Category: Media

Too Long; Didn’t Read

One of the many useful internet acronyms is TL;DR.  That’s when your truncated attention span decides to step out for a soda.

Continue reading Too Long; Didn’t Read

Robof9 sends me a virtual octopus chandelier

Isn’t it sweet? Don’t quite like the colours but I’m all over the design.

Mike, Jeff and I hung out for a bit last night and we saw a Robot Chicken I had never seen before.  There’s this one blackout of Chewbacca imitating the Fonz which was cherce.  Then some more Futurama (the alternate universe one) so FOR ONCE we didn’t watch any NCIS, which I realized has dominated my television viewing for the last while.  But it’s so good!  The plots bump up against, and frankly sometimes stampede over, both plausibility and the likely continued employment of the principals, but the editing and dialogue and sheer charm of the show – when people aren’t being gruesomely murdered or turned into propane powered chunks by law enforcement – continue to dazzle.

It was great to see Mike.  He had to skate off as he had a date with Heather, but it was worth it just to see his new hairstyle.  Oh… it’s still long.  It was inflated to about 15 PSI though.  I’ll leave those of you who know him to picture that.

Victoria

Jeff come and collected me and then kidnapped me for an ninety minutes’ worth of Robot Chicken.  Scarlett Johannson as a crazy girlfriend style GPS?  Yowza.

My mom cooked us dinner.  It was tasty and nourishing too. 

 

This morning I found out about the existence of bacon brittle.

 

I’ve been told that this should be served as a side for  the next Mars Bar Cthtulhuthon… Mmmm bacon brittle.  (added later, per Kopper’s warning do not use this recipe) 

What next, haggis?  Let us preserve decorum.  Mind you I was actually thinking of renting a bagpiper for the last time, but I thought that was over the top even for me.   

Enough of that!  The meal was turkey breast and home made stuffing and yams and salad and bread and cranberry dressing and a cauliflower cheese.  AND pie.  And ice cream.  So I have to say I am very impressed with just how much slaving over a hot stove my ma did for me today, and that maybe next Christmas I should think about getting here earlier and cooking more….

I got Hep A and Hep B shots this morning and I feel weird – oh shut up, weirder than normal.  Mind you my consciousness has been a variable and vinegary brew this past few weeks, with a couple of very nice breaks….  Pause to smile and look off into the middle distance with my head tilted to one side. I did manage to make some very nice memories in the last week.

Keith is still here.  It is so good to see him.

Golden Compass

Man, I wish I’d taken Patricia’s advice.  They got precisely two things right; the girl who plays Lyra, who is perfectly cast, and the fight scene between the two armoured bears.  Everything else sucked the business end of a Greyhound bus station men’s restroom mop.  Fifteen minutes into the movie I was ready to challenge to mortal combat the (screamingly politically incorrect adjective herewith deleted) music department. I went to IMDB so I could abuse who wrote the soundtrack but it was written by a committee as best I can tell and all there is a ‘music coordinator’.  The music was so badly timed to the action it’s like, “We’re going to put all the money on the screen and if the music is cheesier than a grindhouse porn soundtrack… nobody will notice.” Well I f*****g well did you morons, and if this movie cost 160 million to make and I have to watch it with the sound off because (while visually good) the script and soundtrack have me clapping my hands over my ears in horrified disbelief, you’ve not exactly got your money’s worth now have you.  I turned to Keith as the credits rolled and said, “I am so happy I didn’t pay for that.”  To which his response was a simple, “Ditto,” which concluded our discussion of the film.
In other news, I am corresponding with somebody from teh Craigslists whose pithy and entertaining posts are enlivening my life greatly.  Usually I send a pic – or forward my blog link – and the guy changes his email address and leaves town.  I can live in hope; this one hasn’t.

Vera Johnson and Philip Pullman and coworkers….

I had never heard of Vera Johnson before, but I’m currently listening to her thanks to the magic of the Internet and the CBC and the tipoff of a gent whose non-ad I responded to on craigslist. I think if I ever get fired…. I wanna run away and turn into Vera Johnson. Dr. Filk, in particular, I refer you to this link.

Listen to the end… there’s a Unitarian hymn….

Especially listen to the first bit if you want to hear the Minx from Pinsk. And a lovely song about censorship. And a funny song about the 1968 vagrancy laws in Vancouver.

Patricia, whose new hairstyle rises above, in all beautiful ways, the norms of sophistication of a company where the dress code regulations include the words, “Clothes…. please!” has announced that she will never deign to view the Golden Compass (which I intend to view with my son this evening at Metrotown). I would caution her that books and movies are actually two separate disciplines. Yes, the Pullman novels are masterpieces which will stand for the ages. Yes, it’s impossible to jam the sophistication and beautiful language into a two hour movie. Yes, they’ve drained the movie of any nasty references to the horrors of religion. But any fricking movie that has armoured bears in it I have to see!

Speaking of the dress code at the company which may not be named, it is entertaining in the extreme to think that it took six months for us to get Scary Clown to quit wearing tshirts with holes in them. I think my habit of sneaking up on him preparatory to giving him a neck rub and poking one of my fingers through the hole might have assisted in this regard.

I am very happy to report that I dined with Daughter Katie last night, who showed up with a pineapple in tow. The symbol of hospitality…

DRM letter to Mr. Prentice

Dear Sir:

I am not in favour of the Canadian government legislating what it cannot adequately and clearly explain, in the light of the powerful interests pushing for the DRM legislation.  I am not in favour of how fast, given the other important matters facing Canadian legislators, the bill is going through.

I am a content producer.  I hope to some day make my living using the internet as a songwriter and op-ed writer. I have a burning interest in copyright law and I’d be leery of supporting the incoming legislation without more explanation.

I have uploaded a song, currently on Youtube, which is protected under a creative commons licence.  BUT what will happen under this new law if I make a video and this video is uploaded to a server that uses drm software? Can I remove that protection from my own video? As I understand the legislation, I can not modify or kludge any DRM that any legal entity attaches to my work even though I control the copyright.  As the person who made the content in the first place, this is a real kick in the head, and not exactly a spur to my creativity, unless it’s to put more rants about DRM legislation on my site.

If I understand the legislation correctly I won’t be able to adopt new technologies for old content.  Let me tell you something.  I work with geeks and they are NOT sending you emails or begging you to reconsider the legislation.  They will merely, because it’s what geeks DO,(small edit here) subvert and end-run EVERYTHING your government tries to enact with respect to this legislation, and they will laugh at your discomfiture and ignorance (and mine, frankly) while they are doing it.  I have absolutely NO ability to circumvent DRM.  But some of my friends, who are REFUSING TO COMPLAIN about this legislation because they don’t want to be singled out for special treatment later, sure as heck do.

Did you ever consider that the technology to support this DRM was made by human beings who may just have built a ‘back door’ into it which will make the legislation the laughing stock of the free world?

My rights as a content creator are going to be messed over by this legislation, from everything I see, and my friends and colleagues will work tirelessly to pull the teeth of the legislation as fast as you can enact amendments to it! Seems like a waste of time, and an attempt to wring the last little bit of lobbying money from buggy whip media industries.

Don’t do it Mr. Prentice.  The flood of emails and letters you are getting is now the same weight as a tombstone for your political career; please let me know that you’re smarter than the rest of your government, and more far-sighted than the frightened media moguls who are trying to buy a few more years of profits on the back of your career.

Allegra Sloman

I am indebted to Douglas Green, who posted to a CBC website, for providing me with a template for this letter.  If I had a way to contact him and ask his permission, I would have done it, but somehow I don’t think he’d mind.  The link to his comment of November 29 is here 

Kid Katie

She was here last night and we had an IMMENSE Deadwood fest.  We’re up to episode 11 and if midnight hadn’t come and gone we would have been good for more.  Calamity Jane is her fave primary character; her fave secondary character is Charlie Utter.  Later….. booked the Prius and now I gotta get her to work.

Lusty Neighbors and Pimp Primer

Tea and cookies and porn this evening…
Lusty Neighbors and Pimp Primer –  those were the titles of the flicks we watched at the November meeting of the Royal Vancouver Pornographic Society.  They were grindhouse.  Words cannot describe how execrable they were; they were about as erotic as a panhandler, as aesthetic as an airport washroom, and as well performed as a public school pageant.  The dialogue raised hoots of derisive laughter at every turn.
Porn sure has changed.  Nowadays everybody gets everything depilated and bleached; then, performers did their thang with visible bruises and scuff marks, pimples and back hair.  And dirty feet, yeeech.

Anyway I was welcomed with cries of glee (I made biscotti) and was made to feel right at home.  Things broke up around 10:30; I had the car until one so I gassed up, grabbed some groceries, unloaded them, and then took the car back to its stall (I had the Hyundai – the Prius was engaged) and walked home, where to my disGUST two younguns saw me coming and ran away so as not to be doing dope in front of me.  I halfheartedly chewed them out and told them this is Vancouver and it’s your god given right to smoke drugs in public here.  They offered me some but I declined, although I thanked them for being neighbourly.  God almighty!  Do I LOOK that old?  I was walking briskly enough….

There’s a party next door.  I was invited but I’m not attending. I took biscotti to thank them for inviting me earlier this evening.  I will have enough left over to feed some coworkers tomorrow.  Hey Paul if you read this do you want me to make a batch for your coworkers?

A certain age

I can’t believe how much a simple chat with a friend can cheer one up.

If you are a certain age you will get most of these references (the alphabet in pix). 

Now people want my tapioca recipe. This is terrible, because I don’t have one.  I just stand there stirring, and staring dreamily off into space, thinking about cabana boys.

I have started on the first season of House.

Fireworks

Katie K had a bag of fireworks, so I dropped by her place last night, and in the pile of dirt conveniently left behind her place by the construction of the ‘group of Seven themed condos next door which has displaced one of the largest crow rookeries in BC”, we set them off.  Then when I got up this morning there was a facebook question asking my first memory… which was fireworks.  About some things, anyway, I am consistent.

Watched the first episode of Heroes last night.  I am looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

Deadwood Redux

Just watched the end of the second season.  Tim Olyphant, who was so joyous and physically pleasing in the first season, is now hewn from granite, with cedar spacers.  If it was possible for a man to walk stiffer without appearing robotic I’d be amazed.  Ian McShane continues to amuse and amaze.  Wish the musical scenes actually made a tiny effort to sync the music to the actions.  Noise coming from the soundtrack when the instrument is not actually be held in a playing position is the kind of thing that gets up Tonstant Watcher’s nose.  Onward to season three.