DarrenBarefoot.com

I consume a lot of ice. Every time I'm drinking juice or Coke, I more or less fill my glass with ice. When I go to the movies, I often buy a Coke (or Pepsi, its poor cousin) and ask for extra ice.

As such (and no doubt because of my mammoth forearms), our ice cube trays have pretty much given up the ghost. Cracks run through them in all directions, and it's getting very messy to carry them from the sink to the freezer.

So, I'm in the market for new ice cube trays. This has turned out to be harder than you'd think. I've looked in three different stores--two kitchen stores and one grocery store--and none of them have ice cube trays. I imagine that there's nearly no market for them, because most fridges come standard with them (or, increasingly, come standard with an ice-maker).

I'm sure I'll eventually find some trays in a retail store, but I'd like to get good ones. What makes a good ice cube tray? I'm not sure, to be honest, but I'd imagine they're made out of metal, not plastic. Do you have a good ice cube tray? Any recommendations, online or off, for where I should buy them?

Thanks to Trinity for the photo.

Darren 03:13 PM | | (14)

Subsequent to the flood a couple of weeks back, the good people at ServiceMaster came by on Friday and pulled up our floor. Now we're living on the bare concrete until we get a new (free, happily) floor. It's a bit austere:

There's a larger version and a different view up on Flickr.

Bonus photo: an egregious spelling mistake (I know, I shouldn't throw stones) on the front page of the business section of the Sun.

Darren 08:06 PM | | (2)

Josh sent along this amusing page from McSweeney's featuring horrible newscaster segues:

Well, folks, that last story proves yet again how emotionally damaging incest can be. Thankfully, Mr. Food is here with an artichoke-dip recipe that proves yet again how emotionally satisfying a tasty appetizer can be.

It's funny cause it's true, eh?

On a related note, what did you think of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by McSweeney's editor Dave Eggers? Having enjoyed McSweeney's brainy humour, I had high hopes for this book when I pulled it off my parents' bookshelf (also, I was reading it on vacation in Italy, so my options for other books were limited). However, I found it ordinary and tedious, and gave up about halfway through in favour of the in flight magazine. Given the positive reviews and ongoing sales on Amazon, most would disagree with me. What did I miss?

Darren 12:13 PM | | (7)

As Rebekah, Tim and lots of other people report, Neil Young's controversial new album "Living With War" (this post's title comes from the title track) is being streamed on his site. The CD comes out next Tuesday. Tim describes the new album well enough:

Here was a howling guitar and a keening voice singing about the stinking war and vowing to never kill again and the false faces on TV and that was just perfect, if radio doesn’t have a place for anger-with-a-back beat well it’s not worth listening to.

Neil's server is running rather slow at the moment, so I only got to listen to a couple of songs. I'll reserve judgement until I hear some more.

Like my father before me, I've been a Neil Young since I was old enough to drop the needle on Rust Never Sleeps. Yes, I said needle. "Powderfinger" and "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" (from another album) would definitely make my desert island iPod Shuffle.

Neil Young's been very prolific, and the fact is some of his albums suck. You've got to pick and choose. Happily, he's had a long and diverse career, so there's plenty to choose from.

Some have accused him of being intentionally provocative with this album. After all, the album does include a song entitled "Let's Impeach the President". There's a CNN clip that's been bandied about a fair bit (thanks for that, James). Being very cynical about celebrity, and having observed Neil Young's career for a long time, I don't think this is the case. He's certainly a straight-shooter, and often speaks his mind, but he's no publicity-chaser. You need only look at his strange 80s musical experiments to see that. Plus, he doesn't need the money.

Back in 2003 (good Lord), I evoked Neil Young in a post about Michelle Branch's photoshopped butt. In terms of traffic, it remains one of the five most popular posts on the site.

Darren 10:04 AM | | (0)

Last night, I couldn't recall the subject of the idiom "if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck". Was it a chicken? A soup spoon?

I got to wondering what other terms people have applied this idiom to. Google knows the answer:

• "If it looks like Fascism; if it sounds like Fascism; if it clicks its heels and asks for your papers like Fascism--what do you call it?"
• "If it looks like Satan, if it smells like Satan, if it acts like Satan, if it sounds like Satan, maybe George W. Bush really is Satan?"
• "If it looks like cognitive dissonance, and if it sounds like cognitive dissonance, then it must be cognitive dissonance."
• "Premier, if it looks like voucher, if it sounds like a voucher, if it robs our public school system of money just like a voucher, if the Fraser Institute calls it a voucher, why not acknowledge that this is a voucher?"
• "If it looks like love, if it sounds like love, if it feels like love ... then it probably is love."
• "if it looks like a man...if it sounds like a man...if it smells like a man--then well, I think most people would say that it’s a man. :-) Or at least, not feminine."
• "If it looks like a vegetable orchestra...If it sounds like a vegetable orchestra...then it stands to reason that it probably is, in fact, a vegetable orchestra."

Predictably, most usages are political in nature.

UPDATE: In the comments, Neal notes that it's supposed to be "looks like a duck and quacks like a duck". I think he's right, though clearly I'm not alone in getting it wrong. Regardless, that structure produces a whole other set of entertaining results.

Darren 09:52 AM | | (4)

John sent along this amusing ad featuring a figure skater who out dances two full hockey teams (though his slapshot form leaves something to be desired).

What interested more than the ad was the site it's hosted on: Commercial Closet. Their mandate is "bringing GLBT sensitivity to corporate advertising". Talk about niche. It's a well-designed and thoughtful site, and I suppose we need commercial watchdogs from various groups.

The site's writers do seem a bit hypersensitive. Consider their assessment of the aforementioned figure skating ad:

Without directly showing whether the figure skater is gay, this ad is much beloved by some members of the gay community, who see the figure skater as a metaphor which triumphs art, individuality and gayness over the traditionally violent team sport of hockey and its representation of heterosexuality.

Yeah, all those naked guys in a locker room. Very heterosexual. As for the ad itself, is the skater gay? Who knows? Who cares?

I did learn the term 'gay vague' from this site:

"Gay Vague" is a term coined by Michael Wilke at Advertising Age in 1997 for ads that covertly speak to gays or seem to imply gayness with a wink -- an intention advertisers often deny, or sometimes don't even intend. This can include ambiguous relationships, blurred gender distinctions, wayword same-sex glances or touching, camp/kitsch, or coded references to gay culture (but not subliminal).

Darren 09:10 AM | | (1)

Last Friday, Todd and I visited the site of the Eagle Ridge Bluffs protest. If you're not familiar with the action, here's a blurb from the protesters' website:

The BC Government, including the Ministry of Transportation, has fed a great deal of misinformation to the people of BC, Canada and the world about the impact to the environment, recreation and visual values, the cost and the safety of a 2.4km overland highway route versus a 1.4 km four lane divided tunnel. Adding a third lane to the existing 3 km of highway, from Lions Bay to Sunset Beach, is also a very viable, low-impact option, which would likely save the taxpayer over 100 million dollars.

Being the consummate professional photographer, my camera's battery crapped out after exactly two photos. No problem, I've got a backup! It crapped out immediately as well. Happily, Todd brought his camera, and snapped a bunch of photos. My favourite is the one of me and a big hoe.

We had a brief chat with Betty Krawczyk, who's a pretty famous local environmentalist. She's got a blog, and has written some books. Todd got a photo.

Ultimately, I didn't really get much new information while we visited. We snooped around a bit, took some photos, and that was about it.

The protesters' website is very detailed, but is a little light on stated sources. For example, they claim "The long-term cost and benefits of a properly designed tunnel make its cost comparable to that of the planned 4-lane highway route", but don't actually offer a comparison. They never indicate how much more a tunnel would cost up front. According to the Globe and Mail, a tunnel would cost $75 million more.

Another fact that the protectors are fast and loose on is the actual area affected by the overland highway. We're talking about a pretty small region here: the planned highway extension will be 2.4 km, while the proposed tunnel will be 1.4 km. You can see some before and after photos from the protectors' site.

I've been unable to find a map, but let's say we're talking about 9 square kilometres. A tunnel would cost an additional $8.3 million per kilometre. That's pretty rich for a chunk of land overlooking the highway.

Darren 09:49 PM | | (2)

Prime Minister Harper has declared that the media will not have access to Canadian war casulaties as they come home from Afghanistan:

The Conservative government vigorously defended its decision to block public images of Canadian war casualties arriving at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario, insisting yesterday the privacy of relatives greeting the returning coffins trumped the right of media to record their arrival. "It is not about photo ops and media coverage. It is about what is in the best interest of the families," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in the House of Commons. He added the government's priority is to "do everything possible" to assist grieving families.

This is the latest in a series of decisions the Conversavtive government has taken to reduce media access to government activities. It's a puzzling development, considering their emphasis on transparency during the campaign. Obviously, this decision is politically advantageous, as it will reduce the impact on the public of the military action and cost in Afghanistan.

I have mixed feelings about this issue. In part, that's because I've read diverging opinions from military families. The article I cite above presents one such opinion, and a soldier in Kandahar commenting on Stephen Taylor's site has another. Stephen, by the way, sounds a little paranoid about the news coverage of this incident.

After thinking about it, and talking with a couple of people, here's what I've got. Joining the Canadian military and fighting abroad are public acts. When you join the military, you know you might fight, and that your actions (and, to be grim, your death) might be reported by the media.

More importantly, the public owns the plane, airfield and infrastructure where the return of our war dead takes place. We deserve access to that site if we want it. Lastly, I value freedom of the press.

I would apply an entirely different criteria to the burial of a soldier. That's a private event, occurring on private property, and the media ought to respect that. In a way, the flag-draped coffin is the last service a solider does for their country. As the soldier comments on Stephen's blog writes: "There is only one reason to want to see coffins on TV. And that is for political or ideological reasons. None other."

Obviously this issue has been inflated because it concerns the media, but I've got to take their side on this one.

Darren 12:09 PM | | (8)

For reasons I don't entirely understand, my post on Tim Horton's Roll Up the Rim to Win odds is (at least in RUTRTW season) one of the most popular pages on this site. You foreigners got no idea what I'm talking about? Ask Wikipedia about this Canadian coffee drinking institution.

I recently got an email from Brian G. Rudneski. He's an engineer, and he's been tracking the coffee drinking and contest winning habits of himself and a few friends:

Long story short, my coffee consumption doubles during RUTR and I've always bitched about not winning. This year I decided to keep stats during the entire contest to see what the true odds of winning are. Wouldn't you know it, at this point we are at about .97 in 9 odds of winning after about 200 coffees.

He kindly sent along the spreadsheet he kept. With his permission, I've posted it to this site. His conclusions?

• Odds of winning anything: 23 wins in 214 cups, or 10.7%
• Stuff they won: 18 coffees and 5 doughnuts
• Litres of coffee you should drink to win: 3.3 L

You may also be interested in this amusing Rick Mercer expose (MOV), which explains where in the country you need to be to win the RAV 4. British Columbians, you're SOL.

Darren 11:32 AM | | (1)

Sports fans in Vancouver are abuzz, because yesterday afternoon Canucks coach Marc Crawford was 'relieved of his coaching duties'. My fantasy appears to be coming true. I think this page on the Canucks site tells the whole story.

Crawford coached the Canucks for six seasons (over seven years--have you forgotten the lockout already?), and his team won one playoff series. You measure a team and its staff by playoff success, and the Canucks didn't get it done.

Additionally, every coach has a certain shelf life, before the players start to tune them out. On average, an NHL coach lasts 2.5 years, so Crawford's six (or seven, depending on how you count) is looking pretty good.

Of course, Crawford is just the guy at the gate when the invasion comes. I expect there will be significant player movement in the off-season as well. Obviously the players--particularly the ones with the highest salaries--have to shoulder some blame as well. As somebody noted in the Vancouver Sun this morning, the team has become slow and easy to play against.

Who should replace Crawford? A taskmaster. My dream coach would be Brent Sutter. I also like the idea of Ken Hitchcock, whose job security with the Flyers weakens with each playoff loss.

Here's some reaction from around the blogosphere:

• Richard: "Not getting past the second round in the playoffs in any of his seasons coaching the Canucks is probably enough to warrant dismissal, but he had only one year left on his counteract, and with a healthy team next year the Canucks could have simply chosen not to renew."
• Tom: "Marc Crawford deserves a thanks for some good memories. Canuck fans wish him well in his next job unless of course Toronto hires him."
• Vancouver Canucks Op-Ed: "I just wrote a very long, intelligent, deeply moving article about the firing of Marc Crawford, the future of the Vancouver Canucks coaching staff, and the state of trades in the NHL during this off season...But then Windows Media Player got itself in a knot over a new CD I plugged into it, and promptly crashed every square inch of my operating system, taking my blog post (and quite possibly my soul) along with it."
• Joel: "It's obvious that the Canucks needed a boot in the ass to rouse them out of their slumber. Maybe a fresh face behind the bench next year will do just that."

Darren 11:12 AM | | (1)

Julie pointed me to Urban Affairs, a company that provides a variation on the grimy love hotel:

Urban Affairs provides romantic hideaways with spectacular views in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Our discrete and beautifully appointed penthouses in this majestic city are available by the hour for your intimate trysts.

The website is kind of hokey, and only in the design firm's portfolio, so it's unclear whether this is an ongoing business, a design sample or a hoax.

They do provide photographs of an apartment (it looks to be on Seymour Street) which, for my money, doesn't qualify as 'beautifully appointed'. And the rates? $75 an hour or $100 for two hours.

I took a quick look around for a live site, and happened upon www.urbanaffairs.com, 'your black singles community'. 'Urban' being a euphemism for 'African-American', I suppose.

Darren 01:12 PM | | (1)

Call me kooky, but I find wacky customer service stories pretty amusing. Maybe it's because I spent years working at Tourism Victoria, the Horseshoe Bay Boathouse and Recreation Oak Bay when I was in high school and university.

I was pleased, then, that Tod pointed me to Public Radio Slave. He's a phone answerer at a public radio station and must handle weird and wonderful calls from listeners. Here's an example:

"Hello, I was just listening, and I heard the announcers talking about who won the medal in the figure skating."

"Yes, that was the last story on All Things Considered."

"WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? WHY WOULD THEY SPOIL IT FOR EVERYONE? I WANTED TO WATCH IT ON TV TONIGHT!! THEY SAID THE JAPANESE WON!!"

I've always said that I'd rather read a corporate blog by a burger-slinger at the drive-in window on Friday night than the McDonald's CEO. Somebody should build a site that aggregates and rates all the blogs written by customer service workers.

Darren 12:48 PM | | (2)

Recently I've had cause to do some brainstorming for clients around new URLs. Ultimately, we thought of a bunch of decent URLs which were available but, for various reasons, we rejected. I thought I'd pass them on to the Internets, in case anybody has a use for them:

www.eighttrackworld.com (8trackworld.com is also available)
flipbookstreet.com
popmachinery.com
toquebox.ca (only good for a Canadian music site)
jointhepeacecircle.com (inspired by this bumper sticker)

That is, you still have to go register them. I'm just giving away the, uh, intellectual property.

Some of these break some of my guidelines for choosing a URL. That said, it's getting decidedly difficult to find short, avaiable (or cheap) easy to spell .com domains. I saw a chart recently that illustrated this, but can't find it now.

Darren 11:55 AM | | (1)

I've played ultimate frisbee for a couple of years. I'm quite bad at it, and as I age I think I'm only getting worse. And I'm definitely getting slower. If I keep playing, soon kids half my age will be whizzing past me while I hold up one finger saying "hey...".

Travis was recently looking for a team, and it looks like he's found one. He's kind of inspired me to do likewise. Ideally, I'd just be a substitute who played periodically. I travel a fair bit, and am injury prone, so the likelihood of my playing all the games is pretty low.

I'm kind of the Jarkko Rutuu of ultimate players--not very skilled and kind of slow, but I talk a good game. I've been known to freeze an opposing team player with my rapier wit, if not my actual moves.

If anyone knows of a team of newbies or near-newbies with very low expectations, let me know.

UPDATE: I've located a couple of teams full of newbies--one of them ought to be bad enough to accomodate me.

Darren 12:14 PM | | (1)

On Saturday, we took a day trip over to Pender Island to look for squatters check out our property. Yep, it's still there. We took some photos (I'm digging this bumper sticker).

We had a few random tasks to complete, including the spreading of some wildflower seeds. You may now refer to me as Starchild Barefoot, because I felt like such a frickin' hippie. When we got to the bucket, Julie took five action shots of me. I had some time to waste on the ferry coming back, so I assembled them into a stupid short video.

On a related item, YouTube is nuts. I do zero community participation on that site, and only rarely upload videos. So, it's not like I have any dedicated 'viewers' or anything. Yet, here I see that 119 people have already viewed my silly little video. And this is despite it being rated a mere one out of five. I guess when a site serves 30 million videos a day, even the nonsense ones are going to get a few views.

Darren 09:26 AM | | (4)

The CBC here in Vancouver recently held an auction to sell off some old stuff. As Tod Maffin points out, one of the weirdest things for sale was Bruno Gerussi's facial hair (here's a close-up).

Bruno Gerussi is most famous for playing Nick Adonidas in The Beachcombers, a bizarre but hugely popular Canadian show of the seventies. He passed away in 1995, so that facial hair is -11 years old.

Eventually, the hair went for CAN $50. Cheap at twice the price, if you ask me. Here are a few more photos from the auction.

Darren 07:57 PM | | (0)

Here's a little quiz for you Sunday readers. What is this a photo of? Click for larger version.

I'm absolutely crap at these sorts of thing, so this could be incredibly easy. Those who know where I was yesterday have a pretty major clue, so you may want to hold off for a bit and give the others a chance.

UPDATE: I've put the answer after the jump.

ANSWER: Indeed, as a couple of people guessed over on Flickr, it is indeed a mushroom. It's a wild one growing on Pender Island.

Darren 09:58 AM | | (4)

Today I noticed that one of my posts had been syndicated by Blog-O-City. It appears to be a network of sites featuring blog posts related to a specific city--everywhere from Etobicoke to Shanghai. Here's what I've been able to conclude about these sites:

• There are apparently no human filters. The results seem to come automagically out of Google's blog search.
• The sites feature excerpts from blog posts, with no added information.
• Each excerpt has its own permalinked page.
• The sites are plastered with Google ads.
• All outgoing links are include the rel="nofollow" parameter, meaning nobody gets search engine benefits from being linked to.
• The fairly cool design is a free template created by this guy (who has a frickin' awesome looking site).
• I can't easily identify or contact whoever created the sites.

In short, Blog-O-City.com seems to be hosting reams of excerpted content from other sites for no purpose other than to wrap ads around it. I wanted to contact them to ask about their rel="nofollow" policy, and to have a chat about the ethics of what they're doing, but I couldn't find an email address.

What do you think? Is this a legitimate re-use of content, or just an automated cash grab? It's the latter if you ask me. After all, they clearly aren't trying to send people to the websites they aggregate. Their first priority is to pass people on to advertisers.

Darren 10:52 PM | | (12)

Despite being a blogger and a Vancouver property owner, I hadn't seen the Vancouver Housing Market Blog until Derek pointed it out today. It's only been around for a year, but it looks mighty popular.

It's a pity it's a Blogger blog--I'd guess the owner could make a small fortune in advertising. It's also quite interesting that it doesn't appear to be written by a real estate agent (at least if it is, they're not advertising that fact). A lost opportunity lost for Vancouver's 18 zillion realtors.

Here's a reference to an advertisement for an island (own one of the 1000 Islands!) that's all of 0.05 acres. And here's a thoughtful posting about the Woodwards development in the Downtown Eastside ("Who will live there? No one who's buying, that's for sure").

Darren 04:46 PM | | (1)

Last summer, I sang the praises of Blinksale, an online invoicing service. We've been using it since then, and have been generally happy with it.

Recently--and this is why I love web-based software--they upgraded their service. They addressed my three major issues with the service--you can now track invoices, change currencies on a per-invoice basis, and see totals for any invoice view. I didn't have to do or pay anything, and the service got better. How often does that happen?

Of course, I've already spotted a bug with the upgrade. When you enter an invoice date that doesn't exist--say, February 30--the app errors out very ungracefully.

Darren 11:53 AM | | (5)

I'm a little embarrassed by how much I enjoy the idea of a monkey picking the winners for the NHL playoffs:

In 2003, she quickly became a hero in the hockey world, picking the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim to reach the Stanley Cup Final with the spin of a wheel. Having picked other big winners through three rounds of the playoffs, Maggie enjoyed new-found fame as the sport's wisest prognosticating primate.

I like it because she immediately follows the human prognosticators on the show, and so the whole thing pokes fun at the somewhat silly idea of the sports pundit.

Maggie has made a couple of controversial picks in the first round: Tampa Bay over Ottawa (I'm cheering for the Senators, so I hope that doesn't happen), and Colorado over Dallas. That said, there are always upsets in the first round, so you never know. The monkey might not be nuts bananas crazy.

UPDATE: After the first round, Maggie did as well as two of the four pundits.

Darren 08:32 AM | | (0)

After a string of Canadian films, Nova Scotian Ellen Page is getting her big Hollywood break in X-Men 3. I'm more interested to see a smaller film in which she stars: Hard Candy. It looks hard to watch but pretty gripping. Here's the IMDB plot summary:

A provocative drama about a 32-year-old man who takes home a 14-year-old girl he meets on the Internet--with surprising consequences.

Apparently the creepy dude gets the tables turned on him. The creep is Patrick Wilson, who was excellent in a very different sort of role in Angels in America.

Five years younger seems to be the standard increase for playing a kid these days. Page is actually 19. Two of the leads in Brick are 24 year olds playing high school seniors (I suppose that's 6 years).

The title of this entry comes from Ebert and Roeper's review, who give it two thumbs up. Conversely, the early buzz on Metacritic is pretty average.

I should also mention this good cause 'inspired by Hard Candy':

SURF SAFE, WEAR RED is a movement for online empowerment and awareness, inspired by the film HARD CANDY and its protagonist's red hoody. Wear a red hoody to stand up for online safety and against internet violence.

This is an admirable gesture, but I'm always skeptical of these campaigns which also benefit the corporation behind them. After all, wearing a red hoodie serves two purposes: highlighting the issue of online safety, and promoting the film. It's a bit like the Vancouver Sun's Raise a Reader campaign. Literacy is a great cause, but the subtext is "raise another Sun reader".

I suppose I can't ask corporations to be totally selfless, and a cause+marketing is better than no cause at all.

Darren 03:47 PM | | (3)

Just a quick shoutout to give some props (heh, sorry about that ) to ServiceMaster. They're the restoration company that our building manager has retained to address the flood damage from last weekend's incident. To a man, they've been courteous, professional and efficient. They've patiently answered all of my stupid questions in language that I, a DIY-free zone, can understand and, thus far, done everything they said they would.

Now that the four industrial fans and the dehumidifier have been removed from my apartment, it looks like they'll have to replace all the flooring and possible some drywall. The building insurance will cover it all, so it looks like we'll be getting a new floor for free. That's a major deal, in light of how minor the inconvenience has been.

My neighbour's suite, on the other hand, is only safe for single-celled lifeforms.

Darren 12:40 PM | | (0)

Last night I had a conversation about old sitcoms. We roved from Silver Spoons to Punky Brewster, eventually settling on The Facts of Life, a sitcom which ran on NBC from 1979 to 1988 (9 years!).

To my utter shock, I could recall the names of all five characters. In fact, I could even recall the full names of two: Edna Garrett and Joe Polniaczek (I think I had a bit of a crush on the latter). Why, God/Evolution/Flying Spaghetti Monster, why have you designed my brain so that a neuronal synapse is dedicated to remembering the full name of a television character from the eighties? And where are my keys, anyway?

It's been at least 15 years since I heard the theme song, so let me torture you with it. On the page I got that song from there are also videos of the opening credits for every season, plus the two made-for-TV movies ("The Facts of Life Goes to Paris" and "The Facts of Life Down Under"). And, in case you're wondering where the actors are now, let me help.

I was glancing through the Wikipedia entry on the show, and happened on this slightly cruel discussion of the show's demise:

In another attempt to raise the ratings, the show's writers created a storyline in which Natalie became the first of the girls to lose her virginity...The relative implausibility of Natalie having sex first out of all the girls, coupled with the equally implausible idea that all the women, now in their twenties, were not sexually active, contributed to the episode being a ratings dud.

I don't think I ever saw the last episode, but apparently Blair buys the school and becomes the new headmistress.

Darren 10:00 AM | | (7)

I'm late on blogging about this, but James asked me to mention this photography contest being run by the BC Book and Magazine Week and Ripe Magazine:

The deadline for entries is very soon - April 20, 2006. So if you want to enter you have to get cracking! The winner will be announced at the Magazine Cabaret: Vancouver, at the Alibi Room on Wednesday April 26, 2006.

It basically just needs to be a photo of BC. BC being a favourite subject of mine, I've got a bunch of options:

• I could go gritty urban
• Or speak to local industry
• Or something more summery
• Or a very small part of BC
• Or something just plain pastoral?

Unfortunately for me, I know, like, 23 people who are better photographers than me. So, I don't like my odds.

It's unclear as to whether you can only submit one. James, how many can we submit?

Darren 04:56 PM | | (3)

Stephen Taylor quotes an email sent by Minister Hedy Fry, my representative in the House of Commons. It's definitely a misuse of the parliamentary email system. Worse (though I know I shouldn't throw stones), it's an aberration of grammar:

From: Fry, Hedy - M.P.
Sent: April 18, 2006 2:33 PM
To: - LIBERAL ASSISTANTS; - LIBERAL MEMBERS/DEPUTES; - NDP MEMBERS/DEPUTES NPD; - NDP/NPD ASSISTANTS; - CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS/DEPUTES CONSERVATEURS; - CONSERVATIVE ASSISTANTS CONSERVATEURS

Subject: NWR - INVITATION TO MEMBERS/STAFF

Members and Staff are invited to attend the birthday party fundraiser for Alex Munter who is running for Mayor of Ottawa as he is almost 40!

Is it a fundraiser for a birthday party? Or does Mr. Munter need money? And is he, like, 37 years old?

Darren 03:25 PM | | (5)

I don't even play World of Warcraft, but this article from The Onion entitled Baby, You Mean The World Of Warcraft To Me made me laugh:

Helen, my mage, when I was ganked by a lowly rogue from Tennessee in the Caverns of Time and stripped of my treasured belongings, I rose from the grave with one purpose in mind. I had to be resurrected, not to seek revenge, but to return to you.

Ain't love grand? As a bonus link, consider this thoughtful beaver.

Darren 10:11 AM | | (0)

I recently encountered a few lists worth mentioning:

• First off, the Writers Guild of America voted "Casablanca" into the top spot of the guild's 101 greatest screenplays. The top post-1990 films on the list are "Pulp Fiction" at #16 and "Shawshank Redemption" at #22. C'mon, though, "Shakespeare in Love" at #27, higher than both "Unforgiven" and "Fargo"? Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola each have four entries on the list.
• While we're on the subject of screenplays, here's a list of the top 50 film adaptations, based on a survey of 'publishing figures'. For my money, the finest and certainly most loyal adaptation is Of Mice and Men.
• The American Film Institute's sole purpose seems to be making lists. Here's their list of 100 greatest movie quotes. Predictably, that one about not giving a damn is on top. I don't know, shouldn't "Who is Keyser Soze?" be on that list?
• Finally, to shift gears away from movies, The Vancouverite links to a list of the best jobs in America. What's #1? Software engineer. I see that technical writer comes in at #13, public relations specialist at #20 and plain old writer at #25.

Darren 09:53 AM | | (3)

In the comments of another entry, Neal pointed me toward the website and the incredibly hokey trailer for a movie starring Jon Voight called The Legend of Simon Conjurer. He observed that 'the trailer and the website seem kind of odd, like it might all be a hoax or a spoof'. I tend to agree. Consider the following:

• The metadata In the source code of the trailer page is for the movie Munich.
• The website, trailer and poster all seem to be send ups of B-movie plots and devices.
• The site doesn't provide a release date.
• This article from the New York Daily News describes Jon Voight personally calling the journalist, very unusual behaviour for movie promotion.
• Currently, there's surprisingly little buzz about the film online. Google only offers about 500 results and Technorati has 26 (with a bunch of duplicates). That, of course, may change.

It all smells like a hoax to me. Here's one of the few legitimate articles I could find about the film. If anybody has theories or more information, let's hear it.

Darren 09:47 AM | | (9)

Has everyone else seen VancouverSpecial.com but me? My brother recently mentioned it to me.

The site is a (fairly obsessive) photo gallery of 1208 'Vancouver Specials' around the city. For the uninitiated, a Vancouver Special is a particularly questionable (this article calls them 'abhorrent') kind of house built in the 1970s. Here's a decent enough description:

In the early 1970s, Vancouver Specials began sprouting like dandelions in the city's residential quarters. Designed for maximum floor space on a long and narrow footprint, its affordability and build-by-numbers construction made the Special the house of choice for legions of newcomers to Vancouver. But with its low-sloped roof, boring facade and cheap materials, it was soon considered an architectural eyesore.

Of course, you can just visit the aforementioned website and see all the Vancouver Specials you'd ever want.

Darren 09:01 AM | | (0)

The Web has been a-buzzing about this plainly named new film starring Samuel L. Jackson. I've been kicking around titles the studio might have rejected:

• Sharks on a Boat
• Bears on a Train
• The Black Guy Lives Through Act One
• Business Class, Business Asp
• A Viper in the Exit Row
• Snake Bombers of Saudi Arabia
• Untitled Screenplay Combining Phobias

Well, those are all pretty lame. I also had Air-de-Lance but that was too awful and obscure to even include in my list. Surely somebody has something better?

Darren 11:11 PM | | (7)

I know I recently referenced my 2006 movie list, but I thought I'd point out these recent additions. April has been a very rewarding month, movie-wise:

Inside Man - 7.5/10 - A heck of a cast, and I've always liked Spike Lee's work. It was overly long (we could have done without the usual Lee commentary on racism), and the plot twists sure didn't fool me (and I'm easy to fool). An ordinary movie, but well-crafted. For once, I actually noticed a glaring goof (spoiler ahead) listed on IMDB.

Thank You For Smoking - 9/10 - A clever, satirical take on the tobacco industry in the vein of one of my favourite films, Wag the Dog. Aaron Eckhart is the Mattias Norstrom (obscure reference there) of Hollywood--one of the most underrated actors in the league. The supporting cast is great as well, with some creative and unlikely casting choices (Rob Lowe is enormously funny). My one complaint--I never fully understood where Eckhart's character stood on tobacco--the movie studiously ignored that question. Regardless, a funny and thoughtful film. Something to look for: how many people actually smoke in this film?

Slither - 7/10 - It's a gooey, gross comedy-horror flick, and it's pretty amusing. There are all the usual elements--asteroid plummets to earth, girl in distress, brave town sheriff, gooey squid monster in the woods and so on. Nathan Fillian is great as the sheriff, and Elizabeth Banks (see also Catch Me if You Can) makes a decent female lead. Unfortunately, the film never found an audience.

Lucky Number Slevin - 7.5/10 - A cousin to Pulp Fiction, this film's as much a 'what's going on' film as a who-dunnit. The cast is fantastic. Supporting roles include Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello. I expected to be disappointed by Josh Hartnett and Lucy Liu, two actors whose work I've never cared for. That said, they didn't embarrass themselves. The film's plot is actually pretty predictable, but it's an enjoyable ride. Plus, the set design is gorgeous.

Brick - 8.5/10 - In film noir, trouble always starts with a blonde. Brick is no exception. Rian Johnson's directorial debut is a mashup of film noir and high school life. The dialogue is pure thirties noir, but the settings are high school parking lots and suburban basements. It's a gimmick, but a highly effective one. The film's aesthetic reminded me of Ghostworld or Better Luck Tomorrow--Anywhere, Suburban America. The performances are pretty sound--I instantly fell in love with Nora Zehetner, who plays the femme fatale. The lead, if you can imagine, is the 24-year-old Joseph Gordon-Levitt, most recognizable as the sass-mouthed youngest child from Third Rock from the Sun.

Darren 12:17 PM | | (15)

Yesterday, I'm settling down to watch the Ottawa Senators paste the Leafs (they didn't, but Toronto's out of the playoffs anywho) and the fire alarm goes off. Living in a big apartment building, I've gotten pretty blasé about fire alarms. They happen once a month, the fire department shows up, and inevitably there's no fire. I tend to stay in my suite, look for smoke and look for smoke. I figure they'll make an announcement if it's a real fire.

It was worrying, then, when my neighbour pounded on my door about 30 seconds later. He had somehow broken off a sprinkler head in his apartment, and water was spraying everywhere, pouring down his walls. He asked me to call the building manager.

I did, but first I created a little towel dam at the front door. By the time I got off the phone, the water had saturated my dam, and was pouring under my front door, having run from his apartment to ours via the hallway. The water was black, black like Japanese horror movie black, from the gnarly old hallway carpet. Soon the water was leaking in through our bathroom, which abutted my neighbour's apartment, as well. Thinking of insurance claims, I snapped a few quick photos.

I became the Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia, clearing out stuff that could get wet and assembling a series of towel dams to delay the flow. I was getting ready to seriously start bailing (there was probably an inch of water in the entranceway) when the fire department showed up. They complemented me on my dams, and fired up a water-sucking machine.

They sucked up most of the water, and I mopped up the rest. Happily, none of our property got wet (aside from the scummy towels, which are a small sacrifice), so it's only structural damage, which our and the building's insurance will certainly cover. It could have been much worse, particularly if we'd been away for the weekend. I think that's the fate of my other neighbour.

Darren 10:34 AM | | (7)

The following is only of interest to a minority of my dear readers, but heck, it's the long weekend. I'd imagine noboby's reading today anyway.

As local sports fans will know, the only thing the Vancouver Canucks will be competing for in the near future are good tee times at Capilano Golf and Country Club.

I recently posted the following to the Canucks Usenet group, describing my ideal off-season activities by the team: [more]

• Crawford and his assistants get fired.
• Bertuzzi gets traded to Florida for Nathan Horton and a draft pick. This has been rumoured, and Keenan's always liked Bertuzzi.
• Morrison and Cloutier get traded for young players and draft picks.
• Brown, Weinrich, Carney, Ruutu, Park and other riff-raff are not re-signed.

• They bring in a new coaching team from outside the organization.
• Using the money saved from Bertuzzi, Morrison and Cloutier's departure, the team re-signs the Sedins, Carter, Auld and Jovanoski.
• They start next season with Auld and Noronen, give them and Corey Schneider (unlikely, but you never know) an equal shot at the starting job. If none of the them work out, they upgrade during the season.

The lineup for opening night 2006-07 looks like this:

Sedin Sedin Carter
Hecht (or whoever) Norton Naslund
Cooke Kesler Burrows
King? Linden Goren?

Jovanoski Ohlund
Salo Allen
Bouron Bieksa

Auld
Noronen

Someone pointed out that my off-season fantasy ought to at least include Jessica Alba, but what're you going to do?

Darren 12:58 AM | | (7)

Last month, Wired published a little pie chart showing the results of a reader survey asking that very question. The favourites were:

Tetris - 23%
Other - 18%
Scrabble - 16%
Pac Man - 12%
Super Mario Bros. - 12%
Poker - 11%
Doom - 8%

Yowza, those are old school. For me, I think it'd have to be the venerable (but not quite Pac Man-venerable) Ultima 3. It's probably my favourite because I spent more time playing it than any other game. Or maybe it's because it was during my adolescence, and I was just discovering what games could offer. Runner-ups include Ultima 4 and The Bard's Tale.

What's your favourite game of all time?

Darren 10:31 AM | | (15)

Somebody emailed me with an interesting tidbit today. They're doing PR for a tech company that's attending a large technology conference in Europe. The company, one of many exhibitors, has paid well over US $5,000 to attend.

Over 150 technology journalists are coming to the event. The conference, in a very European sort of decision, offered journalists the opportunity to decline to include their information in the conference media list. 80% of journalists declined. This means that attending companies don't know who 80% of the journalists attending the event are.

This is reflective of a peculiar double-standard in journalism. It's their job to cover the conference. It's their job to receive and consider media information from companies. After all, it's not like they're investigative journalists uncovering corrupt politicians--95% of their news is placed by companies. If they're too lazy to sort through their email prior to the conference, perhaps they should consider another career.

Darren 02:39 PM | | (3)

Thanks to Robotwisdom, I was browsing through the fruitful 'heh' tag on del.icio.us. Boy, that sentence wouldn't have made any sense three years ago. I found this amusing rant on Craigslist to a cheating grad student husband:

Things I Don't Have to Do Anymore since You Have Found a Deeply Intellectual Schmluck [ed.] Buddy:
1. Pay your rent.
2. Get you through graduate school.
3. Hear the word "deconstruction" while I'm trying to eat a goddamn hamburger.
4. Fry bacon for you.
5. Pretend to enjoy CNN.
6. Pretend to care about all things academic.

Things I will Be Able to Do:
1. Buy shoes.
2. Eat chicken, which you find disgusting.
3. Shop at a store other than Target.
4. Unapologetically watch America's Next Top Model.

Jeremy Zawodny is responsible for lots of the 'heh' tagged links.

I also found this hilarious list of five suggested Flickr tags. Number one is "Rows Of Seated White Men Typing At Conferences".

Darren 08:59 AM | | (2)

If so, I'd be curious to hear what you thought. I understand it's a pretty gorgeous drive. I'm probably going to attend a wedding in San Luis Obispo in June, and we're considering flying into San Fran and driving down.

Darren 10:57 PM | | (14)

Somebody cleverly mashed up a bunch of movies (at least ten or twelve) to produce a trailer for the sequel to the mega-hit Titanic. You may have seen it, as it's already been viewed 143, 998 times (though, that's a pretty small number for a mainstream Internet meme), but it's very sharp:

One thing about this reinvent-trailers trend is that it highlights the role of the editor. I don't think the average film goer understands just how important the editing process is to their understanding of moving images. The editor (under the supervisory eye of the director) literally makes the film. For a wonderful meditation on what an editor does, read The Conversations : Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje. [more]

I don't want to spoil anything, so highlight the following text (sorry, RSS readers) to view it. That didn't work at all. To reduce spoilage,I put this bit after the jump. Here's a fun game: what are all the movies featured in this trailer? Here's what I've got: Titanic (obviously), The Abyss, Con Air, Catch Me If You Can, Romeo and Juliet, Basketball Diaries, Hulk, Austin Powers and Enemy of the State.

What have I missed? One shot I can't place is where you see someone's legs disappearing into the wall of a jail cell. I first though The Shawshank Redemption, but I believe that's a bigger hole, higher on the wall.

Darren 10:50 PM | | (37)

Heddatron is a one-act of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler with a mixed cast of humans and robots. Here's a snippet from a review:

Much is forgiven when someone -- or something -- is cute. That goes for "Heddatron," an amusing, if arch, deconstruction of "Hedda Gabler" by the avant-garde company known as Les Freres Corbusier. Five of the cutest robots that ever rolled off an engineering ramp interact smartly with human actors in this cheeky sendup of Ibsen and the precepts of the well-made play.

I saw a piece about Heddatron on the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet (yes, Natasha Stillwell and her accent float my boat). My Windows Media Player is totally b0rked, but it looks like you can watch it on this page. It looked pretty absurd to me--a gimmick to be sure.

A quick footnote: If you check out Heddatron's (stupid) splash page, you'll see a robot which looks a heck of a lot like the Geeky Traveller hitchhiking android. I checked with GT designer Mark Yuasa, and he confirmed that he drew the robot based on this stock photography, which the Heddatron folks have also used. Mark subsequently acquired his very own robot, which you see in the above photo.

Darren 03:52 PM | | (0)

Heather Armstrong (of Dooce fame) writes about writing publicly, and makes an astute observation:

One of the drawbacks of maintaining a public website as anyone who has done this will tell you is that the longer you keep writing online the more people you are likely to piss off. At the same time you are also likely to touch more people's lives and make more connections, more friends, and that is definitely the most rewarding thing about it all, but it's that increasing amount of people who scorn you that teach you the most about yourself. How thick is your skin? How much can you take? How do you find a way to continue writing in a way that isn't affected by what those certain people have to say?

Seeing as my readership is, what, one-twentieth of Heather's, my foul-minded correspondence is pretty spare. And, of course, she's way more personal on her site, writing exclusively about her own life. Everybody's got a life, so everybody's got an opinion of hers. Not everybody has an opinion about the Canucks or Samuel Beckett, so I get much less hate mail. Plus, of course, I've got a pretty thick skin, and this site is far (far!) more intellectual than emotional. As such, the result is mostly heated debate, as opposed to hateful email.

Darren 03:39 PM | | (4)

I really enjoyed Douglas Coupland's early books, probably up to (but no necessarily including) Girlfriend in a Coma. One of my favourites was Microserfs, a book about Microsoft programmers trying to get a life.

Via Waxy, a Microsoft employee revisits the book 12 years later:

The descriptions of Microsoft campus life -- right down to the soccer fields and hidden paths -- are still quite accurate. The detail that seems to have changed the most is the relationship of employees to Bill. He was apparently a Geek God in 1994, whereas now he's more of a beleaguered Yoda. It's good we skipped over the anti-trust days though.

More recently, I think Coupland has gotten away from what appealed to me about his books--the search for the spiritual in a post-modern world.

Darren 12:44 PM | | (5)

Last night I saw Sarah Harmer play at the Stanley Theatre. She played with a five-piece bluegrass band, and the entire evening had a very sleepy, relaxed quality to it. Though her music runs from rock to country to bluegrass, she arranged her songs for a stand-up-bass-and-no-drums kind of gig.

I had mixed feelings about the show, and preferred her straight-up rock show at the Centre last year. There were some lovely songs--"Oleander", "Trouble in the Fields" and "I'm a Mountain" to pick three--but there were others that didn't stand up to the bluegrass approach. "Almost" felt far too slow, "Lodestar" was a pale imitation of the original and "Coffee Stain" was crying out for a fuller sound and some harmonies.

They performed on the set of and with the lighting for Waiting for Godot (discussed here), which made for a pretty gorgeous staging. Besides the band, there was plenty to look at. The audience was appreciative though extremely reserved. I dug that, as I could sit quietly and appreciate the music without hearing people sing along. I also got the impression that the audience wasn't that familiar with Sarah Harmer's music. There were very few instances of that applause of recognition that you hear at the starts of songs.

I admire Sarah Harmer's work in saving the Niagara escarpment (though, admittedly, the threatened area borders her parents' land). However, last night she told the audience that they should become more aware of and get educated about the Sea-to-Sky highway improvements and the 'wetlands' (the wrong term, I'm pretty sure) that they threaten.

What's that? An Ontario pop singer comes to the birthplace of the modern environmental movement and tells us to get educated? We recently saved a chunk of wilderness twice the size of Belgium and she's worried about a couple of bluffs overlooking the highway? It was a tacky example of a celebrity being under-informed and wielding her power inappropriately.

All in all, though, I got my money's worth out of the two hour set. There was no opening act (hurrah!) and she came on stage about ten minutes after the advertised start time. Very un-rock star.

Darren 01:31 PM | | (9)

Rebekah points to an interesting article debunking the so-called 'boy crisis' in education, which suggests that boys are falling behind because of hostile classroom environments and biased curricula. As it turns out, race trumps gender by a mile:

It becomes clear that if there is a crisis, it's among inner-city and rural boys. White suburban boys aren't significantly touched by it. On average, they are not dropping out of school, avoiding college or lacking in verbal skills. Although we have been hearing that boys are virtually disappearing from college classrooms, the truth is that among whites, the gender composition of colleges is pretty balanced: 51 percent female and 49 percent male, according to the National Education Association. In Ivy League colleges, men still outnumber women...

Among whites in Boston public schools, for every 100 males who graduate, 104 females do. A tiny gap. But among blacks, for every 100 males who graduate, 139 females do. Florida's graduation rates among all students show a striking picture of race and class: 81 percent for Asians, 60 percent for whites, 48 percent for Hispanics and 46 percent for blacks.

It seems to me that we're ignoring the much more vexing issue of race to address this apparent low-hanging fruit.

I should point out that that university data is considerably different in Canada. Stats Canada reports that women now account for 6 out of every 10 university graduates. Is this a crisis? Not really (though, it's a small tragedy that I'm not an undergraduate these days). I suspect more boys have gone to trade schools and community colleges, because trade and crafts person work has become lucrative in recent years.

Darren 09:17 AM | | (3)

Stepho's is a Greek restaurant in the West End, and a Vancouver institution. They're renowned for huge portions and cheap prices (though my friends and family report that the portions are getting smaller and the prices are getting higher). They don't take reservations, so every time I walk by, there's a line up out the door. I walked by at 10:00pm last Saturday night, and there was a queue 20 people deep.

I haven't been for years, because I refuse to wait in line for food. I'll happily make a reservation, but life's too short to sit around for a half an hour for the privilege of giving a business my money.

You can see a typical queue here (Matt, I'm borrowing your photo, click for larger version):

Stepho's is at 1124 Davie Street. At 1106 Davie, about 5 stores away, is Taki's Taverna, another Greek restaurant. I'm convinced that Taki's exists as a remora to Stepho's great white shark. When people are rebuffed by the big queue at Stepho's, they wander down to Taki's, walk in and sit down. Taki's exists and thrives largely because Stepho's is too popular.

Interesting, this site indicates that Taki's food is superior to Stepho's.

Darren 10:38 AM | | (12)

"Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things" -- Robert A. Heinlein

Is this the least necessary device that humankind has ever created? Must we mechanize and automate every aspect of our lives, even down to the simplest, oldest games? Courtesy of Cool Tools, I give you the Sno-Baller:

The ultimate snow ball maker! Pummel your enemies with pre-made snow ball after premade snow ball. Great for family fun this winter. Best of all, the SNO-BALLER does all the work, leaving your gloves dry and your hands warm. Makes perfect snowballs every time. Up to 60 per minute.

How lame would you look, showing up to a snowball fight with one of these badboys? I did like one of the product reviews: "yes see this item is very lousy like sam the pirate arrg!!!"

Darren 10:12 AM | | (5)

David Mamet's Oleanna is a fascinating, controversial play about sexual politics. It was also turned into a film starring William H. Macy and Debra Eisenstadt, which I haven't seen.

Last night, while searching for a particular quote from the play, I happened upon some copyright infringement by somebody at Burlington County College (see the happy graduates). They've scanned or typed the entire text of the play, and posted it on their site. Handy, if you're doing a production. Not so handy if you're the playwright. Regardless, I imagine Mr. Mamet makes most of his money from film these days, so he can afford the lost revenue from book sales.

This was the quote I was looking for, by the way:

JOHN: Well, all right. (Pause) Let’s see. (He reads.) I find that I am sexist. That I am elitist. I’m not sure I know what that means, other than it’s a derogatory word, meaning “bad.” That I That I insist on wasting time, in nonprescribed, in self-aggrandizing and theatrical diversions from the prescribed text that these have taken both sexist and pornographic forms here we find listed...

It was that bit about the word 'elitist' that I was looking for.

Darren 09:53 AM | | (2)

For the past couple of weeks, I've been watching the Paris riots with disbelief. The rioters seemed foolish--raging against a pragmatic law designed with the country's future in mind. I'd been unable to really articulate my view until I heard an excellent NPR radio program. It's an episode (MP3) of The Politics of Culture:

Are the demonstrations in France over a new law intended to get employers to hire young people a sort of canary in the mine? Can European social democracy, with the generous benefits it guarantees, survive in the face of globalization? KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour speaks with Sebastian Rotella, Paris Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Times, who's been covering the streets demonstrations, John Peet, Europe Editor for the Britain's bi-weekly Economist, and French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Leevy.

As NPR points out, there are a ton of ironies in the French protests. The weirdest is that the protesting groups--students, unions, and so forth--fought so hard in 1968 for change. Now they're actually fighting for the status quo. They want civil servant jobs, long vacations and a 35-hour work week. The government, meanwhile, is trying to render change.

Whether you're well-informed or totally ignorant on the Paris riots, this show is worth a listen. It's about half an hour long. Thanks to Todd for introducing me to this podcast.

As a bonus link, here are some pretty remarkable photos from the Paris riots.

Darren 09:37 AM | | (3)

Last week, my iPod stopped working. Well, that's inaccurate. Last week, my iPod stopped displaying anything. When I pressed a button, it would spring to life with a cool blue glow, but no actual text is displayed.

After some experimentation, I determined it was probably a loose connection. If I torque the device by putting pressure on the upper-left and lower-right corners, some connection is completed and the text is displayed again. When I release the pressure, it's back to the Periwinkle Screen of Death.

It still plays audio, but I'd kind of like to see which song is being played.

It's about two and half or three years old, has received heavy use and is headed for that great Apple second-hand store in the sky. That said, I can't help but agree with filmgoerjuan, who remarked "I find it depressing that companies have got us thinking that 3 years is a decent life span for a product".

I think I'm going to get an iPod Nano. Reviewing my iPod usage, I pretty much exclusively listen to podcasts or specific playlists. I can't imagine why I'd want photos or video on my iPod, so I think a 2 GB Nano will do just fine.

That said, I do want some kickass headphones. Does anybody use those ear canal deals? How are they working out for you?

In photographing my b0rked iPod, I had to also document the quote on the back. What's engraved on your iPod?

Darren 10:37 PM | | (12)

After reading about this AdSense bonanza, I decided it was high time to mess with the ads on my individual archive pages. About a month again, I switched from the big sidebar skyscraper ad (these can still be seen on deprecated pages like this one) to a small group of sidebar links. Interestingly, despite a big reduction in ad real estate, there's only been a modest negative impact on click rates. Now I'm testing two square ads between the content and the comments.

I've probably said this before, but here's my two sense cents on advertising on this site. This site has two kinds of readers: regular ones who visit the front page or consume the site through an RSS feed, and searchers, who find the site through a search engine, read one page and leave.

I try not to expose regular readers to ads, as you're the lovely people I really value. There aren't any ads on the front page or in the RSS. If you click the comments link, you won't even see the square ads, because the page jumps passed them.

The searchers, on the other hand, are my advertising marks. There are lots of them, they're typically only hitting one random page, and they're not staying long. They're also likelier to click on ads because of their disposition--they're searching for something, as opposed to scanning or reading this site.

If anybody thinks the advertising is heinous, speak up. I'd be curious to hear from you.

Darren 01:56 PM | | (6)

Last night, Travis and I were talking about dance. He observed that there was a particularly thriving dance community in Los Angeles. We speculated on why this was, and one of us joked that, because of all the seismic activity, it's like you're always dancing.

This morning I read about Dance Mori, a ballet by San Francisco Ballet "set to the reverberations of the planet's crust":

Ballet Mori, which will be performed once, on April 4, will feature a soundtrack created from live geological data, transmitted to the theatre from seismographs in the Hayward Fault in Berkeley. The company's principal, Muriel Maffre, will respond with a semi-improvised dance. "Every recording that I've heard has evolved differently," she said. "One will be eerie, another will be lyrical and another will be scary and mysterious."

The piece honours the hundredth anniversary of the 1906 earthquake that devastated the city. Here's a review of the performance.

On a related subject, I was bemused to encounter this page when I first visited www.sfballet.org. It states:

Your browser is not currently accepting cookies. Cookies are required to access this portion of the web site.

That, as it turns out, is the page that Google links to. I noticed this because I do indeed have cookies turned on. I wonder how that happened? More to the point, why would a dance company have that kind of requirement for their website?

On the other hand, I did like that they have a section of the site entitled First Time at SF Ballet?

Darren 01:19 PM | | (1)

There's a group of aspirational Web 2.0 sites: 43 Things, 43 People and 43 Places. They're cool, but I've never been particularly interested in them (I made a half-assed profile at some point).

Richard has created a dead-on, amusing parody of these sites: 43 Thongs. Disappointingly, he's referring to the flip flops, not the underwear:

The site shows a selection of photos that people have posted to Flickr tagged with 'thongs', though not photos of people wearing the uncomfortable (so I've been told) type of underwear. No, the thongs you put on your feet when going to the beach.

He hasn't opened up registration yet, but I hope he does. My first answer to "What do you want to do in your thongs?" is "Clean myself in a communal shower".

Darren 11:36 AM | | (2)

Maybe it's because I'm a long-suffering Canucks fan, but I really dig Tom Benjamin's NHL weblog. He recently received an email from a sportswriter, and does some good thinking (if occasionally heavy-handed: "inherent conflicts of interest and a bankrupt culture"?) about sports journalism:

One of Brian Burke's favourite lines about the hockey media was that he has not learned a single thing about hockey from a hockey reporter. I can't say the same thing but only because I don't know nearly as much as Burke. I learned a lot from Howie Meeker and Jim Robson and Kelly Hrudey. I've learned from things that people like Brian Burke have said to me through a hockey reporter.

Ah, Brian Burke. The former Canucks GM was always good for a quote (unlike our current I'm-a-Harperesque-robot GM). Here's a page with a few more. It doesn't feature my favourite, though: "If Klatt wants to take more money from LA, then i'll drive him to the airport". I don't think he did, ultimately.

Darren 10:24 AM | | (2)

Hurray, I'm no longer the podcasting Antichrist. Charlene Li gets to take on that mantle in reporting Forrester's new research. You have to pay an arm and a leg to get the full report, but here's some data she quotes:

Forrester projects that just 700,000 households in the US in 2006 will use podcasting, and that it will grow to 12.3 million households in the US by 2010. (See Forrester's "The Future Of Digital Audio" report). Just to give you some context, we expect MP3 adoption to be almost 11 million households in the US this year, and grow to 34.5 million households by 2010.

As always, I'd be curious about the study's methodology, but I trust Forrester to do a decent job with this sort of thing. I'm just glad that there's some more authoritative research than that debunked Pew survey. And let me second Charlene's affection for NPR's On the Media.

For comparison, I went looking for the listenership of college radio. I couldn't find anything in my 48 second Google search. I did discover that there are roughly 16 million college students in the States, plus what, another 1.5 million in Canada? What portion of those do you figure listen to college radio? As a guy who spent 5 years at UVic and never once listened to the local radio station (in truth, I barely ever listened to the radio, full stop), I have no idea.

Darren 10:35 PM | | (1)

Via The Cellar Image of the Day, here's a gallery of photos (warning, giant penis statues ahead, your work safeness may vary) and a video from Kanamara Matsuri, the annual Festival of the Steel Phallus. From Wikipedia:

The Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Steel Phallus) is an annual Shinto fertility festival held in Kawasaki, Japan in spring. The exact dates vary, but the main festivities fall on a Sunday. The penis forms the central theme of the event that's reflected everywhere; in illustrations, candy, carved vegetables, decoration, a parade of mikoshis, etc. etc.

The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local penis-venerating shrine, once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research.

Hilarious. When's the Festival of the Iron Vagina? Here's another 142 photos on Flickr--that one comes courtesy of sachama.

Darren 09:50 PM | | (1)

Tomorrow, they're throwing the doors wide open on the .EU domain:

In the so-called 'landrush' period to start on Friday (7 April), anyone living in the EU or any company with an office in one of the 25 member states can register for a .eu domain name on a first-come-first-served basis.

"Nobody knows exactly how many registrations of new domain names to expect for Friday, but interest so far has been significant so I think we will see several hundred thousand," said Marc Van Mesewael from EURid--the private European non-profit group responsible for the .eu registration.

If you're in Europe, I'd recommend spending the few euros it'll cost to pick up a .EU version of your domain, if only for safe keeping.

UPDATE: Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy and torture advocate, has an interesting post on 'the .EU landrush fiasco'.

Darren 04:39 PM | | (2)

UPDATE: Whoops, as the comments indicate, I clearly made an error. There will are currently no Intel-based G5s PowerMac desktops available. Only Intel-based Macs are able to run Boot Camp. So, unless I want a MacMini (which I don't), there are currently no options for a Boot Camp-enabled Mac without a built-in monitor. Another Windows machine it is.

As I mentioned last week, I'll soon be in the market for a desktop machine. Coincidentally, yesterday Apple announced Boot Camp, a beta application that enables you to easily run Windows and Windows programs on an Apple computer. Boot Camp will become part of Leopard, the next version of Apple's operating system.

I've currently got a Windows desktop and an Apple laptop. Though I see the security and stability advantages of Apple OS X over Windows XP, I'm pretty much platform-agnostic. I use my desktop PC for everything, from games to Office apps to audio and (very occasionally) video editing. I just read this early review that graphically-intensive games like Doom 3 or Far Cry run smoothly under Boot Camp.

This Boot Camp news gave me pause. Should I consider getting a Mac instead of another Windows machine? One important note: I'm currently using a (gorgeous) 23" Apple Cinema display, so I'm unlikely to buy an iMac (I don't want or need dissimilar dual displays). So, it's a G5 PowerPC or nothing. Let's compare some specs. I'm configuring and pricing out the Windows system using Frontier PC's site. That's where I bought my last PC (apologies for the all caps--they're from Frontier's site). The specs are after the jump:

Apple's performance data indicates that the G5 will outclass this machine by a significant margin (25 or 30%?). Here are a couple of independent tests which have different findings. Regardless, I'm willing to accept that the Mac is going to be somewhat faster than the PC.

But is 'somewhat faster' worth $1100? Heck, I could nearly buy two Windows PCs for the price of the G5.

While Boot Camp is exciting news, and I think it'll be great move for Apple, that price difference is too huge to stomach. I'd imagine the difference would be smaller if we compared an iMac to a similar Windows desktop plus monitor, but that's not on the table for me.

UPDATE #2: Here's some benchmark data from CNet: "There's no question: You're going to have a noticeably better gaming experience on a Mac running Windows XP than Mac OS X."

Darren 12:33 PM | | (28)

Spam works, in part, because it appeals to people's private anxieties (weight loss, penis size, depression and so forth). Here's a spam message that appealed not so much to anxiety of mine, but certainly a love:

From: Ms. Gwen Shapiro
Canada Lottery-Soccer World Cup 2010 Promotional Draw 1550 Princess Street Kingston, ON, Canada, K7M 9E3
Email: 2010worldcup18@canada.com

Attention: Customer AFRSA680
Ref: EAAL/851OYHI/05
Batch No. Lotto 6/49

WINNING NOTIFICATION

The Canadian Government sponsors this lottery for the promotion of the 2010 Soccer World cup to be hosted in South Africa.

We happily announce to you the draw of the Euro-Afro-American Sweepstake Lottery International Programs held on Saturday 1st April 2006 in Essex United Kingdom and Ontario Canada. Your e-mail address attached to Ticket Number: B9564 75604545 100, with Serial Number 46563760 drew the winning numbers 4/6/8/12/34/38 with a bonus Number 14, for LOTTO 6/49 under the choice of the lottery in the 2nd category of daily three.

Later in the email, I'm offered ye olde US$820,000.00. Bastards.

There's a clever twist in this spam message that I haven't noticed before. The only URLs in the message are legit. They point to this lottery results page on Canada.com, which appears to confirm your 'winning numbers'.

Darren 10:25 AM | | (2)

Toby [speaking to a stewardess about his pager]: We're flying in a Lockheed Eagle Series L-1011. Came off the line twenty months ago. Carries a Sim-5 transponder tracking system, and you're telling me I can still flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack? From The West Wing.

According to Upgrade, Air France will permit cell phone usage on new planes being delivered next year:

The aircraft will offer onboard mobile phone service on short-haul flights within Europe and to and from North African destinations as part of a commercial test from March to September 2007, Air France and its technology partners Airbus SAS and Sita said yesterday.

The aircraft will be equipped with technology provided by OnAir, a joint venture owned by Airbus and SITA, which aims to provide a range of communication services such as telephony, email and web surfing to passengers.

It's about time. I must confess that I've never made a call from one of those in-flight phones--I've always assumed they cost a fortune. But, hey, what about roaming charges? Do I pay more if I'm at a higher altitude? And how's coverage over the mid-Atlantic?

Darren 08:38 AM | | (2)

I recently fielded a couple of questions from local readers. One's pretty mundane, and the other's kind of odd:

1. "Just wondering if yourself or someone you know may have some Web development experience with using the content management system Web Gui from plainblack.
2. "My father, who played the accordion for well over fifty years, has recently passed away. He left us with several accordions( most of which are button accordions) and accessories. I am now faced with the task of selling these items. I was wondering if you could steer me in the right direction, or offer some guidance as to the best approach on doing this?"

I can't say why they figured I'd be an accordion expert, but heck, let's see if we can answer his question. Maybe Accordion Guy knows the answer? Leave a comment or email me.

Darren 04:23 PM | | (3)

Via Digg, This sounds kind of sketchy and gimmicky, but is too amusing to pass up:

So, here's the story... I said to my girlfriend that any stupid website could get tons of hits, simply because people are bored all the time. She said that I was an idiot and couldn't make a website that could get tons of hits if I wanted to. After a long argument (mostly centered around the fact that she called me an idiot) we made a bet.

If I could not make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, I would agree that I was an idiot; however, if I could make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, she would have a menage a trois (that's a threesome to you non french-speakers) with me and another girl. I thought she was kidding at the time, but then she said she was so sure of herself, that she would even put it in writing. This of course is an ultra-binding contract.

The Internet never fails to deliver the bizarre and titillating, eh? If you support this man's bid, go visit his site: www.helpwinmybet.com. Inventive URL there, eh? The URL www.winmeathreesome.com is available, and would have been a wiser choice. My initial impression of the framed My First Website Design he's got going on is that he's too goofy not to be legit.

At the moment he's got 8182 hits. Let me make a couple of quick predictions: the sites's going to get p0wned with traffic, and crash. His goofy little free counter will break, and though he'll easily get 2 million hits, he may not be able to measure them with any degree of accuracy.

Darren 12:39 PM | | (8)

Richard points out that Waiting for Godot is playing at the Stanley Theatre (sorry, the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage) this month. He's planning on attended, and I'd highly recommend that he does. The reviews have been positive, and the director--Morris Panych--is something of a Canadian icon.

More importantly, in my (among many others) opinion, Waiting for Godot is the finest play of the twentieth century. It would probably be my desert island play, if push came to shove (off). If you were only going to see one play in your entire life, I'd be hard pressed to recommend another. Hamlet, maybe, but it'd be a close-run thing.

I'd go to this production, if not for the fact that I saw an incredibly wonderful version in Dublin, on the 50th anniversary of the play's first staging. As the Irish Times put it, "It is probably the closest we will ever get to the perfect official Godot".

Coincidentally, I was corresponding with somebody by email today, and writing of my lifetime passive-aggressive affair with the Canucks: "My love for and hatred of the team are equalled only by my certainty of their failure. And yet I watch. It's like a Beckett play."

Darren 12:25 PM | | (2)

Clearly, I suffer from an acute case. From the meagre Wikipedia entry:

Athazagoraphobia is defined as the fear of (or strong reaction to) forgetting, being ignored, or generally anything dealing with the idea of forgetfulness.

The definition can be extended to depression, anger, or deliberate isolation caused by one being forgotten, or dealing with death (thus being forgotten by those who have passed away).

Do we blog to combat our athazagoraphobia?

Bonus link: What's a new word without a matching limerick?

Darren 12:20 PM | | (0)

Since my decision to replace my aging Windows machine, I've been keeping half an eye open for articles and reviews on PCs. I forget where, but I stumbled upon this handy round-up of graphics cards for a gaming PC. Lord knows that that's more than I care to read on the subject, so I just skipped to the Winners and Losers page, which tells me what I should buy at a given price point.

Thanks, as well, to those people who responded to my Intel vs. AMD quandary. I'm leaning toward AMD at the moment.

Darren 12:16 PM | | (2)

Qumana, an occasional Capulet client, announced a deal with Lycos, wherein Lycos will distribute Qumana's desktop blog editor to their users. Here's a link to the official release, and Qumana's thoughts on the deal.

When I first heard about this, I was like, 'wow...Lycos. Could you get any older school than that?' But the fact is that Lycos has an insane number of users, so the Qumana folks are rightfully stoked about bringing them into a Web 2.0 world.

One thing I've always liked about Lycos is the Lycos 50. It's a human-filtered weekly summary of top searches. They've been running the thing since 1999, long before the Google Zeitgeist was even a glint in Sergey's eye.

Looking over this week's Lycos 50, these are the names and terms I don't recognize: Zac Efron, Naruto, Rocio Durcal and Inuyasha. Am I out of touch?

For the record, they are a teenage heartthrob, a popular Japanese anime/manga series, a Spanish singer and actress who recently pass away and another manga and anime series.

Darren 10:01 AM |

I recently saw the trailer for Trust the Man (remarkably, no official website), a slightly-indy romantic comedy with a promising cast: David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Maggie Gyllenhaal plus the hilarious Gary Shandling (and, unfortunately, Eva Mendes). Nothing extraordinary, certainly, but a fun-looking date movie whose trailer feels a bit like Your Friends and Neighbours.

This guy saw the film at the Toronto Film Festival and gives it two and half out of four stars, calling it "cute but thoroughly underwhelming".

And speaking of reviews, check out this hilarious book blurb mashup on Macaulay Culkin's first novel. That's quite an extrapolation.

Yes, I just said "Macaulay Culkin's first novel". If there is a God, I'll never have to say "Macaulay Culkin's follow-up novel".

Darren 10:06 PM | | (0)

I owe a couple of people public service announcements:

• Tod Maffin kindly included me in his From Idea to Air workshop this Saturday in Vancouver. Unfortunately, now I can't make it, so my spot is available. I've read Tod's eBook of the same name, and it's excellent. The all day Saturday seminar is free and Tod's not making any money, though he hopes you'll support his SuperWalk for Multiple Sclerosis on April 9. Even if you're not attending, you can donate here. I'm not sure whether that URL is session-specific, but I don't think so.
• You know it's a party when the content management folks get together. They're having their semi-annual summit adjacent to the Gilbane Conference in San Francisco later this month. The keynote speaker is this guy.

Darren 09:49 PM | | (0)

Chris Anderson made a pretty (and pretty interesting) chart showing the continued decline of CD sales in 2005, based on the RIAA's official sales figures. Digital sales appear to be mostly compensating for the decline in physical CD sales. It will be interesting to see what this chart looks like in 5 years. Will total revenue rebound? How much of that bar will be bright blue?

Darren 10:40 AM | | (0)

Last month, I wrote about the massive influx of Poles, Lithuanian and Latvian workers into Ireland, Britain and Sweden (and its impact on the burgeoning Irish sex trade). Like illegal Mexicans coming into the US, the workers are generally doing jobs the locals won't. Unlike the Mexicans, this immigration is legal.

As Gridskipper reports, the director of a Welsh government tourism office is worried that Wales is getting less and less Welsh:

"I'm concerned, and there's concern among some English rural regions and in Wales and Scotland, that there's a dilution of what we consider our national tourism product', he said. 'It almost sounds racist, but it's not meant to be. We have to retain things that make our tourism distinctive, whether it's Welshness, Scottishness or Irishness...I don't believe that if you bring someone from Poland, Lithuania or the accession countries that you can deliver a distinctively Welsh experience."

He goes on to mention the immigrants' impact on the Welsh language, whose re-introduction (or, maybe, repopularization) has been a real success story.

I guess the government needs to contract a bunch of acting schools to teach the Lithuanians some Welsh and Scottish accents.

Darren 10:31 AM | | (0)

I guess lots of bands do this sort of thing, but it's the first I'd heard of it. The Barenaked Ladies are launching a cruise in January, 2007. It's called Ships and Dip:

The band will perform multiple concerts and multiple trips to the buffet, and, in between, you will be treated to a truly Barenaked experience. From intimate solo shows to jam sessions to a rollicking karaoke party with BNL, Ships and Dip is a must for the true Barenaked Ladies aficionado. Friends of ours from the worlds of music and comedy will be announced shortly. And don't forget, everyone has to have a passport!

Why would they do this? For the money, presumably. Could the money be that good? It's US $1500 per cabin (assuming two people per cabin) for a four night cruise. The ship has about a thousand state rooms, and apparently the cruise is rapidly selling out. That's $1.5 million gross revenue, but who knows how much it costs to rent a cruise ship for five days?

Is there any band I would suffer a five day cruise for? Probably not. I don't think I'd want to see even my favourite bands more than once in a week. I'd rather pay $1500 to, say, have dinner with a couple of my favourite musicians.

Darren 10:23 PM | | (3)

In the coming weeks, I plan to replace my aging Windows desktop. I don't pay much attention to system specs anymore, but looking around I've noticed that AMD has made serious brand awareness headway against Intel. For the non-geeky, I'm referring here to the computer's processor--the thinking part of its brain.

For example, I wandered around Future Shop the other day, and more than half of the PCs had AMD chips. I've read a few deeply boring articles on the subject. Like this one from ZDNet, most seem to conclude that it doesn't make much difference which you choose.

Do any of you bright lights have an opinion on this? Does it matter? Should I care? And should I bother paying for a dual-core processor? Assume that I'm going to use my PC for everything, from Photoshop to Battlefield 2 to audio and video editing.

Incidentally, I plan to buy as much RAM as I can afford, and get kick ass video and audio cards.

Darren 05:52 PM | | (7)

Congratulations and mazel tov to Vancouver Blogaholics, who tied the knot this weekend. In true 21st century fashion, they got hitched in the world of the Sims a couple of days before their real world nuptials:

Here's a bunch of photos that Boris took of the happy occasion.

Darren 10:44 AM | | (1)

Back in January, I started rating and writing a brief review of every movie I see in the cinema in 2006. As I just passed the quarter post, I thought I'd point to it. We've had 13 weeks and I've seen 18 films. According to my ratings, my favourite movies of the year thus far are Munich and The New World. There's a three-way tie for the worst movie: Fun With Dick and Jane, Ultraviolet and Running Scared. Try not to judge.

Darren 07:15 PM | | (0)

Earlier this month, somebody said I was from "a nation of seal clubbers". That's a fair comment, 'cause they sure club up a storm on the East Coast. It got me thinking, though. Why aren't we "a nation of seal killers"? Why do they club seals?

I'm lazy, but the folks at Slate aren't. One of their Explainer podcasts this week addressed this very question.

It's safe and easy, and it preserves the seal's valuable pelt. Federal laws in Canada give a sealer three ways to hunt his prey. He can shoot a seal with a rifle or shotgun--provided it's above a minimum calibre or gauge; he can break its head with a blunt club (like a baseball bat) that must be at least 2 feet long; or he can smash in its brains with something called a hakapik--a 4- or 5-foot wooden pole with a bent, metal spike affixed to the end.

They go on to explain that it's quite tricky to shoot a seal from a boat that's bobbing up and down (the seal may be bobbing as well). Plus, should you not kill it with the first shot, the seal's liable to jump into the water, and there goes your $70 (that's it?) pelt. So, clubbing's the preferable method.

We were discussing this subject at a party last night, and my friend said he'd heard that it costs more to police the seal hunt than the hunt generates in revenue. I searched around, trying to verify that fact, and only came up with this article. It's from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, but cites an independent study (PDF). Unfortunately, it uses old data discussing subsidies which were phased out in 2000.

One point which is relevant is that the hunt only accounts for the equivalent of 100 to 150 full time jobs. We're not talking about logging in BC or the cod fisheries here--this is a highly niche activity.

So, in summary, here are the facts I've gathered:

• On average, clubbing a seal is probably more humane than shooting it.
• While it's clearly an animal rights issue, there's no environmental case for opposing the hunt. This year the seal quota is less than 2% of the entire population, which has exploded in recent years.
• As an industry, it's small potatoes.

Regardless of how you feel about whacking seals, it seems obvious to me that the international perception of Canada's seal hunt isn't worth the few million dollars it may generate in GDP. Plenty of other resource workers across the country have had to retrain--can't we do the same with a few hundred seal hunters?

Darren 04:46 PM | | (7)