Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Critcal Questions needing to be answered: AreYou Ready to Rock?!



Please observe:
  • Classic 80's monocrome tight shirt
  • Classic 80's narrow tie, not in the authentic leather
  • Retro Shoes
  • Awesome Spiked Hair (not shown do to deficit X chromosome)
  • Devil Horns Thrown (in profile)
  • Clear skills on the guitar virtually eminating sick electric riffs right out of this still image
Conclusion:

Awesome!

Its not a blog without pictures of your cat...

Monday, October 29, 2007

I'm an Astronaut / I'm Famous on the Interwebosphere(TM)

Okay, this is a little elaborate, so bare with me...

First of go to: http://www.racetomars.ca/mars/game_marscommander.jsp this is the site for the Race to Mars: Mars Commander Game.

Push the Play Button...

Once the game launches push play again...

Okay scan your crew selection carefully, I highly recommend you pick the dashing British astronaut Tolliver, he bares a striking similarity to yours truely, perhaps because he is :)



I have no rights to that image, but I've copied it here for ease of clicking

Friday, October 26, 2007

Poorly titled Digg Post... But do you recall bumper stumpers?

Here is a great set of license plates, my fav might be the self describing LICNPL8, or the Mazda 3.14...

read more | digg story

Happy Leopard Day

Well folks the day has come, Leopard has been set free. Long have the engineers of Cupertino toiled in the Mac caves of 1 Infinity Drive to produce OS X Leopard aka 10.5.

I'm sure it won't be without its own foibles and follies, but initial reports are strong, and today is not a day to dwell on the problems, but celebrate something that sucks significantly less then Vista :)

With that in mind, I pirate and link for you The Joy Of Tech's tale of How the Gates Stole Leopard

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Gadgets and Toys



Just saw this randomly (I feel like I'm pimping product today but meh) and I love the retro look. I think my wandering internet eye is a symptom of reviewing resumes this morning. It is an important job, but hard to stay focused on. For reference that is a bluetooth headset, although I imagine it couldn't hang comfortably from your ear.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Now I feel like an Arse

Friday was super important!

On Friday, Elizabeth Emigh (Erin's Cousin) gave birth to Meredith Anne Marie Emigh, congrats Bitz!



Her is happy mother and daughter.

Various things

Well well well, what a whirlwind couple of days last week, life has been extra busy of late, and I haven't posted a thing at all. On the upside most of the people who read this were involved in many of the things so no one is out of date.

To start with, I guess a week and a half ago I got a second piercing, this time in my ear. It is certainly a non-standard piercing, and after the fact I found out that many regard it as one of the more painful piercings. So to say I'm suffering my own foolishness is fair, but I think it looks pretty good. I don't have a picture yet (because my camera is having smashed screen issues...) But here is the Wikipedia link on it, it is formally known as a rook piercing.

Next up on my busy schedule was the David Usher concert on Thursday night. The opener was good, I'm not as hyped for her as I was for NLX, but Pascale Picard was still really good. Her drummer was sweaty as sin in his awesome tweed jacket, and her guitarist nearly rocked himself off his chair while one handed playing from the frets while doing some freaky shit on a mini mixer board. We also couldn't help but tease the base guitarist. I know the old adage of the base player doesn't get the girls, but this one could have tried a little harder. He actually reminded me of me when I was heavier, and if I had slightly longer shaggy hair. It was the golf shirt that was his end, if he had just opened a button or two, and rocked the neck of his guitar in beat with the music he was playing he would have had a chance...

The middle band was that girl who didn't win on Rockstar, and with good reason, she came off as 100% poser. I don't think she was really a fit for the crowd, but when someone has to come out and announce your imminent arrival and demand that the audience throw up the devil horns for you, you really are struggling. Besides the 'horns' (which is how real people refer to them) are only thrown for merit, not on demand. But it was okay, because she seemed to have her hand locked in some sort of death grip horns position on the microphone, when she wasn't touching herself sexually (seriously...) I also think her parents were in the front row...

Finally David Usher came at the end. They had a broken opera singer (The macbook kept crashing and it had the samples) but they still did a fair rendition of Black Black Heart, and otherwise he was his usual awesome self. They had a good mix his stuff and some Moist, as well as some new stuff that isn't out yet, and a great cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy. I realize I've said more about the non-headliners, but David Usher is a really great performer live, and he put on a great show, I guess you had to be there. :) On a side note he has returned like the prodigal son to Toronto from New York, so that's good to hear that we've repatriated a Canuck.

Friday, For some reason I can't recall anything of note on Friday, and I don't think that nothing happened, but I can't, something minor did happen, but it fits into a Sunday story, so I will save that for further in this post.

Saturday was fabulous, so it started with the Enbridge CN Tower Stair Climb. As usual for this endeavor I got up before the crack of stupid. The reason being two fold, the first is that all the registration and waiting area's get crowded, and I like to get in and out quickly. The other is that the tower itself gets grosser and grosser as the day progresses. So I just don't like being there too late, as the various slimes and smells are disgusting. So around 5:00 AM I rolled out of the house, and by 6:49, I was driven, parked, registered, waivered and at the foot of the tower.

Now in the past I've done this climb typically in about 50 minutes. The best time I've ever had was about 46, and the worst about 52. So I knew I was in better shape now then I've ever been, so I knew I could do better then 46. I was hoping for about 30-39 minute, I thought that was fair. I couldn't have been more wrong.

My new best (and probably last for a while) time for conquering the CN Tower is... 20 minutes and 41 seconds!!! (Yes that deserves 3 '!')

If anyone feels inspired, The United Way will still take donations for a couple more weeks, and you can post-sponsor my climb here.

I also made two personal firsts on this trek, it was my first time up the tower without stopping for a rest, and my first time I could actually fit in the free t-shirt at the end. I kept telling myself I'd take a break at some future milestone, but then I'd get there and say, wait a second, I feel fantastic.

I returned home pretty jazzed before Erin was out of bed (around 8ish) and I'm afraid overwhelmed her with my energy level. She caught up later in the day, but I did try to get her going from 0-60 in 30 seconds, and she was (and rightly so) still half asleep.

Once Erin got her day in hand, including a nice lunch and breakfast, and a trip to the gym. We gallivanted about shopping, we actually left the house to look for two specific things, and ended up not getting either of them, one of them was new glasses frames for me, and we didn't even get to the store :)

Erin did get some nice clothes though :) and we went shopping for leather jackets, and found them to be rather favourably priced, but Erin wasn't perfectly satisfied with the fit, and the jacket I wanted to try won't be in stock in my size until later this week. After that we had a great night at my grandparents, we even drove my parents, it was a funny trading of places. That night I pretty much wrapped up design on the website for the Voice Lab, I still need some content, but the keys are there.

After a long Saturday, Sunday was more relaxed. We slept in, ate late, and relaxed. Around 11:00 we headed out for a few more errands, the big one being Half Life 2: Orange Box. This was really the extended story of Friday, it isn't so much a good story but a story of me being stupid. On Friday I went to EB on the way home to pick this up, and they were sold out, so I went to a Walmart, and with game nearly in my grasp I balked. The "Orange Box" was hardly an entire box made of orange, but a marketing nightmare of graphics barfed on to a case. So I didn't buy it, talk about books and their covers, but I didn't. So Saturday, after rewatching the trailers, specifically for Portal I smacked myself upside the head, and went out in search of it. The Orange Box being the other thing that we didn't get while shopping Saturday, and it wasn't without trying, I turned Mississauga upside down trying to get it, and failed.

So Sunday, I returned to the same Walmart in Oakville that I had my brain failure on Friday, and I got it. In that moment of weakness I also bought the prequel to River Tam Beats up Everyone also known as Serenity in HD. God I love that show!

We also got new shoes for Erin (I tried and failed, but I know what I want now.)

We also went to Chudleigh's (the orchard not our MPP's) to pick apples, it is probably the last time we go this year, the trees are pretty much done, and the apples that remain weren't the nicest, but it was nice to walk the orchard in such beautiful weather.

We returned home where I gorged myself on Portal (WHICH WAS FREAKING AMAZING) and also mowed the lawn for the first time in three months. (not that I'm a lazy gardener but it didn't grow at all in August or September.

I also made/made up a kick ass new soup. I call it lamb soup, I had some lamb bones from the organic quarter lamb I bought last year for making lamb stock from, and I also had some stewing meat. So I said, lets do something with this...

Starting with this recipe for stock, I cooked that for a good number of hours until it was lambalicious. Then I strained it, added back the meat bits (that was fiddly as I had to pick them off the bones.) Then I added a cup of white wine, and some carrots and parsnips cut into rounds. Cooked it for about another 20 minutes, and presto! It was probably a little fatty for a diet, but it tasted great! We had it with our tomato-basil trout, spinach, and some yam. Other then the soup all light, and including the soup all delicious.

We ended the weekend with a little King Kong on the HD-DVD. All and all a great couple of days, and I'm pooped!

I will try and write more, and in smaller bits as I go.

ps Yes Mom, I will be your friend on facebook :)

pps no I didn't really proof read this...

Scooby was a Skeptic?

So I don't talk about skepticism much at all, because it sound pretty divisive, a lot of people think that skepticism is being an Atheist, or a Libertarian, and they make those thoughts with ichor and distaste. Skepticism and faith can exist together, although some may disagree, there is no reason why you cannot remain in belief of something your rationally reject, it makes your leap of faith all the more a leap, but isn't hypocritical or disingenuous.

I don't really want to wade any deeper then that into the atheism issue, because I find it a terribly sticky wicket, and just clouds what is important. Skepticism is about questioning, and about science, and not accepting things without first investigating them. The podcast that sparked this post was about where should skepticism go, and the answer was back to basics, back to fighting the first of ignorance. People still believe in big foot, and buy into woo woo science. So give the podcast a listen, or read the article..

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Yoink!


What a life: Couples Shoot

Stealing an image from Gabe's blog but I said yoink!

2007 Enbridge CN Tower Climb for United Way.

Hey all, just sending out this handy dandy sponsorship email for the CN Tower Stair Climb. This year I think will be my last (at least for a while), I just want to do it one last time now that I am in the best shape of my life (and hopefully still getting better.)

I would appreciate if everyone could help me raise some money for this, but I'm not going for big sums of money, just enough to make it worth while. Just imagine being warm and snug in your bed at 6 AM while I am slugging my way up the cold moist stairs of the CN Tower, thats gotta be worth at least 5$ for good cause?

Thanks All

ps this is next Saturday :)


I'm participating in 2007 Enbridge CN Tower Climb for United Way.

You can help support me by making a secure online donation using your credit card. Click on the link below:

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/StartUp.aspx?SID=1667066

By supporting me, you'll also be helping United Way of Greater Toronto support 200 health and social service agencies that touch the lives of people in neighbourhoods across our community.

For more information on how YOU can participate in the 2007 Enbridge CN Tower Climb for United Way, please visit us http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/climbforunitedway .

Thanks for your support!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Since I don't know how to post an image in a comment response...


My "ball of flames" was subconsciously generated from an earlier reading of this CBC article, which was linked to by this image (owned by CBC used without permission.)

The Honest Monopoly Board [Pic]

Parker Brothers recently released an all new "honest" Monopoly board. This new version cuts through all the bullsh*t of the regular board and allows players to experience the game the way it was meant to be played.Well this is a lame post for a first post in a while, but it is what you get. I don't think I've actually ever cheated on the community chest cards, but the rest is accurate.

read more | digg story

Something with more meat, barely

Just reviewing post election coverage, and I came across this gem in The Star:

For many voters, the Harris government represented a necessary evil – a political enema to purge the province of excess.


MMP went down in a ball of flame, I hope that isn't the end of the debate, unfortunately no one even knew what they were voting for. A co-worker confessed to me this morning that they didn't know what it was about and voted the status quo, this guy is a very intelligent hard working guy with a business and engineering background. He was just too busy, and missed the one pamphlet that came in the mail. It did raise the astute point that many Ontarians don't understand the principles of economics and finance, and you expect them to understand an entire new voting system with out a concerted effort of education? The debate from the no side was rather poisonous, I can admit MMP was imperfect, but it was hardly the bastion of a Taliban Canada. We shall see what direction they take it from here, maybe baby steps to an improved system are in order?

Alternatively I recommend a new method, I call it, First Past the Mixed Member Proportional Post.

The way you do it is you run an FFP election to elect the one hundred and some odd seats there are, then you assign list candidates from each party list until you have a popular vote representation. Then you stick them all on the front door step of Queen's Park together. Then you let them race into the legislature the first members to claim one of the 107 seats, gets to keep it. All and all, I think there will be a great mandate to help Athletics Ontario, and Sports Medicine and a decline in childhood obesity.

Another alternative is First to Mix Up a Member with the Post, in which you arrive at the same grouping of 107 + balance members, give them all quarterstaff's, and let them club each other until only 107 remain.

Okay I'm done with my less then pithy commentary. It's been a busy work week and I need to get back to it.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Is it bed time yet?

This really falls under the category of it is funny, because it's true :)