The single greatest idea ever

'Open-air wine spa pool'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6607643.stm

Seriously - how was this not thought of before? We are so far behind here in the west.

My idea was to truck in about a couple hundred tons of sand and create a beach for the summer, much as they do in Paris - but this trumps that.

In need of a new career

Apparantly I will never be able to pursue my career as a supervillain.


Passed on from a friend. (with apologies for the quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoXoTzgLUsQ


So what life aspirations can I have now?

World's greatest villains

Making video games, it's essential to have a memorable villain in your story. Something that's really going to rile someone up. Same as a good action movie.

Here's my list of who makes the 'best' bad guys.

10. Terrorists - a more recent entry into the mix - not my favorite - they're never your smartest villains, which works against them.

9. Eldritch Horror - Nothing says evil like the incomprehensible. Oh Cthulhu, so misunderstood.

8. The Irish - Nothing says bad guy like an accent - and the first of the accents on the list has to go to the Irish. They're your working class villains.

7. Guys in masks - who can trust a guy in a mask? (The Lone Ranger and Zorro being the exceptions) Darth Vader - you knew nothing good was going to come from him the first time you saw him.

6. The Dead - Zombies, ghosts, ghouls - a little mindless horror can be fun.

5. Aliens - There's something cool about having an entire alient race trying to destroy your planet. We could only be so lucky.

4. German accent guy - not to be confused with the Nazis, think of more your modern villain - like in Die Hard

3. English accent guy - Ah the english... so well mannered, and so evil.

2. Pirates - Pirates don't make the top of the list only cause they're usually so cool - they're the bad guy that everyone wants to be.

1. Nazis 'Und zis is how ve say goodbye in German'. Best..line..ever.

Missing - 1 mojo

So my latest bout of singletude is now a year old.

Now I've never been a guy who needs to be dating someone all the time. I'll contrast that with my roommate who I diagnosed with relationship A.D.D. a long time ago. He'll be home from one date and his first stop is the computer to scrounge up another one.

It's not like I'm not out there looking - granted, not as hard as the aforementioned roommate, but still. As I get older, I wonder if my standards are maybe... unrealistic.

So anyway - if you see my mojo lying around - let me know...

Famous Predictions

Considering it was movie-night last night, I thought I'd share a quote from a famous relative of mine who once said...

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.

Yes - my family has never been famous for it's prescience. Amongst other things we've done - sold off land in Hawaii back at the turn of the century (since who the hell would want to live where it's so damn hot). Sold off Goldbar farm (http://ecrcm.fanweb.ca/toolbox/farming.htm) (which wouldn't be worth anything today).
Not to mention my own track record when it comes to investments ('Bah, that Google will never be worth anything - have you seen their webpage?', or women ('yeah, she's perfect for me')

Of course, old H.M. might have been right when it comes to some actors, but I'll leave that discussion for another movie night.

For some more light reading on other brilliant folk, check out the good old wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_predictions

Escape Plans

Next time you're in prison, you might want to remember this strategy for getting out.
Send a fax asking the prison to release you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6583043.stm

I love that it was full of spelling errors and had no letterhead. Remind me to go on my next crime spree in Kentucky - sounds like law enforcement there is full of the best and brightest.
The only thing that would have made it better would have been if the perp had used the prison fax to send the request.

Friday Philosophy

Life is a series of 'Great Experiences' surrounded by a void of meaningless days.

There's nothing wrong with meaningless days - they can be filled with friends and fun. But look back 10 years in the past. What do you remember? Not the average daily grind, no - you remember the 'great experiences'. What is a 'great experience'? It can be anything, really - it could be an exotic vacation, those 2 years you spent living like a hermit contemplating life, those 6 years you spent getting a 4 year degree, that week of fantastic sex with someone you've never seen since.

Right now, I feel like I'm in the midst of some meaningless days, but I just have this feeling like I'm on the cusp of a 'great experience'.

Dreaming or not?

I've had a few weird dreams lately where I wake up and find it difficult to remember what was part of my dream and what actually happened.
What's made the last couple nights particularly strange is having one dream. Waking up. Getting back to sleep and having a second dream in which I distinctly remember telling people about the first dream.
Nothing like waking up confused.

Pirates

The Escapist had an article today on what will take over from pirates as the next great fad.
(Due to happen as soon as Pirates of the Carribean 3 is out and done)
Their candidates were Hobos, Zombies and Cthulhuoid monsters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hp_lovecraft)

Personally, I'm hoping for hobos. Not only would that solve my whole fashion issue from yesterday, but I think it would also work out from the whole working more swearing back into every day usage angle.

Are men bad dressers?

Are men naturally worse dressers than women, or maybe is it just me?

I went shopping yesterday with a friend-girl of mine and I must say it was nice to have another set of eyes helping with the selection. Definately keeps me from picking out any of those 'what were you thinking' shirts.

Do guys maybe not care as much about style? Maybe it's just cause I don't have to dress up for work that I'm far lazier when it comes to that. I can just wear company swag and be happy with it. Of course, a lot of the guys who do dress up need some help. When's the last time you saw a well dressed car salesman?

Now I'm not saying all women have good taste when it comes to clothes. I'm sure we've all seen girls who should not be exposing any mid-rift who seem to take great pleasure in exposing theirs. Unless you've got it, conceal, conceal, conceal - it works for me.

In general, I think I'm going to have to go with the girls on this one. I think I may have a bias towards pretty girls, though - so I may not be an objective observer.

Perceptions

I find the perceptions with which news and events are reported to be quite fascinating.
So much of what we are told or read is totally subjective. Take this latest case, which has some relevence to my own job.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commision) in the States recently issued a report on marketing media violence to children. In it, it gives mixed reviews to the video games industry's efforts at limiting sales of violent video games to children under 17.
The wide range of spin in how this story was reported is quite amazing. Here's a couple samples.

FTC says content curbs fall short - L.A. Times
FTC: game industry self-policing improving - GameSpot
Report says the young buy violent games and movies - NY Times
FTC: self-regulation of violent content working - Beta News
Report: Violence still aimed at kids - Variety
FTC: Game are better regulated than music, movies - Ars Technica

It makes me wonder who or what influences are behind the reporting we see on most subjects.
If you haven't had a look already - check out my link to Spin Cycles, CBC Radio's fascinating story on the history of PR.


A link to some reporting on the FTC report.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/04/12/breaking-ftc-report-praises-spanks-video-game-industry/
http://www.gamepolitics.com/

Happy Yuri's Night!

On this day, in 1961, 46 years ago, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, became
the first man into space. Considering the state of Soviet rocketry at
the time, he was probably the bravest man that ever was... if he had
been allowed to know the state of Soviet rocketry at the time. :-)

He died in 1968, while on a training flight. At supersonic speeds, a
SU-15 passed within 10 to 20 meters of his MiG-15UTI, causing his
craft to spin out of control, crashing into a forest near Kirzhach.

So comrade, hoist a shot of vodka to his memory and his achievement
in solidarity with all space enthusiasts around the world!

http://www.yurisnight.net/2007/

Work weeks

Who's to blame for the five day work week? Who decided that we should spend 71% of our lives working? Why not work two days then get five days off? Sure, sure...lost productivity, the economy would grind to a halt.

What has the economy ever done for you lately?

I'm going to make it my mission today to scour the internet until I find out who is to blame for the modern work week.

Come on internet! Prove you're good for something other than porn.

Easter Plague

On the bright side, that was the first four day weekend I've had in a while - so that was pretty good. But on the downside, I seem to have caught some strain of the plague or something.
What gives with that? You can work like a dog for ages and be healthy as a horse, despite maybe not taking care of yourself the best you could, but the minute you have a little time to relax...BAM! The old immune system goes on holiday too.
Oh well, it was a good excuse to turn the four day weekend into five.

Happy Easter!

The Virtues of Profanity

There really is nothing like a good swear.

Most often, I find inanimate objects are the target. My crashtastic computer, that street light that changed up ahead, that table who's leg I just kicked. All of these are perfect moments to expand the old profanity repertoire.

These days, swear words like 'fuck' or 'shit' are too commonplace though. They fail to shock anyone anymore. Hell, you can hear them on regular TV after 9:00.

I've become a big proponent of Al Swearengen. If you haven't seen it - Deadwood is easily one of the best shows that HBO has put out the last couple of years. It also has possibly the most swearing ever heard on TV. Al's favorite is 'c#$!sucker'. I'm a firm believer that 'c#$!sucker' should be brought back into more public usage. Try using that next time you were going to say 'fuck' and I guarantee more people will pay attention to you.

Until the children of today are using 'c#$!sucker' around the dinner table, my crusade will not be done!

Turkish Tuesday

Tried a new Turkish restaurant for dinner tonight and was quite impressed.
I wandered around Turkey a bit after University and I don't remember being particularly fond of the cuisine. In fact, I seem to remember the whole group of us being laid up in Austria a couple days after we left Turkey while our bodies reaclimitized themselves to western food.

Turkey itself was fantastic, though. Friendly people, amazing sites and possibly the craziest drivers in the world. To them, karma decides if they will live through another day on the roads or not and they seem to have great trust in karma giving each of them two thumbs up.

If you keep one bit of information from this, just remember - do not drive in Istanbul if you value your life. Yes, there are trafic lights, the occaisional street sign - even lines on the road. But none of these mean anything. It wasn't unusual to see a public bus driving on the wrong side of the road while at the same time the streets were crammed with pedestrians - either skillfully weaving in and out of traffic or trying to sell you something. The highways were even more insane.

The only way we survived the experience was to become one with the turks. "Let the turk out" became our motto when driving. It almost seemed like our brains usual danger signals had turned themselves off as we swerved in and around cars on the highway, usually with only a few meters to spare between us and oncoming traffic, or inventing that mysterious third lane in the middle of a two land highway. Ahh karma.

These days I think I'll stick to an Adana kebab and some turkish delight.

200 DHU Monday

We have an informal unit of measurement here at Bioware, the DHU, otherwise known as the David Hasselhoff Unit. It's a measurement of stress level around the office, so that 5 DHUs could be getting interrupted on your way out for your morning coffee. 40 DHUs could be your officemates nattering on incessently while you are in the midst of concentrating on some problem or another. 1000 DHUs is the level of stress when we're in full on crunch time, 6 day work week kind of hours.

Usually at our company meetings, one of the producers incorporates the Hoff into his presentation. It's like watching an accident about to happen - you know what's coming, but you can't turn away.

I think Mondays in general rate about 200 DHUs. They are just plain annoying. The weekend is still fresh in your mind and here comes Monday to ruin all your fun. It takes at least until Tuesday to get back in the swing of things.

And just so everyone knows - this is what 1000 DHUs looks like.