Are you in Vancouver? Do you have a blog? Do you contribute to a blog? Would you like to?

Here’s the deal – a year plus back, Jeffery Simpson put out a call for people to contribute to Vancouver’s Metblog, and I jumped on board. Then the other bloggers wandered off – which happens. People have other stuff going on. Then… Jeffery started to wander off – dude got married even, totally understandable.

Now, if you look at the site, it’s been mostly me, and even I can only manage only once and awhile – currently, nobody has posted in a month and a half.

And that sucks – Metblogs LA, SF, New York are local culture and color forces to be reckoned with (and other cities), but in Vancouver, it’s suffered the usual blase follow-through. And that always boggles my mind – Vancouver is such a high-tech town, easily en par with LA and San Fran, but we can’t keep our Metblog jumping?

So here’s my thinking – committing to a site is hard and I don’t want to ask people to do what I can’t even manage myself. And I’m not even sure I can hook people up anyhow, at least right now. I’m not in any sort of EIC position.

BUT…

…I can post. All I need is, at a minimum, ideas, at a maximum copy.

Posting to a blog requires an idea and a write-up. And as evidenced by the site, I can only rarely manage both. But if I have an idea, the write-up is pretty easy. If I have a write-up, posting it is even easier.

So let’s put our heads together for the new year. For example, I’d love blog each and every Vancouver comicon, which happens a few times a year, but I always forget, and this is a free gig – I can’t devote the organizational time and energy to keep track of it and everything else cool in town. But if Toren, who goes regurlarly, were to remind me, I could write it up. If someone were to have something in mind and write it up, I can post it in their name (complete with linkage and hyping of their own sites/blogs.)

I think the mistake thus far is that Vancouver’s strength – highly creative, high energy – is also it’s weakness for a site like this. If it’s not a job that someone is getting paid for, it’s hard to focus a handful of editors to write for it consistently…

…but what if it was a group mind effort on the info side, and a one person custodial task to post all that info? Someone who’s on the site already. Someone who lives in front of his computer anyhow.

Think about it and do not think huge. If the idea excites you, do not make it a big undertaking, which in time will likely wear you down – pacing will be key here. If anything has been proven by Jeffery or myself, it’s that one person cannot fill this void – it will take a lot of people. In fact, even when there are a dozen editors, all that Vancouver has to offer isn’t covered. But a group mind would naturally touch on all things Vancouver.

Could be that someone only sends something my way just the once. Or maybe someone does it really regular. Maybe that turns into proper editorial access for that person. I don’t know.

But anything has to be better than Vancouver’s metblog just sitting there, looking stupid next to other, similar, metropolitans.

Please think about it and regardless of how small the contribution, please join in.

I think this is, officially, now one of my new year resolutions.

So, uh. Thanks for reading. Spread the word?

My friend Sarah, one of only a small handful of people I truely consider friends having met them online, has finished and published her novella, One Con Glory! It was initially a serialized story that got its grubby little start in the pages of Alert Nerd Press‘ PDF ‘zine, Grok (an anthology I, along with Sarah and Matt – another so-called Internet friend – periodically put together.) She then put the pieces together, polished it to a geeky shine, and reached out to myself (I did the cover, of which must be OK, because Sarah seems to like it and I have the uncontrollable urge to continue tweaking it) along with webcomics superstars Max Riffner, Benjamin Birdie, and Pj Perez, to illustrate. Not to mention she added extra bonus content (like any good geek would), in this case, a playlist.

The story spotlights an obsessive fangirl and her all-consuming quest for a particularly precious action figure. You can read a more detailed synopsis — as well as check out advance praise from the likes of The Savage Critics’ Jeff Lester, Fantastic Fangirls’ Caroline Pruett, and The Book Smugglers — right here.

I’ve read it, a couple of times now, and I can only say, short of launching into a full, scatterbrained review, that I think it would make a great little indie, romance film, and if I ever find a spare 100K lying around, I’m going to make it!

But for now… here’s an exclusive excerpt. Read on!

For those that aren’t familiar with the bits and bobs that make the Internet run, hopefully this might help – I’m posting it because there’s another round of fake posts flying around Facebook, infecting people’s accounts, and leaving a lot of people frustrated.

Domain names are the label you want for your site, followed by the type of domain (ie .com, .org, .tv, .ca, etc.) So, basically, YourNameHere.com – these can have subdomains, which are like slapping more names in front of the main domain. So, MyStore.YourNameHere.com, or porn.YourNameHere.com, and so on. They can even be things like secret.porn.YourNameHere.com, as you put more and more prefixes in front.

This is how phishing scams like to try and fool you.

whatisthis.facebook.com is a facebook like just as much as www.facebook.com is, BUT…

facebook.whatisthis.com is NOT a facebook website address. The phishers have registered whatisthis.com for the server of their little scheme and then added “facebook” as a sub-domain to fool people who will think it’s a real facebook link.

So, now you know – but here’s one more tip.

Sometimes in your email you don’t see the URL in the message, instead it’s a hypertext link, like on a website – meaning, there’s a bit of text that says “Click Here For Awesome Stuff and I’m Totally a Facebook Link!” – is it telling the truth?

Two ways you can find out – if you’re using web email, like Gmail or Yahoo, put your mouse pointer over the link, but don’t click it – then look at the bottom of your browser – you should see the address of the link there. Similarly, if you’re in an email application, and it won’t show you the address URL, try right clicking the link, choose the option to copy the link to clipboard, then in an open browser window, right-click the browsers address window to paste the link back in – DON’T HIT ENTER – as long as you don’t tell the browser to go to that address, it will just sit there for you to look at and judge if it’s a real address. You don’t have to put it in the address field – you can paste it into the Google search bar, or Word, or a text file – anywhere you can paste text, and have a look.

So, that’s the quick and dirty guide to helping not get nabbed by a scammer.

And remember – nothing on the Internet is so awesome you can’t take a moment to email a friend and ask them to confirm they sent you the link and that it won’t cause trouble.

Except the Mean Face baby – that kid is hilarious!

I’ve been wanting to share this for awhile.

Printed 25+ years back, in the Charlottetown Guardian (I’m assuming – this would be the paper mom was getting back then), is this recipe from the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne. I have not yet tried making this, but it seems easy enough.

The recipe sounds pretty hardcore and I am very tempted to try it, even though my tolerance for hot and spicy is pathetically low. What I love most about the clipping is that mom kept it. It’s such an odd mash-up of her June Cleaver-like passion for saving recipes, and her love of rock and roll. I also love, purely from a printing standpoint, this as an example of the good old days of newsprint. Empty spot – write something in by hand. It’s a funky contrast to today’s paper – even free weeklies don’t print anything that hasn’t been washed through a 8 computers first.

And I love that I’m able to share it – how many copies of this do you figure still exist out there?

Yes, yes. It’s a bit immature, but at the same time, the phrase isn’t offensive – it may only remind you of one that is offensive. And that, as they say, is your problem. If nothing else, owning or being offended by a cool t-shirt does give you something to Twitter about.

Comes in Red and Blue, various styles and sizes, men’s and women’s
$24.01 +shipping (Canadian – cheaper in US)
Order at SpreadShirt.com

This is taken from the mostly faded side of a brick building in the US that used to produce ammunition for the war (hence the importance of not, you know, creating fire around it.) The design was two stories tall on the factory wall – that’s how important it was. And frankly, even in the 21st century, being careless with fire isn’t smart.

Comes in Red and Blue, various styles and sizes, men’s and women’s
$24.01 +shipping (Canadian – cheaper in US)
Order at SpreadShirt.com

(I’ve continued to Twitter bits and pieces of the history of Robot Fighting, and other stray facts and commentary on robot fighting, so figured I’d better keep cataloging them here, or I’ll lose track of them)

I built my Robot Fighter HQ (Pacific North-West district) over the weekend. This is the red alert alarm. – http://blip.fm/~1t52d – Could always use a touch of the Enterprise klaxon though. Really, what couldn’t though?

I may have to write a robot fighter manifesto. Better now, before they all run wild (the robots, not fighters, of which there are too few.)

http://blip.fm/~1uv5e – Rest your weary head, robot fighter. The sun is rising over the junkyard you fought hard all night long to create.

Japan, surprisingly, has few robot fighters. They are, however, global leaders in mechanoid robot fighting equipment. 67% of world market.

A quick lexicon lesson – you know what a robot fighter is. A human trained to fight robots mano a machina;

Robot – More specific than dictionary definition. An artificially created, mechanical entity that has a notable level of self-awareness. This self-awareness is what often leads to malicious action on the part of the entity, either by rules confusion in the low-level thinkers; or in inhuman goals and desires without human moral or ethical checks, which can happen to the high-level thinkers.

A mechanoid is a robot by strict definition, but has no awareness. A car assembly line robot is a mechanoid. A mechanoid can run amok, but can often be dealt with by authorities. A warehouse loader will not protect its power supply, for example. Hence, the required distinction. Finally, there are cyborgs and androids.

Cyborgs are part human, part machine. An artificial mind in a human body has never been successful, thus most cyborgs are considered humans with artificial parts. There are no robots with human parts, you see. It’s a philosophical discussion.

An android is an artificial mind in an artificial body. They are extremely rare, numbering just over 300 worldwide. What distinguishes them from robots is that their extremely high level thought process nearly equals human thought. This thought brings with it a certain amount of human values, and by extension a sense of right and wrong in a society. Androids have, very rarely, done wrong, but they are completely aware of it and take responsibility. Their crimes are never violent however. It’s been suggested, by some androids even, that their unique existence is something they don’t take for granted as humans do and thus their generally peaceful nature. And the fact that no android has had to be violently dealt with. Except for Gen. Shennong (將軍神農), who fought and killed three robot fighters in Shandong province, China, 1973, before being defeated.

The tides are turning in the human’s favour in a robot fight, when everything goes slow mo and this song comes on. http://blip.fm/~1zzue

This one’s for the 1999 UN Expeditionary Force that dropshipped from Mars orbit to face 100-1 odds. 10 years, today. http://blip.fm/~1zzzk

It might seem a cheeky pick, but that’s actually what the Flight Commander played over the comm during the orbital insertion. They only discovered how badly the robot forces outnumbered them one month out from Mars. 100-1 and conventional weapons only. No bombing from orbit – the commanders opted to drop right on top of enemy, engage as quickly as possible. The men nicknamed it Meat Bombing, with typical battlefield humour. Flight Commander’s choice makes more sense with that in mind. The victors said it helped turn fear to fight during the critical drop – with only 10% casualties, few historians have argued otherwise.

Interesting fact, early experiments in electronic music were conducted to see if humans could learn to think more like a robot. Understand their minds more – it was the 60s. They did a lot of strange things. Nobody learned how to think like a robot but it did influence popular music. And many robot fighters say they use the precision of electronic music as a metronome while practicing. For timing as well as motivation during grueling routines.

Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love was a fighter favourite in the 80s http://snipurl.com/bq2ci (expand) until House and Techno climbed. Since some of you asked, I vary, but when I began training, it was a lot of Prodigy. http://tinyurl.com/b7v97j

Yes, the music is a good clue that robot fighting in the 70s and 80s was a lot different than the 90s to now. They got faster.

Magnus class fighters tend to use close-quarter mixed styles these days – Cali, Muay Thai-Boran-Lao, that sort of thing. You can’t fight a robot at arms length – you don’t have the stamina and sometimes nowhere near the reach. As scary as it is, you have to get in close, fast, and disable. Think John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank or Matt Damon in Bourne Identity. Only replace their European opponents with, like, a 12 foot tall, alloyed monster. The big ones are the worst. I’d fight 100 5 footers over one 12 footer, any day. Conversely, if you’re not a Magnus class fighter, use everything you can to stay out of their range. Or just stay away, really.

Most world military, many police forces, and several large corporations maintain “drop teams” – insanely high skilled snipers essentially. A good shot from a 50cal rifle can drop most rampaging, commercial grade robots, and the teams are far less of an investment than a fighter.

There’s a fighter saying, “Those who can, punch. Those who can’t, shoot.” And they say the converse about us. It’s a friendly rivalry though. The media lavished attention on Marine Specialist Johansen after the defeat of Titano-naut in Philadelphia, 1996, but Johansen would be the first to tell you the credit goes to the Marine drop team out of Quantico.

Unable to seriously damage the rampaging giant, LCpl Hauser and spotting partner PFC Williams hit a 1 inch light sensor at 500 yards. It triggered a 15 min period where the robot analyzed its options, allowing an inbound Johansen time to reach the scene before it restarted. In an interview with Jane’s magazine, Johansen was quoted “With that one shot, a six year old with a can opener could have taken it down.”

I’ve been asked the classes of robot fighters – it’s not a rank thing, but a discipline thing. Magnus class fighters, like myself, are martial. It is the singular ability to punch chassis with bare fists. But there are others. Babbage class fighters attack using electronic warfare. Spearman class fighters employ psychology. There hasn’t been a Spearman class fighter in over 50 years. A Davidson class uses a keen knowledge of mechanical engineering to disable a target. Next to Magnus class, they are the most hands on. They don’t use fists so much as tools. Wrecking bars are common. One Irish fighter in WW2 reportedly used a large screw driver. Name unknown. The Soviet army’s Rabota Ubitsa Brigade (literally “robot murderer”), unsurprisingly, issued hammers to their Davidsons. It’s optional now.

(after catching a Beyonce video while channel surfing)

That’s interesting – that’s a shock gauntlet Beyonce wears in Single Ladies video. Seems a strange thing to borrow for a video. Only NATO robot fighters (non-magnus class) use them. I’m assuming Jay-Z might know some people. Robot fighting is popular in the Hip-Hop community. One of the Wu-Tang completed basic training, or so I’ve heard. I can’t recall the name…

I recently shared a string of historical factoids related to robot fighting on Twitter. As they say, those that do not study the history of robot fighting, are doomed to repeat it. And when it comes to robot fighting, you do NOT want to repeat it.

–

Historical trivia – robot fighting was invented by the Scots in the 1840s.

Queen Victoria referred to them as Her Majesty’s Loyal Pugilists (Mechanical.) FACT!

On a related note, the British Indian Army was founded in 1857 so Highland regiments could train and deploy Gurkha robot-fighters in Asia.

Their most notable actions, prior to WWI, were during the 1900 Boxer Robot Rebellion in China. The campaign medal’s ribbon is a bar code (argued the first) that decodes as the date of the rebellion. It has only been issued 15 times.

The Victoria Cross of Meritorious Deconstruction has only been issued twice; Sgt. Major Alison Gallant of The Informatic Highlanders (St. Andrews) and Lt./Jamedar Mathebar Thapa of the BIA.The two fought together against a two-story German Unschlagbarenroboter at Passchendaele. The medals were posthumous.

The Guinness World Record for robot fighting is held by Dutch-Canadian John Hessels – 134 robots in one match at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1982. There is an urban legend that Mr. Roboto by Styx was inspired by Hessels’ fight. Dennis DeYoung was in attendance at MLG that night however.

NeoSeeker put up this awesome coverage of Cthulhupalooza a couple of weeks back. Lots of great video clips, and I get the last word!

This was not the first time my brother (baby brother, I might add) has zinged me, but it’s certainly one of the better times. That he followed it up with another barely two hours latter means he wins the cup. Whatever that cup may be, it is his.

While suffering a nasty Winter cold (see what I did there? I set up a plausible excuse for my dunderheadedness) I, with Maria, joined Andy and Caroline to go see a movie (it was Yes Man, which was actually kind of fun – watch for Danny Wallace, the author of the original, non-fiction book, at the bar, at the bridal shower.) Andy drives pretty much always, and as I am lazy and he is a good driver, I’m fine with that. But I like to tease about it;

“Can I drive?”

“No.”

“C’mon, lemme drive this time. C’monc’monc’monc’monc’m…”

“No, and besides, you can’t drive.”

“Nice. Jerk.”

“No, I mean, didn’t you hear about the new law? All out-of-province drivers have to certify for Winter driving before they can legally drive in Alberta.”

“What? That’s stupid!”

At this point, bells went off, but I was too worked up to notice.

“I have to drive tomorrow night! And I’ve been driving for the past week!”

“Well, it’s only a problem if they catch you.”

“And how would they enforce that? How does someone from out of province legally drive into the province? What about all the out-of-province drivers using a car with Alberta plates? How…”

Basically, the minute I started going, “That makes no sense” I should have translated it into, “Andy is pushing your buttons, you stupid keypad. Doop Doot BEEP!”

I was still fuming when Andy snorted.

“You made it up, didn’t you?”

“Ah, man, if I hadn’t laughed… we could have kept this going all night.”

After a fine Japanese feast (complete with Pocky – Vancouver sushi joints take note – and the proprietor threatening us at knife point), we moved on to the movie, where Andy started reading off the marquee;

“Yes Man. Benjamin Button. Day Staff Required. No idea what that one is about…”

“Me neither…”

Again, if at any point I hear myself say, “I’m not familiar with this movie” it should serve as a heads up. I know about most movies in general, and all the ones playing at a cineplex.

Basically, Andy was one step away from convincing me to go see the 7PM showing of The Theatre Needs People To Work During School Hours.

Jerkstore.

2008 will probably go on the books as the year the old auto industry was forced into transition. Maybe not. I mean, evil old men suffering from inertia might still figure out a way to run this even further into the ground, but I prefer to think positively. Hell, GM’s bringing back The Volt, for Pete’s sake. In a world where the gas is running out, we just have to cut back on consumption and move to electric. The system can’t hold as is. So, hooray, we painted ourselves into a corner and the planet will benefit.

But that’s not the end. We need to keep moving in a few other areas, and hey, why not during a recession? Industries, invest in a major shift in production, backed by government investment, means more jobs. Perfect.

Lightbulbs – we need to skip the compact florescents. While it’s true you get 8000 hours out of them for ten times the cost of a regular bulb, but, while minuscule, they do contain mercury. They can’t be the technology to replace old school bulbs – all that ends up in the ground at some point. We need to jump right to LEDs. You get 100,000 hours on one at twenty times the cost, but that cost will drop with production increases. Plus, they burn one tenth the electricity.

Batteries – Why are we still making non-rechargables? There are rechargables for sale on the same racks as regular batteries at reasonable prices. And I’m tired of switching in batteries on my Xbox controller? Sure, Microsoft makes money selling me a battery pack and plug – $14 a pop. Ideally, the controllers should, as some models do, come with the pack and charger with ten bucks on top of the cost. Done. And really, that should go for everything – if my iPod comes with a rechargeable battery, shouldn’t my remote?

DVDs – Cheaper to produce than VHS, even right out the gate, DVDs have quickly turned into a non-recyclable mountain of plastic. And the studio solution is to make them dirt cheap and crappy, then move us up to Blu Ray? This is the trickiest one, since nobody has a happy medium for how to sell digital copies to the masses – the public and technology is already there. I’m catching up on Dexter on my Xbox right now. It’s running off a thumbstick USB drive. And that’s the least elegant option available. But once we figure it out, disc production, Blu Ray or otherwise, will be limited to keepers – movies you really, really want a nice copy of, just like how we buy CDs these days. iTunes for tracks and albums we’re curious about, CDs for albums were sure about.

And I’d like to say it again – Styrofoam needs to go and be replaced with pulp paper packing.

I can’t make manufactuerers swap out styrofoam, but I think I can take a personal shot at the others. Well, I’m already on top of the digital versus physical media thing, but I’m going to take a look into the others. First things first, I need to take stock of how many batteries the house needs (6 AA, and 4 AAA, I think), how many lightbulbs the house needs (8), and upgrade. I’m looking at about $300. As an investment that will last over several years, I can make that happen.

I found my holiday favorites for 2008 (not including my own humble attempt at mash-up, from 2007.)

Sleigh Ride – Chandicious mix
For two weeks now, I’ve had a decade’s old Gap ad stuck in my head, and this is the closest thing to a full version (minus the pop non-sequiturs.) Here, have the Gap audio as well.

Donny Hathaway – This Christmas
Donny’s death is a bit of a downer, but his music is fantastic, particularly this fantastic Xmas tune (which beats Stevie Wonder’s What Christmas Means To Me, hands down.)

The Darkness – Christmas Time
Most rock acts that pump out an Xmas tune go all ballady – this is much the same, but the hair/glam/metal still rocks.

I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
I dug this one up for mom (and it did take some digging), because she used to sing this non-stop at Christmas. I knew it must have been a real song, but having never encountered it, it always seemed a little unreal, or made up. But here you have it. Christmas Kitch of the highest order.

Depending on who you ask, I think I’m supposed to ponder the life and death of Jesus at Christmas, but mostly I ponder things like, “Why did we get snow two weeks earlier than average this year?” or “How much business can I get done this week? Will everyone be slacking prior to the holiday?”

OK, technically I did think about Jesus a bit – earlier I read that traditionally you’re supposed to take down your tree the day after the Epiphany. The Epiphany is on January 6th. And the Epiphany is the day the Magi showed up to see the baby Jesus and the power of God was made apparent in the baby – which begs the question, does that mean baby Jesus wasn’t totally powered up for most of the first week of his life? That would certainly explain how a mortal could carry the son of God slash God Almighty for nine-months.

But mostly what I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about were my favorite / best-remembered toys as a kid. I’ve talked about my beloved tiny groceries set, as well as the superhero cakepan. I’ve found and replaced the cake pan set, but the tiny groceries are an unsurpassed toy. They don’t make sets anywhere near that massive anymore.

So now I’m obsessed about two other items that have resisted identification;

The first is a die-cast space-buggy. It was maybe three inches long, painted a metallic green. It had a plastic windscreen canopy, which I seem to recall was yellow. And the kicker was that it shot yellow plastic missiles from a launcher on its top. Was it Corgi? Matchbox? I have no idea, but I still remember that buggy. Without a good keyword, Google searches turn up nothing.

The second, in in many ways the most important, was an illustrated book of fairy tales. It was remarkable for two things. It was a collections of fairy tales by a variety of authors. It wasn’t simply Grimm tales – there were additions by Anderson and even better, Wilde. And it was illustrated, though the word doesn’t cover it. It was painted in detail – I remember bits and pieces from a variety of stories, but I keenly remember a number of illustrations from Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. The cave of jewels wasn’t just a pile of gems. The illustrations had whole trees filled with gem-like fruit. And the image of the stone closing in on Aladdin. Gah. I have to find this book. I need it and I need to pass it on. I don’t know that any collection of fairy tales has been as good since.

But what can I do when I don’t know the year it was published. I don’t know the name of the illustrator. All I know is that it was a white hardcover.

I’ll keep looking, but these have been a challenge for over a decade and probably will be for another.

…a wonderful Christmas time.

It’s that time again – Thanksgiving and Halloween are out of the way and the rush is on to decompress and relax before the start of the new year, while still managing to see everyone and do everything. Bit of a catch 22, but everyone tries.

Christmas Radio plays

Christmas Music

I wonder what I’ll put up this year? I love it when I taunt my self with surprises.

TinyURL went down for any hour today, which it’s done before, and makes me wonder if it’s going to be able to step up to the increased demand for it services – TinyURL takes big website addresses and files it away on a database, where they give it a much smaller, handier 5 character string (or some handy words of your choosing.)

So, like;

becomes;

http://tinyurl.com/4cdhdo

or, if I’d wanted;

http://tinyurl.com/bobanddoug

Handy. When it works.

There are other, similar services, some of which, TinyURL included are used in blogging tools – I have Twitter Update plugged into all of my blogs, which takes a new post, crunches the link in TinyURL and posts it on Twitter – HANDY! Except, only when TinyURL works. So, I thought I’d look around. In this case, I’m trying Twitter Tools, which will crunch links a link smoosher of your choice, PLUS, it has options, like turning Twitter posts into blog posts (yawn) or digesting them on a daily basis – this, I like.

However, it had a hiccup where dates were being used wrong, and thus the digests suck. But I found a patch and I’m waiting for midnight tonight to see how the tweet archive works. I’ll let you know how it goes.

If you’re interested, you can get Twitter Tools here, and the code fixes (which you’ll have to do yourself – don’t panic) are here.

Before you freak out, assuming you’re not super PHP studly (like myself) the guy with the fixes is very helpful, in that he shows the code before and after the bit you want to change, and clearly marks what it should be and what it need to be changed to – so, crack open the Twitter Tools php file in a text editor, and search for the bits that need to be changed. Drop in the new code over the old code – just like cutting and pasting – and save. Replace that file for the old file in your WP plugins directory, and you’re done. Or at least, for me, nothing exploded. Time will tell, right?

Oh, and this is a test post why?

To make sure the post is sent to Twitter as well, but of course.

I think I like this list more than the 100 things to do before you die – mostly because this list is free, and the things-to-do list is mostly an excuse to make you buy a book. I figure, I can think of my own cool shit to do before I croak.

Anyhow, here’s Gizmodo’s list of 50 Skills Every Geek Should Have. I’m crossing out the things I can do, and italicizing the things I’ve never done, but I’m pretty sure I could do in a pinch.

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop
2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes
3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone
4. Jailbreak an iPhone
5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable
6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken)
8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor’s Wi-Fi
11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point
13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console
14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat
15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo
16. Abstain from buying extended warranties
17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories
18. Fix your parents’ computer over the phone without looking at a computer
19. Enter the Konami code
20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
21. Type quickly using T9 texting
22. Program a universal remote
23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
24. Hide porn from your significant other (ABSTAIN)
25. Avoid DRM on everything
26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—and actually do it
27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free
28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry
31. Hackintosh your PC
32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet (ABSTAIN)
33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
34. Get around web content filters on public computers
35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password
36. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered
37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
38. Build a fighting robot
39. Write your own Firefox plugins
40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS
41. Get something on the front page of Digg
42. Get through to executive customer service
43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s
44. Rip a DVD to DivX
45. Build your own computer from parts
46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it
48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS (ABSTAIN)
50. Talk about things that aren’t tech related

Three Abstentions – I should explain. One, yes, I can hide most anything on my computer from anyone, not just porn. But the question says “porn” and I’m not such a geek that I’d get said significant other mad at me, just to cross another item off the list.
Two, I don’t download movies generally. I’ve downloaded old movies, as in impossible to find movies, but most of my downloading is TV, as I’ve already paid for TV with my cable subscription. BitTorrent is my new VCR, therefore.
Three, I make video games. So, yeah, I can, but I’ve a moral obligation, I think.

How’d I do? Hmm. Not bad.

Getting home late last night, I find Halloween 3 is playing on Space (the Canadian answer to the Sci-Fi Channel). Always happy to have something mindless to watch before bed, I watched. It didn’t take long for it to break bad. Here, watch the trailer:

Crap, that’s no help. OK, I’ll summarize – After two go-rounds with Michael Myers, arguably THE movie monster of the second half of the 20th century, the makers of Halloween 3 had a radical idea… make a sequel and NOT have Myers in it. Buh? And then after realizing they greenlit a sequel without the star monster, execs panicked and insisted that the movie have some sort of monster. With the flip of a coin, they agreed on robots. I shit you not.
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Eight years ago – 2000 AD… I am the law – I bought a mousepad from Cafe Press, designed and sold by Scott Kurtz, creator of PvP. Tired of store-bought pads, I thought why not get one for something I enjoy, and Skull wearing his gaming fez seemed like a good choice. Plus, I wanted to see what they were like, quality-wise – perhaps I’d design a few.

8 years is a long time to run a mouse over something, particularly something that is mostly white. A mouse is a masher, grinding dust, dead skin, bits of food, and even a little glue, after the little pads on the bottom of the mouse peel off. And that’s just the optical mouse. The old roller mice were a whole extra level of get-crap-all-over-the-pad.

Just look at how filthy it was;

A quick check and I find that Kurtz stopped making them years ago – there is no replacement for my mousepad. If it was going to remain, I was going to have to take care of it. After staring and it and pondering for weeks (which is how I problem solve – staaaaaaaaaare…) I decided to act (…AND GO!)

I took the pad home last night, and sprayed it, heavily, with Spray N Wash. Using a brush (I used one of those hand brushes you use in the kitchen – an old toothbrush would have sufficed) I gave it a scrub, and noticed that already the grunge was lifting (something you couldn’t get it to do while dry.) I let it sit for an hour, and then threw it in the washing machine with a couple of other items that needed doing, and a pinch of colour-safe bleach.

Sprayed and scrubbed.

Post-wash – still a little damp.

Something to mention about the mousepad – the surface is fabric over a neoprene cushion – the design is fabric ink-jetted onto it, which means that a lot of the colour live below the surface of the fabric – I wasn’t too worried about cleaning off the design, though I was worried the fabric might pull away from the neoprene, but that didn’t happen.

I put it in the middle of a folded towel and did a little gentle stomping on it, as the neoprene was holding a lot of water, and then put it in the bathroom, hanging from the towel rack over the heater. By morning it was dry and within half a day of going home, it was back at work again.

A local corner store stocked up on the small holiday glass bottles of Coke and I picked one up on a whim – and imagine my surprise when I realize it’s not a twist-off cap. And imagine my chagrin when I realize the office bottle opener had gone walkabout.

Not wanting to try any of the usual party tricks for popping a bottle top (I suck at them) I turned caveman and when looking for a tool. I tried using the edge of my scissors, but that wasn’t getting me anywhere fast. What worked in the end? Nail-clippers. So, yes, I can see some might be oogy about using them, but they work really really really well – not cutting mind you, but in gripping the crimped edge of the cap and levering it up. Do that a few times, and it loses it’s grip and pops off practically on it’s own (I’d say it only took about a third of the edge before it gave.)

So, there you go. Stupid stuff I figure out from time to time.

Happy Halloween! I’m taking a stand against the commercialization of Christmas this year in two ways – first, I’m not buying Christmas stuff this year. Oh sure, there will be presents, but no cards and wrapping paper unless I make ‘em. No decorations, no candy you can’t buy throughout the year. No tree, but then, I’ve never had a tree since I moved to Vancouver.

Secondly, I’m going to embrace Halloween as much as I can this year. Here, have some Halloween!

Why the hate you ask? No hate, I’m just pissed off that stores have started bringing out their Christmas stock at the beginning of September. I remember being shocked when they started bringing it out before American Thanksgiving was over, let alone Halloween, and now, Canadian Thanksgiving. I don’t need four months to buy fucking tinsel. I don’t need tinsel, but you know what I mean!