Happy wings

Mental Retardation

"George Bush Sewage Plant" makes S.F. ballot -- Queer Lesbian Gay News -- Gay.com

Interesting Article Today. The George Bush Sewage plant. After dealing with Bush's crap, he can now deal with yours.

"George Bush Sewage Plant" makes S.F. ballot -- Queer Lesbian Gay News -- Gay.com

Tree stump

That is pretty cool. A tiled tree.
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Face in the tree.

While walking home today. Came across a face looking back at me.
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Bees

Weird. These bees where just sitting on the sidewalk here around a larger bee. They were alive but just sitting there.
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baby sexuality

What happens when the parenting section is put next to the sexuality section at Indigo books.

Ok maybe only fucked up for me.
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Tom Selleck Cake

Craftzine.com blog: Tom Selleck Cake

I am conflicted about if I got one of these on my birthday.

Menu

If you post a menu. Might want to remove the dead flies.
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The Ice Man

Right now I am in the progress of a move from Calgary to Montreal, I was going to resist blogging until then. However Since currents events with Canadian Copyright Laws are really nagging in the back of my mind. I thought I would make an entry. 

Just to give you a bit of a brief synopsis here: There is a new Copyright Law currently in the works here in Canada and it is going and it is being passed by Jim Prentice of all people. This new law is not consumer friendly in any sense. Again our government is being pushed by big US industry (not Canadian Industry) to do its bidding. Further criminalizing people for finding ways to use technology to make their life easier. 

Big Industry loves free economies, because well people are free to do what they want with little consequences and if you are not ahead of the curve you wither and fade away. However when an industry gets too big, it doesn't like to adapt, it would like it better if people adapt to it. Er correction, the Government to adapt to it and punishing it's people for not following to what big industry wants.  To bad big kids, the little kids have found better toys, stop breaking them.

I am getting off track here, now let me ask you a simple question (Thanks to my friend Bobby for making this analogy) 

Do you remember the ice man?

No, well let me just remind you. Back in the old days there was a man that would go door to door selling ice. Why? because people had ice boxes, and they would put large bricks of ice in these boxes to keep their food cold.

Now why don't we have ice men anymore? that is right, because a newer better technology came along called refrigerators and plus with more and more houses getting electricity, even the furthest of houses no longer needed their ice man. However why didn't the government save the ice man? Because they were out dated. Same reason why they shouldn't save the big media industries. Just think of how silly it would be, making it illegal for people to use their refrigerator, or even sillier, make it illegal to take food from your fridge put it in a smaller more portable fridge, or take some food out of your fridge and put it into your friends fridge.

Now VCRs are pretty much at the end of their life, so before your VCR kicks the bucket you want to back up your tapes to DVD, oops sorry it is illegal, here is your 20,000 Dollar Fine and probably some Jail time as well. Oh and by the way, I think it is perverse and stupid that the fines for this law is a larger fine then speeding in a playground zone. Why? well let us see, Speeding in a Playground zone endangers lives, nabs you 500$ fine at most (depending on city and such). Copying your DVD to your iPod can nab you up to 20,000$ fine and time in Jail (you can possible loose your house and car as well). Yet people don't loose their right to drive for endangering lives.

Thank You Government of Canada for making everyday consumers more criminal then people who race on the street in residential neighbourhoods and drunk drivers. 

Also, Jim Prentice, I am disappointed in you. You listened to your constituents and voted in favour of the gay marriage bill, now you have become as spineless as the rest of the cabinet, plugging your ears and going "La La La La LA" when we try to talk to you. Way to go.

Gawd Damn I am on a angry streak this week. 

*image from flickr user williewonker.

Mosaic Photos, Part 1

I have been creating some photo mosaics and have decided to start sharing with you. Ok, and I use the word create quite loosely. I used a piece of software called MacOSaix, a pretty sweet piece of software if I might add.

Here is the first image.



It is Richard Garfield, the man behind the game/addiction of Magic the Gathering. So I got a hold of a Magic Card Image Collection (Thanks MWSHQ team) and ran the collection and the picture of Rich through MacOSaix and few adjustments later, abracadabra boom!

This one here is of my friend Mel



The images are sourced from a search result of the tags "flowers" and "roses".

I have a few more I am working on, but I can't get them the way I want them just yet.

Enjoy for now!

[[Edit: oh, when you view the photo, to download a larger version click on the link to the right "Download Photo".-B]]

Again and Again Music Video

Using screen shots and videos captured from a mac, this interesting music video. Pretty recent since I can see features of the latest OS like time machine.

Microfiche Earings - Craft Experiment

I have decided to try to get back in touch with my creative side, and thanks to my partner BJ taking me to FireEscape a couple weeks ago I felt that creative spark that I have been missing.

As I was going through my stuff for our move to Montreal, I came across a bag full of Microfiche. I remember saving a bunch of these when I clearing out some shelves at a warehouse I use to work at. Specifically these were from old parts manuals for tractors.

Anyways, one day, while procrastinating, I started cutting up the microfiche just for fun. All I used was a basic art knife (cut on self healing mat), spiral punch (Lee Valley Rocks for cool tools). The earing hooks were acquired from BeadWorks a couple blocks away. The aluminum rings where from my chain mail supplies that I acquired from The Ring Lord.

Oh and from the designs, you can probably guess I like video games. Especially classic look.

Tetris -With these ones I decided to do two shapes, to help illustrate the Tetrisness.

Space Invaders

Ok, so not a game based one. But my first ones I made.

Email posting.

Wow! Blogger has email posting for mobiles! On a basic account. Woot!
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Testing picture posting.

This is me testing emailing a picture from my cellphone to Blogger.
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CBC.ca Unblocked in China With Help From Listeners

Apparently listeners in China of the CBC radio show/Pod Cast "Search Engine" notice one day that the CBC was blocked. After listener action and feedback from Chinese listener's, CBC's President [ Hubert Lacroix ] appealed to the Chinese Ambasador and was able to get cbc.ca unblock. Link

The Optimus Keyboard.

Think Geek now carries the Optimus keyboard. Still a bit steep at a 1600 USD. However it has tones of interesting features.

• Each key has it's own LCD screen.
• The editor lets you do many things with the keys, such as link them to macro's or have them display a animated image or such.
  
• You can change languages at the push of a button.
• Each key appears to be removable, thus if one screen breaks, you just need to replace that key.
• SD - Card attachment

Now this is how keyboards should have been a while ago, or at least available. With my keyboarding habits, I do not believe this keyboard is good for me. I tend to bang the space bar really hard and I eat at my keyboard.

However I do have to say kudos to the option to replace keys individually. I mean a product like this would be a great waste if one had to replace the whole thing because one key was broken.

This product right now are for the early adaptors in a product life cycle, I would not even rate this for the Trend Setters yet. However if you still think this is a cool keyboard, but don't want to shell out the cash, you can always get the three button edition.

ThinkGeek :: Optimus Maximus Keyboard :: Zoom!

Mortal Combat Verse DC Universe

Announcer on TV: Coming up next, The Jetsons Meet the Flinstones.

Bart: Uh-oh, I smell another cheap cartoon crossover.

Homer: Bart Simpson, meet Jay Sherman, the film critic.

Bart: Hey man, I really love your show! I think all kids should watch it. (shudders, to himself): I suddenly feel so dirty! [source:Wikiquote]

I do really wish I was kidding about this, but it is true. It looks like Midway games in an attempt squeeze more life out of an already dead verse with the release Mortal Combat vs DC Comics.

From the looks of it, it is designed to be a serious thing. I am sorry, but I am from the realm that most crossovers are not suppose to be serious. Take for example Marvel vs Capcom 2, a 2D fighting game with nearly every character you can imagine from those series. And the plot, well there is no real plot, which is good, that means some poor writer out there has been saved the death sentence of having to write for a crossover.

I mean sure people, I for one would like to see Robin have a metal hook jab into his throat and drag across the room by Scorpion. However I don't believe that this wasn't part of the designers sitting around the table in a "Don't you think it would be cool" kind of conversation. More like "Look guys, either do this or not get paid" kind of conversation.

Sometimes, I really do hate marketing. Link. Via [Canadian-Shield]

A New Vessel to Guide you Across Styx

In this day of name branding and widespread product, it seams that marketing knows no ends. Many times this leads to detrimental effects to the actual functionality of a product (IE an embroidery sewing machine that will only produce Disney characters, even thought the chip is perfectly capable of producing other patterns input from a machine).

Anyways it appears that the marketing people at Sanrio [or at least a company licensed by Sanrio] thought it would be a great idea to have Hello Kitty Tombsone. Yes that is right, the worlds most well recognized brand image character Hello Kitty, is now available to stand guard over you grave for thousands of years, probably made from plastic since it doesn't break down unlike those wimpy stone tombs.

Hello Kitty tombstone - Boing Boing

Zero Punctuation

If there is on thing that gives me comfort about watching Yahtzee tear apart a games for poor design, especially when he tears into Halo 3. Enjoy!

Using Meebo to Consolidate Your IM Clients

If you are like me and don't keep to one machine at all times and am constantly moving from one system to the next and are using, MSN, AIM, ICQ, GTalk, Jabber etc. Well then I would suggest you go with Meebo.

It is a simple web client really, all you have to do is enter your login for the service and viola, you can also create a Meebo account and then you can log into multiple clients and keep a history. Benefits of this as well is that you are not required to install software on your computer.

They also have support for Meebo rooms and Meebo widgets. Meebo rooms giving you the ability to create rooms and Meebo widgets giving you the ability to add Meebo rooms and chat boxes to your website. They also have iPhone support.

Features I would like to see.
* IRC Support
* More custom colours
* Custom emoticon's, or maybe an emoticon builder.

Meebo

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

In Calgary we have a small theatre group that put on some pretty good productions, it is the Sage Theatre Group and the do their plays at the Pumphouse Theatre. The Pumphouse Theatre gains its name mainly for the fact it is built inside an old pumping station that was used to pump water from the Bow River to supply the North end of the city.

Hedwig is probably one of my favourite transvestite rock films, like always movies and plays show us a different world, one where a drag queen could become a famous punk rocker. However if that happened in this day and age ... well I am not sure how the world would react beyond find the band a gimmick.

I rather enjoyed this more than the film, since there was the interactiveness there, and the front part of the audience seating was set up like a casual music bar, tables and chairs and candles. Our table being near the front so we had what I would judge as the most fun.

* Pump House Theatre
* Song from "Hedwig and The Angry Inch"

Constant Season

So my friend Graeme is in the band Constant Season, last night I finally went to one of his shows to support him. Just to say, I was very impressed and the Marquee Room is a fun music venue that is for sure. I hope that the band becomes very successful, but not sell out level, just kinda a constant thing, almost like a spring or a fall you wish will never end. I am sure spring and fall have classification or something but I can't put my finger on it.

I have to say that I was a bit disappoint that Graeme and the Drummer didn't strip down to their undies, but Graeme always was a cock tease.

* Constant Season's MySpace Page (Hope to see some more songs there)
* Marquee Room's MySpace Page (some day they will have real websites)

(edited to fix spelling)

Graeme just recently told me not to listen to the music on their myspace page and to wait for them to release some newer tunes - Buck

Fruit Bottom

Saw this at the campus store, and thought "yeah, I feel like having a Fruit Bottom today", lame joke I know.

Veggin Out.

So right now I am going to try to become more vegetarian/anti deep fried eating habits. This is mainly for health reasons and also to get rid of that oily feeling that my skin gets after eating certain foods. I would eventually like to get rid of most fried foods and meats, with the exception of french fries since they are quite yummy.

Here is a list of exceptions however

1. fish and most seafood
   
2. game meat
3. Non-"Organic" Foods
   

So I can not really say that I am reducing the meat in my diet for ethical reasons, however I do not believe that eating game meat is not as bad as eating farm meat. Since the game animals are in the wild a majority of their life as appose to a pen. I know of hard core meat eaters that will eat pen-meat, yet refuse to eat game meat. Since to them the source of game-meat is cuter and more majestic and farm animals are just a bunch of ugly fuckers and deserve to killed off anyways.

As for Organic food, I can understand most of the reason why one would eat organic food, but I believe that things like milk and juices should be pasteurize. I bet you the next epidemic bacteria will probably be because a lack of pasteurization, well as long as I am not a carrot juice drinking ballroom dancer I should be fine.

I have decided to start removing meat systematically, as appose to doing the whole lot cold turkey.

First thing up on the list. Beef.

News :: CPC Tells Campuses to Lower Prices

The Canadian Publishers Council (CPC) is suggesting to campus book stores to lower the prices on all text books. With the Canadian dollar being so strong, the CPC can see the only logical conclusion of passing on the savings to the student population. Already some campuses have followed suit, however SAIT's Book Store has yet to do so.

Site :: Wal-Mart Litigation Project

The Wal-Mart Litigation Project is to collect files on lawsuits against Wal-Mart, the purpose of the website is to aid lawyers in possible suits against Wal-Mart. However, going through the site as a non-lawyer is still entertaining just to see what people can get away with.

Video :: Boys Beware

Perusing the Internet Archive always leads to something interesting. This video here is an old educational video to warn young men about the dangers of homosexuals. Apparently homosexuality also seems to cause you to rape and murder young boys. Also, for a video that appears to be warning people about dangers, the music does seem a bit happy and cheerful.

Ultimate Showdown

Ultimate Showdown

Ultimate Showdown is a funny animation with action (and some non-action) heroes fighting to the death. At the bottom of the website two characters are randomly selected and you choose which is more likely to win.