Scams, Subs and Santa

Dec 21 – It’s in the blood

Today is the winter solstice, the longest day of the year. Little light, lots of dark and a whole lot of looking at your watch while grumbling about where the sun has gone. Ironic how the longest day of the year is also a Monday, no?

Just ten days to go until the new year – does anyone out there have any special plans? Myself, I’ve decided to make it a quiet one at home; so far all my friends here have not finalized any plans, and I dislike last-minute car trips on busy nights with the heightened possibility of drunk drivers – I’ve already had two close calls over the years avoiding drunks trying to kill me, so that’s enough incentive there to stay in.

I’m still astounded at my doctor’s news last week that I don’t appear to have Thalassemia Minor – I’ll be making another appointment to confirm the results, which will mean a change in my diet. I’ll be able to add iron back in, along with some other things( more bacon! )and that means I may actually feel more energetic day to day. I’d like that.

Dec 22 – Scam Artists

Looks like I’d better get out and take more pictures of the trees around here while I can. A report today from the Sierra Club states that BC’s old growth forests are disappearing at an alarming rate – must be all that moss buildup that gets people confusing the old with the new trees.

This is really amazing: a sketch that a co-worker made of me a few months ago. I’ve only now been able to get a picture of it and post it. I just love when people do sketches of me, for some reason – I don’t mind pictures, but there’s something about an artist taking time to render an image that speaks to me. Plus, somehow I always manage to look cool – go figure!

Here’s a show about sketchy people you might want to catch, either on a local channel or on YouTube: The Real Hustle. This is a British import, where three hosts expose some of the most popular scams and hustles that the public is likely to encounter on a day-to-day basis. I was shocked by one scam, where a woman poses as a homeowner who has lost her keys. She gets a locksmith to open a non-alarmed house so she can loot it at her leisure – yikes!

Dec 23 – Blue Screen of Sexy?

It’s been 2 months since Windows 7 was released into the wild, and I’ve been using it for about as long. So far, it’s been a mixed bag: faster than Vista, hogging less resources and with a lot of features added or refined since the release of Vista. On the bad side, it has numerous small glitches, like programs refusing to start and an annoying penchant for refusing to come back from Sleep Mode. I hope these small things will be ironed out in the inevitable future patches from Microsoft...

If it’s the holidays( and not Windows )having you feeling blue( from the cold, or a lack of holiday spirit )then check out this survey over at io9.com: Who is the Sexiest Blue Woman In the Universe? Heck, even Smurfette made the list!

I suppose it all depends on what level of seriousness you have – today, for example, we lost our 134^th Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. His name was Andrew Richard Nuttall, a Lieutenant in on patrol who was killed along with An Afghani soldier while on foot patrol. He was born here in Victoria, and kept a blog with updates from the front, including mention of IED’s. Brings things into a bit of perspective.

Dec 24 – T’was the Night Before...

Ah, Christmas Eve... stockings hung by the fireplace with care, cookies and milk left out for Santa, and all that. But what about... Santa Traps?

Looking at the many different possibilities of Christmas gifts, I’ve wondered what the most popular items of the decade have been – the lists go year by year, but nothing stands out overall. I think if you went simply by the Cool Factor, then you’d end up with... the iPhone. Which I’ve decided against getting for the time being, for myself – it just costs too much, and I don’t want to get locked into another contract just for a phone. I mean, the things are $799.00 CAN by themselves –for a freakin’ phone! It’s not a laptop.

Speaking of Christmas gifts, I’ve always loved toy submarines – I wanted to get one when I lived in Port and had a pool, but they were just too expensive and I’d have got little use out of it overall. This guy has turned it into quite a hobby – he’s made models of famous spaceships and turned them into remote-control submarines: what a great idea!

Dec 25 – Happy Xmas

This Christmas was a very, very quiet one for myself and my family. We had a turkey dinner... for lunch, as my dad was working in the afternoon. It was quite a sunny day, with no snow and a lovely lack of traffic everywhere. I enjoying spending a good part of the day online with my friends playing MW2 – everyone was in a good mood and the gaming was good.

On the gift side, we’ve been pretty minimal for a few years now, given that we got rid of a lot of stuff before moving out west. This year, I purchased a simple digital picture frame for my parents, loading it with a few thousand photos – the resolution is a decent 800x600 pixels, so by downsizing individual folders of photos to that scale, I managed to fit every digital photo they have onto a single 2gb mem card – with room to spare for more. Sweet!

Another thing I love about Christmas: cookies! You can check out the best cookie recipes of the last 50 years to see if any tickle your fancy; my faves were always the ones with holiday shapes – of any flavour.

Dec 26 – Boxing Day! No Gloves!

Up at 5am today, to stand outside BestBuy for when they opened at 6am. The lineup was about 100 people long when I got there, and tripled by the time the doors opened. It was quite cold, but people were in a good mood as there was no snow – unlike last year. Once in, I easily found the 2 things I had lined up for and headed to the cashiers – Batman: Arkham Asylum and a Turtle Beach X1 headset for the Xbox.

In case you wonder where Boxing Day had its origins, look no further than here – you may be surprised at what you don’t know. I always am.

On a totally different note, I’m pleased to say that there’s almost a total lack of spiders here in the winter. When I lived on Westgate near the ravine there, the spiders were present year-round in the corners and crannies of the house. Here, despite the mild climate, the house has had almost no noticeable spiders make appearances. For which I’m grateful; the huge mothers who came to visit at my May St. place were more than enough to make me keep my windows closed at night, thanks.

Dec 27 – Not Boxing Day

Yep, you guessed it: I spent most of today playing MW2. Badly. My stats are slowly sliding downwards, millions of other people are playing the game better than I am... but there is hope: the new X1 headset! Yes, now that I am no longer distracted by the cramping pain of two headsets on my head, I can finally concentrate on the game and not crackling cartilage!

A good thing that the new X1 headphones cover my ears completely – the renovation racket from downstairs today was louder than usual. They’re making massive changes, and the sounds of power tools at work reverberate throughout the entire house, leaving nothing to do but leave or try to block it all out. Thankfully MW2 does a fine job of distracting me. J

I’m pleased to see some folks making use of the Comments for the blog, latching onto some of my words and bandying them about. Well, beating me about the head with some, but that’s why I put the phrases online, for people to ... enjoy? Make use of? Barbeque? Keep it up! Plus, did you know you can use the Search Tool on the top left of the blog to scan back through for keywords? I bet you didn’t...

That’s all. This week’s blog was a tiring one, but flowed fairly well once I left it to it’s own devices. So there!

Renos, Redheads and Rainchecks

Dec 14 – Bailing Tools

Let's start out with something very cool. Until now, only humans and their related simian cousins have been known to use tools in the animal kingdom. Today a video was posted about a sea creature that uses discarded coconut shells as a mobile home – can you guess what kind of creature? Watch the video and find out!

From cool to whew! The world's markets stabilized significantly today with news that Abu Dhabi is footing a $10 billion bailout for Dubai. Weird to see that though, as the oil money isn't supposed to run out for a few decades yet.

Too bad this guy didn't learn to bail out... but it's funny all the same.

Dec 15 – Doozers!

Fraggle Rock was( and still is )a fave show of mine from when I was growing up – as was most everything Jim Henson did, in fact. Strange that I don't have any episodes of The Muppet Show on DVD; I'll have to look for that in the new year. Fozzie, Kermit, Miss Piggy - good times.

Another thing I really enjoy is cutaway art – that is, drawings akin to technical blueprints that show the insides of vehicles, buildings etc like this one. I most enjoy fictional topics, especially the Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections series of which I have a few books – the foldout Star Destroyer is especially magnificent, and captures the imagination just as it did on the screen when I saw it for the first time. This selection of cutaway drawings isn't quite the same thing though... but they MIGHT glow in the dark! Finally, this one is my favourite from when I was but ten years old – can you guess why?

A third thing I enjoy: bacon. Since the Bacon Mushroom Melt has yet to make it's appearance this year at Wendy's, I've debated trying out the new Applewood Smoked Bacon Deluxe. Fortunately, there's already a review of it from BaconToday.com – and they love it! Time to head down to Wendy's this week or next, I think, and chow down.

Dec 16 – Seeing Red

Sacrilege! Shocking news today for redhead fans around the world: a British ad was banned today for suggesting that redheads are unattractive! Incredibly, it was from Virgin Media... flabbergasting that redheads, the rarest of beauties, should be so shamed by such a large company. I'm swearing off anything Virgin from now on.

My Christmas shopping has been finished for quite some time now, but if you're still looking for a few more gifts, it can't hurt to check out DealNews.com – the place reports the best deals to be found from all around the internet. It's US-based though, in case you're wondering when your order( from whatever site you check out the deals from )will arrive.

The rain came today, in copious amounts which washed away all the snow – what little there was, actually. All that was left was... this.

Dec 17 – Surf's Up!

Hurray! I received an email today informing me that a NEW episode of Stoked was available for download from iTunes – just goes to show you have to make mention of something to get one's wheels greased, or somesuch. Now where's my elephant?!?!

Form large to small: who doesn't like hobbits? A while back I ran across this rather nice design for a model hobbit house, though it was obviously made with a smaller budget than the movies had. Today I ran across a rather larger version – it's in Switzerland! Built into the side of a hill, it's just darn amazing to think that someone lives there... very, very cool, even if it doesn't look much like Bilbo's place does.

Sweet – some Left4Dead2 news from the co-project lead himself! It's a brief interview, where among other things the possibility of vehicles is mentioned – how much more sweet would that be? Driving over zombies... the heart flutters!

Dec 18 – Feeling Blue?

Avatar opened in theatres today, with ten-foot-tall blue aliens prancing about the screen to draw your eye to the incredibly expensive special effects – word is the movie cost close to $400 million USD. Staggering! I can't deny that what I've seen from the trailers is mind-blowing, and the reviews at RottenTomatoes.com look quite favourable. I'll have to make the effort to get out and see it, as I haven't been going to the movies much these last few years – the last one I made an effort to go see was the new Star Trek, and I missed the latest Transformers release. Ah well – that's what DVD is for.

Today on EP Daily, I saw this: Hard Drive, an online comic that looks rather cool. Digging into a bit of the background, a lot of the art is created in interesting ways, including heavy use of 3D models – unusual for a 2D comic medium, even an online one. Worth checking out.

Some major health news today: while I was at the doctor's today to get my regular flu shot, we discussed some blood work results from a few weeks ago. I had asked him to retest me for Thalassemia, and today I got the news back: I do NOT have Thalassemia. In fact, my blood work came back as normal – how's that for a kick in the pants after 30+ years of thinking you have defective platelets?

Dec 19 – Nuclear Tongues

Strange how my days off tend to vanish if I don't pay close attention, much like today. In between catching up on household tasks, talking to a few friends online, watching episodes of Stargate: Atlantis and playing Left4Dead2, it was evening before I knew it. Lucas called with a heads-up for MW2, so I hopped on after dinner and blasted away merrily for a few hours – didn't do too badly either.

Still no sign of Fallout3: Game of the Year Edition, it's sold out all across the area. I stopped in at F.Shop across the road after work today just to check: the last shipment was supposed to be in Dec. 11^th, a week ago. So there's going to be a few disappointed people this Christmas when it doesn't come in. Not me though – I have a raincheck( or is that raincheque? )so I can wait for the stock, as the price is right.

Have a mutant tongue? Why not wreck a nice beach and check out these tongue twisters. There's some real mandible-manglers in there!

Dec 20 – Well, shoot...

The new landlords were busy from 9am this morning, noisily redoing the downstairs again today. They've moved the main entry door, added a steel fire door at the bottom of the stairs, cut away walls... it's quite the reno downstairs. I've had a few peeks in there while they've been working, as well as when they've done some work on the rest of the place – it's MUCH improved, and they're not even half begun yet!

MW2 today was hit and miss... aw heck, who am I kidding? It was mostly miss. I was lucky to have two or three games where I had more kills than deaths – those ones weren't half bad. For the rest, I struggled not to snap my controller in half in some games where I'd barely get a few steps before getting mowed down by players I'd never even see. It was a rather frustrating experience.

Still, it can't be as frustrating as this guy's marriage... to a video game character? Only in Japan, I guess – I just hope he signed a pre-nup.

That's about it – I hope you found this interesting, as I work hard to ensure that I don't repeat myself. For over 2 years, every week, I've kept that promise to myself... and to my readers. Ta!

Stoked, Swiss and Space

Dec 6 – Stoked?

Have you ever wondered about what's happened previously today, in history? Check out today's date at Brainy History.com – sadly, today is the 20^th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, but I'm sure there are far more happier events lurking in the lists than that. Though if we fail to learn the lessons of history, we're screwed – to paraphrase things a bit.

Last week was a long, long week at work getting my new employee up to speed with things – three days clocked in around 11 hours on average, with phone calls off-shift adding to the total. Still, I'm pleased with their progress – I am confident the details will follow as they get more experience with the open-concept branch operations. Tiring though - very tiring.

I'm still waiting for the rest of Stoked to become available on iTunes... my Season's Pass seems rather worthless to me, with only TWO episodes available for the ENTIRE 'season' for download. Very, very frustrating. For now, I'm going to cruise through all the shows that MetaCafe.com has to offer( for free! )since they're not US-based and so don't deny most everything to people outside of their borders.


Dec 7 – Northward Travel

 

Today I worked a shift at our Duncan store, which is less than an hour away( on a good day )from Langford on the Trans-Canada Highway. It was a nice drive up during the day... on dry roads( and signs are up now stating cars in winter on the Malahat MUST have snow tires or chains ). It was a different story on the way home: the scenic Malahat is a twisting, curving ribbon of road that is extremely hazardous to your health in bad weather, or at night in good weather. Here in BC there are far fewer guardrails on major roadways – as I've mentioned before, it seems that all these trees are meant to subsitutute for said safety features. It's still not nearly as dangerous as the Yungas Road in Brazil – I saw a TV special on that earlier this year that made my hair stand on end.


Tm Horton's was in the news again today, this time in the town of Kingston ON, which has it in for the franchise's drive-thrus. Seems that Kingston doesn't want all those idling cars polluting, and is battling Timmy's over it. Weird, eh?

Maybe they should flip a coin to settle the matter – or not! Today a study was released that showed the traditional coin-toss is far less impartial than you might think. According to researchers, only a few minutes of training with a person was necessary to adversely affect the results of coin tosses, so much so that some people could achieve incredibly skewed results. Darn it.


Dec 8 – Spaceship 'splosions!

What's with all the rebooting? According to io9.com, these last ten years could very well be called the Decade of the Reboot, with the huge number of old shows and movies that were mined to create new profit and further the franchises therein.

Space battles... ever since the days of colour television, they've steadily improved along with visual effects technology. Io9.com has a great article( with video examples! )of some of the best space battles of all time, and why we love them so. I've been playing Gratuitous Space Battles on and off a few times a week, as new ship design ideas come to me – so far I've beaten most of the battles and am concentrating now on the 'infinite' scenarios to try and get my fleet to survive a little longer each time.


With my recent discovery that my eyes are changing focus( again ), I found my thoughts turning to other aspects of the inevitable aging process, including memory. Ironically, I remembered a site I bookmarked a long while back, called MindTools.com, which has a great set of articles on how to improve your memory. Worth a look, so don't forget to check them out – you can also try this interesting flash game designed to test your ability to separate words from colours; it's harder than you think.

Dec 9 – Touch The Apple
 News came down the pipe today that Apple is launching a handheld touchscreen computer in Spring 2010, looking to compete with the recent e-book readers that have come out from Amazon and Sony. So instead of an iPhone, you will get a much more functional machine... that is less portable. Kind of like an Apple Netbook, but with a touchscreen instead.

Here's something else that is quite portable: the Swiss Bike. Over the years, I've often wished I could just toss my bike into the back of the car some days, whenever the situation warranted my needing to use the car and not the bicycle – like driving to a great park for an afternoon of trail riding, for example. With the Swiss Bike, the whole thing folds up to stow neatly away in the trunk... and for a not-unreasonable price, compared to quality bikes costing thousands that are frankly more than I'll ever need.


This one's for you Mike: collectable fast-food glass sets from yesteryear. Ah, the glory days of Star Wars, when Vader was evil AND cool, and not a whiny teenager gone bad...

Dec 10 – Mechs? Bricks? Aliens?

 Who doesn't like giant robots? I mean, they're just... cool. Nothing But Mech is a great blog that has lots of amazing mech / robot material posted on it all the time – check out some of the designs there! Those robots may be running on batteries though, as to date nobody's been able to figure out a way to power them. For about ten years now, I've been using rechargeable batteries for most of my electronic gear, starting with Pure Energy AA and AAA's from Walmart. Unfortunately, Pure Energy products tended to fizzle, fade and even explode messily after a few years, so after moving to BC I switched to the Hybrid Rechargable batteries from Rayovac. These Hybrids are unique in several ways: they can be recharged in any battery charger, can be charged thousands of times, have no memory effect and most importantly retain their charge over periods of 6 months or more between charges! So far, the last claim has proven to be quite true, as I have flashlights that I use once every few weeks or so that take many months before needing to be charged again.

A blast from the past today too: it seems that an old Amiga gaming favourite of mine, Alien Breed, is being brought to Xbox Live Arcade on Dec 16^th. Called Alien Breed: Evolution, the game is from the same folks who made the original back in 1991: Team 17. Check out this short video comparing the two – the quantum leaps video game technology have made in twenty years are quite apparent.


And what's with this? Apparently someone stole a brick from an art gallery in the UK ... an ordinary brick that's worth thousands of pounds, accoding to the artist. Reminds me of the hubbub about Voice of Fire back in 1989, when the National Gallery of Canada bought it for $1.8 million... your tax dollars at work.

Dec 11 – Mall Fallout


This wouldn't fit into the news from yesterday, so I'll mention it here: Natalie Portman( a fave actress of mine )will be starring in, and producing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which is exactly what it sounds like. I mean, Portman and zombies? Excellent... too bad I had to hear about it from Variety magazine – I feel like I was standing in line at the grocery store for too long and picked over the mags on the rack at the checkout. Ick.

Fallout3: Game of the Year Edition went on sale today at Future Shop for $29.99 – an incredible price! Which explains why they were immediately sold out, offline and on... of course. I'll see if I can pick it up later in the week, which means I'll have to check daily to see if any stock comes in – no rainchecks and no competitors will price-match if there's none in stock. Of course.


Part of the apocalyptic theme today: Ghost Malls of America. Yes, you read it right... creepy, and they'd make a zombie feel right at home.

Dec 12 – To the Moon, Alice!

Tonight I finally got around to watching Stargate: Continuum, which was the second of the Stargate SG-1 made-for-DVD movies to come out( the first being The Ark of Truth ). Overall, I thought the special effects were good, the story so-so, and the acting excellent.

Closer to reality: the first commercial space flight service was announced yesterday by Virgin Galactic. Slated to start in 2011, the one-hour flight has a ticket cost of $200,000 USD, which is incredibly cheap compared to the millions previously paid to date by private citizens to get into space. I'll add it to my 'Things to Do When I Win The Lottery' list.


Christmas this year is going to be a quiet affair; my sister is unable to visit and we are not going anywhere ourselves as all our relatives and friends are back east. WE're not big on gift-giving, and if anything have scaled down even more after moving out west. Still, a few small somethings will change hands, and I've been looking at digital picture frames as one of the things to get for my parents – they have literally thousands of pictures that they don't look at as often as they'd like to. What better way than to have a digital display? My own television can display pictures via a USB key, but it's wasteful of power to leave it on all day displaying images in a room they don't usually go into. Some of those frames are rather pricey, and the cheaper ones have so-so resolution, so I'll have to shop carefully to avoid getting a dud... not to mention TEST it first to find out of there are any stuck pixels.

Dec 13 – Let the Renovations... continue!

The new landlords got to work early today, getting the renovations running downstairs at 8:45am. On their list today? Knocking a hole in the east foundation wall to make room for a window, allowing a second bedroom to be added in the apartment. According to local bylaws, bedrooms in any addition HAVE to have a window, or cannot be used as such. So for most of the day, there was banging, jackhammering and generally loud goings-on down there, which drove my parents out of the house. As for me, I was too busy all day playing MW2 to really notice, save for the jackhammer vibrations every so often, and the few times that power had to be shut off while they checked connections in the wall.

On the weather side, it snowed here for the first time today – until now, it's only been a layer of frost on the coldest mornings for the last few weeks that's vanished as the morning warmed up. Today it took until noon for the snow to say goodbye, and the skies remained leaden grey all day long – a sign that we may have a white Christmas here after all. I hope that we don't get as much as we did last year around this time as I mentioned in my blog then – we'll see. It might mean I'll be spending more time indoors – but not as much as today, when I spent around 12 hours sitting on my couch overall – yikes!

Overall? This week was over before I noticed – quite a few days had me going solid from sunup to snooze-time and everywhere in between. My energy levels have held fairly steady, though I've noticed that my lack of cycling( it's cold out there! )has brought things down a bit for me. I'm still exploring various food options, and may even look into a more balanced alkai diet, depending on my consultations with my doctor. For now, it's sleep, de-stressing and some sunlamp time for the winter.

zzzzZZZzzzZzzz

Meat, Maps and MW2

Nov 30 – Cool Math

Most of you know I am not a mathematician, but a wordsmith instead. So when I saw that a few mathematicians had put together a study on how bad a zombie outbreak would be, I did feel a little twinge of regret that my numbers game isn't better. I suppose that's some of what math geeks do for fun?

The rain has abated here, to be replaced with sunny skies and low temperatures. Coming from Ontario, the cold here isn't really all that bad, as I'm used to lake effect snow and temperatures. To hear people talk around here though is to expect things to stay around ten degrees all winter, and for this 'cold spell' of low single-digit days to dissipate fairly soon. Depending on how quickly the arctic air mass that's slamming the Prairies decides to move on, the frost may soon leave the flowers here alone once more.

Work on my NWN project has slowed to a crawl, which is sad but not at all unexpected. Everyone involved is massively busy, with one friend now in China – with his new bride! We're all still passing messages back and forth, but for those who are still in school the workload is quite heavy – both for the ones who are students and the ones who are teachers. Still, nothing is forever, so I am hopeful that the New Year will see an easing of time constraints

Dec 1 – Meat Jars

Another month, another reason to avoid the Christmas Craze. As I mentioned a few blog entries ago, I don't step foot in a shopping mall as of today, Dec 1^st – I can't stand it. Used to be when I was a lot younger( and the malls thusly seemed bigger )that I loved Christmastime, heading to the Big Malls of Hamilton or Toronto on special shopping trips to see all the holiday store displays at Eaton's or Simpsons. My favourites were the Lego displays, vast and fanciful creations that for a few years made me itch to return for the next one, bigger and grander than the last. Reminds me now of the FAO Schwarz Toy Store in New York city, that I had wanted to visit when I was there in the early 90's for a school trip but just couldn't manage to fit it in.

Being a new month we also have the I09 December SciFi Guide, which has shows like V and FlashForward on it – neither of which I've found time to follow. Since I don't have a PVR anymore( it's keeping my parents quite happy )it's harder to catch up on shows. I'm tempted to dust off the VCR and wire it back into my setup, which would work as the Shaw digital cable box has the ability to change channels on a timer to allow a VCR( or computer? )to record properly. Since I have a ton of old tapes, that may be an idea – I'll try it out when I have some time.

Closer to reality: scientists have succeeded in growing live pork in a jar. Why is this important, you ask? Well, aside from eliminating the slaughter of animals for meat( insert cheering vegans here )it means that resources will be saved from the rather inefficient process of raising animals for the table. And of course it means you could also grow all the bacon you want!

Which may also be important if you are planning to survive a disaster / apocalypse / world-ending event. I recently read "Not Your Ordinary Survival Checklist" in the Oct. 2009 Popular Mechanics issue, which is by no means a comprehensive guide – instead, you can find one here, courtesy of FEMA.

Dec 2 - Technology

Nowadays, you can buy computers with as many as 8 CPU cores inside – eight processors packed onto a single chip. Mind-boggling. Yet we've not begun to see the limits of this tech... for news of a 48-core chip has come down the pipe. Issues with rising heat and power consumption has forced companies like Intel to move down the parallel computing path, inevitably leading to computers in the near future having thousands of processing cores inside. Whoa.

Still, no matter how many cores you have inside a PC, there's still the operating system to contend with. So far, Windows 7 has been fairly decent, but it's still quirky in some ways. Aside from programs not wanting to start, the only major glitch I've experienced is the so –called "Black Screen of Death." Twice so far, the laptop has simply turned into a black screen with a blinking cursor, reminding me of the old DOS days when that meant it was time to search for your data on those backup floppy disks you made last month... you DID remember to make them, right? Hopefully it's a patch or two away from being fixed, but since it's Microsoft, we may never know just how prevalent the problem actually is – much like the Xbox360's Red Ring Of Death issue. Which is often fixable by wrapping it in a towel – go figure!

Sometimes technology has the capacity to some real good, for fairly low cost. I've just learned that it may soon be possible to detect depression over the phone via software. Very cool and very useful; imagine if a warning light started flashing when someone was calling a HelpLine( or even a doctor's or police phone )that the person on the other end was in need of depression assistance? Vital clues that may soon be part of our ever-changing social fabric. But we do still have to worry about technology being used for evil...

Dec 3 – The Third Dimension

This week has been a heavy one at work, as one of our employees has returned after a two-month absence due to an injury. I've been easing them back into the routine, as well as introducing them to several major products that have come online since they left. It's meant ten or eleven hour days for the most part this week, but I've also been impressed with the way they've picked things up again so quickly after several months off. So much so that I am hopeful that they'll be totally back into the swing of things by the end of January... just in time for tax season to start.

Google StreetView came to my area recently, which led to mixed reception per the norm from locals. For those of you who are interested, fire up Google Maps and have a look. My address should be in most of your hands by now, so you can take a browse around my neighbourhood – I've already checked, and my house is plainly visible, as the Google StreetView Van passed right by on my road. It's pretty cool, overall – I went for a virtual tour of my town of Langford, along with a few of the other places I've been, and I like the concept.

3D scanning with ordinary webcam is another thing altogether – this is pretty cool stuff, folks. Up until now, 3d object scanners have been horrifically expensive, clumsy or both. Now you can do it with a simple webcam and an ordinary PC. While not quite at the commercially viable stage yet, the video on this website is really impressive. I'd love to be able to scan in objects for use in game design, saving hours of design time – to be sure, details would still need to be refined and tweaked, but it would sure save time over building things from scratch.

Dec 4 – Lego and Left4Dead2

Though I haven't dragged out the old suitcase full of Lego in years, I still credit the little plastic blocks with firing my imagination as a child. I've posted before in this blog about the various levels of Legomania that people retain over the years, but so far it's all been benign. Now that's changed: a man in Toronto was recently taken down( unhurt )by a SWAT team as he showed off the Lego gun he had just received by mail order... at the office. Kinda dumb, but then it's nice to know that Canadian Police forces are on the ball... this sort of thing might have gone unnoticed south of the border.

I've been getting into playing Left 4 Dead 2 on and off all this week, which I've really enjoyed. The game is a really enjoyable experience, which brings you into the whole survival-horror experience: fighting against hopeless odds, blasting zombie hordes with your comrades at your side. Unlike a lot of other online games, the whole experience depends on how well everyone works as a team. I've never had as satisfying team experience as I have with L4D2 when pulling pals back from the brink of death and stumbling along with them towards the safety of the end of the level. The same goes when I am incapacitated, and the warm glow when your buddies come back for you and drag you to safety is hard to describe, other than it's lacking in so many other multiplayer games.

I've been back driving on the streets for about a week now, having renewed my licence after being on hiatus since my birthday last summer – what can I say? I'm cheap: between riding my bike, getting dropped off and taking the occasional bus, I haven't needed to drive much this year, at all. Sure, it's nice to have the freedom to just hop in the car and go, but I've made a conscious decision since moving to Victoria to minimize my 'fooprint' so to speak – maybe some of the West Coast environmental mindset has rubbed off on me? Hopefully not too much; I don't want to start wearing wooden shoes or clothes made from seaweed.

Dec 5 – Cardboard Clashing

This morning I headed into Victoria for a few reasons, but we stopped first for breakfast at Kitty's Hideaway. The portions were generous, the price was right and the decor was perfect: it hadn't been updated in at least a decade, which means the money was being spent on the food, not the paint. After checking out most of the places to eat breakfast at in Niagara with Brian years ago, I've become somewhat of an authority on the matter. Good food, unpretentious surroundings and a great price are the three things to look for, anywhere you decide to eat.

Years ago, I was part of the SCA, which had within it's ranks those who fought in armour, with rattan swords. While I didn't end up taking that path( I went for the archery instead )there was always the thought in my head to pursue it at a later date – and here it is closing on fifteen years later when I discovered BoxWars. Now don't take this the wrong way: I enjoyed my time in the SCA, but a lot of folks there took things a little too seriously... whereas it's obvious that those people who are involved in BoxWars take nothing seriously. Take a look at the Toronto chapter's website and you'll see what I mean – looks like fun in those videos!

Shockingly, I hopped onto XboxLive and found a few friends playing MW2... so I joined in. There went the evening, which wasn't half-bad, though I faded towards the end. We had some really enjoyable games in there, where everyone on both sides were in good moods – no griefers, goof-offs or general 'neer-do-wells to be found. It was a thoroughly enjoyable four-to-five hours. Woof! I've enjoyed unlocking some of the perks as I play – my fave to date is Cold-Blooded, which helps enormously in remaining undetected by enemy players, and fits right in with my low-profile playing style.

Dec 6 – New Landlords

Today started out slowly enough: we had the new landlords over at 11am to discuss a few things, do a walkthrough and sign a new lease for the year... which ended up taking over three hours! The new couple( who have a young son )are great, worlds better than the previous landwitch – every issue we discussed looks to be resolved positively. They plan on doing renovations to the lower apartment to improve the space in several ways, making it far more sound-isolative as well as improving the property in other ways. By the end of the meeting, we could tell that everyone was feeling very good about the change.

Once the power was back on. I unsurprisingly spent the remainder of the day playing MW2 – when so many of your friends are on at the same time each week, it's great to be able to game with them. I do miss the LAN-party Halo Days we had at Simon's, but this is better in some ways, apart from the need to haul Xboxes, wires, TV's and sundry food supplies over to his place once a week. Yet though I spent the same amount of time back then gaming, my eyes didn't hurt after eight solid hours – I must be getting older, or need to take more breaks.

Also, it was Lucas' birthday today, so I was happy to 'see' him online( and very happy )later in the evening in MW2. One of the things that's been hard about moving out west is not being able to celebrate events like birthdays in person, and sending gifts just isn't my style – I'd rather be there in person. Moreso for the company, less for the beer – but both are good in combination, as well as moderation. So happy birthday, Lucas... one of these days I'll be @ the Kilt at the right time to hoist a cold one to ye.

 

Monday updates seem to be a trend of late, with my being busy. Or tired. Or something.

Credit, Canvas and Consumerism

Word of the week? Nihilistic - just try to say it five times fast! 

Nov 23 - Cool( or geeky? )news

Some great news from JMS, creator of Babylon5: he's drafting a screenplay to reboot Forbidden Planet, that 1956 scifi classic that laid the foundation for so much of today's works. It's mechanical star, Robby The Robot, came in at Spot #4 on Wired's Top Fifty Robots Of All Time List – not bad for a robot over fifty! JMS is also working on an adaptation of World War Z, which I have yet to pick up. Robots and zombies both – keep it going, JMS!

Even better news: Samurai Jack is becoming a movie! Thanks Brian – can't wait for that to hit the big screen! This link to World of Warcraft papercraft is also cool.

But not as cool as this – too bad it costs so much. And is only available in the USA. Maybe I should wait for the Nerf version and cross-border shop?

Concrete canvas? What the heck is that? Check out these seven amazing materials – you can build a bunker with just a garden hose!

Nov 24 - Sizable ships

As some of you know, I like Free Things – especially games. Which is why I enjoy browsing this massive list of free online games – they bill themselves as the largest list in the world, in fact, but I always take that with a grain of salt. But... yowza... that's a BIG list!

I also like ships... well, more the design aspect than any other. Show me a good comparison chart, and my brain goes all a-whirl. This one is especially cool – the largest ships in the world compared. You'll never guess how much real estate the biggest one on there takes up.

It's been a while since I last checked, but the Earth & Beyond Emulator Project is still going, which is great to see. I still miss that game – there's still no decent scifi MMO out there. Sometimes playing in a beta can be a bad thing, if it doesn't make it to the big time.

Nov 25 - New Landlords

There's been lots of hoopla about the forthcoming 'Smart Grid' from south of border, where energy costs vary by the hour in many a state. I've enjoyed reading about how things are developing, especially in light( pun intended )of the massive summer Blackout of 2003 – cascading failures of 'dumb' power grids, in effect.

If there's one thing I'm terrible at( insert mile-long joke list here )it's making models. I've tried my hand it at over the years, and the results have been... deplorable. The best was a model of Airwolf, and that had a tragic early accident with flammable substances – the world is better off, believe me. The opposite is true of this guy's talent – models are obviously his thing. Nice work!

We've talked to the new owners of the place we're in, and it's like night and day from the old landlord. The people downstairs are moving out by the end of the month, which means the new owners will be renovating the place, adding sound insulation, among other things. So far, I'm impressed with how well they've listened to what we've had to say, as it bodes well for the near future. First thing on the to-do list? Fixing the hottub – they're in my good books already!

Nov 26 - Raising Dead Tech

If you haven't dropped by lately, you should head on over to Instructables.com – you can find instructions for doing almost anything, with pictures! I just found one today about replacing the CMOS battery in the same laptop model as my parent's old unit that's been dead for 2 years now. I'll give it a try after Christmas and see if I can't resurrect the thing as an alternative to taking along my cherished GatewayFX unit – now that it's out of warranty, I don't want to expose it to danger outside the house, at least not on a daily basis. Hence the Dell X50v PDA comes back into the picture as a lovely little handheld media player... must resist .... getting... iPhone...

I've had no reaction to the H1N1 vaccine, which means that within a week I'll have built up enough antibodies to not worry about it anymore. I still have to get my regular flu shot, which I think will be available to the general public in quantity by early December

For now, I am not going to be bidding on Swoopo.ca until the holidays are over as it's getting crazy there. People are bidding incredible amounts in very stupid ways just to get items before Christmas, so I'm bowing out of that irrational game until things calm down in the new year.

Nov 27 - Ready, Set... Consume!

Today is Black Friday in the USA, the day when most companies' accounts go from the red into the black – hence the name. It's become an important economic indicator for the holiday season, rising in importance year after year for the last decade. This year, NPD Group released their first-ever study that gathered Black Friday results – take a look, and you may plan a cross-border trip next year.!

How many credit cards should you have? I was surprised at the answer here – given that most people have at least two, and some far more than that, you may be surprised too.

Work today was a busy, busy time – the evenings are MUCH busier now due to changes with our payday product. That's good in some ways, bad in others, and I'm hoping it means that we'll be getting busier over the next while. My schedule for December is rather full, and I'm sure the workload isn't going to lighten up anytime soon.

Nov 28 - Um, is that spam?

I like a good pancake, especially with a snack-size cup of apple sauce mixed in – yum! Some people take making pancakes to the next level though, creating works of art from the simple combination of batter and a frying pan. Check some of them out here – now that is good eating!

New Year's Eve is almost upon us, and before that we have the many, many gatherings of friends, family and co-workers at holiday parties ad nauseum. Which is why you should have iDrink.com bookmarked, as it will let you enter the ingredients you have on hand to instantly list every possible drink you can create from said bar stock. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?

Well, that was effective – I sent off an email today to an e-commerce site informing them that their database had been compromised by a hacker. My mother received an email purporting to be from Scotiabank, but the html link led back to the e-commerce site. Wouldn't you know that an hour after I sent the email this morning, the site was offline, and still is 24 hours later?

Nov 29 - Birthday 4 Dad

It was my dad's birthday today, and I managed to surprise him with a new PS2 Slim: that thing is just tiny compared to the original! He was thrilled, and I've added a wireless controller so he can sit back and relax on the couch whilst gaming. We went out to celebrate by having lunch at the local WhiteSpot, which was excellent save for a very soupy chicken/broccoli/cheese dish I ordered. Apparently the blanched broocoli was too watery and the chef couldn't do anything, so I packed it up for some tweaking at home later, as it was otherwise delicious. We had a nice time there, helped by the very attentive waitress Larissa - we just won't order the broccoli when we come back next time.

Today was a decent MW2 day, with a 14-2 kill streak as a result of not moving around too much and staying stealthy. Seems to work, and I enjoy that aspect of the game far more than the run-and-gun-and-die-quickly style. I'm used to playing with a mouse( or trackball )and I just can't fine-tune the Xbox controller to dial in the shots.

I'm feeling a lot less stressed this week, which is good in many ways. The knots in my back have loosened their grip for the most part, enough so that I've gotten though the last few days without having to resort to calling on massage therapy. I also found that I've lost about 10 pounds in the last few months, which is not a good thing. I don't weigh myself all that often, so it was a bit of a shock to see where I'm at – I can only surmise the stress has been taking its toll, as I've not been feeling unwell otherwise, getting my exercise, etc.

Ah, television... it can display so many things, and what better to cheer oneself with on long winter nights than a holiday fireplace? Shaw's ch.17 is carrying the warm, flickering image of fireplace flames 24/7, which I have to say looks great on the big screen. For added authenticity, you can plunk down a small space heater in front of the TV to toast your toes to the crackle of the logs. Sweet! Now I can write up my Christmas list and mail it off to Santa in a bacon-flavoured envelope... ah, good times.

 

The rain here is tapering off for this week, according to forecasts – we'll see how right the weatherfolk are by week's end: sun or scudding cloud?

Games, Geeks and Guns

Thanks for the editing tips Lucas! The word of the week is 'observant' just for that!

Nov 16 - Castle Battles

Yes, I know... I mentioned it last week, and I'll plug it good here again: Go watch Duncebucket, and vote! Crazy, crude and creepy all at the same time, this is comedic fun at the frenzied level of Jim Carey just after he's downed a dozen Super Slurpees and a package of PopRocks. Zowee!!!

I'm also watching Castle on Monday nights, which has Nathan Fillion at his best with a great dynamic playing off the other cast. Quite a few people like it, which is good to see as it means there may even be a third season after this one's done it's run.

Ah, Gratuitous Space Battles... how you taunt me. I've managed to win most of the battles on all three levels of difficulty, but I keep going back with new designs to see if I can do better. Plus, there's quite a few people on the GSB Forums who are modding the game, adding improvements to it and even creating total conversions to make it possible to battle with ships from the Stargate or Babylon 5. Check out this great( and brief )video review of GSB here – it's now available as of today on the Steam Network, from the same folks who brought us great games like Defence Grid and of course, Half-Life. Valve, we luv ya! I have yet to try the multiplayer aspect, as I want to tune some of my designs still...

Shhh.... I'm going to tell you a secret about online gaming, one that seems to be most prevalent in the massively popular shooter games like MW2: racism, predudice and worse. As the article link will tell you, if you've played online long enough, chances are you've experienced it firsthand. People are very quick to become emotional over voice chat, far more so than they would when face to face... and it's far easier for people to be nasty when hiding behind a video screen-name. I'm not talking about the squeaky-voiced teenager who disses yer' mama or calls you names that wouldn't make a nun blush; no, it's the hardcore jerks, whose foul mouths spout racist epithets like there's no tomorrow. Sure, you can mute them, report them and the like... but does that really solve the problem? How little effort does it take to be courteous to people, to have a modicum of sportsmanship or even just respect for other people? I find it fascinating that if you give some people the chance to be anonymous, it brings out the worst parts of their nature, rather quickly. Mayhaps it is a sign that the nEt PoLiCe are not all that far away from becoming reality; the thin edge is how it begins.

Nov 17 - What the frell were they thinking?

Hooray! Today is the day that Farscape: The Complete Series Megaset is released! For years I've had to content myself with the shows I've managed to hoard on VHS or my PC taped from on-air broadcasts, but no longer. I'll be watching for the series to come on sale in the new year, as I have a thing about rushing out to buy things, even things I really like, at full price right off the bat. Future Shop's "Get it First" slogan is an anathema to me, as I've come to like the "Get it for a bargain price" a lot more.

Speaking of cool TV series, I watched my first episode of the new 'V' series tonight, which stars Morena Baccarin of Firefly fame. The show had some interesting vibes to it, and the tech was definitely more 'real ' in its look, rather than the sanitized look of the 80's original. I still have all the novels I collected from the same time period, and just found out that there's a few more out there that I wasn't aware of. Time for a 'net search and a bit of eBay checking, I think.

I went into the BCAA for my local merchant meeting tonight, which was fairly well attended. It was a lively meeting too, with quite a few ideas flying around about how to make the open-air shopping centre more attractive to shoppers for the holidays. I'm really enjoying meeting with the other merchants in the plaza, as they're all very savvy folks and have quite a lot to share about the business world. Sure beats some of the dull reading I've done over the years from business texts – doing my research on various topics that way was like trying a game demo: great start, but I was left wanting more.

Nov 18 - Google gathering

I have a thing for bunkers, perhaps due to my love of all things apocalyptic. Which is why when I heard about the city-sized superbunker that Chairman Mao built under the city of Beijing starting back in 1969, I was intrigued. Check out some of the pictures here – there's not much left in use now, but just imagine the effort of housing nearly six million people underground . Also be sure to check out this great series of disaster-inspired works of art here – the artist has quite a range of topics, all of them rather spooky.

Did you know that Google Books is back on track? They've drafted a new version of their copyright agreement with various trade associations of publishers and authors. It's interesting in that it deals with orphan works, which include books that are out of print and whose authors are dead, leaving them in limbo. But until Google takes over the publishing world, you can get a free book fix at the places on this list of free online book resources, including Tor and Baen Books, two of my fave publishing houses.

One book I still have to get around to er, getting is the latest Robert Jordan novel, The Gathering Storm which was written by Brandon Sanderson based on the huge amount of material left by the late author. As it's the first of three parts, there's still quite a lot of reading ahead... and I hope they tie up the thousands of loose threads that Jordan's world ballooned into. Too... many... characters! To Jordan's credit, most of them were quite distinct and fairly memorable, but the sheer number made recalling who was doing what and when rather onerous. Anything over two dozen and they starts to blur...

As for my own work, here's a link to a few of the short stories I've written, at the archives over at FanFiction.com. For those who haven't been to my Nichneve n site either, there's quite a few stories with her character there too. I don't like to post all my stories "in the wild" as there's too many Copy/Paste Bandits out there, but what's there is more than enough for me to say I have a presence online.

Nov 19 - Thursdaze

Looks like the Christmas shopping season is starting off with a whimper, not a bang. Hence the news that retailers are chalking up deep discounts already in the hope of luring in shoppers. Not me though; I have a solid Shopping Season Rule: I do not set foot in any shopping mall after Dec. 1^st. I'll pop into the big bo retailers or the local plaza, but no incentive could lure me into the crazed insanity and parking lot mayhem that is a shopping mall in December. I remember driving by the Pen Centre some years ago about a week before Christmas, heading northbound on the 406 – the cars were lined up back onto the 406 southbound, past the train bridge overpass to exit at the mall. That's just crazy!!

Tonight I saw an episode of Flash Forward finally, and it wasn't bad. I'll have to catch up with the series as I can over the next few months, as the concept is rather intriguing: everyone in the world blacks out for 2 mins 17 seconds. When they wake up, they've had a vision of their future for that same amount of time. I had high hopes for Heroes too, but that show really jumped the shark and got away from it's original concept: ordinary people gaining superpowers and trying to discover why.

I'm a little put out that I haven't been able to fix my Vonage phone after rewiring my network a few weeks ago. It's a case of fix one thing and another breaks - my Xbox Live and the wireless connections are all working great, but not the my Vonage: there's no dial tone. When I get a chance next week I may phone tech support, though I doubt there's much they can do over the phone. Most places won't support home network troubleshooting, as there's too many variables and network techs don't come cheap.

Nov 20 - I Got The Shot

I was at the local flu clinic first thing this morning to get my H1N1 shot, as today was the first day they opened the immunizations to the general public without restriction here in BC. It was a surprisingly short wait, with only a few hundred people in total to be processed. I was in and out within half an hour, a far cry from the hours-long wait I had predicted – nice to be wrong in the right way sometimes.

It's also a good thing that I live in the southernmost part of Vancouver Island, as the heavy rains for the last 24 hours have caused severe flooding just an hour north of here. The cities of Duncan and North Cowichan were declared disaster areas today, as hundreds were evacuated in the wake of the rising waters compounded by the local tides backing up rivers. While not a disaster on a massive scale like New Orleans and Katrina was, it is still scary to think that here I sit, watching the lake waters rise to entirely cover the dock in the park next door and that only a few minutes north, people have had their homes flooded out. For an island about the size of Holland, it's surprisingly small some days.

The evening saw me play a fair bit of Borderlands, which I'd put down this week in favour of MW2 – obviously. I've yet to play co-operatively with anyone for any period of time, which is where a lot of the fun of the game is said to reside.

Nov 21 - Smatterday

Video on demand these days is still not up to snuff; I've tried out the Zune service on Xbox Live, and the bargain hunter in me cringes to 'rent' a movie for close to ten dollars, especially as the video quality is not consistent. While Zune boasts of having '1080p content' it tends to stagger, go jaggy or pause at times, which is in no way superior to a DVD. I'm the first person to propose going totally digital and to scrap the need to physically load media, but I'd much rather see things go onto a 'Home Media Server' than stream over flaky connections from a server thousands of miles away. I've got a fair number of network drives here already, albeit still without having a dedicated PC server to run them, so it's a little ad-hoc of a setup for the moment. But it's still better than Zune in 2 ways: it's free, and it works perfectly.

One show I may pick up on DVD is Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law. It's got rapid-fire quips and jokes, with a great retro visual style. I like a show that doesn't lead you by the hand, and the advantage of DVD( or video on demand! )is that you can go back with that PVR and catch the quip you thought you heard but weren't sure about. Sure beats rewinding the VHS tape until it snaps. By then I'll have probably turned my old PC into a media server thanks to guides like this. Sweet!

After work, the evening saw me play a fair bit of Borderlands, which I'd put down this week in favour of MW2 – obviously. I've yet to play co-operatively with anyone for any period of time, which is where a lot of the fun of the game is said to reside.

Nov 22 - Online Day Off

While I was at Best Buy this morning to get a copy of Left4Dead2, I also managed to finally pick up SG: Atlantis Season 5, which I've been waiting a year now to drop in price enough to be worth it. I'm pleased to see that the show made it to five seasons, and I'll have to try to check out the new Stargate: Universe that's currently playing on the airwaves in the USA. Apparently it's quite a dark show, but it's been having writing problems that see it's episodes yo-yo-ing from great to garbage. Find the middle!

How smart is a cat? Apparently researchers have created a computer model of a cat brain in order to better study how living creatures deal with reality, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Though I could have given them a few pointers: just have it ignore you when you call, sleep a lot, and scratch the furniture at every opportunity.

I played a fair bit of MW2 today until the early evening, and it wasn't half bad. We had a group of five or six for most of the day, as guys left or arrived and our overall game was pretty good. I managed to rack up a score of 15 kills one game, which is a fair bit for me – must mean I'm getting the hang of things at the faster pace the game goes at compared to COD4. I've found that I do better sneaking from cover to cover and keeping low, as it means more folk pass me by or miss me long enough to let me get in a shot.

Gold prices topped $1173.00 today on Nov. 23, which is good for many reasons. Too bad I don't have any hiding in my couch...