
¶ 8:18 p.m. 0 comments
It's official.
So I didn't post yesterday. I'm sure some of you had a good long cry about it, but then managed to move on with your lives. I don't want to make the not posting a recurring theme since I like having the challenge of a deadline to meet everyday (albeit a self-imposed one), but I'm a bit pressed for time on Thursdays from fencing and what not. At least I fixed the picture (apparantly it was broken) so you can scroll down if you wish.
In the news...
I read the news a lot. It gives my eyes entertainment during my lunch breaks, as well as pretty much anytime I don't feel like doing stuff at work. A couple of the more eye-catching tidbits I've read about recently:
- Rejected reality TV show ideas include a Bachelor-style show where the Bachelorette must pick a man, but some of the guys are gay and if she picks a gay guy he wins money; a relay race where contestants literally have a monkey on their back (and the monkey has to pass the baton to the next monkey!); a show called Iron Lung where contenders must quit smoking; a show where virgins must compete with each other to get laid.
- There's a robot race run by the Pentagon!!! These teams have to make robots that can navigate their way through the Mojave desert, but experts seem to think nobody will make it.
More stuff that goes BOING!
You know the Ewok song? Well apparantly the lyrics mean something. Yeah, that's right. Somebody actually translated this into English. I still can't get my head around it. I mean, I'm all for geekery (the fact that I blog is almost testament to that) but I still have my limits.
I am a fan of commentaries on DVDs. I admit this. I think it's insightful to find out some of the inside stories behind the movies I watch, and often you can learn a lot of stuff about movies in general from the commentary tracks. Now some of these tracks are not so good, and I appreciate IGN going to the trouble of making a list of these sub-par tracks for us. Unfortunately, it takes a bit of reading to separate the actual "bad commentary" warnings from the "bad commentaries that are actually really funny" tracks such as the ones on Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and Cannibal! The Musical. It takes even more sifting to sort out the silly complaints people have like saying the Chasing Amy track is bad because Ben Affleck makes fun of Kevin Smith. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are now born tragically without a sense of humor.
The more adventurous on the web might have heard of Real Dolls. They're life-sized sex dolls that you can order, well, to have sex with. Some guy has taken it upon himself to recount his experience with one. An interesting read, if only for curiosity's sake.
Again, in the news
I forgot about this the first go around. One of the biggest issues right now is spam. Email spam, text message spam, the works. Living in Ottawa, there are a lot of software companies, so naturally there is a large section devoted to "high tech" news in the Citizen, and consequently there was almost nothing but articles about spam and how to stop it. To all the spam-harassed people out there: ha, ha, and ha again. This is because I don't get any.
See, maybe I just don't do stupid things with my email address. I treat it like a phone number (I don't get many telemarketers either, for that matter). Either that, or maybe I am getting all this spam but I just don't see it because of filters on my mail server. Regardless, while I'm sure that some of you need to get your email through Yahoo! or Hotmail, where they sell out the addresses to advertisers or the addresses are easily farmed, so it isn't technically your fault, a lot of spam can be self-inflicted (by giving your address out to mailing lists or groups, or by trying to unsubscribe). And because of this... well... hm. I don't know where I'm going with this. It's like my argument was a train that just kind of went off a cliff. I guess my point is that I think the whole spam thing is over-hyped and can be solved with a fair bit of common sense.
Anyways, as evidenced by my running out of steam earlier, I'll go now. I do get to go home at the end of April for a week though, so I'm happy about that. Mmmyep. ¶ 6:53 p.m. 0 comments
So I didn't post yesterday. I'm sure some of you had a good long cry about it, but then managed to move on with your lives. I don't want to make the not posting a recurring theme since I like having the challenge of a deadline to meet everyday (albeit a self-imposed one), but I'm a bit pressed for time on Thursdays from fencing and what not. At least I fixed the picture (apparantly it was broken) so you can scroll down if you wish.
In the news...
I read the news a lot. It gives my eyes entertainment during my lunch breaks, as well as pretty much anytime I don't feel like doing stuff at work. A couple of the more eye-catching tidbits I've read about recently:
- Rejected reality TV show ideas include a Bachelor-style show where the Bachelorette must pick a man, but some of the guys are gay and if she picks a gay guy he wins money; a relay race where contestants literally have a monkey on their back (and the monkey has to pass the baton to the next monkey!); a show called Iron Lung where contenders must quit smoking; a show where virgins must compete with each other to get laid.
- There's a robot race run by the Pentagon!!! These teams have to make robots that can navigate their way through the Mojave desert, but experts seem to think nobody will make it.
More stuff that goes BOING!
You know the Ewok song? Well apparantly the lyrics mean something. Yeah, that's right. Somebody actually translated this into English. I still can't get my head around it. I mean, I'm all for geekery (the fact that I blog is almost testament to that) but I still have my limits.
I am a fan of commentaries on DVDs. I admit this. I think it's insightful to find out some of the inside stories behind the movies I watch, and often you can learn a lot of stuff about movies in general from the commentary tracks. Now some of these tracks are not so good, and I appreciate IGN going to the trouble of making a list of these sub-par tracks for us. Unfortunately, it takes a bit of reading to separate the actual "bad commentary" warnings from the "bad commentaries that are actually really funny" tracks such as the ones on Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and Cannibal! The Musical. It takes even more sifting to sort out the silly complaints people have like saying the Chasing Amy track is bad because Ben Affleck makes fun of Kevin Smith. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are now born tragically without a sense of humor.
The more adventurous on the web might have heard of Real Dolls. They're life-sized sex dolls that you can order, well, to have sex with. Some guy has taken it upon himself to recount his experience with one. An interesting read, if only for curiosity's sake.
Again, in the news
I forgot about this the first go around. One of the biggest issues right now is spam. Email spam, text message spam, the works. Living in Ottawa, there are a lot of software companies, so naturally there is a large section devoted to "high tech" news in the Citizen, and consequently there was almost nothing but articles about spam and how to stop it. To all the spam-harassed people out there: ha, ha, and ha again. This is because I don't get any.
See, maybe I just don't do stupid things with my email address. I treat it like a phone number (I don't get many telemarketers either, for that matter). Either that, or maybe I am getting all this spam but I just don't see it because of filters on my mail server. Regardless, while I'm sure that some of you need to get your email through Yahoo! or Hotmail, where they sell out the addresses to advertisers or the addresses are easily farmed, so it isn't technically your fault, a lot of spam can be self-inflicted (by giving your address out to mailing lists or groups, or by trying to unsubscribe). And because of this... well... hm. I don't know where I'm going with this. It's like my argument was a train that just kind of went off a cliff. I guess my point is that I think the whole spam thing is over-hyped and can be solved with a fair bit of common sense.
Anyways, as evidenced by my running out of steam earlier, I'll go now. I do get to go home at the end of April for a week though, so I'm happy about that. Mmmyep. ¶ 6:53 p.m. 0 comments
Thursday, March 11, 2004
We are ARRIVING!!!!!
No post tonight. Need to get to bed. Just go here for your daily random stuff. Also, I really like this picture.
¶ 9:24 p.m. 0 comments
No post tonight. Need to get to bed. Just go here for your daily random stuff. Also, I really like this picture.
¶ 9:24 p.m. 0 comments
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
ALL HAIL THE GREAT MARTIAN BUNNY!!!
That's this guy, in case you don't follow space-news. Isn't he cute! I'm sure all that cuteness comes from living in an oxygen-free, dead environment. I find it a bit ironic that bunnies are actually aliens though. Seems rather anti-climactic, but still has a kind of Douglas Adams tilt on it. I have a mental image of armies of rabbit mechanoid walkers suddenly exploding out of warrens all over the globe and enslaving the world, ala War of the Worlds. Only in my version the rabbits adopt me as the Earthan Diplomat to Mars and I get to go live on the moon while they nuke the Earth to bits and dance on the ashes. My doctor says I'm sane.
My day
My workday is defined as "the time where I do things that aren't related to my breaks." Seriously, I have come to the conclusion that my day at work is essentially the time between when I get there, the Great 9:30 Coffee Break, lunch, afternoon tea, and my leaving. During that time, I do... stuff. The Great 9:30 Coffee Break is noteworthy though, since at basically half-past nine on the dot, my whole department goes down to the cafeteria to have coffee and bagels/cinnamon buns/breakfast for about a half-hour. It's strange, but it also means I have at most 1.75 hours in the morning to try not to fall asleep. After the break, no guarantees, but I can usually stay awake until lunch at about 11:30 or so. Read the paper, and then coast until mid-afternoon when I usually stop working to make a cup of tea. It sounds kinda dumb, but it's what I do. The fact that I entered the job with at least 60 teabags in my cube and I decided to try to finish them, one day at a time is all the reasoning I need. I also started my job with about 14 packets of ramen noodles, of which I have had 2. They're all mushroom and veggie flavor see, and I really can't see the point of eating vegetable-flavoured grains. The whole point of making things out of wheat and such is to provide a companion with which to accompany meat into my gullet so that my stomach doesn't get bored. Also, there's some instant coffee, some cereal, some microwavable cookies that taste remarkably like soggy cardboard, bottled water and some Pepsi. I think my predecessor lived at the office. Might be why I have to dodge the net when I try to leave in the afternoon.
[insert Robotanian national anthem]
I figured out the mystery behind the Robotanian embassy I pass on the way to fencing. See, for the longest time, I've been passing this big evil-looking house (it's all Victorian and old-school architecture) with a mean-looking black fence and gate, and these Black Ops style SUVs out front. From the flag, which is a yellow machete, star and half-cog on red and black, I could only assume this to be the Republic of Robotania, as publicized in Scary Go Round. Since they're main export is dismay, I didn't bother investigating further for fear of getting attacked by robots.
Then I passed the place a day or two ago and saw the sign proclaiming it to be the Angolan embassy. Total letdown, since it basically excludes the possibility of robots, but they still have a bitchin' flag. As a side note, I've been meaning to post about this place for weeks now, but kept forgetting. And while I'm on the topic of memory (however briefly), despite what you might think, having a near-photographically perfect memory is not as good as you would think. I mean, sure, you remember everyone's name, and can ask them about how the thing they did last week with the person went, and you never have to study for exams since the information just flocks into your brain and stays there, but it's not all about that. I mean, I get to remember the majority of stupid things I've said to people, and I have to put up with the forgetful all the time, and usually, that's just about everyone. You know the slightly-senile great-uncle thrice removed you have that always forgets your name, and loses his glasses on the top of his head and you always have to talk down to him about it otherwise he gets angry and such? I do this every day, and it gets irritating. I mean, if I can meet you once, listen to you talk to someone for about five minutes and remember that you have a hedgehog named Tumbles or that you work for the SPCA and you know people who work for Blizzard, why can't you do the same? (Note, I those are things about real people I know. Even the Blizzard bit.) Yeah, yeah, not everyone can do that, and some people have to literally write reminders to themselves to remind people to remind them about things, but that's not in my sphere of comprehension. It'd be like explaining walking to a fish. Foreign concept. Argh. So that's my venting for today.
Tsetse! Tsetsetsetsetsetsetsetsetsetse!
Unless you're an entomologist, this is total gibberish. For added fun, try singing or rapping some of these paragraphs. I tells ya, total breakthrough single buried in there somewhere. Maybe translate to Spanish and then back to English?
Neil Young is pretty cool. I mean, for a 60 year old rocker guy who's greatest accomplishment (in my eyes at least) up to now was Keep On Rocking In The Free World, he has done quite a bunch of neat stuff. Apparantly he's reinvented his music a bunch of times, and even got sued by his own record company for not making music that was "Neil Young-y" enough. Kewl.
BAD BAD BAD. As if the whole copyright situation wasn't a total farce, now they want to patent information? Hello! People! There is a line here as to what you can claim as property and what you cannot! I don't know where it is, but I think you're getting close to crossing it! I'm starting to understand the perspective of the guy who thinks he is from the future when he says that our time was remembered for a lot of bad reasons, including the total selfishness of people in general.
So yeah. I'm going to go do dishes and probably play Maximo. It's stupid-hard, but oh so fun. Also, some guy at my University was stabbed a bunch the other day. On that note, I leave. ¶ 5:25 p.m. 0 comments
That's this guy, in case you don't follow space-news. Isn't he cute! I'm sure all that cuteness comes from living in an oxygen-free, dead environment. I find it a bit ironic that bunnies are actually aliens though. Seems rather anti-climactic, but still has a kind of Douglas Adams tilt on it. I have a mental image of armies of rabbit mechanoid walkers suddenly exploding out of warrens all over the globe and enslaving the world, ala War of the Worlds. Only in my version the rabbits adopt me as the Earthan Diplomat to Mars and I get to go live on the moon while they nuke the Earth to bits and dance on the ashes. My doctor says I'm sane.
My day
My workday is defined as "the time where I do things that aren't related to my breaks." Seriously, I have come to the conclusion that my day at work is essentially the time between when I get there, the Great 9:30 Coffee Break, lunch, afternoon tea, and my leaving. During that time, I do... stuff. The Great 9:30 Coffee Break is noteworthy though, since at basically half-past nine on the dot, my whole department goes down to the cafeteria to have coffee and bagels/cinnamon buns/breakfast for about a half-hour. It's strange, but it also means I have at most 1.75 hours in the morning to try not to fall asleep. After the break, no guarantees, but I can usually stay awake until lunch at about 11:30 or so. Read the paper, and then coast until mid-afternoon when I usually stop working to make a cup of tea. It sounds kinda dumb, but it's what I do. The fact that I entered the job with at least 60 teabags in my cube and I decided to try to finish them, one day at a time is all the reasoning I need. I also started my job with about 14 packets of ramen noodles, of which I have had 2. They're all mushroom and veggie flavor see, and I really can't see the point of eating vegetable-flavoured grains. The whole point of making things out of wheat and such is to provide a companion with which to accompany meat into my gullet so that my stomach doesn't get bored. Also, there's some instant coffee, some cereal, some microwavable cookies that taste remarkably like soggy cardboard, bottled water and some Pepsi. I think my predecessor lived at the office. Might be why I have to dodge the net when I try to leave in the afternoon.
[insert Robotanian national anthem]
I figured out the mystery behind the Robotanian embassy I pass on the way to fencing. See, for the longest time, I've been passing this big evil-looking house (it's all Victorian and old-school architecture) with a mean-looking black fence and gate, and these Black Ops style SUVs out front. From the flag, which is a yellow machete, star and half-cog on red and black, I could only assume this to be the Republic of Robotania, as publicized in Scary Go Round. Since they're main export is dismay, I didn't bother investigating further for fear of getting attacked by robots.
Then I passed the place a day or two ago and saw the sign proclaiming it to be the Angolan embassy. Total letdown, since it basically excludes the possibility of robots, but they still have a bitchin' flag. As a side note, I've been meaning to post about this place for weeks now, but kept forgetting. And while I'm on the topic of memory (however briefly), despite what you might think, having a near-photographically perfect memory is not as good as you would think. I mean, sure, you remember everyone's name, and can ask them about how the thing they did last week with the person went, and you never have to study for exams since the information just flocks into your brain and stays there, but it's not all about that. I mean, I get to remember the majority of stupid things I've said to people, and I have to put up with the forgetful all the time, and usually, that's just about everyone. You know the slightly-senile great-uncle thrice removed you have that always forgets your name, and loses his glasses on the top of his head and you always have to talk down to him about it otherwise he gets angry and such? I do this every day, and it gets irritating. I mean, if I can meet you once, listen to you talk to someone for about five minutes and remember that you have a hedgehog named Tumbles or that you work for the SPCA and you know people who work for Blizzard, why can't you do the same? (Note, I those are things about real people I know. Even the Blizzard bit.) Yeah, yeah, not everyone can do that, and some people have to literally write reminders to themselves to remind people to remind them about things, but that's not in my sphere of comprehension. It'd be like explaining walking to a fish. Foreign concept. Argh. So that's my venting for today.
Tsetse! Tsetsetsetsetsetsetsetsetsetse!
Unless you're an entomologist, this is total gibberish. For added fun, try singing or rapping some of these paragraphs. I tells ya, total breakthrough single buried in there somewhere. Maybe translate to Spanish and then back to English?
Neil Young is pretty cool. I mean, for a 60 year old rocker guy who's greatest accomplishment (in my eyes at least) up to now was Keep On Rocking In The Free World, he has done quite a bunch of neat stuff. Apparantly he's reinvented his music a bunch of times, and even got sued by his own record company for not making music that was "Neil Young-y" enough. Kewl.
BAD BAD BAD. As if the whole copyright situation wasn't a total farce, now they want to patent information? Hello! People! There is a line here as to what you can claim as property and what you cannot! I don't know where it is, but I think you're getting close to crossing it! I'm starting to understand the perspective of the guy who thinks he is from the future when he says that our time was remembered for a lot of bad reasons, including the total selfishness of people in general.
So yeah. I'm going to go do dishes and probably play Maximo. It's stupid-hard, but oh so fun. Also, some guy at my University was stabbed a bunch the other day. On that note, I leave. ¶ 5:25 p.m. 0 comments
