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  • They don’t win often, but they win big.

    written by

    james

    I’ve always sort of absentmindedly followed the Jays for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t until around 1999 or 2000 that I started more consistently paying attention. And, admittedly, I didn’t do a whole lot of that last year. Now, though, I’m actually surprisingly glad I do.

    Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista each hit two-run homers, and the Toronto Blue Jays avoided a three-game sweep with a 12-4 rout of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday. The major league leaders in home runs brought their team total to 76, and the Blue Jays established a season high for hits with 17.

    They don’t win often, but when they win, they win big. That’s my team.

  • An open letter to James Moore.

    written by

    james

    It’s come to my attention, minister Moore, you aren’t seeing any negative reaction to your and other MPS’ decision to not open the books for a public audit. It has also come to my attention that you believe the media’s continuing to throw it out there despite an apparent lack of pressure from the public to knock it off with the being a moron and spill it. Please allow me a moment of your time to set the record straight.

    As a member of the public, albeit not of your constituency, I’m very interested in what it is you folks are spending my tax dollars, as few as they are, on throughout the year. And, I’m actually quite surprised a man as otherwise observant as you are seems to entirely skip right by the fact that I, along with probably a majority of folks who’re actually following this development, am pissed. So, let me just reintroduce you to that minor problem. We give you $500 million of our tax dollars per year, for you to blow in on expenses related to your position. And in return, you provide us with–er–what, exactly?

    See, when we ask that question, and we very much are, the correct answer to give us is not “trust me, I’m not breaking the law”. If you see that as the appropriate response to our question, then might I submit that when income tax time rolls around next year, that will be the response I will submit to the Canada Revenue Agency in place of my statement re: how much of my money belongs to you. Because, clearly, if the laws of the land don’t apply to those who make them, why do they apply to me? I believe most folks would refer to it as setting an example.

    I will end this post with one more request to please yank your head out of your ass and wake it the hell up. Show us the money, or we’ll be more than happy to show you the door. You’re losing what little respect your ill-fated hockey prediction might have bought you.

    Sincerely,
    One of many tax payers who is currently considering his own internal board of economy.

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  • If this video is legit, my ISP’s awesome just increased.

    written by

    james

    There’s an advertisement being floated by my ISP, Teksavvy, that’s made it on to Youtube. Apparently, it’s also being shown on TV in some places–though personally, I hadn’t seen it until today. If it’s indeed an actual ad for the service, it’d be the first one I’ve seen from any company up here that didn’t stink of corporate BS–like, say, filling service level guarantees you just know you’re not gonna get. And it has the added advantage of also being vaguely hillarious. Here it is, for the randomly curious.

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  • Unexpected Victoria day cellebrations, and fun with .wav files.

    written by

    james

    Sometimes, my apartment has the weirdest benefits. I blame living in a small town. I was treated to a rather unplanned–at least, I didn’t plan it–fireworks show for the May two-four weekend. Or, as we call it up here, the Victoria day weekend. It didn’t last entirely too long, but it was vaguely entertaining. Kinda makes me wonder what unplanned goodness I’ll be privy to for Canada day. Or if I’ll still be here to see it.

    In randomly unrelated and still amusing news, I’ve gone all 24th century on my cell. My text message, instead of one of the default Nokia sounds the thing ships with, is now one of the com badge sound effects from Star Trek: Voyager. Because, well, I had it on the computer and didn’t have any other use for it. I was moderately amused. Still kind of am, a little. Or rather, I was–now I’m just lazy.

    Sorry, no earth-shattering content here. Perhaps I should have saved my PAC-MAN rant for today? Oh well. I’d of still posted this anyway.

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  • America’s legal system screws up huge–again–and effectively kills IsoHunt.

    written by

    james

    IsoHunt may or may not be heading towards shutdown after yet another, shall we say, less than brilliant ruling from south of the border. Now, keep in mind, IsoHunt is located in Canada so this ruling probably shouldn’t even apply, but the US has a thing for sticking its legal nose in where it doesn’t belong–ACTD, anyone? My favourite part of the ruling, if only because its mock value is through the roof.

    Defendants shall be permanently enjoined from knowingly engaging in any of the following activities in connection with the Isohunt System or any Comparable System:

    (a) hosting, indexing, linking to, or otherwise providing access to any Dot-torrent or similar files that correspond, point or lead to any of the Copyrighted Works;

    (b) assisting with end-user reproductions or transmissions of any of the Copyrighted Works through a tracker server, or any other server or software that assists users in locating, identifying or obtaining files from other users offering any of the Copyrighted Works for transmission; or

    (c) hosting or providing access to any of the Copyrighted Works.

    So, escentially, a service not based in the US has been ordered by a US court to instinctively know whether or not something it’s hosting is protected by copyright and not supposed to be up there–ignoring the fact the service is used by people who hold the copyright for various types of media and actually want them to be up there. Brilliant. Because, you know, it just makes me want to go out and get back to doing things the legal way. Except, um, not really. Good job, folks.

    If you’re curious to see what else was found wrong with the ruling, not that you probably need to, clicky. Moronic people are moronic. And now, back to whatever it was you were reading before me.

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  • Every beatles song should be followed by this. It is a law.

    written by

    james

    At least, it should be. If only because something has to counteract the balance a little. Or something. Here, have some balance-countering music, in non-video format for a change.

    Pop Hates the Beatles (sharing is caring–save before playing)

  • Please tell me Facebook doesn’t want to play fortune teller.

    written by

    james

    Excluding the hundred billion privacy issues they’re dealing with, now Facebook takes interpersonal guessing games to a whole new level. Apparently, its CEO has decided to perform his own little experiments and see if he can predict who folks would end up in a relationship with based on their Facebook interactions. Now, temporarily excusing the fact the last thing we need is another freaking match making site, he seems quite impressed with a 33% accuracy so far. I’ll restrain myself from pointing out he would have never predicted Jessica and I, for the simple fact of both of us barely use Facebook and she only joined after we’d started dating. But, good try, Zuckerberg. Might I suggest just buying out EHarmony, instead?

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  • Happy birthday, PAC-MAN. Now get off my Google.

    written by

    james

    So apparently today’s the thirtieth anniversary of the PAC-MAN game for arcade. And apparently Google’s taken to cellebrating it with an annoying recreation. For the next two days, a trip to Google’s homepage will reveal a very playable, and very irritating–when you’re not in the mood for playable–recreation of the original game. For about 30 seconds, it was cute. Then I actually wanted to get things done. Happy thirtieth birthday, PAC-MAN. Now kindly get the hell off my Google.

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  • Things you miss when you don’t read the news. Or, why I should pay more attention to the mock-worthy.

    written by

    james

    I haven’t been keeping up on my usual sources of entertainment this week, primarily on account of having catching up to do in other areas. I kick myself for it now. In list format, because I can, things I could have, and should have, soundly mocked this week. You may feel free to mock one or all of them in the comments on my behalf. I won’t be upset.

    • What’s the first thing you do if you’ve just been caught in an afair, and your significant other decides to up and leave you? If you’re this chick, you sue the cell company. Because, you know, there’s just no way he would have found out anyway.
    • If in doubt, just nuke it. That’s a solution being tossed forward by an apparent expert for stopping the oil spill in the gulf. I’ll have my shrimp with a side order of radiation, please. I always thought “Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” was just a movie quote. Clearly, I don’t get out much.
    • Ways not to impress the Afghanistan president, number 54761: call him a weirdo and predict he could trigger a civil war. Yes, even if he did say, supposedly jokingly, he might as well join the dark side. Yes, even if he’s not doing a whole lot better in charge of that country than the dark side. And yes, even if you are–as I think you would be–absolutely and completely 100% in the right. That’s just not cool–especially if you used to work in that country for the UN.
    • When even actors are downloading their own movies because it’s more convenient and less annoying than paying for them, you know there’s a problem. Question is, what’s the industry planning to do about it? Answer: probably not much–that would actually require effort.
    • And, in the political arena, because I can’t go on a mocking spree without it, we have this wonderful piece of I’m not sure what. Liberal party of Canada leader Michael Ignatieff would just like you to know that, if you didn’t spend all that much time outside of Canada and living as varied a life as he has, you’re not as Canadian as he is. Might I ask, exactly from what planet was he exiled before landing in Ottawa? I didn’t know spending 30+ years in the US and/or the UK–he did both–made anyone more Canadian than the next. Boy have I been set straight.
    • And in unrelated news, Montreal won tonight. I thought I told folks to fix the playoffs. They’re still broken.

    See what happens when I stay away from news sources? People don’t get mocked. Clearly, we can’t have that.

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  • New area code comes into affect today.

    written by

    james

    It’s official. Sometime during the next 24 hours, new phone numbers in Ottawa, Pembroke and area will show up with a new area code. The new code, 343, is to address an apparently expected shortage in available phone numbers in the area. They blame the increase in mobile phones for the shortage of numbers; I blame a lack of recycling the old ones. I guess now we know why we’ve had 10-digit dialing for the last 4 years.

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