Gecko Bloggle

Had a halfway-decent post read tonight after about 45 minutes of writing, but when I hit the “publish” button, it went poof.

Ah, the joys of using beta software.

Just caught a commercial for Guitar Hero World Tour (looking suspiciously like some OTHER three-piece band game by another company who simply bought the development company) but here’s the cooperative cross-over from hell:

Kentucky Friend Chicken.

Really? REALLY? Anybody’s who’s ever been passed the five-buttoned Guitar Hero controller immediately after a particularly sweaty-handed rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” will know why this is a bad idea. Deep-fried chicken and plastic guitar buttons do NOT mix.

Waiting for the other shoe: Pizza and Wii (oh wait, THAT’S why everyone was spanging their controllers off their $3,000 plasma screens).

Of course, I routinely maw down (or is it mow down?) on licorice Goodies (which are recently GOODIER meaning more licorice and less half-crumbly candy stickettes) while sitting in front of my keyboard at work.

Oh, while doing some other stuff, I ran into a design site that has some stuff that nicely blew my mind for a good five minutes.

Part of the (literally) mind blowing Don't Play With Monkey

Oh, and in my days as a desktop technician, I’ve been called on a number of times to do data recovery for drives that have “died,” or are making horrible clicking noises. For the first time (as far as I know), someone has actually collected all the horrible click, grinding, chirping and buzzing noises hard drives make when they’re playing possum. Now, you just go to this site and listen to the various noises and weird pinging that hard drives make, and then explains what’s probably going on with the drive. (via Hack-A-Day). Might not save your data, but saves you from opening your computer case, sticking the phone in there and saying “So, is that bad?” to the guy at Best Buy.

Oh, and never ever ever EVAR take your computer to a place like Future Shop or Best Buy. Seriously, as much as we hate doing support for our friends (because of the whole “last touchies” thing, we generally don’t want to see you get screwed by some jerkwad at the store, who was selling cel phones yesterday.

And now, based on watching Canada’s Worst Driver season 4, I’ve decided that most of these people should just never drive ever again. I mean, the friends/spouses/children of these bad drivers have put them up to this, but I wonder if they can actually just plain call the cops instead, and say “Uh, yeah, you know what? Bob just shouldn’t be driving any more, like, at all.” How do these people get their licenses in the first place?

Sorta like that comedian I heard years ago, who suggested magnetic darts that you could harpoon into other cars who do stupid things, and the cops would automatically pull over anyone with three or more darts. At 10 darts, they just run you off the road.

Porches, Ferraris, and HumVees ship with two permanent darts.

HEY-O!

Oh, and if you’re in a restaurant, with your family, and you have one of those Bluetooth earpiece things in your ear?

That’s a ‘poonin’.

Went for a walk to Shoppers and then SuperValu to buy Qtips (it’s a thing, I just gotsa have my tips, yo), and some newspaper for a little random floor-board cramming, and it was sketchy out there tonight.

I mean, I live in the middle of Vancouver’s West End (well, to be fair, on the East Side of the West End), but wooftie. I saw the following things in no particular order:

• Taser-armed security guard with a bad hat, watching the front door of Shoppers.
• Less-than-subtle undercover security floor-walkers. (Seriously: Who buys a single houseplant at 11:10pm on a Sunday, by yourself? Didja drop something expensive last time you nabbed some punk stealing a Snickers bar?)
• Police takedown of some sort.
• Someone watching the takedown from 20ft away, with their hoodie pulled up like the world’s stupidest ninja.
• Another hoodie & backpack guy watching from about 100ft away, sorta-kinda hiding behind a big cube container in the parking lot of the Shoppers while trying to look nonchalant in that “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! way only the addicted/sketched can.
• A tipsy dude just about get taken out entirely by a bus, because he was trying to jaywalk in front of it. Sorta like seeing really bad drivers driving a AutoBody Courtesy Car. You can see how they got that way, y’know?
• The non-full moon behind mist. Can’t blame the moon tonight.

I have to go put away laundry now, and then off to bed.

Tomorrow is Sportball again, I wonder what’s next? Hockey? Bowling? Robot Wars?

Ripley discovered headphones work in the CD player in his room, which means he can listen to music at a volume above “The Red Line.” Now, he’s probably trying to figure out if his stereo can somehow get YouTube.

In which our hero does dishes, yells at the kids, and continues to grow his “moustache.”

Don’t have a lot to say tonight, ’cause Arwen’s out for a well-deserved night on the town, and I’ve been doing a little housekeeping (read: dishes), and keeping the kids from killing each other (or me killing them, for that matter). Today was a day of whiny kids, and whiny me. I slept in until 10 today, which is surreal for some reason, ’cause Arwen usually sleeps in on Saturdays, and then I get Sundays to sleep in. I don’t know why it seemed weird, but it did.

Fascinating, I know. Edge of your seat, huh?

Ooh, another spooky/scary/space movie. Screamers. Hmm… I think I remember something about this movie. The uh… the whatsit, the badness? Yeah, I think I remember that it’s bad.

Synopsis: The year is 2078, and on the planet Sirius 6B, a long, harsh, hate-filled war is being waged between the Alliance and the NEB’s. However the NEB’s are willing to begin peace talks, so Alliance leader Col. Joseph Hendricksson, accompanied by… The year is 2078, and on the planet Sirius 6B, a long, harsh, hate-filled war is being waged between the Alliance and the NEB’s. However the NEB’s are willing to begin peace talks, so Alliance leader Col. Joseph Hendricksson, accompanied by a man named Ace, and later a young boy, journey across the nuclear war-ravaged plains to meet with their foes. Upon their arrival, however, they discover that most of the NEB’s have been annihilated by the “screamers,” knife-brandishing robots that slice and slash humans simply for fun. Hendrickson and Ace soon realize that their lives are in grave danger, for it’s impossible to know who to trust… for the blood-seeking screamers can take on any form, from an inanimate object — to a young boy.

What they left out is that the first five minutes involve a guy wandering into the human’s compound, and before they snipe him (why? exactly?) he gets chunked by what looked like someone dragging a mini traffic cone under the sand. Like Tremors meets Dune, only with more stupid. Since a human with a gun seems to have ZERO chance of surviving for even a moment, what’s the point of being a mimic? Seems like a lot of extra work for no payoff.

28% on RottenTomatoes.com, so you KNOW it’s good.

I just sneezed like a crazy person, and now I smell honey. Not that I smell OF honey (I might, but I doubt it), but I can smell honey. Weird. Maybe I was a bee in a previous life. Maybe I was human, but died with a bee-hive on my head. That’d probably make ya sneeze.

Oooh, I’m a make waffles tomorrow morning. I usually end up infusing the waffles with something, instead of putting something ON them. Sometimes it’s things like bits of ham, or cheese, but I think I’m gonna do from fruit tomorrow. Pineapple. Tate likes that, and Ripley’ll probably be starving after overdoing it at dinner, and then yarfing shortly after going to bed. He’s sick-ish, but mostly he’s got a hair-trigger yarf reflex. So having a cold/flu thing that makes you cough really hard very quickly turns into sleeping on the floor with a big steel bowl next to his pillow, just in case. Poor dude.

Now, I’m gonna go write a letter to Arwen before she gets home, ’cause she likes it when I do that, and I like writing them too.

Further documentation of my own sheer awesomeness.

I haven’t coughed like this since I quit smoking. Makes me thankful I don’t smoke any more, ’cause this is not fun. It’s occasional, but it’s violent.

Got to see the new Bond movie today, thanks to NetApp and XSM. It was fun. Bumped into people I used to work with. Still the same old folks. Some of that stuff I miss, but the wheeling and dealing types? No thanks. Always an angle.

The movie though: I gotta say I haven’t really followed the movies much since, oh, the 80s, maybe. Not that I don’t enjoy them, I just don’t really NEED to see them. Y’know?
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During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I’m growing a Moustache. That’s right, I’m bringing the Mo back because I’m passionate about tackling men’s health issues and being proactive in the fight against prostate cancer.
To donate to my Mo you can either:

1. Click this link https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=2116366&country=ca and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or

2. Write a cheque payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada’, referencing my Registration Number 2116366 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada

Attn: Movember
145 Front Street East
Suite 306
Toronto Ontario M5A 1E3

Donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

The money raised by Movember is donated directly to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada who will use the funds to create awareness and fund research across the country into prevention, detection and treatment, with a goal to ending the threat of prostate cancer.

Did you know:
• Every year around 24,700 Canadian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 4,300 die of the disease, making it the number one cancer threat to Canadian men.
• 1 in 7 men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime.
• All men over the age of 40 are potentially at risk and should talk to their doctor about the disease and early detection. Prostate cancer is 95% curable if detected and treated early.
For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the details at:

[ Fundraising Outcomes ].
Movember culminates at the end of month Gala Partés. If you would like to be part of this great night you’ll need to purchase a [ Gala Parté Ticket ].
Thanks for your support,
John.

More information is available at http://www.movember.com/.
Movember is proudly grown by Canadian Club, Mercedes-Benz and Philips.
Movember is a proud partner of the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada.

Arwen was going through our inbound links, and found out there’s an IT videoblog overseas (well, maybe not, maybe they’re just both English) that’s using a track (titled He Feels Guilty Now) from my first album as their closing credits. This is seriously surreal, since that track was started some time in ’97 or so, back when I was using a freakin’ DOS program to make 8-track “music” called FastTracker, and wasn’t finished until 1999, for the album “Through the Windows of the Temple.”

I often wonder what the music for certain commercials or radio shows are (Johnny Vancouver and I did a whole podcast about television and movie music), but it seems the folks at www.ITIdiots.com are asked often enough that they put it on the main page of their site.

Music Used By The Shows

Friday, 21 December 2007

We thought that based on the number of requests we receive for information on the ITidiots show music that we would give you all the info and downloads directly from our website. Opening Credits ITidiots is by FuriousBall and called So Funky It Stinks which you can download here. Closing Credits ITidiots is by Gecko Temple and called He Feels Guilty Now which you can download here. HD Car Run is by Samantha Murphy and called I Wanna Go Home which you can download here.

SWEET!

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In which our hero finds himself endlessly fascinating, and thinks everyone else will agree with his take on things.

Ooh!  Lookie Me, I’m A Reflecto Ninja!

Can you see around corners in your house?  I can, sorta.  Meaning, I know where every single reflective surface is in the place.  I think it comes from wearing glasses from a fairly young age, and learning that I had what were essentially rear-view mirrors in my periphery.

Also, probably owing to some dyslexia, I got pretty good at flipping things horizontally a few times to decide what the most likely usage of a particular letter might be.  Comes in handy when you’re looking in a mirror or two to see whether or not there’s a junkie on the porch (it’s happened a few times) without actually being directly visible from the outside.

Where was I going?  Oh yeah, I’m fascinating.  Maaaaan of mysteryyyyyy…

I have two theories I’d like to share, wanna hear them?

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So it’s 5 to THREE, and I’m grabbing a cab to unconsciousville in a moment, but wanted to make a few quick observations before today becomes yesterday, and my mental snooze-bar gets slapped, erasing the day.

Tate is great at whatever sport we throw at him, including volleyball, which I thought would be too much for his non-sport-raised three-year-old self, but instead he managed to plaster the ball off the low-ceilinged-part of the gym and offa dad’s head, which brought a well-deserved laugh from all involved.

Arwen gets full points for telling me, mid phone call, that I should go OUT and DO something on a Monday night, because tomorrow is Remembrance Day in Canada, which will (it seems) be remembered this year by a certain non-military-going offspring of an offspring by being hungover and generally not feeling good until after the third or fourth cup of water/coffee.

While neither of my mom’s side of the fam died in a war, they were both there in the mess, I think. That’s a topic for tomorrow, I think.

According to television marketing, there are a lot of people sitting at home, drunk, with credit cards, thinking they’d have company tonight except for that stupid lack of abdominals.

The office is on, if you go up the channels high enough, so not all is lost for society at large in North America.

Note: People still dance. Even to 25+ year old music. Even people who aren’t 25 yet.

The goths dance to all sorts of things, not just the goth stuff. Anything short of Pump Up the Volume, and the goths are suddenly kickin’ it old school.

I don’t feel sick any more, just kinda tipsy, and sleepy.

G’nite.

Oh, and I have a terrible, terrible mustache right now, and it’s all Movember’s fault.

So I was thinking I’d use a new theme (what do ya think?), and thought while I was at it that I’d try the latest (and vastly different) version of WordPress.

Famous last words.

It’s like swapping the engine of your car WHILE DRIVING IT.

All good now, I think, after an initial “Hi, you’re hooped”-style error message for a few minutes.

Re-uploaded everything, and it seems to be okay. Ahee.