Sunday and Holiday Hours in Winnipeg

A lot of people are complaining about Sunday shopping hours in Winnipeg, but really, we don't have saturday shopping hours either, and most malls close at 6pm on Saturday. Tonight was new years eve and everything closed at six and nothing is open tomorrow. NOTHING! maybe shoppers drug mart, I dunno. But Wal Mart is supposedly 24 hours and its closed. Even if the law was changed for Sunday and holiday shopping, most stores would remain closed, in my opinion they're not open because people just don't seem to go shopping on weekends.

Completely confusing to me, though. I prefer to shop on weekends.

It sucks cause I really wanted to buy some food.

Random Thoughts

Barometic pressure has nothing to do with Bears using the metric system.

discuss.

Random Thoughts

Google should implement a goddamn profanity filter. At least for blogger. They could even make it opt-in.

Somebody get those fuckers on it.

Winnipeg Trans*it

I love Winnipeg Transit. It is the best public transit service in the city of Winnipeg, and it services my needs marvelously.

I'll wait a minute for you to pick yourself up off the floor from your fit of hysterics. There, composed? Alright. Now obviously, no Winnipeger could read the above sentence with a straight face. Winnipeg Transit is a joke.

I have taken transit for 5 years now. Usually I take the 18 or 32 buses. Not once in those 5 years have I noticed an improvement in service to those routes. I have seen 3 or 4 rate hikes, maybe even 5. But no improvement in service. I suppose they must have added extra 32 buses during peak time, as you can only fit so many sardines in a can.

Unless you count diamond lanes on Main Street an improvement in service. I don't, because as a transit rider I don't see enough bus traffic past redwood avenue to justify it. They have put diamond lanes on Main Street. Supposedly to increase the flow of bus traffic. Bus traffic is already slow by the time it gets to Main street. The bus drivers already use main street as a way to catch up on their lost time. Of course, if we had a bus system that used feeder routes, this wouldn't be as big of a problem.

There are 3 bus routes on Main street. In order of frequency, you have the Jefferson, which goes to Garden City shopping Centre, You have the Riverbend, which goes to Riverbend, and the Leila, which runs once per hour until 8 pm. The Leila goes to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is open 24 hours. They have not added any Leila buses since then, even though there must logically be people who want to shop at Wal-Mart who take the bus.

Now during peak hours, if you want to get to Riverbend or Leila, but stop off at the Extra Foods or Safeway on Main Street to pick something up, you're out of luck, as you can ONLY take the 32 express buses during that time. In which case you have to take the 18, get off, take another 18, get off at Jefferson, then get the 32. I mean, would it kill them to operate some 18's that don't go down Jefferson? Even one per hour? I don't do transit planning though. I don't posess a set of darts.

Now, if you want to get to Riverbend after 7PM, and you missed your bus, which, if you're transferring from another bus, you almost CERTAINLY WILL, you will wait anywhere from half an hour to an hour for the next bus. If you do this daily 5 times a week, you will miss 2 and a half hours. This you will spend waiting for the bus, often in the bitter cold. Unless my math is wrong, and It could be, I'm not a transit planner with a degree in advanced KNOWING HOW TO SCHEDULE A BUS, if you multiply this by 52 weeks in a year, you will have spent 5 days out of 365 waiting for a bus to take you home. But thats okay, Winnipeg Transit has you covered the other 360 days of the year.

But I live with this, I live in eternal optimism that the bus routes will improve, but you know what? They aren't. They won't. They never will. Why can't they replace the Riverbend and Leila buses with a feeder bus that services that area? Starts at Jefferson and Main, goes down to Riverbend, crosses the Chief Peguis bridge to pick up anyone from that side, goes back around Riverbend, heads down Leila to Wal-Mart/Garden City/Templeton and back down Leila to Jefferson? There are two points where it intersects with the Jefferson bus in this scenario, Main and Jefferson, and Garden City Shopping Centre! It would also intersect with the 11 and other buses on Henderson. You could take an 11, stop off at the bus loop by the Chief Peguis bridge there, and get to Riverbend lickety split. You could also take an 18 Jefferson and transfer as well.

Horrible map for confusion purposes only..

Add a few more Jefferson buses, get rid of the 18 Leila and Riverbend. Maybe keep the 32 for peak times.

And I don't even work for transit. Imagine the ideas someone who does might have. Other than raising fares. And Diamond Lanes. And bus routes that never intersect without a half hour wait.

But hey, at least I have bus service, unlike some areas of the city. Maybe we'll get a shuttle bus from the airport through St James to Polo Park one day. Oh wait, that would require someone intelligent to work at Winnipeg Transit. Nevermind.

Simpwii Wiidicuwous

The Nintendo Wii has been a success for Nintendo. I never doubted that, though I refused to buy it based on the name change from the code named Revolution to the made up term Wii. Also it didn't have an HDMI (or even HD capable) output. I'd be willing to forgive the name if a new version came out with HDMI, but apparently thats not going to happen.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has been quoted as saying that simply upgrading to HD is "not the way we at Nintendo do things. The way we at Nintendo do things is, you know, when we will move to a new generation, it's because there are some fundamental things the [current] console cannot do." *

Sorry, but what?

clockwise from top:
NES Versions 1 (Most popular), Famicom (Japanese version),
and Model 2 (bottom)

SNES Versions 1 and 2

The infinite gameboy, gameboy micro, gameboy pocket, gameboy advance, advance sp, ds, ds lite iterations...

Now, fine, the Nintendo Virtualboy didn't have a second version, the N64 and Gamecube both didn't have second models either.. though both did have recoloured editions to try to repackage the same product. But those machines were unmitigated failures. Whenever Nintendo has a successful product, they milk that product as much as possible, by releasing a new version right before the death of the previous version. So when the Wii is on its last legs, expect to see the Nintendo Wii HD out 6 months before Nintendo releases their next level non backwards compatible killer console.

It's how Nintendo has been shown to do business, even if their representatives claim otherwise.

Unless you want to make the claim that the Nintendo Wii is just a repackaged Gamecube with motion sensing. I can see your argument even if I disagree with it.

Lenovo FAILS at netbooks

I have a thinkpad. I like my thinkpad. It's the fifth thinkpad I've owned. The first by Lenovo (the others were IBM's). It's not perfect, but its reasonably close. I recently swapped a keyboard after spilling coke on it, and swapped the hard drive for a 500 gb western digital. All without incident and minimal fuss.

I own a netbook. An HP Mini 1000. It is my second netbook. My first was an Acer Aspire One with Linux on it. They were and are useable machines. However, they both have trackpads. I hate trackpads.

All I truly want is a netbook with a trackpoint on it ..instead of a trackpad, ideally, but in addition to, if no other option.

I was super exited to hear a rumour that Lenovo was going to produce a Thinkpad netbook. I'd pay extra for something with a trackpoint on it built with thinkpad quality and style.

Sadly, Lenovo has disappointed me. They were so close, too. I wanted a 10 inch device or smaller. The whole point is that I can carry it around in a satchel or small bag. I don't want a 12 inch device. That's too big.

It comes with an AMD Neo processor. I love AMD. I like the Neo. If it was in a 10 inch device, with a trackpoint, I would be standing in line tomorrow to get one. I could care less if they called it a netbook even. But it is not going to be 10 inches.

I'd even settle for an ideapad netbook with a trackpoint. But that doesn't seem to be happening either.

I know these companies have surveys and shit. How are they not able to make a device that people will pay more for? Why are they failing to provide us with something we want?

Sigh.

Lenovo, please, give thinkpad owners what they want. a 10 inch portable thinkpad with a trackpoint.

Stephen Harper does SOMETHING right

Maybe Stephen Harper is reading my blog, I don't know. Probably not, cause nobody else does. I wouldn't even care if he did. The point is he seems to be about to do something right for once.

He seems set to allow globalive to launch their new cell phone company to compete with rogers, telus,Bell, and all the other crooks out there. Good. Canadian ownership of media and such does nothing to encourage the creation of Canadian content and facilitate competition. Especially in todays modern global economy.

Lets hope this spills over into the local TV bullshittery. Let NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC have Canadian affiliates. I want to see them expand their stupid morning show weather maps. Seriously, drives me crazy.

Useful Firefox Plugins

Heres a list of 10 basic Firefox plugins I can't live without.

#1 Rotate Image. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7113

What I like about this is that on the rare occasion where something is printed sideways, I can still read it. If you're reading comics on the web or something.

#2 Image Zoom. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/139

I hate loading external programs just to zoom in on something to read it better or find out who is hiding in the grassy knoll.

#3 Xmarks. Formerly Foxmarks. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

The best way to sync bookmarks and passwords between different computers. Laptop, Desktop, Netbook.. If you're not using this, you're missing out.

#4 Abduction. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3408

What this does is takes screenshots of your web browser or a select area. Easier than downloading images, sometimes.

#5 Add Bookmark Here². Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3880

Places a little "Add Bookmark Here" option in every subfolder, making the adding of bookmarks much easier than by default.

#6 Tab Mix Plus. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122

Increases the power and flexibility of what you can do with your tabs.

#7 Fast Youtube Downloader. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/15002

There are some other plugins that do the same thing, but I use this one. Not very often, but its handy sometimes.

#8 BugMeNot. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6349

Automatically log in to sites that you don't want to sign up and create a username for. LIKE COLLEGE HUMOR OR NEW YORK TIMES etc. And if there aren't any, you can always create a fake login name for any site at http://www.bugmenot.com/.

#9 AdBlock Plus. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

AdBlock Plus. It blocks ads. Its rather odd that Firefox seems to have difficulty finding this add on when you search for it. I suspect shenanigans, but its probably the most popular add on there is.

#10 Automatic Save Folder . Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4781

Automatically saves file types to specific directories, so you don't have to select them every time. Eg. .Gif goes to images, .html goes to html.. .avi goes to movies.. whatever.

Also, if you're using Linux, and want to scroll with your trackpoint mouse like you can in Windows, you have to do the following:

1: type about:config to go to the configuration screen.

2: set general.autoscroll to true

3: set general.smoothscroll to true (my preference, anyways)

and I think that did it. I can't remember anymore.

I really wish there was a netbook with a trackpoint mouse. The Sony Vaio P doesn't count.

Bonus Firefox plugin: Fetch Text URL. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/518

Now you can simply highlight URL's published on the net by the html incompetent. In new tabs or windows even. Just right click on a highlighted URL and voila. tremendously useful.

Really though, most of these things should be default in Firefox.

All we are saying is give higher cable fees a chance

“I have real trouble here understanding why we are in this mess that we are in. because both you and there and [garbled/unintelligible].. realise you need each other. some people have used the expression symbiotic relationship. Why is it so difficult for you to come together and negotiate something?"

Konrad von Finckenstein, chair of Canadas CRTC discussing his arbitration of the middle east peace process.. no wait, sorry, he was discussing American/Soviet 80's Nuclear disarmament.. no wait, sorry, he was discussing the Canadian Fee For Carriage Circus. Really.

Hey, Konrad, heres why you are in the mess that you are in. Because the CRTC is an inefective and useless governing body that does NOTHING for Canadians, does the exact OPPOSITE of what benefits the average Canadian in every sphere they influence.. be it cell phones (delaying and trying to shut down Wind mobile.. the canadian telephone companies don't need competition after all!), internet (who needs net neutrality when we have traffic shaping!), television (this fiasco, the lack of effort on behalf of our nations broadcasters to rollout ATSC) and caves to the almighty dollar and business interests like a cheap whore at every available opportunity. I can't think of one CRTC decision that has been made in my lifetime that has been sensible or logical.

The concept of Local Television in Canada is complete bullshit, we'd get more local news and Canadian content if our TV stations were made network affilliates of the American networks. But we have to have Canadian ownership rules for some reason that I cannot fathom, when our same government lambastes other governments for less stingy ownership policies.

It's time to Dissolve the CRTC. In a vat of acid surrounded by aligators if possible.

CRTC no evil hear no evil speak no evil.

from hollywoodreporter.com

a pretty good suggestion. If broadcast stations want fee for carriage, they should be forced to limit their spending on foreign content. a 50/50 split seems fair to me.

Although I remain convinced that we should simply throw away all foreign ownership rules. We expect the same from other countries. We may as well simply integrate with the U.S networks. Let PBS and the big 4 in here, and bring CBC and CTV to the Americans. Everyone wins.

Over the air Broadcast TV is a useful public service. The CRTC should be ashamed for bringing things to this sorry state and sleeping with all the media whores and ignoring the public. They are the ones to blame.

And eliminate the ban on foreign ownership of cell phone companies too. Who the fuck cares who owns it.

The facts show otherwise

From the Vancouver Sun http://www.vancouversun.com/business/fp/Canada+wireless+leader/2213189/story.html

Title of the story: Canada is frequently criticized for having expensive, yet poor wireless options. The facts show otherwise

I disagree. Wow. Who wrote this, anyways?

Written By: Ken Engelhart, Financial Post

Huh. Well, okay, go on. Convince me, Ken Engelhart.

About 66% of Canadians have a cell phone and we are badly behind countries like Greece where 200% of the population have a cell phone. The foolishness of this measurement should be apparent already. 200% of a population does not exist. What these figures indicate is that there are two phone subscriptions for every man, woman and baby in Greece. In Canada, and in most advanced countries, most adults and teenagers have a cell phone. In Greece however and in many European countries, many people have one cell phone and several subscriptions.

This is really his argument. That 200% of a population cannot have a cell phone. My God. 100% of people have TWO cell phones in those countries then.

Because Europe is on the GSM system, people have multiple SIM cards that they put in and out of their phones, depending on where they are and what time of day it is, to get the best price or service. These multiple SIM cards are generally a sign that there is something wrong with the cell phone market in that country. They certainly are not a good measurement of the take-up of phone service in an economy.

oh? So what is, then? Multiple SIM cards are not a sign that there is something wrong with the cell phone market. Unless you're a provider who wants neverending profits.

The best measurement is minutes of use per capita.

SAYS WHO?!?

A report by Merrill Lynch on Sept. 28 showed Canada to be the eighth best in the world using this metric. It is sometimes noted that the U.S. has a much higher level of usage than Canada and this is true. However, the point I am trying to make is that we are well ahead of Britain, France, Germany, Spain and most other countries in terms of the usage of wireless phone service.

Oh fucking really. Merrill Lynch. WHO THE FUCK IS MERRILL LYNCH. A report by Fox News showed Obama is the most racist president. HOLY FUCK is this a stupid article or what.
Do these profiteering criminals even realize how pathetic their lies are? Merrill Lynch, the same bunch of IDIOTS of SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS and MILLION DOLLAR BONUS fame.. They're a great fucking non-tainted non-biased source..Who the fuck is Ken Englehart anyways?

Ken Engelhart is Senior Vice-President, Regulatory, Rogers.

wait... what was that last thing..

Ken Engelhart is Senior Vice-President, Regulatory, Rogers.

can you speak up, I can't quite hear you...

Ken Engelhart is Senior Vice-President, Regulatory, Rogers.

Ah, I see.

To be fair, Rogers does provide a fairly good network and was intelligent enough to switch to GSM from the beginning (unlike those whores at Telus who are only now upgrading to 3G networks thanks to the olympics).. but COME ON. Nobody believes you. 500mb plans for data? GROW THE FUCK UP. Data plans should start at 5 GIGS for $20. and go $5 for every 5 GIGS. Jesus fucking christ. At least the bums on main street are upfront when they're asking for my money, not stealing it the way these worthless motherfuckers are.

For fuck sakes, we need to open up our media markets to someone other than our local inbred oligopolies.

sniff

So I got a cold. Well first, I went to KFC a few weeks ago and came home and had the worst stomach flu ever recorded in history. But I made it through that and now I'm merely mildly sick with a cold.

I realized however that my snot is pretty consistent. It's a great texture and not overly runny. I haven't done a taste test as I have grown out of that period of my life as of last year, but all the same, I assume its delicious and cures cancer too. This is quality Mucous. It is the Lorenzo's Oil of nasal discharges.

I know my cold is almost gone, but it was a cold that didn't impede my life too much, so to the cold virus I am infected with because of disgusting people in this universe who don't wash their hands, and lick them and sneeze on you and don't bathe, thanks for the best snot in the universe.

FSCK'ING WITH UBUNTU LINUX

An article I stumbled upon at New Zealand PC World about how Ubuntu will always chose the most annoying time to do a full filesystem check at bootup got me thinking.

It would probably be more work than its worth, but couldn't you simply have Ubuntu launch into a temporary read-only mode (sort of like it does with the live CD's) while the file system check goes on in the background, and then mount everything read-write after the check is done?

It seems like something that could be done, though it seems more effort than its worth in some ways (and a neat idea in another way)

Are there any major reasons this would not be feasible?

It would certainly be another thing that helps make Linux stand out, and keep the bootup quick. Say what you will, but people remember long filesystem checks.

Musings

Why is it called the Joy Behar show if it brings no one joy?

Aside from it being her name.

Her parents should have named her Sorrow. Or Misery.

Should you really be banking with CIBC?

CBC reports that CIBC is calling for the Bank of Canada to purchase American dollars to prop up the U.S currency ... From the article:

`In a report released Tuesday, Avery Shenfeld of CIBC World Markets said the central bank should intervene to keep the exchange rate stable and to protect Canadian manufacturers.

"Canada could consider what might be called a bounded float," Shenfeld said.

He recommended the central bank buy U.S. dollars during times when speculation is causing a sharp rise in the loonie's value.

"By intervening only at extremes, the central bank could help chase away speculative flows that take the currency, in its considered judgment, beyond fundamentally driven levels."

Shenfeld told the CBC's The Lang and O'Leary Exchange, that essentially, the central bank should step into the market to sell Canadian dollars in exchange for U.S. dollars to try to weaken the loonie by a few cents'

I'm sorry, is this the same CIBC out in front of the other Canadian banks, that was hit with a U.S subprime mortgage write-off of THREE BILLION DOLLARS? What the hell?

If you think theres value in the American dollar, great, but to buy the currency of another nation to devalue your own.. what the hell sort of economic premise is that?

Are we forever doomed to be America's bitch? They can continue to act in unhealthy economic ways, and since we're so tightly connected to that behemoth, whatever happens we'll be dragged down kicking and screaming with them?

The same CIBC that wanted to merge with TD in 2006, luckily the Liberals said hell no to that.

Sometimes the Canadian government should ignore these people. Especially if their track record is not so stellar.

Let our dollars value fluctuate. Honestly, intervening in foreign markets. What the hell, man.

More than 130,000 easily manipulated morons duped by the broadcasting monopoly in Canada

from: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2009/04/c5671.html

- More than 130,000 comments submitted to the CRTC confirm support for

    local TV -

oh wait, is my headline wrong?

Of course people support local TV.  It'd be nice if those companies provided local TV and
supported local TV as well, instead of spending millions on simsub rights to American
productions.

Local TV to these companies only means the GTA and Vancouver.  You can tell how much they support local TV by
how quickly they've rolled out digital high def locally.

Support for Local TV?  Don't make me laugh.

Gary's doin it.

Module body

So what has former Manitoba Premier Gary Doer been up to lately in his new job as Ambassador to the United States?

From The Canadian Press:

WASHINGTON - Canada has been named one of the most peaceful nations in the world for its support of UN peacekeeping missions, low levels of violent crime and political stability.

The Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations named Canada as the most peaceful country in the North and Central America and Caribbean region and put it eighth place worldwide on its global peace index.

Ambassador Gary Doer accepted the award at the symposium in Washington on Sunday.

Huh.

Has the Global Symposium of lobby groups who like to hand out pretentious awards that make for good feel-good newspaper articles awarded us anything as well?

I bet this award wasn't even based on actual data. It's just something to try to shame other countries into not being complete assholes.

If this is peace, it's overrated.

Dear Windows 7 users, from a Linux user: You're welcome.

So Windows 7 was launched this week and it went surprisingly well, most people are generally quite content with the improvements to the Windows 7 experience.

Speaking as someone who has used every version of Windows since 3.1, and hated every single one (except windows 3.1, it had a certain charm to it, although 98 and 2000 were certainly serviceable) the new release looks surprisingly usable. And again, as someone who has used Linux since finding Slackware 3.0 in the back of some discount book somewhere, as someone who remembers the glory days of Gnome .98 segfaulting every which way, the days of enlightenment themes and netscape navigator, and is now using Ubuntu, well I'd just like to say you're welcome.

You see, without Linux, and sure, Mac OSX, you would not have Windows 7. Microsoft NEEDS Linux, and Mac OSX. It NEEDS someone to rip off features. Microsoft has been doing this since the days of DOS. MS DOS was the KING of DOS'es even if DR DOS was probably technically superior. But the days of DOS were numbered after DOS 5.1. Microsoft was too powerful already, and had nobody left to rip off. So they ripped off the GUI and created Windows. Okay technically they helped create OS/2 and screwed over IBM by championing Windows which IBM is bitter about to this day, but that's just history. Dos 6.0 came out and it was pretty much bullshit. Heck I think MS even added a virus scanner to DOS 6.0. Didn't they just add a virus scanner to Windows 7? Probably.

To be fair, Vista was a first attempt at giving Windows users some of the functionality Linux and Mac users take for granted. pretty desktop themes? Yeah, way ahead of you. Superior install programs? Yeah, Linux boot CD's can give you a workable desktop in less than a minute, and get you on the net while you install. Windows still doesn't seem to do that, but hey, it can finally load drivers in Windows 7 from something more than a floppy disk. Isn't that handy? Bravo, Windows 7 users. Kudos to you.

Windows 7 also offers much saner security measures, unlike Vistas horrible "you will need permission to install this shortcut to your desktop (wtf)" bullshittery. Similar to the way most Linuxes do things now.

Tabs in Microsoft Internet Explorer? You can thank Firefox for that (yeah I know that Opera came up with it first, but Microsoft could give a fuck until Firefox did it) every single browser created for linux in the last decade had a tabs feature. Again, you're welcome.

Now, you windows 7 users probably still have to reboot after installing drivers, and you know what, I agree, that sucks, cause we don't have to do the rebooting thing. But still, its probably a good idea for Windows users to reboot after driver installation anyways. It's like having a shower after crawling through the sewers, you know? Just cleanse yourself of the whole experience.

The ribbon interface is pretty kewl, the UI seems to be much improved, all in all, Windows 7 (Windows kernel rev 6.1) seems like a remarkably improved upon release candidate of Windows, much improved from the Alpha version software that Microsoft has been charging money for the last few years. So Windows users, you're welcome. And to Microsoft, thanks. Thanks for finally giving something back to Linux. (mildly) Worthy Competition other than Mac OSX. Heres to Ubuntu 9.10 coming out next week.

True Fans

So the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defeated the Montreal Alouettes the other day. The crowd was just over 20,000. The Bombers have been disappointing all year, but they've been steadily improving, so why aren't people going to the games?

I know why I'm not going to the games. I don't appreciate being insulted by head coaches. I don't appreciate being taken for granted. I don't like being called a fairweather fan (even if I personally am, it's just rude and counter productive). If the Bombers lose, c'est la vie, as long as I believe they had a good team and they played the best they could. That was not what I saw the first half of the season.

Just winning in the CFL doesn't make you a good team or worthy of being supported either. Theres only 7 teams. You could have the shittiest season and still make the playoffs. Did you deserve it? Probably not.

Most Bombers fans have written off the season already. I don't blame them. If they pull of a miracle and win the grey cup, fantastic. And yes, when the playoffs begin, its a new season and anything goes, but the Bombers have done nothing this season to endear themselves to me.

True fans are staying home and making a stand with their wallets. It's the only thing that the Bombers organization understands.

From Yahoo : http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/091021/entertainment/tv_cbc_rebrand

So the CBC is rebranding their news channel. Apparently CBC NewsWorld does not convey that CBC NewsWorld is a news network.

So in the single most dimwitted line of thinking they could come up with, they're renaming it CBC NN. CB CNN. Canadian broadcasting corporation news network.

like BNN, the business news network, or all the other *NN's, or CTV NN, everyones a news network now.

I thought NewsWorld was a classy name. Way to fuck up yet again, CBC. I guess 20 years of branding and name recognition is not as valuable as hiring mentally retarded consultants to come up with a name change.

Because you know that's probably what they did.

Astroturfing?

There is a little radio spot played locally on KICK FM -- and I think i've heard it on power 97 and CJOB at various points in time -- that seems like such an industry advertising stooge that its ridiculous. That they get CJOB and KICK FM to air this, possibly for free, is somewhat sad. How do we know its advertising?

Scott James is the name of the guy and the show is called cyberworld.ca. If he mentions Linux or Apple at all, its to deflect criticism of not doing so, and mentions the microsoft offering as a superior entity. He lately has turned to suggesting people do a "bing search" ... and that he uses his "zune" ... who the fuck uses bing or a zune? NOBODY FUCKING USES BING OR A ZUNE!!!!!! people say "do a google search" or "internet search engine" but nobody says "use a bing search" unless they're getting paid for it.

Almost all the little blurbs of information are selling something. An upgrade to the latest version of Windows, a Playstation 3, an X Box, a Zune HD.

I mean, i have no problem with the guy making money, but tell us what we're really listening to, don't try to gloss it up as a little news blurb.

Maybe he doesn't get a cut from microsoft, or sony, or whoevers new product he's shilling out lately is on todays show. I don't know. I only know that my first instinct is to suspect the show is astroturfing. The bing and zune thing doesn't help.

I like to ride my Bicycle I like to ride it through stop signs

Slate has an intriguing article about Cyclists and laws in Idaho pertaining to them, which goes into the questions of bike paths and lanes vs vehicular traffic, the nature of stop signs as they relate to bikes. The benefit of a bike being that you build up momentum. if you have to come to a full stop at every stop sign, you lose one of the main benefits of said bike. The notion of bikes treating stops more as yields. Heck I think cars should be able to treat most stop signs as yields in Winnipeg anyways, they're there just as a cash cow and nothing more. We should be replacing half the stop signs in this city with yield signs. Also, Red lights at 2 in the morning should be flashing yellow or flashing red not the useless garbage we have now. Whatever happened to all the flashing lights in this city anyways? Is it just me or are there fewer now than there used to be.

Michael Dell is smarter than the average CEO

I Read this quote from Michael Dell with regards to virtualization technology potentially cutting into server sales:

From http://gigaom.com/2009/10/13/michael-dell-talks-up-services-and-coming-upgrades-but-trashes-netbooks/

“The first thing you have to remember is that any time a new technology comes along that’s good for customers, you get in the way of it at your own peril,”

This sort of philosophy explains why Dell is a market leader. If you're in the horse and buggy industry and the automobile comes out, you start selling automobiles. If you're in the book transcription business and the printing press is invented, you buy a fucking printing press. If you're in the media business and the internet takes down media walls, YOU DO NOT PUT UP NEW ONES. You do not block things by region. You do not limit what your customer can get. You do not try to set back the clock and put the genie back in the bottle by buying off politicians. It won't work, it won't solve the problem, and in fact creates new problems.

So bravo, Michael Dell. Plus their new servers and laptops are actually pretty nice. Although I'd like to see more trackpoint options on their devices. C'mon dell, put out a netbook with a trackpoint and I'll buy two.

KNRR-DT

Congratulations to KNRR for being the first digital over the air channel receivable in Winnipeg (granted you need at least an attic or roof antenna to pick it up with any reliability unless they boost the signal a bit down the line). Though it is digital, it is still not in HD. Will we see any KNRR sub-channels? Should be fun to find out.

Meanwhile, Canwest-Global is in bankruptcy, CTV wants to shut down their OTA everywhere except toronto and vancouver apparently, CBC has "run out of money" for the conversion, and no winnipeg channel will commit to a date as to when they will be broadcasting digital over the air if ever. Although to be fair, I've never bothered to ask CBWFT. The award for the first broadcaster to have an HD signal in Winnipeg is still up for grabs though. I'd seriously laugh if it was CBWFT. But a big fuck you to the useless garbage at the CRTC for creating this mess in the first place.

Winnipeg, Alberta.

From AzCentral, a Phoenix based news portal:

The NHL Coyotes, a franchise that has yet to make a profit since moving from Winnipeg, Alberta, in 1996, filed for Chapter 11 protection in May.

Ah the joys of being an Albertan. Wheres my prosperity dividend cheque, Ed Stelmach you bastard! I want my Ralphbucks!

Not only do they serve us the indignity of stealing our beloved hockey team the Winnipeg Jets, who still don't make a profit, and probably never will in Phoenix, but they don't even give us the courtesy of remembering where they jacked it from 13 years later.

Oh Phoenix, never change, you crazy New Mexicans.

Took A screenshot on the right in case they change it later. Not that they should, not like anyone in Phoenix would care where we actually are in Canada, all tucked away down there.

DOS EQUIS GUY

I don't ever drink, but those Dos Equis commercials are well done.



Speaking of, I wonder if CBC radio is still doing the age of persuasion.

... checked the CBC website, they are! fourth season starts in january. ah well.

It's odd that I've only heard like 5 episodes yet I always listen and get the same repeats. how does that work?

Stories like these are the best

I like stories where technology is used to better peoples lives, and this one has it and then some.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge
30th president of US (1872 - 1933)

I agree with this sentiment as posted at gizmodo entirely.

Pearl Jam sucks almost as much as Eddie Veder

MUMBLING IS NOT SINGING, EDDIE VEDDER !!!

blargh blargh lorurueddururrrr flargfalrlgaaa..

I have XM radio. I question why I continue to pay for it every day. If I want to listen to good 90's/00's songs Lithium is the only channel that plays Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, etc. Sure I could just make a mix CD or put that shit on an mp3 player but thats beside the point. The point is this station plays Pearl Jam and/or something involving Eddie Vedder every 5 - 7 songs.

I am fucking serious. I believe they take requests, so some mental institution somewhere with retarded patients must have nothing better to do than request the crappiest music of all time every 5 minutes.

Now I could live with it if I only heard pearl jam once every hour and a half. I hate it, but I can tune out a few minutes because I understand the world is full of people with poor taste and they must be accommodated lest they start running around crazy-like screaming about bee's attacking them in the ear or whatever insane people do. But every 5-7 songs is so ridiculous.

What they should do is make a station called "lithium without fucking bullshit pearl jam". But they don't.

I once worked with a girl who had pearl jam tickets if I let her leave early to catch the show. I hate pearl jam so much I refused to let her go early (also I was lazy and didn't want to be the only one working). They haven't been back to Winnipeg since (a small comfort, at least. The more distance between me and that band the better). I feel bad that I had to do that to her but its not my fault that Pearl Jam is garbage, is it now.

God I hate Pearl Jam.

OPPO BLU RAY PLAYER

Check this shit out. It plays DVD's, It plays Blu-Rays, it plays MKV's, you can plug in USB 2.0 drives and play shit on that. Hell I bet you can plug in an external USB DVD Drive and play shit from that. It's the OPPO BDP-83 Blu-Ray Disc Player.

Do I have one? Hell no. It costs $499.99. But if I was buying a new Blu Ray player, I would shell out the extra cash for this. It combines everything you need in one snazzy little box. Oppo has a pretty good rep too, as you can tell from it not being sold at futureshop, best buy, or wal-mart at least where I live.

Although if the next version does all this with HD-Mkv playing and some wifi at around the same price, I'm sold.

Sure you could buy a PS3, but can you play HD-MKV's on that? I doubt it.

I'm keeping my eye on Oppo.

Carl Sagan

If you haven't seen this yet..



Cosmos is one of my favourite TV series of all time, I remember watching it on PBS way back when. This video/autotuned Carl Sagan song is great. It can be downloaded here.

Granted I hated the movie Contact. But that doesn't diminish Carl Sagans influence on me in my youth.

Bob FM has instantly turned into complete shit

Today I am going to rant about the radio. This has been bugging me for a while.


First BOB FM brought over Beau and Tom from Q-94 FM because nobody was listening to Q-94 FM anymore cause it was shit. Fine, I'm not up that early all that often anyways, and old people need something to rant at in the morning while relieving their bladders of prune juice anyways. But now whenever I come home from work I see THIS FUCKING BILLBOARD telling me that they've RUINED BOB FM FOREVER. They have added a woman to their morning show. The kiss of death. I guess there weren't enough people in the shrill female sidekick demographic listening to Bob FM in the mornings. I bet it has the opposite effect though. Guess what BOB FM. YOU GOT GREEDY. You can't win everybody. By trying to do so you alienate everybody. You had a niche, you served that niche. Ask yourselves, why did Q-94 FM fail in the first place? CAUSE OF SHIT LIKE THIS. Curve FM is still pretty much crap but at least its not complete shit like Q-94FM was or like Bob FM now is. Why? Because it serves its niche. People don't want to hear a womans voice in the morning laughing at shitty jokes read off the internet. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THAT. So I won't. Theres 20 other radio stations in this shitty city. Don't take me for granted.

Secondly, how is it Winnipeg's all time favourite radio show? Nevermind favourite radio show of the last year, no, if Bob FM is going to LIE, they're going to LIE LIKE NOBODY HAS EVER LIED BEFORE. Beau Tom and Frazier is Winnipeg's favourite morning show across all of time and space and infinity and beyond. Why not. How can you even prove such garbage? What the fuck is the CRTC doing allowing this sort of bullshit to happen?

Frazier. I remember you. I remember Q-94 fucking stupid billboards. Oh yes, I remember. Back with a vengence. God help us all. You're a third wheel.

Why do women always have to ruin everything?

Fuck you CHUM broadcasting. FUCK YOU. If I kept a list, you'd be on it.

If you wish to contact the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council about this attack on Winnipeg listeners of Bob FM, you can call toll free 1-866-696-4718, visit www.cbsc.ca, or write to:

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
P.O. Box 3265, Station D
Ottawa, Ontario
K1P 6H8

Or if you want to complain to an underpaid phone answering person call 204-477-5120.

I will personally refuse to purchase anything advertised on Bob FM until this situation is rectified. Take note of that, Winnipeg advertisers.

LOOK AT MY NEW RETRO ALARM CLOCK

Look at that shit. FM Stereo. Not one, but TWO WAKE TIMES. MOTHERFUCKING BATTERY BACKUP! HEADPHONE OUTPUT FOR SOME REASON! Look at that wood finish on top, and 3 dials on the side, one for the tuner, one for sound, and one for fucking TONE. TONE MOTHERFUCKER!!! Not only does it have AM, but it also has FM as well. It's incredible technology. Sadly GE doesn't make shit of this quality anymore. I got it used.

Look at that wood panel on top. That's quality worksmanship. It was clearly not built in China. It was built in Malaysia! Malaysia! Good work, Malaysians. It's old but it still works. All the buttons depress perfectly fine. Unlike my newer GE alarm clock I bought a few years ago.

Blue LED display. Look at those clock numbers. Not too thick or stupid. It's a quality font. It even says AM or FM unlike my other GE clock radio.

Look at that grille. grey stripes. You know this shit has two speakers, one on each side of the alarm. Model number 7-4945A. ...

Goddamn what a great alarm clock.

You're all jealous.

I spent $3 on it.

don't hate me cause I'm a great shopper of things.


Look at this ugly thing. Mine is even uglier, but this one looks similar. Look at that green LED display. ugly. Look at those buttons on top which are a pain and don't even work really. Look at that grille, oh wait, there isn't one. Wheres the speakers then? On the back! Theres nothing cool about it at all. No wood finish, Fuck this stupid clock. Thank God I have a good clock that is everything this one isn't.

Food for Thought

Golden Girls was produced by Buena Vista Television.

Buena Vista Television is owned by Disney-ABC Domestic Television

Disney-ABC Domestic Television is owned by the Disney Corporation

The Disney Corporation now owns Marvel comics.

Think about it.

hurrr durr hurr de huurrrrrr

From the CBC (It has to do with an Ontario study therefore its relevant to all of Canada hurr durr)..

"Despite mandatory nutrition labelling and a new edition of Canada's Food Guide, eating habits haven't improved, the group said."

well, nobody reads that shit, and people still go by the four food groups, food pyramid, food hexagon, or whatever the hell they had back when they were educated.

"A decade ago, one in five, or 20 per cent, of the parents surveyed said their children ate five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily, the minimum recommendation. By 2009, the prevalence dropped by a third, to one in eight, or 13 per cent, a finding the group called surprising."

FIVE OR MORE servings of fruids and vegetables daily? WHAT? I'm guessing a decade ago those parents LIED. I don't even eat 5 servings of anything in a day. what the heck is a serving anyways. Stupid government departments coming up with meaningless terminology. 800 servings of broccoli a day. For this definition a serving is one centimeters worth of anything that doesn't taste good.

"In 1998, 66 per cent of those surveyed said their child was physically active three or more times per week during the winter. This year, the figure was 57 per cent. During summer, 88 per cent of parents said their children were physically active."

Yeah well, they stopped funding parks and ice hockey rinks so that they could pay for MORE AND MORE USELESS STUDIES.

You know what bugs me, I like special K more than froot loops and rice crispies for some reason, but if I want a small box of that crap they only have the bullshit for women that has stupid strawberries or some shit in it. So I never buy that shit. I end up buying stuff like Honey Nut Cheerios.

Anyways, in summary, don't they have nano-machines that can unblock clogged arteries by now? Hurry the fuck up, researchers, or humanity is doomed!

SONY EREADER FOR SALE IN CANADA

ONLY $399.99 HAS A TOUCH SCREEN.

AVAILABLE IN VARIOUS COLOURS

ONLY $100 MORE THAN A PS3.

YOU KNOW YOU WANT ONE.

AVAILABLE AT FUTURESHOP OR SONY STORES OR SOME ONLINE WEBSITES.

ONLY $399!!!

yeah. But does it read .cbr and .cbz files? If not, for $399, screw it. It's not that difficult to add such functionality.

and none of the ads mention that it has support for external memory cards. What kind? Apparently it has two slots. For SD cards? Or is one SD and the other Memory stick duo crap. dunno. But at least there are ereaders finally being sold in Canada, even if they're from Sony and don't support what I want (or at least don't advertise well enough what they do support)

CANADA POST MAILBOX WRAPS

Okay, in Winnipeg and a few other cities Canada Post has unveiled shitty new Canada Post mailbox wraps that look like graffiti... To ward off graffiti. (whole picture available in link)

Hey, you know what else would be a good idea? In order to ward off people drawing pornographic images on mailboxes, if Canada Post put up a special wrap that contained pornographic images!! THAT WOULD BE FUCKING GENIUS!!!

Fucking imbeciles! There was nothing wrong with the boxes before. They were red, people generally didn't tag them that often, or if they did, Canada post took care of it before I ever noticed.

But now they look tacky and shitty. Will this procedure cost more than it would have to just repaint it occasionally in the first place, or like any government expenditure, does it cost more than the problem they're solving. I'd guess the latter.

Way to go Canada Post, you fucking morons.


THIS IS HOW A MAILBOX SHOULD LOOK IN CANADA. Or at least, like those old classical rounder shaped ones. Not like a pre-grafittied/tagged piece of SHIT.

Also Canada Post provides some images on their website, but only allows them to be used without permission by accredited news agencies. Guess what, fuckers, I'm not accredited but I'm using it anyways because accredited news agencies are fucking press release regurgitators and nothing else. Fuck them and their bullshit terms of services. My taxes pay for your bullshit, so you can let me use it in a legitimate setting such as this.



This one isn't so bad. Never seen it personally, though.

CHUMBY

3 Years ago this device was created and launched in the USA. There, people have an alarm clock, weather widget device with a touch screen for around $200 that has streaming internet radio and runs on Linux.

In Canada, we don't have Chumby's.

Apparently there are two Canadian companies who are litigiously threatening Chumby for some reason. They presumably own bullshit patents on software methods and don't want the competition from Chumby.

I don't know what these companies are, but there are two companies selling internet alarm clock radios in Canada that I have seen. One is Aluratek, supposedly a Canadian company, the other is Acoustic research.

So I don't know if these are the companies, but there are two companies making legal threats, and there are two companies selling shitty products in Canada. Even if they are not the companies involved, there is enough suspicion there for me to never buy their products. That companies can't stand competition is just another example of how low our country has gotten with regards to adapting to the 21st century.

Fucking pathetic.

** UPDATE **

Okay, so those companies aren't the ones threatening to sue chumby, and I apologize for jumping to conclusions. However, my rage is still righteous and who is to blame again for this bullshit but CTVglobemedia. Owned by the despicable and disgusting sadists and rapists of Canada known as the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, owners of a ridiculous trademark on the common english word CHUM. I guess they aren't chum's of ours. And some other patent troll company in Ontario that's suing everybody anyways. The latter is probably less of a threat to Chumby than the former. You'd think CTV would make a deal to get priority labeling and access to their stations through Chumby's services. But no, they have to be litigious as in Canada nobody knows any other way for a monopolistic entity to be run. Fuck you again, CTVglobemedia. Fuck you and die, CHUM.

Also, I still probably won't buy those other radio's. But only because they're technological inferior to what I want. But I suppose they serve a purpose. I'd pay $50 for one maybe, but not $100

Marvel comics bought by Disney

Phase 1, ripoff the Fantastic Four, create incredibles, make bazillions of dollars

Phase 2, merge with Disney

Phase 3, buy Marvel comics.

The circle is complete.

Is Gary Doer a patsy or is Stephen Harper just not that clever

Extending a rare olive branch across party lines, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was widely applauded Friday for his surprise choice of an NDP star as this country's new ambassador to Washington.

• from an article in the Ottawa Citizen
  

Forgive me if the timing of Gary Doer's appointment as ambassador isn't suspicious. Gary Doer was Premier of Manitoba during a period that saw increased Beaurocritization of the medical industry. Take the amount of WRHA offices in Winnipeg and hospital hour cutbacks at the same time. He was Premier during a period of time when a man who went to the hospital died after being transferred hospitals and waiting in a waiting room. The Swine Flu crisis hit Manitoba aboriginals the hardest for some reason, the NDP passed responsibility off of that to the federal government. But all the same that and many other things both reported and not have occured under his watch. There have been numerous MLA's responsible for the health care portfolio, but ultimately, it was a failure of his government to live up to a campaign promise over 10 years ago to end hallway medicine.

Now he's seemingly under increased scrutiny in Manitoba and his teflon is slowly peeling away, and lo and behold, all of a sudden Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs someone in the USA as an Ambassador. I'm not saying Gary Doer isn't a personable looking fellow, but right now in the USA the biggest issue is so called socialized medicine. With a masterstroke he has put Gary Doer in a position where journalists who actually do their job (moreso than in the city of Winnipeg anyways) can tear him down and he can't avoid their interviews or select who he wishes to talk to. If he wants to be heard, if he wants to defend his record and our medical system, he has to go on CNN and/or FOX News. Can he? Apparently he's a great interview. However I've never heard anyone ask him any tough questions.

So did Stephen Harper set this up on purpose? He looks good because he's appointing someone from the dreaded NDP to a post. He eliminates the leader of a provincial party that is being held together mostly due to its leaders personality, in the same way the Liberals were. There will undoubtedly be leaks, if not floods as soon as his replacement is appointed, leaving a potential conservative party to gain heavily provincially and splitting the vote in Manitoba between Liberals and Conservatives.

Completely ridiculous and baseless prophecy or eerily and chillingly possible scenario? It depends on how smart you think Stephen Harper is. I may not agree with him on everything, but he has played this minority government pretty well and is still in charge despite the fact that a majority of Canadians seem to find his party's policies distasteful.

Maybe Doer thought being Ambassador would be a nice line to add to his resume and he could build many contacts. But Michael Wilson the outgoing Ambassador doesn't think its an easy job. Still, it'll at least be interesting to see what happens, wont it?

Reddit does something right

So I wake up this morning to see a bunch of atheists are indignant that their soapbox on reddit has been taken away. Well tough. I don't want to hear article after repetitious article about atheism any more than I want to read article after article espousing how great Islam is or articles about barbie doll collecting. There was way too much of that shit showing up on the front page of reddit and for no good reason. It was all the same "blah blah blah My mom disowned me for being an atheist" whinage over and over again or basically insulting people who for whatever reason, wanted to believe in religion.

Many militant atheists seem to think they're at war with religion in the same way I'm at war with velcro. But its a war they (and I) cannot win. Religion preys on the stupidest most dangerous people, and also the stupidest and most corrupt individuals. The only way to stamp it out is to eliminate corruption. Yeah exactly. Some religion will always replace another religion. Fact is we do not have all the answers, and playing games with logic isn't a sufficient solution that most people accept either.

It's not like their atheism page has been taken away, it has merely only been kept from reaching the front page of reddit. Which is good because its rarely news and only gets its signal to noise ratio due to controversy. It would be the exact same thing if they created a subreddit called /trollytrollytrolltroll and monopolized the front page. It's still trolling religion, no matter how much you think you're morally right to do it.

So again, congrats to reddit for doing the right thing for once to a group that cannot stand dissenting views. Except now they're all going to go to bannination.com like locusts and ruin that too.

Reed Solomon reviews Inglorious Basterds

There will be spoilers, but they don't really spoil anything. Except the movie.

Have you ever seen a movie, a historical movie, that takes liberty with history, and makes it much much better? Yes, you have. It was called Gladiator. That movie won at least one academy award. And it fucking deserved it. Inglorious Basterds will win at least 32 Academy Awards. You heard it here first. They will invent new categories. Best Villain (Hitler), Best badass (Brad Pitt's character), coolest Jew. They will create new categories for Oscar because this movie deserves them.

Inglorious Basterds maybe suffers in the same way all artistic Academy Award winning movies suffer, in that its a bit too long. That's not to say the movie is bad at any point, because truly, it isn't, but my butt hurt and I really had to take a piss by the end and that really can ruin the ending of any lesser film. I once had to take a massive crap at the end of the movie Arachnophobia and I never found out what happened with all those stupid ass Spiders. But whatever, Spider killin's easy. Nazi killing.. that's a movie.

Quentin Tarantino can be a good director when he doesn't get obsessed with bullshit women talking about bullshit. When theres violence on the screen, he's your guy. Now, there are parts in this movie where people get scalped or cut up.. I personally hate surgical shit like that because its gross. I don't mind heads getting chopped off or whatever, but for the same reason I can't watch ER, I just don't like those kinds of things. They just bug me on some level no matter how practical or clinical the setting. There weren't TOO many incidents like that, but I'm just bringing it to your attention. But when theres real violence like people getting shot, or shit exploding, its done masterfully akin with the grace of swans attacking a puppy. There was very little bullshit women talking about bullshit in this movie, and it was good.


Now, there is a lot of subtitles in this movie, and a lot of readin'. Some folk won't like that. I can't blame them, but it does work to distract you. Myself, I've played enough 80's video games that I don't mind subtitles. Theres enough english in there that you're not reading a novel, but its impressive that the actors and actresses had pretty good accents (and the detection of accents were even written into the plot). I'm assuming most of the actors and such were American, and even so, it was pretty good. Sure people slipped into regular American English at points, but it was pretty subtle when it happened and only a trained professional ear like mine would detect something like that. Were the subtitles there to serve to distract the viewer that this was a wordy Quentin Tarantino movie? I don't think so. It wasn't that wordy. For a Tarantino flick.

There were quite a few cat and mouse scenes which I quite liked. The Nazi's weren't played for laughs as much as I expected. It was pretty serious. The Nazi we focus on at the beginning is a pretty impressive antagonist. Very cerebral and intelligent. You almost get the sense of that cop who was after Jean Val Jean in Les Miserables, he was that type of character. Very well acted, so much so that I can't for the life of me place the actor, he was that deep into the role. Well done, actor, whoever you are. I'm too lazy too look your name up on imdb, but you know how I feel. Sure, Hitler and those characters were played for laughs, but I've seen enough youtube Hitler videos to know that that's probably how he really acted.

Theres one female character who kinda looks like a young Christina Applegate but also doesn't, and she plays a Jew who escapes and runs a movie theatre for some reason. Again, I can't be bothered to learn the names of actors, but she was pretty good. Now, having the setup of the movie to get Hitler, the Basterds, and this women all in the same movie theatre at the end might make you think that Tarantino is just such a Cinemaphile that he needs to somehow make the concept of movies central to the war, but WWII did have a lot of propoganda and use of movies as part of its oeuvre, therefore I will forgive this. It makes sense.

Anyways, in the end the basterds kill Hitler and end World War II. Really, it makes more sense than Hitler commiting suicide or Communists marching into what was later to be known as East Germany. There was some cool gunmanship and out-assholing between the Nazi's and the Basterds.

I saw the movie Munich, and it had a similar premise, but Basterds does it better and is probably truer to real life than Munich was. Now, I'm not a Steven Spielberg fan. He goes for the heart strings a little too often and I don't have a heart, but I understand what he tries to do. This deserves all the Academy Awards Munich thought it deserved.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. But my brain has been melted by the awesomeness that is this movie. Oh right, I saw the trailer for Avatar. That's gonna be an interesting movie. It looks like they get their minds transferred into the bodies of aliens for some reason and then they run around fucking and riding dinosaurs in 3D. James Cameron is a fucking genius. Also they had the new Trailer Park Boys movie trailer (at least here in Canada) and that also looks like fucking genius. And there was another trailer I liked where this guy is a badass and his daughter gets killed and the killer walks free so he fucking kills everyone who was a part of that bullshit, and that was a good trailer too. There was also a shitty trailer for A christmas Carol in 3D with Jim Carrey. Jesus Christ that was bullshit. I'm not paying to see that fucking crap. What the fuck, Robert Zemeckis?! What the fuck! But I digress, the trailers added a bit too much time to the overall length of the film. While most were good, they should have cut the Scrooge one.

So in summary, I do recommend people see this. You don't have to go to the theatre, its probably best to have it on a DVD where you can pause and appreciate it more, but all the same, it was a good film. Tarantino is back on his game. Bravo. Also Mike Meyers was in this shit and he didn't totally ruin it, so that oughta count for something too.

32 Academy awards.

DISSOLVE THE CRTC

Someone has set up a website at http://dissolvethecrtc.ca. The purpose of which is to have the CRTC dissolved. This is something I agree with wholeheartedly. The CRTC is composed of ex-industry hacks and political wonks who do NOTHING in the interest of the Canadian consumer and should be scrapped and replaced right away.

So what will happen to Canadian content on television some might ask. WHAT CANADIAN CONTENT? Saying that is like an abused puppy coming back to its owner. There is no Canadian content.

But then who will allocate the spectrum? That is done already by industry canada.

But then who will take complaints about radio stations and television stations airing nudity and profanity and whatnot?

Personally I could care less either way about that. Certainly its in a radio stations self interest to regulate their language. Complaints need not go to some other body whose only recourse is to shut them down.

If you care about the internet, about being able to watch what you want when you want to watch it, about paying reasonable phone charges, about not having stupid channels bundled in with the channels you want, then sign this petition. I'm not one for signing petitions usually, but this one has the potential to shock those in power. I don't think they have any idea how dissatisfied Canadians are with their consumer regulatory bodies. Incompetence has been the case for far too long.

BIOS locking

One thing that really bugs me is when computer makers lock your computer so that you can only use their add-ons. There is no practical reason for this except for pure greed. Dell does this, HP does this, Occasionally Lenovo/IBM did this.

I recently got an HP mini 1000. There is a mini-pci slot there, you could conceivably add shit like a 3D card. But you cannot, because it is bios locked to only accept official HP parts. Which would be fine if they were reasonably priced, but they are not, and they are also not easy to obtain. I want to throw in a 3G mini-PCI card in there, but no, HP doesn't want me to, they want me to go on a 3 year contract with rogers and pay $600 for a netbook. (When you can get the same deals in the USA on a 2 year contract for .99 cents for the netbook)

If I ever start a company, I won't do shit like this, and shit like this erodes any loyalty you may have gleamed from me. But go ahead, sacrifice longterm customer loyalty for short term profit. It's the American way.

On the bright side, someone did create a bios hack for the sunofabitch, so I could probably be fine regardless, but its the principle of the thing.

Sunday Hours in Winnipeg

I hate Sundays. Stores are only open until 6pm here in Winnipeg. They should eliminate Sunday store hour laws. Heck, most stores would probably still only be open until 6pm anyways.

It's what they do on Saturdays a lot of the time I know at Staples they close at 5 or 6 on Saturday AND Sunday. Sure, some stores like Wal-Mart would stay open 24-7, but the only law is that people should not be forced to work on a Sunday or Holiday. Perhaps a good idea would be to require employers who chose to stay open on weekends to pay a small weekend bonus per hour of like 5% total pay. That would both encourage employees to work on weekends, and prevent employers from taking advantage of them.

It has always made me curious how businesses are open late on weekdays, when people are usually busy working, yet on weekends when people have time to do shit, they're closed. I guess people are going out to the lake or the cabin and things slow down, but its weird. Less so for the hours of operation and more so for the strange movement habits of humans.

In any case, I wasted my Sunday. It was raining all day and now that its nice out everything's going to close anyways.

civic holiday

Today is a civic holiday. Which is not a statutory holiday. So what purpose does a holiday serve if I still have to work 5 days a week or not get paid for 1 day? NONE. Fuck you civic holiday, or as its better known, SHITTY LONG WEEKEND!

At least I've still got 3 weeks of holidays before the year ends, and Labour day is less than 30 days away. Still, it sucks to waste a holiday on this.

Google Ad's worry me

FYI this is an Ad that I encountered. Why it is in French, I do not know. Maybe Google thinks I'm french, or that I'm dumb enough to want to see Harry Potter again. I dunno. It simply perplexes me.

I wonder if I'll see more french ads. Maybe I said a french word at some point and now google thinks I'm a Quebec Separatist who loves Harry Potter and Poutine.

I mean, I can read the ad, I know what it means, but FUCK IMAX. First, the first 15 minutes of the movie are in IMAX, and they SUCK. Second, It's never on IMAX when it should be. It should be out on IMAX first. I am not going to pay to see it again. Not even for pretty good 3D. I'll save my money for Tron Legacy which will probably also suck but who cares they're racing bikes in a straight line!

TV tuners for Netbooks

News has it that Maxlinear and Hauppauge (I never know how to spell that company name without looking it up) are teaming up to make a netbook TV tuner.

Now this is all well and good, Netbooks are the perfect size for portable TV's, which with the onset of digital TV in North America and the rest of the world are obsolete. Going to the beach? Bringing your netbook? Now you can watch whatever signals you pick up there. Although if that happens to be any beach in Manitoba, that's still 0. But my blog is read by people worldwide who don't live in backwards garbage dumps, so for them, It'll be great.

Apparently the only current netbook with a built in TV tuner (or option) is the Dell Mini 10. Now, the Dell mini's (aside from the 9) are generally pretty decent looking computers. The mini 10 with its HDMI out almost got me, except of course for the lack of a scroll in the touchpad that it comes with. If I can't have a trackpoint, I AT LEAST need to scroll with the touchpad. I'm also iffy on the fact that the buttons are included in the touchpad assembly. It'd be nice if they could make a netbook with a trackpoint instead. Same specs but with a trackpoint only? I AM SO THERE. Although I'd prefer a top of the line atom processor or via neo in a 10 inch size machine.

But I digress, The point I was originally going to make is that while its all well and good, We do not currently have a standard for Mobile ATSC-M/H. ATSC signals cannot be locked on to while driving or running around, which makes mobile ATSC standards a necessity. Eventually you'll have digital television tuners in cell phones too, but all the same, there needs to be a standard set and agreed upon first. Sure current netbooks will be obsolete anyways by then, but It's still premature I think for TV tuners to be standard on netbooks.

Black Cats

Why do people adopt/purchase black cats when they're unlucky? Or are they all witches.

Reed Solomon reviews Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

First, let me apologize in advance for all the swearing I did during and after this movie. Apparently this movie has given me tourettes. There must be a connection between seething rage and tourettes. Although you really shouldn't be angry that I swore in front of your precious children. First of all, its wednesday night, thats when I like to see movies. Just because you and your kids couldn't wait to see a movie is no reason to blame me for being me. Second, the movie is rated PG-13. That means your kids should goddamn fucking well know how to swear by now and be old enough to appreciate what an abortion this movie they just saw was. And third, the movie was shit. Complete shit.

"Pull my finger!"

Upon entering the movie theatre I had reasonably high expectations. I had expected a movie that for once maybe remained more true to the book than diverged. Or, IF it diverged, it would at least diverge in a way that was an IMPROVEMENT or NECESSARY. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince did none of these things.

The movie begins with 3D EXPLOZIONZ EXTRAVEGANZA OMG 3D LOOK AT THIS BRIDGE BLOW UP LOOK AT UGLY PEOPLE FLY AROUND IN 3D!!!!$!$%!% Except you have to be at an Imax theatre with 3D to appreciate the 3D, which is only for the first 10 or 20 minutes. And does not coincide with anything interesting. If you like it when a script writer changes things just to show that he's the man, and when a director directs things as if getting the most retarded emotion out of his actors was oscar worthy, then you will love this movie.

Sorry, Rupert Grint, you'll never live it down. Did you really need the money that badly? You coulda grown some weed like the Slytherin dude.

After EXPLOZIONZ we proceed to Harry Potter in some restaurant reading a newspaper. A Magical Newspaper. Great. OK Fine, you want to ignore everything in the book. People don't care about it anyways, they're only there to look at OMG ITS HARRY POTTER IN REAL LIFE! ... or ITS HERMIONE IN REAL LIFE!!!! WOWZ!! OMG ITS THUNDERPANTS IN REAL LIFE. whatever. Fuck.

Yes you are, and not in the homosexual way.

Let me get this out of the way. MICHEAL GAMBON IS THE WORST DUMBLEDORE EVER. If anyone feels any sympathy or any appreciation for the character it must be a COMPLETE COINCIDENCE as the character that appears on screen is some stupid piece of shit who is nothing like the character of a similar name that appeared in the first two movies and the books. How did they get to that result from such an engaging fascinating occasionally mysterious character created by J.k Rowling? NOBODY KNOWS. Okay, Mister Gambon, in this scene we need you to be a fucking useless tool and also an asshole. Can you do that? GREAT!! Act. ACT!!! MORE ANGER! YES!

How big of a piece of shit are you, Crotchturd? That big? Wow!

So Harry and .. I'm sorry I can't call this character that appears with Harry "Dumbledore". I shall call him CROTCHTURD. Crotchturd and Harry Potter go to the Weasleys house. They go to the Weasley house and the director is all being clevar with camera angles and shit. OH LOOK HOW CLEVAR YOU ARE.. SO CLEVER. Harry Potter just shows up at the Weasley house without Dumbledore, everyone is happy to see him. Yay. This whole scene takes I dunno 10 minutes. 10 Minutes of wasting time when we could have actually put in, oh I dunno, some actual SCENES FROM THE BOOK? But who needs THAT!

They end up going to Diagon Alley. Harry owns an invisibility cloak but choses to follow Draco Malfoy without using it. When Voldemort is after him and Death Eaters and everyone thinks he's the chosen one he saunters after Draco with Hermione and Ron in tow. In the book he wears the invisibility cloak, but whatever. I suppose invisibility is a FUCKING EXPENSIVE SPECIAL EFFECT TO DO. I mean, when I was in grade 5 I filmed myself disappearing. You know what I did? I filmed myself to a certain point, then I stopped film, and voila, I dissappeared! WOW! Fucking piece of shit movie.

Let me say I liked seeing the Weasley Twins and their store. That scene was okay, though how they got the money to start their business, and the fact that the peruvian darkness powder was a plot point later in the book was completely cut for no reason. But I liked the scene, though some of the best character lines were cut.

They cut the Dursley family out completely. Whatever. Who needs them, huh? Who needs to know that Harry's Godfather died, that he inherited a house elf, and a house, and vast sums of money. Not the audience going to see this movie. Instead we get long meandering scenes of people pondering about nothing in particular. About as good a tradeoff as bailing out banks so that they can all get big fat bonuses. It's the exact same thing. Mother fucking pieces of shit. Harry Potter is the chosen one. How does he know? Nobody ever finds out. Does Crotchturd tell him at some point? We might as well assume so.

Don't do it, Crotchturd! You have so much to live for! Put down the pointy stick!

Also while on the train, Harry gets his own compartment, but the slytherins are all in some lame amtrak style coach. This doesn't even make sense.

I didn't mind the slug club scenes too much. They were alright. Although the christmas party with having students instead of houseelves was pretty dumb, but I understand that they didn't want to spend any money on CGI that might have anything to do with the book. Daniel Radcliffe was actually very good in this film. If he had a script and if Crotchturd wasn't such a complete.. well.. piece of shit lodged in the crotch, I may have been able to overlook all of the other faults of this film. We launch into Crotchturd giving harry lessons about Voldemort. Crotchturd even tells all the students that Voldemorts real name is Tom Riddle. Way to fucking tip your hand there, Crotchturd. Voldemort won't suspect a thing now. Sadly the part in the book where Harry's usefulness to the memories is shown by being able to translate parseltongue is completely cut. It's like having a movie about WWII efforts and a scene about German Enigma machines and completely cutting out the allied cryptographers. I guess the second world war was won by American Moxy.

Snape is given a promotion, no longer is he Potions teacher, but now he teaches the cursed Defense against the Dark arts class. Do we get to experience this class? Do we get some build up between Harry and Snape? FUCK NO. NOTHING. We get to see a lot of Draco Malfoy simpering, whining, doing shit. We get to see Hermione Granger being all "OMG I LOVE RON HOW COME HE DOESN'T KNOW I LOVE HIM LOOK HOW DRAMATIC I CAN ACT!!!1" which is nothing like in the book.

During The scene where Katie Bell touches the necklace, its not Harry who takes the initiative and tells everyone not to touch it, one of the few scenes in the books where Harry actually acts like a goddamn hero I might add, no its FUCKING HAGRID. HAGRID, WHO GOT KICKED OUT IN HIS THIRD YEAR!! HAGRID DOES NOT KNOW SHIT! At least they kept the scene where Harry shoves the beazor down Ron's throat there. I guess they needed to give Hagrid some screen time. Poor guy is barely in the movie, and whatever scene he is in completely makes his character look useless.

There were some amusing scenes, don't get me wrong, there are points where the director or script writer or the actors take the initiative and improve upon the award winning multi-million dollar selling Harry Potter books. They're outnumbered by Poor decision making and CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE, but hey, the masses are fucking stupid. Batman and Robin made shitloads of money too. Fuck you WB. If you fucking ruin Green Lantern I will fucking snap. You hear me? I WILL FUCKING SNAP. All that rage inside me? I'm the goddamn san andreas fault. If Green Lantern is as big a piece of garbage as this, god help us all.

I liked the scene where Harry and Ron are fighting for the two spare potions text books. It rang true to life, and Harry got the better end of that scene. I would have liked more of Ginny Weasley actually doing things rather than being all holding Harry's hand and garbage. Oh they're in lurve. OH I LOVE YOU HARRY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU GINNAY Jesus Christ get on with the fucking movie.

So shit happens, then Harry ends up at the Weasley house for christmas. Then Death Eaters attack and burn down the weasley house FOR NO GOOD REASON. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN THE BOOK. If they had the time to cut out so much from the book, HOW DID THEY HAVE THE TIME TO ADD COMPLETELY NEW AND IRRELEVANT SCENES!!! I guess there won't be a wedding in the next movie. I guess they can make up more incredibly stupid scenes that have nothing to do with anything. Then introduce the followup creations of those cut scenes later. THERE WAS 10 FUCKING MINUTES OF RUNNING THROUGH THE FUCKING WILDERNESS CHILDREN OF THE CORN STYLE BULLCRAP. 10 FUCKING MINUTES OF IT! NOT IN THE BOOK! NOT INTERESTING AT ALL! 10 MINUTES OF IT!!!

So some serious shit happens, Crotchturd dies, after Snape tricks Harry for some reason OMG DRAMATIC TWIST! No funeral though. No fucking depth at all to this piece of shit.

The inferi looked fucking stupid. Not like mummies or anything. Not like emaciated bodies either. Fucking generic shit.

Also while the Quidditch scenes were nicely done, they could have either been shorter, or maybe actually included Harry Potter? You know, that character who is the main character? Why would they cut out the scene where Harry wins the match by shocking the opposing Slytherin player by asking him how much Malfoy paid him to take his place?

To summarize, my basic problem with this movie is that THE SOUL WAS SUCKED OUT OF EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. Actors being babies and mugging for the camera, although who can blame them when all their importance is drained out of the script.

Although my friend who didn't read the books, says the movie was great, that I acted like a dumbass who doesn't know how to behave in public, and really enjoyed it. But what does he know, he hated The Golden Compass. Some people actually clapped at the end. My God.

Well Crotchturd, what do you have to say for yourself?

I think this movie works best if you imagine it as like the TV show sliders. We all live in an alternate dimension from one of the later seasons of sliders after the show really turned into shit. Wheras the first two seasons we were still living in a universe where things had potential for greatness. It really is a shame that Richard Harris died. He would have at least saved this movie from the total and complete aids syphilis ebola that it suffers from. Somewhere there are people living in a world where Richard Harris lived, where the movie was written and directed by talented people, where WB actually spent money on special effects that helped make the movie better rather than 20 minutes of useless fucking 3D that does not move the plot along at all.

There were a few other things that I liked that I can't remember, and many more things that ticked me off, but I hope you get the point by now.. WHY did they advertise this as if this was anything like the book? Why do they even own the rights to Harry Potter if they aren't going to make a Harry Potter movie? I understand J.K Rowling just doesn't care anymore now that she's richer than Oprah and doesn't need to write any more books, But don't try to convince me to see this if it has nothing to do with the book. It's barely even inspired by the book. For a movie supposedly about Magic, this movie contained very little.

"HAHAHAHAH We totally took your money Reed Solomon! LOLOL YOU DUMB STUPID SUCKER!!!!!!!"