Coming Back For The Rest Of The Bike Later

16 03 2005

Without going into the long story, my car stereo was stolen. The only thing I can think to post is Bruce McCulloch’s Open Letter To The Guy Who Stole My Bike Wheel:

Open Letter to the Guy Who Stole Bruce’s Bike Wheel
Transcribed by: janet_langdon(at)magic.ca
Scott [Voice-Over]: And now Bruce McCulloch with an open letter to the guy that stole his bike wheel.

[Bruce enters, bike lowered from above. Lots of "Ah"s from the audience]

Bruce: Well, why did you do it? Are you some sort of jerk or something? It’s *my* front wheel! What did you think, that I’d — drive home and not notice it was stolen? What are you then? Some sort of *prick*? Some sort of idiot? Some sort of thief? What would you do with just my front wheel anyway? What good would just one wheel be? You human loser! Well, why didn’t you buy your own wheel if you wanted one so badly. That’s what I did.

[Music starts as Bruce turns away and stops when he turns back.]

Well, don’t you think I need that wheel? Well, well, what were you thinking? JERK!

Scott [Voice-Over]:That was Bruce McCulloch with an open letter to the guy that stole his bike wheel.

————————————–

Open Letter to the People Who Watched the Guy Steal Bruce’s Bike Wheel
Transcribed by: Tom Walsh
Scott [Voice-Over]: And now Bruce McCulloch with an open letter to the people who watched the guy steal his bike wheel.
[Bruce enters, bike lowered from above]

Bruce: Well, you knew it wasn’t his wheel! What did you think? He was coming back for the rest of his bike later? Well, why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you say something? You human piece of apathy! Why didn’t you say, “Hey! That’s not your wheel! That could be Bruce McCulloch’s wheel! We love him! And he loved that wheel!” Just eatin’ brunch. Well, didn’t you think I needed it? I did! Well, look at that! Feast on that act of violence! Good work, Einstein! Pus!

Scott [Voice-Over]: That was Bruce McCulloch with an open letter to the people who watched while the guy stole his bike wheel.

[Bumper video of Bruce walking his incomplete bike.]

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Final note: I spilled cold coffee on my pants while posting this.
 



Summer Geek Movies

14 03 2005

After last week’s orgy of posts, I probably won’t be writing as much this week. From Thursday to next Monday, I’m finally getting my time-in-lieu following the DVD launch. BONUS - I’m also getting to borrow the projector for the weekend… so I’m unofficially inviting you to watch all 11 hours of Lord of the Rings with me starting around noon on Sunday.

You’ve all talked about doing it, but I’m going to do it.

…such a geek.

But this is indeed a year in the movies for geeks. We’ve got Hitchhiker’s Guide coming out at the end of April, Star Wars in May and War of the Worlds in June. The comic book sub-genre will deliver Sin City, Batman Begins, and The Fantastic Four… and I guess Aeon Flux fits into the same category, although I never really got into the show. The body proportions were so disturbingly out of whack, it made your average anime look like the 1978 LotR movie!

It also looks like the DOOM movie might actually get made. With the amount of post-production special effects they’re going to need, I figure it will either miss the proposed August 5 release date, or it will suck. All I can think about is the last movie The Rock was in that had disappointing CG effects - the Rock-Scorpian at the end of The Mummy Returns.

Other movies of note are 3D cartoons Robots (by the Ice Age people) and Madagascar (by the Shrek people). Pixar’s “Cars” has been moved to Summer 2006. We saw Robots on Friday. I have to agree with whatever critic wrote tongue-in-cheek that the plot was a bit “mechancal”, but it was still a fun movie. The only nasty part is a teaser with Ice Age’s Scrat at the very beginning, concluding with “To Be Continued…”. We stayed until the end of the credits, and it was certainly NOT continued. Very angry!

The Japanese-To-Hollywood Horror sub-genre delivers The Ring Two, and Dark Water - both based off books by Kôji Suzuki.

There’s also a movie called “Mindhunters” with an interesting cast (LL Cool J, Val Kilmer, Jonny Lee Miller, Christian Slater) but I could swear I first saw the trailer for this movie at least a year ago… UPDATE - yup… the trailer on Apple’s web site says Copyright 2003, which means it’s been up there at least 15 months. Good news is that it looks like Christian Slater bites it early in the movie. Bad news is that the trailer tells you The Big Plot Twist. Watch at your own discression.

In the same weekend we get “The” blockbuster of the Summer, War of the Worlds, we also get Bewitched (Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell in one of his twenty movies he’s releasing this year), Herbie: Fully Loaded (with the brilliant thespian, Lindsay Lohan) and The Dukes of Hazard (with Stiffler, Jessica Simpson and the Jackass guy). So, if a couple-hundred-million special effects extravagandza is too intellectual for you, then you’ve got options.
 



Will Columbia Pictures Send Charlies Angels After Me?

10 03 2005

*Warning - Tech-ladden blog* If you are not a techie, play with this for a while.

So I installed BitTorrent last night.

The last time I did so was while ago, and I was quickly disillusioned as the progressive downloads would not save over different sessions. If I closed BitTorrent, it would lose all the files that I was downloading.

Incidently, I was downloading an anime series which doesn’t yet have a distributor in Canada. Technically not illegal.

Before leaving home today I left the new, version 4.0 BitTorrent downloading a few, high-popularity files (nothing x-rated, I’m not ready to get the MPAA on my case for that sort of thing). Of four files, only one was downloading at 2 KBps. Sad. Tonight I’ll see if online longevity really affects download performance, like it does for eMule.

Even if I stop using it to get hard-to-find anime, I’ll probably keep it on my system. There are a number of legitimate uses for it, as high-traffic sites will often link to a .torrent file rather than the 40 MB video file in order to save bandwidth… eMule supports a similar function with ed2k:// links. However, I’m probably going to remove eMule altogether.

Some files download beautifully through eMule, but most are incomplete downloads… taunting me with 95% completion for weeks on end. But that’s not what’s making me consider dumping eMule.

With my Rogers@home (or Rogers Hi-speed, or Rogers goes Yahoo!, or whatever they call it) I get an email address. I only check it once every few months since it’s only full of notices from Rogers like “upgrade your modem” and “buy a cell phone!”. The one that caught my eye today was the one with subject: Rogers EUA Management Team Notice

Note: I’ve removed the email address and a few critical pieces of information. I’ve also changed my name to Max Power because it sounds cool.

Dear Mr Max Power

Rogers Cable (Rogers) has received a notice stating that activities associated with your IP address are infringing copyright in material(s) owned or exclusively licensed by others.

The relevant portions of the notice are appended to this e-mail.

Under the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet End User Agreement (EUA) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), you are prohibited from using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service to engage in illegal activities, including activities that infringe copyright. Copies of our EUA and AUP are available at:

http://www.rogershelp.com/yahoo/downloads/agreements/index.html

Where there has been a violation of our EUA and/or AUP, including the unauthorized distribution of copyright-protected material, Rogers has the right to take appropriate action against you.

If you have any questions about the attached copyright notice, please contact the sender of the notice using the contact information provided in the notice. Please do not reply to this e-mail.

We trust you will comply with our policies and all applicable laws in using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service.

Sincerely,

EUA Management Team
Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Internet

http://na.edit.client.yahoo.com/rogers/show_static?.form=terms
00188906

“Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.”, Inc. and its affiliated companies are the exclusive owners of copyrights in motion pictures and television, including the property listed below.

It has come to our attention that Rogers Cable Inc. Flfrd is the service provider for the IP address listed below, from which unauthorized copying and distribution (downloading, uploading, file serving, file “swapping” or other similar activities) of “Columbia Pictures Industies, Inc.”’s (property)(s) listed below is taking place. We believe that the Internet access of the user engaging in this infringement is provided by Rogers Cable Inc. Flfrd or a downstream service provider who purchases this connectivity from Rogers Cable Inc. Flfrd.

This unauthorized copying and distribution constitutes copyright infringement under Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright Act . Depending upon the type of service Rogers Cable Inc. Flfrd is providing to this IP address, it may have legal and/or equitable liability if it does not expeditiously remove or disable access to the (property)(s) listed below, or if it fails to implement a policy that provides for termination of subscribers who are repeat infringers (see, 17 U.S.C. §512).

Title: XXXX XX XXXXXX
Infringement Source: eDonkey
Initial Infringement Timestamp: dd mmm yyyy ##:##:## GMT
Recent Infringment Timestamp: dd mmm yyyy ##:##:## GMT
Infringer Username:
Infringing Filename: XXXXX…XXX.avi
Infringing Filesize: #########
Infringers IP Address: ##.##.###.###
Infringers DNS Name:
xxxxxxx…xxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.cable.roger
Infringing URL:
ed2k://|file|xxxxxxxxxx…xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
Notice ID: #######

So what next?

I won’t say what the file is, but I will say that it’s an import film that will soon be hitting theatres… seems to me to be a prime target for P2P, and hence why they were targeting filesharers with that film… or at least a portion of it

Ironically, I removed the partial file of the movie-in-question last night during an anihalistic harddrive cleaning.

Kudos to Rogers for not just cutting me off. Double kudos for forwarding the message from Columbia. I now know that the file was spotted shortly after I changed the default setting in eMule preventing my inventory from being searched. So, lesson number 1, don’t allow open searches of your shared files!

One-third of internet traffic is supposed to be attributable to BitTorrent and other P2P apps. Frankly, the honeymoon is over. Perhaps this email has been like the first post-marital spat, but I’ve found eMule, BitTorrent, KaZaA, Morphius, and (for about a day and a half) Napster ver. 1 to be more frustration than they’re worth. The only advantage I can see to them is the opportunity to see a Uwe Boll film without having to give up any money for that trash.

I’ve got a lot of Pentium 200s at home. I think I’m going to start setting up FTP servers for each of my friends, and go back to the good ol’ days of sharing files with friends.

Now I just need some 80 GB hard drives…
 



emo sucks

9 03 2005

Here’s one more good topic I forgot to post yesterday. Good ol’ Punk (Sex Pistols, The Clash) had poseurs - people who were ‘punk’ for the fashion choice.

Modern Punk has “emo” (note the lack of Upper-Case lettering). Punk For Fashion’s Sake. Think of it as, “Anti-Bush Because It’s Cool”.

Here’s a quick primer on emo, but the best page he has is on “emo fashions“.



Twenty-nine (For The First Time)

9 03 2005

Behind schedule as always, here’s what happened on my Birthday weekend.

A good part of Saturday was spent at work, getting ahead on the final DVDs. However, for the evening we went to The Duke Of Kent, a pub just north of Yonge and Eglinton, not the Royals. We arrived and loitered for about half and hour before getting some seats near the back.

By the end of the evening we had most of the back room full of friends. There were a couple people there I’ve known for over ten years, and some that I had only met the day before at C’est What. Overall, a grand variety of over a dozen people all there for one reason…

…me!

It was quite a change from the usual collect four-or-five people and go to a pub sort of event. I even got presents! The projector I’m setting up at home next week supports resolutions up to 1024×768, so I’m going to hook up Star Wars Battlefront and give the 9600XT a run for its money. How cool will it be to drive an AT-AT in full-size?

The next day, we loafed around for much of the day and watched one of my gift-DVDs, Kung-Pow!. A great movie for a Sunday afternoon when frontal-lobe activity is not available nor desired.

For dinner, we went to Ajax to see the family. I hadn’t seen Dave, Ali, Erin nor Freddy for a while, so it was good to flip my niece and nephew upside down again. M&D and the John Clark’s were there, so it was a bit noisy but still fun. DVD movies and a player;, Discover magazine subscription and a Galilean thermometer; shirts and comfy pants; and pork ribs to wash it all down.

Definitely one of the best birthdays I can think of in recent years. And when you can say that about a birthday where you had to work on a Saturday, that’s pretty damned good!

…next year is “30″… and I still remember my brother, Dave, recovering the next day from his 30th birthday tequila-based fun.

I’m a little scared.