Monday, December 21, 2009

For some reason…

… Facebook keeps recommending J-Lo as a friend.  I don’t have any Lopez-related content on my page as far as I know, so I’m not sure what the deal is here.  But it’s the second time she’s popped up.

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

The 12 Gays of Christmas

Via Joe.My.God.

This totally made my morning!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Making the Bible Biblier

From MSNBC:

Blessed are the conservative in Bible translation
A new online project seeks to purge liberal views from the scriptures


"The project's authors argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible..."
a·his·tor·i·cal (ā'hĭ-stôr'ĭ-kəl, -stŏr'-)
adj. Unconcerned with or unrelated to history

The irony astounds me.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Best Christmas Cards Ever

Photobucket emailed me today, to let me know that My Pictures Make The Perfect Holiday Gift!!!

The funny part is, the only picture I’ve ever uploaded to Photobucket is my superhero pic from way back when.  I think they’re right, Professor Quick-Draw Shooter would really be able to spread the holiday cheer!

photobucket-xmas

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Ash-holes

One of my hugest pet peeves is seeing cigarette smokers throw their butts on the ground, which is why I was happy to read today that city council is planning on expanding their program of putting pole-mounted and concrete ashtrays along Edmonton’s busy downtown and Whyte Ave areas.  Hopefully, 124th Street, Alberta Avenue, Stony Plain Road and Chinatown/Little Italy will be the next areas to have the ashtrays show up and the butts disappear.

I think the whole concept of tossing butts out on the street is disgusting.  Those filters are made from cellulose acetate and take up to 15 years to degrade.  I’m sure millions of them end up in the water system every year and eventually find their way to the bottom of the oceans.  So gross.

And I hate, hate HATE it when smokers toss their butts out the window of their car.  I chew a lot of gum while I drive, but you don’t see me tossing my wrapper out, or spitting my gum onto the street when I’m done chewing it.

The ashtray program is expensive but I totally support that use of our taxes.  Lets get those butts off the street and into the trash where they belong!

Friday, October 30, 2009

The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals

This is so fantastic, it could have been an article in The Onion.

Will they follow in the lusty steps of their forebears, the Golden Girls? When all these gays are in such close proximity to each other, will we see a huge upsurge in illicit homosexual elderly trysts? Will they vote out Florida’s married Christian Republican leaders, like Governor Charlie Crist?

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So Irritating

I hate it when I’m going through my blogs and see a post with a video embedded from an American station.  All I want to do is watch John Stewart rip FOX a new one, but I get this instead:

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I get that it has to do with who owns the rights to tv show here in Canada, but it’s still goddam annoying!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

This made my day today

The good folks at MakeMyMood have a great take on some of the technology used in CSI. I couldn't get the picture to display properly here, but trust me, follow the link!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Two new blogs I’m following

Letters of Note

This blog is pretty new —only a few weeks old— and I’ve been fascinated with it so far! The author posts letters from significant people and moments in history, and I’ve read every single one intently.

From Hunter S. Thompson and Matt Stone to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Albert Einstein… illuminating glimpses into the past that we otherwise would never know about.

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My Parents Were Awesome

Somewhat less historically significant than the blog above, but nonetheless enjoyable. Random pics of people’s parents to remind us that, hey, my parents were once kids too!

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Whew! Harry Potter is safe!

The Amazing Grace Baptist Church really knows how to throw a Halloween party!

halloweenburningparty

Via Wonkette

Friday, October 2, 2009

I'm using up neurons for this?

It's funny, the random things that pop into my head sometime for absolutely no reason. Anybody remember this commercial for Brown Cow chocolate syrup from the mid-eighties?
When you want a chocolatey treat, that can't be beat! It's Brown Cow now! Brown Cow now? Wow! It's Moo-licious!
I tried to find a video online but the closest I got was a different ad for the same product.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

I'm not ready...

... for winter!

I had to scrape my windshield this morning. A lot.

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

End of Season Softball Party

The SSI Terrorbytes have officially ended our inaugural season. Everyone had a blast playing rec-league softball once a week, and we wrapped it up in style with a party out at Wayne's cabin on Jackfish Lake. There was a ton of delicious food for the pot luck, and I was happy to hear that everyone liked the slow-roasted pulled pork on a bun that I brought. We were planning on playing some Rockband, but the disc wouldn't load; I think it was just as well, since it was a perfect night for sitting and drinking raspberry wheat ale around the campfire, sharing stories and having a relaxed good time.

I'm already looking forward to next season!





More pics can be found here and here.

Friday, September 18, 2009

The Lingnan

Wow it's been waaaay too long since my last blog post! The last few months have been sooo ridiculously busy that every time I go to post I get as far as the Dashboard page and then decide that it's too much work. Heh. So, I'm going to really try and get back at it.

Anyway, the fella and I ordered in from The Lingnan tonight. My friend Em used to live down the block from the restaurant, and she was always a little weirded out by it because there are no windows on the outside of the building (she's a bit of an odd duck... which she would totally take as a compliment). So, I've wanted to try the The Lingnan for years now just because of that, not to mention they've been featured on The Food Network (which I love).

We ordered: Green Onion Cakes, Gingr Beef, Cantonese Chow Mein, Lemon Chicken and Beef & Broccoli.

My verdict: eh, pretty good but nothing special. It was definitely tasty, but there wasn't really anything to differentiate it from all the other Chinese food I've eaten in my life. The high point was probably the Green Onion Cake with it's deliciously spicy red sauce; the low point was the blandish Lemon Chicken.

I'd order from The Lingnan again, but I'm not in any rush.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

One of those days

You know when you're already late for something, and you seem to get stuck behind every 85 year old guy doing 40 in his Oldsmobile, and you hit every red light?

That was my day today.

I think I'm going to go into work suuuuuper early tomorrow and try to play a bit of catch-up, hopefully I'll have better luck!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

My Original Roommate

We were talking about birthdays one day this past week at work, and I discovered something pretty cool: one of my coworkers was born on the same day and in the same place I was!

Turns out we were both born May21, 1979, at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. I told her I was the one in the incubator, rocking back and forth and she was all "Oh yah I totally remember you!!"

Heh, neat coincidence that makes me enjoy my group of coworkers even more than I already did.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

I Went To See Evil Dead: The Musical, And All I Got Was This Bloody T-Shirt*

It's been a busy summer so far! Our friend Petie was visiting from Australia, so we showed him the sights around town, took him to the ARGRA rodeo, and hiking in Jasper for Canada Day. So, there's been a whole lot of driving! But this weekend I was more than happy to make the trek down to Calgary so that the fella and I could see Evil Dead: The Musical.

The show was at The Playhouse in Vertigo Theatre Centre, right at the base of the Calgary Tower. We had tickets for the Splatter Zone, and there was a whole list of rules the staff made sure we knew about: no leaving your seat after intermission, no going back to the main lobby after the show, wait for the usher to take you out the back way... it seemed like some pretty serious stuff. And boy, did we find out why!

The show itself was awesome!! The actors were great, the set was spooky and hilarious at the same time, and they couldn't have picked a better guy to play Ash. There were some really funny parts in the songs, and the music was upbeat and kept everybody wanting more. There were some really cool puppetry special effects, including a talking moose and dancing beaver, and a few quick-switch moments where I had no idea how they substituted a fake head on a shelf for an an actor's real head without me noticing. But coolest and most fun effect was, of course, the blood splatter! It started out with a burst of blood flying at the audience from the cellar door, and by the time they were done we had seen blood flying at us from all directions... including the actors gushing blood all over us as they walked through the aisles. Too cool!!

The show is running for one more week, and if anyone hasn't seen it yet I'd highly recommend it!



*With apologies to Blake for stealing his cool slogan. I'm sure he stole it from someone else anyway.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Bachelorless Bachelor Party

This past Saturday was ridiculous. It was our friend Jorge's bachelor party, since he's getting married to Erin this weekend. The wedding is on the same day as the Pride parade, so the Fella and I will be dressed in our finery. The plan is to attend the wedding, then go down to the beer gardens and let everyone think that we just got married. Let the free drinks flow!

We spent the afternoon at a BBQ at Erin's parents' place in Sherwood Park, and it was waaay fun! There was a ton of food, beer and shots aplenty, and lots of cool people to hang out with. The BBQ ended with Jorge getting concussed during a shirtless wrestling match... by which I mean all the guys rolling around on the ground with each other. Straight boys are all such 'mos. Jorge went from pretty much OK to "I need a nap, right now." So despite it being his party, he missed out on the rest of the night's festivities.

After the BBQ, we went down to the sketchy part of sketchville, the community hall on 118 Ave and 92 St, for some PRO WRESTLING ACTION!! It was as cheesy as you'd expect for the Pro Wrestling scene in Edmonton, and the crowd was weirdly diverse: everything from a little old with her knitting needles to youth rugby teams to 35 year old virgins (lots of them) to a group of rowdy drunks that took up a whole section. That last group was us, in case there was any doubt.

The wrestling was great, it was a lot of fun cheering for the good guys and booing the bad guys. The best part of the night was the Championship Match between hometown boys The Vigilantes and the light-in-the-loafers villians Domestic Partnership. Of course everyone was supposed to be cheering for the Vigilantes but our section threw a wrench into the match by going nuts for DP. They turned around to boo us at one point, until the realized that we were actually cheering for them.... I don't think they get that too often!

Pictures to follow if I can track them down!

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Sidewalk Evangelist Strikes Again!

Robots may be R Friends, but apparently TV is not.

What if the robot has a TV built in??

Thursday, May 28, 2009

That's What They WANT You To Believe

Saw this on my way home from Safeway today... I think Linda Hamilton would disagree.


Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Relentless Egomania: The ravages of time

We had a rough night last night, but not as rough as poor Elsie. I hope she's ok.

Details here:
Relentless Egomania: The ravages of time

Monday, May 25, 2009

Defend Me From Satan? How about Defend Me From Crazy?

Although I'm not a particularly religious person, I generally don't have anything against those who are (unless of course they're crazy bigoted assholes). Having said that, some people are just plain silly about it. Do these people really think that having a bumper sticker or twelve on their car is going to get them into heaven?


Sunday, May 24, 2009

Happy XXX Birthday to me!

That's XXX as in the Roman numeral 30, you pervs. Although my actual birthday was on May 21, I got to split my partying into two separate weekends!

Last weekend all my friends came to the condo and threw me a formal "Gay-Dead" party! I had tons of fun, and discovered that 50 shots of beer in in 50 minutes is apparently my limit. In my defense, I'd already had several beers, a glass of wine, and a margarita earlier.... ;o) Huge thanks to everyone that helped plan and to all my friends for showing up and sending me off to the land of the dead in style!

This past weekend, Aaron and I went down to Red Deer for a Birthday BBQ with my family, and I had a great time again. The weather was (finally) beautiful, the food was delicious and plentiful, and a great time was had by all.

I couldn't have asked for a better gift than to share all the good times with everyone!




Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Crazy

I just got a pre-sale offer in my email for this show... Aerosmith with ZZ Top. I would totally go see that, but not for $200 a ticket!

I may have to start listening to the radio to try and win a pair... they may be old and mostly washed up, but fuck, it's Aeorsmith! I know ZZ Top puts on a good show too... I saw them play at Stage 13 in 2004, with crazy thunder and lightning in the background!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Frag Me

I've been playing more video games since moving in with the Fella, and especially since he got an Xbox 360 for Christmas. And it turns out that I suck. Hardcore.

Specifically, I'm terrible at First Person Shooter games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty. I've pretty much figured out why I'm so bad, but I'm not sure what to do about it.... My biggest problem is that I have no concept of how various parts of the map relate to each other. When I'm playing, I'm pretty much wandering around the map with no concept of where I'm going or how I got there.

Aaron and I were playing Halo 3 on a newly downloaded map last night, neither of us had played it before. It wasn't long before he had the layout pretty well figured out, and was trying to describe it for me.

Me: Hey! Where did you find that Gravity Hammer??
Aaron: It's in the central tower.
Me: Central tower? Where the hell is the center?
Aaron: Ok it's like this: there are the two smaller towers along the edge of the map, and each one has a couple of catwalks leading from there to the big central tower in the middle.
Me: (non-distinct gurgling sounds, brains start dribbling out of my ear)

The thing is, I could totally take what he was saying and turn it into a top-down view of the map in my head. But for some reason, I just cannot seem to relate my imagined top-down view to what I'm actually seeing on the screen in 3D. I try really hard to pay attention to what I'm seeing and build that map in my head but my brain just doesn't seem to be wired that way.

I am slowly (veeeeery slowly) getting better at it, but not quickly enough to prevent myself from getting the shit kicked out of me 9 times out of 10.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I Am My Own Wardrobe Malfunction, ctd

Conversation in our place tonight:

Me - Hey Aaron, do you know where the ironing board is?
The Fella - I don't think we have one.
Me - Really? I thought we did... I gave mine away when I moved in.
TF - Nope, I think we were going to go get one of those little ones at IKEA but never got around to it.
Me - Huh.

The thing is, I generally don't like ironing at the best of times. I purposely buy clothes that don't need ironing... I am the king of the Mark's Work Warehouse outfit. Consequently, I've probably ironed maybe 10 times in my entire life. I'm not very good at it, and it turns out I'm even less good at it when it has to be done on the kitchen table. It's going to be a crinkly week.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Mysterious Peaches

This jar of peaches showed up at the back door of our apartment building yesterday, sometime in the twenty minutes between the time I went to Safeway and the time I got back. They were still there today.

Who just forgets that they left a jar of peaches on the stairs??





Saturday, April 4, 2009

How Dumb Are People?

I've gotten IMs from at least five of my MSN chat buddies today, with a link to http://img6244.meetyourims.com/. If you're dumb enough give your username and password to any random site on teh intertubes, they you deserve to have your account hijacked.

Tell ya what, anyone who replies to this post with their credit card information will be signed up for a fantastic club! It'll be so much fun, you better join!!

We Are All Fucked

Robot Theorizes, Proves Own Scientific Discoveries

How long before they develop Skynet now? Between this and the dolphins, we are sooo fucked.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

So Much To Blog About, So Little Time

Well actually, it's more like I've been too lazy/unmotivated to actually sit down for a few minutes and hammer out a post. The fella and I have been super busy for the last couple of weeks though, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Recent developments:

  • I have a new job! March 23 was my first day at SSI Solutions. They're an IT provider that acts as complete IT Department for most of their clients. It's not exactly what I was hoping for, as I was leaning more towards a job where I'd work as IT support for internal clients rather than external ones.... Still, it seems like a good company and I really like all the people I'm working with. I think I'll keep going back for a while and see how it grows on me.

  • We went to Calgary last weekend to party with Aaron's old roomate Ryan, his boyfriend Jim, and their crew of Calgary gays. We spent Friday night getting totally sloshed playing Sociables (with better rules than listed in the link!) and a game I've never played before, Celebrities. The way Celebrities works is that everyone throws the names of a bunch of well-known people into a hat, and then everyone picks names out of the hat in turn. On the first round, you can describe your celebrity any way you want as long as you don't use their names. In round two, you only get two words to describe the name you picked; in round three it's charades only. It was a lot of fun and we all got good and drunk. Saturday night we went and partied at Calgary's delightfully sketchy gay bar The Eagle, which was also a blast. The Random Surprise Of The Night was that Neil was there too! Good times were had by all. Sunday, the fella and I went to meet his friend Melissa for some sushi at Wassabi. Surprise, they don't open until 5 PM on Sunday! And not at all on this particular Sunday!! Melissa gets a C- for Planning Skills. So, we went across the street to the shady looking Cat 'n Fiddle pub instead, ready to defend ourselves from knife attacks and choke down greasy food. Well, shame on us for our lack of optimism... it was soooo good! I would certainly go back if I happened to be in the neighborhood. Anyway, after a great visit and a great lunch, it was time to head back home. We got back to the condo around 6 PM and were so completely exhausted; I don't think either one of us moved from our spot on the couch until it was time for bed. I had a ton of fun in Calgary, but next time it's the boys turn to visit here!

  • Last night was full of running around too. Aaron's cousin April had a baby girl on Monday, and so after work we drove down to the Grey Nuns hospital to visit. Little Addison made all the appropriate cute baby faces and noises, and didn't even lose her charm when she dropped a giant turd into her diaper. Such a lady! April was still pretty tired and I think was a little sick of all the visitors, so we tried not to overstay our welcome. After chatting for a bit, we made our way over to IKEA to look for the cool and stylish drinking glasses we had seen at Greg and Brad's place last week. We weren't able to find them, but I did end up with a new snap mesh tea ball, so we didn't walk out empty handed. It does feel a little strange to walk all the way through IKEA and only buy 3 dollars worth of merchandise though! To top the night off, we went to see Coraline in 3D at the South Edmonton Common theatre. It was really good, although I do confess to dozing off a couple times. Hey I was really tired! But the movie was seriously fantastic... a cool story and the stop-motion animation was beautiful. My favorite part was that they didn't do a lot of tacky "look what we can do!" 3D effects; instead of being gimmicky, it just enhanced the movie.
That's it for now. I'll be making a point of blogging waaaay more frequently so I don't have to do these massive posts!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I Am My Own Wardrobe Malfunction

Britney Spears isn't the only one who can't dress herself properly.

  • I put my belt on backwards. I was well into my twenties before I discovered that that most people put their belt on by going around the left hip first. The first time I had a belt with a logo on the buckle, I discovered that the logo would be upside down if I kept doing it my way.

  • I can't do up the buttons on a men's shirt if I am facing them. When I'm hanging my shirts up, I put them on the hanger and then turn the hanger around so that the buttons are facing away... in other words the same direction they face when you're actually putting a shirt on.

  • I don't understand how guys can rest their sunglasses on their forehead. When I put my sunglasses up, I have to wear them almost all the way up on the top of my head or they'll fall down. It doesn't seem to matter how tight the arms are, they will not stay on my forehead.

  • While we're on the subject, I also lose pairs of sunglasses constantly. I won't buy any that cost more than $20 because I know I'm either going to sit on them or leave them on the table at a restaurant.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Movie night: The Watchmen on IMAX

So last night I went with the fella and a few other friends to see The Watchmen, and I have to say I loved it! The movie completely lived up to the high standards set by the original comic book series. There was no cheesy acting, no silly cliched scenes, and the sound track was filled with an eclectic mix of of old songs that somehow worked perfectly together. We went to see it on the IMAX screen, which really was definitely the way it should be seen. Naturally, we had to sit through the cheesy IMAX pre-show, which was moderately cool the first time couple times I saw it back in 1985. You'd think that they'd notice that the audience jeers and mocks it now, but you'd be wrong. Oh well, it was worth it.

One thing that made the night extra fun was the girl sitting in the row in front of us. While we were chatting before the movie started, she kept turning around to agree vehemenently with all our opinions. It was random and fun, in an eavesdroppy sort of way.

If you haven't seen it already, you should go. Right now. One thing to note though: it's a very intricately woven and complicated storyline. I was really glad I'd read the comic serics beforehand; our friends that hadn't read it all said they found the movie a little hard to follow.

Monday, February 23, 2009

My solution to the economic crisis

I've started unpacking some of the boxes we brought to the condo on Saturday... and while I was unpacking I made a discovery: I own approximately one trillion plastic clothes hangers.

I don't need anywhere close to the number of hangers I brought with me, so I've decided to inject the remainder of the hangers back into our economy. I'd say each hanger is worth around 30 cents; hopefully this extra $300 billion will help things move along on the financial front.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Most Ironic Disease Ever

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

Last night I learned, thanks to NTN, that this is the name for the fear of long words. Somebody out there has a sense of humor!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Blog renovations (maybe) done

Ahh, much better. The bubbles no longer overlap the text, and I decided to add them down the right hand side as well. I may still change them to be non-scrolling, but I haven't decided yet.

Thoughts?

Blog renovation, cont.

My eyes! It buuuuurns!

I was dropping something off at my parents' place this afternoon, and wanted to show Dad the video I posted earlier about the musical line graphs. I fired up my blog on his laptop, which has a much lower screen resolution setting than mine does... and it looked awful! The retro circles on the left hand side, which look soooo cool on my screen, were horrible on his. They were HUGE, taking up nearly a third of the horizontal real estate. The two brown lines I added, intending them as a border, were going through the middle of the text area.

Clearly, it has been a while since I did any web design.

More changes to follow.

Marriage Equality

I had kind of an eye-opening moment not long ago when I was showing my Mom Courage Campaign's "Please Don't Divorce Us" video which I've posted here in my blog. It got us talking about Prop 8 and marriage rights in general, and I was a little taken aback at how much she didn't know. She had heard of Prop 8, and had some idea that it had to do with gay rights in California, but that was about it.

So, I took the opportunity to do a little education. We talked about the fact that the courts in Cali had granted gay people the right to get married back in May, how Prop 8 got added to the ballot and just barely passed through pressure and funding in large part from the Mormon Church, how the measure actively sought to take rights away from people, and what it meant for gay people going forward. Then we got to chatting about gay civil rights here in Canada, and she really blew me out of the water: my Mom had no idea that equal marriage rights were already granted by law in our country. So again, I explained how Paul Martin's Liberal government had granted the right back in 2005 with the passing of Bill C-38.

Anyway, I guess I was a little shocked by the ignorance that my Mom --liberal at heart, mother to a gay son-- showed in matters that were near to my heart and deeply affect my own life. And I place the blame here squarely on my own shoulders.

I came out to my family about five years ago and they accepted it pretty easily. Mom was shocked for all of two minutes; it took Dad a little longer but but he came around pretty quickly. My family has always been close and we stayed that way through the process of my coming out. But even though we're still very close, the issue of my sexuality doesn't really get discussed a lot. Again, this is mostly my own fault; I've always been a pretty private person, a fact that often drives my mother nuts.

My point --and I do have one-- is that I feel I've been a little derelict in my duties here. I have a willing audience in the form of my very accepting family, but except for a few rare instances I've never taken the initiative to discuss GLBT issues with them. I'm going to endeavor to take that initiative from now on whenever the opportunity arises.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Blog renovations

When I started the blog, I chose the minimalist theme: black text on a white background, grey borders. I've been thinking that it could use a little sprucing up, so I added some retro graphics to the left hand side and changed up the color scheme.

Too much? Let me know what you think.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Bye bye, Ubuntu

I've been running Ubuntu Linux as the primary OS on my laptop for about a year and a half now. The current release, Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) was fantastically easy to install: it completely walked me through the installation, and I didn't have to hunt around for any drivers at all. It recognized and configured all the hardware in my HP nw8240, including the built in wireless and the built in media card reader, without any work on my part. It was also fantasticly easy to use after installation... Firefox was installed as the default browser, and OpenOffice.org was the default office suite. In general, I've been very happy with it, and excited that Linux development has progressed as far as it has. I would totally recommend Ubuntu to the average Joe who basically uses their computer for email, web browsing, and office work. I especially think it's suited well for the surge of netbooks that is hitting the market.

Now that I'm moving in with Aaron, though, I've been looking for ways to to reduce the amount of clutter in my life. One of the things that will probably be going is my desktop PC; I'll be using my laptop as my main computer. And I'm sorry to say, there are too many things that Linux still has a hard time with to keep it as my laptop's OS.

My hugest disappointment is that there isn't a port of IrfanView for Linux, or even a very good replacement. I've been using IrfanView since its first release, and it is by far the best program out there for viewing and doing simple modifications to graphics files. GThumb was the best replacement I could find, but it's not nearly as fast, and the interface is much clunkier.

Second on the list was compatibility between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office. I found OOO to be a great, fully-featured office suite, and I think it would be a good replacement for MS Office if everyone was using it. Most people are still using MS Office, however, and while the OOO suite is able to open MS Office files, I found that the conversion was somewhat lacking.

So, I've spent the last couple days installing Windows XP and all my regular Windows apps, and getting everything configured the way I like it. I'm looking forward to the day that I can go back to Ubuntu and say goodbye to Microsoft for good, but that day isn't here yet.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

An experiment in hair

My boyfriend is in the bathroom cutting his own hair. He's no Crawford Mackenzie, but so far it looks like it's turning out OK. Oh, I'm being called in to clean up the back a little, be right back.

...

Not bad at all! I think it's just a little short around the sides, but he says he likes it that way. He's got bigger cojones than I do, there's no way I'd cut my own hair. That's $30 I spend for peace of mind. Also I like being tipped back into those big hair-washing sinks and having my scalp massaged. :oP


UPDATE
After a shower, he's decided that it "looks almost exactly the same as my last haircut, only I didn't pay 25, no 30 dollars for it, and my neck didn't get raped."

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Videos from the Blogosphere

More often than not, I skip over the videos in my RSS feeds. One of the perks of (temporary!) unemployment, though, is that you have a little extra time to do some of the things you normally wouldn't get to.

I came across three videos today that I absolutely loved, and had to share:

The first, which I found via Towleroad, takes Microsoft Soundsmith and uses it to create music based on real world data in the form of line graphs. Artist Johannes Kreidler used economic and political data points to make some misleadingly upbeat and fun music!



Video number two, also via Towleroad, is a mashup of Christian Bale's recent rant and a typically hot-tempered diatribe from Bill O'Reilly. Brilliant!



The last video is from Joe.My.God. He's posted the result of Courage Campaign's recent "Please Don't Divorce Us" campaign. It really does break my heart, not to mention bring a tear to my eye.


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

It's Boss Time!

Bruce Springsteen may be past his Glory Days, but he still knows how to put on a helluva show. The E-Street Band was in fine form and Bruce fuckin' rocked it out!

Go Steelers!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

I'm Not Gay (I Just Really Love Rainbows)

I've been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing and packing in preparation for my move back to Edmonton. While I was cleaning out my dresser, I found something that Rachel gave me years ago, and it made me laugh just as much today as it did back then.

Heh, it's her ability to pick on me that made us such great friends in the first place. Thanks Rakel!

Hmm, maybe Ted Haggard could hang one of these in HIS car. Cuz, y'know, he's not gay.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Nuthin' Says Lovin' Like An LCD Monitor

This arrived in my Inbox today and made me giggle.


Things That Annoy Me (Part The First)

  • Keyboards that don't have the CAPS LOCK or NUM LOCK light built in. How hard is it to add a tiny little LED light? This is getting more and more common, especially with wireless keyboards. Grrrrr.

  • When people don't empty the lint trap after using the clothes dryer. I don't want to touch your lint, dammit.

  • Mail from the Government of Canada. Why is the flap on the bottom of the envelope???

  • Getting a hot beverage to go, and having the sippy part of the lid lined up with the 'crease' in the paper cup. This happens way too often to be coincidence.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Jasper in January!



I had a great weekend partying it up in Jasper. And by "partying it up" I mean "being in bed by midnight every night." But with good reason!

Aaron and I ended up getting in to Jasper pretty late on Friday night... I think it was around 11:30. I had intended to be there earlier but on my way to pick him up in Edmonton I got stuck behind a collision on the Walterdale bridge. I was still about halfway up the hill on Queen Elizabeth Park Rd (right here in fact), right beside a small park road. I sat there, not moving for about half an hour, all the while watching people turn off onto the park road. I wasn't sure where the road ended up, but nobody was coming back from the road, so I figured it must end up somewhere that would get me around this traffic jam. I backed up enough that I could turn onto the road and off I went!

Well, it wound its way through the woods for a while, and although the road doesn't show up on Google Maps, I came out here. Yay! Should be easy enough to swing over to Scona road and cross on the Low-Level Bridge, right? Wrong! What I found out is that the last part of 91 Ave is a long, steep, icy hill. When you're driving a standard and you have to stop on a hill, it can already be a little tough getting your car into 1st gear. Now add super slick icy patches into the mix, and let me tell you, it can be downright scary. I got stuck at a point about half way up, where my tires were resting on nearly pure ice, which the person in front of me had polished up by spinning his tires. It took me another 20 mintutes of moving a few inches at a time, reving my engine and spinning my crappy tires to finally get up that damn hill.

So anyway, it took longer than expected to get out of Edmonton... by the time we arrived at the Athabasca Hotel in Jasper I was pretty pooped. It seemed like the rest of the gang was too, though, so we all headed off to our respective rooms not long after.

Saturday was a blast! We had a tasty breakfast at the Soft Rock Cafe, and then puttered around town a bit, shopping and deciding what to do with our evening. After stopping at the Jasper Info Centre, Lesley came up with the awesome idea of entering that evening's Human Foosball Game, part of the Jasper In January festival. It wa soooo much fun! I had a great time, despite the fact that my lungs didn't really appreciate all the running around in -30 C temperatures. I'm mildy asthmatic, and I've been coughing up phlegm* pretty much non-stop since then, but it was totally worth it!!

After cleaning up from being a Human Foosball Player, we went for dinner at the Fiddle River Restaurant. I was still pretty full from snacking all day, so I just ordered a bowl of French Onion Soup. It was pretty good, although they did something to make it a little creamy... I would have prefered just a regular onion broth. It was still tasty though, and everyone else's meals looked delicious, so we wandered out a couple hours later, a happy, and full, crowd. It was getting close to midnight by then, and again, everyone was pooped, so we all shuffled off to bed.

We got to sleep in on Sunday, and just met for brunch at 11:00. We chose the funky and delicious Cafe Mondo, where the food was just as eclectic as the jazz music playing in the background. After brunch, it was time to head back home (after getting a boost for my dead car battery from the friendly Atha-B maintenance guy, Steve). It was still cold on the drive home but the sun was out and it made for a nice trip back.

More pics are here!

* Phlegm is one of my favorite words for spelling and pronunciation. It is also one of those great words where the word actually sounds as gross as the substance it describes!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Star-ving

I'm just chock-full of new websites to check out today.

You should definitely check out Star-ving. It's a web show staring David Faustino (Bud Bundy on "Married With Children") as himself, in a hilarious and hilariously offensive hyper-reality version of his life.

Best moment so far: Gilbert Godfried calling David a faggot in episode two. Loves it!


Cool Youtube Converter

Today on The Frank DeCaro Show, Frank's guest was the fabulous Christine Ebersole. One of the clips he played was the super gay "The Revolutionary Costume For Today," which I decided immediately upon hearing it that I must have for my collection. I searched and searched, but couldn't find an MP3 of it anywhere.

What I did find however was this cool little site that will automatically convert YouTube vids into the format of your choosing: AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP, or MP3. It was easy as pie and the result sounded exactly like the YouTube vid!

Now, for your enjoyment, Christine Ebersole!


Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I think we can file this under 'Duh'

While browsing around a bit on the site from my previous post, I happened across this article:

1 in 3 boys heavy porn users, study shows

Maybe the boys in my province are just extra-pervy. ;o)

It's Aliiiiiiiive!

Well, technically it isn't, but it IS self-replicating.
One of the most enduring questions is how life could have begun on Earth. Molecules that can make copies of themselves are thought to be crucial to understanding this process as they provide the basis for heritability, a critical characteristic of living systems. Now, a pair of Scripps Research Institute scientists has taken a significant step toward answering that question. The scientists have synthesized for the first time RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.
Very cool stuff! And what's even cooler is that they evolve:
Most of the time the replicating enzymes would breed true, but on occasion an enzyme would make a mistake by binding one of the subunits from one of the other replicating enzymes. When such "mutations" occurred, the resulting recombinant enzymes also were capable of sustained replication, with the most fit replicators growing in number to dominate the mixture.
The scientists do come right out and say that their creations aren't actually alive, but they do share some properties of live organisms. I don't think it'll be long before life is created in a test tube.

Discovered via a thread on my favorite message board.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

New Year's Resolutions

Sometimes I do a New Year's Resolution and sometimes I don't... it all depends on if there's anything I see in my life that I really want to improve on. A lot of the time

My favorite resolution so far is from a few years ago... it was to get out and see more live music. I think this was around 2001... I'd only ever been to a few concerts up to that point in my life, and I didn't like the way the trend was going. So that year I went a little nuts... I think I must have taken in 15 or more shows that I would actually call "concerts", as well as lots of live entertainment at pubs and whatnot. It's been a while, but artists I remember seeing that year include The Tea Party (several times), Ozzy Osbourne, The Tragically Hip, Bif Naked, Social Code, Barenaked Ladies, Wil, Matt Good... and others that I'm sure I'm forgetting.

(Yes, I did have money to burn back then).

This year's resolution involves a little more introspection, although it's not nearly as expensive.

I was always a shy kid back in school, to the point where some people thought I was snobby because I wouldn't talk to them unless they talked to me first. The shyness is something I've battled with over the years, and while it's still there, I'm much better at being able to make a conscious decision to ignore it. I have noticed, though, that even now I'm hardly ever the one to initiate contact with my friends. It's not that I don't like them, or don't want to see/hear from them... and I know that if we did get together we'd have a great time. It's more like it just doesn't occur to me to call them up.

I think this non-contact behaviour is stemming from two different places, both related to my shyness.

First, because I was shy as a kid, I just never really developed the skill of being friendly. I had my friends at school of course, but there were only ever a few that I hung out with outside of school. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes, and my school-age habit of being my own company seems to be no exception.

Second, I've always had a bit of a phone phobia. Strange, right? Back in my teenage years, I'd actually get nervous when I had to call someone, or even if I was thinking about calling someone. It didn't happen all the time, and it didn't seem to matter who the person on the other end was going to be. I distinctly remember one time I had to call a customer support line for a problem with my cell phone; my heart started racing as I was dialing the numbers, my stomach started flip-flopping, and I had to hang up and try again the next day. As with the shyness in general, this has gotten much better over the years. My job at the call center (which I took, in part, as a way to conquer this issue) helped a lot, as did the general boost in self-confidence that happened in my early twenties. Having said that though, I still much prefer emailing or texting to picking up a phone and making a call.

Anyway, this is starting to get long so I'll get to the point. In 2009, I'm going to make a conscious and concerted effort to be more outgoing, and to not always rely on my friends to do the planning. A friendship is just like any other relationship: it takes effort to maintain, and it's high time I started putting more of that effort in.