More Lego madness. Now that Star Wars is done with, Lego want a new genre license to play in. And what could be more awesome than BATMAN LEGO. Tom Johnson, the creator of the Lego knitting machine, has built a Lego Orrery to explain to his children how the seasons work. What's an orrery? Why, it's a device with which to impress gelflings, of course.

Today is moving day. We can finally get out of this damn rathole. It's dark. It's small. The upstairs neighbors leave their laundry in the washer for days. They stomp around early in the morning and late in the evening. The garbagemen never pick up our trash. The fruit flies keep spawning from something despite my efforts to both keep clean and systematically eradicate them. The lawn we have to walk up is all muddy. There's no closet space. There's no counter space. The cupboards are going askew. The lint trap in the dryer just broke. All the doors are noisy when they open or close at night. We have to deal with that damn old back gate all the time and there's no place to put our coats or shoes by the door.

Out today. Up and out.

Posted at 08:53 AM | Comments (2)

Microsoft has taken a lot of flak in recent months for its level of cooperation with the Chinese government in regards to censorship. It has made modifications to the Chinese distribution of Windows XP to prevent the user from searching for "banned terms" such as "freedom" or "democracy". Then, the company bowed again to Bejing's demands by closing an MSN blog run by a Chinese journalist after he criticized the government's firing of editors at a progressive newspaper.

It's all part of an increasingly disturbing trend of large technology corporations cooperating with China's efforts to restrict the flow of free information behind the Chinese Firewall. Corporations claim that they're simply complying with the laws of the jurisdictions they do business in. And when that jurisdiction in one of the fastest growing economies on Earth, it represents a significantly important investment to shareholders.

But are we gutting the future of our own freedom by allowing our western public companies to help China continue its stranglehold on information and expression? If an oppressive China rules the world decades from now, will it be our own public companies that are at fault?

Joining this latest debacle against democracy is, of all companies, Google. Take a look at their own Corporate Philosophy and you'll find such tenets as "Democracy on the web works", and "You can make money without doing evil". Indeed, when the U.S. government recently demanded access to Google's log of search queries so that they could track how often users were accessing pornography, Google gave then a terse "no" and promised to fight the subpoena. But Google made a mockery of it's own high-falutin' ideas this week when they agreed to censor search results on their google.cn domain. It's funny how quickly a high-minded, young-blooded corporation can become corrupted as soon as it has shareholders to please.

Bambi Francisco of Marketwatch has a few things to say about this development that I think you should all read. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, I hope you sleep well at night knowing you're helping to suppress people's freedoms.

Posted at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)

Well, it's official. Disney will acquire Pixar. I had a skim over the Pixar press release but I couldn't find any specific reference to Renderman. The Disney rep did say something about Pixar's "unique technological resources". Hmm... I still think that Renderman would be best developed by Apple. Maybe Steve will have something to say about that yet, since he's now a Director of Disney. Weird.

UPDATE: By the way, Human Accessories is now finished as a produced song. Many thanks to Jeff for his tasteful guitar playing and patch advice. Garageband is awesome. After I started recording my vocal tracks I found myself wishing I had recorded the guitar in B or C minor instead of A, because the song sits right in the middle of my vocal range. The high parts of the melody end up being not-so-impressive while the low parts tend to get muddled in the accompaniment. Oh well, better luck next time. We'll see if I work up enough bravery to post it here.

Angela, Iain, Steph, and myself are going to the Coldplay concert Thursday night at GM Place. Should be fun!

Moving on Friday, the weekend, and Monday night. w00t for more space!

Posted at 08:44 AM | Comments (3)

"Did you vote?" She asks me. Geez.

I'm a strategic voter. I'm a left-leaner but I have no particular loyalty to either the Liberals or the NDP. Giles Duceppe, for all that I despise separatism, has been an admirable and powerful speaker in the English debates. Duceppe also demonstrates progressive social values. So I've often said that if I lived in a closely-contested Quebec riding, I'd hold my nose and vote Bloc. All of this culminates into one single strategy: keep the Conservative Party out of government.

So yesterday I cast my vote for Libby Davies, the NDP candidate for Vancouver East. It didn't really matter: Vancouver East is the riding of Commercial Drive. Libby Davies could tear down the street in an SUV adorned with severed baby heads and still win the riding by a landslide. My vote does still count, though, because a portion of federal funding is allocated to the parties based on their percentage of the popular vote. And I want more money to go to the charismatic Jack Layton and his marvelous pack of hippie-socialists.

Alas, our Prime Minister is now Stephen Harper. Yeah, I know: UGH. But it could be worse.

a) It's only a minority government. With the left-leaning Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois holding them in check, the Conservatives can't do any real damage.

b) Have a look at the timeline at the bottom of this page. The Liberals have been the ruling party of Canada the majority of our country's history. They'll rise again.

c) The Bloc Quebecois lost three seats in this election. As much as I've grown to like Giles Duceppe, I can't stand separatists. In fact, opinion polls and percent of the vote given to the Bloc indicates that support for separatism is at an all-time low. But don't worry, Harper's presence will fix that soon enough.

d) The big winners in this election aren't the Conservatives, they're the NDP. The New Democrats gained 11 seats nationwide, including 5 that they stole from the Conservatives in B.C.

See an excellent breakdown by CTV here
A very cool election information Flash applet by CBC

Take heart. He's just the Prime Minister. You don't have to like him.

Posted at 08:29 AM | Comments (3)

I met Angela after work on Friday. We went and had a nice dinner and drank sangria at the Latin Quarter on Commercial drive. Then we went home and watched The Red Violin, which Angela had never seen before. "Violins are HAWT!" On Saturday we made French toast and and baked cookies. Some people came gerthumping through to look at the suite. Then we watched Star Wars and ate leftovers from the previous night. Or did we watch the South Park Movie first? I don't remember.

Sunday morning... Sunday afternoon. "Shouldn't you be getting home darling?" "Maybe..." "I think you should stay another day" "Okay" So for a while Angela studied. I cleaned house and packed a bit for moving. Then a scrounged-together dinner, then The Empire Strikes Back. Before I knew it my weekend was over. She still rode with me on the bus in the morning, napping against my shoulder. Four movies, five or six meals, lots of cuddling, it's a blur. She kept me company while Iain and Steph were in Toronto. She's something special, that Angela girl.

ColdPlay on Thursday, moving next weekend.

Posted at 11:41 AM | Comments (1)

This blog is going to earn me a reputation as an Apple pundit.

There's been a lot of talk about the future of Pixar and Disney lately. Here's my take on the situation.

Posted at 09:30 AM | Comments (3)

You know, there are days when I think that I've seen everything there is to see on the internet; that there isn't anything new that will excite me. Then encounter something amazing, and I remember: it's the God-damn INTERNET. It's HUGE.

There are enthusiasts of everything. There are the kind of Lego enthusiasts out there that have the kind of M@d 5k1LLz that nerds daren't even imagine in their nerdiest dreams. There's this fellow who has loads of models including a train that transforms Voltron-style into a giant robot. The best work of many artists can be found at NextBrick. If all their neat sculptures somehow aren't enough to impress the discerning individual, maybe you should take Henry Lim's site, because the man built a a working harpsichord out of Lego. A harpsichord, that works, from Lego.

I'm gonna need a moment alone, people...

Update: Oh man. While we're on the subject of L33t Lego, let me not gloss over this functional Lego knitting machine (be sure to check out the video). If you check out NextBrick, don't miss his 12-foot long masterpiece, the Tribunal Colony Ship. Based off the antimatter-drive interstellar colony ship seen in Discover magazine, the model is scale to Lego figures. It has a fully-detailed interior with five decks which include a bridge, engine room, recreational facilities, and living quarters.

Posted at 12:23 PM | Comments (5)

Nine years ago, things were looking grim for Apple. Gil Amelio (arguably the worst CEO in Apple's now 30-year history) was presiding over a 12-year record low stock price. Apple's PDA, the Newton, had failed miserably. And the next generation Mac operating system code named "Copland", was bogged down in development. When Michael Dell of Dell Computer was asked by industry pundits what he'd do were he in charge of Apple, he replied, "I'd shut down the company and give the money back to the shareholders". Needless to say, that didn't sit too well with us Mac advocates.

Then magical things happened. Apple purchased NeXT Computer, which gave them the code of a powerful UNIX based operating system and brought Apple co-founder Steve Jobs back to the company. Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO in favor of Steve Jobs. The first iMac was released, to great acclaim. Then NeXTStep was fused with the Mac OS to create Mac OS X. A few years later, Apple opened a line of retail stores and released the iPod. And well, it's been a hell of a ride ever since.

So today, we Mac users cherish the moment that we've been waiting on for nearly a decade. Apple has passed Dell in market value, at $72,132,428,843 compared to Dell's $71,970,702,760. With the release of DualCore Intel systems from Apple and continued iPod and iTunes Music Store growth, analysts expect Apple to continue to perform well. So, for those Mac enthusiasts who were with me in the dark times all those years ago, please join me now in saying:

In your Fuckin' Face Michael Dell!

Posted at 09:58 AM | Comments (2)

Yes, I have ads on my site.

Google's Adsense program has become quite popular. It scans your page for things that are discussed there and formats appropriate ads for your page. Since you can force text-only ads to appear and can choose from a multitude of shapes and sizes, you can get something that's fairly tasteful and unobtrusive. A lot of webmasters are making revenue on the side off these things, so I figured I'd give them a try.

So, speaking of merchandising, would anyone be interested in getting some Fuck the Horde t-shirts printed up?

Update: You might want to click the above link again, I've dabbled in Adobe Illustrator with great success. Also, SplitReason has some epic t-shirts.

Posted at 08:34 AM | Comments (3)

I've had a few requests now for pictures of the new place. You can find them in this gallery. For those of you who love Google Maps, the house is near here.

Some of the rooms don't look that big in the pictures, but I can assure you that there is a lot more space than our current place. The kitchen alone is enormous by comparison. There are four bedrooms counting the loft, so we will have an extra room which will function as a guest bedroom and office for myself. Ain't that keen?

The neighborhood is also really charming. Some of the houses in the area are positively gorgeous. We're within walking distance of a bus loop, which will make transit access good. We really can't wait to get in there and geek up the place.

Posted at 07:54 PM | Comments (3)

This is what it would look like if you LARPed a Final Fantasy game. (That's "Live Action Role-Playing" for those of you in the dark)

Some of you haven't been informed that at the end of the month we'll be moving into a new place. It's not far from where we live now but is closer to Burnaby and in a very nice neighborhood. It's got SO much more space (which we need very badly right now). The kitchen, particularly, has a dedicated space for a table, two sinks, and so much extra counter and cupboard space that we are certain to be spoiled. I look forward to showing it to all of you.

Posted at 09:06 PM | Comments (5)

The blog has replaced the journal, and wrongly so. Especially those of us who have endeavored to publicize our sites as much as possible. Once you have a broad readership collected, you suddenly can't write about anything anymore. Someone will inevitably get offended. Perhaps they don't want to be privy to certain aspects of your personal life, or perhaps you'd be writing about an issue that the reader themselves is close to. In any case, the outlet for personal expression becomes useless, and one simply ends up doing things the healthy and old-fashioned way: bottling them up inside.

The most difficult thing you have to learn as an intimate person is that in the end, we are all inevitably alone. Nothing can ever change that.

Posted at 10:12 PM | Comments (3)

In The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a scene in which Frodo offers the One Ring to Galadriel. For a moment, Galadriel is cast in a dark glow and we are meant to see a glimpse of a path untaken. This is one of the few times in the book where Frodo freely offers the Ring to another. It's also the time when the potential recipient is most tempted, and the potential combination most deadly. It is all too short a scene, and I have always felt that much more was going on than Tolkien outwardly let on. Whenever I read the scene or see it played out on film I am captured by such a flight of fancy: what if Galadriel had taken the One Ring?

So for the past 2 years or so I've been writing this little piece of fiction on and off. It's by no means finished: general editing needs to be done, there's at least one more chapter that should be added near the end, and some of the continuity and pacing in the last chapter is sloppy at best. Nevertheless, the time has come where I'd like to share it with people and get some feedback. Numerous hours were spent reading over sections of Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, and Tolkien's Unfinished Tales to figure out what motivates Galadriel and provide tight continuity to Tolkien's original works. This is not Tolkien, it's Middle Earth turned on it's head; a Middle Earth that was not meant to be. Minor characters become main characters, and main characters... well, you'll see.

I suppose that it's literally the Mirror of Galadriel. Here is Altarial: Queen of the Night.

Posted at 10:47 PM | Comments (3)

Awake at 1:30 AM on a work night. This is what happens when you enjoy your holidays too much.

Remembering that I have to:

- Pay my MSP premium
- Get new blades for my razor
- Get Batman Begins and Son of a Witch from my parent's place.
- Finish the lame-ass project for my lyrics class
- Cut my hair
- Get a start on that novel I want to write
- Finish that song Jeff and I are writing
- Finish editing my Lord of the Rings short story
- Renew my driver's license

Noticing:

- Every god-damned noise this awful house makes at night
- That I pulled my shoulder a some point this weekend
- That there's no one sleeping beside me
- I'm not sure if it's too hot or too cold
- There's not actually any hair in my navel, just all around it

Wondering:

- If the next place we live will suit both my aesthetic and spatial needs
- When I'll get to talk to Nadia again
- What Andrea Dixon will be like 20 years from now
- What will happen to Canada when the Conservatives win the election
- If I'm doing the right thing

Realizing:

- I'd better bloody-well try to get some sleep

Posted at 01:30 AM | Comments (6)