I was just standing in line at Safeway, picking up an assortment of healthy foods.  Cheesies, cookies, ginger-ale, chocoalte, etc.

As I’m standing in line, a couple comes up behind me and they stand there.  What else can you do, to avoid looking at, or talking to, the person standing a foot away?  Well, you start looking at all the really funny magazines they have there.  The girl looks at them and sees a little book called “Natural remedies”.  She picks it up and says - “Oh, cool - natural remedies!”  The guy openly laughs, and then says:  “What, are you an idiot?”

With considerably more restraint than I could have mustered - she puts the book back and says “Why?  ’cause of the book?  I guess so, then.”   And he responds with “I’ve got a book you should read.”  Which, of course, is ridiculous, since she was just trying to pick up a book about the very subject and read it.

Now, at this point, I really wanted to know - other than that being a ridiculously rude way to talk to someone you’re with - is it the concept of natural remedies that he’s against?  Or is it this particular book?  And why would either of those cause him to think she’s an idiot if she felt like reading the book?

If I wasn’t so immersed in reading about Angelina Jolie’s weight problems, I totally would have said something.  Actually, no - I wish I had the guts to stand up for random strangers, but I really don’t.  So, to compensate for my general cowardice and inability to say anything that might actually matter to the people it applied to, I will just randomly post this on the Intertron.

I find these hilarious. 

Mr. Deity Episode 1: Mr. Deity and the Evil

Manitoba has very horrible roads.  You’d think they could at least get rid of the potholes on the Trans-Canada.  They do tend to keep you awake, though.  It’s hard to fall asleep, fighting whip-lash.  People keep complaining that Saskatchewan is boring.  But it’s only a few hours of driving, and it’s really quite nice - especially at sunset.  The roads are open, straight, and it’s kinda hard to wonder if you’re going the right way.

Calgary Transit should wave all bus fees during the Stampede.  They’d get more people on buses who don’t normally use them - and when people are familiar with the buses and the routes - they’re much more likely to use them.

There are just too many people in TO.  It’s fun there, but it’s a pain in the ass to get around.  Don’t move near a flight path to the airport.  All you hear is airplanes.  All day.  I very much hate that noise.

House centipedes are gross and disgusting.  As Craig pointed out, they make spiders look cute.  They’re a few inches long, their bite is equivalent to a wasp sting, they can climb walls, and they live for years.  If you get them, get a cat.  Cat’s will eat them, you see.  Well, or keep things dry ’cause they apparently can’t live without quite a bit of moisture.

People who are hard to work with … suck.  Finding people that you can work with, that you can communicate with, and who you can be productive with, makes any job awesome.  People who are incompetent and arrogant are … difficult.  It’s even worse when the people who are really hard to work with are actually really nice people.

Cancer sucks.

The plus side to hosting sites on your own servers is that you don’t have to put up with a bunch of bullshit to get things done.  The downside is that it really screws up your online gaming when someone is downloading pictures and sucking up your bandwidth.

I have a beaten up car.  I mean, it rules, and it’s only a few years old, but it has a few flesh wounds.  As I was driving through Northern Ontario, with a huge trailer-full of stuff towing behind me, I was stopped by some cops.  It turns out that one of them was thinking of buying an Impreza and wanted to know how the car was handling the ridiculously steep slopes in the Ontario section of the Trans-Canada.  For the record, the car did awesome.  110km/h from TO to Calgary (3600kms) in 2 days, towing >2000 lbs?  Sweet.  Anyway - definitely one of the best times I’ve been pulled over.

Lastly, I saw District 9 last night.  I had no idea what to expect.  But here’s what it’s about.  It’s about a bunch of aliens being treated poorly by humans.  Some shit goes down, which prompts a wonderful and ridiculously gory battle.  The effects were incredible.  SO much more realistic than muppets.  Maybe you’re asking yourself:  “What are muppets?”  Well, to quote Homer:
“They’re not quite mops, and they’re not quite puppets, but Oh, man!  To answer your question: I don’t know.”

Back to the film.  Be ready for very very graphic violence.  You know, heads exploding, and stuff like that.  Actually, forget that - how about ENTIRE bodies exploding.  Honestly, I haven’t seen gore like that since some crazy video games.  The movie’s shot documentary style, and you’re left with more questions than you had coming in to the movie.  Especially about the movie.  But also about other things.  Like “How the hell can they charge that much for POPCORN”.  And, “If I know (and have known for several YEARS) that they’re ripping me off for this stuff, why do I keep paying for it?”, and of course “How many people have sat in this very seat?”

The movie actually does point out some excellent questions, and the character development was very well done.  Definitely worth seeing.  I’ll give it a solid 3.5/5.  I’m looking forward to a sequel about it.

Well, better late than never!  2008 was a good year in my world.  Musically was no exception - a lot of new artists I hadn’t heard before.  And so, here are the songs I enjoyed the most in a nicely packaged album.  Well, maybe just an ordered list.

• 01 - Frontier Psychiatrist - The Avalanches
• 02 - Closer - Kings of Leon
• 03 - Traffic Light - The Ting Tings
• 04 - Chicken Soup For The Fuck You - Shout Out Out Out Out
• 05 - Ooh yeah - Moby
• 06 - Slew Test 2 - Kid Koala
• 07 - Lost - Walter Meego
• 08 - Song for Clay - Bloc Party
• 09 - I’m So Sick - Flyleaf
• 10 - La Femme Parallel - Thievery Corporation
• 11 - After We Have Left Our Homes - Mute Math
• 12 - Volcano - Beck
• 13 - Water - The Beautiful Girls
• 14 - Club Thing - Yoav
• 15 - California Soul - Marlena Shaw
• 16 - Papillon - Airborne Toxic Event
• 17 - One Love (Edit) - Prodigy
• 18 - Drop Audio - The Qemists

It’s been awhile since our last post.  To get back into the swing of things:

jeff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qocbsLkXJY&NR=1
jeff: cats are so ridiculous
jeff: I mean, you add a cat with a funny face to anything and suddenly it’s hysterical
brent: yeah, cats are to funny what fizz is to pop

With my cousin and her 13 year old son, I went and saw “Journey to the Center of the Earth” - the new version with Brendan Fraser.  In 3D.  Yeah, with the glasses and everything.

The story was as expected.  All the plot twists are pretty straight forward.  I’m sure most people could script this one up without too much trouble.  The acting is pretty good - nothing stellar, but not horrible.  Actually, the writing was pretty good - there were lots of good jokes.

What makes this film is the 3D.  It’s awesome.  Everything is 3D, and done superbly.  Simple things, like looking at someone sitting in a room is so much cooler in 3D.  I mean, you really feel the depth in the scene.  There were a number of parts in the film where I tried to dodge out of the way of something flying at me.  That’s just such a different way to watch a movie to me.

Take a scene like in the second Indianna Jones flick.  With the mining carts flying around all over the place over lava pits.  In 3D, that scene is breathtaking.  It’s much more involved when you’re nearly immersed in the scene - looking around the theatre, you see people ducking, screaming and laughing during the scene.  And it’s MUCH safer than actually being there.  The movie is tense because of the 3D - by the end of the movie you’re almost tired from being on the edge of your seat for so long.

Jurassic Park did a good job of showing off a T-Rex in a very scary way.  Try it in 3-D.  It’s insanely freaky.

I highly recommend checking this out.   Grab a few people you feel like laughing with, and go see it.

brent:

“group is a word that really gets stupid the more you say/type/read it”
“groooooooop”

I predict that within 10 years, the following things will be extinct and when your kids are as old as you now, if you mention one of these, they won’t even know what you are talking about. Some of these things could be dead already.

• Card Catalogs
• Store Catalogs
• Classifieds Ads
• Junk Mail Flyers
• Printed Encyclopedias
• The Yellow Pages, most likely the white pages too

What else can you think of?