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Monday, August 11, 2003 ( 9:34 AM ) by David Barker Told You I Was Going To Enjoy Myself! Huzzah For Me And All My Friends! Long story short, the Watergun Party had rocks in! Wild watergun fun in the corner lot front yard! Then fun antics in the round in-ground pool! Including the ever-popular whirlpool, always a highlight of the annual - or annular - event. The evil couple of Debbie "Evil Web-Goddess" Ohi and her evil henchhusband, Jeff "Big Fella, Ain't He? Evil, Too" Ridpath, totally got me with a digital camera, watergun and pail of ice cold water based practical joke. If, as they claimed, it was unplanned, then I must say 'Well done', if not somewhat evil. To spare her bandwidth I won't post the URL to Debbie's pictures of the party, but I will say that besides capturing my reaction to the above mentioned evilness, she was able to use her digital camera to get some very nice shots in the pool, actually under the actual water! To Reid and Luisa and Ronnie and Michael, thank you all very much for a great big wet blast of fun!!! Saturday, August 09, 2003 ( 11:52 AM ) by David Barker The Watergun Party! Callooh-Callarty! Today is Reid and Luisa's (and Ronnie's and Michael's, too) annual Watergun Party, the fifth, I think...somebody help me here. (I'm joking, no one reads this...) Everyone runs around like a herd of maniacs (or whatever the collective noun is; a frantic? a bacchante?) Luisa always sends out the invitation with a whole slew of highly sensible warnings; bring dry clothes, leave your moisture sensitive valuables inside, watch out for kids when you push somebody into the pool. I always laugh because she's writing these to adults. Not your father's adults! It's always fun (and No, You Know Who You Are, I don't think everything's fun!) and they don't have to post a rain date, because rain is no consequence, although temperature is. I shall enjoy myself. And you, whoever you are, and whatever you are going to do today, (unless it involves criminal acts or causing sorrow) do likewise. Friday, August 08, 2003 ( 2:49 PM ) by David Barker Spirited Away By - You Guessed It - Spirited Away... I just saw Hayao Miyazaki's exquisite movie on DVD at Tim and Anneli's. I bet you can guess that I liked it. (And No, You Know Who You Are, I don't like everything!) Suffice it say that when Sen (Chihiro) remembered Haku's real name and they were falling through the air, I nearly started to cry. Thank you, Miyazaki-san. Tuesday, August 05, 2003 ( 11:48 AM ) by David Barker I've Got The Best Friends In The Whole World. My Friend Luisa Thinks She Does, But I Do. Due to the buying and vacationing habits of two different families of friends, I have recently had access to extremely cool video libraries. (Any more information and I violate their right to privacy. And with some people, it's a rite to privacy. But not these guys, I mean they let me into their homes!) I saw, for the first time, on DVD, O Brother, Where Art Thou, by the Coen Brothers. Eeyikes! What an excellent film! What exquisite storytelling! What a hand with the dialogue! What a cast! Then I saw Fight Club for the third time, but the second time was quite a while ago. The things you miss... And I watched the first part again, with the director's commentary. This should be mandatory. (This is 'Tyler Durden' as the query string for the Wordsmith dot org service, the Advanced Anagram Server. Just a thought. A lost, wasted thought, but what the hell.) Last night I watched the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, called Once More With Feeling. Joss Whedon is God. Not just a god. But God. You know, Y-hw-h. J-h-v-h. "I Am That I Am." That's a joke. I am so close to an atheist that you might say (because I do) I'm an asymptotic agnostic. Joss Whedon is a storyteller of the finest school, someone who has mastered his medium, with little regard for the doldrums and storm seasons of ratings and sweeps weeks. I know he has to deal with the studios and censors, but, Jeepers Tap-Dancing Cripes, he has transcended his restrictions: "Nuns fret not". You don't like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? You don't know it. Click here. Waiting for me right now is Spirited Away, by Hayao Miyazaki and his posse at Studio Ghibli. I haven't seen it before so I can't wait. Friday, July 25, 2003 ( 3:47 PM ) by David Barker Chaise Longue! Godammit! It's Chaise Longue! Always Has Been! Kriced, that bugs me. It's not a chaise lounge! Never was. It's French for 'long chair'. That's a different language so they say and spell things differently. All-2-frikkin-gether now - chaise longue. Good. Again. And again. Once more. There will B hell 2 pay if I have 2 revisit this issue. Return 2 your now better lives. And don't get me started on the 3 syllable pronunciation of epitome. Rrrrr. Saturday, July 19, 2003 ( 11:45 AM ) by David Barker Something's Wrong... Something's Terribly, Terribly Wrong Starting yesterday afternoon sometime, from a University of Toronto library, MSIE v6 (aka Explorer) started not downloading images from webpages. I first noticed it when trying to view some scanned slides a friend had posted. I thought it was just his server. Then I noticed it on another friend's page, with which there had been no problems earlier. Then today, at our main public library, using (illegally...) MSIE 5, the same problem occurred. So I tried Netscape 4.7 which is the default browser in Toronto's public library system, and no problem. I am back at U of T, at a different library, and the same problem is occurring in MSIE v6 and not in Netscape 6.2.3. Some small images, mostly gifs apparently, get through, like arrows and drop-down outline type pluses and minuses, but large images don't come through, even though the status bar at the bottom says '12 items remaining...' or whatever. It's almost as if Explorer has somehow been crippled, all versions of it. Well, at least 5 and 6. (And something seems to be affecting my connection to AccuRadio, an internet radio station with some nice jazz channels. It just stops in Explorer and is inaccessible in Netscape.) It would be interesting to know how far this problem extends in space and time. Anyone? Friday, July 18, 2003 ( 2:05 PM ) by David Barker Wil Wheaton, I'm Sorry. So Sorry. For years, he pissed me off. As you all know, it wasn't really him, it was Wesley Crusher, but I got confused. I've just been listening to his audio blogs, recorded from the road while he and his wife were on the way to a con in Oklahoma, where he was going to speak, read from his book 'Dancing Barefoot' and hang. Just fun. Plain fun. What a guy. ( 12:54 PM ) by David Barker Joss Whedon's Firefly Movie In The Works. Got Your Attention? Rumour has it that he's writing a movie based on the sadly short-lived (and woefully mistreated by the network...) series. I only saw maybe three of the broadcast episodes and while I had my cavils about the universe it took place in, I still enjoyed the stories; the intricacy and intensity with which he told the story. You had to watch every minute of the action and the story or you'd miss something... He had a fine cast and good stories, with appropriate weirdness, that were nothing like Buffy. Fox bastards. |
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