Even though we have enough for half a scale, I’m not sure this is a good use of our cats [via]. It seems rather cruel.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2006.
Tags: Cats, musical-instruments, piano
I’ve vowed never to see another Eddie Griffin movie ever again. It’s not like I’ve seen many of his movies but after seeing this one on Sunday night I think I can safely say that he is dead to me. I’ll defer to Mr. Cranky’s review:
[E]very joke under the sun comes at the audience and almost none of them stick to the wall. All one really needs to do is a microanalysis of Grant’s last name: Funkerdoder. Is it really that much funnier than “Focker”? The answer is no, but it’s precisely the type of joke this movie pummels moviegoers with until they’re beaten into a kind of obliviousness. The jokes aren’t funny. The tone never changes. “Date Movie” is like an air raid siren of bad comedy, a film best described as “deafeningly unfunny.”
There isn’t much more that I can add to that.
Tags: date-movie, eddie-griffin, Movies, mr-cranky, reviews
Part of my new role is setting the expectations for my team over the next 6 months. I did that this morning; this new role is going to require a lot more talking on my part. Everyone seems to be satisfied with their list of expectations over the next few months. I’m instituting a few process changes to make my job and their jobs a little easier and more interesting (hopefully). We’ll see how the next few months pan out.
Tags: expectations, management
Tags: csr, customer-service, human, operator, telephone
This is really a terrible tragedy. It happened not too far from our house on Friday night. I can’t imagine what kind of person would deliberately try and strike a mounted officer.
Tags: brigadier, horses, mounted-officers, Toronto
It’s strange and tragic that the officer who shot Dudley George was killed over the weekend in a car accident in Eastern Ontario. He was scheduled to testity at the inquiry in the next few weeks. Now the family won’t be able to get all of their questions answered.
Tags: dudley-george, inquiry, ipperwash
It’s a good thing we live in the age of information. After last week’s passing of the law banning abortion in South Dakota, a blog posted a manual for the women of South Dakota to do it themselves. It’s not quite the same procedure as described in Vera Drake because techniques and instruments have evolved in 50 years. It’s heartening to read about people having a choice and that just because legislation has been proposed doesn’t mean that they’re out of options. [via]
Tags: abortion, legislation, manual, procedure, south-dakota, vera-drake
Each and every morning when I get up I do a roll call of our cat population in the house. I need to make sure that they’re all accounted for. I do the same thing when I come home from work and I’m the first one in. I’m probably just scared because of prior events.
These are some funny ads from Volkswagen. Deutschland represent!
Tags: advertising, Cars, commercials, deutschland, unpimp-my-ride, volkswagen
A gay cowboy’s top 10 movies of 2005. There are some surprises on there!
Tags: brokeback-mountain, Movies, rent
Malcolm Gladwell now has a blog. Subscribed!
Tags: blogs, malcolm-gladwell
Marcy was talking about how we’re part of the MTV Generation and how the people who grew up just after us are known as the “i” (little I) generation. We’re actually on the cusp of that generation since we were born in 1979. She wanted to be part of that but instead we’re lumped in with MTV. In fact she said that she didn’t even get MTV so we’re on the cusp of that too. We’re a cusp of a cusp.
We’re bicuspid.
Take the TTC subway station names and create anagrams from them. You’ll get something like this [via]. Hopefully this map lasts longer than the London Underground one.
This could be the real start of a new battle on abortion. The traditional exceptions won’t apply either. If passed it’ll be outright illegal unless the woman is in perilous health. [via]
Tags: abortion, Health, roe-v.-wade, south-dakota
How many states allow a resident to marry a cousin? From the answer:
Laws against “kissin’ cousin” marriages stem from fear that the progeny of such unions have a much higher chance of being afflicted with birth defects and/or winding up on the “Jerry Springer Show.”
At least they have a sense of humour when answering these questions.
Tags: cousins, jerry-springer, Marriage
I’ll come right out and say it. Yes I’m disappointed that the men’s hockey team lost yesterday. However I’m more proud about the 4 medals we won yesterday than disappointed about the loss. We have 18 medals! That’s a record for us. All of the news reports seem to be focusing on the loss. It’s true that hockey is our national sport (or rather one of them), it’s not the end of the world that we don’t win a medal. It’s one game and there were only two outcomes. On top of that, past performances could not have dictated the result. I’m not sure why but this whole thing bothers me.
James Koole has a similar tone in his post - “Granted hockey is a big deal, but it’s not the only reason I’m watching, you know. How about showing me some speed skating or skiing live now and then?”
I’ve worked very hard for this:
I am pleased to announce the promotion of Matt Clements to development manager from technical team lead effectively immediately. In his new role, Matt will be responsible for the management of the development team, the planning of application releases as well as ensuring we have in place a solid software development process. Please join me in congratulating Matt and wishing him all the best in his new position.
A year and a half working here and I’m definitely on my way. Things are looking up.
Tags: Career, development-manager, promotion
There’s a grassroots campaign to get Richard Dean Anderson on the Hollywood Walk of Fame [via]. I have to say though that the “official” website linked in the article there really isn’t an official one. There’s a big disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that no one has authorized the site.
New Orleans newspaper honoured for reporting. They did an astounding job during Katrina. I was refreshing their blog very frequently during those days.
Tags: awards, hurricane-katrina, journalism, katrina, new-orleans, times-picayune
For some reason I always like to bop my head to the Fidelity Investments commercial that’s on television these days. I can’t remember exactly which fund they’re advertising which I guess means that the ad isn’t terribly effective though I will always remember that it’s an ad for Fidelity. It has some really catchy music so I can’t help but groove to it.
Tags: advertising, commercials, dancing, fidelity, Music, Television
I was looking at my Last.fm’s RSS feed and found the description at the top to be rather humourous. You may remember my post on their service last week.
Anyway here’s what they say in the feed:
This is an RSS feed designed to be read by a computer. Which you aren’t.What’s an RSS Feed?
RSS feeds allow you to soar above fields of data, much in the way a great eagle soars above mountain ranges, except without the endangered species designation…
It’s a nice use of XSLT.
Tags: eagle, endangered-species, last.fm, rss-feed, xslt
The author of one of The Atlantic Monthly’s most popular articles receives a followup interview [via]. Prepare for a united front of introverts.
Tags: interviews, introverts, the-atlantic-monthly
Almost a year ago I posted about the release of a new movie by Richard Linklater. It’s an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel A Scanner Darkly (novel info). Via Kottke’s remainder links I discovered the latest trailer for the film (Quicktime link). The movie comes out July 7th. I really want to see this.
Tags: a-scanner-darkly, quicktime, richard-linklater, trailer
Our newest printer here at the office (some Minolta model) seems to be rather polite and civilized. The paper tray ran out of paper so it’s providing a nice warning about the status and urges someone to “Replenish paper”. That sounds nice.
I admit, I own the winning ticket. You can send my $124.1 million lump sum at any time.
Tags: lottery, Money, powerball, winning-ticket
Eating cinammon buns with cream cheese icing for breakfast makes for a rather messy experience. I certainly can’t continue to do work while I’m eating them because the keyboard/mouse will get iced. So I have to pause my workday in order to give myself enough sustenance to last until lunchtime. Considering the alternatives it’s probably a worthwhile tradeoff.
Tags: breakfast, cinammon-buns, Food, icing, messy
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but almost literally a 2-minute walk away from our house we have this view:
I went walking around with the camera tripod I got from my parents for my birthday. It was pretty cold but I figured that my body could use some acclimation to the elements. All around the Bluffs here (Scarborough Bluffs that is – better link here) there are little parklets that give you a fantastic view of the lake (Lake Ontario that is). Most of the parklets have some rather obvious signs. Also a lot of streets in the area must notify the drivers that there is no access to the Bluffs.
I really like these two shots – one and two. They look better at the larger sizes rather than the thumbnail. I think this little area is going to provide me with some fantastic shots in the summer time. I can’t wait.
You can see the rest of the shots from my photowalk in this Flickr set.
Tags: Cameras, lake-ontario, parklets, photos, scarborough, scarborough-bluffs, Toronto
It’s really interesting (to me at least) that DVDs offer a substantially better picture/sound experience than VHS tapes but yet they’re far less tolerant of errors. When there’s a scratch on a DVD it will seriously compromise the video playback to the point where you could end up with a fragmented, jolting movie that makes it very difficult to follow. Compare this with tapes where if there’s a problem with the tape it could get fuzzy (in which case auto-tracking could kick in) but you could still make out the picture. I realize the underlying technology is completely different and the laser is reading a tremendous amount of information on each spin of the disc but that doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying to watch a scratched DVD.
Tags: dvd, fault-tolerance, scratch, vhs
This man needs some serious help (the text may offend some) [via]
Tags: bizarre, contracts, Marriage, the-smoking-gun
Last night while we were waiting in line one of the other businesses in the plaza had this posted in their window:
Wanted experienced bookepper
waitress, chief/cook. Apply within.
I wonder how many work skills chiefs share with cooks.
Tags: job-openings, Kitchener-Waterloo, stampede-corral, waiting
Please disregard what I said earlier this week about winter not being that bad. After tonight I have a new appreciation (or rather a renewed appreciation) for how cold winter can be. Minus twenty-seven with the windchill can indeed test the limits of the body when it’s not used to those conditions. If it weren’t forthose pesky fire codes it wouldn’t have been that bad because then we could have been inside quicker where it was warm. It was a fun time despite the cold though.
Even pumping gas back here in Toronto was almost more than I could handle cold-wise. I’m getting weather soft.
Tags: amanda, cold, gas, Kitchener-Waterloo, party, stampede-corral, Toronto, winter
My word this is funny. It’s a “Trendspotting” segment on The Daily Show focusing on MySpace and other social networking sites [via].
Update: Here’s another link to the video.
Tags: myspace, the-daily-show, trendspotting
“Presumed consent” organ donation. About a year ago there was a big special on Metro Morning about organ donation in the province and how low our donation rate is and how many people are waiting desperately for organs. It’ll be interesting to see if this private members bill makes its way into legislation.
Tags: CBC, metro-morning, organ-donation
A handy tool [via].
The past 24 hours have been really chaotic weather-wise. Yesterday morning we had snow with a freezing rain mix. Then it warmed slightly during the day turning into rain. When I left work it was back to freezing rain/sleet (very fun to walk in). Late last night we had a thunder and lightning storm and fog. That was pretty strange to see. The lightning looked like it was right outside the window. This morning it was 6 degrees on the plus side. An hour later it was -6 degrees. The wind came in from the north and created a flash freeze situation (always fun for driving into work). The wind almost prevented me from walking up the stairs to our building but fortunately I prevailed. The rest of the day is going to be very cold.
Tags: freezing-rain, lightning, rain, sleet, snow, thunder-storm, Weather, wind, winter
This site had a minor outage this morning. It seems that between 7 and 8 AM the site was completely unavailable. When I brought this site back online I switched to a hosted solution with Dreamhost. It’s laughably inexpensive per month and they provide some great utilities to manage your domain. A lot of popular server software is available as a one-click install.
Anyway this morning I noticed the site was down so I used the panel to ask for support. They were able to verify that the site was down and within 15 minutes it was up again. It’s pretty great service if you ask me (I don’t care if you do or not). This site is hardly critical but it is nice to have it online on a regular basis.
An event transpired this morning that almost never occurs.
There was maybe one time during the 5 years that I was at the University of Waterloo where the university was closed. I was on coop term at the time so I didn’t even get to experience it first-hand.
The University of Waterloo is closed today (Thursday) following the lead of the local public school board, because of bad weather and risky driving. Classes are cancelled, and assignment deadlines postponed for a day. Students should check with their instructors about revised dates for midterm exams. Most staff members have the day off.
We were scheduled to do coop interviews today too but fortunately I was able to caution the guys doing the interviews from leaving; I told them to check with the university first. It’s a good thing I did too because otherwise they would have driven all the way to Waterloo and discovered that the university is closed.
Tags: closed, university-of-waterloo, UW, Weather, winter
No not the Peanuts character (call me Chuck). I’m a big fan of peppermint tea in the afternoons of late. It’s a refreshing taste and it’s very pleasant to drink. Plus it doesn’t contain any caffeine (at least the one I drink here at work doesn’t). I usually alternate between this kind of tea and green tea in the afternoon. It cleanses the palate.
Tags: charlie-brown, green-tea, peanuts, peppermint-patty, peppermint-tea, tea
I read The Daily everyday. It’s Statistics Canada’s daily press release (hence the name) about the new studies coming out of that organization. One of the items that piqued my interest was the study about our trade in beer. Yes they do track these kinds of things.
Canada’s trade surplus in beer with the United States has expanded significantly in recent years as Canadian beer producers have made inroads into the US market, according to a new report.
It’s true; you can find quite a few Canadian beers in the U.S. now. Our surplus is up to $265 million.
Here’s a surprising fact:
Beer is by far the most popular alcoholic beverage among Canadian consumers. However, beer drinkers are increasingly swinging more and more to imported brands to quench their thirst.
Sarcasm intended. We have to watch out for competitors though:
[B]eer from Mexico has been virtually gushing into Canada. In 2000, Mexico replaced the United States as Canada’s leading source of imported beer in terms of value.
You can see the beer gushing at the border. Sometimes you have to wait for quite a while until the row of beer bottles makes it way through customs.
Tags: beer, canada, Economy, mexico, statistics-canada, statscan, surplus, united-states
At last we have the book of Genesis expressed in rap songs [via].
Today is Flag Day here in Canada. Make sure you fly it proudly and high. The Prime Minister is participating in the ceremony today in Ottawa. From the Wikipedia article on our Flag Day:
At the very first Flag Day ceremony in Hull, Quebec, Prime minister Jean Chretien’s speech was drowned out by a group of demonstrators upset by proposed cuts in the unemployment insurance legislation. Mr. Chretien left the stage and while walking through the crowd he encountered Bill Clennett, one of the demonstrators who was shouting, “Chretien, au chômage”. Mr. Chretien grabbed Mr. Clennett by the neck and pushed him aside. Chrétien was criticized for this incident, which came to be dubbed the “Shawinigan Handshake“.Numerous Canadians feel that National Flag of Canada Day should be declared a national statutory holiday, as there is a long period early in the year (between New Year’s Day and Good Friday) without any holidays.
I’m one of those people who would like a holiday in February. I can do without one of course but it is a long break between New Year’s and Good Friday especially in years like this one where Easter isn’t until April. That’s a long stretch of time.
As for the Shawinigan Handshake incident? That’s just another difference between our leaders and the ones in other countries. Our leader can walk into a crowd and grab a protester by the neck. Other leaders would get someone else to do these types of things.
Tags: canada, easter, flag-day, good-friday, holidays, jean-chretien, new-years-day, shawinigan-handshake
We got our monthly supply of coffee here at work this week. One of the new flavours/roasts is called “Eclipse Blend”. It’s a dark roast which I tend to like though the darker the roast the more bitter the coffee. I figured that it was an appropriate coffee for me to drink; not because I’m a bitter man but for the geeky reason that I use Eclipse at work. What’s a better way to honour this fantastic platform than drinking its namesake coffee? I can’t think of a more suitable tribute.
One of my favourite parts of February and March is the fact that each day the sun rises a little earlier and sets a little later. When I leave the house at 7 now it’s already getting lighter. Today the sun rises at 7:17 and sets at 17:47. That means that both my trips to and from work are still in daylight (nearly). In a few more weeks it’ll be totally in daylight until we move back into daylight savings time. This means only one thing – spring is on its way.
It certainly has been more winter-like over the last few weeks; the warm days of January seem a distant memory but I’m not really complaining about the weather. Since it’s already February and only now is it getting cold it’s not as bad as it could be. November through April coldness is depressing. February through April coldness is not as depressing. Sure it’s still depressing trudging through snow (not that I’ve had to do that yet) and yelling at the wind to stop (I’ve done this) but it could be worse. It’s a “glass half-full” mentality. It works for me.
On Saturday Marcy and I went downtown to meet up with Kristin, Andrew and Lonnie. We had a great (albeit short) time together. We went to Maggie’s Cafe and Catering for a sumptuous brunch. Then we took the streetcar down to the Eaton Centre. It was really nice spending time with them; we haven’t seen Andrew and Kristin since last July on our way out east and we haven’t seen Lonnie since late May of last year I think. It’s been that long. We’re going to have to try and see him more often because living in the same city there’s really no excuse except being busy. We’ll be seeing Andrew and Kristin again this weekend at Amanda’s birthday party. Maybe sometime in March or April we’ll make our way to Montreal again. It’s been too long.
The picture above was taken while we were waiting at Union Station. I took a few more and created a Flickr set.
Tags: amanda, andrew, flickr, friends, kristin, lonnie, maggies-cafe-and-catering, photos, Toronto, union-station
Happy Valentine’s Day to Marcy. My wife. My friend. My love.
Tags: friend, love, valentines-day, wife
I’d been waiting all evening for The Daily Show’s reaction to this story. It was just too easy a target, too ripe a plum, too good a shot to pass up. It was well worth the wait.
Advice for parents: “Don’t let your children go hunting with Dick Cheney. He’ll shoot them in the face.”
A re-enactment of what happened: Duck hunt.
They then had their “Vice Presidential Firearms Mishap Expert” Rob Corddry on talking about how Dick Cheney was reacting to all of this. He stands by his decision.
Then everything went black because The Comedy Network (which airs The Daily Show up here in Canada) decided to go to commercial. I guess they have a skeleton crew on this late and don’t even bother to notice whether or not the show they’re carrying the feed for is still on-air or off. Marvelous work there at The Comedy Network.
Tags: dick-cheney, duck-hunt, harry-whittington, jon-stewart, quails, shot, the-comedy-network, the-daily-show
The past couple of days have displayed a really strange character during my trips around town. It looks like the number seven (7) and it has appeared as the first digit of the gas prices at stations near our house. I can’t think that this is a possible placement of such a digit because gas has to be at least 80 cents per litre right? Someone should contact the authorities and mention that there are gas stations selling gasoline (or petroleum distillate if you like) at rock-bottom prices. What is this world coming to if we’re not getting gouged on gasoline prices?
Tags: gas-stations, gasoline, gouging, prices, Toronto
One of the things that you have to be comfortable with when you take public transit is giving up control over how fast you’ll get to your destination and the route that you take to get there. You’re not driving the bus; you can’t really affect how the driver drives so you just have to sit back and try and relax. This can be challenging sometimes.
Today’s trip home was one of those times. The bus was making fairly good progress I thought (since I didn’t have my phone I couldn’t really check the time). Then we got to Bermondsey. The driver stopped the bus, put on the hazard lights, and went into the gas station to use the restroom. There wasn’t much that we could do except wait. And wait. Finally the driver came back and we were on our way. This particular driver tended to drift within our lane which is ok (though not ideal) when you’re driving a car but when you have a whole bus drifting around it tends to feel like you’re really in for some trouble. Fortunately I’m not on that bus for too long.
And to keep you updated on her, she wasn’t on the bus today. I was a little disappointed actually. I was looking forward to her rants-under-her-breath.
Tags: bus-drivers, Commuting, drifting, It Happened To Me, restroom-breaks, Toronto, ttc
I’ve bookmarked this video on YouTube which discusses the failures of the American education system over the last 30 years. It’s called “Stupid in America” and I’m definitely going to have to watch this sometime soon. I got this link via Darren. I’ve heard some interesting (I use the term loosely) ideas about education recently and it seems like the Canadian education system is about a generation behind the Americans in terms of new ideas so if we were to follow the same course then this could be us in 20 years.
Tags: canada, documentary, education, education-system, united-states, video
About once a month I tend to forget my cellphone at home. I’m not sure why this happens; I take it with me all of the time and it’s a pretty solid part of my routine. I guess it’s when my routine is altered slightly that I forget it. This morning I put my cellphone on the kitchen counter to pick up some change from the bedroom and I forgot it. It’s still there waiting for me and since it wasn’t in its usual place (by the telephone) it was left behind. I hope it wasn’t too lonely today.
Tags: cellphones