:: theMediaman journal ::

:: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 ::

Rob Van Dam from the WWF is coming to the Richmond Hill Walmart (how appropriate) on Thursday. The thing that's going to kill my WWF Superstar loving brother is that the Walmart is a short distance from my house - about a five minute walk.

Unfortunately I have no idea who the guy is. The whole WWF/WCW merger went by without me paying much more attention than to tape the occasional RAW is WAR to send to Japan.

(After reading his biography - or character description - whatever) It seems that he was some dude that came over from the less popular ECW merger. ECW collapsed about the same time as WCW.

Whatever.

:: Stephen 1:03 AM [+] ::

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Oxymoron in web site form: http://www.amish.net/

:: Stephen 5:56 PM [+] ::

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The new movie trailers are up on the Apple QuickTime site. They usually show up every Friday to coincide with their release in the theatres. Here's what's new.

Dana Carvey is back in a starring role as a Roberto Benigni-esque Master Of Disguise. His exceptional talent has been missed since he had to take several years out of the limelight due to frequent heart problems, so I'm glad to see that he's back. Unfortunately, Dana appears too old now to play in a movie that looks like little more than a collection of stupid slapstick comedy akin to your typical Warner Brothers live-action movie. My hope is that this will be a launch for the next stage in his career rather than the phasing out of it. This one will be in theatres May 31, 2002, and in the "Previously viewed" video bin at Blockbuster by June 31, 2002.

The Time Machine has finally moved past the last of it's release delays (hopefully). The movie was directed by Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt - bleah) and Simon Wells who is the great-grandson of H.G. Wells - the author of the namesake novel. Gee, I wonder if he got the job on merit alone? This incarnation of the film looks pretty sweet. Taking from the trailer, it would seem that there is a heavy dependancy on computer graphics in film - an ongoing theme for big-budget films that would rather spend money on WOWing the audience than a decent script. This is another film that was hit by the events of September 11. Given that there was part of a scene where a chunk of Earth's Moon falls to earth and crushes New York, they had to remove it. Sometimes chunks of Moon can be mistaken as a commercial airplane. Assuming no more release-date changes, this one will be in theatres March 8, 2002.

There's also the newest Video-Game-To-Big-Screen adaptation, Resident Evil. "Now better than ever with sexy Milla Jovovich!" The following is the plot outline from the IMDB webpage, and acurately describes the full depth of the film. A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident. Taking from the trailer, it seems to be Return of the Living Dead meets the 3D artists. This one starts March 15, 2002.

Waking Up In Reno. Billy Bob Thornton. Patrick Swayze. Jokes about wife-swapping and a multitude of redneck jokes. I'm not going to waste 90 minutes of my life watching this film. I'm not even going to waste five minutes writing about it. Waste your own time when it finishes it's limited release and comes to a theatre near you February 22, 2002. Yeehaw.

Adding to the long list of modernizations of Shakespeare plays, MacBeth is the most recent to be bastardized. This newest schlock matches the Scottish Play with the current love of the 1970's. Countless high school students will be spelling MacBeth incorrectly for years to come, as Scotland, PA uses "McBeth" as the spelling for the characters. The reasoning is that "McBeth" takes over his father's restaurant and turns it into a fast-food franchise. Even from the trailer, it's obvious that this movie is taking shots at McDonald's. While the storyline uses Shakespeare's MacBeth as a model, the characters only seem to speak in iambic pentameter when they're high. Ethan Hawke did it with "Hamlet". Even "Romeo + Juliet" managed to modernize the environment without changing the dialogue. If you can get Leonardo Decaprio to do Shakespeare, then modernizing MacBeth would be a cinch. Apparently they didn't care. This seems to me to be a blatent act of plagarism rather than an homage to the Scottish Play. This one's out in limited theatres now, and lets hope it stays there.

:: Stephen 2:45 PM [+] ::

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Normally I try to figure out one-sentence descriptions of Barrie. Example given:

"Barrie is one of the few places where a snowmobile is a street-legal vehicle"

...or...

"The Bayfield Mall has four financially stable dollar stores."

My newest one doesn't really have to do with Barrie. However, it is one of my favourite one-sentence descriptions so far.

"Hockey is the only support where you can get concussion after concussion after concussion and still be considered prime trading material - but if your knees go, you retire."

:: Stephen 11:14 PM [+] ::

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The freelance job with Reg et al. is complete. Check out the bee-yew-tiful Flash animation at Sherwood System's website. Reg did a gorgeous job with the tables. These days, the young 'uns always put too much emphasis on graphics to create a clean interface. It's good to see that HTML can still be beautiful.

God, I'm a geek.

:: Stephen 1:56 AM [+] ::

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Livewire hasn't given me anything serious for months. I've been kept "on hold" for when on project for Intier Automotive starts up. This week, I had to digitize an insane amount of video, clip it, compress it, fix it, find missing clips and compress it again. I haven't even totalled up the hours I've worked this week... let's count together!

Monday I took off... was feeling significantly less than 100% and there wasn't much for me to do until I got the Digital8 video tapes on Tuesday.

Tuesday I brought Digital8 video tape on to the video edit station from 9:30 AM to 8:30 PM when we all decided to go home and watch "24". Luckily, the client is also a massive fan so we got out early. 11 hours.

Wednesday I arrived at work at 9:00 AM. All the video digitizing had to be completed by Friday afternoon. It fell upon me to estimate how much time this was going to take and to do it. Lindsay - the only other person at Livewire capable of handling the Video Edit station - was off having a baby. It was pretty much up to me alone to get this completed at all costs. Around 6:00 AM I went to sleep on the couch at the office while the computer compressed video.

Thursday I went home around 6:30 PM. 35 and a half hours.

Friday, I slept in a bit. Coming off a long shift like that, I easily fell to sleep by 11:00 PM and rested for a full nine hours. Paul wanted to drink and watch videos, so I encouraged him to show up at work around mid-afternoon. That was the only way I knew that I would leave early. We left around 4:30 PM. 7 and a half hours.

Total: 54 hours in four days.

Damn. That comes up short when compared to my previous record of 56 hours in four days. That one occurred when I came home from Japan to find that the project that I had been working on had nothing done on it. With my body still working on Japan's time zone I managed to clock most of those hours in the first three days.

Wait! I almost forgot. Saturday, Paul and I woke up from our drunken night of "Evil Dead II" and "Army of Darkness" to watch Jackie Chan's "Twin Dragons". I got a call from Briare around 2:45 asking me to come in and fix a few videos that were still having problems. Apparently, it was not that important and could wait until Monday. Briare called me anyway, didn't tell anyone, then left the office. I had no way of knowing that I didn't actually have to come in. So I did.

By the time I was informed of my lack of importance, I figured I might as well do the work since I'm here. I fixed the videos, set them up to compress, and left. This alone adds on another three hours including travel time to and from my place (industry standard thing to do).

New total: 57 hours.

:: Stephen 12:53 PM [+] ::

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Once again, Microsoft is attacking the alternative OS market.

Lindows is a hybrid operating system. In other words, software that was written for the Microsoft Windows platform will work in Lindows. Likewise, software written for the massively popular Linux platform will also work on Lindows. The problem is that they got into the business of selling honey, while knowing full well that eventually the bees were going to sting.

Microsoft is no stranger to crushing competing OS's. Often, they'll sink large wads of money into the courts, causing their soon-to-never-be competition out of the market before they begin. Those legal bills add up, you know. Venture capital can disappear quickly when you're up against a trillion dollar enterprise.

...and I'm not just Microsoft bashing here. That's the job of other hypocritical geeks. My primary concern is not that Lindows may die before it's born, but that I am now tied to the organization in Steve Ballmer's eyes!

Lindows has a mailing list for people interested in keeping up to date on the beta releases of Lindows and the information on the final release. I joined for these reasons, but mainly so that I would be one of the first to be notified when Microsoft inevitably came after Lindows. Unfortunately my plan backfired. Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com and founder and CEO of Lindows sent out an email outlining his current status with Microsoft. It would seem that Microsoft confiscated the Lindows "entire database of names, email addresses and physical addresses for parties interested in the yet-to-be-sold operating system".

This is unfair. I was fully aware that Microsoft was not affiliated in any way with Lindows, yet they take my name into a list? Here is my response, emailed to Steve Ballmer at legal@microsoft.com

From: Stephen Clark
To: legal@microsoft.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 10:18 PM
Subject: Lindows

I wish to know what you plan to do with the list of email addresses you obtained from Michael Robertson. I opted into his list for his product with the full knowledge that neither he, his company nor his product, Lindows was connected with Microsoft.

I did not opt into this list for your purposes. Remove any instance of srclark@sgci.com from any documents you received from him. Thank you.

Stephen Clark, Windows XP user.

I'm not sure what I plan to accomplish with this. It's not as though a single email can bring down a monopoly - it probably won't accomplish anything. However, not emailing at all would ensure that my voice is not heard, so I'm already one step ahead.

:: Stephen 11:04 PM [+] ::

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The question is What's better? Have money and comfortable job in Toronto or no money, work part-time at Starbucks to pay rent and create online content for Disney Online?

(quick background) When looking for a job in 2000, I applied to Disney Online in North Hollywood, California. After being flown down there for the interview, I was hired. However, I was turned around at the border when I tried to get my work visa. Shortly afterwards, Disney Online and GO.com all but shut down. They let go everyone but a skeleton crew, and I was thanking my lucky stars that I was in Ontario and unemployed instead of in California and not legally allowed to work.

Since Disney Online's momentous crash I've periodicially checked the Disney Online careers section but found nothing. Recently, they've redesigned the website and they currently have several jobs open similar or identical to the one I was hired for... except for one thing.

Money.

When I browsed their site today, the only site content creation jobs that I could find was Unpaid Intern, Site Content Developer.

Well, now I have more reasons to stay in Canada than I did in 2000. I have a job, I have my family and my life. I have a one year contract on this apartment. I'm committed to staying in Ontario. Disney missed their chance at me, and I'm trying to convince myself that I'm all the better for it.

:: Stephen 6:46 PM [+] ::

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I am a Pacman Ghost.


I like to hang around with friends, chatting, dancing, all that sort of thing. We don't appreciate outsiders, and do our best to discourage others approaching us. I enjoy occasionally wandering around randomly, and often find that when I do so, I get to where I wanted to be. What Video Game Character Are You?

:: Stephen 6:12 PM [+] ::

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Saturday I worked most of the day on the freelance project I'm doing with Reg & Co. It's some pretty basic stuff right now, but I have a few ideas of effects that I've never tried before that I'm going to play with today. Unfortunately I had to cancel the trip to Creemore with Simone. I felt bad since she wanted to do some on-the-spot research for her project, and I wanted to take the brewery tour for not-quite-as-educational reasons.

Since my brain was fried by early evening and I suddenly had all of Sunday to work on my freelance stuff, Simone and I went out to rent my very first DVD! Now that I've watched all my DVDs once, I'm moving onto the rentals. At the Rogers Video, I've noticed a few things. Perhaps most important to my long-term love life is that Simone doesn't seem to mind my habit of hour-long trips to the video store. Not quite as important was the fact that Rogers doesn't have enough DVDs to section out yet. They currently have five rows (2 1/2 aisles) of 7-day DVD rentals available. Obviously this isn't enough to separate into the various genres, but I wonder if "Pokemon 2000" should be listed beside the horror flick "Python".

...quick side note about "Python" - one of the taglines is "This Year's Lake Placid"... which I find funny only because "Lake Placid" was that year's "Anaconda". What's even funnier is that all three movies combined didn't make half as much as Jaws did 25 years previous.

We rented and watched "Mercury Rising" which had less than the usual amount of "File Deleted" screens. Andrew rates geek movies by how many (or rather, how few) computer monitors flash stupid warnings. As he says, there is no operating system that flashes "File Deleted" in big red letters. It's a pet peeve of his, but for me it's merely a rating of how realistic the film is. One problem you have to remember is that "reality is boring". Swordfights in the movies are far more elaborate then they are in real life. In a real battle, the last thing you want to do is move your sword in big sweeps and leave your body open for attack. Ditto for Kung-Fu. Jackie Chan's moves are far more elaborate than Bruce Lee's, but only because it looks better on film - not because it's a better fighting strategy.

...however, Bruce would probably lose against Jackie in a real fight if the chosen weapon was an endtable. It all comes down to what's entertaining, and a flashing red screen with "File Deleted" is Hollywood's version of a party-and-a-half!

:: Stephen 2:38 PM [+] ::

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Now that digital media is running rampant on the Internet, I was wondering if some of my favourite free informational services have made the move onto the Information Superhighway. Sure enough, I went searching on the Government of Canada website and found a full online resource for Hinterland Who's Who.

Hours of my time are going to be lost on downloading educational content. Among some of the fun little features are a video archive of all those 60 second clips we all grew up with since the 1960's. There's also comprehensive information on the Bufflehead, Ruffed Grouse and the Piping Plover.

For more information... contact the Canadian Wildlife Service... in Ottawa through this webpage. You can order a whole slew of fact sheets.

Now this is my Canadian Tax dollars at work! With all that boring legal and political information on the Government of Canada collection of web sites, I'm glad that there's something I can waste my hours enjoying.

:: Stephen 7:46 PM [+] ::

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Last night I was in the process of moving in. Typically, I finish the process of moving into a new place somewhere around six months after the actual move. This leaves me a little less than two months to get all those boxes out of the living room and set up my kitchen table.

However...

...Simone called. I could hear the grin in her voice. She asked me if I wanted to help her do some research for a project on Creemore Springs. I began to smile too.

We decided to go do some preliminary studies at the Kings Arms at Yonge & Steeles. The conversation consisted mostly of music we hate to love, the Anglican Church (which has a less-than-stellar official webpage) and Allan Rock's cruisin' around Ottawa with John and Yoko.

My only hope is that this will help Simone's project at OCAD... and I'm willing to contribute again and again for as long as it takes (especially if she's buying).

:: Stephen 10:54 AM [+] ::

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Friday, I joined Simone and her group of friends at Comedywood at Bathurst and Steeles. Apparently they are having "Hypnotist Month" and we saw The Incredible Boris. Whether you believe in it or not, it definately entertaining watching people humiliate themselves on stage.

:: Stephen 5:59 PM [+] ::

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hmmm... longest gap yet between journal entries. I could blame it on what really happened, but you probably wouldn't believe the whole space-alien thing and my being replaced by a remarkably accurate clone. So I'll just chalk it up to enjoying my Christmas vacation...

...and enjoy it I did. My stomach has had heart-burn for five straight days in reaction to all the food I ate. My fingers rarely stopped moving from the table to my mouth for the entire vacation, but I'm a happy man for doing so.

Lord of the Rings is a brilliant film. It's not uncommon for a movie to receive as much hype as this one did, but it is rare to see the spectacle live up to expectations. The film comes from one of the greatest novels of the 20th century and uses 3D and special effects technology that has truly matured for the silver screen. This movie is more impressive than any I have seen for a very, very long time. Watching it, I felt as though the story had been waiting for technology to grow enough to tell this story properly. Anyone who doubts the money sunk into LotR should watch the scenes where 6 foot tall John Rhys-Davis plays the Dwarf Gimli

Simone and I spent the most time together since our regular movie jaunts throughout the Summer. We mostly went out with friends and watched videos, but it's different now that we're actually dating! In any case I was never lonely for something to do throughout my break.

Favourite gifts: RCA 27" television that I would link to, but RCA doesn't have any information about my specific model on their website. This one's close enough. Four Corningware dishes so I can cook all my meals for the week at once. Rogers Video coupons (may not sound like much, but that's like giving me money!). DVDs including Shrek, Clerks: The Animated Series and Pokemon: Mewtwo Returns. I was hoping for a little more variety than all animated features, but I am definitely exstatic with all three.

Paul also got me a speaking Pikachu. I took it to work and is used regularly by a few of my coworkers when things get too stressful and they need to hug something small, yellow, fuzzy and giggles "Pikachu".

:: Stephen 1:18 AM [+] ::

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