More Funny Avatars #2

Avatar (computing), the graphical representation of a user. So, these weird websites I happen to go to that have weird forums with weird people and most of them have weird avatars. Cool little thumbnail graphics standing in for a picture of themselves. I always snag the funny ones I see, and it's been a few years since last I blogged a set of them. Here goes!

Paranormal activity in the 6 year old

Last night at 23:30 as I was climbing the stairs to bed (yeah I know, early for me!) I smelled something burning in the kitchen and went to check on it. No worries, my wife had started the auto-clean program on our oven so the house sort of smelled like the gates of hell (well, not that bad, maybe like the doggy door to hell). I put the hood fan timer on and went upstairs to check on the kiddies before retiring. The ten year old was snoozing away upside down in her bed and I threw a glance into the six year old's bedroom as I made my way to ours and saw a dark shape swaying upright in her bed and a strange chanting sound of someone saying something backwards over and over again.

All's well! G'night!! (Uhh no...) So, I did a double-take. Steeling myself for a possible ghostbusters sliming I opened the door and crept in. My kids have lava lamps they use as nightlights (I usually shut them off when they fall asleep) and this one was casting erie bulbous red shapes against the walls and the backwards chanting was very loud. My daughter was kneeling in the middle of her bed half asleep and her CD player, which had started out the night playing the "Fantastic Mr Fox" audiobook, was skipping madly over a scratch in the disc at some dialog which sounded positively satanic. . So, that explains that. I shut it off. Maybe that horrible sound, in addition to the gates of hell smell woke her up and had her semi-consciously wondering what the heck kind of sleep deprivation experiment she was being subjected to. I put her back to bed.



I threw out the disc (It was a CDR copy of her sister's disc). We don't need any more paranormal activity!

Zombie Roadkill

Man, zombies everywhere! Looks like a new interesting show starting October 4th. The teaser showed a park ranger getting mowed down by some zombie squirrel. How awesome is that!

From the Site:
"Academy-Award nominated actor Thomas Haden Church co-stars as a tough as nails Park Ranger who teams with an unsuspecting teenager, played by David Dorfman, to escape a cursed stretch of highway that resurrects roadkill in the form flesh-eating zombie animals. This new breed of terror is not just playing dead.
Zombie Roadkill centers around a group of college kids as they are driving on an unfamiliar road. Everything seems fit for a road trip to the lake, but when the group accidentally runs over an unsuspecting squirrel, they quickly realize there will be a price to pay. The cursed road brings the zombie squirrel back to life to haunt the kids. After the kids crash and everyone is injured except the younger brother, he is forced to set out on a journey to defeat the ancient curse and save his brother and friends before it is too late. Zombie Roadkill is scheduled to air spring 2010 on FEARnet.com and the FEARnet On Demand VOD network.
The series’ claw-scratching and spine-tingling action unfolds over six, four- to five-minute episodes. David Green will be directing the series penned by Henry Gayden. Aaron Lam of Ghost House Pictures will be producing with FEARnet’s Jim Burns serving as executive producer. Frank Langley and Tom Bacho of Quantum FX (Where the Wild Things Are, Star Trek, Watchmen) have come aboard to bring all the terrifying creatures to life."

Zombie study in Ottawa

A graduate student at the University of Ottawa published a paper featuring a mathematical model of the possibility of a fictional city of 1 million surviving a zombie attack. It doesn't look good people! After 7 to 10 days, everyone was dead or undead.

Am I naive to think that everyone's read  the "Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks? Doesn't everyone know what Solanum does to your brain? Get yourselves a copy before it's too late!

African rabies is no fun!

The 2nd time "Big Mike" tried to kill me in ECMS grade 7

My wife asked me tonight if I knew her new Director, because he grew up in Blackburn Hamlet, and went to EMCS (Emily Carr Middle School). Alas, I did not, but for some reason I was reminded of the 2nd time "Big Mike" tried to kill me at that school. It was 1981 or so and "Big Mike" was about 6 feet tall back then (he'd probably have been 7 feet tall if he hadn't smoked so much). He was huge, with facial hair and he always wore the same jean-jacket and blue t-shirt, which was a real help because you could see him coming from a mile away and could get the hell outta his way! I suppose he was in the eighth grade again, possibly for the 3rd time, and I was in grade seven.

It was a Friday and my fellow student and arch-nemesis Peter Huckalak and I had gotten a detention again. The way it usually went down was that he'd start something (he'd test how gravity worked by pulling my chair away as I was in the process of sitting down), and I'd retaliate (drawing a naked woman on the cover of his math notebook) and we'd both get a detention. Sounded fair to me although I'll always wonder what the hell the teacher thought I was doing on the ground with my chair in Peter's hand. It's not really my fault I sit next to a sociopath.

When detention was over, we went to our lockers. The school was pretty deserted except for the odd teacher and school custodian. At Emily Carr the lockers are located just as you exit the building slightly below ground level, that is to say, the windows in the locker room are like, 8 feet off the ground and end at the ceiling. Outside, the windows start at ground level and look out onto a grassy hill of sorts. It has a weird effect such that, if you are inside the locker room looking up out the window, and another student is outside, sitting on the hillock leaning against the window, you see their butts, backs and upper torsos. A lot of students sit against these windows and pay almost no attention to the people inside.

So, as we were getting our Adidas(tm) bags out of our lockers Peter taps me on the shoulder and points up at the window near the ceiling. My Lizard brain gave me a start as I caught the distinctive shape and color of Big Mike and his nicotine encrusted jean jacket. He was sitting outside against the window with a girl, making out with her. I noticed that his hand had made considerable mileage up the front of her shirt. I grinned at Peter. It was the thing to do when you're 12. They didn't seem to know we were there (school had been over for almost 45 minutes). Peter was  a lot of things back then. I wouldn't call him my friend because we fought so much (fisticuffs), nemesis was a better word, but he was extremely intelligent and a hell of a funny guy, and I respected that. So it didn't surprise me when Peter made an animated shushing motion, picked up a nearby chair and carried it over to the lockers on tiptoe, directly below where Big Mike and the object of his affections were seated outside on the other side of the window. .

He climbed up on the chair quietly and leaned over so his face was almost touching the window. He looked back at me and stuck his tongue out and pretended to lick the window right behind the young (13 year old?) girl. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I almost killed myself trying to keep quiet and not break out in gales of laughter. Then he started to make make-out faces on the girl's side, pretending to grab her butt through the glass while giving Big Mike the middle finger with his other hand behind Big Mike's back. I was ready to pee myself! Big Mike and his "date" were so busy doing what they were doing they had no idea they had an audience.

At this point I picked up a chair and quietly set it down beside Peter's and stretched up to the glass to watch this freak show. Man, they have no idea we're here! Crap Mike looks like he's in his 20's. What's this girl see in him? How can she suck on his face like that when he has that frickin Zombie case of acne (yes I was that close). All of a sudden I heard a super-loud "WHAP!" and time slowed down like it does in the movies sometimes.

I turned around and the thing I noticed in the first millisecond was that Peter was no longer perched on his chair beside me. In fact I saw him disappearing around the corner back into the classrooms in a blur of motion. Near the edge of my field of vision I saw something spinning around on the ground like a top. It was a tiny bottle of liquid paper. My Lizard brain roared! Peter had snuck off his chair while my head was turned towards the action and whipped a bottle of liquid paper at the window so it would make a loud noise and he took off so that.... My head snapped back..


Face to face with "Big Mike" and the girl on the other side of the glass. He did not look happy with me at all. In fact, he looked quite cross. I can still recall to this day his purple-faced rage and the slow motion movements of his lips as he formed the words "You're &$%&* DEAD". At this point, the absolute worst time actually, my STUPID sense of humor caught up to the lighting fast situation and I actually cracked a smile at that point and thought
"You know, that was really funny! Peter got me goooooooood!".
I guess that didn't look so good on the other side of the glass because Big Mike appeared to take this badly and shot up in a Beserker rage and ran around to the locker room entrance to make good on his declaration to KILL ME!

I jumped/fell off the chair and ran back to my locker (whose contents where strewn across the floor, Peter wanted to make my escape more interesting by increasing the level of difficulty! (the fucker!). I was all set to leave all that crap on the floor and just disappear - maybe into the ladies room (he's never look there would he?) when I heard Big Mike outside raining fists on the outside doors which lock after the school day is over THANK GOD! I looked at my books and notebooks on the ground and realized that MY NAME was in most of them. Can't have that sitting there for him to find!

It was the fasted locker clean up in ECMS history. Big Mike stopped trying to punch the doors off their hinges and it was quiet all of a sudden. I once saw Big Mike put a roll of pennies in his fist, wrap his fist up with black electrical tape , and punch out a bunch of portable windows one lunch hour. I honestly wondered if he carried stuff like this with him and was gearing up. I grabbed my gym shirt, closed my locker and ran into the inner classrooms to leave by the front of the school where there may be teachers or police or national guardsmen or something. I pulled my glasses off, put the white gym shirt on, tried to frig my hair up and left by the front of the school as nonchalantly as I could. I made for cover and took a round about way home (you never go straight home after a death threat).


Turns out Big Mike didn't recognize me as the idiot behind the glass that day (not that I gave him the chance) and I managed to keep out of his way for the rest of the school year.

What? You don''t remember my staples?

Tonight was "Meet the Teacher" night at school for my kids. This always turns into a High School reunion of sorts because the majority of my old high school classmates live 5 minutes away from where they grew up in Blackburn Hamlet(myself included). I ran into Carrie-Anne whom I sat beside in Law class in the 12 grade and was immediately reminded of the time I got staples in my leg.

It was AGES ago, I was 17 or 18 years old and I was playing Rugby for the first time on a Saturday. I still have no idea how to play but they have a position called "Hooker" in Rugby which is funny ( I told them I'd play as long as I got to be the hooker). There was this guy there wearing cleats. He was wearing these cleats because they were new and he found out that he could not wear them in his Rugby league because they were metal and spiky and illegal, so of course he chose to wear them on the weekends around people like me who don't even know how to spell Rugbee. The object in Rugby seems to be about running and smashing into people and pushing each other a lot, and when you have the ball, and someone gets you down, you have to drop it (that part never made sense to me).

In one of these scrum things I felt something slice across my shin and the next thing I knew I was bleeding like a stuck pig. I had a long, clean slice down the front of my leg and the skin was pulling away from it. I had never been cut open to that extent and up until that point I had never had stitches in my life (that huge bear dog hadn't tried to kill me yet) and frankly, I was a bit chicken. I remember shoving the two sides of the cut together and asking everyone.

"Is that going to need stitches?"

DUH! I was wearing a hospital shirt someone had stolen for me once (I loved hospital shirts, blue or green, no fuss, no muss, no such thing as inside out, they wash great!) and i took it off and wrapped it around the leg and proceeded to bleed all over it. Someone drove me home and I hobbled in the front door to find no one home. ACK! Eventually my friend's Mom drove me to the hospital where they froze it and basically took a cheese grater to it to clean it up, then a med student tried to stitch it closed. For some reason, they kept having trouble. I dunno what was going wrong but after about 10 minutes he left and came back with a medical staple gun. "Kachunk Katchunk" and he closed it right up. I looked like Frankenstein!

COOL!

On Monday I went to school and in Law class Carrie asked me what was up with my leg so I unwrapped it to show her and she got all grossed out. Everybody did. Something about bits of metal stuck in your skin holding your leg together. It must have been bad because she obviously blocked it out of her memory. I went to work at the Cineplex that night and had the Candy Bar girls convinced that I had ripped my leg open minutes before and one of the guys had stapled it shut in the office. ;-)


Two weeks later i went to my GP to get them taken out and the nurse was grossed out! She made me cover it back up. They didn't know how to get them out so they sent me to emergency and someone went over to the baby ward and got the tool to open them up and take them out. It was this stainless steel medical staple remover and it had been made in Germany. That's also when I learned that they threw stuff like that out to stay clean and avoid germs. I was a bit shocked the thing was made of high quality metal and probably cost $20! They gave it to me as a Souvenir.

While I was in the hospital I ended up in a triage room with a senior citizen who had tried to beat up a cop...  I got to listen as he explained his story to two different doctors. They gave him a new one after they heard what he had done because they appear to have one or two doctors who make themselves available to go to court to testify if needed, but that's another story!

Kitten rescue.

Re-posted from http://www.dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=95 . Hilarious. Thanks Gwilliker for this gem of a site. The guy emails unsuspecting people on Kijijji or Craig's List type sites and screws with them (or he makes it all up, in any case, he's funny as hell!). I find this extra funny because I own one of those..

 

 ----------------------------------------------------------

Kitten Rescue

Posted at: 2010-08-12 14:37:56

Warning: The following post contains graphic images. If you are offended by the sight of food-dye, corn syrup, and ground beef, you may not want to read this. 

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Original ad:
Humane "hav a heart" traps for kittens needed
There are some kittens in my neighborhood that need to find good homes. I need a trap 4 the cats to help bring them in. Please email me if you have a trap (and a heart)!

From Me to *********@********.org:

Hello,

Are you still looking for a trap for cats?

Mike

From Deb ******* to Me:

Yes I am can you help me?

From Me to Deb *******:

I most certainly can! I believe this trap is for those who want to "have a heart." I used it to catch a stray cat that kept coming into my garage. It is called the KittyHugger. All you have to do is put some cat food on the trigger, and when the cat comes to eat it, the trap gently contracts into a hugging position and comfortably hugs the cat until you come back to deal with the little guy. Please let me know if this will work.

Mike

From Deb ******* to Me:

Mike- I have never heard of a trap like that. I was referring to the "Havahart" traps...you know like the cages for animals?? Do you have any pictures of the trap? I'd like to see how it works before I get it. Thanks.

From Me to Deb *******:

Absolutely. I've attached a picture of it. Sorry if it is a little messy; I haven't cleaned the trap in a while.

Attachment:


From Deb ******* to Me:

YOU'RE SICK!

From Me to Deb *******:

Excuse me?

From Deb ******* to Me:

You killed that poor cat OMG

From Me to Deb *******:

I didn't kill the cat. I told you it was a little messy. The last cat I caught knocked over the bowl of juice I gave him so he wouldn't get thirsty. As you can see, it made quite the mess. I assure you this trap is 100% safe and humane.

From Deb ******* to Me:

IT OBVIOUSLY IS NOT SAFE. IT IS COVERED IN BLOOD

From Me to Deb *******:

You've clearly never seen a juice spill before. You have a twisted imagination if you think that is blood. I guess you don't want the trap.

Before you give up on me, I have one more trap you may be interested in. I actually think it is one of those Have a Heart traps you were talking about, though I've never heard it called that.

Please see the attachments. As you can see from the pictures, the kitty will have plenty of room to be safe and comfortable. It comes with a black tube at the end that is used to pump warm air into the cage to keep him warm while he waits to be released.

I'm sorry I didn't have time to clean the trap. It is still a little messy because the last cat I had in there spilled his bowl of juice and his cat food. It went everywhere!

Mike

Attachment:




From Deb ******* to Me:

Wow can't you read the ad you sick jerk? I DON'T WANT TO KILL THEM

How you managed to turn that trap into a bloody mess is a mystery to me but keep the hell away from me!!!

Testing the Go Pro cam by Hero underwater

My friend Cim bought this cool camera. I'm always looking for things like this so he lent it to me to try out and I'm SOLD! This thing is FREAKIN' FANTASTIC! It has a waterproof housing as well as a water resistant one (better sound in that casing), it's shock-proof, records to a mini-SD card, tons of recording length. It has some 60 frames per second slowmo settings (I haven't played with them yet, but the examples on the website look great!). It comes with all kinds of mounts and harnesses. This thing is perfect for just about anything! The frame is real wide so you can pretty  much capture what you need too (I'm not sure what fixed mm the lens is, but it's wide enough and gives you a great all-around view.

Here are some underwater shots I did with it on the weekend.

Interesting car decal

I should really get one of these..



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Magadheera - One of the best action scenes ever?

This is just about the most action packed scene I've seen in a long time. Check it out, from the 2009 film Magadheera. Thanks to Donnie Ross for that link.I'm not sure if a big group dance number starts up right after the clip ends, ( "I will kill you, BUT FIRST WE DANCE!") but I suspect so..Hollywood could learn a thing or two from these guys!

Guitar Riff of the day for a year 001-007-Week 1

 First week's riff of the day snippets.I really like how 2 and 6 turned out.

  GROTDFAY 001 2010-08-18 by Zartimus

  GROTDFAY 002 2010-08-19 by Zartimus 

  GROTDFAY 003 2010-08-20 by Zartimus

  GROTDFAY 004 2010-08-21 by Zartimus


  GROTDFAY 005 2010-08-22 by Zartimus

  GROTDFAY 006 2010-08-23 by Zartimus

  GROTDFAY 007 2010-08-24 by Zartimus

Scot Pilgrim VS the World.

This is my favorite movie of the summer so far. It has everything. Guitars, groupies, Battle of the bands, video games, kung fu, romance, teen angst (it's just missing zombies). The editing style in the action scenes uses comic book panels and Anime style cuts which I love. They use a lot of captions, titles and onscreen labels which are way comical (think Fight Club, Zombieland,, Watchmen). I espeially loved the the one that explains the partitioning of his aprtment and what he shares and does not share with his gay room-mate ( Scott's gay room-mate, Mcauly Culkin's brother if I'm not mistaken, steals lots of scenes in the film).
The numerous video game references scattered throughout the film are also hilarious, from the totally recognizable Windows OS and Nintendo sound effects to the Sims style "Pee meter" hud displays when Scott goes to the can. His collection of stupid t-shirts is as impressive as my own. They make fun of a lot of stuff that bugs me personally, like pretentious Vegans (so hey, that must bug other people too!).

All of the battle of the bands scenes harkened back to my high school years. Being a guitar player, I was actually in a few of those, and never won! It's no wonder I liked this film. It's filmed in Toronto where the comic book on which it is based is from and it's great to see familiar locations in a cool film such as this. I'm constantly amazed at how the lead actor Michael Cera manages to play the same character in different films, ( Superbad,  Youth in Revolt , etc ). It's not for everyone though! Give it a shot!

Guitar Riff of the day for a year Blog

After catching a story about a local musician who's embarked on a project to write a song a day for a year I thought I'd try the same thing! A Riff a day for a year!! I tend to do this anyway (I probably have 800 snippits kicking around on old tapes and Compaq flash and SD cards), but the regularity of it will be a challenge.

If I get any really good ones I'll make them into proper songs!


**UPDATE*** I moved the guitar Riff a day for a year posts to their own blog since daily posts of the same type are going to clutter up this one. They can be found here. I'll post a weekly recap.

I'm using Soundcloud to host them but I'll run out of free space eventually. It's a great site to host music though, with a nice built-in player.

As i was creating the guitar riff site I mucked around with the new Blogger template builders and reverted to their tools. Time for a template change. I'll customize it up again when I have time. I really like the GUI though, great color picker.

Eric Johnson Chiming G delay hold trick on the Line6 Pod X3 Pro

I was mesmerized when I first saw Eric Johnson do this on Austin City limits back in 1990. It was so simple yet immensely effective. At the time I was (and still am) running a rack, being from the 80's and all, and was unable to rig a sound anything like this. He was using foot pedals and I was a foot pedal snob. Back then i thought, if I can't do it with a rack then I'm not gonna do it! Over the years I've added rack-mountable Loopers like the Line6 Echo pro, different Delays, units with pseudo sample/loop effects like the Freeze function in the Yamaha SPX 90 (and today the SPX 2000). I've bought and sold some foot pedal loopers like the Boss RC-20, RC-50 (and now the Line6 JM-4). The old green wonderful Line6 Echo Pro (gee I wish I had that one back,) The Boss DD-7 foot pedal does a nice job but they all have issues. They ain't a rack-mount unit, they don't have dual stereo in's, they don't save the loops for later recall, they don't take an SD card, they don't have a software GUI you can deep edit with via USB on your PC, they aren't MIDI-able.

They just don't make a rack-mount looper with all the stuff I need above. I just have to wait for someone to make one (well there's the Looperative LP1 unit  but there's NO WAY I'm paying $1700 US for a friggin  looper). I my hope is that Line6 will make one for me with all the crap I need, they come a bit closer every time they release a new one. here's a great site for info on real-time looping devices, http://www.loopers-delight.com.

Turns out when I was playing with my Pod X3 pro while on vacation, I flipped around a few settings and found you could toggle between dual tones and still have the delay of the old one sounding in the background. Once they were separated from each other, and the foot controller assigned to toggle a few items, the trick worked. He's a video showing the effect I'm trying to reproduce and how it was done on the Line6 X3 series.

Time for a new blue telecaster guitar build!

Hmm. It's that time of the decade again.. I have a hankerin' to build a new guitar. I'm a strat guy, but who doesn't like Telecasters. they're like the Stratocaster's in-bred Hillbilly cousin. My favorite guitar these days is my Lake Placid blue strat with the rosewood fretboard and white pickguard. What better compliment than to make the same damned thing in a tele. I just have to decide on a maple or rosewood fingerboard. I'm going to go obscenely thin on the neck, something in the Ibanez Wizard style which is .750"on the 1st fret and .820" at the 12. Thinnest neck style on the market. You can FLY on that neck and the tone sacrifice is negligible.

So I looked around on the net, found some pictures and photoshopped them the way I want it to look. Mmmmmm looking good. I'll really do research on the pickups this time around  because that's the real hit and miss part of any guitar. You never know how the damned things are going to sound until you slam them in there. I have almost always bought on verbal recommendation from people I hope know what they are talking about. Seymour Duncan has a good page (I've had great luck with their stuff) where they try to give you an idea of what the different models will sound like, but again, different neck, different guitar, different wire and schematics, pots, whatever.. ALL DIFFERENT! So good luck getting that similar sound. Every beast sounds a bit different.

First off I have to sell a guitar to make room for this one. The first guitar I ever made was a tele , a monstrous natural flame maple with an SRV neck and Nashville 5.2 pickups I started right around Sept 11th 2001 (I remember because it got held up in shipping at the border because of the towers getting hit). Very nice but overkill for me. I don't play it very much and it's wasting away in it's case. I'm not sure why I'm even thinking of parting with it, maybe it's just the itch to slap a new one together again. One thing I've learned is the telecasters I liked as a kid where the beat up ones Prince or Bruce Springsteen used to play. The ones that look like they've been thrown in the back of a pickup truck. My nice natural flame maple one is far too pretty...
 Anyone want to buy a used custom telecaster? Muhahahahahahaha!

The Walking Dead - Excellent Zombie fare

Nothing like a good Zombie comic! I have a colleague who is leaving my office to start another assignment within the department but of course they don't have an office ready for her. She's been squatting in her old digs reading documentation the last few days and it looks really boring. So, on my way to a meeting in another building, I dropped off my copy of "The Walking dead - Volume 4" and said, "Check this out! It's the best zombie graphic novel you'll ever  read! (actually I said "Tiens, c'est la meilleure bande dessinée de zombie que tu jamais lu!" because she's French). She sported me a weird look and I left before she could protest. An hour later on the way back to my office I stopped by to collect it and she indicated that she had already "dropped it off" because we don't share the same taste in reading materials (she really didn't like it, I think she may have carried it back with metal tongs). 

"What's not to like?" I asked. "Did you see the part about the girl in the raincoat with the Samurai sword who walks through the zombie-infested areas hunched over pretending to be a zombie, completing the ruse by leading two zombies around on leashes like pets (whose arms she has cut off so they don't give her any trouble)?"

She shook her head. I continued.

"They're her boyfriend and his best friend who got turned into zombies early in the story . Oops, ex-boyfriend I guess.."

Blank stare...

"Hey in October they're airing it as a TV miniseries, you can catch it then!"

Oh well. Not everyone loves Zombies. Muhahahahaha!!

I'm just finishing up issue 4 where a group of survivors in have discovered a max security prison that turns out to be a great place to hole up from the Zombie hoards. The series is awesome, if you want to pick it up, use the best comic supplier in the universe - Dark Age Comics http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=61008535645&ref=ts

Here's a TRAILER for the upcoming TV miniseries!

Olivia Newton John

I was looking for something on SPIKE TV's website of all places and ran across a link they had featuring Olivia Newton John. Remember her? As a 41 year old, let me tell you, she featured large in my childhood (she got me through puberty ;-). In 1981 she was all over the radio and TV, the latter due to a one hour video special that featured all of the songs off of her "Physical" album. I remember being 11 or 12 and making time in my busy "Empire Strikes back" world to catch this thing on tv. It featured her rolling around on a beach in a t-shirt and bikini bottom and swimming with dolphins and exercising in a gym clad in spandex with a bunch of fat guys. The videos themselves were pretty freaky for the time, typical 80's, interesting for the most part with a few lip synched live pieces. The keyboardist in a few of them I'll always remember. I don't know what he was on, but he's sure hamming it up for the shoot!

The dripping sex appeal aside, I was amazed with her voice. (Amy Grant's voice does it for me too, as does Karen Carpenter's amazing vocal chords ). I was rebooting my attempts at the guitar and all her studio stuff had great strat sounds, the "Chucka Chucka" spanky skany comping stuff the studio rats do I'm still partial too this day.


So, in a throwback to my youth, check Olivia out. I always dug this song Make a move on me and was hopelessly in love with her in the early 80's (that dancing 2 step she does in the chorus slays me). All the current crop of female singers, from Lady Gaga to Fergie to Beyonce to Agulera(sp?),  whoever. Newsflash. You don't have to take all of your damn clothes off and swear like a trucker to make a powerful visual statement in a musical context. None of them have anything on her (and she's gonna be 62 this year, imagine that!).

When Atheists go door to door

Ahh, the Mormons, to whom I say, when they knock on my door on Saturday morning,

"Hey, I love your commercials!"

"Dad, dad, I got an A!"
"Billy! Don't slam the damned door!"

That's a great one. Ok, he probably doesn't say 'damned' because he's playing a Mormon, but the kids' all excited about doing well in school, wants to show Dad, but he runs inside the house and slams the front door and Dad yells at him, crushing the proud moment he wishes to share.

What that's got to do with being Mormon I have no idea, but I can be nice to my kids and still cling to my world of logic and scientific fact.

It's about that time, after I listen to 20 seconds of their spiel that I start talking to them about Bigfoot, the Patterson film, and I go and get my plaster castings from Bluff creek and see what they think about that... Always fun.

Anyway, this video is bloody hilarious. Thanks to Brooke for sharing..



Did you know your relatives were monkeys? God apparently used 98% of the same DNA (probably to save time on day 5 or 6)! Freaky!

The 2011 Census debacle

This is Tony Clement. He is the Canadian minister of Industry and oversees the department I work at. Normally I don't concern myself with politicians because everything they do is geared to pleasing someone of influence and trying to get re-elected so they can stay in power, but once in awhile you read about, or are affected by some boneheaded, short-sighted move on the government's part that just make you shake your head. The proposed change to the 2011 Census is one of those for me. Regardless of if you understand the issues and problems with going to a voluntary form versus a mandatory one, just consider this:

The last Chief Statistician of Canada, Ivan Fellegi, spent over 50 years with Statistics Canada (no, that is not a typo, he started there in 1957 and spent the last 23 as Canada's Chief Statistician before retiring in 2008). He says scrapping the long form is a bad thing and if that guy says something about statistics the government should bloody well listen. 

Munir Sheikh, his replacement in 2008 had been very quiet on the issue until tendering his resignation yesterday. He said in part:

"I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion. This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census.

It can not.

Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister."

When someone resigns a post a day after their boss says they have their support, it's saying something. So it seems like he thinks it's a bad thing as well. For the record. I think it's a bad thing too (although I can't afford to quit over it).  I hope to hell other people who can make a difference join these guys and step up to the plate on this one. A lot of people who work there care about the data, and doing the best job they can, and preserving this time series.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if one doesn't understand the issues, it helps to seek advice and council from those that obviously do, and digest what they have to say before thinking you know everything like our politicians. And if the government should make a mistake, own up and reverse it and move on. We all make them. Saving face is dangerous.
  
What really burns me is that Clement acted like Statcan was endorsing this whole deal, which it did not. What appears to have happened is that our government decided to cancel the Census without any thought or foresight, consulted Statcan at some point after the fact to see what the replacement options were, disastrous as they may be and picked one. Also, as he says in this interview, the fact that he's using Twitter to measure his support on the issue is moronic! In fact, that's exactly like a volunteer census. You only get a minority of biased people who feel strongly about the issue that way, not to mention the fact that non-technical people won't be able to contact him there. Incidentally I read up on him for the first time today and found it interesting that he won his riding by only 28 votes.

Hey, probably it's just his boss (our prime Minister) making him do it. I hear that happens sometimes. 

I hate Earwigs

Mr Earwig. My BBQ is a horrible place to park your sorry carapace. Make with the fire!

Mmm. Crunchy!


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Can you make me a Missing Cat poster?

I got this email today. I was too damned busy to read it but it looked funny so I forwarded it to myself at home. This is just about the funniest thing I have read this quarter! Any of us in a computer service job will feel David's pain. I know I did. 

Muhahahahahahahahaha!

 

Reproduced from http://www.kevmo.net

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From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.20am
To: David
Subject: Poster Hi
I opened the screen door yesterday and my cat got out and has been missing since then so I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me. It has to be A4 and I will photocopy it and put it around my suburb this afternoon.

This is the only photo of her I have she answers to the name Missy and is black and white and about 8 months old. missing on Harper street and my phone number.
Thanks Shan. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.26am
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Poster
Dear Shannon,
That is shocking news. Luckily I was sitting down when I read your email and not half way up a ladder or tree. How are you holding up? I am surprised you managed to attend work at all what with thinking about Missy out there cold, frightened and alone… possibly lying on the side of the road, her back legs squashed by a vehicle, calling out “Shannon, where are you?”
Although I have two clients expecting completed work this afternoon, I will, of course, drop everything and do whatever it takes to facilitate the speedy return of Missy.
Regards, David. 

From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.37am
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Poster
yeah ok thanks. I know you dont like cats but I am really worried about mine. I have to leave at 1pm today. 

From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.17am
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Poster
Dear Shannon,
I never said I don’t like cats. Once, having been invited to a party, I went clothes shopping beforehand and bought a pair of expensive G-Star boots. They were two sizes too small but I wanted them so badly I figured I could just wear them without socks and cut my toenails very short. As the party was only a few blocks from my place, I decided to walk. After the first block, I lost all feeling in my feet. Arriving at the party, I stumbled into a guy named Steven, spilling Malibu & coke onto his white Wham ‘Choose Life’ t-shirt, and he punched me. An hour or so after the incident, Steven sat down in a chair already occupied by a cat. The surprised cat clawed and snarled causing Steven to leap out of the chair, slip on a rug and strike his forehead onto the corner of a speaker; resulting in a two inch open gash. In its shock, the cat also defecated, leaving Steven with a foul stain down the back of his beige cargo pants. I liked that cat.
Attached poster as requested.
Regards, David.


From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.24am
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster
yeah thats not what I was looking for at all. it looks like a movie and how come the photo of Missy is so small? 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.28am
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster
Dear Shannon,
It’s a design thing. The cat is lost in the negative space.
Regards, David. 


From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.33am
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster
Thats just stupid. Can you do it properly please? I am extremely emotional over this and was up all night in tears. you seem to think it is funny. Can you make the photo bigger please and fix the text and do it in colour please. Thanks. 



From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.46am
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster
Dear Shannon,
Having worked with designers for a few years now, I would have assumed you understood, despite our vague suggestions otherwise, we do not welcome constructive criticism. I don’t come downstairs and tell you how to send text messages, log onto Facebook and look out of the window. I am willing to overlook this faux pas due to you no doubt being preoccupied with thoughts of Missy attempting to make her way home across busy intersections or being trapped in a drain as it slowly fills with water. I spent three days down a well once but that was just for fun.
I have amended and attached the poster as per your instructions.
Regards, David.



From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.59am
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster
This is worse than the other one. can you make it so it shows the whole photo of Missy and delete the stupid text that says missing missy off it? I just want it to say Lost. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.14am
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster


From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.21am
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster
yeah can you do the poster or not? I just want a photo and the word lost and the telephone number and when and where she was lost and her name. Not like a movie poster or anything stupid. I have to leave early today. If it was your cat I would help you. Thanks. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.32am
To: Shannon
Subject: Awww
Dear Shannon,
I don’t have a cat. I once agreed to look after a friend’s cat for a week but after he dropped it off at my apartment and explained the concept of kitty litter, I kept the cat in a closed cardboard box in the shed and forgot about it. If I wanted to feed something and clean faeces, I wouldn’t have put my mother in that home after her stroke. A week later, when my friend came to collect his cat, I pretended that I was not home and mailed the box to him. Apparently I failed to put enough stamps on the package and he had to collect it from the post office and pay eighteen dollars. He still goes on about that sometimes, people need to learn to let go.
I have attached the amended version of your poster as per your detailed instructions.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.47am
To: David
Subject: Re: Awww
Thats not my cat. where did you get that picture from? That cat is orange. I gave you a photo of my cat. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.58am
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Awww
I know, but that one is cute. As Missy has quite possibly met any one of several violent ends, it is possible you might get a better cat out of this. If anybody calls and says “I haven’t seen your orange cat but I did find a black and white one with its hind legs run over by a car, do you want it?” you can politely decline and save yourself a costly veterinarian bill.
I knew someone who had a basset hound that had its hind legs removed after an accident and it had to walk around with one of those little buggies with wheels. If it had been my dog I would have asked for all its legs to be removed and replaced with wheels and had a remote control installed. I could charge neighbourhood kids for rides and enter it in races. If I did the same with a horse I could drive it to work. I would call it Steven.
Regards, David. 


From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.07pm
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Awww
Please just use the photo I gave you. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.22pm
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww


From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.34pm
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww
I didnt say there was a reward. I dont have $2000 dollars. What did you even put that there for? Apart from that it is perfect can you please remove the reward bit. Thanks Shan. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.42pm
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww


From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.51pm
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww
Can you just please take the reward bit off altogether? I have to leave in ten minutes and I still have to make photocopies of it. 


From: David
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.56pm
To: Shannon
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

From: Shannon
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 1.03pm
To: David
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww
Fine. That will have to do.

My Jesus isn't sticky

Due to the recent heat-wave, the double sided adhesive base of my dashboard bobble-head Jesus lost it's stickiness! It just plain melted away (like scientific fact in a bible!)

We have a Jesus down! I repeat, JC is down!






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I wonder what this guy does for a living?

Dr. Bum I presume?


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Combination bird-feeder/bug-zapper

I was over at my parents place for a swim and noticed they got rid of their bug zapper. You know, those wonderful blue glowing cages of electric bug death. The sound of one frying an insect brings back childhood memories of when I was 8 and would fall asleep to the neighbor's taking out insects into the wee hours of the night. It was always exciting when a junebug would get stuck in one. It sounded like someone trying to bring Frankenstein back to life.

So back to my parent's retired bug zapper. They have attached a bird-feeder in it's place. Which gave me an idea. They should make a combination bird feeder/bug zapper.

Only the "brave" birds get something to eat! (it would take care of the squirrel problems at the same time).

Canada day cake (sorta)

Kinda.. Heheheh. The red splotches are supposed to be Maple leaves.


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Pool games

It's funny how the pool games changed after the Kids and I watched Titanic.



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The midnight cookie bandit strikes again!

I thought I heard something around 11:00pm.



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RCA SPS 3600 - How to set the damned clock when you've lost the manual.

RCA SPS 3600 Kitchen Radio with CD Player and MP3 Docking Station

We bought one of these things last year. We needed a under-shelf mounting radio/CD/MP3 player for the kitchen and this fit the bill. The manual got eaten by wild Jackalopes and the clock has been wrong for ages since our self-induced power failure last month so I went online to look for the manual in PDF form. NADA! ZIP! RCA's web site doesn't have it. The Yahoo site that stores manuals has a broken link and I don't trust that instruct2 site that promises to send you a link to the manual after you provide them your email address and other stuff.

So I looked for the previous model (3200). Same deal. Nothing. Why every company in the world doesn't put all of it's manuals on the Internet in PDF form is beyond me. Then it was time to revisit the first option I had tried and failed at, trail and error. Push every combination of buttons on the thing alone and in series, powered on and powered off until you magically stumble upon the combination you need. In most cases they are spread apart so that even client's with ham hock fingers can do it! And after a few more minutes, here's how you set the damned clock when you've lost your manual (posted here for all the other poor consumers who need to know).

Turn the unit off by the console (display will dim but you can still see the time) and hold the MEM button for a few seconds. Display will flash and then you can change the Hour with the CD Track Reverse button and change the Minute with the CD Track Advance button (those are the controls to the right of the unit between the "+" and "-" volume buttons). Then Press the MEM button one last time to lock in the setting.

Enjoy!

RCA sucks for not PDF'ing this manual online.

The Skeeter Vac

I bought a second-hand Skeeter vac a month ago. They are those magic things hooked up to propane that reek of deer breath and does a uv lightshow inside to lure biting insects to their deaths. It's not a zapper but more of a giant mosquito sucking device. The thing works like you wouldn't believe! I emptied it a week ago and I just checked the thing today and it was so full, no more Mosquitos would fit! When I popped the tray open the compacted bug bodies sprang up and went everywhere but the tray was still packed full!

I'm not sure of the range of the thing but I'm pretty sure we're doing all the neighbors a huge favour!

Death to Skeeters!





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Death by Crocs

I love those stupid lookin' shoes. They is ugly, but they shore is comfortable!

Trouble is, I wore the soles down so smooth, every step on slippery surface is a death wish. Last week I was out on my deck after the rain and I accidentally went skiing down the wet stairs in my old crocs. I managed to stop before hurtling through the 2nd floor deck posts and falling to earth and I vowed to chuck them and buy a new pair!

I had my chance a few days later on movie night. I was meeting the guys at la red stick in Kanata and there was a sports experts just across from it. I popped into the reasurant, saw one guy had arrived and grabbed a table so I told him I'd be back in 5 minutes.

I was going to pull a Jack Reacher. Buy new and leave the old ones on the floor of the store. Well, all they had were stupid leprechaun green crocs with racing stripes, not the nice brown ones I was sporting, so screw that noise! I went back to the reasturant. The guy holding our table had an interesting suggestion for me when he heard my dillema. His idea was to heat up a fork and dig it into the soles to make new thread marks (not a bad idea!).

On the way to the movie, it rained and every second paving stone in Centrum is smooth and my crocs skitter across them like I'm walking on Vaseline (stupid crocs).

Tonight I arrived home to find that my wife had bought me a pair! $4.95 at Somethingmart! They're not the same as I had but they are a lot less dangerous so the old pair is now in the poobelle.



My deathwish crocs.

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Pool heater super goodness

We haven't gotten the first post pool gas bill yet but so far, ye old pool heater is looking like the best investment of the summer! Floating in non sub-zero water for four nights in a row is way cool. I'm glad we came to the conclusion that we live in Canada and needed one.


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The government sex store

I try and put some thought into what I call server sharenames. They tend to hang around awhile and if you name it right, they are short, identifiable for what they are, and easy to remember.

So when it came time to come up with a name for our secondary storage NAS partition, I decided to call it SECSTOR. Say this now out loud. I did this for the first time today explaining to a female colleague that our SECSTOR was a good place to store old files because it's cheaper(the discs are not as fast).

It reminds me of the time I linked some files for an old co-worker named Arther and copied them to his home directory which he linked to with the drive letter F:

I told him I put the files in F:\ART

It comes out funny in meetings...

Battle of Arracourt

Don't just watch it on the History Channel. Re-enact it in the family room!

Muhahahaha!

I love Shermans!

Me 2 Hornets zero!

I took out two hornet nests attached to my house over the past few days. They were little itty bitty ones with only a few dozen of the flying 'I can sting you as many times as I want' yellow jackets. What do they do anyway? Bees help pollinate and make honey. I like that, but what do Wasps and Hornets do for me?

The task went well this time. Because the nests were small, softball sized, they just took a 60 second shot of water from the hose each. If you get the hole at the bottom, the little buggers can't get out and you drown them all before the nest gets so water-logged it plops to the ground. Then you can ground spray it into Oblivion.

The only thing you have to be concerned about are the wasps who aren't home at the time of your assault, and come back to find you spraying the bejesus out of their old homestead. They tend to get pissed off about that and hopefully you're done and can run!

I made the mistake of forgetting about this a few years ago on a much larger nest at my old place and ran like a fool, aImost taking out my fence in the process. I came up with a plan involving a cinder block, duct tape, and a bungie cord. I let everything calm down, mounted a cinder block about 10 feet from the nest, aimed the hose nozzel at it and duct taped it into position on the block. Then with the water shut off the trigger was wrapped with a bungie cord but not before I tooth-picked a stick in there to keep the bungie from closing the trigger. I rigged a line to the trigger, pulled the stick out and WHAMMO! Missed the nest by a foot. I shut the water off and re-aimed. It was at this point I realized the bungie trigger was moot because I could lock the trigger open and just turn on the hose(doh! Oh well, it was fun to build!).

From the safety of my side yard, I unleashed hell (or Atlantis) on the hive of pestilence and watched as 3 of the buggers followed the hose spray right to the nozzel and landed on the back of it! Wow, they put two and two together! Smart! As it turns out, that's where the gifted program for insects ended because they didn't follow the hose to me as their little wasp pad dropped to the deck scattering larvae and dead Wasps everywhere.

Oh the humanity!



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Ottawa Flyers Fan

Got a crappy white car? Have a favorite hockey team and some trem-clad rust paint? Why pay for fancy airbrushing when you can do it yourself!


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Lambourgini's in Orleans

3rd I've seen in three days. I'm in the wrong line of work . Two days ago police had a yellow one pulled over on my street and yesterday one passed me on Innes road. There used to be a Lotus Esprit turbo (my favorite car) living a few streets over but that one's long gone.

I wonder how many car-seats you can fit in those?


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TPGMBF3 test footage tank 01

I had a few minutes this evening and managed to shoot some test footage I had bouncing around in my head for the next TPGMBF movie (part 3 if anyone's counting). I hopped on my bike with the camera on a monopod and filmed some front and then side video on my street. I reversed the frontal (you can hear me talking backwards on-camera) and then shot footage of my remote control Sherman tank in front of an outdoor  green screen. This certainly fixes the lighting problems. You get a good match if you can do it in the same conditions as the background footage.

I shot some pilot footage and jammed myself in the turret and match-moved it to the tank. The next test I'll try to rig a point of reference off the camera to mo cap and slave the tank object too so it behaves itself in the frame. And then match the speed better. The treads are flying but my bike wasn't all that fast.

Corney but I think it's gonna work. I picture a scene with like, 4 of us hanging out the cockpit somehow.

Aliens in my ice cream.

Seriously. Which kind of encounter is this. 2nd? 3rd?

You can see where it touched down.






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Sneaky kid trick #16

60 minutes past bedtime, sneak downstairs, quietly belly-crawl into the kitchen so your dad can't hear you (he's busy pouring over a complicated piece of music on the couch), open the snack cubbard, expertly extract the box of Oreo cookies and belly-crawl into the 1st floor bathroom.

Celebrate your successful mission with an oreo double-stuff!

Then, clean up the evidence!

Oops!


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When you run out of dishwasher soap

Apparently guys, when you run out of dishwasher soap(the dry stuff), liquid dish soap is not a viable substitution. What's up with that?



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Re-occurring dream - Phantom of the Opera Sting is trying to kill me again.

Lemon Meringue pie is good dream food. I had my reoccurring  "Sting is trying to kill me!" dream again. Instead of trying to drive me off a cliff in my own truck while he played bass and sang, this time he was dressed up like the Phantom of the Opera. In the dream I was on stage, playing electric guitar (for a change) in front of a huge crowd who were screaming and yelling and suddenly a sandbag on a rope dropped from the ceiling and hit the floor beside me. I looked up and there was that damned Sting again, on the catwalk in a cape cackling maniacally. His Fender Precision bass guitar came out of nowhere and he played it for 3 seconds and it disappeared up his arm like one of those movie sleeve guns. Then he dropped another sandbag. The crowd went wild again, either because the guitar is awesome or they really want Sting to kill me so I stop playing. Someone in the crowd yells "He's behind you!" like they do in Dora the Explorer. (Do YOU see Sting trying to kill you? Say YES!). Actually, I'm looking up and he's above me still (never trust the crowd). Suddenly the crowd fell silent and I woke up to my wife's hair dryer shutting off.

Next time I'm asleep, I told her, put the hair dryer on the floor away from anything flammable and leave it turned on. I gotta get that damned Sting in my dream before he gets me!

Motion sensor light switches

The last few months my kids have been leaving the lights on in the bathroom by mistake. Someone at work told me about these motion sensor switches that switch on when you walk in and switch off when you leave. I stuffed one in the 1st floor bathroom, and so far, it works great! Aside from plunging you in complete darkness after 10 seconds if you're pretty still when you're in there(just wave a limb around and it comes back on).
Now I'm looking for an automatic toilet flusher...


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The breakfast of all kids on March break

Cheese and ginger ale. I let my kid get up before me and she went about fending for herself today. Interesting..


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Test

Bla





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Daddy, what kinda penis you got?

My five year old got a book out of the library. It's one of those kid books on where babies come from, cleverly illustrated cartoon-style with all the details.
Storytime was going pretty good until we got to this page. The previous page imparted the wisdom that boys and girls differ from each other in that girls "sit down" to go to the bathroom while boys "stand up" sometimes. Pretty simple! I'll have to remember that one!

But the following page delved into the "why is this one not like that one?" circumcised/un-circumcised question.
Which prompted my kid to ask:

"What kind of penis you got Daddy?" she points to the illustration " the one with the nose thing or the elephant looking one?"

Two minutes later, when I was able to stop laughing and breathe again I ducked the question, turned the page and changed the subject.

"look how many puppies a doggy can have!"
"ohhhhhh"






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