Blog: Articles from March 2006

Some scientists are working on artificially grown meat, which would be “test-tube meat” rather than from dead animals. It’s an interesting concept, and one with many ramifications. They claim it would have lower fat content. Plus it would eliminate the need for 40 billion smelly animals that are kept in poor farming conditions, and solve that tiny problem of world hunger.

What about vegetarians, eh? If you’re a vegetarian, why? Obviously if you don’t eat meat for a physiological reason or such, you would not eat this meat. But if it is just because you think that eating meat is wrong (since we’re killing animals), would you eat this artificial meat (no animals were harmed during the making of this product).

Oh, and the universe runs on toast. Thank you.

That’s right, the 2006 Spacey Awards are here! Vote for the best in science fiction and fantasy.

My picks:

Favourite Movie

Serenity

Favourite TV Show

Battlestar Galactica

Favourite TV Ensemble Cast

Stargate SG-1

Favourite New TV Character

Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell

Favourite FX

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

(I didn’t vote for either Favourite Video Game or Favourite Action Sequence because I saw none of the games/movies nominated.)

Choosing my favourite TV show, in particular, was tough, since Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, and Doctor Who were all nominated. Eventually I chose BSG, however, since although I find SG-1 enjoyable, BSG is just … awesome. I chose SG-1 for ensemble cast partly because I hadn’t voted for them as best TV show, but also because I like SG-1’s cast a lot.

It was either Mitchell or Vala for this one, since I don’t watch Lost and Milton Fine (aka Brainiac) isn‘t, in my mind, my favourite new TV character. I chose Mitchell because he’s a nice new thread that joins the rest of the SG-1 team together now that RDA has gone.

So … go vote. Go now.

The city of St. Paul, Minnesota, announced yesterday that it would fire the Easter Bunny, effective immediately. They were removed at the request of Tyrone Terrill, St. Paul’s human rights director. His reasoning was that the Easter Bunny may offend non-Christians.

With the future employment of the Easter Bunny now in doubt, many wonder what lies in store next for this furry fellow. According to an anonymous source, the Easter Bunny “may have been subpoenaed” by the U.S. government and will be held in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely while being investigated for terrorist connections.

“They’re white, and furry, and have beady little eyes,” says Anya Jenkins. “You can’t trust them!”

The Easter Bunny’s lawyer has an entirely different view of the subject. “This is a clear-cut case of animal rights!” he says. “I’m going to take this all the way to take this all the way to the Supreme Court.”

St. Paul could not be reached for comment.

I’ve learned a life lesson today: People will give you cell phones if you take English classes.

Go back and read that sentence. Yeah. Crazy, eh? You see, my brother is in grade 8 and shall be going into grade 9, so he has his option sheets for next year. He originally intended on taking several applied-level courses (if you don’t live in Ontario, you probably don’t understand this part, but you’ll get the gist of it). We managed to talk him into everything at the academic level, save for English. My parents finally got him to take academic English (on the theory that it’s easier to drop down into applied than it is to move into academic) by promising to get him a cell phone.

Society triumphs again. I think.

So yeah. My plan is pretty simple: send me a cell phone and I shall do your English homework. Not that I actually want a cell phone (it’s not like I’d use it). But the money you lose buying me a cell phone can be considered the just punishment for even thinking about getting someone else to do your work for you. Only politicians can get away with that.

Wow, that break went by pretty fast. So fast that if you blinked you probably missed it. I must say…I‘m not all that enthused about going back to school. This saddens me, because last year I would be definitely ready. This year, as I’ve said in previous posts, not so much. So I won’t harp on that here. This isn’t supposed to be a rant, eh.

I‘ve started work on Vanilla Guestbook’s total rewrite. I have the installation functions done and am working with the signing functions now.

I’ve also started book two—as in, the sequel to my novel. Originally I intended for it to be a trilogy, but lately a little doubt about that has been cast into my mind. Today at work I thought of a brilliant ending for book two! I’m really excited, because it has given me direction and inspiration. However, if I use the ending, it also opens up the unforeseen possibility of additional books before the saga reaches its conclusion. Maybe four, five—possibly even six. I’m open to the possibility—I was never locked on the idea of a trilogy; it was just a rough guide to start out. But it will require some thought.

Anyway, I should get to bed. School tomorrow and what not. Good night.

P.S. Did anyone else watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes on Friday?! If you haven’t heard yet, Canadian Tire has fired the Canadian Tire family. Any true Canadian is (if they haven’t already) now feeling a happy, satisfied glow over this news. Now remember that we have Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister. (And the glow disappears).

Well 22 Minutes had an excellent farewell parody. They had Mark Critch as the Canadian Tire guy and Cathy Jones as his wife talking about being fired. The Canadian Tire guy just couldn’t stop working Canadian Tire products into his sentences, though, and his wife was getting annoyed. She matter-factly told him that she was divorcing him and left, passing him at his request some rope (from Canadian Tire) and closing the garage door with the automatic door closer (from Canadian Tire). We last see Critch looping the rope around his neck (the implication being that he’s going to hang himself).

I shall post a link to the video when/if they put it up.

And now to sleep.

That was the episode of Battlestar Galactica last night. It was frakkin‘ awesome (to use the vernacular). To put that in perspective: my dad didn’t fall alseep during the episode!

It started off okay, but the music was a bit weird. I grew used to it, however, and the episode only got better. I think part of the reason that it was so cool was due to the fact that the Pegasus has “counterparts” to our Galactica crew. We got to see these more stringent, less ethical counterparts and how they operate—and it endears us that much more to the Galactica crew.

Best part of the episode: when Commander Adama’s on the phone with Tigh and Kallie is next to him. Tigh tells him about Helo and Tyrol’s court martial and impending execution, and you can literally feel Adama’s anger. You can also feel his regret, because it’s that moment when he finally stops lying to himself. Something had been upsetting him ever since the Pegasus arrived—this wasn’t a sudden decision; it was just the final culmination.

Then he orders that marine strike force, slams the phone down, and stalks away. He’s committing mutiny, but you love him for it, because it is so obvious that he is the hero.

That was probably the best single part of the episode. But nearly every character got some nice development—I didn’t see Gaida around, surprisingly. But Helo and Tyrol had a sort of “bonding moment”…if you call killing the Pegasus interrogator while attempting to defend the Cylon whom you love a “bonding moment”, I mean. And then Baltar’s overtures to the tortured Number Six aboard Pegasus were a nice conclusion to the episode. Notice the absence of the hallucination-Number Six during that scene…he actually got to do something on his own for once.

I can’t wait for next week. *fast-forwards time.*

Apparently Canada is sending 9000 cans of maple syrup to Norway as a “thank you” for helping out our skier Sara Renner by giving her a new pole mid-race.

Reason why I wub Canada.

Today I went to write the “knowledge test” to get my G1 licence, and I am happy to say that I passed. So now I need to go find a school….

For those of you who don’t live in Ontario, we have a “graduated licencing” system. Basically I get a G1 by passing this test, and then I have to practice with that for 12 months (8 if I take a driving school course, which I shall) before I take an actual road test to get my G2. Then if 12 months after that I take another test and get my full G licence. Simple, no?

Welcome to Ontario.

I‘m not that excited about learning how to drive. I mean, it’s not the best thing in the world. I’m rather terrified of damaging another car or something horrible like that. At least I got this over with, though.

The road signs were quite easy to identify; I got perfect on that. I got two questions wrong on the other test—I’ll be fine unless I have to park near a fire hydrant or drive in a city with streetcars.

VSNS Lemon 3.2 is here!

Vastly improved (translation: it no longer sucks), version 3.2 irons out bugs and brings an unprecedented level of functionality to my blog script. In other words, I am no longer frustrated when I try to use it myself. If you don’t like it, I do not blame you, but I am not to blame that your tastes are not exactly the same as mine.

So there.

You may also have noticed that the site looks a bit different and some pages (such as the scripts and about pages) have more content. That’s because I have tweaked the styles to make it easier to read the site and enriched the content. More changes to come, hopefully.

With VSNS Lemon finally stable and such, I can now devote time toward Vanilla Guestbook, which I‘ve been woefully neglecting! It is extremely buggy and poorly coded, so I’m going to rework it until I am satisfied.

With March Break upon me…I‘ve also got some writing to do, I think.

Edit: Okay, it’s official, I should go to sleep. I just spent five minutes trying to fix a “bug” in script because the article kept on unpinning itself. Then I realised I had entered 2005 into the expiration date rather than a 2006 date.

Time yourself. Three minutes only.

1. Read everything carefully before doing anything.
2. Open a new tab (or window for those of you unfortunate enough to be using Internet Explorer)
3. Go to Google
4. Think of an animal, any animal, and type it in
5. Take the first result on the second page.
6. Go to Yahoo! and type that result in.
7. Take the fourth result on the first page and write down the first word in the title on a piece of paper.
8. Below the title, write your name.
9. Circle your name.
10. Think of a number between 2 and 65.
11. Think of another number between 2 and 65.
12. Flip the paper over and add the two numbers together.
13. Go back to Google
14. Type the number into Google followed by the words “I am slowly going crazy” (in quotations)
15. If you reach this point in under three minutes, congratulations. Post a comment on this blog entry that says “I HAVE REACHED THIS STEP IN UNDER THREE MINUTES. I AM AN UBER-INTERNET USERoRZ!!!!”
16. Go to your favourite message board.
17. Randomly choose a topic title.
18. Paste the title into Google after the words “Why is this test so long?” (in quotations)
19. Write down the number of results found on the piece of paper you have.
20. Now that you have finished reading everything carefully, do only steps 1 and 2.

Got a new desk. It’s shiny and clean and way better than the old one. We got it from Staples; it’s a Gusdorf Island Cherry & Silver one. My brother, myself, and my brother’s friend assembled it. It’s lower than my other desk, although it lacks any drawers.

The untitled blog that discusses a subject not specified found at an unnamed website on a date which shall remain undisclosed. The owner of the untitled blog that discusses a subject not specified, who shall remain secret, discovered the unnamed website from his teacher, whose name was not revealed.

The owner who shall remain secret then posted on the untitled blog that discusses a subject not specified a post of undisclosed length concerning unknown content relevant to the specifics of the unnamed website on a date which shall remain undisclosed. This post of undisclosed length concerning the unknown content then linked to the same unnamed website, but to a different article from the first, containing different yet still unknown content relevant to the specifics of the unnamed website on a date which shall remain undisclosed.

The owner who shall remain secret of the untitled blog that discusses a subject not specified found the unknown content of the unnamed website to be funny to a degree not ascertained. The owner proceeded to disclose the relevance of the unnamed website to the general public via an untitled blog that discusses a subject not specified.

Which is what you just read.

Last updated Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 12:48 AM

I’m kind of um … surprised that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” won for Best Original Song. That was unexpected. Fortunately, I‘m buoyed by Crash’s successful bid for Best Picture. I told you so. It’s an awesome movie, and now that it’s an “Academy-award winner”, if you didn’t want to see it before, you have to go see it or fear being shunned by the rest of society!

Last school week before March Break. Kind of anti-climactic? Well, it can’t be more anticlimactic than the last two weeks—come to think of it, than the entire semester! People, teachers, et cetera (I guess teachers are people too… ) were sick, and now the travel club has left for Europe. I have to present my French project today; it’s just a short oral presentation with a partner. Unfortunately, while I’m quite competent at writing French, my pronunciation sounds like I‘m attempting to skin a live beaver at a chainsaw-wrestling competition.

I’ll leave you with that image. Have a nice day.

It’s all well and good to hear about the problems with drugs across the world and such from the news, and how it’s all a big, terrible pandemic. Don’t do drugs. Blah blah blah. Seldom do we see effective campaigns against it. I can’t remember the last time I saw a “quit smoking” advertisement on television—not just an anti-smoking one, but one that actually tells you to call the number and get a free guide. So when I heard about the “crystal meth pandemic”, I wondered what sort of piece the news would do on it.

I heard about the Montana Meth Project on CBC News: The Hour. They showed some of the television ads, and I must say … they are compelling. Watch the ads or go to NotEvenOnce.com. (Warning: the ads are disturbing.)