Blog: Articles from December 2005

I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last night with my father and brother. It was pretty awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The camera angles were a bit too tight for my liking. It was like they were trying to stuff too much into every scene, or move too close in on a character’s face. It just felt unusual. It will be interesting to see how it translates to television.

I really, really enjoyed the music. For me, music makes a film. When I go to see a movie, I listen mostly to the music. If I ever get a novel published and someone (Zarquon forbid!) goes insane and wants to make a movie from it, it will have to have most awesome music. Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune still has, in my opinion, the greatest music of any miniseries/movie. But I do digress.

I’m posting this, by the way, because my dad told me this morning that he was surprised that I had not posted a Narnia review on my blog. So here it is, Dad.

Unlike Serenity, which was a good movie, I am very open to the idea of Narnia sequels. Hopefully they will be as entertaining as this one. Now, of course, this would have the disadvantage of me having to read the books all over again (I have not read them since at least grade 6, if not earlier in my life… .). It‘d be worth it, though. They’re good books and the movies, for a Walt Disney production, did not let me down. (The fact that I don’t remember half the book would help with that.)

Muwahahahaha.

It looks like Christmas wins out over election this time around, which is good. I haven’t seen an party advertisement for a little while now. And hey … I think I could get used to it. Hard to believe, I know, but I think I just might be able to survive without party advertisements!

Saw Ken Boshcoff going to his constituency office yesterday while we were driving to Quality Market.

But soon the New Year shall pass and so it shall come to pass that the leaders will realise 23 days hence remain for electioneering. And thus, the leaders will go forth to the land and spread the Word. And the People will look to the Word, and they shall treat it with disgust, for it shall be the Word of a False Prophet, the Prophet Politics. And so it shall come to pass that on the 23rd day of the 1st month of the 2006th year since the birth of a Special Dead Guy, the People shall elect the Prophet whose Words were least distasteful to their senses.

Okay, eh, so you know that digital camera I talked about purchasing? Well, I bought it!

I woke up at 7 AM to go to CompuSmart for 8, when it opened. There were already many people waiting in the small entrance chamber outside the store. I felt like I was really participating in a “Christmas vulture extravaganza”. We got in, found the camera, and there it was! I got a 256 MB memory card to augment the 16 MB that came with it, and my dad snagged some discount CD-Rs and extra AA batteries. Oh, and the camera comes with a free Epson printer (after that insidious mail-in rebate).

I lack an AC adapter so I’ll need to buy one when I can find it.

I‘m not talking about the religious significance, nor what Christmas represents. Nor am I talking about how retail outlets like to turn Christmas into a commercial venture and media circus. That’s been done ad nauseum.

I‘d like to point out that Christmas, however, is quite silly if you think about it. Let’s take this “good will” and “Christmas cheer” idea. We‘re supposed to have extra good will toward people and be extra cheery, eh? Isn’t that admitting that we weren’t as good willed and cheery as we could have been the rest of the year? I maintain that it would be better to be happy and have good will toward people for one’s entire life instead of one month of the year. Really.

And that’s what I dislike about Western culture. Eastern cultures seem to have the right idea. They may seem a bit strict with some things, but they are like that because they constantly appreciate things all the time. Conversely, the West has this weird tendency to go on “binges” of celebrating when they indulge in appreciation of a subject to the excess for a few days/weeks instead of appreciating it year-round. It really underlines a fundamental flaw in this whole materialistic mode of thinking.

That’s just my thoughts on Christmas (not the holiday, the season). It’s silly to be extra cheery because one should be very cheery all year; it’s silly to be extra kind because one should be very kind all year. I think that’s a bit more realistic and probably better for our pysches than enforcing a week of happiness and good will each year during the most depressing season.

My friends, crazy that they are, combined three major holidays and tacked an extra “day” on the end to make the uber-politically correct version.

Not very materialistic, I hope, I won’t list the Christmas presents I got, because it’s the thought that counts… . But I did like them. Particularly Age of Empires III, and the DVDs Serenity and the Firefly series. Now I need to convince my dad to go for a 14-hour marathon of the Firefly episodes.

Have a very merry Christmas, anyone crazy enough to read this blog!

Christmas holidays are here, eh! Two weeks to relax. Since semiformal was last night, and it was the last day of school, few people showed today. We played “Mad Gab” in English and watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Physics (I know, I know it’s “Philosopher’s” stone, but my teacher taped the American version).

I know that Stephen already ranted about this, but I feel a need to vent a little, so bear with me. What is with people these days? Server 13 goes down and people start to spam the InvisionFree support boards… .

I understand that people are upset. Yet apparently they cannot comprehend the fact that spamming and flaming only increase the work for we, the staff, who volunteer their time. Spamming will not get server 13 back online any time soon, nor will it make my life easier. I am quite disappointed to find that my optimism is unfounded: the majority of forum users do appear to be impatient.

It’s not just the initial round of post disabling that I did last night. It’s the users who create duplicate accounts to get around these bans. The people who send me immature PMs about how I’m being an evil power-hungry moderator. People who create “help boards” about the downtime and seem to know more than Brandon does… .

Oh well. All I can say is that I hope they have a merry Christmas, because if you guys don’t stop, I know that I won’t. *

In lighter news, I’ve scoped out a digital camera. CompuSmart has a FujiFilm FinePix A350 on sale on Boxing Day for a yummy price. As a special bonus one of the employees said they’d hide one for me. I wub CompuSmart.

So: InvisionFree users need to be more mature; digital cameras are good; expect VSNS Lemon 3.1.2 soon with 3.2 to follow; and have a merry Christmas!

We got our Christmas tree today (a real one, not artificial). So we spent time trimming it. I toyed with the idea of not doing my English homework. “Ms. Burton, I did not do my homework because I was trimming our tree.” If she said that was unacceptable, I could claim she was discriminating against my religion.

Here’s a picture of the tree taken with my hugely crazily bad-quality webcam. I’m planning on rectifying my lack of digital imaging abilities by purchasing a digital camera after Christmas.

Since the dawn of time, Man himself has puzzled over this very question. How does one stop a moving school bus? Well, take it from me: running at side of the bus wildly with a laptop satchel over one shoulder and a schoolbag over the other, waving papers in the air, is not the way to do it. Trust me, I know. Throwing oneself into traffic may work for Gonzo, but it doesn’t work too well for me.

It started like this: my friends, Vivike and Crystal, and myself were heading for the bus turnaround, where we would wait for our bus. At the turnaround, Vivike picks up a few scattered pieces of lined paper and remarks that it looks like her project. She, Crystal, and our friend Cortney had an English project, and Cortney was supposed to take said papers home over the weekend.

We look up, and lo and behold, Cortney’s bus is pulling around to leave. This is where I take the papers and sort of charge at the side of the bus as it turns out of the turnaround. It literally passes next to me, so I turn to try and avoid it, and I fall in the snow (with two bags).

As I trudge back, defeated, Viv points out that the bus has, in fact, stopped. So Crystal takes the papers onto the bus and gives them to Cortney, after which the bus starts moving again. I walk back to Viv, who is standing there (thanks for picking up my water bottle, Viv!), and who remarks, “Isn’t Crystal still on the bus?” Cortney’s bus takes her all the way out to Kakabeka, which is a rather long drive.

Luckily the bus stopped a few metres down the road and let Crystal off. After which we proceeded to discuss how that entire episode had made our day (if not our week) while waiting for and while on our own bus.

Note to self: next time, ditch bags before attempting to stop a moving vehicle with wild arm movements.

I watched the French-language Federal election debates tonight and abruptly lost two hours of my life that I’ll never, ever, ever get back. It was unbearable. The translators did a good job making it look like they weren’t reading from a script, however.

Jack Layton

I must say that he didn’t do as well as he could have. He didn’t speak very much, and I don’t really remember much of what he said. Thus, he did not make an impression, and I don’t think that anybody watching (aka the old lady and her cat) were swayed by his speeches.

Stephen Harper

This guy can’t speak French or English. If there’s anything funnier than watching Harper make a fool of himself in English, it’s watching Harper make a fool of himself in French! He repeated “c’est necessaire” far too many times and evaded nearly every question. In other words, same ol‘, same ol’ Harper.

Paul Martin

Martin too remained true to his character. I call his way of talking “Martinical rhetoric,” because he says nearly nothing useful. The only difference between Martin and Chrétien is that we (unfortunately) can understand what Martin is saying. He did not make a lot of headway in the debate because a lot of the questions addresses issues which his campaign has been trying to hide, mainly ethics and the sponsorship scandal.

Gilles Duceppe

If there were any “winner” to this debate, it would be Duceppe. He was confident and cogent. Ironically, I think that Duceppe is the most coherent of the leaders in French or English! But the fact that the debates were in French helped, since obviously he thinks in French. The other leaders had to translate their thoughts from English to French (and then I had to listen to the translators translate these translated thoughts back to English).

Duceppe also gets mucho bonus points for referencing Yogi bear.

I don’t know if I could stomach the English-language debates after tonight, but I think I’ll watch them anyway, just to compare how the leaders do.

No, really. Gerard Kennedy wants to stop any high school dropout below the age of 18 from getting driver’s licenses. See this shiny CBC News article on the subject.

As much as I value school, the government is once again showing their lack of problem-solving skills. (Maybe they should go back to school. ) Getting kids to stay in school until they are 18 is not to be accomplished via negative incentive. Instead, perhaps the government should offer more positive incentives, such as … oh, I don’t know, expanding school to include different methods of teaching. Not everyone learns the same way, and this can be difficult, especially if one’s aspirations are not to go to post-secondary education.

But of course, that would cost “money.” Darn government… .

Kyle MacDonald is trading his way up from a paperclip to a house.

How cool is that? Very cool.

Check it out: one red paperclip.

It’s five minutes of your life you won’t regret.

I had a really bad afternoon because I got my computer back after 4 weeks of service and I found it that it still wasn’t working. I took it to CompuSmart, and none of the tech support guys were “in,” but one guy had popped in for a moment and stayed in to help me with my problem.

He determined that it was my adapter that was broken and is going to send it to Toshiba for fixing or replacement. He was going to lend me another one, but it didn’t charge my computer. The owner of the store had wandered in for a moment and mentioned that he had a Toshiba adapter in his office, so he grabbed that one and lent it to me!

Now is that good customer service, or what?

Moral of the story: buy your next electronic equipment from CompuSmart.

I have good news and bad news today.

The good news first: my computer is back (and working)! I‘m so glad I’ve got cookies back now … no more logging in all the time. I’m going to work on updating VSNS Lemon now, since it does have some bugs that could be worked out and features too.

Now for the bad news: I feel sick. Sneezing, snuffling, tired and sore throat sick. I went to school today (idiotic decision, but I hate missing school) and toughed it out.

At 96 pages, Word gave up. It decided that my novel had too many spelling errors for it to mark up anymore, and promptly advised me that I was an idiot and should use spell check. Those red squiggles that underline mispelt words then disappeared. How I miss them.

I don’t actually spell many words wrong, but I do make up a lot of places and names. I’m just too lazy to add those words to Word’s dictionary. Darn Microsoft… .

Anyway, I’m now up to 100 pages and 57,128 words. And my computer should be back by the end of the week. I’m ecstatic! Hug me.

Sometimes I‘m running a bit late in the mornings, and I run to the bus stop for fear of missing my bus. Inevitably, the bus itself is late and I end up actually waiting in the cold, after running frantically to get to the stop!

One would think that after a few of these episodes, I’d stop running, eh? Nope. I live in perpetual fear.

Many of you know that Cookie Monster now eats cookies as a “sometimes” food. Now, I am as much against rising child obesity as the next intelligent superluminal particle. It is a problem, especially in developed countries like Canada. But this … this goes too far!

The Christmas season is now upon us, and it has got me thinking (yes! ). Santa really isn’t all that different from Cookie Monster; he’s this jolly old fat man who likes to eat cookies, yet he can still fit down a chimney even after all of that food. It suddenly occurs to me that if society manages to tone down Cookie Monster, then Santa Claus is the next logical target.

Anyone for “slim Santa”? A Santa Claus who advocates eating healthy food? Coca-Cola probably wouldn’t buy into it (you do know what’s in Coke, right? ) but I‘m sure that tons of advocacy groups would have a field day. Slowly we’d see our cultural perceptions of Santa Claus shift from jolly old fat man to young, middle-aged multi-racial male with an average income and mixed religious background.

On the bright side, this means that the employment industry for mall and department store Santa Clauses will experience an increase in potential employees.

I might just go start a petition to stop this. I would, but Santa Claus and Cookie Monster are both telling me to go eat more cookies.

I actually meant to post last night (or, I guess, very early this morning would be more correct) but never got around to it.

We‘ve got a set of those plastic ice cube tray things at home. Now, like any good plastic ice cube tray, it has started to break. Portions of the plastic are tearing right where the cube-cup thing joins with the little skeleton along the top. For some reason, this means that the ice cubes don’t like coming out any more.

And for that matter, who designed those trays anyway?! They‘re insanely hard to use even when they aren’t broken. Either the ice cubes don’t come out, they come out too quickly and slide about on the floor, or they come out in little shards that embed themselves in your left forearm and require radical emergency surgery to remove.

I also keep forget to mentioning that Firefox 1.5 is out. Go get it, eh.

News about my laptop: It seems that the reason they are taking so long with repairing it is quite simple, if frustrating. The laptop requires a new part, which is good, because this means that there must be something wrong with it, so I won’t have to pay any sort of service charge. Free repairs are great (if they work). Unfortunately, the part was not in stock, so they’ve backordered it. Which means more delays.

Life… .