This week's been brutally busy for me at work... the only normally scheduled day was Monday. Tuesday, I had my meeting after work with the various plaza merchants, which went very well - the brouchures were a big hit. Wednesday I worked a 1/2 shift in the evening at our Cloverdale store... Friday I worked 12.5 hours between 2 stores, Saturday was an extra shift, Sunday was the same... very, very tiring. Not much going on blogwise.
Aug 17 - Watching Art
Holy artwork, Batman! There's a taste of things a-brewin' over at BrianThomasWoods.com, where his newest 'speed paintings' have a depth of intrigue and style that I am frankly in awe of - they remind of several 'concept art' books from years back that simply oozed style and alluded to Greater Things to come. Bravo, Brian! Check out DeviantArt.com if you've bever been there before either... tons of great images, plus they support CoolIris to browse all their images in 3D!
Which brings us to: watches. I haven't worn a watch in quite a few years, as their function( timekeeping )seems to have been steadily replaced by the ubiquitos cell phone in modern life. Why have a watch, when your cell keeps almost perfect time and you have it with you anyway? I've been waiting( and waiting, and waiting... )for the two to merge, but things seem to be taking their own sweet time, despite efforts by the Chinese to push things along... though they could use some lessons in miniturization( at least they got the waterproofing spot-on ). ChipChick.com( a rather nice place to visit! )has a brief article about the latest cell-watch fusion attempt, though again unlikely to catch on, despite retailers trying to create their own hype - Dick Tracy, where are you?
Aug 18 - Cheap Junk
As someone who loves to fix things on the cheap, using nothing but the semi-cannibalized remnants of other possibly-still-fixable things from around the house, I just love ThereIfixedIt.com. All those creative solutions you sometimes see passing you on the road, or in a friend's backyard, put up on display for the world. Reminds me a little of why I liked Junkyard Wars when it was on TV around the turn of the milennium - building cool things out of scrap is always entertaining...
Yet... does anyone out there have an actual basement workshop? The only person I ever knew with a complete setup is my grandfather, but he was an engineer by trade for 40+ years before retiring so you kind of expect that. The next best would be the Ultimate Guy's Garage, where you could work on the car, boat or your latest home renovation project with equal ease.
Neil Gaiman: one can never have too much of this writer in one's life, and not a word he's written is junk, IMHO. Fortunately, to feed that hunger for the heights of the written word comes an interview with Neil, where he talks about the art of storytelling. Having heard him tell one such story years ago, I can attest to the power this man has with both the written and the spoken word... quite a height to aspire to, but why not aim for the heights, instead of the more crowded middle?
Aug 19 - Cars are Cool Too
ThinkGeek.com has some really neat stuff, along the lines of The Sharper Image from decades past... but far more easily accessed via the web instead of a silly shopping mall - which some people apparently will geek out over too when they open a new one. I particularly like this nifty( but expensive )handheld game emulator, that will run nigh unto every single older game ever produced - even Amiga games! Sometimes I just love tech... too bad it's not free, like this tribute to 8-bit games of yesteryear - done entirely in Lego!! And somehow I think this gadget's time has passed... it's good for a few stares at your local Starbuck's, but be prepared for that Pitying Look if you tell folk how much you paid for it!
Though if you pulled out one of these, it would instantly restore your Cool Factor. You may want to pre-order one... I'm still resisting, somehow.
Much like I'm resisting the urge to scour the 'net for actual watchable episodes of Weaponizers, a 3-part series from the producers of Mythbusters. Oh, the destruction: remote-controlled full-size vehicles set loose on each other with fully-functional weaponry in the middle the the southwestern US desert - check out the video teaser! My dreams of 80's Car Wars fandom brought to live in exploding glory, sans the silly frippery of Hollywood that made 2008's Death Race a bland, empty dry-firing flop - which is too bad, as it had Jason Statham of Transporter fame in it.
Aug 20 - Putting on the Moves
I just realized today that I still haven't seen Transformers2: Revenge of the Fallen, or quite a few other movies of late, come to think of it. Is it normal now to simply say "Oh, I'll wait for the DVD." and not even think about going to a theater? I mean, I am not one to answer, as I loathe sharing the aisles with people who seem to have everything except watching the movie on their mind... which is disappointing, as they're simply wasting their ticket money to annoy other people. So it goes... just looking at the upcoming releases at ComicBookMovie.com doesn't really get me all fired up to get out there to see an opening film, and the new trailer for Avatar has left a lot of people scratching their heads, wondering how the Blue Man Group managed to get so out of control with James Cameron's blessing...
This week, I've been playing COD4 for a little while each night, mainly to blow off some stress after working so much each day. Playing in Hardcore Mode is actually not too bad once you get used to it, and I've found that I'm dying less and playing smarter because of it. Still, there are exceptions, and tonight was one: I had to quit after a few games in a row where people were spawn camping( a hot topic )like crazy, though it wasn't as bad as what happened on the server this PC player played on!
Aug 21 - Cool Stuff Friday
Yow - what a combo! I've just learned the DC( formerly known as Detective Comics )is going to team up Batman and a Golden Age superhero known as the Man of Bronze... Doc Savage! I loved reading those old-school adventure books when I was young: gripping characters having memorable adventures in the far-flung corners of the world. Akin to the Tom Swift series of books, Doc Savage was a self-made superhero, much like Batman in his own origins... hence the perfect idea of teaming the two up to see what happens. I can hardly wait!
From the same era as Doc Savage there's this magazine cover, which somehow managed to survive 45+ years to amuse today's websurfers... with weasels!
Freebie Frustration: tonight I finally got around to installing MS Office... after much internal debate, as I really detest MS but their document format / editor is the prevailing champ on the market. Until now, I've been using Open Office 3.1 for about a year and while it's great... I'm not the only one who can't get the spellchecker to work. You can only cut and paste so many times to a web-based spellchecker like Orangoo before your frontal lobes begin to spasm. Much like what happened when I discovered that Hasbro and Norton have teamed up for a Gi-Joe version of Norton's Antivirus... I kid you not. Another sure sign that our world is warping way, way too far away from Reality Prime... yeesh! At least these figures from the Joe movie are cool - why didn't they get used in the movie instead of speed suits?
Cool Part Deux: Fridays are when I like to catch 2 shows later in the evening, convenient when I am working as I still get home in time to catch them. The first is World's Most Extreme Homes, followed by the Americanized version called Extreme Living. Both shows focus on unique homes the world over, some of which may be in your own backyard - like the Steel House tucked away in downtown Victoria BC! I've yet to actually see it, but I've driven by the block where it's located many times and one of these days I'll have to play tourist and snap some pictures. Some of the homes featured in both shows are not to my taste, but all are unconventional, unique and creative in their design.
Aug 22 - Writing What?
In keeping with that thought, I sat down to write up my blog entry for today... and was greeted by a blank page in ScribeFire from my browser. Noooo!
Also, nobody noticed that last week's blog had no bacon reference in it... the world managed to stagger on without realizing its lack though. So this week, I give you: 100 uses for a strip of bacon - with pictures! How's that for making up, eh?
No complaints about the teaser trailer for the fourth season of The Venture Bros... it looks crazy-good! Seeing as I only have the first two seasons, I will have to go hunting for the next two seasons - they're harder to find on the cheap than you'd think. Crazy goodness though; check it out if you haven't seen the show.
Yeah yeah, complaints at work... we've all had those days, like today when I cycled between the two branches( 20 mins either way )to fix our lovely TCR. While I didn't have a complaint today while at work, I had one afterwards - in a way. The branch had been closed for 1/2 an hour, I was all set to leave... then this guy in a pickup pulls up, trots out and starts pulling at the locked door, as though enough repetitions would unlock the Secret Door Device and let him in. He then stood there for 15 minutes, yelling though the door at me to "Call the boss!" so he could "Get in to cash his cheque." No matter that the hours are posted on the door he's pounding on... the open sign and lights are off, and I'm standing there staring at him with a bicycle helmet on my head. A few short words to the effect of "We're closed, come back tomorrow" later, he finally told me where to go( charming )and drove off... after spending 20 minutes delaying me from leaving while simultaeously entertaining the people but 20 feet away at Tim Horton's. Which is perhaps why we as Canadians like to hang out there: free Saturday Night shows!
Aug 23 - Workin' Sunday Thoughts
An interesting article from io9.com about why we can't let go of things. Which could explain how some fans( of any stripe or media-source )become too obesssed with the things they love best... like people's characters from their MMO such as World of Warcraft which was one of the main focuses of the recent BlizzCon 2009. A recent video about such things has gone viral on YouTube, with over 2 million hits - it's called Do You Want To Date My Avatar? and has a decently catchy tune, plus some decent visuals. Not up to Madonna-esque video standards though, but they are selling their tune already on Amazon.com - talk about cashing in. Good for them!
Today was a busy one at work - I did my usual imitation of a flair bartender for the first few hours, to keep up with the flow of people through the front door. Pretty typical for a sunny Sunday, really: people want to get out & do things ASAP, so they rattle on the door and flood through until it opens. Nothing like a lineup to spur one to move quickly... and at the end of the day, I still balanced to the penny - nice! Tired though; my own branch is not nearly as busy, so today was a reminder of how crazy things can get, especially when you're working solo.
Well, that's better... I recalled most of what I had written, with the added bonus of doing things again better the second time - the joy of editing! I really have fun surfing around during the week, putting ideas down in the entries and linking them around to various things I've discovered of late( and not so late ). Hope you've enjoyed this week's Double Edited Blog!
