July 31, 2004
Life sucks, then you die... and then, it still sucks!
Well, I succumbed to temptation & got Dead Like Me [which wasn't that discounted @ $54 but still, that's what I wanted to get], 24 [a show I never really watched but it's supposed to be pretty good, and hey, it was $29 and has six discs] and the first season of the X-Files. [I don't think I've seen all the season one episodes and @ $50 it was a huge markdown from the regular price of $110] Couldn't find any Firefly DVD's and I was tempted to the Angel first season set but I've seen most of them and this was getting expensive as it was.
The DLM set had really nice packaging, a plastic see-thru sleeve [with a reaper blowing a bubble gum bubble] over a box containing four DVD's, each in their own individual plastic snap-cases. Each snap-case has a reaper doing something: laundry, golfing with a scythe. Inside the cases are pictures of the leads with little post-it notes with a personal quote, like for George they have "Isn't stealing from dead people kind of tacky?" Altogether, one of the nicest packaging jobs for a DVD set I've seen yet. Both X-Files and 24 have the usual cardboard, fold-out boxes ala Buffy. Does the job but not very interesting.
The first DLM DVD has the pilot and extras, the rest have four episodes each. I watched the pilot and checked out the extras. Has interviews with the cast, kind of funny seeing Ellen Muth not acting in character. She seems much more unsure of herself and shy than George. Weird. They have a wack of deleted scenes too, although most of them aren't too different from what appears in the show. But hey, kudos for them including them in the first place. The pilot has a commentary track as well which I haven't listened to yet.
I also picked up a joystick for my PC, again, since my old joystick used a gameport and my newer computer has USB only. And I picked up the Megaman Anniversary Collection for my 'cube. Way cool, I have Megaman 2 on me old NES and I love that game, I can finish it in one sitting. It will be cool to check out all eight games, plus two from Japan that were never released here. Yowsa.
Future Shop Sale
Looks like Future Shop is selling season one DVD's of many television series for dirt cheap. Angel - $32.99. Buffy - $17.99. 24 - $28.99. Firefly - $25.99. Family Guy - $22.99. X-files - $49.99. Mmmm, very tempting stuff.
July 29, 2004
Dead Like Me
I want to tear your skin off, make pyjamas out of them and wear them to bed. George
I haven't seen all of season one of this series, just the odd episode here and there. But I just re-watched season two's premiere [Send in the Clown] after seeing it this Monday [didn't plan on re-watching it, it just came on and I kinda got sucked in] and I've got to say, this is the best show on television right now, IMHO. Pretty damn funny, just dripping with sarcasm and very demented humour. From what I've seen, they were just finding their way in the first season but, if the first episode is any indication, they seem to have hit their stride. Good shit. Apparently, the first five episodes are floating around on the net. It's a Showtime show if you're American, Movie Central is showing it almost every night here in Canada. Actually, looks like they've shown the entire first season this month. Bummer, I missed almost all of 'em.
And what's with Showtime? When I try to access any of their pages, I get this:
We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States.
WTF? The show is filmed in Vancouver, BC, Canada for fuck's sake. And I can access their site using a US proxy, so there. >:)
July 28, 2004
Another day without getting squished
Ah, my feet are sore. It's been busy this week, kind of. It was dead today until noon, when it went totally nuts and stayed busy right till 5:00pm. Hence, the sore feeties. And this stupid taxi driver [is there any other kind? *snark*] nearly hit me. I was screaming down the road in my lane and this taxi driver was in the lane beside me. I think the driver in front of him was slowing down to turn left, so he decided to change lanes, swerving right in front of me just as I was going past him. I slammed on my brakes [glad I got the 203mm rotors!] going into a slide sideways, and screamed "fuck!" Funny how that word gets people's attention. Had I screamed "oh darn!" I'm sure the inattentive bastard would have plowed right into me. As it was, he stopped and I fish-tailed around his front bumper, giving him the "what's your malfuntion, fucktard?" look before resuming my breakneck pace down the highway. Just one of those precious moments I seem to get every single, freaking day.
July 27, 2004
More DNS problems
Egads man! After thinking everything was back to normal this morning, I came home to find everything was still totally screwed up. My domain was still pointing to some marketing company. Argh! After messing around with it half the night, I realized my scondary DNS server was to blame, namely secondary.org. Their web server seems conveniently out of order so I could not log onto their website to fix the problem. So I signed up for another free secondary nameserver, changed my domain info to point to the new server and voilą, it works again! At least it seems to. [brood] I'm hoping this is the end to this fiasco. I'm using xname.org as my secondary server, btw.
Granitecanyon DNS RIP
My domain is up again! Woohoo! I was using granitecanyon.com as my free dns nameserver, but they suddenly decided to stop providing that service without notifying their users which caused my web page to disappear from the face of this earth. The weird thing was that I could access my web pages for the last two weeks while other people couldn't at all. Until last night that is, when I got redirected to some marketing company when I tried to come here. I signed up with EveryDNS.net and pointed my dns queries there and just a few hours later, my page seems to be working again. Yea!
July 22, 2004
The DaVinci Code
I just finished reading The DaVinci Code. It was pretty good, although I wasn't terribly impressed with the way everything was wrapped up at the end. Bleh, it just didn't work for me. The ideas it presents in the book are really fascinating and I'm curious to find out how much is true and how much he just made up. Another thing that bothered me was how these people on the run from the law always seem to have time for long conversations about art history and what have you. They also don't seem to ever have to go to the washroom, or eat [much, I think they had a warm Coke and crackers at one point] or sleep, for the whole length of the novel. And there seemed to be more than a few plot holes and inconsistencies in the story. But still, the central theme of the book was pretty damn cool.
Hey, I solved all the riddles on that site too! Woohoo! Too bad I'm too late to win anything.
July 18, 2004
Brachypelma boehmei
My Mexican fireleg spiderling molted last week. Here's a couple pictures.
New Stuff
Another hot day, 30° right now. I bought some new shoes and spd pedals for my bike today. But when I tried to take my old pedals off, they wouldn't budge. I soaked them in WD-40 and wrenched on them as hard as I could, no dice. My new shoes feel nice though. Hopefully my pedals will come loose eventually if I keep spraying them with oil.
July 12, 2004
Bad day at the funhouse
I just received an e-mail through my Blackberry that was sent at 10:50am, nine fucking hours ago! Argh! Rogers is such a horrible company, I pay them $90 a month for this kind of service? Looks like I missed about ten messages today. I'm so pissed off, it's becoming a habit.
And I come home today to see something like 350 spam comments on my blog. Literally. Fucking ridiculous, had to spend like half an hour to get the blacklist thingy to delete them all.
The water stopped seeping into my apartment today, I guess I should be thankful for that. Now I'm waiting for the fans to work their magic and dry it all out. That won't fix the rotting carpet or the peeling walls, but at least it will smell better. The landlord/owner better be planning on replacing the carpet and shit, cause I don't plan on living in a place with this kind of water damage. :(
My day started with a screw-up too. I pickup at IBM every morning, it's this high security thing where you have to call somebody on a phone and they come out with your pickup. Well this morning I call the guy three fucking times and he doesn't answer. I knock on the window, on the door, and no answer. So I let the client know I couldn't pick it up. Half an hour later, I get sent back. I get back there and this little fucker is giving me attitude, like it was my fault that he's not doing his job. Motherfucker. Sometimes it's hard to not lose it doing this job.
July 10, 2004
Flooded
My apartment's been flooded. Water has come in somehow from the roof, I think. They had some roofer guy come in and patch the roof, but the water is still seeping in. Maybe they didn't get rid of any standing water? The carpet in my computer area is totally soaked, but it didn't come near my computer, thankfully. My storage room has water damage as well. I have to pull all the stuff out of there, see how much stuff is ruined. I'll probably have to move. The carpet will definately have to be replaced, it smells really bad. I would think they would have to rip out all the drywall as well, this water must have got in here from between the walls. I'm not the only one, people on the fourth floor and the first floor also have the same problem. Who knows, maybe they'll have to kick everybody out of the whole building and renovate all the apartments. This sucks, I was rather happy here. I hope they refund my rent and damage deposit. My summer is ruined. :(
July 07, 2004
Doing the July Shiver
Speaking of work, it started raining cats and dogs at around noon today, one of the busiest times of the day for me. It was brutal, I was totally soaked. And tomorrow's forecast calls for rain again. I love summer.
Proof of aggravation
I finally got my "proof of activation" from Rogers today. It only took two weeks when they had promised it would be here in four days. Not to mention I was supposed to get that damn thing in the box with my Blackberry in the first place. I filled in the forms and am sending away for the rebate tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Somehow, I'm not very optimistic.
July 05, 2004
Paper Mario RPG
A new Mario game. [Japanese] Weird.
I'm on the ship in world 6, SMB3. Woohoo!
Catching up
Haven't been blogging much lately, been kinda busy. And pissed off about the whole Rogers thing. They still haven't sent me my "proof of activation", which I need to get the rebates on my Blackberry. And it needs to be sent in by July 31. The help desk dweeb told me I would get it in 4 days, here it is 10 days later and no sign of the damn thing. Got my first phone bill nice and quick tho. Fuckers.
Other than that, I've got some new toys. Got a Gameboy SP classic, it kinda looks like the original NES, retro chic. I bought Super Mario 3 to go with it, ran home to check it out, opened the box, pulled out the instruction manuals, a piece of cardboard and... no game!!! Was I ever mad. I rode all the way back to the Future Shop and told them what happened. They seemed to doubt me at first [the bastards!], but finally relented and gave me my damn game. By the time I got home, the thrill of getting a new system had worn off a bit. I am up to the sixth world so far, it's a great game, one of my favourites. Used to have it on the NES, loaned it out to someone and never got it back.
I also got an MP3 player, an RCA Lyra. It seems ok. It only came with 64 megs of memory, but it has a slot for SD ram, so I'll just buy a memory card later, it's cheaper than springing for the model with more built in ram.
I also picked up Kill Bill vol. 1. Cool half-a-movie. Not enough spurting blood for my taste tho, QT is getting soft in his old age. Speaking of gratuitous gore, saw Cabin Fever on the weekend. It was ok, lots of people spewing blood. A little on the predictable side, a bunch of kids get sick, die horribly, the end. Doesn't really build up to any kind of climax. On the other hand, I saw Wrong Turn as well and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I was only checking it out because it had Eliza Dushku in it. I had no idea it was a gory, slasher flick. Stan Winston did the make-up effects and they're great. I found it a lot more entertaining than Cabin Fever, although CB wasn't half-bad. I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean [pretty good] and X-men 2 [very good as well]. And the Mangler 2 [very very bad, and silly].
Also got Metroid Prime for my Gamecube. Haven't played it much, been too wired on Super Mario 3.