Apple, Avatar and Aircraft

The word of the week is ... specular.

May 3 – The Seattle Apple?

Now this is what superheroes are all about: Electron Boy Saves Seattle! It’s stories like these that give me hope about our future, and that people are able to do things that step outside the norm to show us all how compassion and humanity can work wonders both large and small. I wonder if any of the people on the World Superhero Registry can claim to have saved an entire city? If they can, then I’d say the age of the superhero has finally arrived.

Not so super: The iPad ... to buy, or not? Try as I might, I can’t find a compelling reason for me to even contemplate purchasing one – I have a Nano now and even that has more functionality than I need, really. Two weeks from now it will be available in Canada, and until then you can vote on whether or not you feel the pressing need to purchase one – and US Prez Obama is against it. For now, I’ve settled for installing Apple’s Safari browser on my laptop, to see how well it plays compared to Opera, Firefox and Chrome. So far? Firefox is winning!

May 4 – Zombie Emails

Did you know that May is Zombie Awareness Month? I sure didn’t, but I’m glad that I know now; I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of the Zombie Survival Guide to pack in my footlocker alongside my chainsaw and road flares. ‘Cuz you never know when the end of the world will suddenly make itself known... kinda the point, really. I may rework my recent apocalyptic story The Last Playlist to expand it a little, as having re-read it lately I’ve found it to be lacking in a little detail as to the nature of the world within.

At the moment, I’ve been using the Lightning organizer plugin for my Thunderbird email client. It’s been good so far, but I’m sure that I’m barely tapping it’s potential. However, seeing as organizers are mainstream now( like zombies! ) I’m also sure that I will find more uses for it as time goes on – it’s all a matter of organization and the best part is: it’s all free!

May 5 - Avatar

I managed to survive today, which was my 32^nd day without a day off... but I have tomorrow off and tonight, so I decided to treat myself and celebrate my mental survival after that long, long stretch. I took the bus into town, down to the Victoria waterfront and had a stellar meal of salmon at the Milestones restaurant on the waterfront. It was accompanied by my first beer in many months, and helped me wash down the irony of dining alone on their weekly Date Night – had I known, I likely still would have gone. After the meal, it was a short walk over to the IMAX Theatre at the Royal BC Museum to see Avatar much larger than life – I’d yet to have seen it and had taken pains not to spoil it with advance info. Once the movie began, the crowd was utterly silent for the whole few hours, save for the usual audience reactions. We were spellbound - IMHO, an IMAX theatre is the ONLY place to truly enjoy this film as it was meant to be seen. Find one and make the drive, it IS worth it!

Coming out of the theatre, there was nothing but positive reaction and smiles on everyone's faces, including my own.. though I have to admit a bias here: the character of Neytiri bore a shocking resemblance to my own lithely-catlike creation Nich. I think I will cut James Cameron some slack though, and not take issue with the coincidence, as she was blue and Nich is, well... rather more crimson. In any case, I had a blast, and I think when I pick up a Blu-Ray player( MAYBE )by year's end I shall make this my first purchase. I am not sure how well the story( *wince* )will hold up, but the love story was decent  without being overplayed and the visuals alone will make my eyes pop for many a year to come, in HD. A good ending to the night; I felt the tension of the last month finally drain away by the time I got back home.

May 6 – Relaxed at last!

Today was my first official day off, so I slept in somewhat late – 8am, and it felt good. I spent the first half of the day just relaxing, catching up on my reading with a cuppa tea at my elbow - All The Windwracked Stars is but one of many books I have on the run, this one by Elizabeth Bear and a darned good read if somewhat ambiguous on who the bad guys are and it seems a little overloaded with guilt. Like any of us need more of that.

Everything secret is eventually declassified given time, so it’s no surprise that even the SR-71 Blackbird would see the sun set on some of it’s secrets. F’rinstance, you can have a look at its formerly Top-Secret  Flight Manual online – how cool is that? The Blackbird is an iconic aircraft, a symbol of both speed and super-secrecy from an earlier era that will be with us for a long, long time... at least in museums, that is.

May 7 – Fryday

Work seems to be coming together fairly well, which is a good thing - the stress levels have to ease off soon, or my hair and I are going to part ways( or at least have a massive colour change ). Being in charge of two branches brings its own challenges, but I'm somewhat tickled that I have my own office now. Once I get all the paperwork squared away, I'll see to personalizing it a little - way better than a cubicle, as it has a DOOR and walls!

Finally, the wait is almost over: Blizzard announced that the Starcraft II release date is July 27, 2010. There’s going to be massive Starcraft Sickdays taken in Korea on that day, I tell you – the game is hugely popular there. Also just released is an oldie but goodie: Mechwarrior IV – for free! The good folks at MekTek have compiled a downloadable release of the entire game, enhanced with code updates and all the downloadable extras. Y’have t’love it a gaming community like that. Or a scientific community that creates artificial muscles like they use in battlemechs... neat, eh?

May 8 – Starcraft Saturday

I worked again today when I really shouldn’t have, to help out at the downtown store whose staff right now consists of a newly-minted manager and a gaggle of trainees... they’re really strained. I managed to get through the day without too many issues, though it of course became busy as soon as I showed up – that, I’m used to. Even having the police showed up for a false alarm didn’t really phase me, as I’m fairly used to my efforts to help out others being punished somehow by Fate; since I know someone else is laughing, so who am I to take away a smile?

Smiles are few and far between sometimes, but here's something to make you laugh: The World's Funniest Jokes! Nice that they're all indexed too...

May 9 – Sam who?

It’s nice to have a Sunday off, but I’ll still be working at least 1 in 4 every month to ensure the staff at both my branches have equal time off all around – happy, happy. Today was Mother’s Day, a low-key one at that... I took my mom out to Home Depot so she could pick out some plants for the balcony. We were surprised by the huge variety and massive size of the plants at the local store; Home Depot is not somewhere I would have thought to have such a well-stocked Garden Dept, given that in ON White Rose was usually the place to go – before they downsized in 1999. She was quite pleased, and the balcony has become an oasis of potted plants festooned with solar lights, which makes it very cool to see at night.

My evening was spent dozing on and off, as I felt the last few weeks catching up to me at last. I tried to watch a bit of Terminator: Salvation on The Movie Channel, but it was painful enough even with the audio muted that I gave up and simply worked on putting a few more things away from wayward boxes. Of interest: Sam Worthington of Avatar was also in Term: Salvation and the Clash Of The Titans reboot, so he went from stinker to top of the Box Office to stinker again. Not bad at all for someone I’ve never heard of before 2009, if you have to have it on your IMDB page. With that, I’m a-bed early.

Thanks for the comments on the past few blogs; love to see it lively!