The Long Road

Archives: July 2003

Thursday, July 31, 2003

Well, I’ve pretty much given up on biking as a form of exercise. It’s just way too difficult to keep up a good pace on a bike for 30 or so minutes; I always have to stop at traffic lights, avoid cars and pedestrians, it’s just not worth it. It’s also too easy to cheat and not peddle for a bit.

What I’ve taken up instead is jogging. It’s easier to keep a constant pace and my heart and lungs really get going just after a few minutes. When I first started I found it really hard to find a rhythm that I was comfortable with, I was either running too fast or too slow. One of the first times I went I did a circuit in about 30 minutes with a ton of energy to spare at the end. The next time I did it in 10 but was completely drained before I could get back to my house. I think the important thing is to start out real slow to warm up your body and by the end you could probably sprint another hundred meters. If you start off too quickly you’ll obviously burn yourself out really fast. The beginning is always the hardest though, as I started running last night I almost felt like stopping after a few hundred meters but kept going for another 20 minutes. I think that when I felt like stopping was equivalent to when a car changes gears. It’s like my body kicked it up a notch and it really tired me out right away but as I kept going I got more comfortable with the higher heart rate.

What really helps is having someone to run with. When I was still figuring out a good pace for me I ran with Sarah and found her speed to be a very comfortable one. It also helps to run with someone cuz if they’re not stopping then I try to keep going for as long as they do.

The only down point about jogging is that it’s bad for the joints – especially my under-calcium’d joints. I just do lots of stretches and am careful with how much I move my ankles so they don’t really bug me anymore.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:45 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Here are the two extreme types of people in the world. Well, there are three but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Type 1: The Extroverts
These are the “fun” people; they make friends in seconds, and always have a story to tell. They’re fun to keep around because you’ll always have a good time with them. A table full of introverts will tend to lead to silent gawking while a table of extroverts is often a good ruckus. They’re really good at selling their ideas, lifestyles and interests to others. After a few conversations, you can usually know almost everything there is to know about an extroverted person.

Type 2: The Introverts
The shy, quiet types. It’s a lot harder to get to know these people cuz they’re so ...erm...introverted. I think the effort is usually worth it though, introverts are the more interesting people; they have lots of things that they are into and it usually takes a while to get to know them well. To use a well-used metaphor, getting to know an introvert is like peeling the layers of an onion; it’ll take a while and the effort will make you cry but in the end it’s worth it (if you like onions). I think, deep down, most introverts wished they were a little more extroverted.

Of course, most people fall somewhere in between the two categories.

The third type of people? Those you just don’t want to know at all.

Today’s quote, I’m not sure where it came from: “Nice guys may seem to finish last but they’re just running in a different race.”

Posted by Rayne @ 03:43 PM EST [Link] [35 comments]

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

There is a horrible affliction that affects many office workers in each and every organization in the world. I see it everywhere I go, it indiscriminately targets men and women of all ages and races; it is … the FLAT ASS.

So many people walk around with butts so straight you could iron your clothes on ‘em (that’s if they could handle the pain). For the sake of all those around them these people should do some exercise! Walk, run, jog, climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, do SOMETHING so their butts don’t take the shape of the seat of their chairs. If this affects you or is starting to affect you please do something about it before its too late and you look like your butt's been hit by a steam roller!

Ice cream, super bad for you, here.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:25 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Monday, July 28, 2003

I used to think that other programs were probably just as hard as CS, but hard in a different way; that was before being asked to program a B-Tree over the Canada Day long weekend last summer. After that, there is no more sympathy from me towards other programs. I’ve obviously never been in any other programs so I’m not stating the most unbiased of opinions but ignorance is bliss so whatever!

I don’t know exactly where it comes from, could be my parents, friends, convention, but I really sometimes have this conviction that colleges are inferior to universities when they’re only different. Of course, being in “the best university in Canada” and being in one of the tougher programs there can also lead to a lot of academic snobbery on my part.

After drinking copious amounts of alcohol, Doug and I talked about the differences between colleges and universities by the camp fire and I like what we collectively came up with.

Colleges prepare you for very specific jobs, a trade. Things you’ll learn are pragmatic and immediately applicable to “real life”. You become an expert in your field, but are limited to it.

On the other hand, Universities are academic. You learn theories and processes and proofs seemingly just for the sake of learning such things. More importantly than any material, university is all about learning to learn (not that colleges don't do this, they just seem less about it). To be able to go out there and pick up something that’s unrelated to whatever you’ve studied and learn about it. The most “useful” material I’ve learnt in University so far has probably come from Econ courses where I can now look at situations in the news and know how some of it came about. Stats 231 *shakes fist* was also quite useful in being able to understand survey methodology, which comes up more often than I thought it would *shakes fist at useful, but horrible course*. Shit, where was I? What I’ve gotten out of my CS courses isn’t specific detail about pc architectures or knowledge of c++ minutia (things I should probably know) but more of general understanding of computers and programming principles.

I think I'll stop here, this turned out a little less coherent than I was expecting. oh well.

Today's quote: "Procrastination is the thief of time"

Posted by Rayne @ 02:32 PM EST [Link] [11 comments]

Friday, July 25, 2003

Every day as I cross the Holland street overpass to the TransitWay I think that it would be super-cool if I could float down to the bus station. Not fly, but more of a chest-first slow descent. This little day dream probably stems from my laziness and the fact that I have to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the bus stop.

If I could have any one power, it’d unquestionably be the power to fly. One thing about flying though, if you could fly really fast (lets say 100km/h) you’d probably have to wear some protective clothing to prevent the wind from tearing away at your skin.

Something I’d like to see, and this is a little bit more morbid, is a vehicle rear-ending a stopped vehicle at full speed. This recently happened with an OC bus and a chevy and it was a horrible accident. Aside from all the death and pain, it’s something I’d probably be interested in seeing. This somehow plays out like a SuperDeformed cartoon in my head.

More Star Trek producer fun, this time from IGN FilmForce:
‘Braga and Berman still insist that the show is not stagnating, and that its creators are not to blame for slipping viewership. What is responsible? "Don't know," says Braga. "Don't know."’

Posted by Rayne @ 03:33 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Seems like a good month for making big decisions. Someone’s getting married, someone’s switching schools, someone’s breaking up, someone’s switching programs. Good luck with all of that, boyz and grrls.

I find that I’m very bad at making big decisions, heck I’m not even good at choosing something from a menu. I’m more navel-gazer than decision-maker. Many of my decisions just seem to be made “by default” or someone else decides for me. This is why McDonald’s daily McDeals are so great; I never have to think of what I should order.

After taking a serious beating in first year, I was really contemplating switching out of my program but I never did anything about it and the idea just faded from my mind. But maybe it’s also cuz I was lazy and didn’t want to do all the work involved. Who knows! I do enjoy CS though so I’m glad I’m still in it.

Maybe I’m just not presented with enough important choices in a day, the biggest decision I’ve had to make this month was “should I pursue this or not?”.

This isn’t to say that I’m an indecisive person; I CAN make decisions, it just takes me a while…maybe.

Enough rambling!

Posted by Rayne @ 03:54 PM EST [Link] [7 comments]

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Ever watched Iron Chef? It’s that cool Japanese cooking show where a challenger chef and one of the show’s three champion “iron chefs” have a cooking competition with some mystery ingredient that is only revealed once the chefs have been introduced. The chef who can come up with the best meal themed around this secret ingredient is declared the winner. It’s interesting to see all the wonderful stuff the chefs come up with in such short notice and all the different techniques they use for cooking. One of the best parts of the show is how seriously they take things, when the challenger chef is introduced he walks down towards the host and there’s always some kind powerful music playing while the announcer lists all of that chef’s accomplishments. The Iron Chefs come out afterwards by rising out of the floor onto a stage! It’s fantastic; Iron Chef is like the WWE: Raw is WAR of cooking shows.

I think one of the appeals of this show to people is the horrible dubbing. It’s so bad that it’s funny. The voice actors always carry a faux enthusiasm and really really forced fake laughter. One of the narrators always precedes his statements by addressing the host with “qui-san!” in a very enthusiastic tone. That’s the only part of the show I don’t like, I wish someone would shut that guy up!

So as I was watching Iron Chef a couple of weeks ago at a friend’s place, I thought that it would be greatly humorous if there was a similar show for programming competitions! Imagine the introduction to the challenger: “George is a Waterloo CS student who learnt c++ when he was 6, has won several prestigious programming competitions and wrote his own compiler when he was only in high school” as some greasy haired, thick rimmed glasses guy walks out to the tune of “Imperial March” by John Williams. Other appropriate introductory music could be the Terminator theme, Bad Boys by Inner Circle, The Batman theme, or O’Fortuna by Carl Orff. The cheese factor for this show would be stupendously great! Instead of a “surprise ingredient” we can have a surprise programming language and the programmer who writes the best program in the 60 allotted minutes would win! I see great potential in this.

Posted by Rayne @ 03:11 PM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

The man was in a car accident in 1984 and had been in a coma until earlier this year. Imagine the huge culture shock this guy is experiencing.

In 1984, the original Nintendo hadn’t been released yet; imagine him seeing an X-Box game. The Berlin Wall was still up. The U.S.S.R. was still the Evil Empire. Movie effects consisted of puppets and makeup, what would he think of The Matrix? He doesn’t know what the bloody Internet is! Punk, Alternative, Rap, Boy Bands, and Britney Spears are all new to him. 1984 was hugely more conservative; imagine what this guy would think of all the sex, skin, swearing, gore and violence on TeeVee and in movies today. His daughter was still a baby and his grandmother was still alive.

I know that I’d love to see what the world 19 years from now would be like, but I doubt that I’d want to be stuck there.

Posted by Rayne @ 03:51 PM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Monday, July 21, 2003

Download and watch the 40 meg short film here.

The movie starts off with Batman going after the Joker and then has a truly neat twist.

Tell me what you think.

Posted by Rayne @ 08:17 PM EST [Link] [8 comments]

I feel like I'm going to get a good lashing for this one...

I know that I’m not the best writer around, I have my own little writing idiosyncrasies and my grammar is certainly less than perfect so I shouldn’t be criticizing anyone else’s writing but I’m gonna do it anyways!

So here then is a list of things that make me absolutely cringe when I read them.

One
I hate it when people use the words “himself”, “itself”, “themselves”, etc. to emphasize something. Most of the time, the emphasis is completely unnecessary and sounds horrendously cheesy, as if it’s of huge importance that whoever being emphasized cares about whatever is said.

Here’s an example: ”Did you know that Nintendo themselves was in a way responsible for the creation of the PlayStation, the N64´s worst competitor.” That word sounds just so horribly superfluous! I can’t find any other examples of it today, but this kind of emphasis is really prevalent in those emails that tell you that unless you forward it to X number of people your pc will die because “Microsoft itself” said so.

The only time I think this is acceptable is when we’re dealing with something truly astounding like “not even God himself will forgive you for using that word”.

Two
The pluralization of words when talking about a collective entity. Ex: “Nintendo are”. When I’m referring to a company I always treat it as a singular noun. It’s like when one’s talking about a sports team, we say “the team is winning” and not “the team are winning”. It should be the same with businesses dag nabit! I’m sure that it’s grammatically correct to say “Nintendo are losing” but it just sounds plain ol’ wrong!

Three
Repeatedly using the same word over and over and over and over. I know I fall into this trap pretty often but I always try to catch it and sometimes it’s impossible to fix; if you’re talking about DNA, you’re going to have to say DNA quite a few times.

Four
Repeating a structure. This one doesn’t happen too often. Back in OAC English we did a lot of essays; once, the teacher pulled out an essay that she thought was particularly good and gave it to the class as an example. I went absolutely nuts because the writer introduced each of his/her main points the same way; the first paragraph of the point would start with “First of all” (“Second of all” for the 2nd point, etc) and then the second paragraph of each point would start with “However”. The repetition is way too formulaic and it's the only thing that I remember from that essay all these years later.

WHEW! Glad I got those off my chest.

And now for something completely different!
The best quote I read today
"Fiction is not about reality, it's about truth. One of the differences between the two is that reality is bound by time. Truth is not." -Devin Grayson

Posted by Rayne @ 03:50 PM EST [Link] [12 comments]

Sunday, July 20, 2003

Go here for a ridiculously cool picture of Doctor Octopus, the villain from the upcoming Spider-Man 2. I was expecting silly looking cylindrical arms (like in the comics and cartoons) but what they came up with here looks really good, almost like a crazy combination of Aliens biology and Terminator technology.

Click here to read about and look at some pictures of an amazing looking Batman short film that will probably never get released to the general public.

This weekend was the weekend of the annual San Diego Comic Book Convention, the largest comic book convention in North America. I sometimes think that I'd like to go but I'm not really into walking amongst a huge throng people or meeting creators. The only real draw for going to such a thing, for me, would be to find good deals on comics. If I ever happened to be in San Diego at the right time I'd probably go but it's not something I'd go out of my way to attend.

Posted by Rayne @ 07:40 PM EST [Link] [12 comments]

Saturday, July 19, 2003

I had the choice to go clubbing tonight with about 6 girls but I chose to stay home! I love clubbing; I love being around teens and tweens drinking and dancing. It's a really energetic atmosphere. Maybe it was the nap I took, or the rayne outside but when time came to go, I just "didn't feel like it". I just didn't feel like I had the physical energy to be around energetic people. Horrible. So here I am writing about what I didn't do tonight. Great!

Anyways, I'm gonna start up a DVD soon. Either "Spirited Away", "Man in the Iron Mask" or "Waking Life". I bought the later two at future shop today for a total of 20$! What an awesome price! Especially the 8$ "Waking Life" (which you should all see).

Speaking of movies you've never heard of, you guys should all check out the immensely under-marketed "Equilibrium". The movie is a combination of Brave New World, 1984, Gattaca and The Matrix. It's smart plus it has some incredible gun fights.

For a really informative article about movie audio, go here and learn something.

Shipping and Handling is the bane of my existance. Anyone going to Hong Kong soon?

Posted by Rayne @ 11:17 PM EST [Link] [18 comments]

Friday, July 18, 2003

Due to something I'm writting about currently, I have this HUGE urge to purchase all kinds of Dreamcast peripherals...

I wouldn't be surprised if by this time tomorrow I'd have ordered hundreds of dollars worth of hardware from shaddy Internet sites!

I love this project that I've created for myself. It's fun and I'm learning a lot (and I mean A LOT) of useless trivia!

Posted by Rayne @ 05:07 PM EST [Link] [21 comments]

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Who comes up with these names?

Hell, Michigan
River Styx, ohio
Peculiar, Missouri
Eek and Chicken, alaska
Eclectic and Muck City Alabama
Plain City, Utah
Boring, Maryland and Oregon
No Name, Colorado
Climax, in North Carolina and Pennsylvania
Intercourse, Blue Ball, Panic and Fearnot,Pennsylvania.
Monkeys Elbow, Kentucky
Waterproof, Uncle Sam, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Purgatory, Colorado
Bill, Wyoming
Metropolis, Illinois
Perdition, Kansas
Ile Bizard, Quebec
Dime Box, Texas
Cementville, Indiana

and of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the beautiful city of Rayne, Louisiana

Posted by Rayne @ 02:19 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

The three hour rule. It says that you shouldn’t go to sleep for at least three hours after having eaten a meal. This is because your body needs a certain amount of time to metabolize your meal, if you go to bed too soon after eating your body ends up just storing everything instead of burning it. Making you FAT. Anyways, I always try to follow this rule so I hardly ever eat at night or I’m always up really late if I do. Thing is, I don’t remember where I heard/read this rule; can’t even find a website for this. So who else has heard of this?

Apparently there is also a “four hour rule”; this one is about exercising. When you exercise, your cells build up in lactic acid and you need about 4 hours before your cells disperse the lactic acid again. If you go to bed before your cells have had enough time then you wake up with really sore muscles. So you either need to get a massage or wait around for four hours before going to bed. This really sucks! I always work out at night before going to bed so I’m supposed to stop that now. Or get a masseuse.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:40 PM EST [Link] [23 comments]

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

The Earth has changed orbit and is now hurtling towards the sun! All life on Earth only has at most two more months to live. I am absolutely serious about this. This story was run on CNN itself and confirmed by all the top scientists in the world!!!!

There is a solution though! Microsoft and AOL-Time Warner, the two biggest companies in the world have known about this for some time now and have developed a solution to save us all! They’re machine is still under top-secret clearance so no one knows what it is but the CIA itself has seen it and said that it would do the trick.

Here is the important part though: MS and AOL won’t fix the Earth’s orbit unless they know that it is worth saving! This is where we come in. To show that we care about our lives we have to make sure every single email account in existence receives a copy of this email! I have contacted high-ranking officials inside both companies and they have assured me that they will be able to track this email wherever it goes and that this will be enough to convince them to take action.

SO IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR LIFE OR ANYONE ELSE’S LIFE AT ALL YOU WILL DO THIS! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, IF YOU DO NOT FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE IN YOUR CONTACT LIST, YOU MAY NEVER, EVER, SEE ANOTHER EMAIL AGAIN!!

Posted by Rayne @ 11:29 AM EST [Link] [15 comments]

I could really go for one those right about now...
I was thinking of making one but don't have enough ingredients =(

Posted by Rayne @ 01:04 AM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Monday, July 14, 2003

So I'm out eatin lunch at a picnic table with Darryl and Sarah today when I quite suddenly felt like I was going to faint. My vision became blurred, my heart raced, I sweated a lot, and Sarah says I became pale and rolled my eyes. It was very much like the feeling one gets when a quickly ascending elevator slows down except this was constant and prolonged. I must have sat there very still for five minutes taking shallow breaths. Sarah noticed and seemed quite concerned while Darryl just went on with his story *shakes fist at oblivious friend*. I eventually snapped out of it and my hands were numb for a while after. I'm still feeling a little light-headed now.

This has happened once before in the changeroom at the PAC after I had worked out for 90 minutes without having eaten anything that day.

A very unsettling experience.

Posted by Rayne @ 01:38 PM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Sunday, July 13, 2003

That's certainly never happened before...
What am I supposed to do now??

Posted by Rayne @ 04:34 AM EST [Link] [12s comments]

Saturday, July 12, 2003

A few weeks ago I had sweet potato fries at The Black Thorn. Basically, they’re fries made with sweet potatoes. I really liked ‘em so today I tried to make them at home. Pretty easy right? Julienne some sweet potatoes and fry ‘em. Or so I thought. My first batch came out un-crispy which was very disappointing. I phoned my mom (she was out) and said “mom, my sweet potato fries aren’t crispy =(“ and she told me “ya, sweet potatoes don’t get crispy, make some batter”. Some tempura batter later, I had sweet potato fries that were crispy on the outside and sweet and moist on the inside. Delicious! Mothers are so useful!

Posted by Rayne @ 08:49 PM EST [Link] [7 comments]

Friday, July 11, 2003

I wish I were clever enough to come up with this but alas...

"Pourquoi, dès que c'est UNE galère, c'est tout de suite au FÉMININ? LA pluie, LA neige, LA grêle, LA tempête, tout ça, c'est pour vous les FEMMES! Nous, c'est LE soleil, LE beau temps, LE printemps, LE paradis! Vous, vous n'avez vraiment pas de chance: LA vaisselle, LA cuisine, LA bouffe, LA poussière, LA saleté, LA balayeuse. Nous, c'est LE café dans LE fauteuil avec LE journal en écoutant LE hockey et ça pourrait être LE bonheur si vous ne veniez pas semer LA discorde et LA chicane. Pour retrouver LE calme, je crois que nous devrions laisser LE genre décider. Vous pouvez regarder LA télé, mais nous choisissons LE poste. Même si LA télécommande vous appartient, nous avons LE contrôle. Mais ne voyez aucun sexisme là-dedans, oh non! D'ailleurs, entre parenthèses je vous signale que LE mot sexe n'a pas de FÉMININ. On ne dit pas LA sexe mais bien LE sexe d'une FEMME. Par définition, LE plaisir est donc pour les HOMMES. Car si les préliminaires sont rapides, c'est qu'ils ne sont qu'UN préliminaire. Plus que ça, c'est UNE perte de temps. Après avoir obtenu UN orgasme, les HOMMES se retournent pour trouver LE sommeil pendant que les FEMMES vivent UNE frustration.

D'ailleurs dès que c'est sérieux, comme par hasard, c'est tout de suite au MASCULIN. On dit UNE rivière, UNE marre d'eau mais on dit UN fleuve, UN océan. On dit UNE trottinette mais UN avion à réaction! Et quand il y a UN problème dans UN avion, c'est tout de suite UNE catastrophe. C'est toujours la faute d'UNE erreur de pilotage, d'UNE panne d'essence, d'UNE mauvaise visibilité, bref toujours à cause d'UNE connerie. Et alors là, attention mesdames, dès que LA connerie est faite par UN homme ça ne s'appelle plus UNE connerie, ça s'appelle UN impondérable. Enfin, moi, si j'étais vous les FEMMES, je ferais UNE pétition. Et il faut faire très vite par ce que votre situation s'aggrave de jour en jour. Y'a pas si longtemps, vous aviez LA logique, LA bonne vieille logique FÉMININE. Ça ne nous a pas plu, nous les HOMMES et nous avons inventé LE logiciel. Mais vous avez quand même quelquefois des petits avantages: Nous avons LE mariage, LE divorce; vous avez LA pension, LA maison. Vous avez LA carte de crédit, nous avons LE découvert. Mais en général, LE type qui a inventé LA langue française ne vous aimait pas beaucoup. .."

Posted by Rayne @ 01:10 PM EST [Link] [8 comments]

So there’s 4 of us talking; persons A, B, C and myself. Person A and I have been having a discussion over email about something, and now person A and person B are having the exact conversation in person. Weird. What’s even weirder is when the conversation turns to something that I’ve written about on my site and persons A and B discuss it while saying the same things that have already been written; but persons A and B are frequent readers of my site! The only person who hadn’t known that everything being said had already been said in my comments section was person C who wasn’t even participating in the conversation. Then person A started saying things that I had written as if the thoughts were his own! Pft!! Anyways, it was a strange experience ‘cause the whole time I was reminded of "The Parlor".

Posted by Rayne @ 12:09 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Thursday, July 10, 2003

um..um...just pretend theres something here

Posted by Rayne @ 11:38 PM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

girl volunteering to climb school roof + free tennis balls = exciting tuesday coming up!
broken water pipe + slow clean-up = smelly office
sausage + 6 potatoes + salad + rice= lots of greek food
sock + sandals + soccer = bloody toe
no time + spontaneous friends = another meaningless entry

Pirates of the Carribean came out today!! YAY!! here.
As for this week's OTHER big movie, read here for a good comparison between The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics and movie.

Posted by Rayne @ 11:39 PM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

"Imagine on earth if human beings not only evolved into people, but also certain reptiles, certain amphibians, certain insects, etc. etc. What if we had been a planet where there were many different kinds of species that came about? What would that be like? What would that culture be like?" -- Brandon Braga

Has Brandon Braga finally lost his mind or am I the only one that thinks that that statement is stupid beyond reason?

Posted by Rayne @ 06:20 PM EST [Link] [17 comments]

Monday, July 7, 2003

Arthur is a free British media/popculture magazine with a circulation of about 40 000. The current issue (#5 "Arthur Against The Empire") is about British/US relations, the War On Terror/Iraq, and the like. Each issue has a commentary by Alan Moore, writer of the source material for "From Hell" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". His commentary details the events leading to the war on Iraq and the aftermath of it, he connects many dots, while most of us probably didn't even know the dots existed.

At one point Alan Moore refers to the War on Terror as "War Without End" which is, more or less, what the Bush Regime had said the war on terror would be. It hadn't clicked before, but it did just as I read that phrase: "Nineteen Eighty Four". In Orwell's book the world is at a perpetual state of conflict to keep the populace on edge, the governments constant, and allowing the ruling body to do whatever it wants since it's all jutified by the war. And I'll be damned if the U.S. Department of Homeland Security doesn't look a hell of a lot like the baby steps of Big Brother.

Download issue five of Arthur here and read Alan Moore's commentary on pages 14-20 (its not THAT long, there are lots of ads and political comics). If you're unwilling to read it, at least read the following two quotes.

"Any previously unthinkable political action can be instantly validated by the magic words 9-11, in much the same way as Ariel Sharon's government in Israel can make horrific moral and humanitarian issues simply vanish by mentioning the Holocaust."

"the world's last Superpower/first Ultrapower has fallen into the hands of a shrieking, masturbating lower primate and is now constantly a hair's-breadth away from going absolutely foaming fucking mad and killing everybody."

Posted by Rayne @ 04:47 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

Sunday, July 6, 2003

We've owned a MP3 playable DVD player for about 2 years now and in all this time I've never bothered trying to play MP3s on it. Until today. I popped in one of my MP3 discs, well, my ONLY MP3 disk and tried it out. Sure enough it played the music, I turned on the TV out of curiosity and to my surprise there was a playlist!! I'm not quite sure why but the playlist really impresses me, I was jumping around to different songs just so I could make use of that feature. Very very cool. I tried burning another MP3 disk with more current music on it but couldn't find 700 megs worth of stuff so I just didn't bother.

I had no idea DVD-Writer prices had dropped to as low as 200$. I was still under the impression that they were in the 500$ range. See HERE.

I got a new HEAD brand tennis racket today, on the manufacturing tag inside the racket's sheath (is that what you call it?) it says "made exclusively for HEAD". HAHAHAHAHA! *AHEM*

Posted by Rayne @ 09:37 PM EST [Link] [8 comments]

Saturday, July 5, 2003

Patrick Stewart recently said that he'll never do another Star Trek movie again. Nemesis was one the worst Trek films ever, it's sad to think that it was the last one with good 'ol Captain Picard in it.

You know why Nemesis failed so miserably (besides being a bad film)? It's because the marketing people didn't come up with a catchy acronym for it!! Being the tenth trek film they could have really milked that by using the always popular letter X too! Think how much cooler "STX" sounds than "Star Trek: Nemesis".

es (dramatic pause), tee (dramatic pause), EX. That would very surely enthral audiences!

Posted by Rayne @ 04:13 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Friday, July 4, 2003

I am so very torn by this movie. I want to like it very much, and indeed there is a lot to like about it but it makes such a huge turn for the franchise and I’m not exactly sure I like where it goes. I think I have to see this movie again. Beware of many spoilers!

As with previous Terminator movies, the effects and action scenes in T3 are spectacular. Remember in T2 when Arnold tells John Connor that the T1000 can only form simple solid objects and no complex, moving, mechanical parts? Well the TX can do that! All the TX transformations were nicely super complex looking and I really like the particle accelerator bit. They also did some nice stuff with the Arnold-Terminator. When he gets half his face blown off this time, we not only see an exposed metal forehead but also the lower half with cheek, chin and jaw. There’s a really nice shot when we see a ½ flesh, ½ metal face and we can look right through where his cheek would have been. VERY nice. Overall though, I didn’t find the TX very menacing. She didn’t seem anywhere near as creepy as the T-1000. I blame the actress. Can it be called acting if one just walks around with the same blank expression throughout an entire film?

I really enjoyed the first car chase in this movie; it’s on a much bigger scale than any car chase previously done. The huge amount of destruction that went on was unbelievable. I think that after Matrix: Reloaded and this movie, car chases are going to start using bigger and bigger vehicles! But, really, how can you top a chase involving a crane-truck-thing and a fire truck?

I have problems with the pacing of this movie, the action scenes are great but they are non-stop. We and the characters don’t have nearly enough down time to connect. They’re constantly on the run, we never get to see them live, chat, or interact meaningfully. All their discussions are based around advancing the plot or giving us exposition about this and that. As a result, I never really end up caring about these characters. When the Terminator sacrificed himself at the end of T2, it was such an emotional moment, when the Terminator sacrificed himself at the end of T3, it felt very much empty. This is where James Cameron would have been an asset to this movie, he knows how to make you care about someone as he makes their lives a living hell.

The character of John Connor is in a very different place in this movie than I thought he would be. He lives “off the grid”, more or less a bum, not knowing what to do with himself after Judgment Day didn’t come in 1997 like it was suppose to. He was suppose to train to become a technologically savvy, charismatic leader but drifted away from that after T2, he seems to have wandered aimlessly fearing the future. A very interesting place to take the character.

Lets talk about the movie’s ending! This is where the film has me wavering.

If you think about it, the ending here is the only one that they could have done, the only one that makes sense if they want to move the series forward without being repetitive. But still, the finality of it really takes away from the beautifully poetic ambiguity that T2 left us off with. What T3 feels like is a Pilot for a TV show where everything is set up for years worth of storylines. Where T3 leaves us is at the beginning of a story. T3 doesn’t even feel like it’s a full story on its own, it’s the beginning of the beginning and because of that they now HAVE TO tell the rest of it. They have to show us how John will fight the machines, how he becomes this great warrior/leader, how Neo will come and save us all from the evil computers. Wait, never mind that last part. You know what I mean. We have to see how this will end now or else this movie and the 2 before it become almost meaningless.

Here’s me nitpicking this movie. Since Terminators 1 and 2, the cyborgs have had On Screen Displays in their vision - text that tells them what they think or what decisions they’ve made. Terminator three continues this, I understand that it’s used to convey to the audience what is going on; but it’s such an immensely huge fallacy! Why would a computer need to be visually made aware of its own decisions? It makes taking action infinitely longer (in computer time), the computer should just decide and act, period. It’s like the Terminator’s decision making programs were only connected to its motor control programs through a visual interface, which would be very very inefficient and stupid. Also like Terminator 1 and 2, this one uses time travel (it has to) and time travel can never make total sense. Like, if Skynet can send robots to the pass, why is it sending them chronologically...why isn't it sending TX to way back when in T1 instead of sending it to after its last attempt?

Another thing is that the TX, from what I understand, controls other machines by injecting them with nannites (very Borg of her). Which is cool, I can see nannites reprogramming machines but what nannites shouldn’t be able to do is let the TX drive cars by remote control! For nannites to drive a car, they’d have to get gas into the engine, brake, turn the tires. Since nannites are microscopic robots, I doubt that the TX injected those vehicles with enough nannites to actually move all the large mechanical parts needed to drive. If it turns out that those vehicles were already made to be computer driven then I take back this whole paragraph.

Nitpick 4, at the end John says that Skynet has no core, that it lives in all computers in the world, on the Internet. If this is so, why does Skynet still exist after it caused Nuclear Armageddon? I imagine that Nuclear Armageddon would have destroyed all, or most, of the computers in the world. Or at least make them all go offline, which would kill Skynet for sure. My last nitpick, and this might not even be right, I’m pretty sure that John Connor was only 10 years old in T2, right at the beginning of T3 he tells us that he was 13. I’ll have to look this up, but it’s a dumb mistake if it is one.

If this were the first Terminator movie, I'd give it an 8 or 9 on 10.
But because its come after 2 others and yet feels way too much like the pilot episode of a tv series, I give it a 7/10.

Posted by Rayne @ 01:55 AM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Thursday, July 3, 2003

So over this past weekend, dAN had tried to call me a few times and told me he wasn’t able to get through. I dismissed that as pretty much his phone having some kind of issues since I was able to get calls from other people (some ppl still use the phone believe it or not). When I finally decided to listen to dAN and tried calling home from the cell phone, I encountered the problem dAN described. All of a sudden a bunch of people were telling me of the same issue! Its pretty easy to know if you are having problems making outgoing calls but problems with incoming calls are hard to know about.

So I calls Bell. They have a neat little voice recognition program that tries to understand what you are saying, pretty cool except she didn’t understand “incoming calls” and patched me through to an operator. I describe the problem to the guy and the only thing he says is “I notice your phone line isn’t protected”. He then proceeds to describe inadequately what “protected” means. I finally drag it out of him that it’s some kind of insurance, I was picturing physical coverings for some reason...like armoured wires.

Anyways, the guy tells me that to get a technician out here would cost at least 70$ because our phone lines aren’t protected and therefore not for Bell to fix. Then we get into a discussion about what if the problem is with the lines outdoors (which are up to Bell to maintain/fix) and the only thing he tells me is that he doesn’t know if they problem is with the lines indoors or outdoors and that I should buy Protection. Then I ask him if the technician comes by and determines that it’s an outdoor problem, would I still pay 70$ and he says that I should buy Protection. I called them for information and assistance and basically got a telemarketer!!! Very aggravating!!! I ended up politely letting him go in frustration, hoping that no one will have anything important to call my house for.

This was such a horrible customer service experience, I’ve yet to determine if this is worse than my Back To Future Shop epic or not.

Posted by Rayne @ 04:00 PM EST [Link] [11 comments]

Just watched Terminators 1 and 2 in preparation for tomorrow night’s viewing of Terminator 3. I also took a 30 minute jog in between so I didn’t vegetate all night. Anyways, I hadn’t seen Terminator 1 in ages so this was the first time in a long time. I noticed that the two movies are tremendously similar. Here are some things they have in common.

“come with me if you want to live”
robot walking out of flaming wreckage
car chase with a big 18 wheeler
end fight in some king of factory (which have a whole bunch of similar moments)
a Terminator gets into a vehicle and tells the driver “get out”

I don’t have a point with these similarities, just that they exist. Also, after watching T2, it’s amazing to see how well it still holds up to movies and effects of today. I think T2 has one of the best ending of any movie; it’s open ended yet doesn’t scream for a sequel, something T3 is BOUND to do. My reservations for T3 mainly comes from the fact that it seems so unnecessary, T1 and T2 seem like a complete story. Nevertheless, T3 is getting some pretty good reviews here, here, here and here so I guess it won’t be all that bad! =)

Posted by Rayne @ 12:29 AM EST [Link] [8 comments]

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

I'll be heading out to The Hill with some (probably drunken) friends for the night time festivities and fireworks!

What's everyone else doing? What's a non-Ottawa Canada Day like?

Posted by Rayne @ 01:23 AM EST [Link] [16 comments]

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