Thats One Ugly Mug

So I have been in the market for a new mug to have at my desk at work and settled for a thermos type one to insure my coffee stays warm. I wish I would have seen these first, being first line tech support I think they are quite fitting...


This first tough customer would be super as I sometimes feel the urge to bust some chops when on a daily basis I am visited by this wonderful fellow who insist the computer he is using is broken even though every day i tell him he needs to acquire himself a new temporary user name and password... I guess some people are born with goldfish brains; never fear, it's nothing a pop to the jaw can't fix!



This next snappy little coffee cup with a cute little gun trigger handle would be be perfect to use on those who furiously shake the mouse and proclaim for all the library to hear that "these fucking stupid computers are always broken and no one here knows what the fuck is going on!". I would point it at them and yell "Stick 'em Up!" as I poked the power button which of course they neglected to do before going on their tirade! On days overflowing with these sorts of people I could always make peace with God and turn my mug on myself.



This definitely has nothing to do with any sort of discord in the work place... however it would be beneficial on those coffee runs for the rest of the staff when I wish I had a few more arms.



Finally, there is an on going debate two weather the Sith are superior to the Jedi... I know, I know. Joe has decided to bid the phone calls here farewell by saying "my the force be with you". I think if I had this mug it would put him and his Jedis in their place. The Dark Side is strong in this one!
Cheers!

...and a happy one to you all!

Hello everyone, I guess i haven't written for a while. I hope the new year is finding you all well. It is for me, working, working working, that's what my life is all about. Currently I'm working for Georgian College as the tech guy, it's fun. OH OH OH! I have started writing again and I feel like I'm 17. Here are two of my brain vomits.

An Ill Referenced Love:

It is quite studious, in fact, to say
the night could not be better for a moon dance
or with the stars if it pleases you,
take heart of take my heart.
Speak softly and love viciously
but never in the reverse;
vicious love spoken softly can stop hearts,
a motionless heart calls for bad hymns...
or is that bloodless limbs?
Either way,
Who wants a prayer of ill symphony?

And here is another little nugget of writing, which is infact the most recent. So far it is nameless.

Again and once more I answer:
"your heart is far to big for this place".
Poor mother of magpies,
swollen pith and crux is never secret
once they make their way between your tiny bindings.
Your pith for pithing
your crux for crucifiction.
Never forget, I slept with you offering
fastened to my arm.
In truth, I didn't;
I lay awake and spin the beads.
Rasarium of carion birds
Hail Mother Mary Magpie.

Catching Up

I guess I haven't posted in quite some time. I have been so damn busy. I just started my 3rd semester at Georgian in the CSTN coarse, next semester is my co-op and I'm quite excited about that. To follow up on the Algonquin trip, it was super fun. We ended up interior camping, so it was quite secluded. Our camp site was only accessible by canoe so it was great. It was really odd because random animals would just pass through our campsite and not even give us a second glance. The funniest was this awkward looking pheasant/quail looking bird that walked by so cool and collected. Needless to say when it got dark I was on pheasant/quail patrol. Ever night there was a mouse who hung out with us around the fire and every morning there were three chipmunks who would spend the days with us. At about 4 in the morning on our last day there I heard a rather large heavy footed animal outside our tent. It stopped and took in a deep low breath (I'm guessing it was smelling the tent) so I hit the side of the tent to scare it off; It let out a deep moan and walked off. My guess is that it would have been either a bear or a moose, either way, thats a little scary. On our last day before we left Tia decided to throw the bag with a few arousal cans onto the dock. She heard a hissing noise and informed me so I investigated. Turns out it was the bear mace that had exploded and it got all over me. My leg and foot swelled up and turned purple, but either then that the trip was perfect. Seeing our big trip we planned is done and over with we started planning our next. For Tia's birthday we decided to go to New York. She's been there before and I have yet to so I'm really excited to check out the art gallery and the museum of natural history. I hope the next trip we take is in Europe somewhere, I would love to visit Lahr which is the city in Germany that I grew up. Either then that, everything is pretty much the same. Hopefully I will have some time to make a new post with some opinion on something no one cares about soon =) Now that I come to think of it, heres something! I found this awesome band from Sweden called The Knife. The are a electro/pop/indie kind of band. Their music is great but also their attitudes are so rock star. They refuse to do interviews and any pomo pictures taken of them they are wearing bird masks (the ones the medieval doctors wore during the black plague outbreak). They have been around since 2001 but have only played around 20 shows during the winter of 2006, 3 of which were in the United States. Its so refreshing to see a band that doesn't want notoriety. However their song "Heartbeats" was featured in a Sony commercial for the Bravia TV. They were against the idea, but Sony offered them ALOT of money. In the end they agreed, but they gave rights to Sony to use the song if it was preformed by another artist, so in the end, they aren't in the commercial, just their song preformed by Jose Gonzalez (Who does an amazing job might I add). Way to keep your obscurity! =) Here's a video from their DVD for Heartbeats live. The DVD (Silent Shout - An Audio Visual Experience) showcases their one and only tour and really is what it says, and audio visual experience. The light show, costumes and spectacle pair well with the music. The live version is quite different then the album version. The album version is more dancey and upbeat where the live version seems more somber. Check out the album version if you like what you hear.
Cheers!

My Old Neighborhood Blew Up

As many of you have either seen on the news, or witnessed (my friends in Toronto) the propane facility in Downsview park, which was literally in my back yard in Toronto, blew up. Everyone was evacuated from Stanley Green Park (my old sub-division). I have contacted most of my friends to wish them well and learned two people, a fire fighter and a facility worker died in the explosion. Its amazing that only two people lost their lives considering the explosion looked like an A-Bomb going off. My thoughts go out to everyone involved, it must have been terrifying. Incase you haven't seen what happened here is a short clip of the explosion.

The Retarded Policeman!!!

I have been so damn busy latley, the semester is in it's last week so its time to hand in all the projects and write all the final exams. I thought I would post something as I haven't in a long time. I have been recently informed of a Youtube show called "The Retarded Policeman". Staring as the retarded policeman is Josh Perry, an actor with Down Syndrome. It is terribly offensive on so many levels, but its cool cause Josh knows exactly what he's doing and can actually poke fun at his disability. Here's one episode I find especially funny (watch it all the way through after the credits). Check them all out, they are outrageously funny and quite shocking the first time you see it. Cheers!

Why So Serious?

I of course had a ticket to the midnight screening of The Dark Knight. We showed up at the Barrie Cineplex two hours before the doors opened to the theater, we figured that would be plenty of time. When we showed up the line was almost down the stairs. By midnight all 1050 people were crammed in the lobby (3 theaters, with 350 seat completely sold out). Upon sitting down and waiting for the commercials and previews started, the atmosphere in the theater was almost electric. When the lights went out and they started playing the short milk commercials everyone started cheering, just because we were that much closer to seeing the movie.I must say, the hype and build up and standing in a hot sweaty geek ridden line for two hours was definitely worthy of this movie. It was AMAZING. Of course the cast was excellent (even Maggie Gyllenhaal who I am not a big fan of was good) but the most stand out performance was of course the late Heath Ledger. I remember watching Tim Burton's Batman religiously with my father when I was living in Germany almost ever night for the longest time. Jack Nicholson as the Joker was what I thought was the peak of what the Joker could possibly be. The only thing that ever bothered me about him was his perfect make up. How can someone constantly on the run from authorities have such excellently applied make up? When I first heard Heath Ledger was playing the Joker in the second installment of the revived Batman franchise I remember the blogs and posts about how bad of a decision the casting director made. I had been on a Broke Back Mountain kick because it is such an amazing movie and totally believed that someone who could put their own sexuality aside to play a role could pretty much do anything. In a way, I think the rest of the franchise might be doomed. If you haven't seen the movie yet I would advice you to stop reading now. So we have the ending of the movie; the Joker survives and is carted away to prison by the feds and Two Face has fallen to his demise. I think they did this because the realized Heath's character was what was selling the movie and hopefully the rest of the franchise (whysoserious.com, posters, commercials ex...), but what now? No more Joker? They wouldn't dare recast the Joker, that would be all 500 nails driven into their coffin all at once. No more Two Face right? The one possibly villain who could be carried over to the next movie can't be because Harvey Dent is dead... or is he? I could possibly foresee Harvey not actually being dead and come back to be the main villain in the next installment, some sort of faked death scam so he can regroup, gather up the resources and goons he needs for a proper assault on Gotham City. However, that still comes back to the fact that I think the franchise may be doomed. What's next? How can they possibly top Heath's performance? Not only was his performance legendary (I seriously believe it was) but the stigma of Heath playing such a deranged character and then ultimately meeting his mysterious demise makes this character really come to life through his death. I for one don't think that his death had anything to do with suicide or the role of the Joker taking over his mind, it was all just a mistake in moderation but regardless, it still adds a whole new level to the character. Believe me when I say that I am the first to hope that when the third installment comes out I'll be in the audience at a midnight screening eating my words with a side of popcorn and root beer, but I'm a pessimist through and through and will always be one. The death of such a talented actor is terrible especially when it was said he was in the prime of his career; I hope the franchise won't end up dying with Heath.

The 19 Billion 250 Million Dollar Question

So it looks like the cell phone companies are doomed. Auction 73 finished in March with a result not many people thought would turn out, or agree with or for the most part understand the ramifications behind. Auction 73 was the federal auction for the 700MHz spectrum. For those who don't know, the 700MHz spectrum is the wave length at which calls, text messages and emails are sent and received via cell phone. The auction started in January with a few interested bidders such as AT&T, Quailcom, Virgin Mobile and oddly enough, the advertising power-house knows for it's search engine, Google. Google's explanation for the want for the 700MHz was simple: if it costs the same to chat with someone across the street from you or on the other side of the world, all your simply paying for is the Internet connection. Why should it be any different for phone calls. However, Google took it one step further and asked themselves, why should we have to pay for our hardware (cell phones, PDAs, Black Berries) and then pay a monthly fee to use said hardware we just purchased? Their final plan was to make the 700MHz a free access point to use your hardware that you purchase from the big cell phone companies. How can they afford to shell out the billion dollars to buy the spectrum and to what use would it be to them to just give it away you ask? Google's main income is brought in by their advertising, and with an entire spectrum at their disposal there would be plenty of room to advertise and plenty of revenue to be made. When the large cell phone companies got wind of this they were obviously not happy campers. The estimated revenue generated from the auction was thought to be in the neighbourhood of five to seven billion dollars, but when the auction finished, the bids added up to almost twenty billion dollars. The large jump in the 700MHz value was because all the other companies wanted to keep the spectrum out of Google's price range, making the biggest winners in the auction AT&T and Virgin Mobile. I've read a lot of blogs and message board on the loss of Google, most people are upset and would have liked to see a different outcome. I think, if anything, this outcome may benefit us in the long run. Of course the rumour mill has started moving and it seems Google may have found a niche in this newly delegated 700MHz spectrum... more profitable for themselves and more damaging for the big cell phone companies. What I've heard from my professors and peers is that Google plans on leasing some 700MHz space and giving it away for free, just like they wanted to before, but in addition they will be manufacturing cell phones and giving them away at no cost! All of this is with in Google's budget because they would be using the cell phones to send you text messages or phone calls to advertise things. This of course would make them huge bucks. Seeing that no cell phone companies will be making any money off selling service because Google is just giving it away, next time the 700MHz spectrum goes up for auction no one is going to want it and Google could possibly pick it up for possibly a few thousand dollars... talk about depreciation. Of course the only downside I can see in this situation is the advertising. We are already advertised at left right and center. I think a bit more is completely worth not having a cell phone bill or needing to pay for the hardware. If this trend actually comes to fruition I could see us one day not needing to pay for Internet access and being handed a computer by some company as long as we promise to read one email a week about their newest products and services. As of now, were all still slaves to the cell phone bills but hopefully soon Google will save us. Cheers!