Completely by accident, I proceeded to further prove my original theory. Having been caught up with things over here, I ended up rather missing Friday’s game. And, as though daring me to try and disprove that theory, they went and took the game–albeit after scaring the hell out of just about everyone who did actually watch the thing. Of course and unsurprisingly, there was the mandatory Kessle goal or two. Equally unsurprisingly we somehow managed to win, for all of maybe the second time this year, two in a row. This keeps up and I’m not going to recognized this Leafs team. Which… may not be a bad thing.
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Maple Leafs 6, Panthers 4.
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Gonna miss you, Mininova.
I can tell you one thing I ended up not being thankful for when I woke up this morning after last night’s festivities. I staggered out to the computer, and went through my various news sources, coming up on this bit of disturbing news. It would appear, much to the dismay of just about anyone who’s had any experience with the downloading of torrents over the last… oh, 4 or 5 years or so, Mininova picked yesterday to close its doors to all but legitimately uploaded torrents. Which, as it turns out, rules out just about everything now on my list of things to be downloaded. Fortunately, if you follow the guys over at EZTV, they’ve already moved everything you might be looking for to alternate downloading sources. Which means, at least that illegally downloaded content will remain online. Now, to just hold out a little longer in the hopes that Demonoid makes a reappearance. Rest in piece, Mininova. We’re gonna miss you.
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Thanksgiving in a paragraph, or maybe two.
It isn’t very often the whole group of us gets together for a dinner or anything like that, so when it happens it tends to get all kinds of interesting. Tonight’s thanksgiving get together was no different. We all–Jessica, Julie, her husband, Tasha and myself–headed over to a friend and coworker’s place for the evening. There was a huge helping of all kinds of hilarity to go with the equally awesome spread she put out. It’s only the third or so such gathering I got to attend–the others being last year.
As per usual, we had the traditional fixings–turkey, dressing, all but the pumpkin pie. And there was the nontraditional aspect of it as well. Until I came down here last year I hadn’t the faintest idea they thought of green bean casserole as part of the usual routine. I hadn’t had it before, and of course going back this year I had to steal some more.
Now, while I try very hard not to explode all over my girlfriend’s couch, I’m once again mooching off her wireless while we both do the email and such thing. I don’t have the slightest clue what tomorrow has in store, but I can about guarantee it’ll involve the skipping of at least one meal. As for right now? I’m off to explode.
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Maple Leafs 4, Lightning 3.
I think I might have just discovered the secret to the Leafs winning troubles. Just tell me not to watch. They not only win then, but they do it in regulation. Something to be said for cheering your team on in weird and unusual ways, but there’s nothing like doing it while ignoring the game entirely. Three cheers for hockey related creativity. Or something.
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Adam Lambert won’t appologise? Oh, for shame!
Okay, Just to set the stage here, I know not everyone’s going to like, appreciate, or even approve of what goes on on TV, particularly nowadays–that’s part of the reason I don’t actually watch TV very often anymore. But, there’s gotta be a line drawn somewhere between that and ridiculous. And expecting someone to appologise for being themselves is, well, about as ridiculous as it gets.
On the American Music Awards, also known as the same show that allows such brilliantly talented artists as Eminem to spend 5 minutes rapping about raping women and interlacing at least half a dozen not rated for TV phrases in along with it, Adam Lambert had the unmitigated gaul to actually kiss his keyboard player–yes, also male–during a performance. Yes, I curse. I curse a lot. I’ll probably do a fair bit of cursing on this here blog–I’ve done it before. I have no problem with that. Much like I have no problem with the openly gay guy who wants to kiss some dood on TV–yes, in spite of the fact I actually do have a girlfriend and am not, will not be, and have not been, gay myself. What I have a problem with, and this is a huge problem, is people who will presume to complain enough about that that it makes headlines for days after the awards, and yet leave Eminem’s talented performance alone, and not offer a comment except in passing when certain other performers break beer bottles over pianos. Okay, I get it. We’re not ready for an openly gay performer like that. But we’re ready for women to show their stuff on stage and guys to talk about raping them.
The guy’s gay. Big deal. He kissed another guy on stage. Also, big deal. And he’s not appologising for it. I may not like the music, but just for this, I sincerely hope he brings his boyfriend, life partner, whatever it is he wants to call the guy he’s with, with him to his next interview and kisses him right on camera. If we’re going to complain about things that may or may not be offensive, let’s at least try and introduce some consistency to the mix here, shall we?
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Christmas in the valley.
Occasionally, I’ll share a little something from my music collection, or something I find online, that may or may not have some actual connection to me and/or my family. In this case, it’s a video that was actually uploaded, not by me, to Youtube in 2006. Personally, I think it’s an alright video, and the song is one which almost always gets played around December in my house. Wayne Rostad’s Christmas In the Valley, which–if you exclude the whole part about the cattle and all that–kind of describes some of the atmosphere around the Pembroke area, at least where our family’s concerned. It really is a whole lot simpler time when December hits. And I think this captures that simplisity. Not bad, for a song that was originally recorded probably before I was born. So, here, have a video. Assuming this works properly.
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When your network takes a crap, and takes your email with it.
At some point during the night last night, and rather inconveniently after Jessica and I had run off to bed and so I couldn’t immediately determine that it was a network issue, this blog, a rarely updated–and, in fact, rather neglected for a couple weeks–political blog, and our email among other things, decided to take a rather gigantic crap on our front lawn. The first ever self-hosted version of the blog–link’s over there in the right sidebar–was started on this network, hosted by DreamHost, in January of 2006. Since then, I’ve always had something going over here. If not a blog, then some little utility or web app I was playing around with just because I can. Or a forum I was testing for one of the RP projects I’m either involved in or dedicating resources to. So I’ve been with them a while.
In that time, I think I’ve only ever really personally encountered… maybe 4 major, “OMG I can’t access a thing” type failures. It may, in fact, even be less than 4. So when I woke up to a screen full of “can’t connect” messages (thanks, Outlook), I was more than a little bit surprised–albeit temporarily. And, admittedly, more than a little bit frustrated–emails I should have received overnight hadn’t actually hit my mailbox yet. Once I managed to get my end of the cleanup out of the way, though, I started looking into something I hadn’t really looked at since, well, the last time DreamHost’s network went and crapped out.
I’ve been eyeing on and off, usually while the blog etc is offline, the idea of moving most if not all of my various outlets fully away from a managed environment. I’ve been running the DH VPS for a few months now, plus I’ve been running two of my own, unmanaged VPS’s for a couple years. Mostly, it’s been a sort of learning environment for me–see how many different ways I can break the system, then reinstall it, and start all over again. And yet, every time something like this happens, I always toss around the idea for a few days of actually expanding my knowledge overall of the Linux environment, and at the same time put into development my own email, and possibly web, solution–one independant from any particular web host. But I never actually get around to doing that.
I’ve done much of the actual research already–the most likely candidate for when I actually decide to take that leap will probably end up being one that centers around Postfix and MySQL, now I just need to find the energy, motivation, and maybe get frustrated enough with my current setup that I finally just say screw it and go with it. It’s probably gonna suck, but at least then I’ll be able to actually figure out for myself what’s up and died on me. Meanwhile, hey, DH, can we get a more stable network please? I really don’t like being forced into considering enduring the necessary brain damage to actually set something like that up. At least not at such a young age.
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Islanders 4, Maple Leafs 3.
We were doing so well, too. Well, for about a period and a half anyway. We kept them off the board in the first, and even Toskala managed to make a few huge saves in the frame. I mean, granted we didn’t do a whole lot of actually scoring ourselves, but work with me here. The second was a bust, completely. To the point where we had to change goalies. When the Leafs have to change goalies in the second period, you know they’re not doing very well. The only bright spot in that period was Kessel put yet another one in the net. That made 6 since he became a Leaf. We somehow managed to tie it up in the third, but I couldn’t help but get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. And, sure enough, the overtime winner was an Islanders point. I was surprised. Not because we lost yet again, but because the fact that we lost yet again was perhaps the least surprising thing to me in a very long time. Guys, I know I said we love to lose, but… well… we love to win, too. Can we maybe try that a bit more? Please?
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OC Transpo switches it up for the winter.
Break out the calendar if you plan on taking the bus next week, and mark down this Saturday’s date under “Important to remember”. OC Transpo has released their winter service schedule, with a twist for a lot of popular routes, which will be effective from then on. To start, they removed my formerly regular stop at Bayshore during their morning runs of routes like the 118. The 101 also doesn’t stop down by the office I used to work anymore–considering, you know, almost no one actually works there anymore–so if you have work to do near where the old Dell building is, you might want to think about taking the 182–at least, I think it still drops you off about a block from there. How does the change affect you? check it out for yourself, and then either bitch, complain, or otherwise opinionate in the comments if you’re so inclined. Or not.
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Can’t fault the guy for trying.
Everyone who knows me knows I’m a Jays fan. Have been at least in passing since the early 90’s. Have been a more hardcore fan starting in approximately 1999 or 2000. And with every year, and every game I’ve actually been able to sit down and watch, things seem to be progressively worse. The only constant, and that’s often times constantly above .500 for a given season–and way over .500 career–is the only guy on the team fans have collectively called by name since Joe. Roy Halladay, otherwise known as our better answer to Roger Clemens. He’s won as many as 20 games, and I don’t know that he’s ever actually lost more in a season than he’s won–I’m sure someone with a better head for Jays trivia than me will correct me. He continues to get better year by year, while the rest of the team progressively… well, does all kinds of not doing that. And now he’s thinking about leaving the nest. There were trade rumours all through last offseason, and even through part of this one. And they’re talking now about a possibility of him not signing with the Bluejays again once his contract’s up in 2010. Not that he can be blamed–the man deserves a world series win. Actually he’s deserved about 6, but if he gets at least 1 in his career it’ll be well earned. And, as aptly pointed out by the Jays’ new GM, he probably won’t get that as soon as he should with the Jays–the man’s not getting any younger here. So, if you’re really leaving us Roy, we’re gonna miss you. But if you find that world series start you deserve a shot at, I’ll be right there in front of the TV with a pizza and a coke or 3 to watch it. Just please, for the love of God, if you have any love for your fans at all, please don’t do it with the Yankees.