Breakable Crate

Denver the Last Dinosaur.

cardinal fang — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:37:33 +0000

I'm sitting in an expensive hotel room in Denver, Colorado. It's 5:30 here time, but 7:30 my time, so I'm ready to eat, and also pretty tired. I've been having these out-of-character allergies lately, the kind that makes my nose and eyes itchy and water, and there's nothing I can do about it ('cept Benadryl). I think I need medical attention for it.

I understand that you get dehydrated quickly at this altitude. I also understand you get drunker quicker.

I watched Julie & Julia on the flight over, and it was pretty good, and made me want to cook something French. Also to write a blog post. However, I felt like the movie left me hanging with some of the questions raised about the connection between the two protagonists. I also thought the offering of butter to the Food Gods was a bit over the top, even if it was true.

I think I'll blog about the new house next time.

The Czech Roll.

cardinal fang — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:11:57 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

my love for this video is well known. I put it here as a reminder to me to watch it again.

Unknowns:

What is the name of that dance?
What kind of mouth-tuba is that?
Why does a man come onto the screen and blow onto a pane of glass?
How can it be called "Czech Roll'd" when it is clearly a pleasure to watch?

English Translation [via nikokaojabg in youtube comments]

I'm driving in a Skoda 100 to camp in Orava
Because I'm in a hurry, I risk crossing Moravia
A monster prowls around there, it comes out of the swamp
It mainly eats people from Prague, and it's called Joe

Joe Swamp creeps through the bogs
Joe Swamp approaches the village
Joe Swamp is sharpening? his teeth
Joe Swamp bites and strangles
Who'dve thought that the way to deal with Joe Swamp
The only thing that works is a plane with white powder

I was driving through a village on the road to Vizovice
I met the village elder who told me over some slivovice
"Whoever brings me Joe, dead or? alive,
Shall have my daughter and half the collective farm"

Joe Swamp creeps through the bogs
Joe Swamp approaches the village
Joe Swamp is sharpening his teeth
Joe Swamp bites and strangles
Who'dve thought that the way to deal with Joe Swamp
The only thing that works is a plane with white powder

I say, "Chief, give me the plane and the powder
I'll give you Joe, no problem"
The Elder agreed, and at dawn I rose to the skies
The powder fell beautifully from the plane onto Joe

Joe Swamp is now all white
Joe Swamp escapes from the bogs
Joe Swamp has turned to stone
For Joe Swamp, this is the end
I caught Joe and now I have him, woohoo!
Cash is always? good so now I'm selling him to the zoo

In Czech after the jump.

Original Czech [via Trooperer in youtube comments]

Projížd?l jsem d?dinou cestou na Vizovice.
P?ivítal m? p?edseda, ?ek mi u slivovice:
"Živého ?i mrtvého Jožina kdo p?ivede,
tomu já dám za ženu dceru a p?l JZD.

Jožin z bažin mo?álem se? plíží,
Jožin z bažin k vesnici se blíží,
Jožin z bažin už si zuby brousí,
Jožin z bažin kouše, saje, rdousí.
Na Jožina z bažin, koho by to napadlo,
platí jen a pouze práškovací letadlo.

?íkám: "Dej mi p?edsedo letadlo a prášek,
Jožina ti p?ivedu, nevidím v tom há?ek.
"P?edseda mi vyhov?l, ráno jsem se vznesl,
na Jožina z letadla prášek p?kn? klesl.

Refren:Jožin z bažin už je celý? bílý,
Jožin z bažin z mo?álu ven pílí,
Jožin z bažin dostal se na kámen,
Jožin z bažin tady je s ním amen.
Jožina jsem dohnal, už ho držím, johohó,
dobré každé lóvé, prodám já ho do ZOO.

Faunts

cardinal fang — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:57:36 +0000

I've lately been digging on this Edmonton-based band, Faunts. Their first album has this quiet, ambient toned-down vibe, but then they moved to a more rhythmic, electronic sound, and then to something poppier on their latest effort. The funny thing is, now that I've discovered them, they seem to not exist. All their websites are static, with no new information or tour dates. (Geek note: I discovered their music because they have a song on the Mass Effect soundtrack)

Are you happy now?

cardinal fang — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:02:50 +0000

Yeah, so I don't post much. Not much is going on, and when something is, it tends to be photo documented. I work, I rent video games. Oh, I know! I sold my Wii and bought a PS3 with the proceeds. I am much happier now. You see, I can sort of watch Blu-ray rentals (sort of, because my audio receiver chokes on the crazy high-bitrate audio), and if I go to rent a game, and it's not available for the 360, I can just get the PS3 version! Brilliant!

I was just chatting with james, and he sent me links, which I will share with you here. Others are mine.

We choose the moon. A recreation of the moon mission from back in the day. Presented by the JFK museum and LIBRARY.
Vibram 5-fingered (toed?) shoes. Yeah, you'll look like a freak. But this is the way of the future, man. embrace it.
Project Tuva. Bill Gates buys the video rights to Richard Feynman's physics lecture from back in the day. He calls them inspiring. They are free.
Don't even reply. letters from an asshole. This guy responds to classified ads and acts like a dick. It's funny.
Also funny is http://ncbirofl.blogspot.com/. Ridiculous research.
I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, since 2 hours of my day are in the car. I can highly recommend Spark from CBC, which I just started listening to. (and RadioLab, but I think I've talked about that already). You can google those, since I'm feeling lazy.
I'm totally going to virgin fest if I can get tickets, since it promises to be the last show NIN plays in Canada for a long time, if ever.
Yes, I know these aren't links anymore. I like saying 'from back in the day' when I can't be bothered to find an exact date.

photo update: sunfest and fredericton

cardinal fang — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:09:26 +0000

David Kitt – No Truth in Your Eyes (NSFW)

cardinal fang — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:22:49 +0000

DAVID KITT "No Truth in Your Eyes" Official Video, dir. Asad Raza from David Kitt on Vimeo.

DSLRd

cardinal fang — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:26:26 +0000

After years of dreaming (and being unemployed) I finally decided to buy a digital SLR. If you know anything about the way I make (large) purchasing decisions, I hemmed and hawed for sometime. I did my homework, comparison shopped, price shopped, coupon shopped, used shopped and eventually shop shopped.

For more than a few moments I was strongly considering buying a used model (read: kijiji). The benefits were many: significant price cut, no tax, (usually) minimal use. There were plenty of sellers (in Toronto), and I was very close to sealing a deal (which fell through). But then I noticed this extremely dodgy deal: no name, no address. Just send me your money via Western Union and I'll courier you the camera. Ok, yeah, I'm going to fall for that one. And the funny thing is, every ad I looked at after that felt like it was a scam waiting to happen. So I bought it from Dell!

I know you just can't WAIT to see the photos I'll post now.

ooh, shiny.

Btw, if you want to know what a classified-ad scam might look like, here you go:

I want to tell you something in advance.You are buying this from grey market. There wil be No tax No receipt.I can't provide you my phone number, address, store name or web address.But I am located in Mississauga Ontario.
Pick-up is not available even for the local customers.
The kit will be shipped via Purolator and
shipping cost will depend on service you want.
Shipping cost with Purolator:
$40 Transit time 4 Days
$51 Transit time 2 Days
Payment terms are in advance and via Western union
The Reason why Western Union:
1. I don't collect people's Credit card #s and personal information
2. No paypal because of http://www.aboutpaypal.org/buyers_using_paypal_to_scam_sellers
If you are still interested please let me know.

Pelee Point

cardinal fang — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:02:37 +0000

View all

Get your own

An ad-free internet?

cardinal fang — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:53:21 +0000

Farhad Manjoo's lastest column in Slate discusses the ethics of the browser plug-in that blocks all ads on websites. I think it is clear to most people that ad revenue is how many websites make money; perhaps not the only way, but it might be. So, if we browse the web while turning all ads off, isn't that akin to piracy? Or, perhaps, you think of it as a consumer's right - more like fast forwarding or changing the channel while watching TV.

The article looks to a middle ground, where users choose which sites they are willing to see ads for, and those they are not. The difference might be between a site you visit a lot, or perhaps sites which do not offer intrusive ads. For me, personally, it's more about the latter: even if I like a site very much and visit it regularly, if they offer full page pop-up ads, or big flash banners with in-your-face graphics, I will turn off those ads, no ethical dilemma at all.

So, how do we get to that middle ground? One way is to use a plug-in like Flash Block which will prevent those nasty flash ads from loading, but still allow you to selectively load flash as you need to. Ad-block itself plans to allow users to choose to allow ads on sites that they visit often with a 'guilt' prompt: "As a frequent visitor to this site, maybe you should start viewing some ads. This site promises they aren't too annoying."

Yeah, ok, I'll look at your ad. Just as soon as I finish downloading this movie off PirateBay.

An Update

cardinal fang — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:33:55 +0000

Remember me? Yeah, I've been doing this whole work thing, which has sucked some of my blogging inspiration out. I have put a bit of content on the other site, but it is designed to be only sporadically updated.

Here's some stuff to listen to. Beatbox guy. Lost to a teenage Canadian for an online thing. He wuz robbed!

Just got back from a run. This was the last song playing.

Emma and I watched this movie, "Tell No One". It was really very good. I'd say watch it, but don't actually watch this trailer. Also, it's in French.