Everyone's been doing this quiz-thing. Angela did it, so I decided to do it too.

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Posted at 08:55 PM | Comments (2)

Um... il pleut.

But not the whole time. You see, Montreal weather is what we call INSANE. For example, this morning and most of the afternoon it was sweltering, humid heat under mostly clear skies. Then, out of NOWHERE, clouds roll in and just dump huge gobs of rain on us continually, while the clouds flash and crackle and boom with thunder and lightning.

Old Montreal is pretty incredible. It's fascinating how well the classical-baroque look has been preserved. I'll upload some pictures at some point to give you guys an idea. It's pretty incredible.

More later.

Posted at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

According to the screen mounted in a seat in front of me, as I am writing this, I'm traveling at 865 kph at and altitude of 37153 ft (that's 11kM for the metrically-inclined). I've finally gotten to experience a flight on a plane with an entertainment system. Also, not only have I got the window seat, but the two seats next to me are empty. So while I watch whatever TV I want, I have the screen on the seat next to me to leave on the Livemap, which show me our current position, altitude and speed.

Now, let me say that it isn't all as great as it sounds. I've only managed to kill off 1:15, mostly watching news. There's 25 channels. Space is showing a rather depressing episode of Star Trek Voyager. There's also 5 movie channels that won't let you watch unless you swipe your credit card through the convenient reader at the side of the screen. The rest of the channels consist of a wide variety of news and channels like TLC and A&E, which are showing reality decorating crap right now. Whoop.

More to come from Montr�al tomorrow.

Posted at 09:43 PM | Comments (3)

I'm off to Montréal! See ya later!

Posted at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

A cloud burst on me on my walk home from the bus stop. I got SOAKED.

So I come home drenched. What should I do? Well I think it should be obvious: I brew a hot, wholesome cup of tea. And to do that, I chose from the diverse selection of...

OUR TEA CUPBOARD

Yum. And by the way, there's more in the other side.

Posted at 05:24 PM | Comments (6)

I think there's definitely a fast-growing perception by the general public that our dependance on oil for a broad range of energy needs has got to go... NOW.

It used to be that such pointed opinions were limited to "hippies": left-wingers like myself and my family. For everyone else, driving an internal combustion car was convenient. They go fast, they were relatively cheap to operate, and the fact that internal combustion is hurting our environment and is dependent on finite resources seemed a distant and intangible concern.

But our awareness of how much we're harming our own environment is increasing. Gas prices are increasing. And America's populace is growing weary of fighting wars and buying oil from the very nations that like them least. Gasoline is long overdue for retirement. Why are we still using it? I've long suspected collusion between major automotive and fossil fuel industries, and this movie is likely to firmly reinforce that view.

The fact is, we depend on the automotive industries to provide us with alternatives such as electric, biodiesel, and various type of fuel cells. But there's no incentive profit-wise for them to do so, and so they will not. Switching to other "fuel platforms" requires high design costs, production of non-standard (and thus more expensive) components, and potentially compromising the lucrative oil and gas industry. We can not rely on automotive companies to change society's ways: they will quite clearly destroy their own country and environment if it means making one last quarter of profit.

So I point us all towards that ideology which will save mankind: open source projects.

Form a non-profit organization. Using engineers and designers from around the world, make designs and specifications for an electric car. It doesn't have to go faster than 120 KPH. Design it so that as many standard components as possible can be used. Build prototypes. Then, sell licenses to manufacturers to build the cars and sell them. For the first four years, licensees will be required to release any improvements, fixes, or innovations they make in the design back to the open-source project. Anyone can build the car and sell it, as long as they buy a license to support the open source project itself. Then the designs are released into the public domain. When all this is done, you have established a platform of vehicles with standard components that can be built by anyone without the need to reverse engineer the car design, since the designs are open.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the open-source car. Don't knock it until somebody tries it.

Posted at 09:04 AM | Comments (5)

Working on Victoria day... ooo-yeah. It's an extended EDGAR deadline, see? So we'll be taking next Monday off which is Memorial Day in the US. Fine by me, it's rainin' out thar anyway. Too bad I'm missing Jeff's birthday party, though. Happy Birthday Jeff!

Yesterday we walked from our place to Commerical drive, then sat on a patio drinking Pirate Beer. Steph was pretty psyched about that, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I'm going to visit Nadia in Montreal soon. That should be fun, as long as nobody calls me a filthy Anglo. Mon Dieu! Je suis un Latourneau fier, descendu du Voyageurs!

UPDATE: Woo! Montréal! I'll be leaving on Tuesday, May 30th and returning on Monday, June 5th. SUPER AWESOME FUN WITH NADIA! HOORAY!

Posted at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

Michelle sent me a link to this very interesting little video clip. Apparently, it's a deleted scene from the original Star Wars movie that was never made it into the final cut. It shows Luke talking with Biggs and some of Luke's other friends, with a cameo by the once-somewhat-infamous Koo Stark. Interesting stuff.

I'm in an odd place. I'm eating small amounts of carefully selected "neutral" foods. My tummy is still too sensitive to be eating a lot of things at once, but I'm made ravenous by the smell of people's meaty, greasy lunches and the sight of one of my coworkers sipping a slurpee in the hot weather. My digestive system had better shape up soon, I'm starting to gnaw on my knuckles.

Posted at 03:52 PM | Comments (3)

Hopefully, this will be one of the few times in my life that I will get excited about this, but...

I ate food today!!!

I shuffled my way down to the corner stone, walking as I might if I were, say, 70. As I began my long shuffle back, I opened one of the two bottles of apple juice I bought (recommended by Angela's father, an MD). I took a delicate sip, trying to pace myself. Of course, it wasn't more than a few moments before the fact that I have been STARVING the past few days overcame my caution. As I write this, the first bottle is gone, and I'm onto the second one. I managed to have some Eggo waffles too. Something as simple as standing up still takes a lot of effort, but I know I'm on the mend now.

Posted at 10:18 AM | Comments (1)

I am having a hell of a bad time.

Everyone in our house is sick with the most awful disease. Vomiting and diarrhea non stop. I haven't had anything to eat now in 24 hours. I spent much of the day in bed, and I'm still weaker than a kitten. I'm SO thirsty, and so hungry, but if I so much as drink too much water too quickly it comes back up. Worst is Angela came over the night I got sick, so I've probably infected her too.

When Iain first got this late last week, he thought it was food poisoning.

Last but not least: quarterly deadline day on Monday. Whoopty frickin' doo.

Posted at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)

Gamemaster Mark Crawford:

That was a pretty good effort overall, and a lot of fun. So Markus, since you had that awesome breakaway late in the 2nd, I'm giving you 250 experience points. Daniel, Anson, and Henrich, I saw some awesome plays that either directly or indirectly resulted in several goals. You each get 300 experience. Jaarko, Remember that thing you did with your tongue to piss off the crowd early in the third period? That was hilarious! You totally get 250 experience. Okay, now Todd, your game was pretty sub-par and you had that big giveaway in the first that cost us our lead. You're only getting 80 XP, and give yourself another dark side point. Let's see... what else? Oh right! Alex; give yourself 250 experience for your usual good effort. Could you roll an unmodified D10 for me? What is it? 8? Okay then, you get to add the "Ridiculous sprawl" specialization to your Goaltending skill at rank 4. Sami, you get 200 experience but you can add one courage point to your total for the way you handled yourself in that fight against Zdeno Chara.

The rest of you all get 200 experience. I'll see you tomorrow night. And Trevor, try to bring some snacks next time, okay?

Posted at 10:17 PM | Comments (1)

Righteous. We'll be purchasing an Apple Xserve to be our new web/e-mail/database server at AFS. Very exciting stuff.

Also, our new employee, Kitty, is working out just nicely. She's the same age as Andrew and Me and is bright and enthusiastic. New Dawn has also gotten a new secretary named Michelle. Somehow, the work environment is a lot more cheery when it isn't composed solely of white men.

More later.

Posted at 02:03 PM | Comments (1)

Take the Which Superhero are You personality test. Apparently, I'm Superman. This angers me, because as far as I'm concerned, "I'm Batman".

Posted at 05:23 PM | Comments (11)