ThisBoyIsToast V4 >> November 2007 Archives

I always said Vicki would do big. For example, meet Sumi, Miga & Quatchi, the new mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Hee !!

Grrrr. While I am not 100% sure, I believe I found out that Sympatico is throttling my internet speed. As of sometime in mid-september the decent speeds I always had have dropped to about 30-40 Kb/s. One would assume they would try and kill my Torrent abuse, which compared to the people who DL and watch every movie, is not that high. The occasional movie, a couple of TV shows and the occasional game... hell, barely any music at all. Yes, I agree, all illegal but common. But the way the connection has slowed, it has affected everything. I cannot even watch a YouTube video without pauses and galore and don't even talk to me about streaming audio like CBC. They have essentially disabled my internet experience.

Or some I assume they have. It could be purely technical and will clear up. But how long do I wait? How do I test? Do I call tech support and find out if there are any problems? It's not just me as a lot of people have had the same problem and are moving to a (highly recommmended) TekSavvy.

All done. I broke her heart and ~~through~~ threw all the pieces into a fire. Man, my spelling skills have degraded so much in the past 5 years. November 27 07

Heh. This "Thorshammer" is just brilliant and is stat-ed for the Hero System.

Kent asked me what I thought of Razor and boring was the only thing that came to mind. If it had been just another episode in a season long series of stories, then maybe I would forgive it. Alas, it was supposed to be a Special Event Movie but was more just meh. Let me just reiterate with the words of a another viewer.

I forgot to send the Xmas presents last year. Actually, in the act of living check to check, I spent the money required to send them. So, while we had actually hit malls and shops and purchased "just right" gifts for most people we love, they didn't get them out. We had started shopping too late. I decided that March was not December and just stuffed them away. Subsequently, I now have most of my Xmas shopping done.

Last night I gathered the various boxes and began sorting. Most people have alloted presents but some, well some out-grew their gift. Frickin' baby sprouts. And some were mixed up in the, "It's Dec 18 and you don't get paid again until after Xmas," fiasco. I have a few completed lists (will be mailed out in the next few days) and a few more things to get.... as soon as I get paid again *pout*

I miss the days of a disposable income but mostly I forget what it was like. November 27 07

So, while we in Toronto are hearing announcements like, "Frarghle froojz specttsch," as if the announcer was under water, the London Underground had a pleasant professional voice actress. And she liked to make fun of her work on her own blog. Dooced !!

So I started playing Portal on the weekend. Yes, this is the game du jour, not quite a Katamari Damacy but definitely catchy. Simply, you are someone trapped in a computer run maze where you are provided a device that create a portable hole. Not the hole that you can store things in but the bugs bunny kind where you can go in one side and come out somewhere else on the other side. The device lets you lay both sides down on specific surfaces.

But that's not the charm of the game. The charm comes in how you are being run through the maze -- you are being manipulated like a cute fuzzy white mouse by a not-altogether-working computer with a soothing female voice. There's a story there, one that emerges as you get through each test, one that is found in siderooms and in the personality of the computer. She promises you cake if you succeed, promises not to lie to you and she also gives you a "companion cube", a crate with hearts on it. The computer assumes you would be emotionally attached it this... box. And then there are those oh so cute, ala Tachikoma, combat droids. It's weird and fun.

The problem is that I am not that fond of puzzle games, especially those that involve jumping from precarious perch to precarious perch. Right now I am stuck in the room with the platforms that require you to toss portals on the fly, using gravity and momentum to toss you progressively higher and higher. I will never be one of those people in the demo videos who just glide hither and yon tossing portals as need be. But I will have my cake, and eat it too. November 26 07

Everyone is saying this Exoskeleton is either terminator or master chief but I cannot help but think about Ripley in Aliens. I understand that supplying it to the military gets the company more money but imagine what this could do for the warehousing and construction industry.

Heh. It might be based on this video of cats murmuring to each other, but this Cat Talking, Translation vid and many others could start their own macro cat mini-meme. Definitely a must for catmas.

"We do not allow liberal censorship of conservative facts." In other words, Conservapedia reserves the right to publish any material they think fits into the category no matter how inflammatory, one-sided, bigoted or oblivious of the facts. And when they are in doubt of something, they will quote the Christian bible, because we all know that is the final source of fact.

Marmy and I are always looking for a non MMO game that we can do coop play, ala Diablo. This Silverfall seems a likely candidate.

"we do what we must, because we can. for the good of all us, except the ones who are dead." Arrrgh, I am humming the end credits song from a video game I haven't even played... yet.

OK, I take it back. The US is not on it's way to a dystopian future like that portrayed in The Invisibles comic. They are already there.

OK, it's time I weighed in on the Kindle, Amazon's new e-reader. The key things about Kindle are that that it is more a service than it is a device and it is locked into Amazon. What does that mean? It means that it reads only the Kindle file format and I would imagine that, at least to start, that these files can only be purchased from Amazon. I am somewhat surprised by the $399 ticket price because I would have assumed that by being locked into Amazon, they would lower the price and make the most of the money from the purchasing of books. It does allow you to "email files" to the device (to the device or to amazon for conversion?) so I guess I could just convert any book I find online and read it. More investigation i warranted.

I would love the device but I don't know how much it would love me. Right now, I read in two ways: books and Treo. I am not adverse to digital books but I LOVE physical books. For me, a digital book is purely about the convenience of the situation. You will never find me sitting at home reading a book on my Treo but I would much rather read it on the subway considering how I am destroying my large format paperback copy of Reaper's Gale.

So, that said, this thing would have to be able to stand up to floating around in my bag. It would have to have a long battery life, as I am always forgetting to recharge my Treo. It would have to have access to ALL new books, not just the select few that they decide will sell. I love the fact it is wireless connected eliminating the need to download and upload via a PC. To be honest, this is what I believe will save movies and music in the purely digital age -- the ability to buy them straight from the device and DL almost instantly. That is what we are moving towards.

That said, this is one of the few times that I wish I had really pushed my early cred as a blogger. While I might not read as much as Marmy, as she devours books as fast as I inhale cookies, we still represent the reading world and the technology world. I would like to try it and truly weigh in on it's merits and flaws. November 22 07

I saw this GitS: The Laughing Man DVD in HMV the other day and I was confused and hopeful. But actually, what it turned out to be (a movie made from the highlights of the entire season) is what I truly expected. I do want to see it but it's worth waiting as an Xmas gift. Hint hint.

And her blog is called Cat Sidh. The creator of the previous entry's mention, not Esther herself.

Gahh, I love the Letters to Esther project where a large number of letters from the 20s were scanned in, after being found at a flea market. Compelling. I feel weird about having chucked the majority of my letters to penfriends from years past.

P.S. PhoToast is kind of live again. I say "kinda" because it really needs some work and I should find someway to incorporate the old archives and some contact info. Commenting just proved to be too difficult.

I was kind of hoping that the re-envisioned Star Trek, by JJ Abrams of Lost fame, would be have re-envisioned vulcans.

I know now why I couldn't find the link to scuttlebutt radio. It's because all I did was tag it 'sea shanty' in dee-lish-us.

I suppose I should post some things just to get this gigantic white space somewhere else. November 19 07

This Thirteen Ways to be a Greener Photographer is just fruckin' lame. You could replace 90% of the mentions of photographer with the word 'musician' and use the same suggestions. If you are going to attach photography to an article on greening then make it actually apply to being a photographer, not just being a human in the digital world.

I have to browse through it a bit more but I think I will really like notebookism.

I am not so surprised that the new OSX Leopard kinda sucks a little and Apple doesn't seem to care. What I am surprised about is that more people are not saying it. With MS I expect broken things; with Apple I didn't.

Eeek, I accidentally signed up for StumbleUpon because I thought it was Ffffound but what I really meant was I needed a place for quickly blogging images without context -- ala this boy is tumbled. Really, we have too much right now.

Someone has been calling my phone for the last few weeks. About every two days the phone rings three times, I grab it and nobody says anything. Very quickly it hangs up. After first I thought it was somebody's pocket calling me. Then I assumed it was one of those spam callers that preferred to go to voicemail. I don't have voicemail. I thought it would just end after a week or so. Alas no. So I added call display to my phone and saw it was someone in Florida. They did the same thing a little while ago so I called back. A very nervous lady in Florida apologized profusely and promised not to call back. She didn't even ask for my number. I won't ever know why she was calling me but if she calls back, I am going to go tasmanian devil on her ass. November 05 07

Holey Free-Holey !! I have been considered creative and crafty in my past years, doing things like making paper, creating rubber molds for primitive carvings, drawing (not re-started yet *pout*) and collage. But I cannot even fathom the kind of mind that is required for Creating the barbarian series, by folding a 1m wet sheet of paper.

Why would you need to purchase a StoryCube? It's a great idea, if a little grand and pretentious, but paying for it is a little silly considering all you need to do is fold a cube and stick the ideas to it.

One thing about the canadian dollar doing so well these days -- I know exactly how much I am paying for not playing WoW these days. November 03 07

This is freaking cool !!City 7: Toronto Conflict is a Half-Life 2 mod featuring some parts of downtown TO. (thanks jer !)

Hee !! The Superest, where he draws a superhero that is better than the last superhero. Kinda.