ThisBoyIsToast V4 >> May 2006 Archives

Oh well, anotehr one bites the dust. This one is weird because, being a search engine of torrents, they never actually did any of the actual file sharing.

With my new subwoofer vibrating my palate, I looooooved hearing the first few tracks from Thom Yorke's "The Eraser". Yum!! I wonder what my neighbours downstairs think?

I love the fact that the internet has given us the ability to have so much at our fingertips. But some times I feel that it gives us too much, gives us far too easy access to everything that is grand and beautiful. Cannot constant access to that which is great lower our appreciation for it? No? For example I just love the work I see at Luminescent with Mule Dogs or Delineated's Too Young. I can see SO MANY great photos if I surf photoblogs all day. But then I go to a photo gallery, where an artist has never used a photosite to share, where the art on the wall is the only time they have dredge their heart & soul and placed it out there for us to see. And I think to myself, "Eh... I have seen just as good on Flickr." Disappointing. May 31 06

This link to the blog for LOCAL, a comicbook, is for later perusal and commentary.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance was the third in a trilogy of movies where the wrongly persecuted reciprocate on their persecutors, and then some. I have seen two,the other was Old Boy, and they are by Korean movie maker, Chan-wook Park. Young girl is sent to prison for the kidnapping and murder of a child and while in there she manipulates her fellow prisoners into helping her with a plan of vengeance upon release, 13 years later. Stylish flicks, really well done, but sometimes the typical Korean melodrama grates on me. I still liked Old Boy better, but just due to it's unique background. May 31 06

My experience with the TTC Strike? Everyone is asking the few who made it to work (a lot of us come quite a distance to work in this area) how we got to work. I answer, "I walked." Of course. People are oooo-ing and awe-ing until a voice from the background pipes up, "Uh guys, he ALWAYS walks. He lives around the corner." Heh. May 30 06

The picture is me standing with one elbow on the counter talking to the call centre in California on Monday, May 29th. She has just had difficulty pronouncing stool, as in a bar stool. The order is placed and she signs off with a, "Well, have a happy Memorial Day !!" I explain to her that Memorial Day is an American holiday and I can hear her eyes blinking as she processes that information. "Ohhhh, that is soooo strange!" I wish her one, even though she is working and probably won't be enjoying it until much later, and sign off. I love my American counterparts. May 30 06

Wow; two days worth of email. 155 messages pouring down the pipe and not a single one that wasn't spam. Le sigh. May 28 06

Oh yeah, won't be posting for a while but I might get back to posting a few pics at Pho Toast. May 23 06

Yep, it's spring and there is nothing like a Knee in my Package. I refuse to use the lil captures of the video.

Not that I wear thigh high socks but here is a Sock Journal called Sock Dreams.

Art School Confidential was a movie I was sure I was going to recognize but not sure if I was going to like, based purely on my knowledge of a serial killing subplot. And a couple of nights later I am still not sure. The enjoyment was seeing NSCAD mirrored in all the ways an art college behaves as well as the students who were like people I knew. Instead of the serial killing and thriller subplot, I would have gone a bit deeper into the "becoming the most famous artist of the 21st century" theme of the main character. That and given more lines to Anjelica Huston. May 21 06

So last night we found ourselves racking our brains and shouting loudly as we played Trivial Pursuit at Maria's place. She had a game night but it didn't involve D&D, xBox, City of Villains or Munchkin, which was kind of a departure from my usual gaming. One bunch marvelled at the repetition of American presidential questions, references to Madonna and the popularity of North Carolina while another bunch ignored our shouts of "dirty Scrabble !! naughty words only !!" Fun fun. May 21 06

Interesting how I would need to read about a magazine called maisonneuve to find out what the significance of the street name was in montreal.

The Legion of Superheroes always confused me as a kid. Why were there no adult superheroes in The Future and if Superboy was now in The Future, how could there ever be a Superman?

I can understand why Gushie loved the movie Junebug, But I must admit to having to turn it off a few times just to absorb those people. It was hard to tell the difference between the autistic and the hicks. I can remember being the invisible 12 year old sitting in the corner as my parents interacted with rural friends or family; we were the city folk, they were not. But much like my own experiences never made much of an impact, neither did the movie. As for outsider art, why is it that the further the person is disconnected from reality in mainstream america, why is the art considered so much more attractive? If I did a sculpture of a man in overalls with donkey ears it would just be a bad statue but if a relative at home, a fisherman by trade, did it, it would be amazing. May 18 06

I hope a co-worker's husband, Tony Aspler, signs up for Cork'd.

I would love to say that Queen Latifah's movie Last Holiday would inspire me to liquidate all my assets, explore all the things I would love to do and then come home to finally do what I have always wanted to do, with the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I don't have any assets to liquidate (can you convert debt to cash?) and I don't really know what I want to do with the rest of my life, even if I had the funds to do it with. I do however, have many grand plans for the middle part and the cooking & eating is just the beginning. There was just not enough of Gerard Depardieu in that movie, considering it seemed to start with her worship of him. Fun Jimmy Stewart type flick that suffered in the post. May 17 06

Supposedly Yahoo! i showing a new website. So more boxes is new? Ohhhh, THIS is new.

Hey Blork, since you are over that way make sure you do nodance at the Parthenon.

For my new version of TBIT, I might do the last few songs played thingy but the trouble is I usually listen to albums so it will be kinda boring looking. And what it looks like is the most important thing, right?

When I was a kid, nerd was used to insult someone for any reason, sort of like the word doofus that later replaced it. When I was a kid. A geek was a special insult for someone who played D&D, still read comic books, read Star Trek novels and often wore glasses. Geeks could be nerds but only special nerds could be geeks. I think I have hung onto that definition in this whole Geek vs Nerd debate. For example, us giggling at last week's KungFu Friday was because we are geeks for schlock cinema but the nasally voices outside debating the finer merits of the movie were nerds. We are going to have a rumble in the alley. May 15 06

It's not the fact that he has a World of Warcraft 300 month prepaid game card but that Blizzard believes the game will be around and active 25 years from now.

OK, insomnia is still in effect. Should I wander around as a 40ish scientist who is over 30 years out of touch with his peers, has a green & yellow bug problem, has an undue fascination with his crowbar and has killed more people than John Wayne? Or should I attempt to sleep? May 14 06

I read this article (or arguement) of two well known business types (whom I have never heard of) debating Can Bloggers Make Money ? One thing that stands out is, "Yes, but only if they fill a niche and lots of people are interested in that niche." OK, nobody but me said that. Let's say I wanted to quit working as a retail whore (more whore, less retail everyday) and write a blog fulltime. What would be my niche? Right now it's churning out material from other blogs, i.e. leeching. My niche would have to be me, right? What else? So would I find all the various elements of my life and right blog entries about them? Interesting entries, that is.

Would I wander through my cookbooks and write blorkish style cooking adventures as I imagine 101 Cookbooks does? Would I write movie reviews like gKent does? Or how about details on the D&D and RPGing world ala EN World, from the perspective of someone who doesn't play anymore? How about news from the video gaming world, which I have never really been part of but can fake it because I am old enough to have played them for 25 years. A music blog, even though I haven't bought more than 5 CDs in 5 years? Just WHAT would I write about or are all my niches already filled? I am sure I could write soley on the niche of the aging geek, his problems with being near 40, indentity loss, belly expansion, career, personal endeavours, etc. Someone would want to read that, right? May 14 06

I did some silk screening back in highschool but I cannot even remember what I made. I have also dabbled in papermaking, clay & rubbermold casting, decoupage and collage art. I wonder what my brain is trying to tell me. May 14 06

This is a great shot of Photogrammetry at the Harbourfront Centre.

Well, trying it out for seven days free is better than a Beta Test, in that you get to actually say what you think.

I have my first Fighter created on the Khyber server and have him still at level 1. And thus comes up my first beef; if you are claiming the game is going to adhere to the true rules of D&D, as best as they can within the MMO environment, then the first thing you should do is not toss out the obvious rules, such as level XP Points. In the online game it takes 10,000 XP to reach level 2. They balance that by adding in Enhancements but, really, I don't like the fact they are tinkering. D20 ver 3.5 is already a mass amount of tinkering, no need to expand on it.

The only other beef I have is the movement & combat interface. Moving involves the usual 3rd Person gaming method of W-S-A-D with strafe on the Q and E, a little clumsy for my purposes. I would much prefer to have the character direction chosen by the Mouse and strafe on the A and D. You can usually combine Mouse Look within that schema.

So far it's not a bad experience but I haven't tried the Party aspect nor have I fought much more than Kobolds and metal puppies. Oh yeah, that's also my one old-time D&D player beef -- don't introduce to me a new, maybe campaign specfic, monster in the first few quests ! D&D has more than enough tried and true low level monsters for first level noobs to hack on. May 14 06

Oh great, I have traded a cold for insomnia. So after 3.5 hours of sleep I awake to spend time reading Miss Snark, the literary agent. Oh to be as brutally honest about interacting with the public. Maybe I need a retail blog?

OK, so coming down off strong antihistamines make for one not-sleepy but exhausted & toasted boy. May 14 06

Yay! This summer I get a new Shyamalan with Lady In The Water.

For years I thought I was insane but Rare deleted Star Wars scene proves I did remember a conversation between Biggs and Luke. And I had seen it when I was a kid in the 80s.

At many times in my life I have never said, "I am a writer." But at other times in my life I have claimed to write. "I write what I call vignettes," I say, describing the ultra-mini shortstories I used to write on the backs of postcards and most often send to friends. At some previous incarnation of a personal website, I posted those. Most often they went into the Canada Post ether never to return. I imagine some friends still have them.

I have other friends who also claim to write, some to the point of having a completed novel. Most write for themselves, sharing little. None have ever shared their writing with me, none besides the truly published that I know. Some write blogs, some only write in pencil and pen. I wonder, from all the 20 years of people I have know, have none written for, or have created, a website like Masochuticon.

With so many, relatively, bloggers getting book deals, I wonder how many of those bloggers were writers before they were bloggers. So many on the web have not blogs, but websites with their writing. Why do we give book deals to blogs that are well read? Why not give book deals to writing websites that are well read? Are they not all that well read, perhaps?

See also, FTrain, a site I read for some time when I was able to read more than one paragraph without clicking somewhere else. There was also another site I used to read back those days but I cannot remember. Anybody remember the comparitive (in popularity) site from the early blog days?

It makes me think about style. When I read Paul Ford's site I see his prose being placed nicely in a magazine that would sit in the hanging magazine stand I sell at the store, the one made of leather looped over dark stained hardwood. It would sit next to a high back leather chair with a antiqued silver reading lamp, a task lamp, as we call them. That magazine would be read by those who not only enjoy reading but also enjoy the fact that they do read, and like to talk about the fact that they read. These people dismiss Oprah and the best selling shelf at Indigo and the mass amounts of SpecFic novels I have on my shelves. But they would appreciate that I have read Vonnegut or Palahniuk but not Gaiman or Eddings. OK, maybe not any of them. And the paper of those magazines is nice paper, really tangible paper that feels good on fingers.

But many of the people I know who write, write for the genre of writer that fits into the "new and exciting" section of a bookstore or self-published book fairs where disheveled authors with last year's haircuts smile shyly until on the stage reading from their book about punk rock girlfriends and fail dotcom jobs. Yeah that is where my friends belong. So, when guys? May 13 06

OK, I was offered the Dungeons & Dragons Online 7 day trial so I did so. Anyone wanting to adventure for a week, give me a shout.

I have always had a facination with dioramas and minatures environments, and though I never actually played with miniatures in D&D I still have the great urge to make a minature tavern with a dwarf sitting at the bar.

Really, with today's CGI someone has to make a movie set in Space Colonies circa 1970.

Y'know, I believe this became the sole reason we are playing CoV & CoH.

Really, it was only a matter of time before someone made the Pii Wii connection.

I have always wanted to do this biking across Canada, not for charity but for pure fun. I wonder how much it would cost? May 12 06

I am playing Half-Life 2 and I am at the level where I am crossing the bridge on rickety catwalks, shaking ladders and inching my way across girders. Why is it that the lizard part of my brain makes my knees weak and my stomach gather in knots over this, but not at being shot at by a man with a shotgun? May 12 06

Interesting how I still have a CD Cover category yet no longer make CD Covers. And even more interesting how I would love to purchase this Super Jewel Box Packaging System for CD Covers I am not making.

As I link to this Ninja Text Generator, I wonder if I need a Ninja category.

I had a connection to this in Montreal but cannot remember what I thought of it. But Last.fm seems to have taken off.

I believe the usual suspects have done this on our own without even using randomization software.

Today I received a spam-email from Freddie and then immediately following I received a spam-email from Jason. I hope my computer doesn't die in the battle between the two. May 05 06

Yay! Another old blog I used to on An Entirely Other Day, and it hasn't changed design since then.

I could cover the rest of my two bags with these Prickie.com Unique Button Badges. Or I could buy my own thingie and start making.

For the last two years or so, every time I settle on a new design, build the mockup and am about ready to launch, I see a redesign by another blogger and want to start again. This time, the natural paints at the top make me want to attempt my coffee stains, brown washes & natural build design again.

Grazie, the Italian resto which always has a line, is just around the corner from Work. I have asked but never heard whether it warrants the line but as we well know reputation rules all in this city. Sunday night we had a bevie of movies and no interest in cleaning the kitchen enough to prepare dinner. Pizza held no interest so we decided to take another look at MenuPalace. This website is not about take-out ordering as it once was but is also just a way to gather all the restaurants together in one place.

They also seem to have a successful business doing restaurant mini-websites. Or full-blown; it's hard to tell micro vs macro in the webword these days. But all the sites have a similar Flash-based style with music, sliding menus and a skip-able splash screen. I like this idea as it sets a standard for restos to follow -- there is nothing more annoying than a resto that considers itself upscale but it has a 1996 all-centered website. Food of an upscale nature is about look & ambience as well as taste so I think the website should look good as well. And I also like the idea of a micro-market of webdesign where a designer can focus on one idea and get it right.

But conversely was the actual ordering process. Grazie sent us to RestaurantsOnTheGo.com which redirected to the ugly OrderIt.ca. It's a badly designed and badly organized site that seems more about providing business to businesses than it does providing an on-line ordering system. It may just be me but shouldn't I know exactly what to click on to place an order without having to guess at "Individual Solutions" ? From MenuPalace to the Grazie site to RestaurantsOnTheGo to OrderIt. And stupidly, I had to have both the Grazie menus page open as well as the OrderIt ordering form open, so that I would know what I was going to be eating.

The food? The food was great. May 02 06

It doesn't matter if it's cartoony or realistic, I love an swords & sorcery image that can be so evocative of a mood & situation.

There is an RPG of Dan Brereton's Nocturnals?!?! I must have !!

Want to see the sites (mostly blogspot) of a bunch of people doing artsy stuff like sketches, character design, doodles, paintings, etc? Try this list, as well as the owner's blog.

What was I saying about sketchbooks? Oh yeah, Jon Han's sketch book.

Last night as J and I were walking the neighbourhood we talked about the rennovations as we are wont to do. That new house really doesn't fit with the neighbourhood, why is everyone doing the stucco fronts and there's an unfinished mudroom. Mudroom. Working in a retail home furnishings store, I have the advantage of meeting all the wives coming in to buy items for their mudrooms, "May I have the perfect hook for my mudroom? Would this piano bench look nice in my mudroom? What do you mean I cannot look at the catalogue-only storage bench? It would be PERFECT for my mudroom !!" Mudrooms are the thing of the moment so I was not surprised when someone posted a link on a blog that would be perfect for his mudroom. Oh mudrooms, why must you haunt me so !! May 01 06

I do so when an artist like James Jean allows me to peek at his sketchbook. (via brokenkode)