ChrisTalbot.com

The weekend in short...

The drunk at Steve's almost didn't happen because Stevie ended up in the emergency room after he neatly chopped the tip of his thumb off. Thankfully, they didn't medicate him and he was still ready, eager and able to have people over, so Rawl and I caught up with him and Steve's bro a bit later than originally intended. We drank beer all night, chatted and played a little bit of PS2. At 6:30 Saturday morning, Rawl and I headed out.

Saturday afternoon, I took a quick trip over to my parents' place. Ken and Dorothy (my mother's sister and her husband) had driven down to visit for the afternoon, so I stopped by for about an hour-and-a-half. After getting home, I got ready to head over to Casa De Law. When I got there, we popped copies of Halo into the two Xboxes and set up some system link deathmatches. I'm happy to announce I kicked some serious ass and almost always came out on top. Even when I didn't outright rule during a match, I don't think I ever really dropped lower than second place (okay, maybe to third once). After everyone tired of me whoopin' ass, we flipped on Conan the Barbarian and watched it. I was a little unimpressed with the image quality. It was clear they hadn't really cleaned up the print at all. You could see all the dust flakes, bits of dirt and hair throughout the movie. Damn cheapass DVD producers.

I got home from The Law's at about 1:00 a.m., got some shut-eye and then got up early to head downtown with Logan to the Toronto ComiCon. We met up with Tom, grabbed a coffee from the Timothy's in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and then went to wait for the convention to open. ComiCon was being held in a conference room in the north hall, and it was mostly filled with comic book vendors (duh!), but also a few memorabilia merchants and some shady types selling bootleg DVDs of everything from old B-movies to the Star Wars Holiday Special. As it turns out, none of us bought any comic books (I had hoped someone would have the first trade paperback of Cerebus, but no luck there), but Logan and I both picked up some bootleg DVDs. I was quite happy to find a DVD that had all of the old Simpsons shorts from the Tracy Ulmann (spelling?) show. I just finished watching it a little while ago, and while the quality gets a little shaky from time to time, it was still kind of fun to watch all those old shorts.

So that was my weekend.

It's going to be a busy social weekend for me (for once!), and Jacquie's a bit jealous. She's stuck in the house all weekend working on report cards while I'll be out gallivanting. Tonight is a drunk with Rawl and a couple of friends I haven't seen in awhile -- Steve and Brad. As I understand it, Steve's buying the beer (yay!). So that should be cool. Rawl and I are going to crash at Steve's tonight, get up early and then drive back from the city to the 'burbs.

Tomorrow night is a guy's night at Casa De Law (aka Lawrence's house). I think about eight or so people are expected to be there in total. The idea is Lawrence wants to show off his new big-screen, widescreen HDTV (all sixty inches of it, baby!) by playing some head-to-head Xbox games (Halo! Halo! Halo!) and watching Conan the Barbarian on DVD. (As fate would have it, Dark Horse's Conan #1 came out this week -- yahoo!) Of course, what's a guy's night without drinks? However, I'm not planning on crashing at The Law's place, so I'm only going to have a couple of beers, hang around for the movie and then head home for some sleep, because...

Sunday is Toronto ComiCon (what a dumb way to spell it -- it should be ComicCon). Logan and I are going to head down to the Convention Centre mid to late morning and hook up with my friend Tom (although all of this has to be confirmed). It's like five bucks to get in, so it's not like it's going to break my bank or anything. Then we'll hang out, browse, buy some comics and make fun of the dorks (y'know, people who aren't cool like us *grin*). Then it's off to grab a beer or three at an establishment near the Convention Centre.

I hooked up with Rawl for coffee (well, he drank tea) last night and didn't get home until close to midnight. As with the last time we got together for coffee (and tea), we geeked out big time -- Star Trek, video games, Transformers and Doctor Who. Add to that our favourite topic of making fun of our old elementary school teachers, and it was a fun night. I drank too much coffee, though, so it took me forever to get to sleep.

I can't remember the last time I bought a CD -- y'know, a music album. It's been awhile, that's for sure; and I don't have a clue what the last disc would've even been. However, I'm pretty sure I need to add to my CD collection. I'm thinking I might check out a music store this weekend after I make yet another visit to Wyldstar to pick up the last issue of Wolverine/Captain America, The Punisher #3 and (hopefully) Conan #1.

Jacquie tells me my blog has been getting very geeky the last couple of weeks. Yes, definitely true -- comic books, video games, video game movies and other geektastic stuff. I think she's just jealous 'cause she didn't score higher on the Geek Test, though. ;)

GameSpy has published an article called The Top Ten Consoles that Never Made It, following up on a recent article about failed handhelds. Like with the handhelds article, it's interesting, but some things don't fit. For instance, the Sega CD shouldn't be here, because it simply wasn't a console -- it was an add-on to the Sega Genesis. ... Some might say I'm nitpicking, though.

Some video games just shouldn't be made into movies -- like Dungeon Siege ... or ... uh ... Tetris ... or even Super Mario Bros.

After much dicking around, I've finally nailed down our next D&D session. It's been over a month since we last played, but the game will get rolling again on March 7th. That said, I'm planning on running a side game sometime in the spring -- the d20 version of Call of Cthulhu.

If you've never read H. P. Lovecraft's so-called Cthulhu Mythos stories, now's the time. In fact, you can find a lot of them online here. His stories are delightfully bizarre and can be creepy, even several decades after publication. However, HPL was a bit of a blabbermouth at times, and some of his stories are filled with purple prose. The dude really could've used an editor at times.

Back when I was still in the Society for Creative Anachronism, I joined a house filled with Lovecraft fanatics. Unfortunately, the site seems to be down.

In theory, comments should be active now. The comments app is courtesy of HaloScan.

My weekend was more or less uneventful. Logan and Rich (a gamer who joined my D&D group a few months ago) went to the Pandemonium roleplaying game convention over the weekend, but I haven't yet heard how it went. I chose not to go for a variety of reasons (one being I didn't feel like tolerating the stench of sweaty and unwashed bodies -- yick!). Instead, I hung around the house most of the weekend, taking a trip to Wyldstar on Saturday to pick up issues two and three of Wolverine/Captain America.

I'm not sure what to make of the Wolvie/Cap mini-series. Three issues in and not much has really happened. There's been a couple of fights, but not much else. The final issue should be the big battle between the heroes and The Contingency (a new military group that was introduced in the first issue -- seems it's a rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives team). However, the entire storyline doesn't really seem natural. There's not a very good flow to it. Oh well.

Other than that, I worked a bit of yesterday to get some articles written and out of the way, and I watched some DVDs throughout the weekend. Yeah. Not very exciting, eh?

Seeing as I'm an anime fan and I live in Durham Region, I find the Northern Anime Festival 2004 to be of some interest to me. Put simply, it's an anime festival that will be taking place in July at one of Durham College's campuses. ... I think I've been to that campus before. It was several years ago when I was covering something for Silicon Valley North. I think it was some kind of robotics show or demonstration. As I recall, it was an okay-looking campus.

Thankfully, this article about the Star Wars DVDs is fake, humourous news, but it's damn funny.

I took InnerGeek's Geek Test, and I scored a whopping 40.23669%, making me a Major Geek. Jacquie took it as well, but she only scored 18% and change.

It's finally Friday! Unfortunately, I have an important article due today. Damn! And I'll probably have to work part of Sunday. Double damn!

Oh well. I'm still going to head to Wyldstar tomorrow and do some comic buying, so at least I'll have that. ;)

When I was a teen, the comics I read were all superhero ones -- Spider-Man, Batman, Wolverine, X-Men, etc., etc., etc. Although I had seen Dave Sim's Cerebus on the shelves many times, I never bothered to pick up a copy. Honestly, stories about an aardvark sword-slinger didn't appeal to my teenage mind ... but stories about ninja turtles did. Go figure. (Actually, the truth is I have very few issues of TMNT in my collection.)

With the demise of Cerebus in another couple of months (Sim only ever meant for the title to run exactly 300 issues, and he's almost there), I'm starting to think that I missed out on something (from a fellow Canuck, no less). Thankfully, the entire Cerebus series going all the way back to 1977 when the first issue appeared is available in what some call "phone book" collections (as in, each collection is as big as a phone book). I'm thinking maybe I'll try to find the first collection of 25 books and pick it up, and if it's good, I'll go from there. It's kind of funny that as Cerebus is about to be no more, suddenly I'm becoming interested in it. Just call me Mr. Jump On The Bandwagon.

And for the amusement of all... What really happens in D&D, as told by Jack Chick. Thanks for the laughs through all these years, JC.

I think I just had one of the weirdest lunch combinations ever -- a salmon burger and a hamburger. Hopefully those will sit well in my stomach. *gurgle*

Wil Wheaton put a link to this on his site. Just brilliant. Make sure to check out The Geek Hierarchy to see where you fit in.

Just in case you're interested, the lowest I ever got on this list was being the 13-year-old gamer (which is difficult to miss if you've ever been a gamer -- you usually start by your early teens). I must admit that I was very briefly a LARPer, though. And if the SCA counts as LARPing, then I guess I was a LARPer for about two years.

Can there be such a thing as cool geeky stuff? Well, you be the judge:

Toronto ComicCon

Toronto SciFi-Con

Toronto AnimeCon

TransformersCon

Transformers Expo

Two Transformers conventions in the same month? Be still, my beating heart!

I just got back from having coffee with Rawl. It went a little bit later than expected, I think, but part of that was simply because Just Desserts was so busy and we were having trouble flagging down the waitress to pay the bill.

Rawl and I geeked out big time tonight. Comic books, cartoons, Transformers, G.I. Joe, anime, superhero movies -- oh yeah, geek stuff, for sure. I've known Rawl since Grade 3, and we grew up sharing a lot of the same interests. He's also one of my few friends that I can have completely different types of conversations with. We can totally geek out (like tonight) or we can actually have somewhat intellectual conversations. Or we can intellectual conversations about geek stuff. Fun stuff.

After my little temper tantrum this morning about the Star Wars trilogy, I got to thinking about film as art. This is the real reason that I don't like filmmakers tampering with their films. Actually, that's not quite true. I don't mind it if they tamper with the films, but I do like to be able to get my hands on the original cuts in addition to the modified versions (case in point, Steven Spielberg released the double-disc of E.T. with both the original, unaltered version and the new version with the guns edited out).

For the most part, changes to films are not necessary at all, and in a good many cases, they don't improve the film. The only director's cut version I can honestly say improved the film was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Let's face it, the so-called original was what the studio wanted, not what Scott wanted. The director's cut version was closer to what Scott wanted. Unfortunately, for those who liked the subtitles and happy ending, it's very difficult to get a copy of the original cut of Blade Runner these days. That's really too bad, as I would like to have both versions on DVD.

A lot of cases can be made for both sides. Was Spielberg right to take out the guns in E.T. and replace them with walkie-talkies in an era that was more sensitive about firearms? Should Greedo have shot first, and thus not given us the impression Han Solo was a scumball? Should Apocalypse Now really have been over three hours long? Should Jar Jar just be edited out and replaced with an Ewok? (Just kidding. Jar Jar rawks!)

As a filmmaker, I'm sure the answer is: "Hell, yeah, it's my creation. I can do what I want with it." And I'll agree with that up until a certain point. However, by releasing it to the public, the artist "gives" it to the public. The filmmaker owns it, for sure, but the public definitely has a stake in it as well, especially when it comes to classic movies like the Star Wars trilogy, Citizen Kane, Apocalypse Now, Alien, Gone With The Wind or any of a few dozen more movies that can be called classics.

So looking at it from a fan's perspective, we enjoyed the movie the way it was originally shown. I remember seeing A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back in a double-feature sitting when I was a little kid. The grain on the film, the dust and hairs on the lens, the projector whirring in the background -- all of that is part of what I loved (and still love) about Star Wars. The movies take me back to when I was kid -- before CG effects, before we knew that Star Wars action figures were going to be worth a bundle, during the period of time when non-sports trading cards of movies and TV shows were starting to become popular.

When such things are changed and we, the fans, are told we're never going to be able to see our beloved movies the way we originally saw them and the way many of us prefer them, then I'm appalled. If Michelangelo were around today, would he break out the chisel and update David for this millennium? I would think not. I certainly would hope not.

Sculptures, paintings, sketches, you name it -- they're art. The newer media, such as photography and film, are also art, although many of the Hollywood productions have changed film from an art into a commodity. No matter what, though, art is art, and it reflects an age, a state of mind, a setting and a creativity of the time.

The Star Wars Special Editions were interesting to see in many ways, but they also seriously detracted from the artistic nature of the film. What George Lucas and company accomplished on a meager budget during the mid-1970s was amazing, and the addition of computer-generated special effects is a stain on that accomplishment.

I recall seeing the A New Hope Special Edition in the theatre. Everyone sat there, waiting to see what Lucas had done to improve and enhance the movie. I'm sure few, if any, were ready to just toss out the old version in favour of the Special Edition, but we were willing to give it a chance -- to give the creator an opportunity to try to show us what Star Wars might be like if he had filmed it in the 1990s.

However, I think all of this disdain for the Special Editions can be summed up in an anecdote told to me by an acquaintance after seeing A New Hope Special Edition for the first time. He sat there, watching, and as the scene came up where Greedo was going to be toasted by Han Solo's hidden blaster, the audience was silent. Then the shot from Greedo's pistol. Then Han's shot. According to this person, the crowd was dead silent. Then someone voiced what the entire audience was thinking at that very moment: "What the fuck was that?"

I hate you, George Lucas. How dare you shit on Star Wars fans with your refusal to release the original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy on DVD. Screw you!

As announced last week, LucasFilm will be releasing a four-disc DVD set of the original Star Trilogy in September, but they'll only be those horrid Special Edition versions (Greedo shot first, my ass!). LucasFilm reps have gone on record to say the unaltered versions will never be released on DVD. Well, on the plus side, that opens up a big market for bootleggers.

I'm getting the distinct feeling that some spammer is using my email address in a Reply-To field. I'm getting some weird bounce messages that are going to addresses I've never seen before (and I don't have an Outlook address book, so a worm can't touch me there). Dammit!

After landing in Honolulu and giving Gareth a shout to let him know I had made it safe and sound, I had to find out how I was going to get to the hotel. Checking my wallet, I realized I had a whopping seven dollars in U.S. cash. Of course, that meant I was a dollar short to hop on the shuttle bus that went to all of the major hotels.

As it turns out, bank machines are a rare breed in the U.S. I'm more used to seeing bank machines on every street corner and in every major building, but I found it nearly impossible to find a bank machine in the U.S. After searching in vain, I finally swallowed my pride and stopped to ask someone at the airport. She directed to me to the bank machine hiding in the room marked American Airlines (shouldn't it have been marked Bank Machine?), and after swiping my card and punching in my PIN, I determined that I was only able to take out twenty dollars of U.S. cash. That, along with the seven bucks in my wallet, would somehow have to do me until I arrived back in glorious Canada on Saturday.

To make a long story short, I hopped on the bus, paid my eight bucks for the ride and soon was outside the beautiful Sheraton Waikiki Hotel (right next to the Royal Hawaiian in all its pink-ish glory). With bags hovering under my eyes, I waltzed in and demanded my room, only to be told it wasn't ready yet. ...What? What kind of hotel doesn't have a room ready at 7:30 in the evening? Oh well. I had no choice but to wait. I was too tired to make a fuss. About ten minutes later, they called me over to hand me to key card to my room on the thirty-first (top) floor. Unfortunately, the room's balcony opens up onto the street and I can only look down the coastline and not directly out onto it. Still, I can't complain too much about the view.

Exhausted, I arrived at my home for the next three nights only to find I was too exhausted to sleep. Deciding I might as well take advantage of my insomnia, I hopped on the elevator and went down to the main level. Hanging a right toward the back of the hotel, I walked right out onto the patio bar and a Hawaiian rendition of Green Day's Basketcase. It turns out there was a two-man band doing covers of alt-rock tunes with a Hawaiian flare. Interesting stuff, for sure.

I took a stroll through the crowd of chaise lounges and listened to the band a bit before heading down to walk along the beach. This was my first big mistake (well, second if you include showing up in Hawaii broke). Watching the tide, I deemed myself smarter than Mother Nature and stood right at the edge of the tide, letting it just barely touch the soles of my brand new shoes (okay, that was another mistake -- never break in new shoes on a business trip). After the tide licked the soles a couple of times, Mother Nature played me for a fool and send the next wave up to my ankles. With wet feet and shoes now sprinkled with Hawaiian sand, I returned to my hotel room and attempted to dry my footwear out with the room's hair dryer. (Hey, it worked!)

Sleeping was still a chore, and the stress of traveling and my utter exhaustion made that first night an intolerable one. I'm pretty sure I only managed to get three hours of sleep or so. Not good, considering I had to get up the next morning at 6:00.

Next time, find out how my first full day in Honolulu went.

I set out early to get to Pearson Airport. Since my parents were on their way west toward Woodstock for the day anyway, I hitched a lift and got dropped off at Terminal 2 with plenty of time to spare. Customs and security always freak me out, especially after last May's incident with the caps I had forgotten about and inadvertently left in my backpack. Let's just say security was less than impressed with the passenger carrying gunpowder. Since then, I've even been quite afraid of airport security, as most of my packs have far too many pockets and zippers. I'm afraid I'm going to forget about something else that could mark me as a nogoodnik.

My flight to LAX left at 9:00 a.m., and I was lucky enough to get an aisle seat right near the bathrooms. That's especially fortunate, as I was taking the advice of Gareth at Strategic/Ampersand and chugging down a bottle of water the whole way there. The other passengers must've thought I had bladder problems. On the plane, I ended up sitting next to a woman and her twenty-something son. Both were bound for Maui, but while the son was only staying for a couple of weeks, the woman was going to be there on vacation for six weeks. Nice. They seemed to think my four-day round trip to Honolulu and back was a bit much, but what can I say? It's part of the job, and I frankly couldn't afford to extend my stay any longer.

On the flight to L.A., we watched the Russell Crowe movie Master & Commander, and while it was interesting, it was far from spectacular. In the end, there really wasn't much of a story, but the cannons and occasional fights made up for it a bit. Five hours-ish after take-off, I landed in the dreaded LAX airport. It's a good thing I had a couple of hours to get to Terminal 7 (from Terminal 3, as I recall), because that is one big, damn airport. When I went to visit Sony Online Entertainment last May before E3, I had to switch planes at LAX, and I had barely an hour to get across the airport to the commuter terminal. Not bloody fun, but I made it.

From Pearson to LAX, I was flying Air Canada, but the flight to Honolulu was a United plane. I think I prefer the way Air Canada jets are laid out. Also, the headphone jack on the United plane was a bit fucked up, and I didn't really understand the majority of the dialogue in the movie Radio. At least I got the gist of the conversations, though, so I was still able to follow the movie.

Honolulu. Since I was in the middle of the plane, I couldn't see a damn thing as we swooped out of the sky. It would've been nice to have seen the islands as we plummeted toward the airport, but alas, I can only hope I'll have a better seat on the way out when I leave on Friday afternoon.

There's a five-hour difference between Honolulu and Toronto, and we landed at 6:00 p.m. Honolulu time. Do the math, and you'll realize it was feeling like 11:00 p.m. to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep at all on the plane, and by the time I got to the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, I was too exhausted to sleep.

Next time, I'll tell you about my quick jaunt on the beach and the cover band that played alt-rock tunes with a Hawaiian rhythm.

Dammit! Of course, they go up now that I've posted today. X(

I'm back from my trip to Hawaii. I arrived back in Canada yesterday morning just after 6:00, and after clearing customs, I found both my parents and Jacquie waiting for me. I ended up sleeping the entire day.

Unfortunately, I've discovered that the Blogger time delay post feature sucks. I don't see either of my time delay posts up on the Website. Annoying.

Here's a Valentine's Smootchie for all my readers.

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
I look a monkey,
And I smell like about three.

Er ... yeah. Whatever. I'm posting this a little early with a timestamp, as I don't know if I'll actually get a chance to post on the 12th because I'll be at the Cisco Partner Summit in Honolulu.

Now that I think about it, this is the first birthday where I'll be all warm and cozy instead of freezing cold. Sweeeeet.

I only have a few minutes before I'm back in meetings, so I'll make this first entry quick. I'll try to get online tonight to see if I can put up a real post. So here goes, my Hawaiian Adventure in summary:

Flight was long. Saw Master & Commander and Radio. Neither were extraordinary movies. Airline food was tolerable. Did I mention the travel time was looooong? Couldn't sleep last night. Panic attacks. Stress attacks. I think I almost went insane from lack of sleep. Broke. No money. Could mean trouble. Did I mention how long it took to get here? Hawaii's beautiful. Hotel backs out onto beach and ocean. My shoes got wet by the tide. They were more or less dry by this morning, though. Conference is busy. Back to work.

As I start to write this, it's almost exactly twenty-four hours before my flight to L.A. takes off. I'm getting a bit nervous about missing connecting flights and going through customs (getting lectured last May for having caps in my backpack -- that I'd completely forgotten about being there -- makes my customs trips even more freaky now; I really don't want a repeat), and I haven't exactly been sleeping well the last few nights. Damn, I hate traveling. It's too stressful. I'm guessing I'll barely sleep tonight, probably waking up every hour on the hour or some such thing.

The weekend was good. Proving my geekdom all over again, I hit Wyldstar in the 'shwa (for those who don't live in Durham, that's what we call Oshawa) with Logan and grabbed a few recent issues of comic books. I forgot how much I missed reading comics. I scanned through the whole lot when I got home.

So I'm sure you're asking yourself: What comics did Chris buy? Did he keep his vow of not picking up any of the titles he used to read as a teen?

Well, I kind of broke the vow. I did pick up the first two issues of the new Marvel MAX version of The Punisher. Two words: Fuckin' cool. Micro, who had ditched the Punisher way back in the mid-Nineties when I was still reading (for all I know, he's come and gone several times since then, though), is back ... and the guy's back with a vengeance. At the end of issue two, it looks like Frank Castle just took a shotgun to the chest, courtesy of his old partner. I am so frickin' hooked again on The Punisher, it's just not funny. I can't wait for the next issue to hit the streets. Unfortunately, it's a month away before the next issue comes out.

In addition to the first two Punisher issues, I grabbed the first issue of a four-part miniseries: Wolverine/Captain America. Issue two should be out by the time I'm back from Hawaii. I also grabbed the first issue of a Tales From the Crypt rip-off written by Rob Zombie. Okay, but I don't think I'll bother picking up any more issues of it. I also bought the zero issue of Dark Horse's new Conan comic (I'm really looking forward to this) and the first two issues of the four-part Return of the Jedi: Infinities series, which Jacquie and I read together last night.

I think it's safe to say I'm hooked once again on reading comic books. Heheh.

I don't know why, but I've lately been feeling the urge to get back into reading/collecting comic books again, which is something I really haven't done religiously since I was a teenager. Back in the day, I used to be a big fan of Wolverine, Spider-Man, X-Men (blue team, with Wolvie, Cyclops, Jubilee, Gambit, Rogue, etc.), The Punisher, Spawn (I still have four or five copies of the first issue -- what was I thinking?), Savage Dragon and Detective Comics (i.e. the original Batman title). Of course, many of those titles got fucked royally during the early to mid-Nineties with absurd or poorly thought-out storylines, so I can't even think about going back to reading any of them. Besides, there'd be too much catching up to do.

So I'm trying to find a comic book title or two (or three?) that I could read regularly and enjoy. If at all possible, I think I'll avoid anything from Marvel or DC, simply because their characters have been around too long and either grown too complex or grown too ridiculous. Maybe if I can find something that's still in its infancy, then I'll be able to get into comics. I've been checking into one new-ish title called Wanted, and it seems like a fairly bizarre superhero title (which is great, 'cause I'm definitely bizarre).

My friend Logan is into a number of titles, like The Punisher, Runaways, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wanted, Supreme Power and Sentinel Salvage, but I'm not really familiar with any of those but Punisher and TMNT. Now that I think about it, I could get back into TMNT. The old black-and-white, non-Archie version was a kick-ass title years ago. I wonder if it stills stands up as a quality comic these days.

Oh well. More on this after I've visited a comic book store. ;)

Definitely drinking too much coffee. I had a dream last night where I was waiting in a Tim Hortons lineup, and all my friends were there (well, Rawl and Steve were -- I'll apologize on behalf of my dream to the rest of you; I'm sure it didn't mean to leave y'all out). I'm not sure whether that means my inner fetish is to stand in line for Tim Hortons coffee or whether it means the addiction has set in and the high blood pressure is coming. Either way, I don't care. ... Ooo! A fresh pot!

Here's an interesting site I stumbled upon while searching for Star Wars: Episode III rumours. Evan Mather is an independent filmmaker, and he does some cool stuff -- like stop-motion animation using Star Wars action figures. Just go and check it out. Trust me.

An ego search brought this page up: GW Players in Canada

I don't know how this guy Chuck got that info on me, but it's quite old (although it looks like the site hasn't been updated in years, so that might explain it). They also some out-of-date information about my buddy Steve up there, too.

Just because I'm sure everyone is dying to know, I'm no longer drinking soy milk in my coffee ... although I'm feeling sick just thinking about it. I've been drinking half-and-half cream in my coffee for the past twenty-four hours. However, I think I've been drinking a bit too much coffee since hooking up the little coffee maker. I'm starting to have desires to visit Colombia. ... Just kidding. ;)

*hack* Gah! *spit* I forgot we were out of cream this morning before I started making my *spit* coffee. And the only milk in the house is *bleh* soy milk. *hurk* Oh man, I hate soy milk. *barf*

Rawl has put up a link on his site to Cecil Adams' The Straight Dope. I haven't visited this site in a very long time, and I'd all but forgotten it even existed.

For those not in the know, Cecil Adams is the self-proclaimed World's Smartest Human Being and is a syndicated columnist. By sheer coincidence, his syndicated column is called The Straight Dope. Cecil has quite a knack for research and has answered questions for in his column since 1973. He has published several books, which are basically culminations of his various columns, and he updates his Website on a regular basis.

Whether or not he truly is the World's Smartest Human Being is one of those great mysteries, but hey, who am I to argue with the man? I've had my share of questions I thought were impossible to answer, but lo and behold, the answers can be found in the Dope's archives.

Have you ever did an ego search on Google or any other search engine? I do one every so often. ... Come to think of it, I think I wrote about an ego search that turned up my Rotten Tomatoes entry a couple of months ago. Bah. Who cares if I recycle topics?

For your viewing pleasure, I give you Chris Talbots of the World, starting with probably the worst Chris Talbot Website in existence. While my site sucks, it's not nearly as craptacular as: Chris Talbot's First Web Page

Best of all, I'm prettier than that guy. ;)

I managed to track down the source of the Xbox Next story that landed in my inbox. It's a San Jose Mercury News article that went to print yesterday. The article in question can be found and read here. Again, these are pretty much all rumours, and I'm sure some of them will turn out to be untrue. I tend to agree with the analyst quoted, though. There's no way Microsoft is dumb enough not to make it compatible with original Xbox games.

A forwarded news piece about Xbox Next (aka Xbox 2) entered my inbox this evening, and I have to say I'm kind of curious about whether this "leaked" information is truly accurate. It's interesting because the Xbox Next will have a lot of horsepower under the hood but will probably be lacking a hard drive and backwards-compatibility with original Xbox games. Neither of those decisions really make sense to me.

But hey, to be quite frank, I don't even own an Xbox. I have to admit it was my least favourite console while I was writing game reviews for a living and I never went out of my way to get one for myself. Of course, it's very likely that Microsoft and Sony are going to be the ones to push game consoles forward while Nintendo plummets until it's little more than a shadow of itself. After all, the game console business has never really supported more than two consoles at once. Just through reading the history of game consoles, somebody has to drop out of the race.

In keeping with the spirit of my post last week about my favourite book, which turned into a post about my favourite books (plural), I'll turn my eye to movies today.

I think I've been asked what my favourite movie is a lot more than my favourite book, but it's a question that I find very difficult to answer. The truth is I watch a lot of movies, and the majority of the movies I see really aren't worth further viewings. In addition to that, even movies I watch regularly can be easily picked apart for their glaring flaws. I mean, I've been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid, but let's face it -- the Star Wars movies are poorly directed, poorly acted, poorly scripted, etc. There's only two things they have going for them -- an action/adventure plot that's easy to get into (it's a lot like those old crappy sci-fi serials) and the special effects kick ass. Of course, neither of those are reasons to name any of George Lucas' movies as favourites.

In no particular order, here are a few of my favourite movies: The Usual Suspects by Bryan Singer, Regarding Henry by Mike Nichols (possibly Harrison Ford's greatest performance), Legends of the Fall by Edward Zwick and Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre (a superb movie, but not for everyone -- Wallace Shawn is one of the best actors on the planet).

I'm sure I'm missing some of my favourites, but I'll leave it at that for now.

It's been kind of a lazy weekend. Aside from seeing Big Fish, Jacquie and I have watched a couple of movies at home. We just finished watching Legends of the Fall, for instance, which is a movie I've always enjoyed. Oddly enough, though, we don't own it on DVD, just on VHS.

Jacquie's actually been home sick since mid-day Thursday. She's been having migraines and such, and she's been a bit of a suck this weekend. ;) So we've just been chilling out the last few days, although I'm about to get working on some client pieces that are due by tomorrow at noon. *sigh*

In a little over a week, I'm heading to Honolulu for a business trip. Cisco is holdings its annual Partner Summit, and the company is taking a couple of Canadian tech journalists down for the conference. It'll be kind of busy that week, and I'm not too thrilled about working on my birthday (February 12th), but hey, it's a living. That's part of the job. ... And yes, I realize I'm not going to get any sympathy. :P