Nerd Alert!

Well, it's too late to do any good (like winning the lottery posthumously) but Serenity won a Hugo for best long-form presentation... ie. Best Sci-Fi movie of last year.

Joss had a funny acceptance speech :)

Oh, to celebrate, go out and build your own Serenity out of Lego.

Colbert & Jon

I missed the Emmys (Emmies? Emmy's?) last night, but I don't think I missed much.

Except this. Awesome!

Just Typing This Tires Me Out

Garrett & I had an action packed day today.

There's a new park across town that was supposed to be pretty decent. Having grown VERY sick of the park around the corner from us, I suggested to Garrett that we should go to the new park.

So around 8am we were heading out the door. I was planning on driving over there, as it is literally on the other side of town. Garrett would have none of this and insisted we walk. Who am I to argue with a 2 year old?

Off we went. We got about halfway to the park when I realized that he'd pooped. I had just changed his diaper before we left and didn't bother to bring along the diaper bag.

So we turned around and headed back home. After the deed was done, we came to the consensus that the car would be the preferred mode of transportation.

Off we went again. The park was quite spiffy, as parks go. Garrett has really mastered climbing of late. We played for a while and then kids started to show up. Garrett and his new buddy ran around for a while and then we went and kicked a soccer ball with another kid. Well, I kicked it. Garrett got fed up with the kicking and decided that throwing was the way to go.

After I was finally able to bribe Garrett away from the park with a promise of a Tim Bit, we went home and Garrett had an early nap. We were out for a good 3+ hours, so we were both kind of wiped.

Garrett was up by 1pm and raring to go. We went down to the Walmart and wandered about for a while. Garrett got himself a new "This Is Daniel Cook" DVD and I hit EB for a little bit and paid a few preorders for this fall. Then we made the fateful trip to the pet store.

There's a Super Pet a few doors down from EB and we usually go in to kill time and look at the fish. Today was 'Clean The Tank' day at Super Pet so Garrett and another little girl provided a rapt audience for the staff as they scraped algae off the glass.

Anyway, the crux of the trip is that I decided that it was time for Garrett to get a pet. We have a few aquariums (aquaria?) in the basement that have been gathering dust for ages. When we got home, Garrett helped me check the 5 gallon tank for leaks (none!) and we set the tank up on the little table in Garrett's room. He's very excited for the big trip to the store tomorrow to get some critters to populate the tank.

I'm just impressed that the tank doesn't leak, the pump works and the lights haven't shot out sparks. Not bad for a pile of aquarium gear that I picked up at a garage sale for $5 a few years ago. I also miss having fish, so this is kind of for me too :)

Julie's just rolling her eyes.

The Mainframe: It's Like A Barn

I didn't want to lose this so here ya go.

IBM did a series of faux training videos shot in the same style as The Office. There are three of them and they're all pretty funny. The whole farmer/factory metaphor (or is it a simile?) is great.

"You have to get the farmers into the factory."

This One's For The Losties

Here's a compilation of all the Hanso videos from the Lost ARG this summer.

Enjoy!

Meat Cake

Everyone remembers the meat-based wedding cake at Dave & Kate's wedding, right?

Well, feast your eyes upon MeatCake 2.0.

Mmm...

Why Stephen Colbert Fights the Rancor

I'm just putting this here because Garrett likes to watch it. He must have had me rewind the tape about 8 times this morning before I couldn't handle it anymore.



Speaking of good things on TV, did anyone else catch the documentary on CBC last night called "Why We Fight"? It is fantastic. I'd almost rented it a few times but I got to watch it for free instead. Hooray!

It's a very balanced (though disturbing) look at the build-up of the American military-industrial complex from the 60's to today. The scary thing is that almost everything that Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address seems to have come to pass.

It was kind of cool to have my birthday mentioned several times during the course of the documentary though. Of course, my birthday was also the day the opening salvo of the Iraq War was started, so I'm not sure if it's such an honour...

Rube Goldberg, Eat Your Heart Out

This is a pretty sweet chain reaction video. It's not as cool as the one with the car parts that was circulating last year, but it's still pretty neat.

Or you can just watch a cat flush a toilet.

Trip to the Fire Hall (aka Return of the Zombie Dog)

Garrett went to the fire hall yesterday for his annual trip.

Here are some pics of that GLORIOUS day!


Here's Garrett and Sparky the Fire Safety Dog. If you ever want to see a room full of kids explode into screams of terror and tears of fright, just invite Sparky to your next birthday party. That thing looks like someone buried it 2-3 days ago and reanimated the carcass for the express purpose of striking terror into the hearts of children.

It took about 20 minutes of encouragement to get Garrett to sit that close to Sparky.


Here our intrepid firefighter is getting ready to head out to a blaze. Protective clothing is no match for his tank top! He will fight the flames with his sheer awesomeness.



You may recall that last year, the safe zone around Garrett was set at 150 metres. We're proud to report that his threat level has been downgraded and now you can get within 50 metres of him.

Old Man Bites Tenderly

I've posted some funny and wierd links to videos on the site before, but this is probably both the wierdest and the funniest one so far.

It's a clip from a show called Silent Library where contestants have to endure some pretty wierd 'torture' while not making a sound. I feel kind of bad for a couple of the guys because they keep turning over the torture card.

You really have to wonder what is in the water over in Japan. I do know that I'd watch a version of the show over here in a heartbeat :)

Don't Download This Song

New Wierd Al song! Woo!

Stinks on a Foot

*WARNING! GROSS CONTENT! AVERT YOUR EYES!*

Ok, don't say I didn't warn you.

Today I had one of those classic parenting moments.

We've been trying to potty train Garrett lately and our latest strategy is to give him a sticker whenever he sits on the toilet and does his business. This afternoon, shortly after waking up from his nap, Garrett staggered into the hallway and headed towards the washroom.

I asked him if he wanted to sit on the toilet and go to the bathroom and he nodded his head. I got everything set up and was taking off his diaper (which was very wet) when I noticed some poo on the diaper. So the following conversation ensued.

"Hmm. Looks like you had a bit of a poop in your diaper, eh Garrett?"

"Poop."

"Doesn't look like you have much on your bum. Ok. Onto the potty you go."

"Poop."

I had his shorts and diaper off and was lifting him onto the toilet. I took a step forward and that was when I felt my foot sink into something squishy that hadn't been on the floor a few seconds ago.

"EW!"

"EW! Ha ha ha ha. Daddy. EW!"

Yup. Garrett had, indeed, pooped in his diaper and I had somehow not noticed it fall out of the diaper and land on the bathmat when I took his shorts off. Suffice it to say, I spent the next 10 minutes or so scrubbing off my foot while Garrett chortled on the potty seat while saying, "EW! FOOT! DADDY! POOP!"

Sigh. At least I was able to say that I was so traumatized by the experience that I couldn't cook supper and we had some hot wings down at Kelsey's. Well, I had hot wings. Garrett had some noodles and Julie had fish & chips. Garrett also kept trying to steal my suicide wings so I dabbed a bit of the hot sauce on his tongue and he didn't really seem keen on trying Daddy's wings anymore.

Welcome to Hell, I mean, Brantford

I love having a store in town that breaks street dates on DVDs. I picked up the Silent Hill DVD yesterday and it was the real deal, not the Spadina Special that my friends picked up a little while ago. Sadly, it was cheaper to get it before it was supposed to be available than it would have been even through Amazon.

We watched Silent Hill and Dog Soldiers last night, thereby scaring Julie away for most of the evening. The extras on Silent Hill were pretty nifty, especially the parts where they show how they transformed downtown Brantford into spooky Silent Hill. Of course, that lead to a discussion today with James about which town we'd rather live in: Brampton, Brantford or Silent Hill. I think Silent Hill won by a landslide.
---
What I'm Reading: A bunch of comics, The Rising
What I'm Playing: Dungeon Siege 2
What I'm Watching: Silent Hill, Dog Soldiers, This Is Daniel Cook

Snakes On A Phone

Oh, I am having way too much fun with this site.

I want to see this movie just because of the hype and the fact that it looks like a really cheesy movie. We need more movies that revel in their campiness like this one does.

LEGO + Thief FTW!

I wonder what the name of this particular thief is... :)
---
What I'm Reading: The Rising and Cable & Deadpool Vol. 5
What I'm Playing: Dungeon Siege 2, Ape Escape 3
What I'm Watching: Daily Show & Colbert, The Descent

Numa Numa YAY

No More Coffee After 6pm For Me!

Yeah, it's that time again. I am wide awake. Not awake enough to have spent the last hour or so reading or playing a game, but awake enough to watch about, oh, 12 different versions of the Numa Numa song.

What's the Numa Numa song? Well, it's what would happen if I had a webcam and turned it on.



I personally like this one more, but the first one is funnier.

It could be worse. I'm not sure how, but it could be.

Well, time to wander across the hall and see if a nice zombie novel will lull me to sleep. I need to take a break from Ilium as it's awesome, but much too meaty for me to digest on a nice summer day.

Speaking of Schadenfreude...

I tell you, the Japanese are insane. What makes it even more insane is the fact that the 4 guys further down the line didn't gang up, beat up the host and run out of the building after the 2nd guy screwed up the tongue-twister.

Speaking of insane, Julie keeps waking up and wandering into the office claiming that something is in our bedroom. She's done this about 4 times tonight. Maybe she needs to go crawl into bed with Garrett.

It's not like there's anything more dangerous than the zombie under the bed... And the snakes in the mattress... And the ghost in the ceiling fan...

Grand Theft Coko

Best Coke ad, nay, BEST AD, ever. I'm embedding it because it just rocks my socks that much.



I hope everyone caught the guy from The Sims after the 'robbery'.

Oh, you can d/l a Quicktime version of the video here.

Which Side Are You On?

Woohoo!

Think I'm geeky? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Come, gather round my podlings and listen to me and a few of my Evil Avatar compatriots yap about the current Marvel Comics Civil War big event.


powered by ODEO

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I Tot I Taw A Persied!

Woo! I didn't miss the Persieds this year.

I was leaving work tonight around 10pm and as I was walking up to my car, a meteor blazed through the sky straight over my car. It looked as if it would hit my car, had my car been huge and on the horizon.

It was probably one of the biggest metors I've seen. The tail was long enough that I had to really crane my head back to see the whole length of it... for the couple of seconds that it was visible.

Perfect night for it. There was no moon and the sky was crisp and clear. We should have gone camping this weekend and we could have seen it in all its glory. Ah well.

Do The Chocobo!

I'm not usually one to be excited about 3D remakes of classic 2D games, but one has only to gaze upon these gameplay videos from the FFIII remake for the DS to be impressed.

This is probably the one DS game I'm really looking forward to this Fall/Winter. It's the only Final Fantasy game that I've never played, not even on an emulator. Plus it just looks and sounds so snazzy.

Add in the fact that it has the Job System, one of my favourite RPG character systems of all time, and I'm sold.

Dance, Monkey, Dance!

Out of concideration for my feeble brother's internet connection, I won't directly link to this video.

HOWEVER, you must all go watch it and then dance around the room like the guy in the store did. Even if he didn't know he was being taped, you have to respect his confidence in just getting down and boogieing (boogying? *shrug*) in the middle of a Best Buy.

My favourite part is when he does the air bass solo. Fantastic.

As for work last night, I made it through ok. Watched a few movies and caught up on all the craziness that transpired in my absence. Talk about a great couple of weeks to take a vacation!

And to make sure that I hit every possible topic in this post, I finished my second game of the week today. I polished off Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. Fantastic RTS. Now I can move onto the expansion pack (or maybe Oblivion or Uplink for a change of pace).

Woo.

Oh, check out these nuclear blast videos. The Baker one is classic and the underground nuke test is pretty nifty.

Just remember to Duck & Cover!

The HORROR!

Well, I've gotta head off to work soon. I haven't quite reconciled myself to the fact that my vacation is over in just over an hour. Ah well. At least the overnight shift is nice and quiet... usually.

Of course, given the fact that I have to stay up all night tonight, it figures that I had a rousing bout of insomnia last night. I just couldn't sleep at all last night and Garrett decided to wake up extra early too. Sigh.

At least I had a nice nap this afternoon and while I couldn't get to sleep tonight, I think I'll make it through till 7am. Heck, it might take me all night just to read all the notes from the last two weeks!

Zzz...

Nothing To F.E.A.R. But...

Well, I've officially completed the vacation requirements as set out by the Staycation Advisory Board.

1)Read a book (check!)
2)Go camping (check!)
3)Visit with family (check!)
4)Clean basement (check!)
5)Ride your bike (check!)

and tonight I completed the final requirement of my Staycation.

6)Beat a videogame (check!)

Now I can wander around Acton with Garrett for the next few days before I have to go to work on Thursday night. All hail the extra long vacation!

As for the game, I picked up F.E.A.R. last fall (in the special Director's Cut DVD edition, no less) and hoped against hope that my aging computer would run it.

Suffice it to say, it didn't. F.E.A.R. was one of the games I had in my collection that I had really wanted to play when I upgraded yet after my upgrade it got lost in the shuffle for a while. I dug it back out last week and spent most of my free gaming time making my way through it.

It's a pretty cool First Person Shooter (or FPS, as we l33t d00ds refer to it). It was billed as a cross between the visceral firefights of Half-Life and the creepy Japanese horror stylings of movies like Ringu or Dark Water. On the firefight side of things, F.E.A.R. didn't fail to amaze. The enemies were pretty intelligent and you never really felt like you were a walking tank, unlike a lot of other FPS's. You had to really react fast and think about the environment to find cover and avoid getting chewed to pieces. The addition of a slo-mo function (or reflexes, as the game refers to them) helped to level the playing field between your lone commando raid and the army of clone soldiers you mowed down as you made your way through the various levels.

So the gunplay element was top notch. How about the horror, you ask?

Well, it wasn't nearly as scary as it could have been. There were definately a lot of very creepy elements and even some of the soldiers were somewhat sinister, especially the invisible ninja robot soldiers. The scripted sequences definately helped set up some of the tension but unfortunately there just weren't enough of these horror elements to really build an atmosphere of terror.

The game also suffered from having an exceedingly long section in the middle where you fought through an office tower. While this is somewhat cool in theory, after the 3rd or 4th hour of slogging through essentially identical cubical farms and corner offices, you wanted to jump out one of the virtual windows and fall to your death in slow motion. Again, the firefights were a lot of fun in these sections but it just seemed to go on forever. And while the game really pulls out all the stops in the final act and starts to live up to the promise of its horror roots, it ends all too abruptly, although I have to say that the final scene will probably stick with me for a while.

So, am I happy that I finally finished off F.E.A.R.? Yes. I probably would have waited for a used copy had I known how repetitive it got in the middle section though.

Oh, and while I love having the entire game on one DVD, I wish I hadn't had to pay the premium price for it last fall. The extras are kind of neat, but like most collector's editions, it doesn't really add much for the difference in cost.

---
What I'm Reading: Ilium
What I'm Playing: Trapt, Final Fantasy IV Advance
What I'm Watching: What It's Like To Be Alone, Daily Show & Colbert

Mahna Mahna *doo doo de doo doo*

Dogbert Throws My Kind of Party

The best thing about this is that I'm no longer the only person who knows the meaning of Schadenfreude. It was one of our Balderdash words a few weeks ago and since then it has been popping up everywhere.

I'd totally throw a schadenfreude party though. Mwahaha! (hey, haven't seen the Mwahaha's around lately. I must be feeling particularly EEEEVIL!)

This one is for Anne

Breast isn't best, according to a bunch of puritanical American women. I heard about this last week and it was stupid then. Just read the news story about it today and it's STILL stupid.

Take a look at the picture and then read some of these comments.

"I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one woman from Kansas wrote in reaction to the picture in Babytalk, a free magazine that caters to young mothers. "I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table."

So, if it's so offensive, just turn it over, rip the cover off or throw it out. I could understand feeling uncomfortable if the magazine actually sent over a nursing mother and you just couldn't handle the sight of the exposed breast, but yeesh.

Oh, and there's this gem.

"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," the mother of a four-month-old said.

There is so much wrong with that statement.

I'm not the crazy La Leche League proponent of breastfeeding like SOME people I know, but even I think this is a stupid complaint to have. If the picture had been on the cover of Pokemon Trading Card Weekly, sure, but it's completely in context for the magazine it was published on and given the amount of boob shown on TV, in the movies and just about everywhere else, this picture is rather tame. Heck, the baby could just be taking a big bite out of someone's butt for all that you can see of the offending organ.

Silly, silly, puritanical Americans...

Water Chickens

We had a pretty good time camping, all things concidered.

Dave, Kate, Connor, Garrett, Julie and I went to the Rockwood Conservation Area which is about 10 minutes away from Acton. Since this was Garrett's first time camping, we decided to try it out somewhere relatively close to home so that if it went catastrophically bad, we wouldn't be faced with a 5 hour car ride home.

So we arrived at the campsite on Tuesday, which, if I remember correctly, was the day that the temperature in Southwestern Ontario reached something approximating the average surface temperature of THE SUN!

We got the tents set up and proceeded down to the lake for a dip in the water. The cool, cool, refreshing, goose crap filled water. It's actually a very nice little beach and the water was heavenly after basking in the hellish heat. I was very afraid to open my eyes underwater as the water had the colour of steeped tea without the hit of delectable cream.

Dave & I swam around for a while and played with Garrett & Connor for a bit but they wanted to hang out on the beach with their mommies and smash the neighbouring kids' sand castles. On the second day of our trip, Dave & I swam out to this little island in the middle of the lake and also paddled over to a giant cliff that overlooked the opposite shore of the lake. Thankfully it didn't crumble to dust around us when we tapped it.

Garrett added a new word to his ever expanding lexicon: Water Chicken. For some reason he insists on calling either the seagulls or the Canada Geese by this name. I'm pretty sure it's the seagulls as he tends to call Canada Geese ducks.

Late on Tuesday night, after everyone had gone to bed, Dave & I sat around the campfire yammering about whatever it is that brothers yammer about while sitting around a campfire on the hottest day of the year.

At 11pm, these guys show up at the site next to our's in their less than spectacular Ghettomobile. No word of a lie, these idiots talked like they had either grown up in Harlem or had spent the last week memorizing Ebonics for Dummies. To top it off, they insisted on hooting and hollering at the top of their lungs. Just to taunt us, they wandered away, leaving us to think that it would be nice and quiet. Then they came back. Then they drove away. THEN THEY DROVE BACK. At this point I'd reached my breaking point and told them to shut up. It came out kind of funny, sort of a "Shut........ UP!" Dave told me that he could tell I was restraining myself from adding a few other choice words into the mix, which was the truth in this case. All I demand from my fellow campers is some common decency and that the volume is turned down after 11pm, especially when there is a campsite with kids next to your own.

The yahoos finally drove away around midnight and never came back. I talked with the group camping in the site next to our's the next day and he apologized for the racket and we were cool after that.

Wednesday was much cooler than the previous day and Garrett & I went for an impromptu hike first thing in the morning. What was going to be just a quick trip down to look at the lake and the little dam while Julie used the washroom turned into a walk that took me almost all the way around the park. Garrett was convinced that Julie was not back at the camp, but was down this dark and forbidding trail that led off into the woods. Being the responsible adult that I am, I decided to follow the directions of a two-year old and off we went. Of course, 10 feet down the trail he insisted that I carry him so I did. I think I'm definately getting in shape... Lugging a 30 pound kid around must have some kind of aerobic benefit!

We finally got to a little lookout point and looked around for mommy, couldn't find her and we went back. At the bottom of the trail I looked at the map and realized that instead of walking about 1/3 of the way down the path, I'd actually walked 3/4's of the way around the park and only had a little way to go before I would have ended up back in the open area on the other side of the conservation area. Sigh.

Wednesday also brought with it several thunderstorms throughout the day. Thankfully it cleared up for most of the afternoon and evening and didn't bother to really rain again until the boys were in bed and we'd just gotten our campfire burning. Dave & I were able to get some fishing in during the evening. The boys went exploring in the caves and tried to find a bear with Julie & Kate. Dave & I both caught some fish, which made our newly renewed fishing licenses worthwhile. I think I caught 3 rock bass and a crayfish (a feat I've never done before and will never likely repeat) and Dave caught two rock bass, one of which was unlucky enough to get hooked in the side of the head. Dave kissed the fish's boo-boo better and they parted on excellent terms.

Thursday was the day we packed up our soggy tents, put away the amazing deflating air mattress (grr) and went to see some Creepy Critters at the nature pavilion on site. It was pretty cool. Garrett & Connor got to hold a ball python, a boa constrictor, a hissing cockroach, a tree frog and a Norwegian Rat. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring our camera along for the whole trip but Dave & Kate got some good shots... as long as Dave's computer didn't eat them when it died today.

All in all, it was a good trip. I miss camping and will have to do it more often. Garrett really seemed to like the whole experience and it was nice to have Dave, Kate & Connor along as the boys were able to keep each other company (when they weren't beating each other up).

Tomorrow brings us all together again for our next adventure... An African Lion Safari! Woooooo!

No Gameboy And No DS Make Brock Something Something

Well, we're heading out into the lovely sub-tropical heat today for a few days of camping.

And yes, you read that right. I'm not taking any games with me. AAAH! At least, no electronic games will be accompanying us, though I'm taking my MP3 player so I can listen to some tunes whilst lollygagging about and fishing.

In the meantime, I bequeath to all of you my legacy, this delightful training video for the GameCrazy stores in the states.

I dare you to watch the whole thing. Supposedly nobody has been able to make it past the 3:18 mark without going mad.

See you in a couple days!