ThisBoyIsToast V4 >> August 2006 Archives

Phil Notarealguy had been working for Radio Shack for 5 years diligently sitting in his cubicle and answering calls from the manager Ms. Swidgen. He even made her coffee. He didn't often come up for air, ate alone in his cubicle and did not know any of his co-workers. Thus he was somewhat surprised when, after a week of not being able to retrieve his email, he found out that was how he was laid off the week before. They also stole his red stapler. August 31 06

I have already connected the words 'shakespeare' and 'Deadwood' together but to be honest, I am not completely convinced that the show could be called American Shakespearean. I have a feeling that people, when they don't completely understand a line of dialogue that sounds old, tend to connect it to Shakespeare. And while there are a good number of machinations going on, I am also not convinced they are as intricate as something as simple as Twelth Night. Thus, I begin to read other people's conversations about the same thing. The conversation also carries on over here. I'll tell you what I learn after I read more.

But I will tell you what I do believe without reservation. In a world where TV just plain sucks, something even mildly entertaining and engaging rises above the dross. There is nothing on TV right now that I would set my Tivo to record, even if I had one. And thus I am very glad I am able to download the TV I wish to watch.

I also really like some of the characters and their progression. From cardboard sociopath, Al has progressed into so much more, his loyalties proving themselves strong during the stones episodes. These small people, small in their own mind and as they see themselves in the world, see in him the big, wide world and the future. Even if he is killing his way to the future, Al thinks bigger than they do thus gaining their friendship, which he would knife them before admitting he needs it as well.

He is not the only one rising from the muck as Jane puts aside her bottle long enough to assist those who need it, as the Doc curmudgeonly yells & swears his way into everybody's best interest and Ellsworth standing strong despite admitting his shattered past. Even the falling of Bullock and Alma is worth watching as redeemable characters become more human in their failings. Yes, definately I watch for the fun of the language cadence and for the stories of the characters. Now, if everyone would just stop using each other's dialogue, I would be grandly happy -- why would EVERYONE say, "Anywayz..." ? August 30 06

David

A slang word meaning lonely or loser. A David is a person who tries to hard to get attention. David can be used interchangebly with tool or poser.

That kid looks like such a David with those Ray-Ban aviators and gym bag.

*sigh*

While Megatron bites, Optimus Prime looks pretty fucking cool.

This photo of Toronto approaching and surpassing nightfall is exactly why digital photography, and it's sharing via photoblogs, can be so exciting.

OMFG !!! I have to have a Killer Spider Tank Tachikoma !!! (TANKS jer)

So I believe this is supposed to be Megatron from The Transformers movie. Looks more like a Guyver ripoff.

I guess I was just not in the running for the boxing bouts with Uwe Boll. Still, he does have the chance to fly me out !! (via chai)

The title of the post, which you only see in permalink status (yeah yeah, that oversight is part of the never ending redesign, complete with luck dragon) is 'a fondness for the bad guys' and it's not like you think. I have just finished watching the last episode of Season One of Deadwood. A bit was watched DLed and a bit via renting DVDs and then Marmy was interested enough to DL rips from the DVDs in their entirety. Season Two is in the pipe.

As I said, I had read enough blog posts to know I would like the show even without my fondness for cowboys, once again "not in that way". I once tried to explain my interest in cowboy fiction, having it grown from a single Zane Grey novel that was left in The Old House but never expanded by John Wayne -- Mr. Wayne's characters were always too White Hat for me. I prefered the rougher sort, the men in seasoned leathers, four days unshaven, a ready gun and a dark past. I have always liked my protagonists flawed. I like that this era of heroes comes with dangerous credentials, a plentitude of needed skills (riding horse, tracking, hunting, etc.) and curmudgeonly attitudes. I guess I always prefered Clint Eastwood's nameless outlaws to John Wayne's regiment leaders, though I did discover later that he also played his fair share of tired, disillusioned shootists. The Gunman is a solitary figure with a pragmatic look about him and the skills to back up his status; I can respect that.

Deadwood has more than it's fair share of Bad Guys and gawddamn the cocksuckers, but so many of them are damn likeable cu... bastards. Yeah, that's me speaking Deadwoodian, well, speaking it without the added colloquialisms. The nastiest, downright most brutal characters are also flawed and that doesn't make them worse for wear, but actually more interesting. Well, except for the weaker sorts. The stronger the will of the bad guy, the more capable of redemption I guess. But I sure as hell hope not. Al needs to stay exactly the right bastiche that he is.

Oh, and thankyou SO much for making Brad Douriff have an incredible character who isn't one of the bad guys. It's about time in his career, which I have followed with relish. August 27 06

This is really cool. A designer takes his favourite or well known character creations and offers them to a select group to remix as they see fit.

Holy Toast! A series of perfect toast images from a Grain Foods Foundation press kit.

I want a Tshirt with multiple (all non english, one obviously arabic) languages all saying, "I sbould not have to change my Tshirt." I will not wear this Tshirt when I am travelling for The Store.

So I started at the post concerning someone asking the CRTC about Blocking content. The content sites in particular are American-based racism sites with loud & often violent calls for action against a human-rights (and a bit of a loud & opinionated one himself) lawyer, Richard Warman. I noticed in the comments that a post by Bill White was removed by the owner of the blog. He is, "Commander of the American National Socialist Workers' Party" and basically a right-wing, neo-nazi group. I then googled Richard Warman and came across a number of other sites that mention him also with ambiguous organization names such as "Canadian Association for Free Expression", another basically racist group spouting about the rights to free expression but really just wanting to yellow about evil Jews, poor trod upon Ernst Zundel and how bad whites have it in North America.

Bleah! Why is it that these fucking wingnuts believe they deserve the right to be loud mouthed, hate spewing pigs but don't seem to think that anybody other than a shaven head, blue eyed, white skinned person also has the right to these same freedoms? And they don't come right out and say they are White Supremists, just bleat about it behind the guise of censorship and whatnot.

The other thing I noticed when googling some of the names around this case was the prevalence of seperation groups. Quebec has long wanted to seperate from Canada and has the culture, background and distinction to make their case worth listening to. And of course Cape Breton deserves their godgivenright to cute the Causeway and float to Bermuda. But why would Alberta need to seperate other than to keep their cows and their oil to themselves? And BC?!?! Man, I can understand the reefer heads wanting a freezone for weed but racist denial of the rest of Canada? I think they should stick to weed and stay away from political activism.

Weird world out there and only just in Canada. August 26 06

Later on today I fly to the City of Chicago for some work related schtuff. I have only been to the US a handfull of times, I have never flown there and never for business. The last time I was in the US was Sept 11, 2000.

I am not making plans because by tomorrow night I will be back in Toronto. It's that short a trip. I imagine I will be arriving tonight, picked up by the training coordinator, driven to the hotel, do dinner, sleep, train, driven to airport, get home. If things go better than planned, I hope to go to a speciality beer store and pick me up a bottle of Soba Ale. Yes, I will pack that liquid in my checked luggage and not leave it as a gift to a customs agent. And according to this map, at least the hotel is near a touristy zone so I might be able to see something after the conference. Actually I just looked at the agenda and the conference is happening at the hotel but no where does it say where I am staying. Hmmmm. Anywayz, I know nothing about Chicago so i am planning nothing and cannot be disappointed. August 23 06

The video for Harrowdown Hills by Thom Yorke is a beautiful piece of work that makes use of the photography technique called Tilt Shift.

Even though I haven't listened to it for years, the guitar lick in Concrete Blonde's Still In Hollywood still fucking rocks. August 20 06

Now if we only could have ordered this tee before we see the movie tomorrow night.

Whoah. Speaking of the beautiful people, it seems Istoica has access to more than their fair share of cuties. Yeah, the photography is nice too.

You know what is even more fun than creating panography? Printing panography on 8.5 x 11 inch sheets of photopaper suitable for cheap ass framing. Weeeeee.

Last night and all of this morning I have been spam bombed. It is all from one guy and it is one 'not approved' comment to every single one of the just-shy-of-one-thousand posts I have made since moving to Movable Type. Their replacement for MT Blacklist just cannot handle a spammer who changes his IP for every post. So even though they are not approved, I still have to go through the Comments list and delete them, and they fill up my email box. What do i do? Well, I could go through the process of changing my comments.cgi into something obfuscational but I imagine spam software writers are more intelligent than that. The question is this. WHY? Why are they spamming me? I am not popular, not even popular enough (or young enough) to get a free cell phone. They will not generate any hits from my site and since they are sooooo smart as to by pass most security features installed in most blogging software, why don't they use the common sense those smarts should have installed? Why don't they place that energy elsewhere as no one really can be making money from spam, can they? I still believe the only people making money are the fuckers who market the idea that spam can make you money. Look at the basic idea of sending someone an email masquerading as something benign and then expecting someone to be coaxed into buying something from the company that just lied to them. Or leaving a complimentary comment in someone's blog and then asking them to buy your penis enlarger. Do they companies who's products are being shilled think this will build company & product interest? We really have to educate businesses more. And we should pay programmers & developers as much money to combat spam as the guys who write the spam agents must get paid to send us shit. August 20 06

I am not sure if I like the colourful archives from my previous post along this nature or the scattered dots of colour at Russ Morris.

Nora Young, ~~which~~ who I remember from the CBC radio show "Definately Not The Opera" has a crisper blog.

Ahhh, so that is where that link on my newly created Flickr Set came from. I almost built a minibook immediately and then I noticed I was immediately usng my credit card far too much this month.

David Mamet's new movie is about a man named Edmond who abandons his safe mundane life for the dangerous streets. I imagine the movie is about a man who has to confront the path he took, the path life led him down and what happens if you turn right instead of left. Sounds familiar. August 18 06

I am having far too much fun doing these Panography Thingies. I think it does a good job of combining my love of collage, photography and recording where I am. This one of the Duke of Kent is my latest and as you can see, they are all going to go up on Flickr. I finally knuckled and bought a Pro account; and I built some sets.

Looking through the Flickr Pool on such stuph, I find I like the ones that do not use any (special) software or transparencies in building the image. In other words, I much more prefer this than this. I don't use the Adobe PS "photo merge" capability, which produces neat images unto itself, but just twist and turn the photos in layers in PS. As you can see, doing more than a true panoramic is more difficult, having to remember to add shots of up-high and down-below in order to fill in gaps. And depending on how much you swing left to right, things get pretty skewed. But that is part of the fun.

August 18 06

I wants me a pair of those fangled new hover sneakers !!

So last night I downloaded my first episode of Deadwood based on a recent confirmation that it is, "Like Shakespeare but with swearing." I believe I first heard that comment from a blog; maybe my confirmation informant read that blog. Anywayz, I have been in the mood for cowboys, no not Brokeback cowboys but leather wearing loners with a penchant for guns and odd senses of honour. So, I popped onto my favourite not-yet-shut-down BitTorrent site and got the first four episodes (update: ATTEMPTED to get the first 4; number 2 is being a bitch). I would have rented a disk from the local video store but they were rented or, "Gone for a long long time..." Anywayz, I watched it this evening and the first thing I noticed was not the Shapespeare-like talk, which is more a use of articulate anachronistic coloquialism for the time, but the constant use of the word "cock-sucker". One thing that erks me about definative screen and telewriters are their penchant for re-using the same signature dialogue pieces between characters. Not every character's favourite swear word is going to be cocksucker. As for the plot, I am hoping it will develop more as the intro was not that compelling but for some very interesting characters and a hell of a lot of grit. I like how the ex-marshall character is from Etobicoke; yes THAT Etobicoke. I understand why he left.

On other TV not exactly on the schedule, we have caught in watching Blood+ and wow, has it become compelling. Watching anime is an ordeal at times as they try and spread things out in order to keep in line with the manga, if any manga of the show exists. You ofen get long runs of filler episodes that are basically tacked on plots with lots of melodramatic dialogue and they do not move forward very fast. Flashbacks and references to previous episodes are also common place. But every so often one comes along that is concise in what it intends to show us; I am hoping Blood+ is this kind. The last ten or so episodes have had me doing a girly, "Eeeeek !!" as they ended on a cliffhanger and then hurrying to load the next episodes. We have exhausted the latest bunch and now Marmy is catching us up on the latest downloads. I like that I can watch a series currently running in Japan.

Why is it that I find a girl with a sword so sexy, even if she is animated? Well at least the fact that she is animated allows me to ignore the fact she is a 16 year old character or that would make me quite the perv, woulnd't it? August 18 06

The other day I mentioned panography and more recently I was sitting down on a bench having lunched and decided that it would make a nice series. Thus I looked back at the tutorial, which was not really needed, and then created this first one.

August 17 06

Interesting. Kottke colour corrected some early 20th century photos to envision what they would look like taken with modern equipment while I am using a PS filter to make recent photos look like the older original photos.

I have not started lifting weights because I am suffering from too much testosterone. Despite a fascination with nerf guns and FPS video games, I am not the manliest of men. I have never played a sport, have never watched a sport on TV, have never attended a live sports game (ok, that one hockey game with my dad) and I don't envy people with red sports cars. Tangent: My own midlife crisis is taking on an entirely different pattern. I do like the feeling I get after lifting though, the stretching and straining of muscles usually only used to mice & keyboards. August 16 06

So you know your neighbour is using your wireless bandwidth and rather than just turning their access off, you play with their minds; I like the upside down images the best.

Now, is it wrong to use Google as a verb, as opposed to google, or is it just wrong to use Google as a verb while typing your search request into Yahoo?

Nothing like being awoken by two loud pops, firetrucks and a police car and then a large fireball whooshing from behind the trees. I think someone's car just went kaboom. August 16 06

When I was in Halifax, Jess - The Count's SO, and I were discussing photography. She's old school, you know the type with old cameras and FILM. That's a joke. But her exposure to digital is minimal so her idea of the snapshot is definately different than mine. I believe the best shots DO still require some technical ability, that sort of afforded by the power of the equipment. I believe she considers the eye and the soul as the most important thing. Maybe that is why I don't do people very often as I sort of like soulless objects -- easier for me to see MY image in their colours and textures. That said, I would LOVE to do work of friends and family like this series of shots at the previously mentioned photoblog. There is SO much soul in these shots of The Traveler and her apartment. The different perspectives are very very nice, sort of like the style Rannie is going for in My Toronto Includes.

I have considered trying my hand at more people shots but I think I would need more willing subjects as the candid stranger could NOT be my bag and most of my friends are the shy-away-put-that-camera-away kind of friends. August 16 06

THIS is exactly what I am talking about. The gorgeous design of Whateverland makes me want to go back almost immediately. Meanwhile the use of Blogspot for MexiPickle erks me to avoid it. It's shallow but I cannot help it. August 16 06

Yeah definately it's also colour that attracts me to a photoblog. A well defined archive, like that at l.i.f.e.p.i.x.e.l.s, just hits you in the face with the colour choices the photographer makes. The archives give you a splash of thumbnails, not a riot of date based text, to choose from. See something you like and just click it. That being said, I have to consider the redesign of my photoblog. That also being said, I do not usually design for other people's needs but for my own. I am the antithesis of the proper designer when it comes to my own sites.

I still want to redesign my site and archive structure is something I am rebuilding. The thing is that I want to change the focus on my site, going with an idea I had a while ago to build the photoblog as a site of postcards I am sending. So, I would either have to have archived histories of THIS version of the site or alter them all to represent the postcards. I would also be constraining myself into a space, being the thing I broke away from when I stopped highlighting the CD Covers as choices of photo layout.

I love pondering out loud. August 16 06

When I look at the standard photoblog layout, like that at LondonRubbish, I sort of understand why. Why is everything small text'd around a central image. The photo is the focus, right? But even so, an attractive design still catches me more. A photoblog, by definition is not always going to be an impressive image on your first visit. Each image represents a daily choice in the eyes of the creator and it might not be your piece of cake. But an attractive design might ask you to come back again. August 16 06

I pushed back through the archives at Broken Heartbeats and found incredible colour tones, colour and texture being the main elements that attract me to photography.

I love the subtle digital manipulation of this still life.

I am not sure if I like the image more or the sentiment of the text given.

I like the idea behind art challenge, where she sent out packages of mixed media and asked people to collage it. Neat!

You never thought they could combine a feel-good Coca-Cola ad with Grand Theft Auto, did you?

One of Marmy and mine's lil jokes is whenever I see a man with a Hasselblad camera, I ask her to distract him (i.e. flash boobies) while I take his gear. We may require more distraction for the Hasselblad 39 megapixel DSLR.

Just so you people know, Marmy did something very brave today.

There is a poster in the lobby of the Paramount cinema downtown for the movie Pathfinder; in case you are wondering it's a Vikings and Indians movie, not a Swords and Sorcery movie.

Fellow Montreal blogging beginner and friend is moving to Ottawa to work in the same place where I first leaned over someone's shoulder to see Mosaic running. Ed says,

Considering I just upgraded to 3.2 I don't know if I will be needing A Safe Way to Upgrade to MT 3.3 but it's handy to have.

I have a friend who owns a HP Pavilion computer where the 160gig HD up and died. Basically the first few sectors holding the MBR and the Partition information has been damaged and is unrecoverable. What I am asking you, my geekiest friends, is if there is any way to mark those first handfull of sectors as BAD and then re-partition and re-format the drive?? I don't want to suggest to her that it has to be tossed out. August 11 06

First up, a friend works at a language school where she participates in Work Placement. She has a german student who lost his placement at the last minute. He needs to start a four week placement come this monday, in a computer related field. If you, or anyone you know, would like an eager, unpaid intern slash gopher slash lackey slash slave slash minion for four weeks of computer hardware related work please contact me. It does not have to glamorous work, just something around computers. If you work at a store and want someone to open cases and blow them out with a duster, contact me. If you work at a software company and need someone to show people where the anykey is, contact me. If you work in a school or hospital and have an IT department that needs someone to carry monitors, contact me. Please do. He's FREE.

P.S. I sent out a bunch of emails about this but have not even had one "No, cannot help." Are people getting my emails? August 11 06

I really like the idea behind One Sentence, "True stories, told in one sentence".

This is a neat little LiveJournal Community called 'a day of "my" life in pictures'.

L pointed to the photographer in the window in the Market Square area who does powerful collagey photographic works of Toronto. You can find something similar at Flickr: Panography.

Wasn't there already something like BookMooch, a "free book trade and exchange community" ?

Really, I could only get so far through this 'Tell US Airways how you feel about the' as it became too unbearable in the manner in which the guy was being treated.

Heh heh heh, i just spent too many seconds sending Messages From Samuel L. Jackson to my friends.

Yup yup, Tokyo ala Mode could be a fun site to watch even if I am biased.

It seems Sweden has been infested with a creepy crawlie of sorts. It sort of looks like the Spruce Budworm that infested NS in the 70s/80s. It was never that bad but it did make walking in the forests kinda nasty.

GAH !! I have to wait until October for Battlestar Galactica Season 3 ?!?! Oh well, gives me time to watch S2.1 again when it comes out on DVD. P.S. Nickelback?!?!

Yes, I do believe Lego is all about dinosaurs, boats and weapons of warfare. At least it was to me. Probably more about the weapons of war. Light on the boats. Vs the dinosaurs.

Oh, and in case you were wondering why I chose that particular week to go home, it was a family reunion.

In case people are interested in seeing pictures of Cape Breton over at my photoblog, I doubt I will be putting up very many touristy type shots. But this guy definately makes up for my lacking.

They are presented as sooooo cute in the series but can you imagine being confronted with a full-sized Tachikoma ? I think until you heard them speak in their ten-year-old japanese boy voice, you might consider this mobile tank dangerous.

Finally, images of Cosplay that are not completely cringe worthy. Note: While there is nothing wrong with a cute girl dressed as your favourite anime character, some of the pics (i hadn't viewed many when i linked it), are more kogal than cosplay. Look it up.

I am not sure if I want to continue linking to You Tube videos in the popular manner but let's try it once by telling you about Satoshi Kon's new movie called 'Paprika'.

There is now a Naked Cowgirl ?? P.S. Yes, I am back and currently deleting comment spam.

OK, so they didn't contact me unless there is a message on my phone in Toronto, but today's flight was cancelled. I believe it was due to a "suspicious package" found at the Halifax airport, or a security breach, or a hungover pilot... whatever. Kind of annoying to drive the hour & one half to find out that I am being driven back. For a guy used to public transit for the last... decade or more, I am getting tired of long car rides. AND, and I hope Marmy gets my message (or their message) or she is possibly going to be sitting at an airport getting mighty pissed at me. P.S. If the issue was resolved at 9am, why was my 7:30pm flight cancelled? August 03 06

Last night I spent in the arms of a nice pint of ale, the J&J type of ale. In a small apartment in Darmouth we supped from Joe's homemade stout and I remembered why I avoid the main brand brews -- TASTE my good people, taste. This was the apartment of what I remember living in Halifax to be, kinda artsy and so full of personality and vivid character, it was almost bursting. And after much talk, stroking of kitties (four !!) and more relaxing, we went off to the Economy Shoeshop; this is one of those clubs that emerged after I left Halifax, and is probably the favourite one I have been to in my infrequent visits. Once again, it just oozes character and personality and to be honest, it was nice to be around some of the beautiful people again. Then we hit Pizza Corner, ate a European Foods donair and caught a taxi home to sleep off the ale. Thankyou to Joe and Jess for the hospitality.

Now we are in Lantz, at my sister's place, and my nephew is running around squealing. He is probably playing with his Papa, or so dad has been dubbed. Dad waited all his life to be a grandfather and he giggles as much as the kids. My sister is about to have her third, a little girl, and I believe dad will be in heaven to have another girl to spoil utterly. Tonight we drive back, tomorrow I fly out. Work as kind enough to extend this break through the weekend (i had booked it so I started the day after I arrive) so I even get some post vacation vacation. Joy!

My photoblog has been updated with prepared photos for the past week but I now have a couple of hundred shots to add to the site. I might just need a Flickr Pro account in order to accurately log the trip. Should be interesting. August 02 06

So this morning we head to Halifax to see my sister, my nephews and if things go wrong, my brand new niece. So last night was my second last campfire, a skill you think I would lose after a decade or more. This night it was only me, a drink in hand (beer in the afternoon, drink at night; I'M ON VACATION) and the stars above me. The 200+ cousins have all gone home or on their own way. The stars were enough company.

So after visiting in Halifax, we drive back to Sydney so I can catch a Thursday flight... to Halifax. I spoke to an Air Canada rep and it was going to cost me almost $100 to shave off the Sydney-to-Halifax portion. Technology just isn't there for the humans, or so the book L suggested for me says.

I have done what I intended on doing here. I have sat on a deck for hours on end, beer in hand and book besides. I have walked to The Falls, twice in fact, and scraped my shins on stones and branches climbing through overgrown trails. I have walked to The Sluice (sic?) and listened to the lakes lap against the stones. And I have had nightly campfires. I have swam in The Pond. I have walked around barefoot for three days. I have drank beer with John and I will drink beer with Joe. I have only watched TV twice. I have used the internet only to do the occasional update and connect via emails, not that there is much surfing at 44kbps.

Soon it will be all over. August 01 06