Let's all take a trip to scenic Batman. Apparently he's in Turkey.

From the Wikipedia article:

Until the 1950s Batman was a small village with a predominantly Kurdish population. When oil companies moved in and the city's economy started to grow, population figures begun to rise. Many Turkish workers and state officials settled in the city. Presently Batman has a high unemployment level.

Posted at 12:09 AM | Comments (2)

Some comments in my last post about the current situation in the middle east provoked some comments via e-mail from Mom. She reminded me that the Israeli people are besieged by nations that would like to see them quite literally "wiped off the map". They face terrorism on a daily basis on a level that, mercifully, none of us have ever known. In that I would agree.

However, Israel is enraged right now, and an enraged nation never makes wise choices (ie: see "America"). They're lashing out at the first sign of trouble, and right now it's the yee-haw-let's-blow-shit-up Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon. Unfortunately, the victims seem to be primarily the more liberal civilians of the North. Syria is also complicit in the Hezbollah situation, but so far has escaped any retribution. Rage never reinforces accurate targeting.

Indeed, yesterday Israel landed itself in very hot water when it bombed a post manned by United Nations personnel, killing four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, respectively. A report claims that the observers contacted Israeli forces several times to report friendly fire. Each time they were assured that the shelling would stop, but each time it did not. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has angrily stated that, given the circumstances, the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate". This of course has been rebuffed by Israel.

Posted at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)

Help the plight of the Lebanese, support their economy by buying hummus. I did. It's wonderful in a pita with vegetables and makes a nice cool meal on a hot day like this. Seriously though, hopefully there will be a peaceful resolution to Israel's temper-tantrum soon.

Also, today I cut my finger while taking apart a computer. So my coworker Kitty gave me a band-aid from her stash. So now I'm wearing a pink Hello-Kitty band-aid.

Posted at 05:55 PM | Comments (4)

Wow. This movie also looks incredibly good. And WOW, in it Michael Caine is a hippie.

Posted at 02:48 PM | Comments (2)

Isn't Angela cuuuute? Thanks for the pic, Martha. :-)

I suppose it's worth mentioning that my counter just rolled over 20,000 hits. Kewl.

Posted at 09:06 PM | Comments (2)

You guys have been awfully quiet lately. Cat got your tongue or something? Geez...

Submitted my first T-shirt design to Threadless. We were discussing at work the other day that we hate getting second-hand textbooks to find that someone has hightlighted every single line on one or more pages, in fact rendering the whole point of highlighting null-and-void. I joked that someone had accidentally pressed Control-A, and Select All was born. I'll link up the Threadless voting page when it's posted.

A very interesting style of animation in this movie trailer.

Posted at 09:33 PM | Comments (3)

Christopher Nolan is making another delightfully creepy movie with a cast of the usual suspects.

It's been a while since I've done this. But here goes:

Continue reading "Sunday Night" »

Posted at 10:39 PM | Comments (3)

Tech-heads such as myself have been keenly following the increasing penetration of open-source software for years now. It represents free and community developed software in a world where certain types of commercial software monopolize their field (ie: Windows). Linux has gained ground, but its progression in the marketplace is mired by the fact that there's a huge range of software which is only compatible with Windows.

That's why a community of people have developed ReactOS. ReactOS is the Windows kernel re-written from the ground up; open source and freely available. Because it's written to act like Windows, Windows software and even drivers work with it perfectly. There's still a lot of work to be done, but this represents an exciting prospect to me.

I saw this commercial only once, and had a good chuckle. After the world cup I world cup I wonder if Italian football training isn't like this, perhaps with the addition of training in racial slurs.

Posted at 10:06 AM

Okay, here's some creative use of the old weblog...

I have junk. I've finally gotten to that age where the stuff I'm accumulating is becoming a hassle. In any place a young person can afford to live (besides their parents') space is at a premium. So I need to sell/give away/get rid of some stuff I'm not using anymore:

1. Comforter: Mom just gave me a new comforter, so I don't need the old one. If anyone needs a Queen-size duvet, come get it. Otherwise it's going to Goodwill.
    


2. Stereos: The advent of MP3s and AirTunes means I don't use either of my two stereos anymore, they just sit around and take up space.
    


3. Answering Machine: Does anyone use these anymore? We've got one if needed.
    


4. Laptop Bag: This won't go without money. But if anyone needs a carrying case for a laptop, I've got a real nice one that has since been replaced.
    


5. Watches: You'd probably have to be quite hard up to want one of these, but I've got them nonetheless.
    


6. 35mm Film Camera: 'Nuff said. I'll probably have to throw it out.

If you didn't know already. Steph is moving out of our place and Jeff is replacing her. This should make a pleasant and interesting arrangement. However, Jeff has more stuff than Steph, hence the rearranging, furniture combination, and culling of junk.

Posted at 06:08 PM | Comments (1)

Steph calls me "crafty", not because I'm particularly prone to cheating people or cunningly outwitting them. Rather, like all Schooffs of my lineage, I seem to posses a natural aptitude towards crafting things. My father and at least one uncle are experienced craftsmen by trade. Another uncle makes a fair bit of extra cash restoring classic cars into hot rods and selling them to collectors on eBay. Grandma Schooff liked to paint and craft dolls, while Granpa Schooff crafted windmills around his farmhouse to represent his Dutch heritage. We Schooffs are a crafty bunch indeed.

I thought I'd give you some pictures of those recent crafts which I'm proud of. The modification I made to merge two of my desks, and the wine my family brewed with my labels applied.

I'm totally in home-repair mode now. Just waiting for something I can put my tools to. Those Schooff genes are hard at work.

Posted at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)

It's been a while, sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been out enjoying my four-day long weekend. Much of it was spent with Angela doing something or another. I got new tea in North Van. We rode the mini-train in Stanley Park and walked around the seawall. She even helped me wash my car (twice) because she's such a sweetheart. As a whole it was quite enjoyable.

I've completed my awesome modifications on my desk. That is, I took an old desk that I no longer needed and found a way to fit its spacious drawers into my newer desk; in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, no less.

Mom and Dad have started opening the bottles of Brambleberry wine that were brewed last year. Overall, it's a very dry wine with a fruity aroma. It takes some getting used to. However, given that it was brewed from scratch by family from the many raspberries and blackberries that grow wild all around Port Coquitlam (and as such, is free) one certainly can't complain that it it but an "okay" wine. This is not to mention that the wine is only six months old: it may get even better as it ages further. Now that I've shared a bottle with some friends they agree that my Dad's estimation of "10-12%" is probably a little low. As Apu said to Manjula, "It's bound to get you pretty hammered". So, hats off to my family for all their hard work. The fact that there are two more vintages yet on the way (Dandelion and Peach) fills me with alcoholic anticipation.

Back to work tomorrow. I can't wait until the next weekend, even if it is only three days away.

Posted at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)