I want to write about how this news has affected me. Words fail though — I’m not, after all, a master at words the way Aaron was. He inspired me. I always wished I could be him, and I always suspected that eventually our paths would cross and we would become fast friends. His death has really affected me deeply.

I am not nearly as smart or eloquent and I suppose I am glad not to have been in his situation but I will miss reading his brilliant writing.

It might seem strange to be sad about the passing of someone you’ve never met. People don’t understand why you care. The friendship was actually just an asynchronous following of his RSS feed, but his writing was one of small selection that were on my highest priority list. If he wrote something, I made a point of reading it. It’s so sad to think there won’t ever be any new posts from Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought.

http://flickr.com/holidaygift

As a special holiday gift, Flickr is offering to either upgrade accounts or extend them for three months; no strings attached.

CTRL-F will help you find text on a web page in most modern browsers. Press and hold Ctrl and then press F, follow that by typing in the words or words you want to find. Mac users try Command + F.

There — I just saved hours, if not days of your life.

Oh, and as a bonus tip, if you want the same search functionality in your personal (paper) book library, give the My Library feature of Google Books a try — it might just blow your mind.

It’s been stressful but the community has really come together to make these games great. It’s been a pleasure to be chairing the ceremonies committee and our Opening Ceremonies tomorrow night at the Enmax Centre are going to be great!

The Three Stooges: “For the Farrellys, The Three Stooges is a labor of love. For non-believers, it’s merely a labor.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Lockout: “I suspect many people will be on board, as I was, with Lockout for about 5 minutes. Fortunately, anyone can go to YouTube and see them without seeing what comes next: 85 minutes of shoddy plotting, direction and full-on boredom.” — Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com

John Carter: “The reported $250 million price tag for John Carter gives one pause. I suppose one could argue that masterpieces have no price. Then again, John Carter is no masterpiece.” — Peter Rainer, CS Monitor

Every four years, the Olympic Games stop the world. For a moment in time, the population across the globe, share in athletic glories, defeats, and Olympic stories. For 12 Lethbridge Swimmers, the dream of becoming an Olympian will be put to test in reality show called the Canadian Olympic 2012 Swimming Trials. The Trials will take place next week in Montreal, at the historic 1976 Montreal Olympic Pool. The pool is situated in Olympic Stadium, originally built for the 1976 Olympics and formerly home of the Montreal Expos.

For the Lethbridge contingent, the road to the Olympic Games began a decade ago. From initially jumping in the pool to learn four basic strokes fly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, each athlete has worked to improve strength, endurance, speed, has refined stroke technique, has learned how to apply sport psychology, learned how to balance social and academics with athletics, and has paced up and down the pool several million km’s. These athletes have raced on the national and international levels and have participated in training camps around the world, just to gain experience for this moment.

Through the process of diligent training, day to day, month to month, year to year these athletes have put themselves into contention. Competing at the Olympic Trials is comparable to making the NHL playoffs.

“The Time is Now,” says Head Coach Brad Mori. We have 12 qualified to compete at the Trials; Ryan Thornley, Kyle Troskot, Leah Troskot, Jeffrey Nicol, Rachel Nicol, Jessica Kelly, Kristy Gabruck, Mat Loyola, Matthew Mastromatteo, Tiha Konyves, David Errington, and Zack McAllister.

This is the largest contingent to ever represent Lethbridge at the Canadian Olympic Trials. “I think we are doing a good job of keeping kids engaged in the sport long enough for them to mature physically and mentally, they are able to realize their potential, and go about their day to day business more professionally. Swimmers are now hitting their prime in their mid to late twenties. Generally, the days of sending teenagers, with hormones and inconsistencies, to the Olympics Games is done. We are sending intelligent men and women, with a full set of tools.”

For Kyle Troskot, Zack McAllister, Jeffrey Nicol, and Rachel Nicol they will go into the meet with having experienced the Canadian Olympic Trials in 2008. “This is a different meet with different pressures than most competitions. For many swimmers their dream and career goal is on the line.” “It was the most exciting competition of my career” says Mori, who was a 1996 Olympic Trials Finalist and also competed at the 2000 Trials. “Having been in this moment 4 years ago, with the press and the hype, these kids will have the advantage of experience.”

Our top contenders will be Kyle Troskot, Rachel Nicol, and Zack McAllister. Both Kyle and Rachel are away at university this year, Kyle is at Texas A&M (2nd year) and Rachel as at Southern Methodist University (1st year). Zack is in his first year at University of Lethbridge and training with the Pronghorns. Both Kyle and Rachel will be fresh of performances at the NCAA championship. The fastest meet in the world should also provide added experience for the Olympic Trials next week. McAllister has had a great season, having competed at the Pan American Games in Mexico this past fall.

Pronghorns, Ryan Thornley, Jeffrey Nicol, and Jessica Kelly will be looking to crack the top 8 “A final”. “If you have a lane, you have a chance. Anything can happen. Every 4 years you see kids come out of the wood works, you see veterans come out of retirement for one last chance to make the team.”

To make the Canadian Team, swimmers must win or place second in the event and swim a time faster than the FINA “A” two per country time standard. Rachel Nicol has posted this standard previously, Kyle is itching closer. Zack will be competing for a spot on the Paralympic Team. “Unfortunately for Zack, we are still waiting on a classification appeal, and might not know if he has qualified until after the ruling has been made.”

The meet will run from March 27th to April 1st. Rogers Sportsnet will be covering the action live nightly from 7-8:00 pm Eastern time.

Update: Richard made the team! He’ll be competing for Canada in the 4×100 relay. As for the Lethbridge swimmers, there was a total of 39 personal best times with four swimmers making it into the finals—three placed in top eight.

One for the Money: “We’re meant to laugh at the fact that cute little Stephanie bumbles her way to getting one informant killed and another savagely beaten and thrown from a moving vehicle. Oh Stephanie, you’re a riot!” — Jeff Otto, cinemaobsession.com

Red Tails: “One can get away with a lot of cornball speeches a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away but it doesn’t work nearly as well a short time ago on planet Earth.” — James Berardinelli, reelviews

Man on a Ledge: “After an hour of this malarkey, you’re tempted to ask if there’s room for one more on that ledge.” — Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close could be more accurately described as Extremely Mawkish and Incredibly Irritating.” — Ethan Alter, Television Without Pity

Contraband: “‘Contraband’ aims to be dumb fun but gets only the first half right.” — Kyle Smith, New York Post

My address:

Here is my technique:

Jack and Jill: “Howard the Duck, Gigli, Showgirls, From Justin To Kelly. What do they all have in common? They’re all widely considered to be among the worst big studio movies ever made. You know what else they have in common? They’re all better than Jack and Jill.” — Mike McGranaghan, Aisle Seat

Immortals: “When Hyperion says of one character, “His pain has just begun,” you know exactly how he feels.” — Ty Burr, Boston Globe

In Time: “It’s an intriguing concept, rather than a compelling story. Before the movie’s over, its time is up.” — Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times