I'm sorry

Hey everyone, sorry for not posting, it basically came down to a post that I milled over for a long time, and decided I sounded really angry and rambling, so I tossed it out. While trying to make said post, I didn't do any other posting, and my life has been pretty busy. I could bore you with the intricacies of getting digital audio out of an SB Audigy 2, or the picking of a wedding photographer, but trust me you don't want to know. The Raiders did win a second game in there, but that was because of a default by the other team. Also I have about a million pictures to post, so maybe I will start there. In any case heading into the fall I will try and do minimum 1 post a week, more if I can.

Here are some links that caught my eye over the last week.

Why specs Matter
Interview with Robert Sawyer

Okay that will have to do for now.

L8r

Phobos Entertainment's "100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have to Read"

Below is a list of books rated as the title suggests the "Have to Read" sci fi books. I would like to read most of them in fact, and have decided to make myself a little check list I will update from time to time. You can see the 11 books I have read, I originally thought it was 10, but then I realized I have in fact read some Anne McCaffrey. Anyways I will update as I go, this like much of this site is for my own use, but hey read anything good latley you think should be on this list? Then comment on it.

#	TITLE	AUTHOR	I've Read
1	Childhood's End	Arthur C. Clarke
2	Foundation	Isaac Asimov
3	Dune	Frank Herbert
4	The Man in the High Castle	Philip K. Dick
5	Starship Troopers	Robert A. Heinlein
6	Valis	Philip K. Dick
7	Frankenstein	Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
8	Gateway	Frederik Pohl
9	Space Merchants	Frederik Pohl
10	Earth Abides	George R. Stewart
11	Cuckoo's Egg	C.J. Cherryh
12	Star Surgeon	James White
13	The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch	Philip K. Dick
14	Radix	A. A. Attanasio
15	2001: A Space Odyssey	Arthur C. Clarke	x
16	Ringworld	Larry Niven
17	A Case of Conscience	James Blish
18	Last and First Man	Olaf Stapledon
19	The Day of the Triffids	John Wyndham
20	Way Station	Clifford D. Simak
21	More Than Human	Theodore Sturgeon
22	Gray Lensman	E.E. "Doc" Smith
23	The Gods Themselves	Isaac Asimov
24	The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. Le Guin	x
25	Behold the Man	Michael Moorcock
26	Star Maker	Olaf Stapledon
27	The War of the Worlds	H. G. Wells
28	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea	Jules Verne
29	Heritage of Hastur	Marion Zimmer Bradley
30	The Time Machine	H. G. Wells
31	The Stars My Destination	Alfred Bester
32	Slan	A. E. Van Vogt
33	Neuromancer	William Gibson
34	Ender's Game	Orson Scott Card	x
35	In Conquest Born	C. S. Friedman
36	Lord of Light	Roger Zelazny
37	Eon	Greg Bear
38	Dragonflight	Anne McCaffrey	x
39	Journey to the Center of the Earth	Jules Verne
40	Stranger in a Strange Land	Robert A. Heinlein	x
41	Cosm	Gregory Benford
42	The Voyage of the Space Beagle	A. E. Van Vogt
43	Blood Music	Greg Bear
44	Beggars in Spain	Nancy Kress
45	Omnivore	Piers Anthony
46	I, Robot	Isaac Asimov
47	Mission of Gravity	Hal Clement
48	To Your Scattered Bodies Go	Philip Jose Farmer
49	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley
50	The Man Who Folded Himself	David Gerrold
51	1984	George Orwell	x
52	The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde	Robert Louis Stevenson
53	Snow Crash	Neal Stephenson	x
54	Flesh	Philip Jose Farmer
55	Cities in Flight	James Blish
56	Shadow of the Torturer	Gene Wolfe
57	Startide Rising	David Brin
58	Triton	Samuel R. Delany
59	Stand on Zanzibar	John Brunner
60	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess
61	Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury	x
62	A Canticle for Leibowitz	Walter M. Miller Jr.
63	Flowers for Algernon	Daniel Keyes
64	No Blade of Grass	John Christopher
65	The Postman	David Brin
66	Dhalgren	Samuel R. Delany
67	Berserker	Fred Saberhagen
68	Flatland	Edwin Abbott Abbott
69	Planiverse	A. K. Dewdney
70	Dragon's Egg	Robert L. Forward
71	Downbelow Station	C. J. Cherryh
72	Dawn	Octavia E. Butler
73	The Puppet Masters	Robert A. Heinlein
74	The Doomsday Book	Connie Willis
75	Forever War	Joe Haldeman
76	Deathbird Stories	Harlan Ellison
77	Roadside Picnic	Arkady Strugatsky
78	The Snow Queen	Joan D. Vinge
79	The Martian Chronicles	Ray Bradbury
80	Drowned World	J.G. Ballard
81	Cat's Cradle	Kurt Vonnegut
82	Red Mars Kim	Stanley Robinson
83	Upanishads	Various
84	Alice in Wonderland Lewis	Carroll	x
85	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	x
86	The Lathe of Heaven	Ursula K. Le Guin
87	The Midwich Cuckoos	John Wyndham
88	Mutant	Henry Kuttner
89	Solaris	Stanislaw Lem
90	Ralph 124C41+	Hugo Gernsback
91	I Am Legend	Richard Matheson
92	Timescape	Gregory Benford
93	The Demolished Man	Alfred Bester
94	War with the Newts	Karl Kapek
95	Mars	Ben Bova
96	Brain Wave	Pozul Anderson
97	Hyperion	Dan Simmons
98	The Andromeda Strain	Michael Crichton	x
99	Camp Concentration	Thomas M. Disch
100	A Princess of Mars	Edgar Rice Burroughs
This list's title, description, and content copyright © 2000-2002, Phobos Entertainment Holdings, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Solution to the Middle East Problem in 20 words or less.

Make an arrogant, sweeping and controversial statement, and get called for it, dammit that means so one is actually reading this. So the link here is to myself, and its a post I made that was pretty inflammatory, but I was pretty mad about Israel at the time. The commenter asked "So what's your solution to the Middle East problem? In 20 words or less, please."

Off the cuff, 20 words couldn't solve the problem.

Honestly, I think the solution to any problem could be solved in one word "Armageddon" I don't mean in the biblical, or Bruce Willis/Ben Afflect way, but they both have the right idea, destroy the world and everyone in it. I didn't say it was a good solution but it would get rid of the problem. Unfortunately the other extreme I don't expect to work, while I would love to see peace without the expense of human life, I'm not sure that is possible.

Also, what is the "Middle East Problem?" I bet you would find a myriad of opinions on that, probably the following statements will express some of the opinions.

"The problem is that Muslim extremists are destabilize the region and trying to convert or destroy all non Muslims.

"The problem is that decadent westerners live in laziness and hypocrisy and deserve to die."

"The problem is that westerners believe they can use there money to dictate how we chose to live"

"The problem is the disparity between the classes in middle east nations so while leaders thrive and use the money to power corrupt regime and court international power, the lower class dwells in third world conditions and resonant towards money and power fester, expressing itself in violent clashes."

"The problem with the middle east is those damn Jews they should all die"

"The problem with the middle east is military dictator type regimes who commit murder, and terror on their own people, covet oil, and commit genocide."

"The problem with the middle east is that today's terrorist were paid and trained mercenaries from the cold war, who were left in the lurch when America won"

"The problem with the middle east, is that no one can agree what the problem is and in trying to solve their problem they become someone else's problem."

So what is the solution?
20 words or less?

"Horror and violence, so terrible, to all factions, that sheer revulsion of it drives all the factions to negotiate."

Personally, I'm revolted? Aren't you?

Now I realize this is a fairly extremist stance, and that is the problem, there are too many extreme stances, there is a middle ground somewhere that can let middle east be at peace, but I don't know where it is, does any one? I'd welcome the debate.

Twenty Four (is a lot better then Shifty Five)

Well I'm 24, as of Aug. 11th actually.
It was a great birthday, Erin made me some super amazing food for dinner and this delicious apple cheese cake, mmmmmmmmmm. She also gave me a house, now we have two, all though the second isn't as large I must say. For lunch my friends at work took me out to canyon creek, which is one of my favorite restaurants, so all and all great day. Next year I figure is a bigger deal, quarter century and all. Scary stuff :)

Cheers

Raiders... WIN!

It was a great day for the Raiders as they keeh hauled the Sultan's of Swing 13 - 4 in a buccaneerish way. All around the team's performance was stellar. Great catches, great stops, great throws, and most of all great hitting. With this epic win behind us, the Raiders advance in the standings to not last!

GO TEAM GO!

Cottage Time

I'm excited for this weekend, as I am going up to Erin's Cottage, I love that place, because it exudes relaxation. Its actually going to be a pretty full house this weekend, Alex is joining us and so is one of Candace's (Erin's younger sister if you didn't know,) friends. I expect there will be some deck work for me to do, but that's fine by me, I can grunt and use power tools, and have a beer when I am done. Some of those activities can be reordered provided the remain constrained to beer following power tools, and grunting does not occur concurrently with beer as choking can ensue. Have a great weekend folks, I will maybe blog at the cottage, but it won't be posted till Monday.

Penny Arcade you crack me up...

Here is a great Penny Arcade about Gabe jerking off Tycho, I don't know why it is funny, but it just is, you have to read the news post as well.

Lucky Loonie

Woot! A new coin for my collection, and it only cost me a dollar, okay, it cost two, but that's because I bought two. In honour of the 2002 Winter Olympics where a strategically placed loonie (for you non-Canadians a Loonie is the common or slang name for the $1 Canadian Coin.) For those unfamiliar with those particularly Olympics, the ice in the Hockey arena was prepared and tended by a famous Canadian ice maker, apparently it is practically an art form. In the process of making the perfect ice for Olympic hockey, are Loyal Canadian reached into his pocket pulled out a Loonie and buried it at centre ice for good luck. As it should happen, that Loonie did bring luck, in the form of dual champion Women and Men's gold medal hockey teams. When all was said and done that Loonie was removed from centre ice, and delivered to Hockey Hall of Fame to be enshrined with its mystical powers OOoooo Ahhhhh. As the Athens games are rapidly approaching, the Canadian mint has decided to try and bring a little luck to the whole Canadian team. So they minted a special Loonie for common circulation displaying its name sake, the loon, and above the loon sits the Olympic rings, and above that the Canadian Olympic logo (a maple leaf with a torch centred over top of it.) So you can get your own lucky loonie from the Royal Bank of Canada (my employer) or you can order an uncirculated Loonie from the mint. For more info checkout the official site.

The day before...

So it was the day before the wedding, and I was getting nervous. As mentioned before I have been having a public speaking block. Fortunately, I have been working on my speech for a while, and I composed it during my '12 hour flight.' In spite of that I was worrying, so I kept myself distracted helping with preparations, we spent the morning with the soon to be married couple cutting vegetables, and making salad (Erin invented a violent but effective way to rip the core out of the iceberg lettuce, and she enjoyed herself doing it.) Then it was on to dips and chicken Souvlaki. So we worked away the day getting things ready, and then off to a family bbq for dinner. That was nice too, we had some decent take out Italian, and all the family, we chatted we taught my cousin's Alec and Ian how to play poker, I'm sure Aunt Beth will be thrilled with that. :) Then we went to the rehearsal, where the Officicant threatened Colin that when he gave him the word to kiss Christina, that he had better do it right and proper and not some namby-pamby peck you give your mom, or else he would have to do it again. After that we retired to Chris's mom's house, and did small things, mostly my mom made the icing for the CAKE oooooo ahhhh. Colin passed out from exhaustion, and then Erin and I got a lift back out to Jean's (the lady we were staying with, again she was asleep when we got there, it was pretty late I don't blame her, at the time I remember feeling very very guilty living in this persons house who I had never met.)

Serenity fades into the Black

Why in the whole damn 'verse of god aweful shows and crap tv, did Firefly get canned!
I think that show was awesome from the get go, I just wish I had known about it when it was on TV. The characters are well acted and loveable but deep. The story intrieging, and the dialog great. Effects, filming, everything just really really novel and amazing, and yet Fox cast it off like it was nothing. Just makes you wonder. I can't wait for the movie, due out in 05, I am definitly heading out to see it opening night, because I want to tell Joss, and the Crew of Serenity that I support them and their show!

End of the conference and on to Calgary

...I'm going to try and remember and post as things pop into my head about the week in Calgary, mostly I was too busy enjoying myself, or nervous about MC'ing so its all a blur, but I will blog about what I can....

So the conference ended and I headed up to my room to pack up, and check out. My flight from Dallas was scheduled for 4:30 pm. I felt like I needed some lunch and I knew there was an airport shuttle at 1:00 pm, so I headed over early.

The self check out desk at the Dallas-Fortworth was a little confusing, they actually had 2 self checkouts, one with luggage, one without... Why... Pearson has one set of self checkout lines, and an express baggage check for those who used it, it works well. So I had to buffoon around in to many lines to get everything checked, and then on through security.

Security required me to take off my shoes, I guess shoe bombs are on the rise, oh well I got through no harm no fowl, I would rather be inconvenienced and safe. So then I figured out where my gate was, and then went and grabbed a leisurely lunch. Around 2:30 pm I mosied on over to my gate, and heard whispers of delays. By 4:00 it was finally poster, our plane would be delayed 1 hour.

Then it was 1.5, 2, and finally 3. The reason for the delay, tornadoes over Denver, and just my luck, I didn't have a direct flight to Calgary, I had a stop over in Denver. At this point I was also worried about catching my transfer in Calgary. So after many hours at the gate, my Gameboy dies, and my laptop dies. I figured I had enough juice to get me to Calgary, but I didn't account for a 3 hour delay. So just my luck I had also packed my books in my luggage... Never do that again.

We finally left Dallas at about 7:10, so just shy of a full 3 hours, and the ride to Denver was unexciting at best. The landing was a little scary, see I am the kind of guy who listens to the pilots with my courtesy head set, and so I am hearing them as they make there final approach, and all I see out the window is clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, GROUND!!!!!! We broke final cloud cover about 10-15 meters up feet up and 100 meters out from the run way. I'm glad they knew what they were doing because that was just freaky.

So we land at the wrong end of Denver and I have to hoof it clear across the terminal to the gate for my Calgary departure, fortunately it hadn't left yet, by the time I get there, I am greeted with my friend... The delay. See Denver was pretty much shut down for about 5 hours, and that creates a big back log, so the place was crammed, and my plane hadn't even landed, never mind groomed, or fueled. Fortunately I found a plug, and jacked in.

Juiced up my laptop and gameboy, and had an engaging conversation with a nice American lady headed to Calgary for... A wedding. Actually we didn't talk about wedding's at all, we talked about Canada and its CrAzY > 2 party political system. Fortunately she was intelligent and just uninformed, so I didn't just tell her about it we discussed, so it passed the time.

We finally left Denver at 10:10, I think I slept most of the flight, I lucked out and actually had the only row with an empty seat, so it wasn't to squishy, I could have used less screaming baby, but what you going to do about that.

Landed in Calgary about quarter to one (which if I have my time zones right was actually quarter to two,) got picked up by my lovie, and my parents, and then dropped off at the house I was staying in, ironically didn't get to meet the owner of the house since she had gone to bed, and I didn't even get to meet them the next day, because totally drained as I was I slept in.

So that was my travel experience, and what an experience, I will elucidate more of the fun stuff in the near future but for now, I sleep.

jetlagged geoff

I'm in the news

Here is another article for you people to read. This one is about RSDUC, and features me, in fact it features a lot of me. I don't want to be vain, but I don't get quoted often, or ever, and often find myself quoting others, so today I shall strut and preen about.

Enjoy

Post 100

Hey with out looking I topped 100 posts, (this is in fact 101!) Go me! Well 101 down, lets get the next couple hundred going.

The History of the Bank Machine

I was sent a great link by a coworker today to this article about bank machines. As we both make our bread and butter with these machines I read it and found it quite interesting. So enjoy!

Well I am back from my brother's wedding, and aside from no internet, I have a lot to tell. To start with here is one of the millions of pictures we took, from the look of things I would say this is probably Moraine Lake, I'm not going to go into a lot of details about the trip right now, but I will over the next few weeks post all sorts of pictures. Enjoy this one for now, and I will fill in the details soon.