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March 31, 2004
I Don't Know Why...
I received an email from most@blockauthor.com today. It reads:
Good afternoon. I don't compete with other discus throwers. I compete with my own history. What??? What in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks does that mean?
Chris, searching for a place to purchase medication? No, not really. We have these things called Pharmacies that sell medication to me when I give them a piece of paper called money.
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite. Older people shouldn't eat health food, they need all the preservatives they can get. I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age. Hahaha... that's hilarious Most! You tell the best jokes!
We are able to ship worldwide. Ship what? Discus throwers?
Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor. Very good point. I'll take that into consideration while I'm taking my crazy pills.
March 30, 2004
Music Industry NOT In A slump
The recording industry is not being hurt by pirated music as they would like you to believe. Here's an excellent write-up on the recent news that's come out that the Australian recording industry is hiding numbers showing that they've had their best year ever so that they can trumpet the anti-piracy claims.
And a new study by researchers at Harvard and N. Carolina states that even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero."
Designing With Standards
Mezzoblue's CSS Crib Sheet offers a bunch of quick tips to follow when designing using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Don't know what CSS is? This will get you started. It's a great way to design a site so that you can decide on style in one file and pull that "style" across to multiple files/sites - such as what I've done on the various music, blog, video pages on mennoboy.com.
Update: More good links care of scriptygoddess.com:
March 29, 2004
I scream for blah blah
We've found a mutual addiction in our love for Coffee Toffee Crunch ice cream. The mere mention of it's name causes me to froth at the mouth. Actually just typing it now has forced me to wipe my bottom lip. We've actually managed to make a single carton last over 3 different sittings - no small feat since when we originally discovered this stuff it was gone before the previews were over in a movie. We're attempting to exercise restraint but I have to wonder if eating a carton in a single night or spreading it over 3 nights is really doing anything except save us a few bucks. The stuff costs around $6/spoon so it's not cheap - but we have a savings plan set up for our ice cream purchases so we've got it covered.
In killing for hire news, I'd forgotten how much fun Desert Combat was. It's insane that someone went through all this work to make a mod for a game and it's free. It's better than what I've seen of most of the official $39 add-on packs. You're riding along in your M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle and you can hear the A-10 WartHogs flying overhead while you set your sights on a Scud missile launcher. I think I need to go watch Apocalypse Now.
March 28, 2004
DVD+R/+RW For Sale
I've listed the HP DVD+R/+RW I got awhile ago from some HP training.
March 27, 2004
New Muzak From Me
I've added a few new things to the blog (the mac blog makes a re-appearance) among which is a radio.blog music player. It's flash based and basically allows me to throw up a bunch of tunes I'm diggin and you can listen... or not. They're in flash format so it's not like you can go grab the MP3 and steal it.
I'll be adding tracks to it shortly.
Idea swiped from Caroline. Thx!
MovableType Help
As I'm starting to help more and more people set up a MT blog, here's some great sites I've found that give you a great boost when working with MovableType:
- Learning MovableType by Elsie. Great bunch of resources with lots of code you can just copy and paste into your own templates
- Scriptygoddess.com: Another great site, a little more advanced as far as how they explain things but some very cool (aka nerdy) stuff
- thegirliematters.com: What is it about girls and putting up MT support sites? Another good site of tips and tricks by a brand new employee of MT
- And finally, there's always the Official MovableType Support Forum which has tons of newbie questions answered in an easily, searchable forum. Just make sure you actual search for your problem before asking, people get annoyed if they have to answer something that's already been done before.
Fill All Your Heart's Desires
I love the pics on this site. There's just something about Dublin that I love. My original reason for heading to Ireland the first time was due to my, er, mild enjoyment of a little rock 'n roll outfit called U2. But the funny thing is, aside from wandering past the Clarence Hotel they own I never did any of the U2 touristy things. I fell in love with the rest of the country and didn't even hit up Windmill Lanes where they recorded a lot of their albums. I kind of regret that now that they have (or will be) tearing the studio down.
Ah well, I'll still have the memories of sitting in the back of a van on an empty keg being driven around Dublin by a drunk old Irishman, eventually ending up at The Wicked Wolf packed full of people all singing U2 tunes at the top of their lungs.
March 26, 2004
Foul, Foul Temptress
Remember what I said a few days ago?:
"Spring is finally coming and hopefully the snow is actually going to stay gone this time. We've been tempted and teased so many times by spring this year (foul temptress that she is) that it's a little hard to believe it's actually going to stick this time. But this week is supposed to be above 0 all week - that's celsius for our American friends."
Well, winter came back and beat up on spring again. We got dumped on yesterday so we're back into the snow and slush for the weekend. Now we're being tempted by +18 next week. Rest assured that as soon as I pull my bike out to go for a ride the ground will be covered in snow before I get out of the garage. Grrrr... When I see this, this or this it makes me think that maybe we should try our fortunes elsewhere for awhile.
March 25, 2004
New Homestarrunner Toon
March 24, 2004
New Party Teeth
Come on, you know you want it.
I can't imagine what would happen if the power somehow discharged into your mouth. You wouldn't just have a flashing mouth at that point.
The Muse Struck
I've got three videos I have to work on for an Easter presentation at FGCC. They've been a challenge to do as they're basically your typical talking head interview video but we've been trying to make them a little more interesting to watch without going over the top with edits/cuts/effects/cheese.
Spring is finally coming and hopefully the snow is actually going to stay gone this time. We've been tempted and teased so many times by spring this year (foul temptress that she is) that it's a little hard to believe it's actually going to stick this time. But this week is supposed to be above 0 all week - that's celsius for our American friends.
What's the weather like in your world today?
March 19, 2004
Sample This Beat
Did you always wonder which songs The Beastie Boys sampled to construct 'Time To Get Ill'? Well, now you can know that they sampled The Steve Miller Band and Stevie Wonder.
Slick little site that's growing by the day.
I'm racist
Walking through the tunnel with two coffees in my hand a East Indian girl from one of the tables setup there came up to me and asked me "Are you against racism?"
I naturally responded:
"No."
Ooops. I was thinking she was going to offer me a chance to sign up for the National Day To Support Hamster Rights or something. So "No" just popped out of my mouth before I thought anything else. Heh heh. So now I'm a racist on campus.
I like Chippies
I'm really glad it's Friday today. This week has been crazy busy every night and we actually have a Friday off (Jr high was on Thursday night because of a wedding). Sue and Luanne were planning to go to Edmonton today but it's not looking good as the highways are sheets of curling ice right now. (Hurry! Hard! Sweep!) Luckily it might rain this afternoon and then drop down below 0 again so that we get a second layer of ice. That way if anyone might have actually survived out on the roads, now they won't have to worry about not getting the chance to meet their maker.
Clarence was going to try and take Sue to an autopsy today. I don't know how I feel about seeing dead people. I saw my grandfather's body at his open casket funeral and that was fairly creepy. I can't imagine what a murder victim's body would do to my stomach. Although with all the TV/movies I've watched, I'd probably just say something stupid like "that's not very realistic. You can totally tell it's ketchup."
March 18, 2004
Captain's Log...
I know Mark will appreciate this: Star Trek communicators are a reality.
MT Beta Test
I got in on the MT 3.0 beta test. I also got some sort of cold. So it's a win/lose morning for me. I've been popping the high-end eichinechia pills like there's no tomorrow so hopefully it doesn't get much worse.
I completed my Flash course last night. It wasn't too bad as far as courses go and I got a good start into Flash, but I probably could've figured out most of what was taught in 3.5hrs instead of 7hrs. Next time I'll just go to Ryan and get him to teach me. I'm sure I can bribe him with a steady flow of Timmy Ho's.
March 17, 2004
Vietnam Ain't For Sissies
Great quotes from today's Penny Arcade:
Well, except for one thing: my stepdad says that the way he and his guys would fish in 'Nam was to press a grenade with the pin pulled down into a jar of peanut butter. They would then drop this jar from a great height via helicopter, and he tells me that when the jar hit the surface of the water and cracked, the grenade was released and the resultant shockwave of water, glass, shrapnel, and I assume peanut butter would either kill fish or just kick the shit out of them, causing them to float where they could be scooped up by the Huey. Okay, that's all the facts. No more, that's it.
And:
The Gamespot review refers to the difficulty of managing these craft, and while they might be difficult compared to jeeps, I only had to crash one or two before I got the hang of it. To compare, flying helicopters in DC is like bending a spoon with your mind or trying to walk a tyrannosaur. To say they are unwieldy is to have a good shot at Understatement Of The Year.
And one more:
Since the "on foot" gameplay has always been of a very high lethality index in this series, there's no reason not to just take this class every time and act as the agent of divine retribution. Between your disposable rocket launcher and your heavy machinegun, you represent a buffet of death that is open twenty-four hours a day.
(sigh) I miss the days of playing BF1942. It was great fun to have everyone at work united in the common goal of killing each other. I wonder if I could somehow justify using my professional allowance at work to buy a better video card for my home PC that would allow me to play BF1942 again? That's pretty good use of some student's tutition, doncha think? (Note: It's not really someone's tution - it's partially from tution but mostly from union dues and sales at the store) Maybe that's why there's been so much tension at work lately, there hasn't been enough video game violence! I think I could do a study to show that video game violence helps, not hinders, the advancment of the human race.
I'll see if I can pawn that idea off on to some psych grad student that lives in the basement we call an office so I can get back to playing BF1942.
March 16, 2004
Flashmaster Flash
Not very cool. Homestarrunner I'm not.
Flash This Buddy
I took 3 and 1/2 hours of Flash training and all I got was this stupid letter j.
March 14, 2004
Happy 28
Tim hit the ancient age of 28 on the weekend and we went by to help him celebrate. I took the picture above using the panoramic function on our camera. It's actually 9 or 10 individual camera shots that made up that one picture. Aside from the freaky Mark face it actually works pretty good. I think I'll have to try it more often, especially if I have a tripod to properly line up the shots.
It's 11:30 and since I slept for a couple of hours this afternoon I'm not tired but I feel like I'm coming down with something. I've been popping the eichinachia today and trying to think healthy thoughts, but I feel like my head's been in a fog all day. Sue's trying to get me to watch Trading Spaces: Home Free... I think I may have to since I'm just going to toss and turn anyway if I try to go to sleep.
Oh, and we've got a girl coming to Mennoboy.com.
March 11, 2004
He Rocked Her World
The Carlos Stalker Issue I mentioned before has prompted 26 comments (at present). It feels a little like high school with lots of anonymous comments floating around which is to be expected on the web. I always find it interesting when people start telling you what you can and can't put up on your own website. We're not talking about porn or military secrets here, it's a friggin love letter on a piece of tie-died paper. Who buys tie-died paper anyways?
Overclock Your Old Game System
I think it's time to pull out my old Sega Genesis... if I still have it some where... and play some Altered Beast, albeit with an overclocked processor . I don't know what you could gain by overclocking your game system where the games are already tuned to run fine on it - but I guess it's not a question of why, more a question of why not?
Link from Slashdot
March 10, 2004
Love Letters From Afar
I didn't think things like this still happened. I always thought that stopped after high school.
Go give Carlos some ideas on how he should handle this.
Free Coffee!
Well I finally got a winner from Timmy Ho's. It's not the plasma TV but it will do for now. Just a free coffee.
Hopefully this is only the beginning of my winning streak at Tim's.
March 8, 2004
Running Your Own Label
Found this via boing-boing:
Here's a blog by a guy who's attempting to run his own label that's done under a Creative Commons license so that, in a sense, it's open source music I guess? Interesting article on world musicians who sign their life over to record producers/labels and thus see no money from their recordings. This makes him not-evil.
Tim Horton's Conspiracy
I'm testing out a client based blogging program called ecto. It's by the same guy that made the iTunes recently played list I'm using on the right hand side of my blog. Currently it's a OS X only program but they are working on a Windows version apparently.
I think I'm going to have to start a Roll Up the Rim counter like I remember some blogger doing last time they had this contest. I'm up to at least 10 cups of java purchased and still no win. I'm thinking they see me coming and pull out all the duds. I just know that some guy right before me is going to win a plasma tv and someone after me will win the truck and I'll get a "Please Play Again" cup. Grrrr.
March 6, 2004
Play Classic Video Games in Flash
Link via Doepud
Local Rock Star In Accident
After Junior High we thought we'd setup a screen, use the projector and sound system that was set up in the lounge and watch a movie since Shannon had to stick around until 3am as a night-host for the 24/7 prayer room. We dispatched Travis to go get School of Rock while the rest of us setup the equipment. Turns out while Trav was driving through the intersection at Central and Attridge a lady decided she had enough time to cut across Attridge to the other side, forgetting that she was sitting on a patch of ice (also forgetting that she was a dumbass... had to say it for Travis). Luckily nobody was hurt and the main thing lost will be Trav's car to an SGI write-off. The lady seemed really apologetic: "What am I going to do.... oh this totally ruins my week... I was having such a good time with friends... oh, what am I going to do." (that's sarcasm kiddies) We still gave her a ride home so now we know where she lives so we can go egg her house sometime or something.
Oh, and since we didn't feel like driving all the way to Trav's house we ended up watching the first disc of the The Two Towers: Extended Edition instead. Such a great show. I still have the second disc as well as two discs of tasty extras to go through on that one.
March 5, 2004
Movies and Links
I've got the links working along the top. Nothing really on them yet except for the five2nine: year two video.
For the nerds out there I've basically created 4 seperate blogs (regular blog, music, movies, photos) and am just using a single menu.php file to load the menu system so I don't have to go through and change all the individual index pages each time I want to update the main menu.
The movie page basically takes the movies I've uploaded to my mac.com page and presents them as if they're on my own site. That way the bandwidth is being used up by Apple's servers and yet still looks like a local file. Very nerdy and very cool.
Steve Rang My Bell
We went to a Steve Bell concert last night at Ebenezer Church. He brought along his daughter who sang and he had a jazz pianist from The Penny Merchants and a double bass player from the Winnipeg jazz scene. The folky stylings of Steve's music doesn't usually make for a very lively show, but with the piano and double bass it turned out to be an amazing night of music. The piano player was outstanding - tasetful when he needed to be and loud and agressive when the song warranted. A "riff-off" between the piano player and bass player ended when the piano player threw in the theme to Inspector Gadget.
It's always depressing and exciting to watch musicians that inspire you to be better than you are. Depressing because you see how much time you've wasted instead of playing guitar feverishly for 12 hours a day but exciting because you can see what the result would be if you did devote yourself to practicing how much you should.
March 3, 2004
Pilate - Not the Workout
I don't usually dig Canadian bands simply because they're Canadian. It's only natural that you try your hardest to keep the locals humble and down on the ground where they should be and save the posturing and rock 'n rolling to the Euro bands. (sidenote: For some reason I'm okay with 'digging' Canadian female singers, but then I have to by right of marriage) This band has all the right mixes of Coldplay, Radiohead and whatever other moderately relevant band you want to throw in there to make a 3some.
March 2, 2004
More Blog Stuff
Looks like my little update has touched off a whole slew of updates in the local blogging world as Phil and Carlos (go grab the new Pilate album from Carlos' site btw) have done some reinventing of their blogs as well.
I found a slick little app called Kung-Tunes that pulls the latest song listing from iTunes and throws them up into a file on my web server that I can pull into this page. Whuapaa!
I'm still settling into this redesign so expect some changes over the next little while but I'm digging the font size so it's staying. Get out your bi-focals or go someone else's blog.
March 1, 2004
Blog Design Sux
Is the font too small? Sue thinks it is, I think anything larger looks like crap so I'm not sure where to go. I don't mind it but then I've got 20/20 contacts.
If this text doesn't go down far enough, then the picture starts to overlap the entry below. Hrmmm... guess I'll just have to always be long-winded if I want to post like this.