barkerland

2008-04-11T13:50:00.002-04:00

Quick Update1> BSG season premiere rocked.2> So does a show called Smash Lab on Discovery.3> Went to see Nicholas Nickleby with Laura last Thursday. Spoiler: Smike dies. I nearly cried.4> Had lunch with Reid on Friday. Salad King across from old Sam's. Thai. Mmm.5> barker.tnir.org now lets me save new posts as unpublished, but won't let me publish them...6> Corner Gas' sixth season will be

2008-04-09T20:31:00.002-04:00

Well, until I can figure out what's wrong with my WordPress blog on tnir, this is where I'll be bloggering.

2004-04-13T13:22:00.000-04:00

Thank You, Blogger But All Good Free Things Must Come To An End... I'll be switching over to my Movable Type blog at barker.tnir.org, kindly supplied by Reid Ellis, so all the many of you who read this should change your bookmarks. I like blogger and still think it's a handy tool for what it offers. I just think that MT is better for the same reasons. I still don't know how to do all the

2004-02-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

Ouch, Dude! Seriously, Dude! Ouch! My young friend Michael broke his leg last week while skiing, just a few days before the family was due to go away for a week in the Dominican Republic. He's thirteen, so you can imagine what's going on in his head : guilt, recrimination, probably feeling a little bit of a whole lotta stupid. Maybe us grownups can tell him not to fret himself, but it's only

2004-02-08T11:26:00.000-05:00

This Is True Literally. I get the email referred to here and I love it. This bit below is a new free service the guy offers. It's maybe 50 characters of javascript code copied from his website. The story shown below will change every day. Cool.

2004-01-29T09:17:00.000-05:00

Can't Believe It. Cannot Frikkin' Believe It. Last night I watched a whole episode of American Idol. Laughed, cringed, gasped. It started a few weeks ago when anything was an acceptable alternative to Star Trek:Enterprise. Which sucks. I watched a little of this, a little of that, including some American Idol. Last week I watched more of it. This week, (they were in Honolulu), I watched

2004-01-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

Back To School Started Monday... It's a six month course that's going to provide me with CompTIA A+ PC Core and Hardware certification as well as CompTIA Network+ certification. Along the way I pick up a Microsoft Certified Professional card for Windows 2000 and MS Office. Day One - Monday, January 19, 2004 Orientation This was basic stuff, and simple. The morning was Business

2004-01-17T10:48:00.000-05:00

TV Does Not Suck! As Much! I have a new favourite TV show. Friday nights at nine, here in Toronto on CTV (channel 9, cable 8). It's called 'Joan of Arcadia'. Can't really do the basic premise justice, so I'll only say that, as you may have heard, it's about a teenage girl who God talks to, in the form of just about anybody she might meet in the course of a day. He has her do things that

2004-01-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

Not Your Dad's Twenty-First Century Or Maybe It Is. I'm in the main public library branch in Toronto, using the internet accessible computers set up for the public. Each session is one half an hour. There are a lot of problems with how things are set up here, but that's not one of them. Here's what just happened. Some guy is on a computer. He leaves his coat and stuff (it's -12, and the

2004-01-06T13:53:00.000-05:00

Mars, Again. No, Still. Check this out, from space.com. It's fucking beautiful. Check out the resolution, the out-yer-back-window detail of the nearby rocks and the stuff in the distance! "This is the first color image of Mars taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. It is the highest resolution image ever taken on the surface of another planet. Image credit:

2004-01-05T10:59:00.000-05:00

I Guess NASA Sure Knows Mars From Elba. (Old Scottish Accent Joke About Napoleon. Or Something.) Mars! Goddam! I remember when Pathfinder landed in 1997 I was glued to TV and the internet - dialup back in those days. I couldn't get enough of it. Still can't but I've learned some patience. =;] The Brits had a bit of hard luck with Beagle 2. But they're not giving up and will keep trying

2004-01-04T14:43:00.000-05:00

Technophobic! But Only Because The Technology Is So Dern Big! I had a fun evening on Friday at Jeff and Gail Kesner's house. It's the way the hell up - I don't know. I got a lift with Reid and Ronnie, and I don't drive, so all I saw was traffic and some signs, then boom, we're there. Much quicker than I thought. They live in a big, beautiful house in a neighbourhood of like houses. We - the

2003-12-18T13:32:00.000-05:00

Good Fellowship! Yee-haw! (Elvish for 'yippee!) Well, yesterday was the last day of the Gathering of the Fellowship, the first of a hoped-for biennial celebration of Tolkien's various works, their admirers (and yer basic fans), and those inspired by them. This year was focused on the release of the third and last of Peter Jackson's films based on The Lord of the Rings; The Return of the King

2003-12-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

This Is Cool! Check It Out! Tolerance dot org is a very cool anti-racism/anti-bigotry project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Check out the "Do Something" column on the right. This story is great! An excerpt: "In Boyertown, Pennsylvania, Project Lemonade so irritated the Ku Klux Klan that the group threatened to sue organizers for raising money "on our name." Money raised went for

2003-12-01T10:53:00.000-05:00

Kids Today! Kids Tomorrow. Well, yesterday I attended a nice little meet-the-baby party for Jamie Chew, the wee fella whose arrival was recently blogged about here. Wow. I love kids. I think I get along with kids. I will probably never have kids of my own, and that might be a good thing, all things considered. Some of my friends have children of different ages, and I like them all. Some

2003-11-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

Lucy, You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do. Now, Whatever Could He Mean? Okay, a heads-up. From now on, when what I mean to convey is that I'm not interested in excuses, I'm going to say "I don't care if he's filling in for Mel Zoetz!" This is from one of my 112 favourite Simpsons episodes, where they try to shut down the burlesque house. The line was funny then and it will be funny forever. Like

2003-11-12T13:06:00.000-05:00

Welcome Jamie! John and Kristen Chew (mostly Kristen) gave birth to a wee baby boy on Tuesday. Here are proud papa John's pics. They - the parents - are, like many people I know, intelligent, friendly and gracious people around with whom it is a pleasure to hang. (Kristen is in publishing, hence the 'whom'.) Jamie is their first child. What an entrance. (And yes, Freudenfreude rears its

2003-11-03T10:15:00.000-05:00

Rofflemow. Whatever That Means. People Use It, So I Will Too. Even though I already knew the story, when I saw this headline on cnn.com, I double-took, because I imagined something completely different. "Teen surfer describes losing arm to shark" Here's the thing of it: why did the shark want to hear about it?

2003-11-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

The English. Delia Smith, The Naked Chef, Nigella Lawson, And Now This. "The Duchess of Devonshire hasn't cooked for 60 years, and it shows - her new recipe book advises you to send the gamekeeper out for gulls' eggs... oh, and to keep your own cow" I came across this article about the Duchess of Devonshire, the youngest (and last surviving) of the Mitford sisters. It's from The Guardian

2003-10-24T12:09:00.000-04:00

Enterprise Without The 'The' Okay, PaulK, here's my POV. Me saying Enterprise ralfs means that while I really wanted to like it and gave it chance after chance, they failed. Many things collude to make me want to slap Rick Berman and Brannon Braga two or three times each To wit, a list: 1) the horrible storytelling 2) the Saturday morning cartoon plot contrivances 3) the wasted

2003-10-17T12:29:00.000-04:00

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Draft Wesley Crusher For The Next American Presidential Race! Time Travel And Everything! Kid I you not, I got this off Wil Wheaton's website. NB, not his project. Life is wonderful. Amidst all the BS and seriousness and serious BS, there is laughter. Maybe not at what's really funny, but at what could be funny. Wil Wheaton has a serious sense of humour about

2003-10-08T15:14:00.000-04:00

Had We But World Enough, And Time, To Get My Name Spelled Correctly... When I was in high school, Jack Langedyk (yes, that Jack Langedyk) worked on an ecology project for the local paper. They spelled his last name correctly. They spelled mine wrong. But when my older sister got her name in the paper, they spelled it right. Okay, so I used the handle 'dwjoyes' a lot on the web; it's my

2003-10-08T10:18:00.000-04:00

Former Actor And California Governor-Elect Helena Handbasket... I got nuthin'

2003-10-04T15:53:00.000-04:00

Stranger In A Strange Land. Indeed. I am reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land for the second time in about thirty years, and have come to a startling - and very science-fictiony- conclusion; this is not the same book that I read in high school - even though this book is very possibly from the same early 1970s printing or printing range as the one I read back then. It has been

2003-09-19T08:56:00.000-04:00

I Guess I Should Mention How Cool PHP Is. I Should Have Before, So Here. So There. Thanks to Reid (q.v.) I've been able to start learning php on his server. I've been an HTML and VB hobby programmer for years and always wanted to be able to do something programmatically intelligent serverside - more powerful and private - to match up with javascript (not vbscript, it always has to be

2003-09-17T09:09:00.000-04:00

Because My Friends Are Sometimes Right. That's Why. I would like to plug BitPass, a new web goods and services micropayment site. I read about it on my friend Reid's blog, and thought, hey, this is cool. Then another friend, Peter, posted an interesting comment and opinion. I think BitPass deserves some free publicity. Check out the various links highlighted in Peter's comment. "Fight

2003-09-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

I'm just going to repeat my post of a few days ago. Peace. The Best Way To Remember September 11, 2001. I Hope Jeff And Gail Don't Mind Me Saying It This Way. On Thursday, September 11, Megan Keiko K. will be two years old. Happy birthday, you charmin' l'il gal! (And to Megan's big sister, Jennifer K., I don't know when your birthday is, but 'Happy Birthday' to you too, when it rolls round

2003-09-09T09:19:00.000-04:00

Leni Reifenstahl Has Died At 101. Never Saw Even One Of Her Films A few years ago I saw a two part biographical documentary on her. It played two Sunday nights (really Monday mornings...) in a row. It was fascinating and sad. What she had to say about her films, how she refused to admit - even to consider - that they might have been used as propaganda, when she claims they hadn't been

2003-09-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

The Best Way To Remember September 11, 2001. I Hope Jeff And Gail Don't Mind Me Saying It This Way. On Thursday, September 11, Megan Keiko K. will be two years old. Happy birthday, you charmin' l'il gal! (And to Megan's big sister, Jennifer K., I don't know when your birthday is, but 'Happy Birthday' to you too, when it rolls round again. Remind me!)

2003-09-05T12:18:00.000-04:00

Lucy Liu Just Announced Her Engagement. Rrrr. So pop Plan A. Problem is, I was so sure of Plan A that I didn't bother with a Plan B. Hell, I didn't even call it Plan A. I just thought, you know, 'hey, my numbers gotta come up sooner or later.' I'll be better prepared next time. I'll create a Plan B, promote it, then come up with a Plan C, promote that, and start the clock again. Third

2003-09-04T15:44:00.000-04:00

William Gibson And I Are Like This! Crosses Fingers, Which Is Also The Sign Of A Lie... I got this from his blog today. The website is Multibabel, 'Lost in Translation'. It asks the question,literally, "What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages?" (Try just cut-and-pasting that question!) It lets you specify including

2003-08-30T10:27:00.000-04:00

Funniest Thing From The Watergun Party! How Could I Not Blog This?! Okay, so Michael - a 13 year old Monty Python And the Holy Grail fan - is in the upstairs bathroom window overlooking the backyard, trying to bomb people with water balloons. People are trying to get him with their waterguns. He looks down at me and shouts "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" I

2003-08-29T10:14:00.000-04:00

Stupid Stupid Rules! Well, Okay, Stupid If I Can't Get Away With Breaking Them (Coming back to this post a few hours later to add 'I don't normally do anything this impulsive or, in the Santa Claus sense, naughty. I swear.') TorCon3 is this weekend. An earlier post here told how I volunteered. Well, I wasn't a paid up member, and my evil caught up with me. I did manage to help out on

2003-08-27T09:24:00.000-04:00

John Honderich, Publisher Of The Toronto Star, What The Hell Are You Thinking? There's a lot of things I could be asking you that question about, but there's one thing particularly current and relevant that's sandpapering my sweetspot just about now! It's Interplanetary Mars Day in the Solar System. Humans from Mercury out to the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud are celebrating the opposition of

2003-08-23T15:05:00.000-04:00

The Germans Don't Call It Freudenfreude, But I Do. Check out my friend Debbie's recent posting about her nieces. I like reading stories like this. When I do, as I've said before, but I don't think in this blog, I wish it was me but I'm glad it's them. (A Day Later: Seems some people, maybe Germans, do call it Freudenfreude...)

2003-08-21T11:45:00.000-04:00

Project Gutenberg Is Going Broke I Ain't Mike and Goldie, But I'm Shilling Anyway I subscribe to the update email for Blackmask, an online library that is constantly adding public domain books to its virtual stacks. Today, I got one and this is an excerpt (of an excerpt from a message by PG founder Michael Hart on the Book People Archive.) "" Irony: As Project Gutenberg moves from 9,000 to

2003-08-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

Forgot Something About The Watergun Party. The Kids! Stupid me. How could I forget to mention all my friends' cool kids that were there too? There were siblings Gareth and Charlotte, wild childs and lotsa fun. Gareth just got his deep-end bracelet from his swimming program and seemed to be quite proud of it. There were brothers Daniel and Ross. Daniel got into the pool fun, the whirlpool

2003-08-18T14:37:00.000-04:00

WTF? Yeah, I Said F. The fearless simpletons at the Toronto Reference Library have posted a handwritten sign on the front door saying it will be closed until further notice. Not 'until Tuesday', or 'for one week'. Until further notice. It better be a friggin' crime scene. They've always been a shower of dotty ditherers who mean well, but they just get happier and happier. Their attempt to

2003-08-14T12:07:00.000-04:00

Feet First, Or Is It Head First? Never been to a SF convention before Ad Astra in the spring, now I volunteered for TorCon, which is WorldCon this year, or something. I have been assigned to the ConSuite, and will also be doing anything they ask. I don't know if the first just presumes the second, or what. I'm sure I'll find out everything, including the jargon, the politics (aargh!), the

2003-08-11T09:34:00.000-04:00

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 "

2003-08-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

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;

2003-08-08T14:49:00.000-04:00

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.

2003-08-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

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!)

2003-07-25T15:47:00.000-04:00

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

2003-07-19T11:45:00.000-04:00

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

2003-07-18T14:05:00.000-04:00

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.

2003-07-18T12:54:00.000-04:00

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

2003-07-08T13:28:00.000-04:00

It's A Good Thing Nobody Reads This Blog. Especially aiabx. Thanks to Anneli, the high school English teacher, who ought to know better, but thankfully does not. A good pun is its own reword A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative. Practice safe eating - always use condiments. A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.

2003-06-26T12:40:00.000-04:00

Gettin' On. Gettin' On. I mean that two ways. I am forty-six years old today. I could be sad and mournful and complain about the lousy hand life's dealt me, but nope. Just can't do it. I have great friends, cool friends, and while I could use a job, I feel pretty good about finishing a few short stories and a novel. Nothing publishable, but nevertheless, I DID IT. Yes, I'm shouting.

2003-06-24T10:44:00.000-04:00

Silly Spike Lee - Well, Stupid Actually... Here is a CNN story about Spike Jones Jr.'s reaction to Spike Lee's lawsuit to stop TNN from changing its name to 'Spike TV'. And below is a cut and paste from IMDb of all the other people in their database who have just as much right - or as little, really - as Lee to be P.O'd. Most popular searches Spike Jonze Spike Lee ------------------------

2003-06-13T09:31:00.000-04:00

Harry Potter Is Fun, Not Great Art, But It Was Never Intended To Be, So Pull The Stick Out And Enjoy Yourself. Or Go To He!!. Or Azkaban. My friend Anneli, (of Tim, Anneli and Alicia, see right) send me this. It's a quiz to help you figure out which Hogwarts house you belong to. It is neither binding nor signicant. I am Your a Gryffindor. House of Bravery. You are neverafraid to do

2003-06-03T12:14:00.000-04:00

peace archy in case there's any confusion about what I meant by my last post

2003-06-01T13:54:00.000-04:00

Gloating, Because I Was Right. Was Too. Salam Pax is real. This is an article from the Guardian Unlimited about him. Peace. Archy.

2003-05-30T13:23:00.000-04:00

Christopher Tolkien Is P!ssed! He's a Big Baby. And pretentious, too. To be fair, I'd be p!ssed about the musical too. Musical? Read the link.

2003-05-25T14:52:00.000-04:00

Why Everybody Is Wrong About The Matrix Reloaded Except Me. Yes, You Are, So Just Settle Down. It isn't a martial arts movie with some preaching and jabbering. It isn't sophomoric philosophizing, and it isn't cyberpunk. It is a finely told story. Yeah, it's got martial arts, and preaching, and jabbering, and philosophizing, and cyberpunk. And CG. And continuity errors - see IMDb. And it

2003-05-21T10:29:00.000-04:00

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Has Come To An End. Thank God For DVDs! It was a nice ending. I was sure that she was going to end up back in Heaven one way or another. She didn't. I'm sad it's over but I'm quite pleased with how it ended. I hope I can say the same thing when I go.

2003-05-15T12:20:00.000-04:00

Litigation Proof Linking. So Sue Me. One of my favourite comic strips is Patrick McDonnell's wonderful Mutts. It's about a cat named Mooch and a dog named Earl who are best friends. They have their families and their friends, and Patrick (using his first name just cuz it feels right) has created in them some excellent comic strip characters. Now some comic strip syndicates have weird linking

2003-05-14T12:19:00.000-04:00

There Is A God. Well, A Godling Really, I Guess. Quasi-Omnipotent. Because Some Things Still Suck. Like Enterprise. (See Previous Posting.) Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Izzard are going to star in a film version of E. Nesbitt's "Five Children And It". It ain't "The Story of the Amulet" one of my favourite stories, but it's darn near good enough. Here's the Ananova news story. Here's

2003-05-14T10:34:00.000-04:00

Enterprise Sux!!!! Yeah, It Does! Let me be unambiguous. Enterprise gets worse and worse. Carbon Creek was a high point, with a good idea and an interesting storyline nicely developed - for American television science fiction, that is to say - and I really liked it, especially Blalock's performance, which usually doesn't do much for me. She is just there for T&A, but does a fine job of that.

2003-05-12T10:39:00.000-04:00

Did I Mention I Met Chris Hadfield Yesterday? Well, I Did! Got his autograph. Asked him what it was like up there. He waxed rhapsodic about the spacewalk. I am keeping this in perspective, though. It's not like it was John Glenn or Keir Dullea. But, man, Chris Hadfield! Yeah, I know, but give me another day or so. I'll get over it. Maybe I'll meet Lucy Liu today. I am so on a roll.

2003-05-11T13:50:00.000-04:00

I Met Chris Hadfield This Morning! Chris FREAKIN' Hadfield! At about 11:30am Sunday, May 11, 2003, I was in the Atrium on Bay, on the lower level near the Macdonald's by the walk-through to the bus station. I see this guy. Yeah, it's him. No, it isn't. So I ask him. Yup, it's him. I thought I was excited to have met and talked to Karl Schroeder, Canadian author of Ventus and Permanence at

2003-05-09T13:29:00.000-04:00

Matrix Reloaded Spoilers Don't Get Pissy, You've Been Warned This is a Time magazine review With Spoilers. This is from Ain't It Cool, a totally hilarious, with full impact foul language, critique - nay, paean - of the movie With Spoilers. I love it. This is also from Ain't It Cool, but she didn't like it... Now, this, from the Christian Science Monitor, presented without comment, except

2003-05-08T12:05:00.000-04:00

Vandalism. Schmandalism. Makes me sick. Racist graffiti in public washrooms. The latest, "Moslems can eat my ass" in the local public library. I added, in big red letters, "How, with your head up your ass?" One for the good guys. But sometimes it feels like the bad guys are still way ahead on points.

2003-05-07T11:53:00.000-04:00

Salam Pax Has Updated! Check it out. I was getting seriously worried and I don't even know the bugger. Sometimes there's a happy ending.

2003-04-30T13:01:00.000-04:00

Going Out On A Limb Here. (I Used To Like Roseanne Barr, Too) I really like Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. Just do. I like their politics and their voices. Bull Durham was pretty good too. I like the photograph of them at the last Oscars, flashing the peace sign at the camera. Heartwarming. Optimizing. Here's an Alternet article by Tim Robbins called 'Countering the Wave of Hate, from

2003-04-29T12:37:00.000-04:00

The Matrix: Rejected - You Should Thank These People For Doing Your Thinking For You. And Praise God, Or Whatever. Dr. Albert Oxford PhD explains it all to you. (From David Wong's Pointless Waste of Time, but I didn't want to tell you that first.) (And check out the posts in the forums, what a bunch of idiots. I mean boner-loners, humourless, stupid people. I don't call people stupid

2003-04-22T10:27:00.000-04:00

It Ain't Blade Runner. But It Never Is, Goddamit! Sunday morning, Easter Sunday, that is, here in Toronto, I was walking up Yonge Street north of Dundas. Yonge and Dundas is where the Eaton Centre shopping mall is, looks like if they had renovated GUM in Moscow...Anyway, there's a few video billboards on buildings in the area, kind of like as if the city fathers (and mothers, cool yer jets)

2003-04-19T10:23:00.000-04:00

Consequences of the American Victory in Iraq: The Mid-West in the Middle East. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa & Iraq. I'm thinking transplant the American heartland to the Cradle of Civilization, you know, imam and pop shops...and that's about as far as I'm going to get with that joke, so never mind. I am just as happy as a pig in shit about finishing my novel. Just

2003-04-16T10:52:00.000-04:00

Pie Boy! Sure, Dave... Yesterday I finished my first novel. At 72,000 plus words, it is entitled "The Word in the Box." It was originally conceived as an entry in NaNoWriMo or the National Novel Writing Month, November of 2002. Now the "National" refers to the U.S., but they had entries from all over the world. The sole goal was to write 50,000 words in one month, no other requirements,

2003-04-12T11:24:00.000-04:00

Lying To The BBC. After WWII, It Feels - I Don't Know - Like Lying To God... Bear with now, and keep up. Clicking on the link below gets you to a BBC page that asks you to indicate if you are in the UK or not. This is where you lie. Click on "Yes". (Don't worry, they'll believe you. And if it's true, then you're okay anyway...) Now scroll to the bottom of the new page. Look for the '10'

2003-04-08T15:16:00.000-04:00

Same Day. Better Story. I listen to various internet radio stations via Live365. Several stations play only movie soundtracks, which I like to use as background music when I'm writing. (Listening to Moviola right now...) I have accidentally become a fan of movie soundtracks separate from the movie, although there were several that I already owned, like 'Phantom Menace' and 'Crouching Tiger,

2003-04-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

Smart White Man vs Stupid White Men This is a link to Michael Moore's website version of the newsletter I got this morning from him. (Not personally, of course not, I signed up for it a few weeks ago after reading 'Stupid White Men' and seeing 'Bowling for Columbine'; he doesn't know me from Johnny Canuck...). Check it out. He's a fun kind of social commentator/satirist and scrappy little

2003-04-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

And Now For Something Completely Different. Seriously. I have recently, to my great surprise and general delight, developed an interest in manga and anime. The two art-forms were always there and I have friends who are fans. It just never grabbed me. Then a few weeks ago, I was researching the intra-war tradition of the benshi (q.v.) in Japanese movie theatres. I came across a reference to

2003-04-06T13:53:00.000-04:00

Not So Big A Deal As Salam Pax But... Wil Wheaton (q.v) hasn't updated since March 30. He maintains a smart, funny website - with good original content and lots of interesting links - that I started checking out because a web-idol of mine, Debbie Ohi, has a link on her web-page - see column to the right. For somebody who used to set my teeth on edge, I sure have changed my opinion about him.

2003-04-05T12:41:00.000-05:00

Ann Coulter Is An A$$hole! And What An A$$hole! From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website, dated January 14, 2002: "We need to execute people like John Walker [presumably the Yankee Taliban, dwb] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too," pundit Ann Coulter told this month's meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. "

2003-04-02T15:33:00.000-05:00

Hey, Wil Wheaton! I Owe You One! Hell, I Owe You A Few! This is conspire.com's Fun With Homeland Security. As a Canadian, I almost feel like it's wrong to laugh at something like this during some other country's wartime. But not quite. I laughed myself normal this morning, I swear. In yesterday's Toronto Star, CTV announced that they were going to remake an absolutely abominable TV series

2003-04-01T10:19:00.000-05:00

So This Is What April Fool's Day During Wartime Feels Like. Huh. It snowed in Toronto today. (Is there another vernal equinox coming that I just don't know about?) And the war is still on. Check out The Museum of Hoaxes April Fool's Day Gallery from refdesk.com. And this from APoD is kinda cute. And thank you, Neil Gaiman. Oh! For this link! It's been over a week since Salam Pax

2003-03-31T14:20:00.000-05:00

Childhood Is Very Far Away But Fortunately, Not Too Far! Bear with me. I was mentioning to friends at a discussion salon I attend weekly that I remember seeing as a child, a few romantic/heroic fantasies for children produced behind the Iron Curtain when the producers couldn't do anything overtly political, especially critical of the regimes. I vaguely remember one with a scene in it that had

2003-03-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

Where Is Salam Pax? He hasn't updated since Monday evening. Let me know if you hear anything.

2003-03-27T12:07:00.000-05:00

Insert Catchy And Memorable Golden Age Of Science Fiction Quotation About Outer Space Here. My God, That Was Catchy and Memorable! If you haven't already, immediately visit the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Stunning, glorious, extravagant (for an idiot uncreated universe, that is) images of various celestial objects from various terrestrial - and orbital - sources. Why are you still reading

2003-03-26T10:42:00.000-05:00

The Second Gulf War Peripheral II I Wonder What The (Inevitable) Country Song About This War Will Be Called William Gibson's comments on Salam Pax and his 'Dear Raed' blog on Blogger. Salam Pax's blog entries are vivid, mundane and ordinary - except for the fact that his hometown and place of residence, Baghdad, is under siege and he has friends and family missing or dead. And FY yer I, Salam

2003-03-24T10:47:00.000-05:00

Not Real Pleased Today But I Had A Good Weekend So I Don't Hate You (In Spite Of The Academy Awards. And The War) Ad Astra was on in Toronto this past weekend. A friend of mine, Miguel Sternberg, (q.v.) gave me a pass. I was house-sitting for some friends on Saturday but I went to the con on Sunday, several sessions. I got to talk briefly to Karl Schroeder who wrote

2003-03-20T15:33:00.000-05:00

The Second Gulf War Peripheral "Gulf W. War" Here is a blog that Blogger has added to their Blogs of Note column. It's a fellow in Baghdad. Just some guy. Unnerving at the very least, and disturbing. Check it out.

2003-03-19T10:30:00.000-05:00

I Hate Everybody And Everything Today. Rrrrr. But to quote Matt Damon's character Loki, in Dogma, "Oh, not you!" He says this at the end of the airport scene at the beginning of the movie to a woman in the elevator. She has just heard him say to Bartleby (Ben Affleck) something like "Great, now we can start killing people again." He and Bartleby are about to embark on a new Angel of Death

2003-03-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

It Ain't Rocket Surgery But It Sure Feels Like It Sometimes. Tosca and Vesta are cats who live with friends of mine. One is Siamese. I couldn't tell them apart for the first little while. They certainly don't resemble one another, but the names are very similar, like Ernie and Bert or Sacco and Vanzetti (or is it Leopold and Loeb? See what I mean?). Here are my two mnemonics for

2003-03-12T12:16:00.000-05:00

Primitive Counting Anna One, Anna Two... One A Couple A Few Some Many A Lot All Also how dogs and monkeys count. (O Lord, Mildred, the boy's gone mental agin. Wheck'im. And click on somethin' else. I swear this is as bad as the TV! Never anything good on.)

2003-03-11T15:41:00.000-05:00

Lucifer, You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do! Here, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. I mean it. Christ on a crutch. Nuckin' Futs (q.v.) doesn't begin to cover it.

2003-03-11T12:21:00.000-05:00

When Life Sucks, Go Fishing. And Stay There. This I got from Refdesk; it's called Search Engine Showdown. It is a review, comparison and news source on all the major search engines.

2003-03-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

When's The Next IntraDimensional Apportation Manifestation Outa Here, Anyway? I Already Got My Ticket. I guess this is it, my friends. Comet NEAT (officially C/2002 V1) is going to hit the earth. Or should it be the Earth? Or just Earth? There should be a standard for that. But I really don't have time to look it up if the comet is going to hit the Earth. Earth. Planet Earth. Science

2003-02-25T13:06:00.000-05:00

Nuckin' Futs. Criminy. Hell is other people. It's almost as if it was a joke, but there's no hook for the humour. Except the sheer stupidity. It might be art, but there's no hint that it's just verisimilitude for the cognoscenti. It's an ampersand-octothorp-at-bang-ing lenticular cloud, for the love of God! Too much time. And internet access. And blue. And not enough brain cells.

2003-02-23T14:12:00.000-05:00

Thank You, Andy. And Meade. Mostly Andy. Andy sent me the link to the tech specs for the actual telescope we were using. It's really quite a beautiful fusion of technologies; optics, clockwork, metallurgy... I gotta say again, it was very cool. The images still jump into my head at times. To be honest, both planets were little more than white orbs, with discernible but not spectacular

2003-02-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Thank You, Galileo. And Andy. Mostly Andy I went to dinner at my friends Andy and Christine's last night. Andy just bought a new telescope, a Meade, looks like these guys. Christine has an open dinner every Thursday. Interesting people show up. And me. Well, Andy just got this telescope using part of his late grandmother's legacy. A few years back, with his old telescope, he showed me

2003-02-16T15:06:00.000-05:00

In Memorian, Eddie Daley, 24 Years Old Another Good One Gone... I had the very unpleasant news today that a fellow I saw and spoke to practically every week day was murdered in his mother's apartment last night, stabbed to death by an unknown assailant, maybe a botched robbery or home invasion. I saw the story in the newspaper and recognized the name - or thought I did - until I totally

2003-02-15T12:34:00.000-05:00

DAreDeVIL Because You Can't Spell 'David' Without It. Went to see Daredevil last night with Reid, Luisa, Michael, Ronnie, and friend Iain. Lotsa fun. Nice Ain't It Cool review of Daredevil. Gradually growing IMDb external reviews page (good and bad) for Daredevil. RTE review, decidedly unfavourable... My insightful comments at Reid's blog.

2003-02-08T15:18:00.000-05:00

Proof That Humans Can Think Too Much And I Don't Just Mean Erich von Däniken and Graham Håncôck Either, I Mean Me, Too A CNN story about the experiments lost in the shuttle tragedy. There were ants on the space shuttle when Homer Simpson went up too. And there was an accident. Nuff said? Nuff said.

2003-02-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

A Little Bit Of Clever Can Go A Long Way Let's Just Hope Not Too Far... Hee, hee. I added this to the end of my job history on my Workopolis resume. And I'm going to add it to the others too. CIA - Office of Covert Operations Department of April 1, to Oct 31, -- Task Force on Resume Fraud If you're not laughing go here or here.

2003-02-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

And Keeping With The Space Theme Because Life Goes On Here's what some people think about the live action version of the old English TV series Thunderbirds, which as you may know, I loved as a kid. Things went right for the Thunderbirds more often then than not. Nuff said.

2003-02-03T14:10:00.000-05:00

Well, Here's My Moral Dilemma Cuz Everyone Should Have One, From Time To Time The Columbia tragedy really got to me. To quote myself, "my life has more woes than 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"; 9/11 was a shocker and a heartbreaker; a good friend died just over a year ago. I want to know what happened. I want to read about what other people are thinking, feeling and posting about it.

2003-02-02T16:05:00.000-05:00

Wil Wheaton And William Gibson On The Shuttle Tragedy - Strange Mindfellows Wheaton - with reader comments. Gibson Apropos of coincidences, my middle name is William.

2003-02-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

The Space Shuttle Columbia, On Shuttle Mission STS-107, Is Lost With All Her Crew. Please, Not Again. Never Again, Please. On reentry today, shortly after 9:00am, the space shuttle Columbia broke up at about 61,000 meters. On seeing the headline on cnn.com, I nearly cried. Here's the developing story from CNN. Here is Andrew Platzer's (a friend of a friend) blog posting from just a few