Gecko Bloggle

I must be doing something right, I’m getting more spam in my filters in the last week than I have in the last year.

Found out something cute today, as a sorta followup to something fun Arwen found out a few years back.  When she was doing some research for her degree, she was reading something about “Sniffer” programs (used to watch/capture network communications), and came across a German article talking about “Shnuffleprograms,” and we had a good giggle about it.

I mentioned it to someone at work who speaks German, and they pronounced it for me.  It’s even cuter than Arwen and I originally thought.

It’s pronounced “Shnewfil-program.”

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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.

I spent most of the day sleeping, ’cause I seem to have about 25 minutes of life in my batteries before I need to crash out again.  Got up late (the kids don’t have a weekend schedule), and I slept on the couch for a while before we wandered outside to get some loonies (dollar coins, for our American readers) for laundry, and then looked at fish and lizards and what might have been chincillas (?) at Aquariums West.

Managed to get home *just* before I crashed out again in Ripley’s top bunk ’cause our bedding was in the laundry.

Remember last week, when I was all “Lookie me, I made Pot Roast!”

Yeah, today Arwen did THIRTEEN loads of laundry today (Tate’s potty training, and somehow we’re just wearing more, I guess, maybe?)

Are ya… are you truly grokking how incredibly fascinating my day was?  Like, WHOOO!

We watched Simon Pegg’s new movie “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People,” which was a bit of an anti-Hollywood/NewYork thing, which is interesting, considering how Hollywood Simon Pegg has been getting over the last few years.  Last time I was in Rogers Video, and renting Pegg’s “Run, Fat Boy, Run” and the lady behind the counter started asking if I’d seen Spaced, which is pretty rare in Canadian circles, being a BBC4 show.  Good though, that our boy Pegg is going places.  Maybe now the rest of the shows cast by his friends will start showing up over here more, too.  Black Books, Green Wing, maybe even some No Heroics.

Maybe you have to be a certain KIND of Canadian, but we seem to like what they do over there, and then the folks to the South seem to like paying us to be funny for them.  Up here, we’re all “That was pretty good, y’know, considering you’re Canadian and all.”

Okay, I have no brain left now, and need to eat something before my stomach gets wobbly again.

Just a quickie hello to the world, ’cause the Mighty Mighty MoxieSnacks is over, and we’re getting our drank on. It’s a thing that happens every few weeks, and usually when it’s deeply crapulent weather outside (as opposed to what – the weather inside?)

Oh, so I don’t have the headache today, but I am crackling some sorta tinfoil in my chest that makes me cough when I lie down, and my nose decided to have a gushing freakout, so I raided the bathroom cabinet.

So I’m on:

1. About 2000cc of vitamin C. Couldn’t hoit.
2. One daytime antihistamine/allergy thing (Sleep? Hah!)
3. One nighttime sinus cold thing (Staying awake? Hah!)
4. A cup of coffee (to smooth me out).
5. A glass or two of Arrogant Frog “Ribet Red”. $12/bottle
6. A glass of Peller Estates “Proprietor’s Reserve” $13/BIG BOTTLE

So I’m not writing much today, but I’m sure as hell yammering a LOT. Srsly. Shut. Me. Up.

Karla got to me, and I signed up to Twitter. It seems that NONE of my friends are on Twitter (with the same email address that I have for them in my messenger).

So yeah. I’m doing that.

Oh, and our soundtrack tonight was brought to us by RadioParadise. Thanks to Clara a few years ago for pointing me towards them.

Life on Mars should be a very bad show, based on the elevator pitch:

A cop in present-day New York gets hit by a passing car, and wakes up in 1973, still a cop in New York.  There’s some odd crossover from present day (people he knows in 2008 are younger in 1973), and the occasional anachronism (a kid shows up at some point with a Nirvana tour shirt on).

but it’s not.  I dunno much about it (like who wrote it, or whether or not there was a UK version first), but it’s like a grittier version of Quantum Leap.  I mean that in the best possible way.

Whoa, did you know this about Quantum Leap?

Quantum Leap is an American science fiction television series which ran for 96 episodes from March 1989 to May 1993 on the NBC network. The series was created by Donald P. Bellisario, based on a concept originally created for Galactica 1980. This concept was then reworked outside of the Battlestar Galactica framework.    – The Might Mighty Wikipedia

Well now you do (and doing is half the… wait… that’s wrong).  Now that piece of information is lodged into the same part of your brain that holds infinite amounts of 70s lyrics, you’ll never get that part of your brain working right ever again.  You’re welcome.

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