You have to check this out.

Batman: Dead End. Simply outstanding stuff. Suffice it to say, I wouldn't want to be Batman on that particular night.

I'm very impressed at the level of quality of these internet/fan films. It scares me that people can make these kind of things at home or in very small studios. It also makes me wonder why Hollywood makes such crappy films when there are such excellent small-time things as this.

You can while away the time while I'm gone by shooting at CLAY KITTENS.

Don't try this at home.

Well, I'm all packed for my trip to the Great White North (Cochrane & Moosonee to be exact) tomorrow. That is one of the major perks about my job. I get to go on these neat vacations and get paid for it!

Soooo... I will be gone from Monday, July 28th to Friday, August 1st.

I'll probably post once or twice before I leave tomorrow morning and I'll definately give a recap of the trip when I get back. Woo! Whale's ahoy!

The worst thing about this is that our digital camera is in the shop because the battery door is busted. Of course, it just snapped off while in its nice PADDED CASE, but physical damage is one thing that our $50 or so Extended Warranty doesn't cover, which makes me wonder exactly how extended it actually is...

I'll have some nice pictures to develop the old fashion way and I'll see about getting them on CD so I can upload them if they're any good.

My widdle brudder and his new wife (well, only wife... it's not like he traded in his old wife for a new one or anything) came by tonight. It was nice to see them as he's been in the Army for the last little while and just mustered out a couple weeks ago.

We watched The Pianist last night. What an amazing film.

Watch it now.

This one's for Pete.

Apple: Crash Different.

I am in awe of this little skit.

Pong: Matrix Style.

Soooo good.

Who says that live theatre is dead?

Switch to Linux or I'll send my horde of super-atomic-flying sheep after you.

Phonebooth was pretty cool.

Now I just have to watch The Pianist and I'll be caught up on my DVD collection :)

This is pretty sweet. There's a course on the Ethnology of MMORPG's.

Where was this a couple years ago when I was into AC full throttle? I've pretty much sworn off of almost ANY multiplayer game since singleplayer is where it's at. I don't mind multiplayer stuff for those times where you have a bunch of company over and they want to try the game systems but otherwise I'd rather have a good story and not have to worry about lag.

I feel like such a geek gamer luddite.

Just finished watching Punch Drunk Love.

I really liked it, but man, is it one odd movie.

The story alone is pretty kooky, but the way they shoot it and the wierd lighting and sound techniques were more jarring than the nutty story or Adam Sandler's character were. That director sure likes lens flares.

I do recommend it. Just be warned that it's a movie I've recommended :)

I also watched Shanghai Knights today. I liked it, but I don't know if it's just that I had super high hopes for it or if I just liked Shanghai Noon more, but it wasn't as funny as Shanghai Noon. I'll have to watch it again in a bit and see what it's like when I'm not expecting anything.

The meaning of Liff.

I need to go read more of the ballycumbers I've got on the go.

Pet the cat.

Man, I'm tired.

So I was trying out this new adventure game called Runaway: A Road Adventure.

It looks great, the presentation is all there... I love it.

Except everything but the voiceovers is in Dutch. Sigh. I'm definately going to be picking this up once it comes over the Atlantic. I love adventure games and from what I've played so far this one is amazing.

It's just Dutch. And as Austin Powers' daddy said, "I hate the Dutch."

Except for Doug...
and Kate...
and any other Dutch people I know...

Unless they're the ones I don't like. Yeah... Time for bed!

This is a great quote from Ferricide over on Gamespy.com about the comparison between the Genesis and the Xbox.

"Actually, in many ways the Xbox reminds me of a second coming of the Genesis: it's black, nubbly and designed to appear technologically cool, the controller is too big, and it's jam-packed with too many action and sports games and too little else."

Yup. I like my Xbox (esp. with KOTOR on it now) but it definately does seem like the Genesis in that it may be the most powerful system at the time, but the software really isn't there to back it up.

Wow. And I thought the now-averted postal strike would have made the mail slow. At least it would get here within the century!

If anyone ever wants to know what to get me for a present (for my birthday, Christmas, award night, etc.) look no further!



Yessir. The Master Sword from FFVII. Mmmm.... if it weren't for the fact it's about $400 Canadian, I'd get it right now... though ordering a giant sharp sword is not a smart thing as I'd likely be run through with it the second Julie saw it.

And in that story on Canada.com they say he used a broomstick. It's a golf ball retriever.

Yet another example of the stunning journalistic prowess that is the Canada.com/National Post/Global empire.

At least there weren't many glaring grammatical or spelling errors in that newspost :P

"Me Izzy Asper. Me no spel gud."

I saw this on the news tonight and got a chuckle, but also shook my head.

The Star Wars Kid (remember him?) is suing for psychological damage and the fact that he had to change schools because people made fun of him.

Cry me a river kiddo. Sure, now people around the world can laugh at you as you do what most of us geeks have done at some point... I wish I could get $25K every time someone makes fun of me!

I'm sure I'd be a millionaire by now :)

Sigh. This is why people need to be able to laugh at yourself and grow a backbone. And you don't have to wait till you're in your 20's to do this. Not only that, this guy should be proud that he's now an internet icon.

If you check out the various remixes of the video, they look rather spiffy. AND there is a petition to get the guy a role in Episode 3. Now if that happened, do you think that the kid would thank the people who put the video on the net and got him the role? I doubt it.

My friend Yvette is going to be doing the RunTO this year.

GOOOOO YVETTE!

Check out the site. It'll give you a picture as to what kind of psychopathic punishment she'll be putting herself through. I, on the other hand, will be doing the SaunterActon.

This involves wandering to the Trunk Sale, perusing through the collection of pickaxes that the old guy there is always selling and eating a yummy peameal-bacon-egg-and-cheese on a bun and then walking home.

I think the only similarity between the RunTO and the SaunterActon is that I look like the guy on the front page of the site... in that I'm lunging for the Chow Down sandwich mentioned above :)

"Gimme that sandwich!"

Heh. I am currently playing KOTOR as a good jedi, but once I finish I'm going to be playing it evil, Penny Arcade style.

I spent a part of tonight playing this neat new game called Ghost Master. It is what it sounds like. You play a ghostly civil servant who has to wrangle a bunch of ghosts and spooks into scaring the occupants of a town.

It's pretty funny and has some Sims-like elements as well as some strategy. I like it.

Ok. Willard rocks. It is very odd and surreal and not for people who think that Erin Brockovitch is pushing the envelope as far as cinema goes, but if you have seen my DVD collection, you'll know that odd and surreal is the rule of the day.

And Ben the rat is eeeevil.

I'm watching Willard right now. Great intro and so far it's pretty good. Nice and creepy.

Crispin Glover rocks.

Word of warning though. There are a few rats in this movie :)

Oh, I finished reading Altered Carbon on Sunday. Very good book, though the ending starts to get a little incoherent, though that could have just been the lack of sleep and overabundance of exercise making my brain no worky.

I'm just starting Tad Williams' War of the Flowers. I love Tad's stuff. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is probably my favourite fantasy trilogy and I really should read it again. War of the Flowers is starting off pretty neat and I can't wait to see where it goes. The best thing is that the whole story is in JUST ONE BOOK!

Trust me. After reading the entire Otherland series one book after the other (about 1000 or so pages per book), having a Tad Williams saga in one book is VERY nice.

And the fact that I'm enjoying War of the Flowers so much this early on is not a common occurence for me. I tend to really dislike 'modern fantasy' where you have a person from our Earth go to a magical realm. Maybe I was spoiled by Narnia as a child and just can't get over that. But I am liking this book a bunch.

Heh. Kind of interesting (for my own geeky self at least).

I had to restart KOTOR because of a minor glitch (I saved a game before talking to a major character and when I reloaded the character was gone!).

Anyway, I just found it interesting that it took me less than 3 hours to get back to that spot whereas the first time to get to that spot it took me over 4 1/2 hours.

I guess knowing what to do and also being able to skip a lot of the conversations helps. Still a great game though.

Need a new computer? That hard drive getting full? Low on cash?

Well, worry no longer. Hardster is here.

Oh, I figured I'd put a little plug in for my favourite Adware-buster.

Spybot: Search & Destroy is a great program for ferreting out those annoying adware and spyware programs that, in my mind, are worse than any computer virus.

So if you're finding that your computer is running really sluggy and needs a swift kick to do anything, try running Spybot or any other adware buster and that should help you out!

Ok. Got my own keyboard back. That one I borrowed sucked. Half the keys didn't work!

So, to reiterate, yesterday was pretty good. Church was nice (very good sermon) and then the afternoon was a relaxing melange of book reading, video games and just overall vegging.

Today was nice too. I ended up falling asleep last night around 11:30pm (something I NEVER do) and didn't wake up this morning until after 9:30am! Now I'm tired yet not sleepy. Bleh.

At least my package from Amazon came today. Now Canada Post can go on strike and while that will probably delay my DVD sets from China, it also might just give them enough time to clear customs without any untoward waiting on my part!

woo!

hisisnea...rrr...nesonline

Hadaooddayodayachurchandhome...i'morrinheneihourskeyoardecausehe
neededoseeifhecompueroverherewasueredorno.
urnsouhereareafewprolemswihhiskeyoard...canyouspohem?

Had a busy day today.

Went to the Trunk Sale and also wandered around Acton looking for garage sales this morning.

THEN we went over to the Rockwood Conservation Area. It was a beautiful day for a picnic and we also saw some caves, wandered around in the bush and almost fell off a couple of cliffs and eventually made it back to the conservation area thanks to James' backwoods directional skills. Granted, they're also the skills that got us stuck at the top of a cliff for most of the afternoon but that's beside the point.

THEN we watched Hero (starring Jet Li). Beautiful movie. And we had some steaks, watched some anime and now we're watching Ginger Snaps.

Great day all round if I do say so myself. Tomorrow I'm just going to church and then vegging all day.

Sympatico crapped out again, but it's up now and hopefully it'll stay up.

Had a nice walk around town with our friend Nancy and saw a couple blue herons fly around by the lake and buzz the flock (closer to an army) of Canada Geese in the lake. It was pretty neat.

Anyway, we just finished watching Gangs of New York and I'm tired. I think I'm going to go try to watch a movie and then go to bed. Tomorrow we go to Rockwood (or the Bruce Trail near Limehouse).

Woo!

While I loved Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (THE MOVIE), I have a pretty strong suspicion that I wouldn't be so enamoured with the game.

1.9/10. Worst movie license game EVER. And all for $60 or so? Where can I sign up?

I picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic yesterday. Traded in a bunch of games and since I'm an EB Games club member I got an extra 10% on every trade-in... nothing like getting a game and not having to pay any cash for it.

I tried it out for a bit last night and it is fantastic. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Star Wars or RPG's and I'm very impressed on how they were able to make it work for the Xbox. Bioware does some great RPG's, but the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights games never seemed like they'd be transferable to a console.

Now, KOTR is tweaked to use the gamepad interface and if you want the mouse/keyboard style, just wait for the PC version in the fall, but I have no quibbles at all with the Xbox version.

Except that I might finally end up getting Xbox Live to get all the free update goodies for it :P

And while I am happy that the postal strike has been postponed for at least today so that Julie could get her letter from the Chicken Farmers of Ontario (I am not making that up) I would REALLY like to know where the heck my package from Amazon is.

According to the website, it's sitting in Ottawa. Grr... I just wanted my Shanghai Knights DVD so I could watch it with my friends when they visit this weekend!

Sigh.

I made a new friend! I started chatting with my new neighbours yesterday and it turns out that the husband over there is almost a bigger geek than I am (at least when it comes to Star Trek and Babylon 5)... I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not... but I got to show off my game systems and my tiny movie collection and chat.

It's nice to finally have someone who I can geek out with who is not a 2 hour commute away :)

Sigh. Sympatico was down in my area from about 11pm last night till just a few minutes ago. At least it was on their end and not mine!

And for more H*R related goodies, check out the complete guide to all the secrets in the toons!

Ok. No more Homestar stuff today. I promise :)

Oh, and I just found the King of Town's website. Poor guy.

Oh, and I LOVE The Current. Of all of CBC's new shows this season, it's the best.

Sounds Like Canada has a catchy theme song, but having to listen to Bernard St-Laurent all year (sitting in for Shelagh Rogers, of course) is just painful. Some of their other guest hosts are ok though, but Bernie is there ALL THE TIME!

Shelagh better get back for the fall or I'll actually start to listen to commercial radio in the morning!

I was listening to The Current this morning on CBC Radio and heard a couple interviews about a place called Tranquility Bay and the organization WASPS.

It is pretty disturbing. Even after the guy from WASPS came on to rebut a bunch of the points made by the reporter who was exposing stuff that happened there, I still am NOT convinced that it's a good thing.

Granted, I don't have my psych or even a social worker degree, but if you're putting kids in solitary confinement and telling them they have a serious drug problem because they smoked a cigarette or a joint or because they started having sex... hmm... sounds a little more like parents copping out than anything to me.

Some kids do need the tough love approach, but the kids they were describing on the show were so small fry compared to a lot of the troubled youth out there who would actually benefit from this program.

Heck, they even said that a lot of the kids come from broken homes (divorce, fighting parents, etc.) who then start acting out. Sure, the easy thing is to send them off to a penal colony for a few years to sort them out...

Sigh.

This is what I get for working in a group home that actually cares about what the residents want to do and works around that rather than being an institution.

Damned compassion! :P

Ok. I have my comment thingy working now (thanks to Mr. Doug and his schilling of the Enetation Corporation).

Now you can have your say.

Comment on my atrocious grammar!

Laugh at my witty banter.

Cry when I ramble on and on and on about whatever game I'm playing today.

I did like the ease and simplicity enough to fork out the 10 pounds sterling the guy was asking for donations. I like one time costs like that.

Homestar Runner has the COOLEST STORE EVER!

At least since the revamp :)

I REALLY want those figurines. And the Crazy Go Nuts University shirt would rock too :)

Then everyone would be all up ons.

Comments? You want comments?!

Well, ok. I'll see what I can do.

Man, now I'm starting to seem more like a 'pro' blogger than the crotchety old web hound that I am in my core :(

Wow. Now, I'm not one to advocate taking away elderly driver's licenses, but things like the crash in California (if it was due to illness and not intentional) makes me think that sometimes it's not a bad idea.

Remember Amazon.ca? Remember the goofy shipments they've been doing to me?

Well, this takes the cake.

I had an anime DVD, Shanghai Knights DVD and a book being shipped to me this week.

When I left to go to work, I checked and my Shanghai Knights and the book were getting ready to ship but the anime had a 1-2 week waiting period on it, which was fine. I can wait.

I get home and check to see the confirmation and there's the confirmation for the book and Shanghai Knights.

Oh! And what's that? Is that the anime DVD being shipped IN A SEPARATE SHIPMENT?! TODAY? Sigh.

Sometimes I wonder about who runs that warehouse there... The nice thing is that I don't pay anything for the shipment so if they decide to split it up, fine by me... It's not costing me anything extra.

Now, I just hope they ship me KOTR before the mail strike happens (if it does, which I hope it doesn't).

I fired up the ol' Xbox today and decided to give Dead To Rights a whirl again. I got stuck on the second level, oh, 3-4 months ago and never really went back to it.

I'm now pretty far into it and loving it. It is HARD, but not frustratingly so. *cough* Splinter Cell *cough*

I guess the difference between the difficulty in DtR and the level I'm on in Splinter Cell is that in DtR you at least get the visceral thrill of gunning down tonnes of baddies when you get killed over and over again.

In Splinter Cell, I can't just blow off the frustration of getting spotted and killed YET AGAIN by gunning down the baddie that did it to me. I have to keep repeating the section over and over and over again... which normally isn't bad but this section I'm stuck at makes me retrace TOO much to get to the part where I inevitably die.

Oh well.

Now they've done it. They've destroyed the Yukon and P.E.I.!

I just wish I knew when Amazon was shipping my KOTR. I want to play it, but if I won't get it till next week or so I could just play something else in the meantime... like, oh, Final Fantasy Tactics...

Gamespot gave Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic a 9.1/10 today. Woo.

They said that it was the best thing to happen to Star Wars in recent years, including the last two movies. That is a pretty good endorsement of the game!

I have NO urge whatsoever to play SW: Galaxies though. Well, maybe an urge in that if I got the game for free and didn't have to pay anything, then I'd try it, but otherwise, no thanks. I had my fill of massively multiplayer online games during the two+ years I played Asheron's Call.

Give me a good singleplayer game and I'm happy :)

Oh, my friend Luke sent me this great list.

THE ANIME DATABASE!

It's a pretty handy little thing for keeping track of what series and OAV's you've watched. At least it is for me!

Nothing much happened today. I did get volume 3 of .Hack//Sign and watched the 4 episodes before work.

Yup. That's about the extent of the excitement that was today.

And I had some Puritan Meatballs for supper. I don't know if that was a good thing. Any canned meat that smells like dog food is just scary, but I was hungry.

Took the guys horseback riding tonight. It was good. Only one of them actually rode the horse, but one of the other guys did overcome his very visible fear and sat on the horse. I'm sure that if we try a few more times he'll be a cowboy in no time!

Though I think he was just trying to get as many pretty girls to come cheer him on as possible, the ol' sneak.

I'm definately going to have to take a crack at this new game. It got a 9.6 on Gamespot!

Heh :)

Environmental Group Fears Growing Problem of Digital Waste.

Long story short: Don't empty your recycle bin on your computer. Keep our digital landfills empty!

Hmm... Looks like July 18th is the deadline for the Canada Post strike.

Normally I wouldn't care except that a) Canada Post brings me Amazon packages and b) I just won a few Ebay bids (Trigun set for sure and maybe Cowboy Bebop... only $17 US each set!) so I would like to know that they'll arrive sometime in the next 3 months...

I beat a little adventure game called Road to India tonight. Talk about a short game. I'm glad I played it on Gamesmania. It was decent and my adventure game fix is somewhat sated, but still, I could have beaten it in about 2-3 hours straight. Yeesh.

Woo hoo!

Broken Saints has finally finished with chapter 24 going live this morning.

It's a very trippy flash-comic/graphic novel thingy, but it's very deep and interesting. I haven't watched it since about episode 13 or so but I have them all on my computer now so I'm just going to have to set aside a day to watch all of the episodes.

I am currently reading a great book called "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan.

It's great so far and I'm only about 70 pages in. I noticed that a lot of reviews were saying that it's ultra-violent. Well, it does start off with the main character/narrator getting killed, so I guess that does qualify as violent.

The scene in the hotel lobby with the 20-millimeter cannons could probably be deemed violent too.

Hmm... maybe they're onto something. I can't wait to see where the book goes from there!

The main concept behind it is that in order to facilitate rapid interstellar travel, you have your personality backed up on a computer and then downloaded into a new host body or 'sleeve' as they call it. This also allows you to effectively live forever so long as you either do remote backups of your personality or make sure that the little recording device implanted in you doesn't get destroyed.

It's a neat concept and it lets the author kill off characters left and right without any long term concequences. Heck, one guy is trying to convince the police that he was murdered and did not commit suicide.

So far it's like a futuristic detective novel with the aforementioned nifty violence. I highly recommend it!

And it has a really shiny cover too :)

Liquid Generation tends to fall a little TOO far on the juvenile side of the humour line for me to make it a regular stop on my travels around the web, but they had a funny bit in the Suck My News portion this week.

"The Canadian government began to sell medicinal marijuana to the sick. When asked what constitutes being sick, the government said, 'Anyone living in Canada.' "

If you have never had the chance to play the game, at least download the 13-part Anachronox: The Movie.

It basically tells the story of the game using the ingame cutscenes, but it's edited like a movie.

Anachronox is one of my favourite games and I just picked it up again for $10 yesterday since I was a dolt and traded in my original copy a year or so ago. If you like sci-fi with a hint of insane humour, check out the game or the movie!

Yay. Finally finished the last book in the War Of Souls Dragonlance trilogy. Now to read some good fiction instead of that D&D stuff!

Well, it wasn't a horrible series or anything. It's just that when you compare the Dragonlance books to, say, George R. R. Martin... well... there is no comparison.

I don't know what the weather has been like where you are, but here in Acton it's been rainy, windy and downright miserable all day.

I LOVE IT!

I wish the entire summer was like this with maybe 4 nice days parceled out to keep everyone else from going suicidal. But any time I'm shivering in my house in July as opposed to melting is a good time for me!

We got life insurance today. I don't know if we're being responsible or tempting fate :) It is a good thing to have though.

I beat .Hack//Mutation tonight (just about a half hour or so ago). Yay!

Now to finish reading this silly book before I fall asleep. Then all of my goals for the day will be achieved!

So there's a chance that Canada Post might go on strike (well, the mailmen at least). I'm not sure if I should be sad or not. If they go on strike, I won't get any Amazon.ca shipments (well, I'm sure Amazon will figure something out). However, if I don't get my Amazon stuff, I might actually save a bit of money... hmm...

Ever hear of Wikipedia? It's a free encylopedia online that can be updated by anyone!

They even have a blurb about Sarnia!

Oh, and speaking of morons, I saw on the news tonight that a lady in Madrid, Spain set her apartment on fire trying to make a potion like Harry Potter.

Her magical ingredients?

Rubbing alchohol and toothpaste.

*sigh*

This is a sad yet happy story. Oxymoronic enough for you? I need sleep.

And I want to watch Gangs of New York. I got the DVD on Friday last week and haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I have to admit that it is hard to allocate 3 hours of your day to just watch a movie.

Games are different... at least you're involved... Movies, no matter how good, tend to stretch the attention span when watched at home.

The fact that I've already seen the movie doesn't help since it's not like I am seeing anything new.

Sigh. It is a great movie though. Ah, maybe tomorrow we'll watch it.

I also need to try to finish the Dragonlance book I'm reading. I have no less than 5 new books (along with my crazy library o' fun) to work through once I'm done this one.

Hmm... I think I'm starting to repeat myself in these posts. I need to stop getting sidetracked by pesky things like work.

Now I'm off to try to beat .Hack/Mutation. I THINK I'm almost done it. Granted, unlike the first game which just tossed me into a battle with the end boss with no warning whatsoever, Mutation has taunted me with at least two major boss battles so far.

At this rate I'll just have a conversation with someone and the game will be over. *shrug*

Lots of neat plot twists so far and I can't wait for the 3rd installment so I can see where some of these hints they're tossing will go.

Tomorrow being today, what with it actually being Friday now.

One of those days at work. Wasn't a terribly 'hard' shift, but it was one of those shifts where you're on the phone from the moment you walk in till the moment you leave.

I had to really push my HR powers to their limit. Thankfully I've been storing them up in a battery I keep in my wallet, so I had lots to spare.

Did I mention that I have tomorrow off? Phew!

I don't understand the Amazon.ca shipping protocol.

I had 4 books on order for the last couple weeks. They couldn't ship them all right away because a couple of them were taking longer than just 24 hours to ship. No problem.

So on Tuesday I got 3 of the 4 books. Ok. The last one will ship sometime in a couple weeks. No biggie.

They shipped the next one and I got it on Wednesday.

WHY!?!

Oh well. At least I have them all and didn't pay any shipping on any of the packages.

I made a really yummy Pad Thai stirfry tonight with shrimp and this "ASIAN CUISINE IN A BOX" stuff. It was actually quite yummy once I put the crushed peanuts in. Julie thinks it smells like a dump though, but I like it :)

This is surreal.

"Who is the super evil badass?"

I'm not sure if that's the actual russian title, but this is just wonky. STALIN vs. HITLER in a comic book battle to the death.

Well, Niagara Falls was nice. Very wet. I had to keep one of the guys from climbing up on the barrier overlooking the falls and he actually got mad at me for, oh, saving his life!

Go figure.

But otherwise everyone had a great time. I just wish my digital camera wasn't all buggered up (the battery case is busted so the batteries keep falling out).

Looks like I have to go to Niagara Falls today with the guys from work. Oh well. Not that it's a bad thing, I just didn't want to have to get up this early :(

Well, I'm off to try to beat .Hack/Mutation. I THINK I'm almost done it, but concidering I thought I've fought the end boss at least twice so far, who knows!

The neat thing was meeting up with characters from the .hack//sign anime while playing today. That was kind of cool.

I saw a story on my friends blog about Eminem reworking old songs like Moon River and Puff The Magic Dragon in his own style. I had a few ideas about how the new versions would be.

"Yo yo. Moon River. It's a hell of a place.
It's wider than the sky and all up in your face!"

Or

"Puff Puff, the magic dragon is a nasty mofo.
He killed little Johnny Paper and he's coming for you!
He lives in a trailer way down by the sea
In a freaky little land that they call the Honnalee."

My friend in the states was telling me that on top of the several crazy murder sprees going on today down there, today was also the day where Bush has come out saying that, well, maybe he lied a bit about the reasons they needed to go to war so badly in Iraq.

Gasp. That's a shocker. *Spig goes off on an anti-Bush rant, then explodes*

Waking Life is amazing. It's one hell of a headtrip but it one visually arresting movie. Lots of philosophical ramblings, but very interesting.

I gave blood today. Donation #9. I wonder if I get an extra cookie if I donate 10 times...

Upside is that I got to go home early from work since I was all loopy all day :)

The worship leader at my church lent me Halo today. I can finally see what the fuss is all about.

I have to agree that as far as FPS's on a console go, it's probably, if not THE, best as far as control goes. I'm only a little ways into it, so I'm sure I'll be wowed even more the further I progress, but it is pretty fun lobbing a grenade into the midst of a group of aliens who then try to run away before getting blown to bits...

I still say that FPS's are made to be played on a PC though. Nothing beats the Mouse/Keyboard tag-team o' doom.

Pretty graphics in Halo though. Esp. given that they're running at 800 x 600 (I think).

We had a great time out in Orangeville visiting my buddy Greg who is in the area for a week before he and his wife have to go back to BC.

Of course, leave it to me to turn a 45 minute drive into an hour and a half (or more) excursion into the deepest, darkest parts of Orangeville and surrounding environs.

I really need to write directions down better.

Don't copy that floppy...

Oh man... This would definately drive me to pirate more software than it would make me stop. Yeesh!

Actually, a cool thing about that video is seeing one of the programmers of the original Neverwinter Nights.

Hee hee... Silence! The Musical.

The scary thing is that they actually made MP3's for all the songs.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the Post Office shows up.

This is kind of neat actually. It's the world's first and only underwater post office. You can even send a postcard from there ($10 US though).

I think I'll move to Vanatu. They seem like they're a pretty progressive nation. Why hasn't Canada got an underwater post office?!

Well, there we go. Got Angel finished now until September when Season 2 comes out.

I guess I'll just have to keep reading Harry Potter for my day off tomorrow rather than sit in front of the TV. Woe is me.

Happy early 4th of July for my American buds.

Well, I'm only a few episodes away from finishing Angel: Season 1. Then I can get back to what I do best. Wasting time playing games and watching movies rather than TV shows :)

I went and saw Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle today. It was crazy fun. It's like someone tried to make a movie that was all bullet-time.

Lots of very cool fights and stunts and just insanely surreal camera work.

But I enjoyed it a lot. You have to go in there with a heightened sense of campiness though. I also loved the first one for just the sheer campiness of it and Full Throttle is a national park in terms of campiness compared to the first one :)

Go see it in the theatre though. I am sure it'll be fine on DVD, but the stunts and fights need to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated.

Hee hee... Just replace Fry's with Future Shop and it's pretty much par for the course up here.

Ok. Here's the skinny on why I yelled at Bell today.

We signed a contract with them a while ago for a reduced rate on Sympatico. Then some guy called up and signed us up for High Speed Ultra. I was told we'd still be able to go back to the contract afterwards. Then we call them to find out why we're being charged so much and it turns out that signing up for High Speed Ultra breaks your contract.

Would have been nice if the guy who signed me up had been clear about that little detail.

It is annoying because I can't even really threaten to go anywhere else. I like their service, I just hate their customer service/billing stuff. The people are nice, but the ones they have signing you up for new contracts leave out crucial little contract-breaking details. Sigh.

The nice thing is that they're getting rid of their bandwidth cap so I can download as much as I want :) Take that, oh keeper of the DSL!

Well, time for bed. I need to be well rested before I spend the morning yelling at the Sympatico people.

I'll post after I've chewed their ear off as to the results and the reasons for the yelling.

Ah, it's been a while since any really good political satire got stuck on here. I found this in the BBSpot Mailbag. Thought I'd pass it along :)

---

China Cites Bush Doctrine in Surprise Attack on US
by Not Listed

Chinese President Hu Jintao gave a press conference today, hours after the surprise attack on several major US cities.

�For nearly a century, we have been doing two things: building our armies, and looking for an excuse to destroy America. With his Gulf War Sequel, President Bush has given us the political justification for this.�

According to Jintao, his attack had to meet five criteria to qualify for consideration under the Bush Doctrine.

1. The country must be proportionally smaller than yours, and located on the other side of the world.

2 .They have to have a system of government you have trained your citizens to loathe.

3. They must be suspected of, but not necessarily proven to have, weapons of mass destruction.

4. Their citizens must speak a different language than your citizens.

5. Their nation must possess resources or trinkets of value, which can be divided amongst your allies once the conflict is over.

�We had been planning to take some kind of military action for months,� stated Military Leader Jiang Zemin, �but when they prevented our weapons inspectors from searching their country for nuclear weapons, that was when we knew we had to take action.�

President Bush responded quickly to the threat by ordering planes to drop food and pamphlets on Chinese soil in retaliation for the shower of missiles and bombs that decimated much of the west coast.
He was quoted as saying, "My advisers and I believe this situation can still be resolved diplomatically [sic], without the use of military force."

France and Germany applauded the initiative of the Chinese Government in a joint press release shortly after the attacks, while beatniks across the United States protested American involvement in the war.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer gave a statement today condemning the attacks and demanding that General Tso�s Chicken be renamed General
Lee�s Chicken.

Chinese President Hu concluded his comments by saying, �plus, with the United States out of the way, we can finally get back at Japan for that
little stunt where they tried to invade our country during World War II. Honestly, what were they thinking?�

I spent a chunk of the afternoon playing a delightful little game called "Neighbours From Hell". It's sort of like a little claymation gameshow where you have to perform a variety of tricks on your grumpy neighbour and gain audience approval.

It was a really fun and funny game. The only downside is that it was so short... 2-3 hours of play tops. But very fun.

Very cool fireworks tonight here in Acton.

I think half of the local insect population also had a feast while we waited... Deep Woods Off my butt...

Oh man! This is both too cool and also evidence of someone with WAY too much time on their hands.

Matrix: The Ascii version. Just wait a few seconds for it to load up.

I mean, I know I spend a lot of time doing pointless activities, but this takes the cake :)

We went for a great hike on the Bruce Trail near Limehouse today. We saw a bunch of neat old stoneworks and the old kilns and arches over the little creeks. It was a load of fun.

I'm hoping to go back there in a couple weeks and this time armed with a map of all the ruins in the area. There used to be a bustling lime quarry and kilning industry there back at the end of the 1800's and there are still a lot of old buildings around.

I'll post some pictures we took later tonight or tomorrow.

Only a few hours till fireworks!

Heh... We watched The Others tonight and Julie went upstairs to bed saying that she wasn't scared.

About 1:30 or so she came downstairs grumbling how it was all my fault that she couldn't sleep :)

Heh heh... Gotta love creepy movies after 11pm :)

I got my GB Player just in time for Canada Day!

Woo!

Happy 136th Birthday Canada.

Oh, and the GB Player is amazing.

Want to try out what Warioware has to offer? Check out their site and get a sample.