Blurgh Nation

Crying People, Security, Teeth, Awesome...

2010-03-27T14:53:00.005-04:00

OHMYGOODNESSINEEDTOWRITESOMETHING...

Lots has happened in the three months since I posted, I went on a road trip to Waterloo with a bunch of moderately cool people, I went on another road trip to Toronto with more moderately cool people, and also my Wisdom teeth are being stupid and I hate them forever.

First, Waterloo. A bunch of my buddies and I were going down to Waterloo to see Tuesdays with Morrie. George and I shared a car, thankfully nobody else was there, considering that we started singing spontaneously to Journey and Queen.

George really enjoys speeding, while Google Maps said that the trip would take approximately two and a half hours, we got to Waterloo in, like... an hour... it was awesome.

The play was being put on at Wilfrid Laurier University, which made me particularly happy because that's where a certain awesome person goes to school. Do you know who that is? FREAKING TONY DOOM! Yuss, that's right, we reunited for the first time since high school, it was great!

So after Tony arrived we all went to see the play, it was a low budget performance but it had very talented actors.

When it was over, I looked at my entire group and noticed that they were all crying, except for me. Steve took the liberty to tell me that I had the emotional range of a teaspoon. So after I spent around and hour wondering if I'm a robot or not, we loaded back into our cars and drove home.

So that was Waterloo, now I want to share my trip to Toronto.

Last weekend I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario with a classmate of mine and a couple of her friends, it didn't take me long to get approached by Security.

So, I was in the Renaissance section taking pictures of Jesus and some Security guy comes up behind me, this is the conversation I had with him, near verbatim:

Security: Sir, I'm sorry but photography isn't allowed.
Me: It's ok, there's no flash, it won't ruin it.
Security: No, it's a copyright issue.
Me: ...Sir, it's Jesus. You can't copyright Jesus.
Security: The artwork cannot be photo-
Me: (I place my hand on his shoulder) Jesus is for everyone...
Security: Sir, stop taking pictures, or you will be escorted out of the building.
Me: ...fine.

SO THAT WAS FUN!

After that, I went around and saw a lot of great artworks.

I saw Massacre of the Innocents by Rubens, Adam and The Thinker by Rodin, but the reason I was there was to see the Tutankhamen exhibit.

They didn't have the actual Mummy there, but they had a large amount of treasure from his tomb, including his Death Mask...

So that was fun, I got my Mom a present and I have yet to give it to her. I'll give you, the reader, a hint as to what it is...

It's a Gun.

Wow, I kind of gave that away. Geez...

ANYWAY!

So a few days ago, my Wisdom teeth started giving me trouble, the gum came off the top of one of them and it's just flappin' around in there like a flappy gum. I went to the Dentist and I was told that I have an abscess in the Wisdom Tooth the bottom two are impacted. So I'm probably gonna have to have them removed soon, until then I am gargling with Saltwater and hating every second of it. Saltwater is nasty.

So that's the update, I'll probably update when I get my Wisdom teeth pulled and want to whine about not being able to talk.

Apple does it again...

2010-01-30T21:14:00.003-05:00

Well folks, Apple has brought out the big Game-changer, they took those preconceived notions of serious computing and threw it on the GROUND!

It turns out that all the rumors circulating across the internets were correct! Apple has announced their brand new tablet PC, the iPad! And I could not be more excited over this entirely original and game-changing announcement. It changes games, I tell you!

This is indeed an important time for the entire world, as this is the only dedicated tablet available to the general pub- oh wait...

Hang on, let me try that again...

Ok. Well, let's see here. Ah! Here we go, the iPad is running Mac OSX "Snow Leopard," just like the iMac! So you'll be able to install all your favorite programs and edit office documents, and all kinds of thin- wait... You know what? Let's just look at the features of the new iPad and we'll let it speak for me.

The following paragraphs were taken directly from the Apple website... kind of...

Safari

Safari — an advanced web browser designed for Mac and PC computers — also comes on iPad. Just connect to a Wi-Fi network, and you can use Safari for nearly everything you do using a web browser on a computer. In fact, web pages look exactly the same on iPad touch as they do on your computer.

Mail

Email on iPad looks and acts just like email on your computer. View your messages in rich HTML, including attachments. Mail recognizes file types such as .doc, .jpg, .mp3, and many others. And setting up Mail is easy because iPad automatically enters settings for popular accounts including Gmail, MobileMe, Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft Exchange.

Maps

Know where you are and where you’re going with Maps on iPad. If you’re connected to a wireless network, you can find your location and get a list of turn-by-turn directions. Maps also finds points of interest from a keyword search. Say you and your friends have a craving for pizza. Tap Search, type in “pizza,” and Maps shows you restaurants nearby.

iTunes

Part of what makes iPad so amazing is that iTunes is literally at your fingertips. A Wi-Fi connection and a quick tap are all it takes to get instant access to millions of songs and thousands of movies and TV shows. Not to mention applications, audiobooks, and free podcasts and iTunes U lectures. Preview and buy that album you’ve been wanting. Rent that film everyone raved about, or make it part of your collection. iTunes on iPad is your doorway to endless entertainment possibilities.

Ok, hang on a second... I'm just gonna stop there. I feel like I've seen this before... but just smaller for some reason. Eh, maybe I'm just a little tired. I'm going to go lay down, maybe I'll come to my senses when I wake up.

New Year, new... stuff...

2010-01-01T21:37:00.006-05:00

Eeeeeyup. It's a new year, not just any new year though, it's the tenth year after all the computers in the world borked. Now under the rule of an army of Sentient Mutant Toothbrushes, a few brave souls still send messages from the dark abyss that we were banished to by the Iron-fisted Colgates (the Bolsheviks of hygiene), these brave souls are known as Bloggers. Are our messages heard by others? We do not know, but still we press on, working laptops at the ready, with the drive and ability to blog about important things like... toothbrushes.

But I digress...

So! 2010, Two-thousand ten, how about that. Some of you who are still new to awesomeness still pronounce it that way. However, friends, I must urge you all to join this radical new movement, and not radical in the traditional sense, but radical in the sense that what I'm about to tell is like, totally rad, bro.

We must all pronounce 2010 "Twenty-ten." Why do this? Well, for one it's awesome. It sounds futuristic! It sounds like we all have future cars and eat future food, and give future high-fives. FROM THE FUTURRRRRE!

For further reasoning, I direct your attention to this comic by the great K.C. Green (Mom, Dad, don't read his comics):

Click for a bigger version

I feel futuristic already, like I'm in a dystopian future where I'm a rogue blogger on the run from the Toothbrush Future-Police. I don't know why I'm talking about toothbrushes, and I apologize for that.

I'm gonna lay down now.

I remember when I used to post here!

2009-12-21T16:02:00.003-05:00

I once walked through these dusty halls quite frequently, but now after nearly a month of school trying to make my head go "big boom," I find it necessary to remind my single digit viewer count that I am still alive, and though I would kick, I don't feel like it right now.

Last Thursday marked the last day of my third semester at College, so now I have three weeks with which to bother everyone with my ramblings, doesn't that sound like fun?

Yup.

So! AVATAR! How about those Avatars, eh? Those guys are pretty cool, what with their blue skin and their Dragons... yeah. I saw the movie on opening night last Friday, thankfully not in a certain theatre I spoke of before. Personally, I think that this movie is on par with the likes of the original Star Wars Trilogy. It was awesome.

Moving on, we here at BN are from the Great Nation of Canuckistan, which means lots of snow yeah? WRONG! There is almost no snow on the ground. This combined with the fact that I just started my Christmas break last Thursday, I find it very hard to get into the Holiday Spirit which makes James a sad Panda...

The saddest of Pandas

But that's ok! You go ahead and enjoy your holiday. I'll be here, all alone, by myself.

Sad Panda.

Well, I can't really think of anything else to write about, play me out, Flight of the Conchords!

Interesting...

2009-11-29T23:52:00.002-05:00

Apparently folks, I am a Hero, and Swedish.

How 'bout that...

Together again...

2009-11-26T00:45:00.005-05:00

This smell... it smells familiar. It smells like Internet! Come to me, friend, we shall party 'til we're purple!

Some of you may know that I recently had hardware problems involving my Laptop's AC adapter, 'twas a cold Thursday evening in my Oracle SQL class and my vulcanized adapter was loosing it's vulcanny grip upon the cable that connected to my laptop allowing it to charge. Eventually through the class I realized I was running off of battery power and the cable had shorted out.

So by this time, I was all like...

I was rocked to my very core. It was like I tripped on the sidewalk, and then a Hobo came up and took my pants, and then another Hobo came up and kicked my in my bathing suit area, and then I got a ticket from the Police for indecent exposure, and then my Mom had to bring me a fresh pair of pants but she yelled out "I love you, my little Bubala" in the middle of the jail. My prisoner buddies laughed at me... especially the Jewish ones.

So I have gone for around a week without Lil' Jim to comfort me from the cold harsh unfeeling World around me, but I still had hope! I had... Lil' lil' Jim. My iPod. He had access to the internet for a short while, until he eventually ran out of battery to the point where he couldn't even play music.

I had only one connection to the internet left, and luckily for me it was entirely self sufficient, it had it's own charging cable and everything, it didn't require my laptop for power. I am talking about my trusty Nintendo DS. Unfortunately for me, the DS browser is like the Eragon movie. It's not very good. At all.

So! Eventually my new Adapter came in the mail since Staples doesn't sell it anymore, I plug it in and it works! So now I'm all like...

Ah, my Internets have come back to me.

New banner is new...

2009-11-11T14:25:00.002-05:00

Not much to post today. New banner, Tony and I are diligently working on the Windows 7 review, we'll get that to you when we can.

Wave? Yeah, I got that...

2009-11-09T16:13:00.005-05:00

So how 'bout them Google Waves you guys?

I was fortunate enough to get an invite from one of my old high school friends to join Google Wave about a week ago, if any of you have read my first post you'll know that I've been waiting to try it out for a long time. After having tried it for one week I feel I can sum it up in one sentence, perhaps even one word:

Meh.

Meh, indeed.

It gets a meh for now, but eventually it could become something far more interesting and useful. If anyone of you has watched the unnaturally long demonstration video that they have going you'd know what Google Wave is about, I'm not going to try to explain it, just go ahead and watch the hour long demo video:

You watch it all yet? OK then, let's move along.

One thing that I noticed when I first got Google Wave is that when I tweeted about it I got a mountain of PMs from Twitter users begging and in rare cases demanding my handing over of one of the precious invites that my account came with. Here's the thing, I have no invites, I wasn't given any. I did some Googling and apparently I might end up getting some invites to pass around, but I don't know how likely that is.

Another interesting thing about those PMs I got was that a large number of them were from people who started Twitter accounts solely for begging for Wave invites. I kind of hope that those people get their invites so that they can have their dreams crushed when they realize that they can't do anything with it. Well, that's not entirely true.

With Google Wave there is a command that allows you to view public Waves made for discussion with everyone and anyone, to summarize, public Waves are Message Boards.

Along with Wave comes some interesting features, along with having actual human contacts in your contact list, you have the ability to add special contacts to your list, in my case, I have added Tweety and Bloggy to my contact list. Tweety is a Twitter app that allows you to update your Twitter feed from Google Wave, Bloggy allows you to update your Blogspot blog from it's own Wave. Unfortunately, I can't get Bloggy to work for the life of me, and Tweety doesn't seem to update it's Tweets beyond the first time I opened it, that's why it's invitation only, folks, lots of bugs.

So, in the end, it's pretty snazzy, but I'd recommend that you wait until the Public release to Wave for yourself, but even then, you'll have to have a Gmail account.

We're in your Computers, prettyin' up your browsers...

2009-11-02T19:49:00.005-05:00

Friends, today is a good day in at least one respect.

TONY HAS SWINE FLU! YAAAAY!

Wait...

OK, well that's one of the current events, but that's not the one I'm referring to. What I meant to say is that the official Blurgh Nation Firefox theme has arrived!

Well to be truthful it arrived a few weeks ago but it looked awful so I didn't tell anybody. This theme makes use of Mozilla's Persona add-on to make for lovely themes with minimal work because I'm lazy like that. Here, have a screenshot:

Isn't it lovely? I believe so.

Perhaps someday I'll make a big boy theme where I actually have to put some effort into it, but until that time, this looks pretty good!

In order to use the theme you'll have to install the Personas add-on which is a quick and painless affair.

Tony and I will be back in a few days with a quick (lazy) review of Windows 7!

Excuse me while I cough on your face. SPAGHETTI!!!

2009-10-21T13:33:00.004-04:00

I am like.... soooooo sick right now. I will probably regret writing a post while sick considering that I have no idea what I'm writing and I'm pretty sure there's a Yak behind me. Yak. That's a funny word. Yak. Yak. Yak..... Yaaaaaaaaaaak. HA! It's like I'm talking a lot but it's also a fuzzy animal. Perhaps the two are related!

This is my Yak. His name is Donny. He talks a lot.

NEWS! I have that! Would you like to hear about some news perchance? Ok, I'll share with you my many secret newses.

First off, Apple is releasing a new mouse to release their old Mighty Mouse that nobody seemed to like all that much. The main thing about this one is that it is the first mouse in the world to support Multi-touch. It seems really interesting, then again I was hallucinating during the video, so unless the new Magic Mouse is actually edible, then I'm not impressed anymore. Watch the demo video here.

Speaking of Multi-touch, Windows 7 will be landing tomorrow and I am the most excited person. Mostly because Vista is giving me BSOD's whenever I breathe improperly, but also because the Gnome sitting on my shoulder won't shut up about how much better it is than Vista. Apparently he Dual boots 7 and Vista so it's easier to compare.

Travelocity Spokesman, Tech Geek, Friend.

ALSO! I have gotten a package in the mail! I shall upload a video of my opening it as soon as I get it. I warn you all, it is rad.

UPDATE: I have recorded the video and I am now posting it for your viewing pleasure!

I know I know

2009-10-15T14:01:00.002-04:00

I promised to post more, sorry, I was sick then some personal issues came up, but HAPPY OKTOBERFEST, K/W (Kitchener/Waterloo) has the biggest Oktoberfest celebration outside of Germany, so heres to you Germans, you were once our foes, then our friends, then Nazis, then half our friends and half commies, but now your our friends agian, yay, Cheers!

OMIGOSH THANKSGIVING!

2009-10-12T15:40:00.003-04:00

So much food. And I have yet to eat pie.

Yes indeed it is that time of the year (for Canadians) where we sit at the table with our relatives and eat until we are in physical pain, and we are thankful for that pain, that tasty, self inflicted pain.

What am I thankful for at this point in time you might ask? Well I'll tell you.

Krazy Glue.

A while back I got a new pair of shoes that were so stiff at the heel that they rubbed my heels raw and the blood went right through my socks onto my new shoes. I didn't even know until the day was done and I sat down and decided to investigate the searing pain in my heels. So, I Krazy Glued my old shoes which soles had begun to separate from the shoe. I am still wearing them, and I am still walking in comfort.

To celebrate this Canadian Thanksgiving, here is a present from me to you. BLURGH NATION WALLPAPERS!

Made 'em myself, I hope you enjoy them! Happy Thanksgiving!

Adventures in being Me: Royal Ontario Museum!

2009-10-10T21:45:00.005-04:00

SO! Hiatus, eh? Yeah, pretty big one too.

So what have I done since I posted last? Well, for one I saw Zombieland with Stevey C twice! It was a great movie, I won't be reviewing it, just take a look down at Steve's oh so comprehensive and satisfying post on it below this one.

Even more exciting than that though is the fact that I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Royal Ontario Museum! Here is my quick summary of my trip to see them.

First off, my Father and I were loaded onto a bus that consisted of 98 percent old people, so there were a lot of bathroom breaks. We had to divert off course a number of times to find service stations so that these... weathered folk could relieve themselves. Seriously though, they should have brought some gallon jugs with them or something, or at least rented a bus with a hole in it, I'd be OK with that.

The bus we were on was a shuttle bus, not exactly meant for long trips, these are the seats that my father and I sat in.

Slightly cramped. Yeah, that's the way to describe it.

Here's a picture of my Dad and myself on the bus, having the time of our lives!

Nice hangin' with you, Dad.

Altogether, this trip was great, and I enjoyed myself, even though the swag was insanely overpriced.

GALLERY!

Dead Sea Scrolls ROM

And to top it off, here's a compilation of most of the videos I took while I was there. Yes, I know I'm an idiot.

ZombieLand

2009-10-03T00:03:00.002-04:00

Ok. So my buddy James and I (along with another friend of ours, Darryl) went to see ZombieLand today. I'm not gunna lie, I thought it was epic on a colossal scale. I mean... There were Zombies, there was a cute love interest, there were twinkies, and fracken Bill Murray!
On a scale of 1 to 5 stars I give this movie a flesh-eating 6! I know, it rocked that much! Of course... This is coming from a zombie finatic... but still. :D
The rules of survival used in the movie are simple and effective, and should be used in our own undead crisis... Should one ever arise anyways. But yes. ZombieLand = epic. Go see it = true.

Haaaaaaaa, that's neat....

2009-09-29T11:44:00.013-04:00

Fear not! For I am still alive, although barely.

I felt compelled to write today because I was presented with this awesome application on Netflix. Basically, it allows you to superimpose your face onto the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz singing "If I only had a Brain."

For the following video, I used this photo which totally isn't fake by the way...:

WATCH AND BE AMAZED!

I'm not embedding it since I can't disable the autoplay.

How awesome is that? Pretty awesome.

Also! In other news, I will be going to Toronto this Wednesday to see the Dead Sea Scrolls on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. I'm very excited, not only because I get to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, but also because on Wednesdays I have class from Six until Ten at night.

Small post for a small day

2009-09-23T20:05:00.004-04:00

"Hey, its me again.
Plain, you see again.
Please, can I see you every day?"
- "Voices" by Cheep Trick

Three things today

One, I know I've stopped blogging when I said I would start again, big one on Friday, I promise.

Two- Watch Glee on fox at 9 pm Wensdays, its really good, I didn't expect to like it, but I do.

Three- Watch Psych on USA, or if you don't get USA, find "another" way to get it

That is all

Oh and Wintersleep's "Have you seen my ghost"

--I guess thats four things, don't hold that against me.

Yar Matey!

2009-09-21T01:11:00.003-04:00

Ah Hoy all ye land lubbers! Before I start on my first blurgh, I just want everyone to know that September 19th was most deffinately Talk-Like-A-Pirate day. And I would encourage everyone to take part next year 'round. And believe me... It's a blast! ^_^

But on a different note. Howdy! The name's Steve Carpenter. I'm a bud of James' just so the connection's made. We attend the same college and are in the same course. (woot, go CBRO!!...or Computer Programming to everyone out there. ^_~) But yes. As I'm now a member of the Blurgh-Nation and have my loverly picature on the banner, I can now write on this lovely space of blurghs. So I'm just tossing this in there to say hi, and let everyone know I'm alive and well. ^_^

Anywhos... If you're wondering why it says Dream Reaper instead of Steve Carpenter.. it's cuz Reaper is my handle on any and all games I play. As well as the story I'm writting. Go ahead. give my name in the right hand side bar a click and read away. So don't be confused. There's no fourth member to wonder about (yet... mwahaha!) and you haven't confused me with someone else.

But I digress... I've said hi, I've said Yar! And I am disinclined to acquihest to your requests for writting a large post at the moment. I'll bid you adieux and goodbye and I shall see you all on the flip flop. Laterz!

Pirates have invaded Blurgh Nation!

2009-09-19T15:09:00.002-04:00

Or is it just punks with Bandannas?

It is indeed a joyous occasion as I introduce the third contributor to this blog. He's a rough and tough character, you don't want to mess with this guy. He has a bandanna.

Hailing from Bright's Grove, he has led a tough and unforgiving life on the streets. There, he developed a passion for children's playing cards and Techno music. One time, I bought him an eyepatch I found in the pharmacy section of Walmart and when he wore it he looked like a pirate, a Scurvy Pirate.

Did I mention it's talk like a Pirate Day?

Anyways, Stevey C everybody. Keep your wallets in your front pockets.

It seemed like a normal day...

2009-09-17T09:30:00.005-04:00

Ladies, Gentlemen, Alaskans, I have momentous news to report to all of you. So momentous in fact, that I must convey the entire story to you in the only way I know how, with words. Lots of 'em.

Yesterday around two o'clock in the afternoon, I had been charged with reading chapter two in my textbook for my ASP.NET class which just so happened to be nearly seventy pages long. I had been reading all day, since I had completely forgotten about it until the day I had that class. Eventually, though my manliness had kept me going for a very long time, I grew hungry. I went to the lobby to the vending machine to purchase a bar of Candy, perhaps one made of chocolate in a bar shape.

You seem to meet the requirements.

This is where the magic happens.

Perhaps the planets aligned, or I simply garnered favor with Talnuhk'thal, King of the Vending Machines and caused this event to take place. Yes friends, the stuff of legend, confirmed! In one clean swoop, two bar shaped chocolate candy thingies fell from that row of bar shaped chocolate candy thingies! I am surely blessed to have experienced such an event, let alone to be the recipient.

It is an honor.

So because all this took place, I was able to finish reading my chapter and get to class worry free. I feel like a superhero!

Proposed costume

Aaaand now I have to read two chapters for my class at 5:30 today. I best get started.

Tony, I want to strangle you with Piano Wire...

2009-09-11T00:00:00.001-04:00

Today is a time for remembrance for more than one reason. One, for the tragic events that happened in 2001, but this blog is for lighthearted humor so we'll be focusing on the second reason that this day is a day for remembrance.

Nineteen years ago this day, Lil' Tony Doom was born into this world inside the cockpit of an F-16 fighter jet during a routine Training exercise. His mother was practicing evasive maneuvers when all of a sudden, the G-force created such pressure that it caused her water to break and Tony just kind of fell out of there.

Since that day, Tony has achieved many things in his short time so far on this earth, including but not limited to acquiring Super Powers and then proceeding to give them up to save a truck full of babies, purchasing a Fedora, wearing said Fedora, and joining this super awesome blog.

Tony, you are the awesomest dude in the history of awesome. You should be a Super Smash Bros. character, your final smash would be to just look at them and they'd leap off the platform.

A very Happy Birthday to you Good Sir.

I'll be your tourguide for today...

2009-09-07T20:49:00.010-04:00

Well friends, I am now back in my humble abode inside the deep cavernous walls of my College Dormitory. After hours of hard labor, back-breaking last minute pants shopping, and and one pizza later, I am now settled down and ready for my final year here at Lambton College.

I know what you're thinking, you want to see some pictures, right? Well don't go anywhere! Strap in because this parties gonna get started right now! Here is a small gallery showing the entirety of my Dorm Room.

Here is a picture of my bed:

Here's a picture of my new Roommate Sean! He's a pretty cool guy:

This is a picture of my closet, notice how clean and organized it is:

This is our hand-washing station, some would call it a sink, but we here at Lambton college are intellectuals, we only drink carbonated beverages, and only water comes out of it:

This one is a picture of our kitchen area, consisting of our Microwave and mini fridge, you can kind of see it over my shoulder:

Finally, here's a picture of my bathroom, it's quite nice, I was thinking about doing a mirror shot, but that's far too Myspace for me:

Well, that's all for now, I imagine now that I'm back at school, I might have either more or less to write about, we'll see how it goes.

Adventures in being Me: Tazers and Fonts edition!

2009-09-05T15:45:00.004-04:00

OK FINE, I'LL POST SOMETHING! Geez...

Last Thursday, if you were paying attention to my Twits, you'd know that I went to the Hospital to have my wrist looked at, I thought I might have had Carpal tunnel, but I have since learned that that is not the case, I'm just a whiny little baby. ANYHOO...

Before I went to the Hospital, my doctor had told me that the Xrays on my wrist came back saying there was no danger of Carpal Tunnel, instead there was a slight deformity in the part where a fracture healed up, here's a diagram:

Normal wrist

My wrist

There's nothing wrong with my wrist, but an appointment was already previously made to go to the Hospital for a Nerve Conduction Test on September 3^rd.

So I went there, got to the waiting room, and not soon after I was called. The nice lady had me take my watch off and she measure and marked all over my hands with a black pen, I felt like I was being vandalized. This is where it gets interesting.

She then dabbed gel on two points on my wrist and pulled out a machine that resembled the thing the guy zapped the tiny dinosaur with in the second Jurassic Park movie before the tiny dinosaur's buddies ate him. I couldn't find a picture of it, but here's something that came up when I googled “Jurrasic Park Taser”

She placed it on my nerve and fired it up, it felt like when a doctor would hit your knee with that little hammer to make it kick, except that it was electric, and I'm a whiny little baby.

Nerve Conduction Test in action

She did that a few more times in a number of places all to find out that my nerves are perfect. Awesome.

So that was my Thursday. Let's end this on a lighter and more interesting note. I found this site while perusing one my my favorite sites Lifehacker. Fontcapture allows you to create a custom font using a sample of your handwriting. I did it, and my coolness dictates that you must now do it too in order to stay cool or become cool.

DOOM HAS RETURNED!

2009-09-04T06:03:00.006-04:00

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
-Nelson Mandela

At long last I have returned to claim my rightful place as the second contributer to this blog, with new ambition, new prowess, new words and most of all a new Internet connection. Yes, I have a new connection to the information Super Highway or the Net, World Wide Web, or as some like to call it, The Series of Tubes, this can only mean one thing, I have moved into my new place. With this new place comes roommates, finally reunited with my friends Mike and Davidde, with their friend Kody joining us and newcomer Tom, my crippling loneliness will come to an end! Also with this new place comes free Internet and satellite tv, which I have missed in my year since moving away from home, in residence I had only cable and for the last 4 months I have had only rabbit ears for my television viewing pleasure (if you could call it that). But now I'm back and better then ever. Oh did I mention that I was starting World of Warcraft again? Yes, I was a habitual user before and a social user in the past month when I returned home for a funeral, but now I have decided to come back to the game after a small fling with City of Heroes and with my very on and off agian relationship with Eve Online, I return to my one true love.

I have much to write about and I'm going to start forcing James to write more so this might actually be worth the bandwidth again, but probably not.

Oh and I am going to start including songs from Canadian artists at the ends of my posts. Enjoy!

I gussied up the Blog a tad...

2009-08-29T13:48:00.004-04:00

If you haven't already noticed, I took a little bit of time out of my incredibly full (read empty) schedule to fiddle with the look of the site a little bit, if you went to the site yesterday you might have noticed that it looked really weird, but that is solely because I am an idiot, m'kay?

On another note, a very Happy Birthday to our silent partner Dream Reaper, his name sounds kind of foreboding but once you get to know him he's a Blueberry Muffin of creamy fun. He is now twenty and old, just like me! It's time to hang up your Bandana and invest in some Sweater vests and slacks good sir, join the young seniors movement like myself. We have Werthers!

Delicious.

Art! Woo!

2009-08-24T15:07:00.002-04:00

It's a good day to be tech savvy and still be relatively stylish, folks. Why? My favorite website Lifehacker is reporting that the latest build of Snow Leopard has been seeded to Developers and they have in turn leaked the Wallpapers to us! They got some nice ones, like this Leopard with snow on it (A snowy Leopard?), some lovely Pointillism depicting a Sunday Afternoon, and some Graffiti! You can catch the rest of them over at Uneasy Silence.

Ha, this is rad…

2009-08-19T16:49:00.007-04:00

I came across this website a few days ago and I feel that I must share it with you so that I can say that I updated.

This site is called Yearbookyourself and it is cool, all you have to do is upload a picture of yourself and follow the instructions in order to create mildly entertaining abominations like the following. I started out with this photo of myself:

And with a little fenagling, you get something like this:

Or this:
Or my personal favorite:

Yes, business in the front, party in the back.

We now sit at the Cool Kids Lunch Table…

2009-08-15T22:04:00.002-04:00

Yes, dear readers, Blurgh Nation now has a Twitter account, and as you all know, that makes us cool.

Why? Now we can tell you that we’re not updating 24/7 because that is what cool people do. If you don’t have a Twitter account, then you are not cool.

I hope that you shall follow our X-tremely cool Twits in the sidebar as well as from the source.

Just like Old Times…

2009-08-11T23:46:00.001-04:00

Hey you guys, remember when I used to post here? That was great, I should start doing that again.

All kidding aside, I do have a lot to post about, but not enough material to make full posts about them. First off I was planning on writing about the Apple Tablet, but I feel that I should stretch myself to my utmost journalistic abilities in order to convey the sheer… tabletiness of this new tablet.

Also! I been and gone and went to the Hospickle (read Hospital) yesterday for a few X-rays on muh wrist, there’s a chance that I might have Carpal Tunnel in the left one which, by coincidence, is connected to my good hand, my other one isn’t as good. I hate you right hand, go fall in a well.

As some of you may know if you bothered to scroll down the tiniest bit on the page, you’d know that it was my birthday on the fifth. Using a gift card I received, I purchased Wii Sports Resort and have proceeded to sacrifice hours of otherwise posting-time for “Hey look, my sword movements are exact!” time.

Time for a link! This link guarantees that all your jokes will be funnier and more appropriate for all occasions! Use it wisely, for with great power, comes great responsibility.

Finally, I have converted a former Windows XP desktop to Ubuntu Linux. It was a dinosaur, and this helped to speed it up a bit, except now my Mom is wondering where Outlook Express is.

I know I know

2009-08-06T09:35:00.001-04:00

Yes I was outside trying to write it before it rained.

Oh man, now Imma start crying…

2009-08-05T23:23:00.002-04:00

Yup, today was my birthday, I am now twenty years old and officially decrepit.

Yup, I have a doctors appointment for my wrist tomorrow, it’s been acting up, and it seems that my Ubuntu PC has actually given up the ghost now, it turns on but doesn’t respond.

Yes, now that I have reached this pinnacle in my life, I feel that it is necessary to impart upon my readers a few pearls of wisdom that I have acquired in my many years on this earth. Actually, I can’t really think of anything to say that’s safe for work. So instead, have some wallpapers.

I really enjoy going to these two sites for my wallpapers, they have a lot of good stuff on both.

Interfacelift

Wallpaper Abyss

Anyways, in regard to the previous post, Tony, you have many Grammar and Syntax errors in your post. Christmas is ruined because of you.

Happy Birthday James

2009-08-05T17:08:00.001-04:00

As you can tell by the banner its James Birthday! So lets all wish him the best.

All the best man, here is too many more, and hoping you receive what you wish for!

Funny, Funny People

2009-08-03T16:35:00.010-04:00

"I don't wanna hang around in someone elses scene
Fashionable people doing questionable things"
-Fashionable People, Joel Plaskett

Okay let me preface this, I know I was suppose to review the Zune and Windows 7 from a gamers point-of-view on Friday but my roommate came by and we hung out Friday and Saturday and James posted on Sunday and well, Sunday I saw Funny People and I needed to talk about it somewhere and my friends do not like this kind movie.

Sunday I buckled down and walked to the mall and headed to the Galaxy Cinema in Waterloo and saw the newest Judd Apatow, distributed by Universal Pictures, running length: 2 hours and 26 minutes, Staring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and a multitude of other Apatow comedians, as well as internet sensation, Bo Burnham.

Lets give a little information on what this is about, I imagine there will be spoilers. A comedian George Simmons (Played by Sandler), has had a career (not unlike the career Sandler himself has had) with lots of low-brow crazy situtation movies that had mass succsess and made him famous(not unlike Sandler), but now he finds out he is dying of cancer (unlike Sandler, I assume). This prompts Simmons to relive his days of standup and he goes to a very dark place in his act. Meanwhile, struggling comedian Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) has to follow this and just heckles him during his own set, which strangely promnts Simmons to hire him as his assitant/writer. Through watching him get sicker and eventually better we discover that he has no-one to talk to about this, just Ira, which leds Simmons to try to make it back together with his ex-fiancée, who is the only women that he ever loved, but he cheated on her twelve years earlier. This nearly distroys her marriage with Clarke who is played by Eric Bana, but it gets salvaged. This is Bana's second of 3 movie rolls of the summer and the other one will be out on the 14th which is The Time Travlers Wife, which was a great book, you should read it. Hopefully the movie will live up to expectations, but movies rarely do so we will just have to take it sitting down, so to speak.

Let me speak to the people who only like Adam Sandler type comedies. First this is not like them, you will probaly hate it. Second, this is NOT a comedy, its a drama about a man who is a jerk (jerk is way too light of a term) who needs to connect with someone but does not really have the means to do so in a meaningful way. At one point, his only friend (who is someone he hired) tries to do the right thing but it happens to be against Simmons' goals and pretty much gets told off and pushed back to the distance that he normally keeps people at. The only comedic elements in this film come from the fact that all the main characters are in fact, Comedians. There is alot of penis jokes in this movie, it's like each actor put their personality and comedy sets into each character, this movie could have actually happend if Adam Sandler was a jerk, not married and was dying. I personally loved the film, everything was really great. In my opinion it's the second best Apatow film after Forgetting Sarah Marshal, and the best Sandler film, its dirty, but real, smart but low-brow, funny yet sad, and if I was Sandler I would end my carrer on this. That's pretty much everything to say about the movie, its not like any of the movies any of the main people in it have done and it's great if you were not the biggest fans of either of their earlier works.

My Uncle’s Wheelbarrow can beat up your Uncle’s Wheelbarrow…

2009-08-02T14:41:00.002-04:00

Following up on a previous post, my Uncle has received and assembled the apparently super-special-awesome Wheelbarrow that he won from the fine folks at CommandN.

Near the end of the following video, you can see the fully constructed beast, according to my Uncle, it has shocks. Crazy.

Leave it to my Uncle to show off both a Wheelbarrow and a Mac book in one photo.

My Chromes. Here’s more of them…

2009-07-31T23:39:00.005-04:00

A new update on the Dev Channel for Mac and Windows versions of Google Chrome now allows themes to be implemented in the browser.

So that’s cool, I’m sporting this saucy number, kind of a squary camo.

Makes sense, since this theme is called Camo (download).

The second theme available for download is called Snowflake (download). This theme is for the less hardcore Chrome users who can't take the squary manliness of the Camo theme.

If you try these themes and neither strike your fancy, you can still go into the options menu and reset Chrome to the default theme.

I must reiterate that this is a feature that is currently exclusive to the Developer version of Google Chrome, this is an incomplete but fairly stable version of Chrome. If you're using the Beta or Final releases of Chrome, you won't have this option. If you are a Chrome user and wish to switch to the Dev Channel simply click on this link, there are links to all three flavors of Chrome (Windows, Mac and Linux).

On a different, yet still Chrome related note, I just learned that the Mac version of Chrome has yet to have plugins implemented. I still encourage all Mac users to try it and then subsequently be converted to using it.

Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station. You know her life was saved by Rock 'n' Roll." - The Velvet Underground, "Rock And Roll"

2009-07-29T10:20:00.004-04:00

Well, one fine morning about twenty days back I wrote an article about my favorite things, in the Television section I forgot one show, which in reality is probably my favorite show out of them all, Supernatural. This show airs Thursdays at 9pm on the CW (well not right now, but it will soon). If you do not know what this show is, well, I honestly do feel bad for you.

Right, the show is about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (yes, their last name is taken from the fire-arm), who in the shortest description possible take on the evils of the supernatural world. They take on Ghosts, Vampires, Demons, Tricksters, Wendigos and anything else that goes bump in the night. There is one thing that needs to be said about this show, the writers take from a lot of myths and religions, for instance, the Demons do work for Lucifer but at the same time they fight the Wedingos from Native American myths, and also they portray Angels as not the nicest of the things they meet, so if you find the kind of thing offensive then this is not the show for you.

By now you must be wondering why I chose that quote as my title, well first of all I set up my desktop 2 weeks ago (and installed Windows 7 from a gamers stand point later maybe Friday along with my new Zune) and I started playing Civilization 4 again (along with Galactic Civilizations 2, Battlefront 2, Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 3) and well, I realized its one of my favorite quotes from the game (although pretty much everything is said by Spock so its all pretty rad). Second, it sums up the show nicely (so does Carry on, my Wayward Son) as these kids were raised by their father to take down the Supernatural, and their father listened to what is considered today as classic rock (who's parents didn't?) and it carries on to the shows, so in away whenever they save someones life, rock and roll saved their life.

Now, one of the big points of the show is it's like a forty minute Horror movie every week, not only in the fact that they have to fight all the stuff Horror movies are made of, but the way it is shot is like a movie, with wide shots, angles, the licensed music, music cues, really its not like most other TV shows, which are shot as TV shows, this show is shot as a movie and the acting is not that bad from the main cast, but sometimes the guests can be a little wooden (but what horror movie would be complete without bad acting?). One final point about the show is the humor, all I am going to say about the humor is this, in one episode a man shoots a sheriff when he is possessed, when he gets an exorcism performed on him and returns to normal he says remorsefully: "I shot the Sheriff," in which Dean replies after trying to hold it in "But you did not shoot the deputy."

Well I really can't believe that I missed this show on my favorite TV show list as it really is my favorite. Well I hoped you like my review and please check this show out. Season five starts on the tenth of September, a day before my birthday. As I said, watch from my review of the Windows 7 Release Candidate, the Zune and the Zune player.

Ok, So Apparently I'm the Computer Whisperer...

2009-07-28T11:10:00.005-04:00

My Ubuntu PC is back up and running. Pretty crazy.

All I had to do was switch the plugs and all of a sudden, it turns on. It's like a Zombie or something. So, with this startling revelation, a question arises: Should I kill it?

Sure it's fully functioning, just like it was before the lightning storm except now it goes by the name Ubuntu PC McZombieface, or some variation of that. I've read the Zombie Survival Guide, as well as World War Z and the Ninja Handbook for good measure, so I think that whether I decide to keep using it, or destroy it, I'll be prepared to go either way, so... yeah.

Now I'm kind of upset, I can't replace it anymore.

OMIGOSHNEWBANNER!!!

2009-07-27T18:19:00.003-04:00

I made a new banner for the site, took maybe three hours in GIMP but I think it turned out well. I hope you like it, if you don’t, well, nobody cares.

UPDATE: After I finished the banner, I decided to go full out and change the colours too, once again, hope you like it.

No more Chromes…

2009-07-25T23:34:00.001-04:00

Friends, a lightning storm just claimed the artificial life of my Ubuntu PC. It just sits there now, like a paperweight. The post below this contains a screenshot taken around an hour before the incident.

Being an eMachine, it becomes obvious that this computer came from humble roots. Most likely, it’s origin was somehow related to Wal-Mart, and it is uglier than sin, but inside was a proverbial heart of gold (read: Silicon).

Lil’ Jim II (as we shall call it), came into my household with the attitude that it wasn’t gonna let those other computers push it around just because it’s system specifications weren’t exactly up to date. At all. It was from around, oh say, 2003 probably.

Barely being able to run Windows XP, new life was breathed into it with the installation of Ubuntu 8.04, which ran without a hitch (until today). Sure, it was noisy, made click sounds that I only heard from my old Windows 3.1 desktop, but hey, it worked.

While it may have been old and crippled from the beginning, not a single thing could ever replace it. So rest in peace, Lil’ Jim II.

Stop looking at me like that…

My Chromes. PART TWO

2009-07-25T16:13:00.004-04:00

You should now be excited.

I was going to post a couple days ago, but I'm lazy and that's part of my manly charm, so I have to keep that up from time to time.

ANYHOO...

A couple days ago, and update for the unstable release of Google Chrome I'm running on my Ubuntu PC was released and I grabbed that right up, this update was special for one specific reason, with this latest update, plugins are now implemented.

Needless to say, awesome. Not only because I no longer need to rely on two browsers to surf, but also because I can tell people this: it's still fast. I haven't noticed a single ounce of slowdown with the implementation of plugins.

My desktop looks considerably different from last time, but that's just a small testament to the versatility of the Linux Platform.

Anyways, moral of the story: go download Chrome.

Harry Potter and Lets Just Get Rid of the Best Part of the Book.

2009-07-24T11:14:00.004-04:00

My name is Anthony Doom.

I am not the Green Lantern of space sector 2814 (I heard Ryan Reynolds is).

That would be sweet though...

I saw Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.

This is my review.

It will have spoilers.

I believe that when you create a piece of art based on another piece of art you are allowed to change things to allow a proper conversion, maybe a different take on a situation, unless the original piece of art gave you something that would have been one of the best things this summer. I am of course referring to the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I'm getting this out of the way, this part is not really a review but rant. O.K. the ending of the book before Dumbledore is killed, a call to arms is issued by Hermione to D.A. (Dumbledore's Army) to fight against the Death Eaters, but in the movie, the Death Eaters just walked to the astronomy tower unopposed. So instead of a battle between a bunch of wizards we get nothing, just Dumbldore's death. So instead of a battle of epic proportions we get... nothing. Well, we get a two part movie next year.

O.K., time to put of my film student hat on (a little loose, must have lost weight, and yes, it is a fedora, and if it wasn't summer I would be wearing my film student blazer as i write this, but I'm getting off topic). This film was shot wonderfully, the first battle between Harry and Ginny with Beatrix is shot wonderfully. Nice jump cuts and fast panning creates a fast and intense battle, almost feeling like you're there. This film runs for two hours and forty min but it does not feel that long, I know some of the movies feel like you spend a year watching it, but not this one, it seemed to go by fast, maybe a little too fast. One thing the books did right was the fact that with each one it is darker than the one that came before it, keeping with the age of the reader as they were released, and the films seem to be doing the same and with a different director, it can be hard to do sometimes but this series seem to have stayed the course and is doing just fine by it. The film uses light well, but I miss the music cues from the first three, but good ol' John Williams will be back in seven and eight. Did I forget to mention that John Williams also did the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the Superman series as well? So ya, the man is a movie music legend (Oh, and he is doing the Green Lantern film as well as The Adventures of Tin Tin film which will feature Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thomson and Thomson, so ya). I really enjoyed this film minus the hate from not including the big wizard battle, and that is a big achievement considering that I wanted to see (500) Days of Summer but alas, the movie theater did not have it there because half the screens were Harry Potter and it does not normally have smaller films anyway (i really wish they had Moon but nooooo that would be to sweet.)

Did I mention that there will be a Green Lantern film, yes staring Ryan Reynolds, I don't know about him for Hal Jordon but I will role with it. Oh and people complaining about it not beening John Stewart (The African American one) as the main character, its not because he is African American its because he is a bad character, yes if you read the comics you would see that he is the 2nd worst of the human Green Lanterns it goes like this Hal Jordon, Kyle Rayner, Alan Scott, John Stewart, then Guy Gardener. you only like him because either he is African American or you watched Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, in which his personality is more like Hal Jordon, so take that!!!!!!!!

My Laptop is a free spirit!

2009-07-15T14:08:00.001-04:00

The wireless is, at least.

Turns out that my internal wireless card is not fried. That dude at the Service place just wanted to give up, and it’s always funny to notice that they sound like a broken record when they can’t fix something, it’s always fried, or the motherboard has to be replaced, when it’s something completely different.

The diagnosis for my laptop was that the WLAN was not working simply because the laptop got so hot that it fried my internal wireless card. That made no sense, since it stopped working after a software update.

Anyways, I’ve got my laptop back, and I’ve got a lovely 802.11 N Wi-Fi USB Adapter to plug into my laptop so it can live on with the interwebs a-flowin’ through it.

Here’s where the weird part comes in.

Much like a Ninja, or more so a wild Stallion, my internal wireless card occasionally shows up and functions. The Stallion analogy works better in my opinion. You can’t tame it, if you shut the gate it’ll just jump the fence and you’ll never see it again. If you leave the gate open, it’ll come in for a little fellowship from time to time with it’s fellow internal components. It seems to show up more often now, maybe it’s because it feels a sense of rivalry between the Wi-Fi adapter and itself… I am a little crazy, yes.

It's like the Stepford Wives or something

2009-07-13T21:11:00.011-04:00

As some of you may know, James stated in a previous post that he would be going to Camp until Sunday and returning today. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

James has been reported missing by the authorities not thirty minutes ago, and the only clue they have as to his whereabouts is this small transcript from a Journal he kept while he ventured into the unknown. This is his story:

9:00 AM, July 9th: We have now arrived at this Camp ground, and I seem to be the only one to notice that it is in utter ruin. The roads are not paved, these structures I see do not have satellites on top of them, some of them don't seem to even have electricity. I pray for the souls trapped inside these shells of torture, which others would dare to call “Cabins.”

10:45 AM, July 9th: My sister is trying to make my brother and I play this strange card game “Racko,” It is completely tactless. I feared that we were slowly turning into animals until my brother agreed that this game was, like, totally stupid, bro. We played Uno, that's better.

9:09 PM, July 9th: I can't believe this, the high-def tv my brother purchased for the half-week at camp doesn't pick up the Air waves without rabbit ears, this sucks. Truly this is a wasteland of nega-technology, where technology is frowned upon. Terrible.

11:30 AM, July 10th: I went searching for intelligent life, someone else sitting in their cabin like a sane person, not like these folk hanging around outside enjoying “Nature.” Nature, bah! If I want nature, I'll pop in a disc of Planet Earth, why go outside when David Attenborough is doing it for me?

Absolute Wasteland...

1:35 PM, July 10th: What is this thing!?

These folk seem to have lost their foothold in reality and created strange variations upon modern architecture. I pray that these people will realize their wrong-doings and come back to the sane world of Reality shows and emotional indifference. They're too... happy, it kind of makes me feel strange to see so many happy people. NO, don't give in James, you're a sensible, intelligent and independent couch potato, you don't need to mess up such a good thing.

7:00 PM, July 10th: I have been subject to torture, friends. I have eaten their food, and I am now digesting it.

Look at this cacophony of dark and evil materials, not a bit of which needed to be put in the microwave mind you, so you know there's something wrong already, crudely laid upon a plate of paper. A warning to you all now, friends, if you hear mention of a substance known as “Macaroni Salad,” run fast, run far, for it is a substance these creatures consume, even though it was pretty good... WHAT AM I SAYING!?

12:30 PM, July 11th: My mother may soon be lost to this settlement of nature loving... folk. She just let in two young children of another tribe to tend to wounds that developed on one of their knees. Apparently, the female child in question was injured when operating a machine known as, and I'm not sure if I'm saying this right, a “Bicycle.” My worst fears may soon be realized, I fear that this Faith Community hidden in the trees may indeed be a front for a child labour organization! Their minds were warped and twisted in a terribly perverse way, they were happy, with smiles on their faces, almost as if they were glad that they were being worked to the bone operating these Bicycles...

4:45 PM, July 11th: My mother has been gone for perhaps half an hour. She has supposedly gone to appeal to the leaders of this settlement to remove perhaps five or six wasp's nests hanging off of the outside of the cabin we are in, I personally believe that they may be weapons strategically placed there to emanate gaseous... gases into our cabin to manipulate our brains. My brother went out to find her after fifteen minutes had passed, and much to his misfortune, he found her fraternizing with the folk. Not just attempting to study them, she was interacting, laughing, conversing, she was one of them. They have infiltrated my family group, I can't even trust my own mother anymore, I may have to kill her.

Her expression. So empty.

3:01 PM, July 12th: I just returned from a most disturbing event. I travelled with my sister to some kind of pool full of water. Children were being dunked into it by their parents, most likely being taught diving for militant purposes. For the sake of the investigation, I went in this poorly disguised pool to study further. I wore my shirt in the pool, but it was only because I burn easily. Stop laughing. It... it wasn't fun at... at all. I... I... ok it was pretty snazzy, I could get used to these militant diving techniques, even if it looked a lot like swimming.

(Right here, there seems to be a large gap between entries, I think that this may have been when they pounced on him.)

8:00 PM, July 12th: I am now a man. I have created fire with my bare hands (also with wood, paper towels and matches). We made S'Mores! Did you know about these things? They're, like, Marshmallow, ok? Yeah, and then you light the Marshmallow on fire and wrap it in Graham Cracker and Chocolate (the Marshmallow shouldn't be on fire at that point). Boy, I sure was wrong about these kind folk. Just becauses they converse, laugh and don't need TV doesn't make them weird, it just makes them special. We also cooked assorted meats on the fire, Hot dogs and stuff. I wonder where a honky can get hisself a fire for inside the house...

(Yeah, he's probably dead.)

Doom's 5 top fives

2009-07-09T09:05:00.012-04:00

Well this is overdue, I'm Anthony Doom. I was going to write something for two Fridays ago, then last Friday, and well, finally this is it, my introduction to this blog and hopefully one of the many future contributors. First, let me say I'm a student a Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Computer Science Major (with a film studies minor). Most importantly right now, I have no Internet, that is right, a computer science major with no Internet at his house. Until September I have to come to the school to use the Internet so I might not be able to post as often as I would like, but I will try as hard as I can to update every Friday, with a multitude of videos and humor, mostly tech related but also Pop-culture related as well. So to introduce my self I have decided to do 5 top five lists so you can judge my opinions compared to yours so you can decide how much salt to add to my views. Well, lets get started and in no particular order (the number 5 slot for each will be reserved for my favorite current item on the list I am watching/listening to/surfing, not all time favorite, I guess that would be a particular).

Doom's top 5 favorite Television shows

1. House M.D. -Fox
Well here it is, my first favorite TV show, House. If you do not know what House is, well, where have you been (have you been in a Coma?) House is about Doctor Gregory House, he is a drug addict, cocky, an atheist and based on the fictional Sherlock Holmes, who always figures out the current episodes illness in a manor that is best described as a brain wave, but the real meat of the show is the humor which is mainly about House's overblown ego, which is done by the great Hugh Laurie, and the drama created by House's drug addiction and love for a certain person who I will not mention.

Here is a trailer for season 3 there are some spoilers but still shows some of the basic humor of the show.

2. Stargate (Well, both of them I guess)-Showtime and Sci-fi
Some people do not like science fiction show or movies. They will not like my list of shows or movies then, if you are one such person its probably best to skip ahead (or hey, try watching anyone of these shows, you might like them). This is a great science fiction show, it has an episodic format of endless possibilities but also with the ability to have long season stretching arcs, this is done by having the Stargate. The Stargate is a device that allows one to travel to another Stargate by creating a wormhole that connects them. There are two shows, both finished in their runs but a third is in development. The first of the two shows was the original, Stargate SG-1, this show followed Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), a tough as nails soldier that has a sense of humor, the everyman that leads a team into the world of science fiction stories (this is where much of his humor comes from). Second (and my favorite character in the original), is Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) the resident archeology nerd, I almost became an archaeologist because of this character, he grows from a weakling nerd who could hardly hold his own in a fire-fight to becoming one of the strongest characters. Oh and he died, a lot. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), a scientist who isn't very funny in the beginning, just their to break down gender roles like one episode where the inhabitants of a planet kid-nap her so they can sell her to another clan to make peace, which leads to a new leader being chosen and the gender roles are equalized. The last character I will go through for this show is Teal'c(Christopher Judge), he is the resident alien (oh, I forgot to mention that the "aliens" are in fact humans taken from Earth that other aliens placed throughout the galaxy, and there are snake-like aliens, that take people over and masquerade as Gods), a super solider that realizes his Gods are fake and wants to help his people by jumping sides. These people go from planet to planet fighting the Goa'uld, an evil race of snake-like aliens that burrow into the skulls of people and take them over and using their advanced technology and pretending to be the Egyptian, Asian, and other Gods to make the people worship them.

Here is a small selection of the many funny moment in SG-1

I will review Atlantis at another date.

3. Umm just give me a second..... right, Top Gear-BBC

Top Gear is a car review program from England, it stars Jeremy Clarkson, Richard "Hamster" Hammond and James "Captain Slow" May. It's unconventional, rude, crude, politically incorrect and well, I will let video speak for me (These guys work blue folks, don't watch if that offends).

4. Firefly-Fox (ONE MORE TIME!)
This is the little show that could...not. This was created by Josh Whedon (Buffy, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog) about a ragtag group of space cowboy smugglers that go from one dangerous situation to another, with nothing ever working out for them but they still go on, they still have hope. I cannot find an appropriate video that represents the show.

5. Kings- NBC

This is the story of King David's rise to power set in the modern day about a fictional country called Gilboa and their tensions with the country and their rivals Gath, but the weak acting of David and some of the other members of the court is all washed away with the acting of King Silas (Ian McShane, of Deadwood fame) that is why it is my favorite current show.

Recap of episode one

Doom's top 5 favorite Podcasts

1. iFanboy Pick of the Week Podcast

What happens three liberal New Yorkers get together and talk about Comics? Hilarity ensues. These three podcasters Josh Flanagan , Conor Kilpatrick , and Ron Richards (Richards!)
talk about what they love and hate about Comic Books.
Make sure you listen to the end where they talk about G.I. Joe its the greatest part of this episode.
07.05.2009 - Episode #191- Batman and Robin #2

2. This Week in Tech

Leo Laport gets together with other tech personalities and talk about... you guessed it, cakes. No, wait! Tech, I meant tech.
this WEEK in TECH

3. Diggnation

Two guys getting drunk on a couch and talk about news, they are quite witty. Hosted by Revision3

Ok, yeah... The last two are just Revision 3
Revision3

Doom's top 5 favorite Songs

For this I'm just going to place a video for each song so please listen to them

Doom's top 5 favorite Movies

1. Elizabethtown

This is a weird choice for me, I don't generally like these kind of movies, but it has a nice selection of music, a nice story about a man coming to terms with the death of his father, falling in love with a women and about killing himself. It's a pretty story and soulful as some people would describe.

It stars Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst

2. Blade Runner
Riddly Scott's classic Neo-noir masterpiece staring Harrison Ford as Rick Deccard a "Blade Runner" a man who hunts down Replicants, humanoid robots that are illegal on earth.

3. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

My favorite of all the Trek movies, an analogy for the tearing down of the Berlin wall and the old men who have had the disdain for the enemy that they had for their hole life, so in this film, Kirk and the Klingons try for peace.

4. Hot Fuzz
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are cops in a small town and uncover a plot so secret that I would be killed if I revealed it here. Hilarity Ensues.

5. Vicky Christina Barcelona
Two women go on vacation to Barcelona, one has second thoughts about marrying her husband the other has a three-way relationship with an artist and his ex-wife. This beautiful story of love and what you want out of life stars Scarlet Johanson and Penélope Cruz (Who got an Oscar from this role)

Doom's top 5 favorite Websites

1. Digg

www.digg.com is a social news website where you get to vote on your favorite stories.

2. ifanboy

www.ifanboy.com is a site where you can make your pull list of comics, read articles and listen to a podcast by the podcasters mentioned above.

3. Cracked.com

www.cracked.com Yes the website with the lists, the main attraction to the site (for me, at least) is SWAIM's videos.

4. Io9
www.io9.com A social blog about science fiction, television shows movies, what not.

5. Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org, yes, I know this is a cop-out about my current favorite sites but it is.

Well thats it. Sorry about any spelling and grammar mistakes, I am looking forward to writing more articles so watch out for them and if you think that there is any thing I should check out that you think I would like and should check out you can email me at punisher1135@gmail.com. Thanks.

In Memoriam...

2009-07-08T12:09:00.002-04:00

Before I head off to Camp until next Sunday, I thought I should post that the nice man caring for Lil' Jim has just told me that the internal Wireless card is officially fried. The only way for Lil' Jim to communicate with the outside world is to strap him to life support... or wireless support, or something.

Well, like a good Mother (don't read into that), I shall still care for it no matter how many appendages are broken by it's own Mother (once again, don't read into that), serviced and declared dead.

I'll be grabbin' up a wireless card and continuing on like there's nothing wrong. Though, in the spirit of denial, I shall try one last thing to see if there's life in the card. I'm gonna try and stick in a Linux Live CD and see if it detects it. IT'LL WORK DON'T JUDGE ME AUUUUGH!!!

My Chromes. Let me show you them...

2009-07-07T21:41:00.007-04:00

For the past few weeks, I've been using my Ubuntu PC as my predominant computer due to Lil' Jim still being in the shop (we miss you, man), so without the luxury of Windows Live Writer for writing my blog posts, I've been forced to use the in-house writer built into Blogger, but I digress.

The true nature of this post is to impart upon my fellow geeks and people who come here accidentally that Google Chrome is the bestest thing in the history of forever. Now, to some of you, you may think of this as some sort of metaphorical poke with a stick. Some of you may be thinking "But James! You cruel, un-moustachioed man! Chrome isn't available on Mac and Linux yet, stop torturing me!"

Well, you're right, Chrome is indeed not avai- Oh hey! Look at that!

That, dear reader, is Google Chrome running on Ubuntu 8.04.

Granted it's a dev build and not the final release, it's still Grease Lightning, no, it's Greased Grease Lightning. That's even faster.

I'm not kidding when I say that Chrome is fast on Linux, it's the fastest browser that I've ever used on any Operating System ever. However, it's not the final release for a reason, it's still not done. According to the splash page you see when you first open the brower, the following features have not been implemented yet:

Plugins, including Flash (so no YouTube, Hulu, etc.)
Printing
Complex text
Complex tab dragging
Gears support

Looking at the first bullet, you can probably figure out why Chrome can be so fast, there's no plugins. That's not to say that it isn't still fast with the inclusion of plugins, it's just alot faster without.

When I first downloaded Chrome, I spent the first few minutes attempting to make it crash. I only found one way to do it, and that was to exploit the lack of Complex tab dragging. This is where you drag a tab out of the browser window to form a new window out of the tab. It's not too bad until you try to drag the new window back into the old one again.

At least that was a problem until the alpha build was updated. With the release of the new Dev build a few days ago, the complex tab dragging seems to be working, soooo I don't really know why that's still on the splash page.

Now I'm stumped. This build is supposedly a minefield, yet I can't crash it, but maybe you can! Just visit the following link to download the dev build of Chrome for Mac and Linux (32-bit, 64-bit). Have fun.

iPod Touch 3.0 Software Review...

2009-06-29T15:22:00.006-04:00

I updated my iPod to version 3.0 around the day that the update came out, now it is time to share my experience with in the form of a software review.

Considering the fact that I have no form of screen capturing device with which to display screens from the iPod, I shall be conveying what I have seen with artistic depictions of each screen I deem necessary for you to see.

In this review, I shall be covering the new features mentioned here that I am able to with my available resources.

First on the chopping block is the newly introduced ability to download Movies, TV shows and Audiobooks right to your iPod via WiFi. The main screen for the new addition is pretty much the same as the music screen, the real difference is when you pick a film.

All in all, I think that this is a good addition, but I have to ask why? Is this so that I can buy whole Movies on the go? I see no real application for this other than to run your battery down. If I'm sitting in a McDonalds and I suddenly have the urge to watch Top Gun, I'll probably be done with my meal, be out of there and home before the movie's done downloading. If you're already at home, just use iTunes, there's no reason to use this feature unless you're in the same boat as I am and your computer's in the shop.

The next feature would have to be Spotlight Search, an addition to the Home screen. This feature will search your iPod's contact lists, emails, calendars, notes, music and videos for anything you type into the search box.

I tried it, it works. I don't really have anything to say about it, it just works.

Finally ( also know as "I don't want to draw screens anymore"), we have copy and paste. With this feature, you are able to copy pieces of text and then proceed to paste them elsewhere. Looks like the jokes will have to stop here folks, the iPod and iPhone now have copy & paste. No, I'm not making a screen.

I also noticed after the update that the YouTube application had been updated with new features. You are now able to log into your YouTube account and merge your favorites and subscriptions with your device.

Something else I noticed is that when I turn on my iPod, after showing the Apple logo, there is a black screen for around five seconds. I was freaking out the first time this happened, but after those five seconds, the lock screen showed up instead of simply taking me to the home screen like it did previously. I've also noticed that it takes considerably longer to shut down that before, sometimes a good fifteen to twenty seconds.

All in all, I consider this update to be worth it, though I do think that ten dollars for a software update is a little steep.

Doom has come to Blurgh Nation...

2009-06-22T20:40:00.007-04:00

What's this? Two posts in a day, surely I am going mad! Nay, if I am going mad, it is only with anticipation to announce the arrival of my new co-contributor: Doom.

Seriously, that's his last name. How can I not allow this man to blog along-side me?

Tony shall be covering anything and everything he chooses since I am heavily indimidated by him. However, like I do my Father, I both fear and respect him.

Tony Doom, everyone.

Yep, I'm an idiot...

2009-06-22T18:03:00.006-04:00

I accidentally deleted two of my blog posts last night; "The Speakers! They do Nothing!" and "To Go Where No Man Has Gone Before (Or Wants To Go)..."

Oh, my iPod and I are a crazy pair. If not for Google caching my site, I wouldn't have been able to salvage it.

Also, a minor update on the status of my Laptop, it is now in the hands of professionals. May their hands be guided with laser precision.

UPDATE: The nice man taking care of my beloved Lil' Jim says that he'll have to back up my data and restore the OS, I should have my laptop back by Tuesday.

UPDATE 2: I got my Laptop back today! Now, since he reloaded the OS, I've lost all my programs, configuration settings aaaaand my Wireless still doesn't work. Makes me wonder what would happen if I installed Windows 7 RC1...

My Uncle can beat up Your Uncle...

2009-06-21T15:40:00.007-04:00

First off, Happy Father's Day to all who qualify. I know my father has had a nice father's day so far, and while I'd like to write a post about him, this piece seems to have come at an opportune time and I cannot ignore it.

Popular Internet TV Show CommandN has chosen my own Uncle, Philip Shaw as the recipient for their... wheelbarrow prize? Just watch the video and see for yourself, it's near the end:

You can't help but wonder what this wheelbarrow must be like for it to be a prize for anything. This thing must be so awesome that the manliest of men would shed a tear at the mere sight of it.

Well, that's all for now. I'll see you in a few days with a review of the new iPod Touch 3.0 software update.

A Shovel to the face would’ve been preferred…

2009-06-20T18:27:00.008-04:00

Once again, I have been subjected to a rather violent bout of computer trouble, this time it was my WLAN driver.

I can almost guarantee that this will turn into some kind of rant about Windows Update, or HP being dumb and awesome at the same time considering that the source of my problem started with Windows update.

Last night around Eleven O’clock I had just updated my iPod touch to version 3.0, but that’s another post. After installing the update, I decided for the heck of it to check out my Windows Update to see if there was anything of interest, sure enough, there were two optional updates available.

One of the updates was for my Nvidia Chipset, I already knew that there was something wrong with this update considering I tried to install it before and it was corrupt, so I stayed away from that. The second one was for my internal Modem, I decided to install it, just on a whim. Why not, right? The shovel I mentioned above would've come in handy right about this point in the story.

Needless to say, no Rutila Ex Machina stopped me from having a terrible night and morning trying to get my WLAN to function again.

When I restarted my computer after installing the update, I realized that my HP Wireless Assistant only recognized my Bluetooth and my little network icon in the system tray had a friendly red X superimposed onto it. Dang it, you got me again Windows Update, you and your zany Devil updates.

I go into the device manager and I notice that not only is the WLAN driver not functioning, the hardware isn’t even listed, it’s gone.

So I used the trusty Eee pc sitting beside me to go to my computer’s software and drivers page on HP’s site and downloaded the previous version of the Modem driver that had been updated, installed it and it did nothing.

Ok, that’s cool, that’s fine, this ain’t my first time to the rodeo. I then decided to download the driver for my WLAN, I had all confidence that this would fix the problem considering that it’s for the component that was missing. Ok yeah, that didn’t do anything. This just got real.

I then decided to go for my old fallback, System Restore. You remember how I used that back in my previous post right? Yeah, man, that should do the trick. I do that, pick the date and start it up. My laptop boots back up aaand nothing, the problem still exists.

What? You’re kidding. I did it again, to a later date, nothing. I uninstalled the modem and refreshed the device manager, the modem reinstalled itself but the WLAN was as elusive as it ever was.

I’m not entirely sure what went on last night after that considering that I was blind with rage, all I know is that I woke up today in my bed and I smelled like something I shouldn’t smell like (I’ll let your minds do the walking).

When I went to work today I took a different approach. Just kidding, I did another system restore, it did nothing. I then tried something different, I used my HP Recovery Manager to restore the original driver for my WLAN. I was fairly confident that that would work. Once again I was met with nothing in the form of Wi-Fi. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and defeated, there was never a computer problem I couldn’t fix.

I decided to take another approach, I uninstalled the Modem and installed the WLAN driver, something interesting then happened. The modem was all of a sudden recognized and installed. What? Why is the Modem installing when I’m installing the WLAN driver? That’s when I had an idea.

I uninstalled the Modem again, as well as the Broadcom WLAN driver and then I installed the WLAN driver through the Recovery Manager, once again, while the Recovery Manager installed the driver, the Modem was recognized and installed, I couldn’t do anything about it since it was automatically going to restart a few seconds afterwards.

Ugh, I was pretty defeated, the Modem was installed again, and the WLAN was still not recognized. I was even considering sending it to a “Professional,” but then I saw the device manager in my system tray, it was installing the Wireless network!

So needless to say, I am relieved and happy to have my laptop working again at full throttle. One good thing did come out of all of this though, I had enough material to write a new blog post.

UPDATE: Just turned it on after shutting it down last night before going to sleep, I guess that wasn't a permanent fix. So, in short: brb depression.

To Go Where No Man Has Gone Before (Or Wants To Go)...

2009-06-08T14:45:00.009-04:00

Except for the people who saw it in the last two weeks or so before myself.

I am of course talking about the new Star Trek movie, I saw it last night. This is not a review of the film as I intended originally. I want to rant about the Theatre that I went to in order to see the film instead.

Normally, I’d go to Famous Players in Sarnia, considering that it’s practically next door to the Dormitories at my College, but since it’s summer I went to the Local Theatre in Chatham, the "Cinema 6." I hadn’t been in there since seeing the fifth Harry Potter movie so I wasn’t really familiar with the Theatre anymore.

When my family and I pulled up to the Theatre we all noticed that Star Trek was not on the Marquee. Instead, there was X-men in it’s place. I had checked the show times online before we came so it immediately became obvious that somebody wasn’t doing their job. We went in and learned that X-men was sharing one of the screens with Star Trek, it just looked like Star Trek wasn't playing anymore, nice job. We waited in the Lobby for about five minutes because nobody was at the ticket counter, apparently they wouldn’t sell the tickets until the popcorn had been popped… what? I don’t even know.

About two minutes into the wait, five kids around eleven or so came into the theatre, five loud kids. First off, they were marvelled at the ear-shattering squeak the door made when it was closing, so they proceeded to open it and close it maybe three more times. Then they started to punch the glass because according to one of them, he could “punch super strong.”

Finally, the ticket counter opens, and we buy our tickets. On the chart above the register, it says that Star Trek is showing at 7:00, despite the fact that the ticket and the website both say that it’s starting at 6:35. My Mom and little Sister decide to see Night at the Museum 2, while my Brother, Father (old-school Trekkie) and myself go to see Star Trek.

I went to get some Nachos and proceeded to wonder more about who was running the Theatre, the two kids manning the counter looked to be around 12 years old. I immediately regretted getting anything when I heard their Nacho-cheese-squirting machine turn on, it sounded like a lawn mower and nothing was coming out. They opened it and the bag of cold cheese was empty, so they replaced it with a nice full bag of warm Nacho cheese. Just kidding, they scrunched up the bag and squeezed what little amount of cheese left in the bag to the nozzle and turned the machine on. It came out in large drips, are you hungry yet? After all that, I found out that they didn’t have debit at the counter so I had to use cash to purchase my tray of cheese-covered sand.

So now we enter the Screening room and find that there is only one other group of six people and that’s it. Remember when I said that the website, ticket and chart all said different times? Yeah, turns out they were all wrong. I guess the little kid in the projection room was having trouble lifting the film reel onto their ancient projector considering that the movie started at 6:50.

The movie was great, I loved it, except for the parts where the other movie-goers insisted on adding super-hilarious additional lines to the characters during exciting sequences (including shouting “Weeeeeeeeeeee” when they were skydiving onto the drill), thus ruining the scenes for me.

After the movie we left as fast as we could, my Sister later told me that my Mom was talking during their movie, the end of the world has already begun.

The Speakers! They do Nothing!

2009-06-04T17:37:00.004-04:00

So yeah, last night I had a spot of computer trouble.

I had just updated iTunes last night and restarted my trusty laptop and found that the start-up sound didn’t play. The login confirmation sound didn’t play, etc… I looked at the sound manager and drivers and it looked like everything was recognized correctly, so I was stumped. I later realized that I did get sound, but only in iTunes and Windows Media Player, odd to say the least. So I tried reinstalling the sound driver, didn’t do anything, mainly because HP didn’t provide the correct driver for my system (I have an HP tx2010 laptop) so that made things worse. I eventually did a system restore and everything was OK.

That was weird to say the least, but it also made sense considering what I had done on my computer earlier that day. I recently switched from Thunderbird to Postbox for viewing my Gmail account, but Postbox didn’t offer the functionality that allowed it to be minimized to the taskbar like Thunderbird (I used the MinimizeToTray add-on). I looked around the Intertubes for a solution, knowing that there are many applications that allow programs to minimize to the tray, picked one and installed it.

During the installation, it notified me that a certain component in the installation might be viewed as a Virus by the system, but it “TOTALLY WAS NOT!” Yup, they put that in Caps in the EULA. Anyways, it didn’t work and I uninstalled it.

My security system, Webroot Spysweeper, started it’s scheduled security sweep and saw a Trojan, this is uncommon. I had it remove it, I didn’t really care considering that it was probably one of the components from the program I uninstalled.

Long story short, I’m not sure if it was the Trojan or iTunes that qualified my Laptop’s sound for a run at the Gelding’s Plate, but if you’re reading this and you have that problem, just do a system restore, it’ll clear it right up.

Nintendo E3 Press Conference

2009-06-03T15:56:00.009-04:00

I just finished watching the Nintendo Press Conference from E3 ‘09, the link to the video can be found here.

I got to say that over all I was impressed by their showing, but it still isn’t as exciting as the conferences where you know some kind of hardware is going to be revealed. Everyone watches when they think that a new console will be announced, that applies to all companies. I’m not here to talk about past conferences, so on with the post.

There was a surprisingly large amount of well-known franchises being announced for the Wii and DS, but I have to say that overall I was most excited about the announcement of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Red Steel 2. That’s not to say that Metroid: Other M and others didn’t get me excited, I just never started playing the Metroid series until Corruption.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, or don’t feel like wading through around seventy minutes of video to see it, the new Metroid game was announced and the company co-developing it beside Nintendo is going to be Team Ninja of the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame. I was actually very interested in this instalment because of the fact that a lot of the game is going to be played in the third-person perspective. Just from seeing the trailer, you can tell that it was Team Ninja, it screams Ninja Gaiden in terms of special moves, you know, like when Samus jumped on top of the purple alien and shot it in the face? Yeah, pretty rad.

There was practically nothing new on the Red Steel 2 front besides the fact that they said that it’s unplayable without the Wii Motion Plus Add-on. That’s great! I really enjoyed the first one, I know that a lot people didn’t like the first one at all and if I ever get anyone reading this they might call me out on that, I still found it enjoyable to have that feeling of control when I shot someone mercilessly in the face. I admit, the sword-fighting sequences felt way too constricting and unrealistic, I still enjoyed the game overall, and the inclusion of Wii Motion Plus will only add to the gameplay. Here’s the trailer for Red Steel 2:

A lot of people in the comment section of that video seem to think that those aren't pre-rendered cutscenes, but then again I imagine many of them believe that Nintendo cares about them and not their money as well.

The second game I was excited about as mentioned above is Super Mario Galaxy 2. I was mostly excited about this because of the scene depicting the snowy level! I love the snow levels in Mario games, they're my favorites. Here's a clip from the Presser announcing the game:

That looks very promising. I really enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy, but there were a few parts of the game I felt were lacking.

For one, in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, I always enjoyed playing around in the overworld, just exploring. In Galaxy, I felt that the overworld was much smaller than both Sunshine and 64 with much less to do. I also enjoy having giant levels in three dimensional Mario games. In Galaxy, there were a bunch of smaller planets, I always enjoyed having a vast landscape to explore in 64 and Sunshine, not that Galaxy didn't deliver those landscapes in some instances.

Another thing I found... interesting to say the least was the Wii Vitality Sensor...

This thing.

I can imagine a few ways that it could be interesting, but overall it would be rather clunky. An interesting way that it could be applied would be in a Horror game, where the vitality sensor would measure your heart rate, and would cause the in-game character to pant, thus giving away his position to the monsters and then be torn to shreds, but I still can't see that happening without it getting in the way.

So overall, I have to say I was impressed by the showing this year, but there were a few things that left me with a quizzical look on my face, I mean, why would they show a game that looks like a soon-to-be bargain-bin game?

Oh man...

2009-06-02T22:56:00.000-04:00

This is my first blog post, this could either be totally awesome or totally... not.

I need to start this out on the right foot, I should write the way I feel. My ears feel like they're losing their circulation thanks to these fancy new Skullcandy Headphones, I hope they relax their vice-like grip soon enough, I like my ears.

Let's see here... Edit Html, eh? Let's try setting the text to Heading 1...

butt. HA!

That was pretty crazy right thurr.

I suppose my blog should have a purpose, but what would one write about in a blog? I suppose I could write about anything and everything. The hardest part of writing this will probably be writing it under the knowledge that nobody might ever see it, like my own private corner of the internets.

This is going to be interesting, though I suppose it could get even more interesting once the inclusion of Google Wave is made. I'm really excited about that personally, has anyone reading this actually sat through the entire demo video? If you haven't it's one hour and twenty minutes of interesting stuff that I barely understand, but I was still able to come away from it with the impression that Google Wave will make stuff super-special-awesome.

There are a few concerns I have towards taking full advantage of what Wave has to offer though. For starters, I have a grand total of two contacts who use Gmail; one of my Instructors, and one of my friends, this isn't including my Dad who uses it to view his POP mail account from his iPod. So essentially, unless Hotmail and the lot decide to make a Wave protocol, then Google might not get the kind of attention they wanted, but that's not to say that they won't get hoards of ravenous fans banging on their door, myself being one of them.

I'd have to say one of the more impressive things I saw while watching that video was the dragging and dropping of photos directly from Windows Explorer into the browser window. I certainly hope that that becomes a standard for Html even though I already have Gears installed.

Another thing I remember from the presentation was the realtime typing on both browsers. While it may be interesting to actually see what the other person is typing instead of just seeing the old fashioned "herpaderp is typing something...", it could also turn out to be some sort of curse. Think about it, you might start typing some kind of reply to a wave and then erase it, if the other person was online, they still saw it. I hope they implement that private typing thing they talked about early on.

I hope that Google Wave is released soon, it's interesting to see how Google continuously manages to draw people to the power of the browser in comparison to actual downloaded and installed programs.