Mel & Saddam

Note: I initially planned on posting this a few weeks ago, back when it was a timelier ‘news’ item. Unfortunately, Blogger was playing hard to get and didn’t want to post any images for me. It’s taken me until now to get around to sorting it all out. As the kids say these days…better late than never.

Much has been written lately about Mel Gibson’s recent run in with the cops and the drunken ranting associated with it. Surprisingly, very little has been written about his physical appearance. Surely I can’t be the only one who noticed the similarity between Mel’s appearance and that of Saddam Hussein? While it is possible that sporting a grey beard is the latest Hollywood fashion, I think that there is more to it than that.

“I’m like a chocoholic, but for booze…and rage…and anti-Semitism.”

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful...or because I think you're an infidel.”

Shiny Car

I washed my car the other day. You probably don’t care. I barely care, and I was there. The car was fairly dirty – thanks to the fact that the town still hasn’t figured out that paving the biggest & busiest parking lot might be a good idea. So anyway, I washed the car to undo the effects of parking it in the Dust Bowl. For the most part I don’t really care how clean my car is, but every so often I do develop an interest in rediscovering what colour my car is, so I cleaned it. It turns out that the car’s natural colour is green, not dust. It also turns out that dust & dirt aren’t as shiny as a car’s natural finish.

Anyway, after cleaning the car I discovered something quite interesting. Actually, I discovered two things. The second item I discovered is that my brain doesn’t seem to have an interest in always protecting itself. How did I find this out? I found it out AFTER my first discovery while driving in the clean & shiny car, which was realizing that instead of looking where I was driving, I could look at the reflection of where I was driving off of my freshly cleaned (and shiny!) hood.

Although part of my brain knew that driving while looking at the reflection of the road instead of the road itself wasn’t very safe, another part of my brain was captivated. Although my Unsafe Part Of Brain was amused by this discovery, I’m glad that Safe Part Of Brain eventually took control of the situation. You should check it out sometime – just hopefully not while you’re driving anywhere close to me.

The New Airport Restrictions - Pointless? Apparently So.

Are the new airport security restrictions pointless? Here's an article that explains the implausibility of liquid explosives as well as discusses a few other interesting points about airport security.

For those of you hoping for sarcasm or any other form of humour, check back to tomorrow. I'll see what I can do for you.

The Pee To Pie Highway

I just got back from Vancouver. My time in Vancouver was good, but unfortunately getting there requires driving along Highway 99. They’ve been doing some major work on the highway for the past few years now, and despite their work in previous summers adding passing lanes, etc, driving to Vancouver is slower than ever. It’s probably because the highway is basically a two-hour long construction zone these days.

Despite all the changes to the highway, one constant has remained. There is a certain type of driver who continues to be found along the highway – the Passing Lane Super Hero. If they’re driving in a passing lane, there is no limit to how fast they can go (ok there is a limit – and it appears to be around 130km/h). But if there isn’t a passing lane, then suddenly they become afraid of the gas pedal (“Oh oh – there’s a yellow line on the road…and some trees off to the side…and a turn coming up… and cars in the other lane…and they’re GOING THE OTHER DIRECTION!”). That, or maybe they’ve just always wanted to be the grand marshal in a parade, and driving slowly with several cars behind them waiting to pass makes them feel like a parade leader.

Anyway, that was my adventures with passing lane superheroes and parade leaders. When you’re stuck behind a slow car, you have time to think about things like this. That…or get rageholic.

Yahoo headline 'Public laughs, shrugs at 12-planet proposal'

Link to article

Hmmm…I’m fairly certain I haven’t shrugged OR laughed at any planets lately. How about you?

Additionally, why are the planets putting together proposals? What are they proposing? Should we be concerned?

An event to add to the social calendar

Here's a fun upcoming event to add to the social calendar. Unfortunately it will be taking place in England, but it could be worth the trip for such a fun-filled event.

Reinstalling Windows in 47 Easy Steps

If for some reason you feel like tempting fate by reinstalling Windows XP, here is a step by step guide to help you through the process.

1. Prepare. Anything worth doing is worth sitting around and thinking about beforehand. Backing up any file that you ever want to see again is obviously a good idea and a key part to the preparation step. Another equally important step is to ask friends questions about the reinstallation process that you already know the answer to, so that if it doesn’t work out properly you’ll have other people that you can partially blame. Buying beer could be considered a part of the preparation step.
2. Wonder where all of your back-up discs, including your XP disc, are. While wondering where they might be these days, start doing a load of laundry instead. The laundry won’t help with the reinstallation process OR help you find the disc, but will result in having clean clothes. This will be handy in a day or two, when you’re finally done fixing your computer and you want to go outside again. Additionally, your laundry provides an excellent gauge of how the installation process is going. If you can reinstall in less time than it takes to do a load of laundry, things are good. If the reinstall is still going on long after the clothes have been washed & dried, then it has officially reached ‘Troublesome’ status (also known as ‘Arrgghh! Fucking XP!’ status – or AFXP for short).
3. Find your XP disk. Start the reinstall process.
4. Stop the reinstall process at the last second to go online to double-check something. Ideally, this would have been done during step #1, but you were preoccupied looking for potential scapegoats amongst your friends.
5. Start the reinstall process for realsies this time.
6. Swear at Microsoft and/or Bill Gates for reasons either real or imagined. Even if nothing is going wrong yet, odds are something will be frustrating you soon enough.
7. Sit around and wait. Although this may only be one step, it feels long enough to be 12 steps…or to drive you to a 12-step program similar to AA.
19. Now that XP has finished installing itself, every other program you use for your computer will need to be reinstalled and/or downloaded again. Yes, you are correct – this IS a fun step.
20. Complete 37 different License Agreements for various pieces of software. Think about joining the Pro Tour Of License Agreement Completion somewhere around agreement # 18. Realize that there isn’t any such pro tour around agreement #26. Continue on dejectedly now that your spirit has been broken until you complete # 37.
47. Try to remember logins, passwords, etc for every website & product you use.

Congratulations – you’re done. Or are you?

Reinstalling Windows

I think I need to reinstall windows XP on my computer. On the upside, my computer should run better once it's done. On the downside, I’ll probably have to remember countless logins & passwords again that are currently automatically saved in my computer - and that's a game that no one enjoys playing.

If the reinstall doesn’t go as well as it should, I may be without internet access, making it difficult (otherwise known as ‘impossible’) to update this site with new postings. I guess I can always write them down on paper and you can stop by my place to read them in person.

If you see new postings from me shortly, you'll know that the reinstall went well. If you don't see any new postings for a while, you'll know that something went wrong with the reinstall (or that I'm too much of a slack-ass to do new postings).

Happy August Day

Tomorrow (Monday) is a holiday in Canada. It’s a weird sort of holiday, as most people aren’t even sure what it is called or what it is for. All people know is that the first Monday in August is a holiday and they get a long weekend, and no one is going to argue or question that.

The name for the day seems to vary depending on which province you’re in. In British Columbia, it might be called BC Day, or maybe it’s called Civic Holiday. In Ontario it’s called Simcoe Day, for reasons that I’m not fully certain of anymore as I haven’t lived there for a while. I’m sure it has some sort of name in the rest of the country (after all, ‘BC Day’ wouldn’t be the most popular of names in other provinces), but I don’t know what.

I just call it August Day. It may not be the most exciting name, but it’s as good a name as anything else. More importantly, so few people know for sure what the day is called that you can bluff and convince them that August Day is indeed the real name for the day.

So why do we have a statutory holiday celebrating nothing in particular? Because we can, that’s why. Who wouldn’t want a long weekend in August? Happy August Day everyone.