Sports karma

A week or so ago, I had one of those bring-balance-to-the-Force kind of days. It started off well, with me getting 4 goals and 3 assists in our early morning hockey game. I was feeling so good about this, that I didn't mind getting knocked out of the ping pong tournament at work in my first game, when I fully expected to clobber everyone in the tournament on my way to a ping pong scholarship at Harvard. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Back to a perfect record

A few days ago, my record stood at X times being right (where X is any large number, say, 14 billion) and one time being wrong. The one time was in the summer, when Holly and I went to the Island *with* Holly's nerdstick (USB flash drive), and when we came back, it was gone. I forget how, exactly, but I was saddled with the blame for this heinous crime, and stood accused (and condemned) of LOSING Holly's precious (nay, beloved) nerdstick. And did I ever hear the end of this? Even after buying Holly another nerdstick (with more storage)? No sir, I did not. All I heard was exclamation after exclamation of the special bond that had once existed between Holly and her old nerdstick, and how, thanks to my callous and evil negligence, that bond had been forever cast asunder. Something good and pure was gone from this world, because I, doltishly, misplaced this nerdstick of nerdsticks. I was to be forever ridiculed and scorned, and never forgiven.

Until this weekend, when Holly found it in one of her sweatshirts she keeps on the Island. One that only she wears. The look on her face when she felt it in her pocket was ... priceless. The realization of the amount of undeserved heckling she had unleashed on me caught up with her, all in about three seconds. Much hilarity ensued.

And now, my record is unblemished once again. Let's hope I can remain perfect for a while longer, as a shining example to all you aspiring Dean wannabes out there.

Newspaper clipping

Having a hurricane named after you tends to do strange things to your ego, good and bad, especially with headlines like this:

That's one deep canyon

From the Grand Canyon National Park website:
"At its deepest, it is 6000 vertical feet / 1829 km from rim to river."

Holy cats! That's more than 20% of the way to the core of the earth! (In metric, at least.)

Back into hockey!

Well, it's September, and what better way to celebrate than to get back into hockey? I've started playing with a group of people from work, and as hard as it is for a programmer (okay, for me) to exert any effort towards exercise of any kind, I'm going to try to stick with it. It's fun, it's good exercise, it gets easier the more you do it, it's fun, I don't fall down every time I turn around, and did I mention it's fun?

The only tricky part is transportation. Not having a car is fine for almost everything else in my life, but this is a bit of a pain. I'm working around it partly by hitching rides with work people, and partly by booking CAN cars. This will get easier soon, I hope, when the stupid Vancouver strike is over, and we can get back to the (closer) regular rink. This will also be good timewise, as the ice slot we were able to get outside of Vancouver is 7:15-8:15, rather than the usual 8:30-9:30 or so. Since I had to hitch a ride to hockey today, and I had to be at work to get that ride, and I had to bike in to work, I had to get up at 5:20am. Yuck. My only consolation was that Sophie was totally awake, and smiling quietly at me as I got ready. Hol said she hadn't fussed for food by 9am or something, so Holly fed her anyway. Funny girl.

Conclusion: Hockey. Two thumbs up from this wheezing, out of shape, smiling programmer hunched over on the bench.

Band name

Pchairodactyl. I picture some kind of psychodelic hypno-rock. All played sitting down.

Shorts shopping

Buying shorts, sounds boring. Even I, who know the minimally-entertaining story I'm about to divulge, think it's boring. Boring, boring, boring.

Not like it'll get you out of reading my story or anything, though.

So I'm out shopping for clothes. I hadn't done so in a fairly long time (I was wearing a shirt I've had for 9+ years), so I had to rediscover the fine art of purchasing shorts. To start the experience off right, I got lost. I don't easily get turned around, but within three minutes of entering some random floor of some unknown department store, I was completely and hopelessly lost. It was one of those floorplans where the floor is broken up into several hundred islands of clothes displays, broken up by pathways. All the islands look the same, and they all contain every type of clothes, including shorts. So I have to visit each island, looking at shorts, and it's only after I'm on the fifth island that I realize I have no idea where I started. I figure I'd better start picking up shorts to try on, instead of trying to remember where the potentially good ones were. After about half an hour of walking around, I notice that an island that I just looked through (finding no shorts) can, upon leaving, turning around, and coming directly back to, have numerous pairs of shorts that weren't there moments ago. This kind of shorts-centric space-time continuum rift can be pretty annoying, let me tell you. Anyway, after another half-hour or so of non-deterministic meandering, I stumbled upon a fitting room, and tried some shorts on. Here's where I discovered a new criteria in selecting shorts. It used to be: how much do they cost? do they fit? - -> purchase. Now, the shorts-makers have gone out of their way to introduce a new variable: how long does it take to open/close the pockets? With my current shorts, there's a button on each (cargo) pocket. To open the pocket, you undo the button. Easy. With some of these shorts, the pockets had two buttons. Hidden by flaps. On the inside of the pocket flap. That went into the pocket. Hard to describe, but possibly the stupidest pocket design ever. Obviously, no kangaroos were consulted during the design phase. To sum up, here are the stats on the shorts I chose, and the shorts I rejected... Good shorts: time to open both pockets: 4 seconds, time to close both pockets: 6 seconds. Bad shorts: time to open both pockets: 28 seconds, time to close both pockets: 32 seconds. That's right, a full minute, fumbling away with multiple inside-out, upside-down, tucked away buttons. You just lost yourselves a customer, stupid shorts-makers.

Yep, even after I read that... boring. I have to have some more interesting adventures.

Attack of the giant brains!

I was walking by Science World early this morning (as Deans are wont to do), and I stumbled upon a rig pulled up to the back door, unloading a delivery of one half of a giant brain, probably about 10 feet tall and 30 feet long. Cool. Gotta love that early-morning, unexpected giant brain - no better way to start your day, not even Wheaties.

Improvements to the system

Okay, let's see if I can set this one up properly...

In my professional capacity, I work with computers. Specifically, I'm a programmer - I deal with a wide range of software development tasks, such as designing web-based systems. One of the webpages I've been working on recently was a pretty dry pipeline page - lots of rows of information, lots of words, not a lot of pictures. It needed a bit of tweaking, so I was industriously working away on a local copy of it. This means I had my computer (named Honeydew) running a Spyce server, which means it can serve Python-based webpages. (I'm sure I've lost 95% of my audience by this point.)

To sum up that last paragraph in more understandable terms, I was working on a webpage, which was being served by my computer, Honeydew.

This means that the address to the local copy of the webpage I was working on was something like http://Honeydew:8000/blah/blah/blah. This was fine for my machine, because I had set up my browser to not look externally for a server named Honeydew.

But I forgot this fact when I finished my work, and sent an email along these lines to my co-workers:

"Hey guys, I was doing a bit of work on the pipeline page, I think I managed to make such-and-such page look a little better, take a look and let me know what you think. Here's the link: http://Honeydew:8000/blah/blah/blah."

So when I click that link on my machine, I get the dry pipeline page I expect, because I have that browser option set. When my co-workers clicked the link, because their computers weren't set up this way, their browsers translated Honeydew:8000 into some kind of automatic Google search for "Honeydew", and they ended up with this page. Everyone agreed that it did look much better.

Bus etiquette

As a veteran bus rider, I've seen it all. I've been shoulder to shoulder in a jam-packed bus going to school, I've been the sole rider of a double-length bus for miles and miles, I've seen people fall over, throw up, get thrown out, try to get a cello to the back of a crowded bus... the list goes on and on. And with all this experience comes a strong understanding of the unwritten rules - the bus etiquette, as it were. Quite specific, but no less binding than having to excuse yourself after a resounding belch at the dinner table. Since I live in Canada, most of the bus etiquette rules aren't enforced (or even discussed), but make no mistake, transgressors will feel the disapproving stares of the surrounding passengers on them.

I figured I'd write some of these unwritten rules down, just to see what would happen. Here are a few key tidbits to try to remember, should you ever find yourself taking public transit.

And I hope this doesn't come off as bitter - take it more as a cross between a scientific study and an instructional lesson.

1. Be aware that other people exist.
You're not the only person on the planet, or even (usually) on the bus. This is more of a meta-rule than an actual rule - it's the basis for most other rules, but still merits mentioning on its own. You can easily spot the people who don't follow this - lost in their own head, sporting a vacant stare, refusing to see other people, even if they're standing right in front of them.

2. Don't block the aisle.
If you can move back or sit down, do it. True, sometimes you want to talk to your friend who has just sat in the last seat, but if space is short, you should either find an out-of-the-way nook and let people past, or just tell your friend you'll talk to them soon, and move back. What you don't want to do is just stand there, oblivious to the front-of-the-bus crush.

3. Give up your seat.
This goes not only for the courtesy seats at the front, but for all seats. If you see someone who is elderly, pregnant, laden with kids (or packages) (or both), or who just looks like they could use a seat, offer it to them! The entire atmosphere of the bus will noticeably improve.

4. Ask before messing with windows.
There's nothing like the single person who is too hot on a cold, rainy night, who yanks open a window above you (letting it rain on you), and then who moves on down the bus. Usually, if you want to open/close a window, everyone else wants you to too, but make sure to ask whoever's sitting right there if it's okay with them.

5. Make seats available.
If it's even vaguely crowded, seat real estate is too valuable to squander. Pick up your bag and put it under your seat or on your lap. Don't sprawl out over two seats, and certainly don't lie down across five of them. One of the sneakiest (and most inexplicable) ways of squandering a seat is to sit on the aisle seat of a two-seater so no one can sit with you. This is almost always done by prim little old ladies with a distinctly sour expression. [lemon-tasting expression] "I may have to take the bus, but I certainly don't have to sit next to one of them." Guess what, ladies? You do. Move over.

That's lots for now. There are many more unwritten rules, but I'll leave them for another day. Until then, happy riding!

Late night madman

Here's a hint that you've lived in the big city too long...

We were awaked a couple nights ago around 4:00 in the morning by a crazy guy out on the street. For what seemed like a good 15 minutes, he was wandering up and down the street, absolutely screaming his head off - swearing, vigourous death threats, the whole nine yards. If this had happened to us back in the day when we had just moved to the big city, we would have been wide awake, calling the cops, fearing for our lives, that kind of thing. As seasoned veterans of the city life, however, we had a different reaction.

First off, we didn't even fully wake up. (Usually, that sort of thing is reserved for fire alarms only - and they'd have to be pretty skookum alarms, too.) We kind of heard him, listened for a minute or so, and then started simultaneously critiquing his technique. "Oh no, that's no good, he's screaming far too loudly, he's going to wear himself out." "Yeah, unless he takes a breath, he's going to pass out and wake up with such a sore throat." "And you call those death threats? Hardly. He's just saying the same thing over and over again - no imagination whatsoever." "He could learn a lot from crazy swearing guy." (Crazy swearing guy is our local regular.) "There's no modulation, it's just full volume the whole time. He's got to learn to capture people's attention."

At least, that's what I remember. I'm sure we weren't quite so eloquent, it was likely more along the lines of "Stupid loud man, too loud, no imagination, needs to pace himself, stupid stupid. *snore*" But still, it amuses me that our first instinct was to grade him on his performance.

Random YouTube video

Okay, I'm about to try an experiment. I want to find a random YouTube video, watch it, and then discuss it. Sadly, it looks like YouTube doesn't have a "random" feature, but I'm getting around this by using a random word generator to give me two random words ("reflects" and "contributed") and watch the first video that returns from a search of these two words.

...

Oh. Great. I got this guy: Share the Wealth. I think he's drunk, or stupid, or maybe just greedy. His basic premise: "Hey, YouTube just got bought for $1.65 billion, YouTube would be nothing without its members (like me and my dog), I think we should get our cut of the money." Funny how this only became an issue after Google paid gigantic wads of cash for YouTube. I haven't posted to YouTube, but I suspect there's some kind of agreement that you have to agree to that says you're not going to get paid for posting your stupid videos.

Anyway, that was fairly lame, so I'm going to try again. "lenses" and "counter" Huh, that's better. I ended up with a French rap music video by Carpe Diem. Very nice - very catchy. I think rapping in French brings new oomph to the phrase "spitting it". Good jorb. I'm inspired by the success of that one to try a third and final one...

"obeyed" and "behave". Oh oh. Let's see what we get. ... Huh. Actually, nothing. That's a relief. Let's try again... "induced" and "mouse"? Hey, it came up with something... Hmmm. "Something" indeed. I don't know quite what to make of this, except to say that I doubt this is why Google shelled out the big bucks. axelswife1, you're pretty crazy...

And thus ends the experiment. YouTube: 1, crazy people: 2.

Tune in next time. (Preferably demanding money.)

White and Nerdy?

[Disclaimer: This has potential to be a very embarrassing and revealing post, not to mention a ridiculously long and stupid post. My apologies in advance for the blatant use of self-deprecation for the purposes of entertainment, both mine and (hopefully) yours.]

So I just saw the video for Weird Al's latest hit, "White and Nerdy". Wow. I'm continually amazed by his talent for imitation and humour. Anyway, after watching this video, I was half laughing, half worriedly thinking to myself, "Wow, that hit pretty close to home." So in an (admittedly nerdy) attempt to discover exactly how close to home it hit, I decided to go through the references and apparent signs of nerdosity, and see how many of them apply to me. This will give me some kind of percentage. At the time of writing this, I haven't yet discovered my nerd grade - I guess I'm hoping it will be somewhere around 65% - fairly nerdy, but not without hope. To make this more fair, I'll rank each reference out of, say, three. 0 = not applicable, 1 = a little bit, 2 = yeah, pretty much, 3 = bang on. Also, I won't include all of the lyrics here, but I will quote them where appropriate.

1. "Mowin' my front lawn" - I currently have no lawn, but even if I did, I doubt I'd be out there mowing it. 0/3
   
   
2. (Pac-man reference, picked out in flares) - I've played lots of Pac-man. It was one of three table-top video games (along with Galaga and Dig-Dug) in the lounge in our community centre. I think the ghosts were named Inky, Blinky, and ... ah yes, Pinky and Clyde, although I had to look the last two up. I think to get a full three, though, I'd have to have it set up as my screen saver at work, like a friend of mine has. 2/3
   
   
3. "First in my class here at MIT" - Wasn't first in my class, didn't go to MIT, but I did go to a university somewhat known for its comp sci program, which I took. 1/3
   
   
4. "I'm a champion at D&D" - Haven't played D&D (except maybe an kind of intro game once or twice, and of course the electronic game versions), but I know more about it than I let on. 1/3
   
   
5. "M. C. Escher, that's my favorite M.C." - I do like M. C. Escher, I think I had a calendar of his drawings a while back. But, there are lots of other good M.C.s out there... 1/3
   
   
6. "Keep your 40, I'll just have an Earl Grey tea" - Okay, the last three times I've been out to lunch, I've had Earl Grey tea, and have ordered it "hot" in my mind. And I don't drink. 3/3
   
   
7. "My rims ... they're quite stationary" - Referring of course to the pimped out car wheels. I have no car, but if I did, I'd like to have a Toyota Prius like depicted in the video, with - yes, stationary rims. 1/3
   
   
8. "All of my action figures are cherry" - Sort of - I have action figures, and they're in pretty good condition, although not to the extent shown in the video - I don't mind if people pick them up and place them in funny/rude positions. 2/3
   
   
9. "Stephen Hawking's in my library" - Well, yes, although I'm sad to report that I only have one of his books, and it isn't the one shown. However, I guess I do meet the criteria. 2/3
   
   
10. "My MySpace page is all totally pimped out" - I don't have a MySpace page, although I'm considering looking into it after this video. 0/3
    
    
11. "I know pi to a thousand places" - I know pi to 7 places, which isn't that much, but maybe enough to get me one mark? 1/3
    
    
12. "I still wear braces" - I had extensive orthodonture committed on me as a child, although I don't wear braces anymore. However, that may be changing, at least for night time use. We'll see, but it's probably enough to warrant... 2/3
    
    
13. "I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise" - This is true. Whenever I order or make a sandwich, it has mayo on it. 3/3
    
    
14. "I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days" - I am, I could, and I have. My records: 3 seconds for beginner, 26ish seconds for intermediate, and 89 seconds for expert. 3/3
    
    
15. "My fingers movin' so fast" (on the keyboard) - Well, I do make a living with a keyboard, so yeah, I'm pretty fast by now. It's only taken me 14 seconds to type this far into the post. 3/3
    
    
16. "No killer app I haven't run" - Well, vaguely true. Kind of. Definitely more on the Linux side of things, but still somewhat on Windows. I'm no stranger to bittorrent, I know a bunch of graphics packages, I've dealt with lots of system-twiddling programs... 2/3
    
    
17. "At Pascal, well I'm number one" - This one is outdated. Who uses Pascal anymore? I was number one at it, back in high school, but get with the times, Weird Al! Try Ajax or Python or at least C++... But I digress - if I were to brush off my Pascal skills, I'd probably still be decent. 2/3
    
    
18. "Do vector calculus just for fun" - I've done lots of linear algebra with vectors, and I've done lots of calculus, but I can't remember doing vector calculus. 1/3
    
    
19. "I got a soldering gun" - I wish. That'd be sweet. I could totally ruin my old motherboards by attempting to stick batteries and stuff onto them. 0/3
    
    
20. "Happy Days is my favorite theme song" - It is a good song, I'll admit that. But there are better theme songs out there, methinks. 1/3
    
    
21. "I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong" - Arguable. I'm probably the weakest player in my extended family, but they're all crazy-good. Plus, I've got a pretty good reach, which helps me play a deceptively laid back style of game. 1/3
    
    
22. "I'll ace any trivia quiz" - Probably not. I get the odd tough question, but I'm rubbish at history and ... well, most stuff that isn't science/nature or recent arts/entertainment or hockey. 1/3
    
    
23. "I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon" - I am fluent in JavaScript, but I only know a few phrases in Klingon - not enough to feel confident wearing forehead ridges to a convention, by any means. 2/3
    
    
24. (Segway reference, with helmet and knee/elbow pads) - I think people who ride these are twerps. And against all common sense, I prefer not to wear knee/elbow pads, although I usually wear a helmet for biking. But not rollerblading. 1/3
    
    
25. (Donny Osmond reference) - Pretty funny dancing, but I don't know much about Donny Osmond. 0/3
    
    
26. (Equation behind Donny Osmond) - Looks like physics, but I had to look it up - it's Schrödinger's wave equation for the hydrogen atom, and apparently, there's a mistake in it! Cool. 0/3
    
    
27. (Star Wars kid (link1, link2) reference) - Yeah, I caught it, although it was on the second viewing of the video - I was laughing too hard the first time around. 2/3
    
    
28. (Power bar for a present reference) - I don't think I've given a power bar as a gift before, but I have been pretty happy to buy them for myself, sometimes. And I do own about five or six of them. 2/3
    
    
29. "I been browsin', inspectin' X-Men comics / You know I collect 'em" - Guilty as charged. I've been known to spend a lunch hour down at the comic shop, sifting through the $1 bin for X-anything comics. I've got way too many of them, more than I've read. Although to be fair, I don't really inspect 'em, I'll take them even if they're beat up. 2/3
    
    
30. "The pens in my pocket, I must protect them" - Nope. Never had a pocket protector. Never kept pens in my shirt pocket. (Maybe behind my ear for a short length of time, but that's about it.) 0/3
    
    
31. "My ergonomic keyboard" - I don't think these actually help, rather like trackball mice - I'm betting they do more harm than good. The fact that I've thought about this and have an opinion, even though I don't have a bent keyboard must be enough to grant me... 1/3
    
    
32. "Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media" - Yes, I've done this, and yes, recently. I don't put that much effort into finding great deals though - it's more to find out where the spools of DVDs are available in the quantities I'm after. 2/3
    
    
33. "I edit Wikipedia" - Not yet, but it's probably just a matter of time - I use the darn thing enough. 0/3
    
    
34. "I memorized Holy Grail really well" - I don't know about "really well" - at least, not as well as "Life of Brian", but still to a degree where I could be one half of the Black Knight battle. 2/3
    
    
35. "Have you R-O-T-F-L-O-L" - I've actually made a few people LOL recently, but I don't think anyone has been ROTF doing so. 2/3
    
    
36. "I got a business doing websites" - Almost - I do a bunch of volunteer web work for various people, and am starting to charge for my services. 2/3
    
    
37. "When my friends need some code, who do they call? / I do HTML for 'em all" - Definitely, as above. 3/3
    
    
38. "Even made a homepage for my dog" - My dog never had a website, but my upcoming child has a blog... Does that count? 1/3
    
    
39. "I got myself a fanny pack" - No. Not like that. Not for regular day-to-day use. I do have a money belt for when travelling, I guess that's partway there. 1/3
    
    
40. "They were havin' a sale down at The Gap" - I don't shop at The Gap, if I can at all avoid it. 0/3
    
    
41. "Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap / ... gettin' freaky" - Um, no. I enjoy a good bout of bubble wrap popping, but not quite in the manner suggested. 1/3
    
    
42. (Badminton reference) - I'm not that good at badminton - although I once helped paint a very professional -looking badminton court on a driveway. 1/3
    
    
43. "I was in A/V club..." Nope, although it would have been vaguely cool, and I'm at least partly competent with A/V stuff now. 1/3
    
    
44. "... and glee club..." Nope. 0/3
    
    
45. "... and even the chess team" Not on the actual team, although I was chess champion for various grades in elementary school. 1/3
    
    
46. "Do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?" - Picard, baby! Make it so! And of course I've put thought into this question, how could I not? Kirk has never held that much draw for me, so it hasn't been that much of an angst-filled question. 2/3
    
    
47. "Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire" - Not every weekend, no. But I knew how to spell "Faire" without looking it up. I have been to a Ren Faire. Dressed up. I tried to pull the sword from the stone. I know the regulars are called Rennies. I've been forwarded pictures of people I know doing crazy stuff in character at the Faire. 2/3
    
    
48. "Got my name on my underwear" - Not for quite some time now, no. I do have a shirt that says "hoser", but that's just not the same. 0/3
    
    
49. (Star Wars holiday special reference) - Not only have I heard about this, I have a copy. It's so terrible it's awesome. 3/3
    
    
50. (Vulcan salute reference) - Yes, I caught this at the end in place of a gang sign. Very nice. I did have to look up the name of it, however. But on the plus side, I can do it without using my other hand to help. 2/3

Okay, I guess that's it. There were probably references that I missed, but what are you gonna do? Let's total them up... 69/150 = 46%. Hmmm. That's not very nerdy. Not even half nerdy! Damn. Guess I'll have to join some clubs, learn about MySpace, and hitch my pants up a bit. Otherwise, my street cred will suffer at work. :P

So until next time... [Vulcan salute]

Ahhhh, finally - proper YouTube video playback...

Big day today. Adobe released a plugin for Flash 9 for Linux. Hooray! Whoever made this gets 20 points! Of course, Linux could play Flash stuff before, but a) we could never play Flash 9, and b) the sound/video sync on Flash videos (e.g. on YouTube.com) suffered from some fairly severe lag. Now, I can actually view the webpage of the company I work for, and I can watch properly sync'd YouTube to my heart's content! Hooray again!

As an added bonus, go to YouTube and search for Takeshi's Castle. Watch a few of those, pretty entertaining.

Winter cleaning

Phew... I'm pretty exhausted. I just cleaned one of our bathrooms. But this was no ordinary cleaning, oh no. This was the last cleaning of our regular bathroom before we switched to using the other one as the main bathroom, and left this one as a guest bathroom. So because it had to be fit for guests, this bathroom got cleaned to within an inch of its life. I cleaned it so well that I'm ---> | | <--- this close to having it hermetically sealed to prevent any errant specs of dust from wandering in there, or possibly putting it on the market, and selling it off while it looks so good. The first guest we have is going to be pretty unpopular in my books, I think...