Rings, Retro and Recovery

Just a few weeks to go!

July 5th - Travel

As above: in less than a month as of today, I will be in Niagara - I board my flight early the morning of July 31st from BC, and stay until the afternoon of August 8th; over a week! Thanks again to Martin's massive generosity, I shall be able to visit the place of my birth once again, see many of my friends and do Lots Of Relaxing. I'll be bringing my laptop of course, as I also hope to get some writing done whilst said Relaxing is in progress. There's a few spots I recall as being most excellently suited to such activities, with the minor addition of some ice cream and / or soft music, both of which are readily( and cheaply )available thereabouts. *grin*

For those of you with more means or wider-ranging travel dreams than I, may I humbly suggest bookmarking LonelyPlanet.com. The site is packed with travel tips and information, as well as inspiring ideas of places to travel to on this huge spinning blue marble we all share. Heck, they even have a section where you can debate( or discover? )what the Best Beer in the World is! I do also miss my 1,000 Places to See Before You Die calendar from last year, which is why I was pleased to see this recent article from Yahoo Travel on the same topic - now all I need is to figure what one of the many How To Get Rich Quick ideas to use.

Nah. I'll just take the financial advice in this article instead - much great chance of success, though over a longer period of time.

July 6th - Old Made New Again

You knew I was going to mention it: United Breaks Guitars. Watching that hit counter grow every day from thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to millions - wow. That's viral marketing at work, folks - the power behind such shows as Britain's Got Talent and all those. Media magnification© at it's finest!

Video games have always been near and dear to my heart, though I am the first to admit I enjoy the actual playing of them more than finishing them; more of a 'journey rather than the destination matters' thing, I suppose. I have a LOT of games on the shelves, more than I realized... far more than I ever collected compared to the few numbers of CD's, so I guess that's where my money went in those days, rather than into the vast music collections some of you hopefully still retain. As I look over my collection, there are quite a few gems there... so I was pleased as anything to discover that quite a few of those great games have been updated and collected for sale at GoG.com.

Good Old Games, as they call themselves, has updated dozens of older PC game titles for download and use on Windows XP and Vista( even 64-bit like mine! )at incredibly low prices - most of the games are $10.00 or less, with titles like MDK2, Descent( which made me ill the 1st time I played! )and the original Fallout. It made me smile to see so many, and I think I will have to get a few of my favourites to play again on my new laptop, along with a few I missed the first time around. Outdated as most of them are, the gameplay is where they shine, not the graphics which have marched solidly onwards over the years.

Yet there is a lot to be said for new technology... when it can bring you images like these. That's right, robot fans - Mechwarrior is back after being on hiatus since 2002. Bring on the battle tech! Best of all: MechWarrior 4 is going to be released for download soon, free!

July 7th - Coral and Contests

Scary news today: what with the current global economic crisis, Korean tensions, H1N1 and the loss of Michael Jackson, do we need more bad news? Sorry but yes... it's a big one. Despite warnings about Global Warming and the ozone layer, most people are not too worried about the environment crashing, thinking that films like The Day After Tomorrow are overdoing things in the usual Hollywood style.

But what it the world ended with a whimper, not a bang? That's just what scientists studying the world's coral reefs told reporters today, warning that this critical food-chain link is in jeopardy and may die out completely within the century. Think about it: dead oceans... dead planet. I'm scared all over again, now.

For those of you who enjoy entering contests, but are wisely wary of scam-sites that will sell your contact info to phone marketers like the scum at Imperial Majesty Cruise Lines, who pestered me some months back until I simply told them I was not planning to take any vacations in the next decade due to a total lack of money as a perpetual student in school. They stopped calling, amazingly. After much searching, I located LookContests.com, which is a wonderful free site that compiles ONLY legitimate contests from companies such as those from Ford, Skittles, etc - no chance of fraudsters taking your info here. A neat feature of the site is that it sorts the contests into categories such as daily, weekly or unlimited entries and lets you keep track of the ones you have already entered - great for those contests that will disqualify anyone attempting more than one entry in a certain time period. So far, I've not won anything... but as the saying goes: nothing ventured nothing gained. Better yet: no noticeable increase in my junk mail, even after a few months.

July 8th - Pedal Power

Today was a hot day, which means power use was up as people ran their A/C more to keep cool. In the future, as we all know, demand for electricity is going to outstrip supply, which is why it is important we develop things like the Smart Grid all the sooner. C|Net has an excellent article on the topic, which reveals many exciting possibilities, one of which I touched on previously concerning electric cars that may be used in their millions to assist the Grid at peak demand times. A sure sign that this is going to be the wave of the future are the various power-generation kits now available at places like Canadian Tire, hopefully just the start of simpler ways for people to reduce their demand for electricity. I know that such a unit here would easily generate energy most evenings, when the wind is high from the north over the lake; setting up a battery system to store that free juice would take a little doing, but it excites me that such things are now a semi-realistic option without huge expense or training involved. Even Vancouver is getting on board, with news that they are going to require all new development to accommodate electric cars, with plugs installed for charging. Progress!

Though it was rather sweaty today on the road, I'm back to riding my bike to work most days. At less than 2km( with a large cardio-improving hill smack in the middle )the ride there and back is a good workout but not such a drain that I arrive winded, or can't do it after a long, wearing day... I am glad to say that I am feeling very much recovered from my surgery, though I am going easy on the exercise - slow and steady are the increases, says the doctor. The same with my diet; I have had few nausea attacks since the operation, which I accredit to my system getting rid of the last of the poisons my malfunctioning gall bladder had splashed around during its overextended stay. I hope by the end of the summer to be back on track to proper health, while avoiding any temptation to fall into bad food habits - McDonald's has not seen me for the last ten years of my life, nor shall they ever again. Bleh!

July 9th - And I thought they smelled bad...

Some amusing news: if you want to travel into the future, apparently all it takes is to move to northern B.C. where the clocks are running fast... for over 65,000 people, that is.

A bit of a letdown today, regarding one of my more-liked shows on HGTV. It seems that Restaurant Makeover is not as highly thought of as I had surmised, though I admit it is somewhat formulaic and contrived at times. Still, I like seeing places go from blah to rah! so to speak, and it's an entertaining hour of non-violent TV which is fairly rare these days. Everyone needs a break from explosions, people screaming at each other and stress, wouldn't you agree?

Thus, the question runs to purchasing one of these - word is that they'll be available soon, though not in what sizes. Oh, the uncertainty - just like surviving a night outside on the ice planet Hoth!

And for those who may have thought I've left bacon out of this week's blog - think again.

July 10th - Debating About Working

Today was a Development Day at work, where another manager and I were walked though the Golden Path of Enlightenment, as envisaged by MMart. I was surprised by the depth of some of the material, and pleased that though it was challenging, I could see myself getting my head around it - albeit with the requisite hard work. It looks like my time at work for the next while is going to be even busier, what with managing the store, training a new hire and getting myself on track with new expectations and responsibilities. While I fully realize that I am not making as much as some managers in other businesses, I do not think I would have received even half the wide-ranging training I have been getting now at this company. What annoys the $%#@! out of me though, is all those earlier wasted years at CCCorp in ON, where I steered myself out of management for several good reasons, not the least among them their haphazard, half-assed promotion and training practices.

One of the topics covered was assisting employees in reaching their goals, be it at work or at home, including helping them save for things like vacations without breaking the bank. A possibility for them would be to work from home, for a few months to help supplement their income, without necessitating them taking a second job and so making their primary job( ie. MMart )suffer from the overload. A good site to help in finding reputable home employment is Monster.Ca, which has some tips on the topic, as well as WhyDoWork.com - I love the name!

Darn it, why can't we all just toss off the shackles of capitalism, to embrace something better? I recommend that you sidle on over to CreatedDebate.com to see what thousands of people have said about the mishaps and merits of the capitalist system designed to make the rich richer, and the poor, um... unemployed. Having seen myself some of the consequences of failing social systems firsthand in Mexico, I have to say that many of the socialist aspects of Canada are heartily endorsed by yours truly. Though I also feel that indeed, the rich get richer while the middle class goes in circles, and the poor get turned into mailboxes.

July 11th - Sad in Sunshine

I was definitely glad to be off today, as I was feeling rather sad... odd, given the sunny weather; not sure why, maybe events are catching up to me - hard to say. I think my annoyance of the afternoon gave way to melancholy, as I tried yet again to enjoy the deck out the back but was defeated by the idiots at the park next door. John Q. Public, take note: if you are in a huge park for the day, where the houses are mere specks in the distance, enjoy yourself and let your kids romp.

However, if the park is a tiny postage stamp nestled into a neighbourhood where the homes are RIGHT NEXT TO THE PARK, don't let your pack of little monsters scream their fool heads off ALL DAY LONG while pushing each other off the dock on the nice, QUIET lake. People like myself may come out onto their decks, some fifty feet away or so, and stare at you with their arms crossed, perhaps becoming angered to the point of calling the police to have a chat with you. And that's what the nice, calm neighbours might do, at the very least. Be warned.

In any case, I settled inside for most of the day, where closed windows and earplugs abated the noise and consoled myself with words. I read a good deal of a book I've not looked at in over a decade: The Ring, by Daniel Keys Moran and was loosely based on Wagner's tale Der Ring des Nibelungen. Moran also wrote Emerald Eyes, another novel concerning telepaths. I wonder what he might have been like if tapped to write a few episodes of Babylon 5, where telepaths figured prominently in the major plotlines. Interesting thought, and amusing along the same lines as this never-published article about how he came to write The Ring... which is a warning to authors everywhere.

In case you haven't checked out his site recently, Neil Gaiman's been quite busy in his usual excellent way. Being one of my favourite authors, I find his semi-regular journal a great read, as it shows his writing style at his informal best without adding in the( many )extra passes that editors and himself make on his words. Stellar.

July 12th - Duty Calls Again!

Popping onto xBoxLive! today, I ran across the guys playing COD4 online, just like last summer - so much for COD5, yay! I happily spent a good part of the day gaming with them, enjoying the banter and the basic pleasure of blasting the crap out of the enemy; very cathartic. Damn, I know I've said it before, but it is just awesome to be able to game with some of my good friends from thousands of miles away - great to 'see' you, guys.

The evening saw me working on my NWN project, talking with several of my project comrades and plugging away at my current slice of the pie. I am writing up small 1 or 2 sentence random item descriptions, to be integrated into our own unique item generation code. Simply put, it will randomly generate 'treasure' items based on a number of factors in the game, allowing a vast range of uniquely tradable( and thus valuable )items to be made without needing to hand-create thousands of them one by one. In essence, we will allow players the thrilling possibility of getting some Really Cool Stuff when they adventure, with a little hard work on our part beforehand translating into a fantastic in-game experience. I'm really gobsmacked that I've managed to assemble such a talented and dedicated crew to do all this, so doing my share is as vitally important to me as keeping the whole thing on track.

So, it's back to work... I've items to imagine!

Bots, Biscuits and Bozos

Did anyone find a few packs of Smarties out there with the blue ones inside? They're vanishing fast...!

June 29th - Simpson Games

As I mentioned already a few weeks ago, I'll be returning to Niagara on July 31st for Nigel & Shawna's wedding, plus a week of relaxation and visitation. I was thrilled today to discover that the GO train travels directly from Pearson Airport to St. Catharines - for a trivial $14.05 fee, I can skip weekend traffic and the cost of a rental car! Yay! I'm still not sure if I will rent a car for the week while I am there, or just use the bus and rent a car when needed on a day-to-day basis. I'm quite used to walking or cylcling around town here in B.C. so depending on a car for transport seems rather odd to me now. Which is odd too.

Those of you who like The Simpsons are probably familiar with fan-art drawings of them, like this one from DeviantArt.com where the characters are drawn in a unique anime style - the artist has since gone on to fame and fortune thanks to that single picture, huzzah! Others have gone a different route, where they 'Simpsonize' characters, quite often from Sci-Fi - Dylan Meconis has done the entire cast of BSG, plus there are galleries for DC Comics characters, Marvel, movies and other characters... over a hundred characters in all. Quite a different take on the usual comic image.

Being a day off, it vanished fairly quickly - I ended up installing a few more games on my laptop, including Battlefield2, StarWars BattlefrontII, and one of my favourites: Dawn Of War, which is set in the Warhammer40K universe - tabletop gaming brought into the computer age in 3D. Which still doesn't mean you can't create your own boardgame pieces fairly easily... this shows you how. Simple!

June 30th - Mmmm.... Timmy's!

I was at the Colwood branch for a change today, actually arriving an hour earlier to do an interview for a prospective hire. One of my favourite things is the Bacon Breakfast Biscuit at Tim Horton's, which is where I did the interview today( I recommended she be hired ). Back to the biscuit: not too doughy, with just the right about of Crumbly Factor to it; a firm texture and a delightful taste, topped with cheese and bacon. One heckuva good start to the day... and a good thing too, because it was $#@! busy, being the last day of the month plus the last banking day before the holiday tomorrow. I felt rather stretched when I went home, 2 hours past when I had been scheduled to - I just didn't want to leave the other staffer to handle the massive influx of last-minute customers we were getting. Silly people.

Tonight also saw me send out a 90-day update to the members of my NWN project, to keep everyone updated and on track. It's very difficult to keep people who are on different time schedules in all parts of the world coordinated, but so far we are managing. Shared visions are tricky things, yet I am hopeful everything will be getting off the ground soon.

Another virtual world I miss is based on Battletech, where you run around as giant robots blasting other robots piloted by your friends to glowing little bits. There was a Battletech Centre at the base of the CN Tower way back in the 90's, which has long since vanished... but I did manage to find mention of an updated version being present at the Origins Games Convention this year. Simulator pods for giant robots... if I only had the capital to open one here or in Niagara Falls - tourist dollars! The official Virtual World website has a comprehensive listing of sites where the simulators will be this year - moblie mech madness!

And if you don't like virtual worlds, you can always just grab some wood, nails and glue to build your own. Plus you could hire this guy to do it - skills!

July 1st - Red and White

Happy Birthday Canada. I'll let others express my feelings about this lovely country we all share. Love ya.

For once, I didn't have any plans, or anywhere to go. I had expected to work today, but at the last moment yesterday I received word that Head Office had decided to closed my branch for the holiday. It was lovely to have the day off, with pay, but I had made no plans with anyone and so I simple stayed home and enjoyed the time off in the morning, because...

Unsurprisingly, by noon the park next door was packed with partying people. so much so that nearly 20 people crowded the tiny floating dock alone - this all in on a surface area the size of a modest bathroom. It likely made for a lot of new aquiatances and friendliness, but there was barely room to swig a beer out there, from what I could see. Thankfully nobody decided to dose the crowd with high-amperage music, as the chatter levels were loud enough already.

In the main, I kept to the quieter parts of the house - the racket next door in the park gradually died down towards dinnertime as more and more people left to attend various festivities elsewhere. I received word from a friend via text msg that the downtown was impossibly packed with people around the Inner Harbour - a literal zoo. So my desire to travel down there for the fireworks evaporated; I didn't want to wander around alone in a crowd, trying to find friends somehow, even with the convenience of cell phones.

July 2nd - Up, up and awa....zzzz...

I had my new trainee for the third day today; she seems to be taking things in fairly well. though it's obviously too early to tell much beyond that. Being a certified trainer for the company is an interesting thing, in that I get to pass along all my accumulated wisdom in measured doses and see how much sticks. So far, things seem to be going well, avoiding overload while making sure we stick to a schedule to cover all the bases. It's nice that we're at a store where some days are much quieter than others, as there's a lot of reading to do and I want to break that up with practical practice fairly regularly. So far, so good.

On the topic of training: I wish, I wish, that I had this list in grade school to learn my ABC's from. Though I seemed to have turned out to be a SciFi fan anyway, thanks perhaps to my superhero Underroos and Superfriends wallpaper( mind had Shazam and no villains )in my childhood room. Made for good dreams!

On the other hand, some things most people just don't think about, like what happens to Disney Princesses when Ever After isn't so happy after all...

July 3 - Fridaze

Today I worked at our Colwood branch, and boy was it busy. It didn't help that I was with a newer teller, so that I ended up doing at least three transactions for every one of his... ah well. Better that there were two of us there to handle things, with my trainee hovering nearby taking it all in as best she could.

Sometimes, I wonder about the work week. I wonder that we all have to work, or at least the majority of us do. Some of us are lucky enough to love the jobs we do, in that they pay well enough that we don't have to worry incessantly about things like balancing the budget monthly. Adding kids into the mix only complicates things, which makes me all the more impressed with single mothers out there who make many sacrifices for their kids. Needing to work stinks, in my opinion, as most anyone you ask would rather not be working if they had the choice, apart from those who feel a calling towards their profession or the need for fame and fortune.

Thoughts on that? Anyone? Or am I wrong in that all of you would rather be doing what you're doing?

Maybe the folks at CLAW have the right idea... while British Airways might go to the other extreme to survive.

Or, if you can believe it, you can stab your friends on an MMO in the back to make some real-world cash. It just happened in EVE Online - scary!

July 4th - Boom and Bust

There were no fireworks for me today, just like on Canada Day - some people had told me that if the weather was right, one could stand on Dallas Rd on the southern edge of Victoria and look towards Port Angeles to see their fireworks for the Fourth of July over there in the USA. I was too exhausted from my day: between a busy customer day( good weather / sunny skies always does that )and trying to train my new hire, plus all the manager duties for the end of the month, every minute of the day was full. As are every day of mine for the next 2 months as I train - but that's part of the job, and I'll do my best.

Unfortunately, the evening was a wash, as our landlord did something that managed to both surprise and shock myself and my parents. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say all of our small 'goodwill' projects around the place have been suspended indefinitely, pending an explanation - if any is forthcoming, that is. Sadly, I was less shocked than my parents, as my grasp of the foibles and frailties of the human condition is much more refined than theirs, with my near-decade spent at MMart dealing with people, money and all the lovely trouble that conjures up. I have to say I am disappointed too, as I had been looking forward to more yardwork to get in shape, beautifying the place bit by bit as time and enery permits. Who doesn't want to improve the place they live in, without spending money, when they can?

But, being handy doesn't always mean the work you do is... good. Unlike Mike Holmes, the guys at ThereIfixedIt.com come up with solutions that will never be called elegant, pretty or professional - but they do make for good photos, so go have a look.

July 5th - Last Sunny Day

My morning was somewhat groggy, as I didn't sleep well last night( see above ). My mind, being the temple that it is, was busy whirring with possibilities and such late into the night, and so kept my body awake. At least I was able to sleep in a bit today, though the open window last night let me catch the unpleasant encounter of the dog next door meeting something nasty... though I don't believe it was a cougar.

First thing after breakfast today I eagarly logged onto Future Shop's site to pre-order Windows 7, as they had it at a 50% discount, plus a 'Staycation' Coupon for $10.00 off that... quite a deal. Or so I thought. You think I could get the site to let me order the thing? Nope. It stuck me in a loop, saying that I could neither ship nor pick up the item, no matter what I did. Very, very frustrating.

Instead of driving, I cycled over to Future Schlock to see what could be done... of course I was disappointed with the outcome. After a lot of head-scratching on the floor( great service there, fellahs... not. )the staff directed me to call the Customer Service line... where I eventually was told the item was actually Sold Out. Since the website didn't actually SAY this anywhere, I was rather put out... and chalked it up again to poor e-commerce design. Really: get it together, F.Schlock.

I managed to shed my disappointment by mid-afternoon, after diving into a 3-hour session of Civ:Rev that ended when I suddenly won in the middle of my grand plan - I hate that. The 'You have Won!' screen pops up and all of a sudden you are done, plans unfinished and that sense of victory stolen from you without rancor - darn the luck. Why can't that happen when I buy a lottery ticket - surprise win! I'd be good with that!

In the evening, I took the bus south to Victoria( it was door to door practially - wow! )to attend a 'meeting' a work: we started our new financial year this month, so staff gathered from the region to relax and eat free food while swapping stories. My fave part were the door prizes: I managed to randomly pick the best one there, an iPod Shuffle! Go me! Now I have some portable tunes, and I won't feel so behind the times... but have I given a little bit of my soul to Apple after all?

Time will tell... for now, I will Shuffle on!


That's it for the week... less than a month until I am Niagara-bound!

Ruins, Redheads and R.I.P.

Did you know that Mars Canada has cut all production of green & blue Smarties? Apparently synthetic dyes are on the out, so as of now, if you have a box with those colours, save it - they're collectables!

June 22 - Old Stones

Similar to my friend friend Bob's Ruined Niagara blog, I ran across this: Abandoned Places In The World. There are quite a few cool places listed there, starting off with an abandoned Japanese industrial island that looks to be straight out of a sci-fi movie. I hope that they update soon; Bob's blog has been remiss of late, so I can only wish that he'll stumble across some new ruins soon to share with us all...

There was a news story this month that notches rather nicely into the above topic: how the St. Lawrence Seaway was a Bad Idea. Having grown up next to the Welland Canal, I was used to seeing giant cargo ships passing by majestically on their way to deliver cargoes from around the world. The article talks about how bad the Seaway is for the environment of the Great Lakes, as well as the ever-diminishing cargo loads that are traveling through it - far below the projections that the original builders had for it to accomplish by this date.

Mondays - that's about it for me. Just relaxing and recovering - the doctor said that after this Wednesday, I can go back to biking to work as long as I don't push myself. In a month I can begin regular exercises, including light abdominal workouts - I plan mainly to focus on the cardio work, and leave the rest of it until after I return from Niagara. One nice thing about working where I have been for so long is that I have a ton of vacation time saved up. Even counting my trip in a month, I'll still have over two weeks of vacation time left, and that's taking into account the week I've already used at the start of June for my operation. Sweet!

June 23 - Hee-Haw?

Way, waaaay back in the day, when computers were just stumbling out of their monochromatic phase and games were able to fit quite nicely on a single 5.25" disk, there was a game called M.U.L.E. from a tiny company called Ozark Softscape. It came out in 1983, and proposed a novel idea: what it computer games were designed to bring people together to play, instead of just being a single-player experience? This novel concept saw M.U.L.E.( which stands for 'Multiple Use Labour Element )arrive on shelves to become a classic of classics, that rare game that is fun and new every time you play it. Several clones of the game were made( including one for the Amiga! Ha! )which are listed on this very informative page entitled Subtrade. There is even some concept art for the game here - very good, for a fan-made art sheet.

Since the arrival of the internet and much better computer hardware, a few fans have managed to create AMO, which is Atari Mule Online. Yes, you heard it right: you can now download and play a game of M.U.L.E. with your friends, online... something the original designers of the game could only dream of 25 years ago. Sweet! Anybody want to play a game...?

MMO's these days seem to be taking a new path: no longer are they behemoths charging a monthly fee to play. Instead, the game is free to play... but supported through microtransactions, meaning players can augment & customize their characters through small purchases within the game world. Add a hat, a bigger gun or some fancy boots to make you faster - the more you pay, the cooler the play, or so the idea goes. The new Battlefield: Heroes is one of these games, and I will be checking it out this week, should I manage to get it working - for some reason, it just doesn't want to connect me to a server... overload, perhaps?

June 24 - Brekkie with the Bear

I had breakfast at A&W this morning, of all places - and it was good! They open at 6am, which is nice, and they're located right across the street from the plaza I work in in Millstream. The toast was perfect, the eggs were sizable and the hash brown was light and tasty. The only letdown was the bacon, which seemed to have been unwrapped from a large spool and passed close by some flames for a few seconds - underwhelming. Maybe they need a little refresher course on How To Make Perfect Bacon... ? Sure, it's not fast, but why rush perfection?

For those of you out there who like comics a lot, I have a few links for you. ComicArtFans.com is a place where comic artists and fans gather to exchange ideas, post new comic series and do all the other fun things that comic fans do when they get together. A similar place is ComicSpace.com. for those of you who enjoy comic book movies, there is always ComicBookBovie.com, where the latest and greatest in reverse are foisted on the unsuspecting world.

One comic I hope to see return to semi-regular production is The Adventures of Newt & John - Two Roommates Take On The Universe. Mike has been very busy( as usual )for some time, including work on The Jinx Project... but I hope he will find some time in the near future for an N&J update. You can read all about what he's been up to here at his blog.

June 25 - Celeb-Apocalypse

Today marks the premiere of Stoked, a new animated TV series on Teletoon brought to you by the creators of Total Drama Island and 6teen. It also happens to be a show that two of my good friends worked on very hard for the last long while: take a bow, Mike & Brian. The is about a group of young surfers who arrive at a summer camp for surfer-wannabes... and find it is not exactly what they expected. The visuals are amazing; the waves and water( way to go Mike! )look incredibly realistic, all for being realized within the Flash medium - this is hard stuff to pull off, folks.

Sadly, today also saw the demise of the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, whose music I admit I have liked on and off over the years - I think it depends on whether Weird Al did a cover of a song before I really took a liking to it. Back in grade school, I remember being at a school gathering in the gymnasium for( I think )school fund raising by selling chocolate bars - the usual scheme. When the prizes for top sellers were announced, one of them was a large framed photo of a Michael Jackson - before all the strangeness, so he looked somewhat normal. When I asked a classmate who this guy was, they gave me That Look, as in "Boy, are you behind the latest fad..." - I remember the scene more because of that look and the feeling it engendered than anything else... like who it was exactly that I asked the question of.

On top of that, Farrah Fawcett also passed on today from cancer, which she had apparently been suffering from since 2006. Known for her mane of amazing blond hair and stunning smile, the star of Charlie's Angels will be missed by millions, myself included - few knew she had a very cutting, dry wit. I do not believe that a star loved by so many could have had any detractors from a life lived so well. Hopefully her story will raise awareness of cancer in the public, much as Patrick Swayze's own 2008 diagnosis has prompted many to take potentially life-saving tests they might have otherwise wavered on.

June 26 - Of all the... ?

One of the things I love about life is the ironies: those little things that make you scratch your head and wonder if someone out there is having us all on. Take, for example, my moving from St. Catharines to Victoria - what are the chances they both would lay claim to the title of 'Garden City' ? For the record, Victoria wins hands-down... it has more green and more flowers than anywhere I have ever seen or heard of, bar none. Another chance occurrence: I now live in Langford... right near Niagara Creek, which you can see near the center of this map - no patch on the Niagara River, but then I don't have to deal with tourists at the Falls.

The laptop I've been happily using for the last year or so is running great: it's a Gateway FX model, which apparently have been damned hard to find in stores. It's one of those ironies: a great product at a great price, but you can't find it anywhere as the manufacturer made only so many and has moved on to other product lines - I was lucky to be in Best Buy when I was last September, as they apparently sold out within a few weeks across the continent - ouch! Good news though: the new models of the FX laptop series are coming, so those of you who are looking for a helluva bargain might want to keep an eye on Besy Buy's shelves in August...

A while back I discovered a blog that covers some of the cool things to see & do on Vancouver Island. It's worth a read... and eventually I'll get to a few of the places & events myself. Darn this time-sucking day job... another irony, really. I've lived here almost 2 years now, and in some ways I'm still a tourist. Heck, I've yet to go to Vancouver, which is only a little further away than T.O. was from Niagara - without the traffic headaches, but you have to pay to take a boat there. We'll see...

June 27 - Quarter-century clue-in

Who the heck is Haviland Morris, you ask? Well, considering that I saw her in two TV movies this week, I was surprised at the answer. She played Caroline Mulford in 1984's Sixteen Candles alongside Molly Ringwald, and Marla Bloodstone in 1990's Gremlins 2 - I only put those two roles together through IMDB.com where I clued in that she had covered her glorious red hair in Sixteen Candles with a blond wig, so as not to show up Ringwald's own auburn locks. Personally, I think she could have carried the earlier film, though she also could have done without the constant cigarette in Gremlins 2 - Phoebe Cates looked rather drab in comparison, even so. For those so inclined, this site has a listing of quite a few actresses you may recall from decades past, and what they've been up to now.

Part of my evening was spent setting up my Canon ip4500 inkjet printer to be accessible over the network - basically, either of the laptops here can see and print to it wirelessly. While it sounds easy, the fact remains that modern networking hardware still makes you buy a few 'extras' to get it alk talking. Fortunately, my new Dlink DIR-655 router has a unique feature called SharePort built in - a USB port that can be shared to any computer on your network. Plug in something like, oh, a printer and voila - it's available to any computer on your network. No fuss, no muss - you can do the same with hard drives as well. The good folks over at Butterscotch.com talk about NAS( Networked Attached Storage )which is the next Big Thing in home entertainment: no more switching DVD's around from the bookshelf. Instead, all of your media( movies, pictures, autio )is contained on one ultra-reliable home server box. Simply select what you want and play, just like a PVR. Not cheap yet though... but if current flat-screen TV sales figures are any indication, it's only a matter of time.

I actually scared myself tonight while watching the HD-DVD version of Blade Runner: the Director's Final Cut. Not that the film itself scared me, but while I was watching it I was constantly pausing the DVD to do one thing or another. After a while, I switched back to regular TV to see a show... and noticed to my horror that the 'pause bar' had left a burn-in mark on the screen! Normally only of worry with plasma-based screens, I was stunned that it had happened to my LCD TV... but it faded after a few minutes of regular TV watching as the pixels shifted with the show's motion - phew! Good thing I have a 2-year warranty... and you bet I won't be pausing things for overlong with the HD player. I must say I am disappointed with both, as I never expected an LCD to exhibit burn-in, or the HD player not to initiate a screen-saving mode after a few minutes on pause.

June 28 - Leave it for the weekend

today I spent quite a few hours outside doing yard work, specifically raking leaves which is not a lot of fun in the summer. The Arbutus tree, native to Vancouver Island and the lower Mainland, sheds its dead leaves in the early summer to make way for new growth. these leaves are quite acidic and so cannot be left on the lawn as they would damage it. So we freaking hand I spent four hours of an admittedly lovely Sunday afternoon raking leaves into plastic bags for later disposal; a total of12 bags later I was quite ready to chop down a few trees to avoid doing this next year... but I stopped as they will so darn nice compared to a wretched old elm, for example. I was glad that we had a hottub here, as I really needed it after all that - my first time in for over a month now, and it was fantastic.

I was engrossed in a game of Civ:Revolution for the remainder of the evening, playing as the Mongols vying for world domination against, as fate would have it, the Chinese. I won eventually through sheer economic might, but the funniest moment of the game came when the Chinese, headed by the avatar of Mao Tse Tung, threatened to go to war with me.... unless I parted with the secret of Communism! I laughed out loud, as the avatar was waving Mao's little red book right at me as he did it! After that, I ground them into dust, but I was quite put out - one of the game's glitches caused me not to end up with an ICBM, the most powerful weapon in the game, despite the fact I had built everything correctly to receive it. Bummer - no nukes, so the endgame was somewhat anticlimactic.


As I finish off this entry, I am writing it outside on the deck... watching the leaves still falling from the arbutus trees in nearby yards as the wind gusts. Looks like I will have a lot to do next weekend, again. *sigh* No leaf blowers though - those things annoy the heck out of me, and where do the leaves go? Nowhere.

Leaves, Life and Laparoscopy

Where does the day go? Away too fast, it seems....

June 15 - On Bicycling

Riding my bike to work is a choice I have made to reduce my dependence on a vehicle, especially one I would only occasionally use beyond a three-km radius from my home. Still, electric cars intrigue me, as they do a lot of people... who may have come up with a use for them as they site idle while charging. As shown by the massive power failure on the East Coast in 2003, the modern power grid in North American is going to need some serious help to keep running smoothly. Given the rising demand for alternative energy, it looks as though idle electric cars might best serve as a backup for the main grid during peak demand periods. In effect, the millions of charging car batteries can be intelligently managed by electric utilities to supplement their own systems and so help smooth out demand during events like summer heatwaves or the like.

The popularity of electric bikes is on the rise too, but I don't see the point, aside from those with mobility issues or long-distance commutes. Which I do see here on the highways of Vancouver Island; bicycles are allowed on the major highways in BC on the shoulders, which still freaks me out every time I see one there when I am driving along. I myself would not ride on the highway shoulder, ever - several people I have talked to have described close calls with high-speed vehicles that made my hair stand on end.

Getting around on my bike is not all that difficult, given that BC Transit intercity buses all have daytime bike racks. I can take the bus from Langford into Victoria and ride around the city on my bike instead of depending on the bus system, which is great. It really takes the stress out of 'needing' a vehicle to get around the area, and I hope that more people over time become less dependent on four-wheeled transport when it's not absolutely necessary. It's expensive in so many ways, and though there are car-pooling efforts and ride-share programs here, it still comes down to "Do you need a car, or just want it for the convenience?"

June 16 - Longevity and Disasters

Have you ever wondered how long something you've created will last? Fifty years? A century? A thousand years? Apart from the many dire reports about our garbage lasting centuries, I have wondered how long my own words will last, in various mediums. Some years ago I purchased a pack of CD-R's that claimed to have a 100-year lifespan... assuming someone can find a working CD-ROM to read the thing. News has come down the pipe now that scientists have created a method of recording data that will last... are you ready? A billion years. No kidding - have a look at the article. I wonder if the future will appreciate us saving those spam emails for posterity...

Then again, it could all end fairly soon. According to the Mayan calendar, the world will end in late 2012... so of course, there is a film coming out about it. And of course, it is called 2012 - the trailer is big on Day After Tomorrow effects, which makes sense as it is the same director. I think I may even see this one in theaters, just for the big-screen effect. Heck, we have an IMAX theater here in town, so who knows, it may even make it there. I just hope it has better longevity than The Day After did, which despite decent effects for the time has lost some of the scare factor in the last 25 years. Though with all the noise that North Korea has been making of late, it's still rather relevant.

I think the next place I rent might be good if it came with a bomb shelter, or at least some kind of disaster-survival room. Do you know the Eleven Steps to surviving a nuclear war? I can only name five... and not in order, apparently. Yet I can't seem to get any results from googling "Rent bomb shelter" ... ah well. I'd have to ensure it was well-stocked with DVD's and root beer anyway.

June 17th - SETI and Surgery

After work I had an appointment with my doctor to follow up on my gall bladder surgery. I am happy to say that I seem to be recovering perfectly, with no signs of complications. Now that I am free of my malfunctioning bile reservoir, I have noticed that my nausea seems to be fading, though I have to be careful to watch what I eat and how much... but establishing a baseline is something that doctor agreed with. I could still have a food allergy as-still undiagnosed, so he cautioned it is best not the jump the gun and conclude that all my problems were related to the gall bladder until some months have passed first.

My doctor today also mentioned that my surgeon is, in his opinion, the best laparoscopic surgeon on the entire West Coast, bar none. I agree wholeheartedly - I kept waiting for pain to kick in while I was recovering, but apart from some discomfort it was the best experience I could have wished for, in terms of being operated on. Chopping out bits of my original equipment is not something I ever want done more than absolutely necessary, which I think most people can agree with.

Last month, a ten-year anniversary date passed by without me realizing it. Back before the millennium, when the Y2K Bug was looming and most computers had just made the switch to Windows98, there was news about a new bit of free software that was going to take a novel approach to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Instead of trying to scrounge expensive time on supercomputers, the new idea for SETI@home was to break up the data to be searched into small packets which could be distributed to millions of home users, whose computers could be left on to analyze the data when not being used by their owners. It was the first application of distributed computer, which has exploded in popularity since - the Berkely BOINC page lists dozens of projects underway on tens of millions of computers worldwide, including many workplace groups and project associations. My own PC's have been running SETI@home fairly faithfully almost since the day it was first released in May 1999, clocking over 28,000 of hours of data searches... though nothing has been found yet, there is still the possibility. Ten years of searching is nothing compared to the age of the cosmos.

Related to SETI is the Drake Equation, which is a formula used to derive the number of intelligent civilizations out there in the Milky Way galaxy. Widely known and used by many, with a few detractors, it is interesting to plug in variables and see what numbers pop out. You can use this online version to see for yourself how many other civilizations may be out there right now... though they may be quite far away, and not around for all that long considering that the lifespan of the universe is in the billions of years.

June 18 - Words and Leaves in Summer?

Work is going well. Though we have seen a downturn in business like many other sectors, it is unlikely we will be closing stores or laying off staff, thank goodness. My doctor has ordered me to get plenty of rest after each workday, with no activity apart from walking around the house for at least another week. So no cycling, mowing the lawn... or raking leaves? The Arbutus trees hereabouts are all shedding their leaves, which apparently is quite normal for them to do in July. It is a bit early this year, due to the dry weather here on Vancouver Island, and seeing the lawn covered in rather acidic leaves is really rather odd... I am used to September leaf piles, and those being maple at that. Definitely different here.

Back in grade school, I loved history books in our library, and one of my all-time favourites was Castle by David Maccaulay released in 1977. It had had fantastic illustrations, which you can actually browse through some dozens of pages at this link from Google Books.The book describes the creation of thirteenth-century castle from the first shovel of earth dug all the way up to the whitewashing of the exterior, all done in Maccaulay's incredible line-art illustrative style. I think I will pick up a copy soon from AbeBooks.com, seeing as there are quite a few of them and the cost is almost nothing - Maccauly has sold millions of copies of his work over the years, which any author can only hope for with their work!

Books - I have a lot of them. While I have a good memory for titles, I have so many books from years of collecting that sometimes I end up duplicating a title I already have while browsing a bookstore. Since I always have my PDA on me, it has been on my mind for some time to get a list of ALL my books in electronic form, and carry it around with me thus avoiding duplicate purchases. There are quite a few software programs out there, but my thought has always been 'Can I just scan the barcode and have the rest of the data populate itself?' - having title, author, publisher and the like plucked from the 'net much like MP3 tags would save SO much time. So far, BookCAT is the front-runner, followed by Book Collector but I still have to find an inexpensive barcode scanner that's not cheap plastic crap.

No books on bacon though. Which may explain why I've never heard of Bacon Soap until today - and now, so have you. Mmm... bacon!

June 19 - Battlefield and Bots

Next week sees release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in theaters across the country, and the anticipation is massive. It remains to be seen if it will outperform the success of The Dark Knight, which was the highest-grossing film of 2008, according to IMDB's 2008 film database - that's a half-billion US dollars, folks. I really enjoyed last week's Transformers marathon on Teletoon Retro, though a lot of it was wince-worthy from a writing standpoint - but we watch it for the giant robots battling it out for supremacy, not the nuanced character development. As if there was much of that, though the more recent Beast Wars( Beasties on YTV )CGI animated series by Mainframe( now called Rainmaker )did a stellar job tying into the Transformers mythos. Some fine writing there, I kid you not: they won a few Emmy's, which I am not surprised about. The main writer on the series was Larry DiTillo, who also did fantastic work on the He-Man revival a few years back... not to mention some work on Babylon 5. Good job, Larry!

On the topic of transforming: The first MMO game I played after leaving Ultima Online was... Battlefield 1942, which was also one of the first massively multiplayer online shooter games, akin to Quake and Unreal Tournament. Unlike those other two games, where your lifespan was measured in stretches mere seconds long, BF1942 was a blast to play, almost literally. Teams of up to 32 players would face off against each other, playing classic battlefield maps set during WWII of Americans versus the Japanese, Germans versus British, and so forth. You could run as one of various soldier classes, on foot... or jump into a jeep. Or a tank. Or a plane. Or a ship, like a destroyer, battleship or even aircraft carrier! Teamplay was critical, though the communication tools were horrible - simple text chat, which usually got you killed as you were typing, and it was hard to keep an eye on the chat messages while trying to stay alive - no voice chat in those days. It was addictive fun, with a ranking system and a ton of servers to play on. My only regret is that it was still far too easy for people to hack the game and cheat, to the point where almost every game I was in had someone doing something illegal - my frustration built to the point where I just had to stop playing. Damned script kiddies - they probably went on to become the scum who spam people's email and hack into systems to steal personal data.... I wish them long stays behind bars, the sooner the better.

*ahem* My point? It was recently announced that Battlefield:1943 will be released by year's end as a download-only game for XboxLive! - great news! From everything I have seen, it will have all the good points of the old BF1942 but updated for today's consoles... and not a hacker in sight. Sweet!

June 20th - Simple Saturday

Today I finished watching the last few episodes of Arrested Development, along with some of the extras, such as the 'Last Day of Shooting' vignette. For anyone who hasn't seen the series, I highly recommend that you do; I am only sorry that I waited as long as I did after Rene mentioned how great it was to me years ago.

Just a reminder that Dell's 10 Days of Deals continues until June 24th( the day Transformers opens! )and though I haven't seen anything I need for myself, there have been a few great deals so it's worth checking out daily - you might just see something you've been waiting to get. I enjoyed browsing through RedFlagDeal.com's listings of previous day's items from Dell.ca, which may give you an idea of just exactly how good a deal you may have already missed.

Close to bedtime, I stumbled across The Majestic with Jim Carey on TV, and fell in without meaning to. While not critically acclaimed, I found it an intriguing story about a man who loses his memory and mistakenly takes on another life, that of a small-town hero thought to have been killed some years ago in WWII. It was touching at points, a touch too maudlin in other parts but overall a decent watch that didn't have me wanting to tune out, despite being tired. The original website from 2001 is still up, surprisingly, and they have a production journal as well - pretty good for over eight years after a movie's release.

June 21 - Dad's Day

The summer solstice today, the longest day of the year. I won't go into the historical significance, but everyone can see that it is light out really, really late at night. I wish I could say I spent the evening outside, but it's been cold and very windy here the last few days - quite a change from the start of the month's heatwave.

While I was all set for Father's Day today, some dads are notoriously hard to buy for. Given the massive search capabilities of the internet, there are tons of ideas for Gifts for Dad, but I found most to be cheesy kitsch... though I did come across a nice list of ideas you might want to peruse for next year.

We watched Wall-E in the evening, which was one of several DVD's I'd bought( on sale, of course! )for my dad for Father's Day. Neither of my parents had seen the film, so we watched it on my big-screen with the 5.1 speakers and they loved it - it helped that it was such a good film, won an Oscar in 2008, in fact.


I'll leave you with a clip from the upcoming animated film 9, and it's a doozy! No Wall-E, that's for sure - it's dark, dangerous and delightful. Enjoy!

Heat, Hummingbirds and Humdrum

This was a tiring week, but the blog was busy: we passed 2000 hits on June 8th! Updated the blog Monday - nice to have that as a day off.

June 8 - Wokking Work

Some good news today while I was at work: my dad called to say that he had been instantly hired by an airport shuttle service when they interviewed him today, full time! Wonderful, especially in light of the fact that the current company he's been working for has been light on work, as well as common sense - this will be a welcome change for him in terms of stability and I hope, less stress.

To celebrate after work, we went to the Wok Box which was only a few doors down from where I work in the Millstream Plaza. We had the Chinese Feast, whose portions were very generous - so much so that we ended up taking home more than we had eaten! I especially enjoyed the almond chicken, which was just the right level of spicy. I really enjoyed the meal, as did my parents, and I will definitely be back - especially as it is so conveniently only steps away from my workplace!

The future may have more Chinese in it too: news has arrived that Blade Runner is getting a new web series, called Purefold. While original director Ridley Scott won't be taking a personal hand in it, he IS allowing the series to come out under the Creative Commons license, which I believe is a first for any A-list Hollywood director - a good sign that there may be more good things to come.

I hope that in the future, they still have Bacon In A Can. I just can't see myself eating Instant Bacon... unless it's from a Trek-style replicator, then I might just.

June 9 - Heat Kills

We had a nasty example of how deadly the heat can be outside today on the deck. While I was outside, sitting in the shade, a calliope hummingbird flew under the overhead skylights and became trapped, unable to find its way out. In the time it took for me to race to grab a nearby stepstool and reach up to rescue it( less than 30 seconds )the poor thing expired from the heat under the glass. It was heartbreaking, and the only consolation was that I was able to have a close look at the jewel-like feathers of the tiny bird, scintillating emerald-green and shimmering browns. Strangely, we've also had a Great Blue Heron take a nap on the dock today - so that's Canada's largest bird AND its smallest bird, both in our backyard on the same day... good thing the heron didn't want to hop onto the deck.

Also hot: For a while now, I've been following the news about Microsoft's Surface technology - basically, a touch-sensitive screen the size of a coffee table that has been touted as the Next Big Thing in personal computing. Well, some people don't or won't believe the hype... to the point where they've taken one of Microsoft's Surface promo videos and done their own version of it - hilarious, and it has some good points about putting the cart before the horse. I myself derided laptops for years as expensive alternatives to the much more configurable home PC... but now that laptops are mainstream, netbooks are the cutting edge and home PC's can be had for less than $400.00 if you assemble your own, I have to give a nod to market pressure and the march of mass production. My wallet thanks you.

Relaxation was the key today: I just don't have the energy to do much activity-wise. My right leg( thigh, point of fact )has been intermittently numb for the last week. I'm going to make sure to ask the doc about it at my upcoming appointment, to ensure it's not related in any way to the operation. It's a weird sensation - like it's asleep, but I still have full functionality yet when I poke it with a pen, it's not 'fully' sensitive. *sigh* Just one more thing to add to my daily List of Oddities.

June 10 - Bender Rides Again!

Great news today - Comedy Central announced that it has approved production of 26 new episodes of Futurama, after amazing sales of the DVD series that was canceled in 2003. The new episodes will air in 2010 - I can hardly wait!

It was Oven Time at work today; the guy from the restoration services company was here in the morning( before my shift )and discovered the walls were not close to being dry... thanks to his forgetting to turn OFF the A/C. So not only did he do that, he cranked up the heat - to the point where I worked the entire shift with the branch interior at over 90 degrees. Can you say: sauna? Thankfully, like a sauna it was a dry heat... but man, that really sapped my energy and concentration. I was glad that it was a slow day( as many have been of late, unfortunately )so that I didn't have to move too quickly.

I ended up walking home today for the first time, due to various reasons - one of which is that neither the BC Transit buses nor Langford Trolley run in-town after around 6pm. Which means that I'll likely just be biking to and from work, like I had figured on doing anyway for the summer - which is free, as well as far more convenient than waiting around for transit. Though I like the idea of the trolley, it only seems practical for travel on my days off - since it's usually empty when I see it drive by, most people must think it's easier to get around by car.

June 11 - Lifestyle Thoughts

Car washes: I loved those as a kid! I remember going through them, listening to the tumbling roar of the water pounding against the glass and seeing the rotary brushes shimmy along the windows as the car inched through the car wash. It was cheap entertainment to be sure, but I just loved it - like being in the bowels of a monster only to emerge into sunshine and drying trails of water on the other side. Nowadays, car washes are touchless, so the brushes are almost all gone. Some people just don't get it though.

One thing that's changed in my lifestyle is a lack of pub-time. Since moving out to B.C. I've spent less and less time in pubs, mainly I believe due to the fact that I simply don't know as many people here. I consulted Foodpages.ca and came up with a list of local eateries, which was topped by the Country Rose Pub - a straight run a few km away.

Moving out to Langford has again illustrated the point most succinctly: while I DO know a fair number of people here, I don't spend much time with them on a regular basis. In point of fact, I talk to some of my online friends far more often than I do those here on Vancouver Island. Still, we do keep in contact, though again it's not like I'm used to - usually an email, text or call is just a prelude to meeting at Steebs or The Kilt.

I miss that.

June 12 - Uphill Accents

I watched an episode of BSG this morning "The Hand of God" which had some terrific CGI battle sequences in it. Afterwards, on a whim, I searched for some technical specs on things Galactica, and came up with a few surprising sites - Wolf's Shipyard also has B5 images, as does Starship Schematics. Again, I really like cut-away designs of SF ships, like this one of the Enterprise-D, though that particular one is signed by the artists - a little pricer than what I paid for mine. I wonder what it would cost to have Patrick Stewart autograph mine...?

Which reminds me: I love English accents, and apparently the rest of the world does too - anything sounds cool if it's said in an English Accent. I'll even take a Kiwi accent in an English one isn't available - you can even train yourself online to speak with an English Accent. How's that for making use of the internet?

Riding home from work was manageable; I walked the bike uphill for about 1/2 a km, past FutureShop, Staples and Costco, until I reach the crest and can coast down again into a nice backwoods community area away from all the traffic. It's really amazing to go from super-urban shopping zone to windy-road deep-forest semi-suburb in the space of just a few minutes, by bike no less. A quick trip across the highway( imagine traffic lights on the QEW, no overpasses! )and then it's a level jaunt for five minutes to get home through a quiet neighbourhood. Very relaxing, and eventually I'll be a able to cycle up those hills again.

June 13 - Transforming Business

Off in the morning to do some meet-and-greet in Victoria - talking to local businesses to let them know what services my work offers. I handed out a fair number of my own business cards, and chatted up a few folks; all in all, I think it was a successful day, if somewhat tiring to trek around in casual business attire. No way I was going to overdo it in a suit on a sunny Saturday!

When I got home, I tuned into the Transformers Marathon on Teletoon Retro, broadcasting 24 hours of G1-goodness - 48 episodes total. I had it on all day as I worked on various things, napped, and generally tried to relax in between doing minor things around the house. No yardwork yet though - I just don't feel up to it, and I don't have any mulch left to spread over the front areas anyway.

The second Transformers movie arrives on June 24th( inspiringly entitled Transformers2: Revenge of the Fallen )which I am looking forward to, especially as it again stars Megan Fox. Though from this collection of her quotes, she may be best known as just a pretty face, considering what she manages to get quoted for. Then again, most of the fanboys probably don't care if she has the power of speech anyway...

From old to new: I've had my Xbox360 for 1.5 years now, and I'm fairly pleased with it, especially as I only now just picked up a Chatpad for it( on sale this week at F.Schlock )which will make typing msgs SO much easier. Yet despite the Xbox360 having built-in voice chat, people seem to prefer text - weird. Which got me to thinking about upcoming video game consoles... and led me to stumble across this 'promo' video for the PS9 - 7 generations in the future; very cool concept.

June 14 - Sunday Sorting

Most of today was spent digging through cupboards and storage boxes to find, rearrange and toss things as necessary. Lots of little bits, pieces of tech and forgotten toy parts were spread all over as I sorted through things while watching episodes of Robotech Remastered: The Macross Saga - which held up fairly well to my memories of it. The updated DVD release has cleaned-up video and remastered( hence the name )5.1 audio, which sounds great. There are still a few hiccups with it, and the animation looks dated compared to today's Flash-based masterpieces( Stoked, people - go watch it June 25th on Teletoon! )but it's all about nostalgia, really.

And what the hell? io9.com also posted this nugget of flaming fecal fluff: a writer for Torchwood complaining that Babylon 5 has ruined SF by introducing continuous story arcs? How the heck can you say that going from the idea of completely unlinked one-shot episodes to a story arc that rewards viewers who tune in every week is a bad thing??? I wonder if JMS knows about this...

I attended a meeting near my workplace tonight, with about a dozen of the tenants of the complex who all want to share ideas on how to improve business at the plaza. We tossed ideas around for a few hours, all in a positive light - I came away from the meeting quite heartened that others in the plaza are committed to bringing in business through co-operation with their neighbours. Time well spent, with a very friendly and intelligent bunch of workplace neighbours.


Today, June 15th, also marks the beginning of the 10 Days of Deals at Dell.ca, something they do only a few times a year. For those of you with some spare cash and a hankering for tech at a discount, you may want to keep an eye on their site. As for me, I'm going to wait until next year... my stuff's too new, though that 42" Sanyo plasma TV for $649.00 really makes me itch.

Heatwave, Home Depot and Health

A week spent mostly off my feet; bliss! Well, mostly.

June 1 - New Month, New Aches

I was feeling sore and tired today, but less so than on the weekend. The weather is simply lovely, though it looks to be a HOT one this week... which just goes to show: be careful what you wish for! I had hoped for some good weather this week, but all seven days? Unprecedented... so I should have suspected something was up - boy, was I right!

Things on my mind this week included... wills. Which, I might guess, most of you reading this do not have. Hence the need to read what Neil Gaiman had to say on the subject, relating to writers( of course )but important nonetheless. Since I don't happen to have a house, car or secret Swiss Bank Accounts, it's not as important for me as for those with more to disperse - but then, I don't want all my hard-earned swag to end up at an estate garage sale. That'd make my spirit restless, y'know?

Today, BioWare released a trailer for their upcoming massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is unbelievable: watching it, one forgets it is a game trailer, as it is as spectacular as any movie trailer I've seen in many a year. Can't wait for the game to come out; I've not the time now to devote to an MMO like World of Warcraft, but for T.O.R. I might just find a few hours a week.

June 2 - Niagara News!!!

Today was spent mostly outside on the deck, coming in for 'cooling breaks' every few hours. I relaxed: snoozing, reading and typing on the laptop, as the mood took me and the energy levels allowed. I mainly kept to a semi-reclined position, using anything BUT my abdominal muscles, as I mentioned last week. The weather outside was gorgeous, but I had to be mindful not to overheat - sitting under the umbrella in a lounger was the best idea, as the cul-de-sac area back under the skylight by the kitchen window was like an oven when the sun moved to shine in it, despite the occasional breeze.

Some GREAT news today as well: Martin emailed me my flight ticket info! Here's the dates:

July 31st - Arriving Toronto at Terminal 1 @ 2:10pm EST

August 8th - Departs Toronto from Terminal 1 @ 4:30pm EST

... which means yes, I will be coming back to Niagara this summer, thanks to the generosity and support of my friends. Again, I feel so lucky to have such good people in my life - all the better that I can visit them again this year!

Vampires are alive and well in today's media, believe it or not. A recent news article revealed that none other than Avril Lavigne is taking steps to hide her bloodsucking nature from the world. As trivial as it may be, I think it's actually true - I've seen her Canon camera commercial a few times since, and if you look closely when she smiles, there are no incisors visible! Coincidence? Not in Hollywood! And while I actually find prominent incisors attractive( depending on the person )they are only so if they are natural - wannabe goth vamps: you have been warned.

June 3 - Home Depot

In the early afternoon I had to lie down for a few hours, as I suddenly became weak and shaky. I don't think my energy levels were quite up to dealing with the heat outside, which even in the shade was over 30 degrees C. Inside, the house is bearably warm... except of course, in my front room. Maybe I should have built myself one of these, which is a water-powered air conditioner for the budget-conscious. Love those kinds of ideas: low cost AND effective( I even own the same model of fan! ). Though it does waste water, but the Comments section there does describe a closed-loop system possibility, which appeals to me all the more.

Home depot was visited several times today, for various things including a 20' ladder necessary for cleaning windows and reaching various parts of the house - backsplits are like that. And the stepladder that came with the place was far too short to do more than reach the eaves in the front. Why a ladder today though? See tomorrow's entry - today was simply purchasing the hardware in the evening for the upcoming job. I was exhausted and grumpy by the time I got back home again... there wasn't room in the car for both myself AND the new ladder, thanks to the silly design of the Mazda 3's interior. You'd think the split-folding seats would favour a straight pass-through, allowing one side to remain up and so allow the possibility of passenger in the back seat? Nope - the larger folding seat section is behind the driver, not the front passenger - so if you have something like, say, a ladder... then both back seat sections have to fold down to accommodate it. Dumb design - I wrote Mazda a note, but don't expect to hear back.

The local politicians also voted today in favour of moving forward with plans for sewage treatment in the region, voting to go from zero plants to four plants in operation by 2016. I still find it incomprehensible that the capital city of the province has existed so long without any sewage treatment plants whatsoever, just dumping waste into the ocean untreated... I grew up next to a sewage treatment plant in the north end of St. Kitt's, so I knew what it was all about from an early age. I think it prepared me to put up with the crap of later life, in some ways...

June 4 - What the blazes?

In the morning after breakfast I was up on a ladder in the front hall, putting up a curtain to neatly cover over the skylight and so reduce the blazing heat of the sun that we've been getting this week. It will stay up all summer, and hopefully reduce temperatures in the front area of the house( where I spend my time )from oven-like to merely warm. I managed to do it without falling over, though with frequent breaks, a fan aimed up to keep me cool, and sunglasses - it was damn bright up there. Also, I rigged up a screen for the front door to allow it to remain open and increase the airflow through the house. Combined with the skylight curtain, the house was noticeably cooler today, though I still had to retreat to my bedroom for a few hours at the worst parts. A secondary curtain out the back under the deck skylight also cut the blazing sun's fury to manageable levels, creating a decent retreat during the later hours of the afternoon. Still too hot to sleep outside though.

Blade Runner is a film I have always loved( and now own the 5-disc HD-DVD Complete Collector's Edition, which has all 4 official versions of the film plus the rare actual workprint, plus 9 hours of extras. It was on sale too, so that helped add it to my shelf. Nothing compares to seeing Blade Runner in HD with the sound wrapping around you - bliss.

I wonder if in such a future, they would have healthy bacon? No joke - apparently they have special pigs in Spain; have a read.

June 5 - Heat Relief

Today was not as unbearably hot as the last few days have been, thankfully. A nice wind all day from the lake to the north kept the air moving through the house, which was much cooler thanks to yesterday's adjustments. We're also under water-use restrictions here on Vancouver Island, which limits outdoor watering for the summer to just 6 hours a week, total. Not a lot to keep your lawn green, though you are allowed to hand-water as much as you like - no way to I feel up to that yet.

In September, I am really looking forward to seeing Tim Burton's 9 when it comes out... on the 9th. 9/9/9, get it? Today, a preview of one of the villains from the film was released: the Seamstress. Scary, spooky apocalyptic stuff - I can hardly wait!

Boring is bad in my books, and few things are as boring as urban garage doors. Luckily, you can now spice things up: Style Your Garage.com has large stick-on images that turn boring into badass. This one is my favourite - sure stands out from the boring grey alley-doors next to yours in downtown T.O. - they do regular doors and windows, too.

I've been a little frustrated with my laptop of late, but I am still very pleased overall with my purchase - especially as the CPU is upgradable, unlike most laptops. I was also pleased to see it rated here at the top of the mid-level CPU's out there. Which means that if I want to upgrade in about a year's time, the T9800 CPU may eventually drop to an affordable level, and I may add some faster memory too, as it seems to be the weak link of the laptop's performance chain. Never have I been so pleased on a "bang-for-the-buck" purchase of mine, especially as I use it every day for many tasks... even the occasional game or two, go figure.

June 6 - Invasion of Noise

I woke this morning at 6am and couldn't get back to sleep - might have had something to do with some odd dreams I'd had, or maybe the barking dog that kept going for 2 hours.. or the minor earthquake we had. Very neighbourly of people to leave their animals out early, given that everyone around them likely has their windows open so they can hear the precious pet complaining that the sun's been up for hours now yet he hasn't been fed. Another reason for me not to like dogs as pets - like young kids you can't reason with, as they don't speak English or remember things very well from day to day. I'll bet they didn't even know today was the 65th anniversary of D-Day, which one veteran has said that the film The Longest Day captures best, save for the smells and the sheer terror of being there. A world is grateful for their sacrifice.

Work had a nice surprise for me when I walked in the door today: water damage. At Mmart, we are trained to be careful of anything out of the ordinary when we enter or exit our branches - common sense, really. So what was I to think today when I walked into the branch to find carpeting pulled back everywhere, and large fan units blasting air across soaked said same? Luckily, I'm not the panicky sort, and understood what had happened was not part of some weird tunnel-rat burglar group in the night. Though I was miffed that nobody had bothered to TELL me on my first shift back in a week. In any case, it made for an interesting day drying things out, on top of catching up on a week's worth of work. By day's end, I was beat and my stomach hurt from sitting upright for so long in the chair - no couches here. I was glad to get home to relax with a few hours of Civ: Rev. Which I lost ground at and gave up on in favour of sleep.

The Internet is full of memes - great things like "It's a trap!" for which you get 10 Geek Points if you can name both the film AND the character who spoke it.

June 7 - Sunday slipped away

Today sort of sped by - I was feeling tired, so I slept, read and watched some DVD's... no energy for much else.

I had my first multiplayer game of Civ:Rev in a year in the early evening, with my good friend Nigel... who after a slow start took the ball and ran with it right to the endgame. Those of you who may not be familiar with the Civilization series of games, there are several ways to win a game: economic( the most gold ), cultural( the most cultured civ ), military( kill everyone else )or capital

A friend and I worked on a demo trailer for our NWN project, to be used to promote the world once it's released to the public. I was impressed with the demo presentation that my friend had worked up, which was basically a PowerPoint presentation with music and text. Once we're finished I think it will be an impressive addition to our PR portfolio.

Tonight also saw me remove the bandage covers from my sutures, which turned into quite the production. Apparently they use Super Extra-Sticky bandages for these sorts of things, which only begin to be removable after a hot shower and an hour of slow, patient work. Thankfully I had the assistance of my parents, as I was not quite up to staring at my own upside-down belly with a flashlight to get the damned things off. I was infinitely relieve to see most of what I thought was scar-tissue buildup come away with the bandages, though it will be another week before things get back to normal enough to tell if there will be scars. Which I hate.

The rest of the evening was spent working on the blog, while watching Stargate: Atlantis Season 4 commentaries. I just love that every episode of the entire season has a commentary, with some very good insight into the process( which I have mentioned previously, yes ). I also discovered a very talented new actress in the episode entitled "Outcast" by the name of Emma Lahana, who turns out to be from New Zealand. Again I curse the fact that both Stargate TV shows wrapped the same year I moved out here, as I would have loved to try to visit the sets at least once. Ah well - there are plenty of other shows filming in Vancouver of late.


Whew... quite the week, and not quite the vacation I had hoped it would be. I did get the time I needed to recuperate, and I hope that this week will see my energy levels return to normal. Adios!