Posted On Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 By Zen Render
Guy I used to work with suddenly started talking to me after about a year and a half of nothing. Looks like he got hit by what we at EA used to call an “MSN IQ Test.” Gotta give them credit for incorporating that INTO the bot itself. Remember kids, just ’cause someone you know sends you a link, doesn’t make it safe. ViralBot 1:29 PM hello! Zen Render 1:41 PM Hey man, how goes? ViralBot 1:42 PM i just took an iq quiz Zen Render 1:42 PM Okay… The one for the interview process at work there? ViralBot 1:42 PM Hi! 1:42 PM yeah, I was brighter than I am Zen Render 1:43 PM I suspect that perhaps you’re a bot, or something, instead of actually Mr. (ex-coworker) ViralBot 1:43 PM you should look if u can do better than me, http://{badlink} Zen Render 1:44 PM Yeeeaaaah… Not so much. {ex-coworker}, sorry you got hit, man. Good luck. ViralBot 1:44 PM i bet you cant haha 1:45 PM hey! Zen Render 1:49 PM Hello, Bot McBotterperson. Your programmer should have taught you that most people don’t say HI/Hey!/Hello three times in a five minute period. ViralBot 1:49 PM i Continue Reading
Posted On Saturday, November 28th, 2009 By Zen Render
Was watching a commercial tonight for Disney, and it opens with two Dumbo cart things flying through the city. As they swing past us in that opening flight shot, there’s a lens flare, and… …and I start thinking about lens flare, and I was thinking that Ripley and Tate don’t know what lens flare is, as they haven’t yet seen movies that uses gigantic lenses for the, for the glass of it, y’know? Lens flare is an artifact of using glass lenses, and is something that’s become a cliche for computer-generated film folks, as it’s one of the first tools that people started playing with in Photoshop while making the pamphlets for their illegal rave, or their new Business Improvement Project, or whatever. But it’s supposed to invoke the reality of an actual camera filming something, to make you think you’re watching film of Dumbo flying over the city. That’s all well and fine for ME, ’cause I know what a camera looks like from the shoooter’s side, but do my kids know? They have always known digital cameras, with framing your shot by looking at the little 1.5 inch screen on the back of the unit, and not looking Continue Reading
Posted On Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 By Zen Render
HelLO, and welcome to another episode of “I’ve Reflanged the Barkolounger” with your host, Rupture Q. Throngboggle PhD, PTSD, NPC. Tonight to change thing up not at all, I’m going to tell you about some surfing I did. One of those things I do all the time is try to figure out how to get things to connect to stuff they’re not already connected to, and this often leads me to wondering how I get popular communications device A into protractive retrogrunion B. This evening, when I was in transit home, it occurred to me that my Blackberry has Bluetooth, and my Netbook has Bluetooth, and I’ve heard about people using their Blackberry to connect to the Internet when they’re in the middle of a field or something, so I thought to myself “Are we home yet? Did I miss my stop? Have my ears popped from coming out of the underground tube of Canada Line yet? Florence and the Machine is better than you think it’s going to be in the first four bars of any song. I wonder if I can get my Blackberry to use my Netbook’s wireless connection to get onto the ‘Net instead of the Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, November 20th, 2009 By Zen Render
I got nothing for ya today folks, so I’ll just say a couple really quick things: My half brother in law is back in hospital – think happy thoughts. My dad’s in Mexico so I ended up doing a long distance support call Last month, I did the same thing (remote connect) for my mom, in Juba So then I had to try to troubleshoot the video camera of my half-sister in-law, too. While THAT was happening, the emergency number called me, Vancouver studio was “off the map” Had to zip into the office tonight to apply the technician proximity effect Worked like a charm. Everything was running again by the time I sat down at my desk. Disaster averted. Fire fought. Action taken? None. Looks like my buddy Nilo might be heading home to LA in the near future. I’m going to miss him a lot, he’s been a good friend, and I don’t have many. Not sure if that’s because I lose them, or just don’t make them very quickly. Ghost Whisperer is officially my guilty pleasure. Stupid show, but entertaining, and Jay Mohr cracks me up. Jonny Vancouver called tonight with a “humline” request, and I had Continue Reading
Posted On Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 By Zen Render
This evening I was bombing around Hintertubes looking for clues about a new album by Burial, and was reminded of how I found this weird little bubble of sound in the first place. Rather, I was reminded how I did NOT find this artist. I didn’t find them on the radio, or a magazine, or even through a friend, it was something I faceplanted into during a dig in the databases of a record label I knew nothing about. I think it took me about ten minutes to figure out whether Burial was the name of the song or the name of the band, ’cause there was so little information about this song (it was Archangel, from the album Untrue). What was really fun was that the person who is Burial doesn’t do interviews, and doesn’t really talk about the process, and probably doesn’t perform live very often (and if he did, I dunno if it would work). I tend to become loyal to labels, which is odd for me, considering how I’m not really crazy about large corporations when it comes to their treatment of their lesser-known musicians. Maybe it’s the whole sellout effect. As soon as they become Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, November 16th, 2009 By Zen Render
Oh man, I just sneezed, and now I instantly have a headache AND feel like I have a cold. Yaaaaay. Wow, today was a hardcore Vancouver rainy crapfest. Welcome to Winter. Last week was Fall, this week is Winter. The way Vancouver works though, next week will be Spring, after our obligatory three days of snow (which then becomes slush, and then we’re done). The moustache for Movember is finally starting to look like a moustache, BUT it’s almost impossible to get a picture of it because a flash washes it out, and NOT using a flash makes everything in the room yellow/orange. The best part is that it looks sorta dirty-reddish brown to the corners of my mouth, but then goes completely white. It’s like uh, what, it’s like Hulk Hogan or a two-tone biker or something, but with more crewcut, and less arms. I dunno. You guys tell me when you go check out the photos. While you’re there, make the stupid moustache have a point and donate a few bucks to the cause, mkay? Today I stumbled across the Bizarroworld’s version of FailBlog - Succeed Blog, and along with something I Tweeted earlier about someone starting a Continue Reading
Posted On Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 By Zen Render
That’s not as sexy as it sounds, let me assure you. So, I rode to work yesterday without incident, but I need to invest in some of those slightly hilarous booties for cycling, ’cause here in Raincouver on Canada’s Wet Coast, we surely do love ourselves some rain, I tell you what. So this means my 40-minute ride to work equals a pair of very wet shoes, but that’s fine, I have new clean dry socks to wear, right? This would work if I was at home, and flumping around the house without wearing those same wet shoes, but NOOOOOO, I put the same shoes right back on again, and within 15 minutes, I’ve got wet feet again. Doi. Today was a good ride in, and a good start to the ride home, but about six blocks away from work, I got a quick flat, and had to do a tube change under the awning of a banking building. The good news is that it only took me about five minutes to swap the tube, the bad news was that the little cool lookin’ pump I have in my sidebag is missing a piece, and while it made pumping noises, Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, November 9th, 2009 By Zen Render
“Seek the Yay. Avoid the Woo. Be Brave. Don’t Burn Yourself.” – The We Trip (1995 I think?) Some of you are joining our program already in progress, while coming in from NaBloPoMo or Movember, so I thought I’d cop out on plot today and go for a little character development instead. I work in IT for a film special effects company on Pender near Bute (after seven years of working for gaming companies), and generally try not to use any business-speak in anything I do, but it’s a proactive (not “reactive”) engagement of my skillsets going forward. *FUCK* I’m married (6 yrs?) to Arwen (you might know her: she used to hang at the Passion from time to time when she wasn’t working graveyards at Blenz on Robson or Blenz on Davie. We’ve got two kids (boys: Ripley is 7 and Tate is 4) and Arwen’s working on her 2nd novel (no, not a NaNoWriMo, but she’s editing her latest, so she calling it NaNoEdMo). We moved this summer form Mole Hil (right behind St. Paul’s) to Marpole (waaaaaaaay out at 67th & Oak), and I’ve been ramping up to cycling to/from work (25km, round trip) since we moved. Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, November 2nd, 2009 By Zen Render
Long post warning: You has it. November 2nd. No point in posting the picture of my alleged moustache, ’cause there’s hardly anything there unless I have *just* finished shaving with a Bic, and I don’t have a camera or the patience to even bother getting anything approaching a macro setting for some hairs on my lip. Also, even though I initially thought I was going to go for some sorta triple-threat thing and blog every day AND grow a stache for Movember AND ALSO PLUS cycle to work every day, I can’t, ’cause my back tire has a slow(ish?) leak and is currently flat. Yes, the back time with the kevlar tube guard thing that’ll stop anything sharp from getting anywhere near it unless that sharp thing happens to be on the road, I guess. Oh! Story about the crazy who jumped my bike last week. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow okay? Okay. Coffee? What coffee, YOU shut up. Ahem. Starting now. [Monty Python Man At Desk]: Good evening. I like to think I type gibberish like that because it’s witty, somehow, but mostly it’s just that I’ve found that typing damned near anything will get me going Continue Reading
Posted On Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 By Zen Render
Have to adjust my bike's brakes tomorrow morning, as I had a teensy bit of a closecall today. Also, need to wake UP on the way home. Hi mom! # BBC's Mary Anne Hobbs dubstep experimental radio show is freaking me out. It actually makes me sad there's nothing CLOSE to this here in BC. # For those of you wondering what the heck I'm talking about, listen for yourself here. http://is.gd/33Sfy Happy 090909! # Powered by Twitter Tools