Willow

Willow is above grade as eighties fantasy movies go. Inspired by the adventurism of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and not really owing much to Conan, (A movie often credited with spawning a hundred poor imitators) Willow recyles a few bits and pieces from producer Lucas' own works as well as LOTR. It stands above some of its contemporaries largely because of its good humour, budget, effects, and relatively good cast. We don't get James Carradine in underpants with a plastic sword in this movie or Ralph Bashiki inhaling the remaining budget up his nose and ending the movie 2/3 of the way through.

On the other hand, some wimpy writing and an overabundance of cliches and talking special effects of the variety Lucas will become damned for decades later; (French Canadian brownies/fairies, a sorceress trapped in animal form, Warwick Davis) fill up too much of a good movie.

Warwick Davis aka Willow is actually just 18 in this role, which proves that we can't tell how old dwarves are since we totally buy that he has two adolescents and is married. He wants to be a sorceror but lacks the ability to successfully make pigs disappear or convince an old beardo that he knows which finger is magic. The beardo holds out his hand and --yes, of course it's Willow's own finger --this is a riddle not The Price is Right! He'll figure that one out later though. I like the wizard, he seems less powerful than he is just clever. I'd imagine the movie could have used more of him.

Val Kilmer, (Known as Madmartigan; not Mad Martigan or Bad Cardigan) overacts a great deal which is unfortunate, but I think he still deserved a better romantic entanglement than he got. It's good that he doesn't steal the picture from Willow though. The movie also includes some incredibly annoying green screened little fairies with French Canadian accents who replace Willow's fellow villagers as his companions. I guess the real little people couldn't get bigger roles because they wouldn't work for sufficient scale.

Willow is given a wand by someone who is definately not the elf-queen from the Lord of the Rings. Willow by this point in the movie has both a very powerful magic wand as well as a bag of rocks that can actually turn things into stone. So it's funny in hindsight to realise that our star is carrying around so much deadly firepower as he runs from all confrontation and he and his friends face all sorts of peril he could easily have destroyed had he bothered to use what he was given.

The outline of the plot is that the evil sorceress queen needs to cast a spell on a baby princess that is destined to defeat her. Notably the baby does no such thing. Instead we get a catfight between 170 years of old ladies and Willow tricks the queen with a cheap magic prank. She throws a shit fit so severe she accidentally kills herself. It was one of the worst endings I've ever seen for a movie of this relatively high quality.

Except for the green screened fairies, the movie has great effects, a good set, pretty good actors --and the best is the star, Warwick Davis. The script isn't really bad either. I'm not sure if there were many good entries in this genre of movie until the last decade. (Conan, Excalibur,...?) Still I think it's fair to say that this movie got by in large due to good feelings, and genuine effort more than the merits of great spell weaving. I do enjoy the movie, but I think there may only be a few genuinely strong scenes, like the scenes at the castles toward the end. (Though I also found the castles seemed a little too lonely --they were more like forts)

I think this could have been a cooler movie with more of the not-hobbits and if the evil sorceress did more than send her minions out to do her work.

May I direct your attention here?

You May have filed to notice the hilarious pun on the month these pictures were taken in. If you read to this point, you're forgiven.

Take me out at the ballgame

Well the hot days didn't last long. Yesterday morning I woke up to an apartment that was 25 degrees, but by sundown a temperate wind had made the weather a bit less balmy. Unfortunate then that I had not taken a coat to the Blue Jays game I went to. Also unfortunate for differing reasons, that I also forgot my glasses.



The game did not go well for the Jays, who showed poor hitting and poor fielding... and pitching. They hit some dingers though, and there's one really good player on the team --Jose Bautista.

If you could just like... hit more home runs?

It was 10-2 by the eighth inning, at which point I decided to leave. The game had started at 7PM and it was kind of cool out. Actually I didn't arrive until about 20 minutes after the game started. Still, it's a long peaceful game, so I didn't mind too much. Though the Jays finally started scoring some runs after I left... and now that I think about it, they scored their last just before I took my seat. Huh.




The seats were pretty good as you can see from the pictures. Just off of third base. Though there weren't many people present; it was Monday evening after all. The Skydome was mostly empty, (Though attendance on previous game days are way up this season) but you could see how the crowd all came to sit in just a few important sections; around the bases and the area of left field where big hits and home runs would end up. There were even people in the top level, but only behind home plate. The dome was open, which I haven't seen in a long time --and it sure did look nice.

I know the Rogers Centre security can be very dick-ish, but I was still surprised to see some people sitting off either alone or in a group in isolated sections. You'd think that the ticket sellers would at least be able to crowd everyone as close together within price points, but I guess not.

I must mention the security --and while nobody acted rude or anything like that, there does seem to be way too many of them and they seem pretty anal. One attendant asked me to wait until an at-bat was over before taking my seat, (Though concession sellers can walk up and down the aisles shouting with impunity) and while standing on the concession level watching just before I left, I was asked to step back behind a line. They just really don't want people in places they don't have tickets for... even when there's no one there and the audience has mostly left for the night. Jeez.




Speaking of concessions, the people are nice but the prices are evil. 4.75 for a coke bottle. 5.75 for a poor hot dog. Ugh. I do like the beer boys though. They seemed very self-aware: "Buy beer now instead of the half price beer later! Why let logic dictate your purchases?"

There was a sing along mid-way through the seventh, and the ground crew amusingly came out to the William Tell Overture as they quickly fixed up the in-field. The crowd had a good atmosphere in spite of the small size. I think the dangerous foul balls present a way for the crowd to be the centre of attention. Its funny seeing somebody nearly get beaned, or kids racing for a ball.

It's hard not to find a good view, as in baseball there's little to obstruct your view of the action. Though I guess being out in the field inherently means you're almost always far away from the action. When I walked behind left field I could even see Detroit's pitcher because his grey uniform blended into the I-can't-believe-it's-not-green-construction-paper turf that the Rogers Centre uses. (Again; glasses) I'm always surprised when I'm at the Rogers Centre by both how large the stadium is and how the field never seems to big by comparison.

I also noticed that the seats are angled to look out into centre field instead of the infield, which is because the sections are designed to slide into the outfield for football games. Also, the upper decks are not cantilevered over the field seats at all, which might be better when they're empty and the field seats get an unobstructed view of the sky or dome, but both that and the angled seats are unfortunate side effects of a multi-use stadium.



The game itself was fun enough. It sort of blends together though, and it doesn't seem as long as it does on television. Its a well paced game in person... still kind of long though. Music is piped in a bit too, used to intro batters, pitchers, or to herald an event in the game. (Kind of like in basketball) Seeing someone really hit a ball deep sure is fun, and the game looks very different when all those on-screen stats are not in your field of vision.

The Unblinking Eye

I went to see Thor on Saturday afternoon.

It's a good movie. I thought Thor was a funny and friendly character and I liked that like Tony Stark in Iron Man, he has some notable character flaws to overcome. Though this is a simplified version of the job done by Robert Downey Jr. Indeed, I think Thor's relationship with Natalie Portman's character was in a similar vein. They had chemistry, but matters were a little more vanilla in Thor than they were in Iron Man.

Where director Kenneth Branagh really showed his Shakespearean background was in the relationship of the Aasgardian Royal family. Thor, Odin, and Loki made for the most interesting part of the movie. Loki was probably the most tragic and intriguing villain of these superhero movies, (Except perhaps for Magneto from X-Men) and the royal machinations of these alien god-people made this superhero movie distinct from the other superhero movies. Thor's fish out-of-water style exile to Earth may make it seem like a familiar story on the surface, but even that was handled differently. This wasn't like the Masters of the Universe or Beastmaster 2 where a superhero spends his time wasting ours by being amazed by internal combustion or a Big Mac.

I didn't really think that the whole Norse gods as 'aliens' in space would fly but I guess it worked out alright. It just goes to show that you can use any crazy background you want for movie just so long as there's simplicity and internal logic.



The movie was funny, and had good action, and I really liked the plot. But anything on the ice planet was kinda blurry looking, (a consequence of 3-d filming I guess even though I didn't see it in 3-d) and for some reason it seemed a little less memorable. Maybe I've just seen so many superhero movies at this point, it doesn't even matter if the movies are different.


Earlier in the week, I seemed to have a twitch under my right eye. I read online that this can result from stress or lack of sleep rather than anything serious, (I suspect I know what brought it on) so I made arrangements to get some rest by buying a ticket to a baseball game, though my twitch had gone away by the weekend.

EPIC FAIL

Need anymore be said?



Damn I wish I didn't have a newspaper subscription. I do not look forward to being aggravated on a regular basis for the next five years.

Angry Bairds and a blast from the Past

Get ready for the election with Angry Bairds! Smash Tony's Gazebo, the Supreme Court, and Parliament Hill!




Here are some photos from ye olde York. While digging up some land near the Batthurst bridge, an old railway station from the 19th century was uncovered where a Library is supposed to be built.

Here I am helpfully indicating the most interesting part of the structure in the foreground with my thumb.

Among the plans for the remains is one neat proposal for a glass floor over the ruins.

Kevin's lock of the century...of the week!

Went out to a TFC game at BMO field yesterday. It did not go according to plan. The weather was overcast, windy, and cold. At least the rain earlier in the day had stopped for the duration. About 16,000 people, (Maybe less to my eyes) turned up to see Toronto FC play DC United and were not treated to a welcome sight.



The home team went down 2-0 within 10-15 minutes, and then went down to ten men after one was sent off the field after the second half. The final score was a humiliating 3-0 against the home team.



Their new manager and coach have tried to rebuilding the consistently poor team with new characters and a new style, which unfortunately seems to involve a lot of lazily passing the ball back and forth in front of their own goal. The resulting consequences being a lot of giveaways in their own half. The crowd eventually stopped caring and started lighting flares and setting off smoke bombs, (Well... one I think) but they seemed to have more enthusiasm then the slowly jogging team on the field or the foodies who don't bother to char my hot dog.


According to the stadium announcer I can now expect to see, (or not see since I'll be out of town and most TFC games are broadcast on a specialty channel that no one buys) Toronto absolutely 'crush' their 'local' rivals the Columbus Crew, (Yes, that is Columbus Ohio) who've they've never beaten before. In the market we call that irrational exhuberence.

Unless the awful weather continues and BMO field is washed away by a biblical torrent of freezing water, (To which the red patch boys, north end elite, U-sector et al. will still make pilgrimage to) then Columbus becomes my lock of the century... of the week!

Who cares about bases-ball anyway?

Slow moving bat and ball games are in the news a bit right now with the opening of the baseball season and the World Cup of cricket, (Played in-between floods in Bangladesh) so I'm inspired to talk about those right now.

There's something to be said about a non-clocked, non-contact sport of individual duels, where every player by rule gets an opportunity to play the hero, where the playing field can be quite variable, where there is relatively little controversial officiating. But holy hell... how can there be 160+ games in 180 days? Are they crazy? Sure the players may not be so taxed physically, but doesn't that diminish the games too much? I guess it's a feature of the sport coming into its own before powerful players unions. (Much like hockey with its enormous schedule)

Baseball is painfully slow, but part of that is a feature of the contemplative nature of the sport where players aren't rushed or timed. Still, they should be able to speed it up a little as it certainly lasts longer than it did in its classic era, so something changed. If it's so important to let the catcher and pitcher walk over and chat, and let the batter leave the box when he feels like it, then maybe they could just drop an inning instead. Unfortunately, given the extended innings and check downs required to prevent base stealing; exciting offense actually makes the game longer, whereas defense makes it shorter.

The Toronto Blue Jays played their opening home games today at the Skydome. The home opener drew a capacity crowd of 47,000+ and even the follow-up pulled in about 27,000. It hasn't been THAT long since the Masoleumdome drew that many people to a regular season sporting event, but if it held up it would be a good sign for the previously free falling Blue Jays. (They also seem to hit a lot of home runs, which probably helps them draw crowds)

They played twice in quick succession against a team, (The Minnesota Twins) notable mostly for nearly moving from their home because of stadium problems until the state government decided to buy them a new stadium paid for by the residents of the twin cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) who were not as enthused about paying to keep them, but didn't get a say.

On the other hand, this was their former home:

I don't see what the problem is. The Jays played in snow when they debuted.

Baseball nostalgia in the US usually brings forth images of 1900-1960; an old-timey turn of the century countryside pastime when men who grew up on farms played the games and wore hats, (See The Natural) morphing into an urban post-war somewhat integrated sport.

While you may think its funny that baseball can be a nostalgic thing in Canada even though we've only had major league teams since 1976; it's not. I don't mean because our nostalgia lenses are colored by collector Coca-Cola cans from the first of two back-to-back World series, but rather that changing style have made the nineties and eighties seem very far away in the past indeed:

Check out that haircut. Don't see too many of those anymore.

But I was actually a bit surprised to find out in my reading that Baseball actually had a long and vibrant history in Canada even prior to Major League expansion here. Rounders/Cricket had morphed into a 5 base, 11 man Canadian baseball game here in the mid 19h century which lost favor to American style rules.

Baseball's Toronto Maple Leafs were founded in 1896 predating the other Maple Leafs by decades. (Also, look at that date --this is as old as our hockey and football teams) Canada only had minor league teams for the first century of baseball, playing against southern neighbors unlike our football teams who crossed the country playing each other and are probably better remembered for being a 'lesser' pro league than minor league teams without their own distinct Canadian heritage.

There were actually a lot of baseball stadiums around where I live. There was an old stadium on the Toronto Islands called Hanlan's Point Stadium, another one called Maple Leaf Stadium near where the Tip-Top building is located, (A baseball diamond and park remain there today) the old Exhibition Stadium which was shared with the Argonauts was where BMO field is now;

AKA Exhibit 1 on why multipurpose stadiums aren't so great.

Which brings us to the Skydome which still stands not too much further from where I live. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that so many stadia were downtown in Toronto, or near exhibition grounds and tourist attractions... but I don't think this concentration would be the case in many other cities.

Because I like to feature terrible games; check out this attempt to replicate a famous moment in the 1988 World Series game one where a player nursing two injured legs bats the winning homerun. Seeing as how MLB doesn't like Youtube putting up clips of their copyrighted material, this was made using the 8-bit RBI game from Nintendo:

I think it may lose something in the translation.

Face Off

It has been awhile since I've had an opportunity to write.

Steve, Tom, and me all had fun, (I assume) at the old exhibition coliseum watching the Toronto Marlies lose a heartbreaker in a shootout to the Lake Erie Monsters after having outplayed the visitors for most of the game. It featured plenty of end to end excitement from the opening goal coming just a minute into the game to the very loud revenge hit that got a Marlie thrown out of the game in period three creating a 5 minute powerplay that the home team had to kill to advance to overtime.

Pictured: Ye olde retractable roofe.

I liked the arena both for its old school character, (the old facade can still be seen even in the exhibition halls of the Direct Energy centre as well as from the streets. As well, the small size of an arena as compared to a stadium's arena makes for better seats so long as they're not as pricey as those at the Air Canada Centre. However I think that the small seat size makes the standing room tickets probably a smarter move for anyone over 200lbs.

I remember remarking to Thomas about the music choices in the arena; that they leaned a big too aggressive considering the family orientation of the Marlies audience. (I mean; Rage Against the Machine?)

The AHL, (The minor league that the teams belong to) features a variety of more cartoon mascot favoring logos and team names; which Thomas and Stephen both liked. I appreciate them too, though I said I wouldn't rate them ahead of the NHLs... now that I think about it there is much to recommend them. Certainly there are odd NHL names like the Minnesota Wild, and their less generic than Florida Panthers. Some like the Oilers, don't really sound exciting but for the goodwill the name has built up over the years. So I guess names like Crunch can compare with Flames, names like Rivermen can compare to Canucks, and Monsters can compare to Thrashers. Though I bet if they weren't so youth focused they wouldn't have their mascots so prominent in their logos and would use something more venerable looking.

I didn't care for the Marlies' slogan:"Every Game is a try-out." That's not exactly engendering a real sense of importance to the team and its own record. It just reminds people that any successful Marlie will be replacing a struggling Maple Leaf.

The Marlies have featured weak attendance, (Though it didn't look too bad when we were there) since moving to Toronto from St. John's due to the owner's desire to keep their farm team nearby and for someone to use the coliseum that they possessed. I suspect that this team was valued more in St. John's where it was their pro-team and not just the team for the players who weren't good enough and the fans who weren't rich enough.

It's a shame though. The farm team the Toronto Marlboroughs, (Named for the duke, not the cigarettes) were a successful team in the city since 1903 before being moved to Hamilton. Actually, even the CHL teams in the city were made to move for attendance issues. It might just be that there's not really enough interest for multiple teams in a sport, or minor league teams in Toronto.

~~~

I like fixed income investing. But I don't like that the Royal Bank seems to be charging some pretty big commissions on them. Equity trades use a flat rate, (Like $20 per trade) but the bonds seem to have a pretty brutal hidden fee schedule.

One holding I have can be sold for only 85% of what I could buy it for today. No wonder it's always down with that built into my book value. Unfortunately since the actual fees are not laid out, I can't really tell what they work out to. (% or per unit) The yield indicated is what you get; but active investing is not really a possibility with that kind of a hit and it's not as good a deal as it should be.

RATS: Night of Terror

Credit: 7 Deadly Sinners Artpad

In the far future of a place where laws and civilization have no meaning, and people have three hour lunch breaks and there are no convenience stores, (Italy, I'm talking about Italy) a director named Bruno Mattei decides to make a monster movie about a horde of rats. Seeing as how he still has several cubic tonnes of sand and garbage left over from the set of Warriors of the Wasteland, this let's be generous and call it a 'feature' will be set in post apocalyptic realm. In a nuclear swept, but oddly livable surface gangs of humans roam around on motor vehicles having rejected both fashion sense and life with the other humans underground.

Seriously, look at them. Do they think these outfits are coming back?

This gang of rejects finds a bunker filled with advanced (for the eighties) technology, as well as clean water and food. Bodies too. They assume there must have been a fight, but no one's stayed around. Later it will become obvious that those who lived here were done in by rats of unusual intellect and defensiveness.

One moron called Video, or arcade, or video gamer; (I can't recall) finds a computer which he claims is in fact a video game. After attempting to play it and finding it as unresponsive a platform as the Jaguar CD, realizes that it is not in fact a game system. He then whines that he'll never get to see a real game.

This boggles my mind. This idiot is so infatuated with the concept of video games despite never seeing one in his life? So much so that upon discovering any electronic device he immediately assumes it is a video game? This guy couldn't even get the high score on a digital clock.

He couldn't even beat this.

Other gang members include the well bearded leader, a bald tattooed guy who acts like a Vulcan, a treacherous guy dressed like he's a member of Napoleon's army, a couple of girls, and some other goons. This gang is pathetic. They cry a lot and are way too tolerant of the guy who keeps trying to kill everyone else. I thought these were survivors, not a bunch of scared teenagers. What do they have guns for if they've never faced death before?

Stumbling around getting punked by rats, and falling to despair and rage, the besieged gang are picked off one by one as dramatically as possible when rats are dropped on you from off camera. Which actually does look really uncomfortable. What if one of the fake rats was real? Do you think you'd get a good reaction from the actors when something moves?

Napoleon betrays everybody a couple of times before getting offed, while the Vulcan provides a lot of deadpan exposition. They must have him on something to keep him from laughing when he delivers these lines. He reprises the exposition about how some people live on the surface and others below, (Thanks, we knew that from the opening already) and he tries to figure out the whole rat intelligence thing, but neither he nor anyone else seems to be able to get their head around the fact that rats may kill people. I'm not sure what the hang up is mind you; but they seem to think they're missing some part of the picture. They're not. Rats--->defending their turf---> killing you. Easy, really.

Logical even.

The group's leader doesn't want to leave with their vehicles ruined by rats, but he doesn't really have a plan to kill the rats either. He seems emblematic of the problems that this group has with indecisiveness. They should bring that up at the next group meeting.

Where motions from the floor are not actually rats.

The humans eventually come to accept that the rats are first killers, then intelligent, then assholes as well. (The rats seem to allow a truce, only to lead the humans to a lost companion who is now filled with rats) They find out that the computer they found before has on it a recording from one of the dead who describes coming from below the surface of the earth only to have their research station overrun with rats. Help is on the way, but will be much too late.

Fortunately the final survivors are saved just moments after giving up hope, (While being crybabies about it too) when from underground a horde of yellow hazmat garbed exterminators, (The aforementioned help --great timing eh?) appear to flush the rats out with poison gas. Boy, does that gas get around as well; they must have brought a whole lot of it. These people, silent and faceless as they are, are as frightening and probably more intimidating than a horde of vermin.

Please. Spray me directly in the face if you could.

After saving the survivors, the awful dialogue comes to the fore again as our two remaining surface dwellers try to make the case for brotherhood with the underworld dwellers...by playing on their sympathy towards the mentally retarded.

People do not talk to each other in situations like these as if they were giving a speech at the United Nations. I don't know if this is just a natural feature of this kind of camp classic, or just a consequence of translations making stilted dialogue inevitable. Certainly I've noted that Japanese shows can have dialogue that can be tone-inappropriate while grammatically correct like this. Imagine getting rescued from a burning building and telling the fireman, "Come, let us build a new better world from this wreckage." They'd probably think you're crazy.

But all this flowery dialogue helps the irony:

Turns out we're RATS yo!

I suppose this brings up a lot of questions about whether these guys are supposed to be humans who look like rats or rats that are humans, and how friggin' long this separation from these surface dwelling rubes was supposed to have been at this point. But it's a pretty cool ending so who cares.

When you think about it, the Rat people don't really mean any harm. (Not counting the accidental spraying of the humans with poison) They do understand what people say to them as they apparently speak English, and they helped out the survivors. Heck, they doubtlessly find smaller versions of themselves killing their brethren to be far more frightening than we do. Think if you were attacked by chittering little fleshy humans with large head to body ratios. That's be scary as crap.

Granted I suppose we didn't make the best impression on our hairy friends with the movie-ending screech of twist-ending-terror. Probably didn't help their self esteem any either.

I am the King!

See that little crown? That's what you get when you become King of not crapping your pants. My pants. You crap your pants, I don't crap mine.

Anyway...one day you may get a crown of your own. But I doubt it.

The program is being very rude. That being said, your reputation precedes you.

If I had a nickel for every....

I've been looking into the price for Nickel products per Dad's suggestion, and zeroed in on a few nickel orientated funds, companies and the price of nickel to make some observation. These include FNI, NIC, VALE, XSTRATA , IPATH DOW NICKEL, and JJN:NYSE ARCA.

A few things seem to be consistent. First, most of the tools available for stock analysis are for short term fluctuations. Bollanger bands, moving averages, etc. Most of which suggest that these nickel stocks and companies are in a sell position. (Or were prior to the gas going out of the market temporarily thanks to Gadhafi) Linear regression usually shows growth, but unsurprisingly it also shows all performing above those weighted averages. Which means that there's significant room to fall without really altering the grwoth trend.

Nickel has risen is price much faster than other commodities in the lateast boom, and although the substitute 'pig-nickel' isn't considered a major replacement, I wonder how much more the price can increase. It almost seems to be back to its pre-recession price.

Regarding the possible impact of cold fusion technology, I'd say its unclear. While I would expect any large announcement of a popular invention using a mineral to increase the interest in that mineral; I don't really know if it would significantly alter demand or that any long term rises wouldn't allow for increasing interest in superior substitutes.

I instinctually have trouble imaging that cold fusion possibilities are priced into nickel prices, but it isn't hard to imagine that much of the expected growth is. While I'm confident in the commodities 'super cycle' theory to lift commodities, and that a cold fusions use for the mineral would have to have positive benefits... I don't like commodities for their risk profile and I'm not so confident that even a cold fusion annoucement would result in nickel immediately being much more in demand.

I do not feel confident in buying into or predicting anything about this commodity today or in the future one way or the other even after assembling what information on price history that I could.

Superball

Its been awhile since the Superbowl, but I still had some thoughts about the big game from...what? Two Sundays ago?

Is anyone concerned that both Troy and Clay from the Steelers and Packers respectively are both the leaders of their defenses and have huge hair? Is that like a prerequisite for being a good linebacker now?

Hmmm... this post isn't quite homoerotic enough yet...

Now we're talking!

Now just imagine seeing video of these guys in slow motion with that same overblown grizzled narrator from the pregame videos.... let me tell ya, there's no such thing as an 'ineligible man' on Superbowl Sunday.

Unless there is. What was with that penalty? I thought the whole point of a kick-off was to run after the ball and stop the returner from running it back. Someone has to stay behind the scrimmage line? I would have understood an offside call, but they didn't claim that.

Pittsburg had in their previous victories had won only at home, and had only played one good half in either game along with one terrible half. Green Bay therefore, despite their lack of experience and similar strengths, kind of looked stronger to me. They had won three times in the playoffs on the road, and looked very good while doing it.

Still, I felt similar to the announcers when they started to suggest that Pittsburg was taking over the game. The Packers did seem to go a while without scoring in the middle...maybe that's not necessarily suggestive of anything, but part of the announcer's job is to create a narrative rather than try and hedge their bets. It makes things more interesting.

A funny note: Dad pointed out in the Steelers/Jets game how Ben Roethlesberger (?) seemed to be limping, and then immediately ran for a first down on the next play --and that it was probably a trick. Sure enough, it happened again in the Superbowl. After discovering a minor limp, Ben proceeded to run on the very next play, and the limp totally seemed to have vanished from there out.

It's fair to say that the big determining factor was that Pittsburg made some big mistakes by giving up the ball, and Green Bay both avoided that, and helped make sure that Pittsburg paid for those mistakes with interceptions/recoveries/ and scoring points.

So the Lombardi trophy now goes back to a small town in Wisconsin...a town roughly the same size as Sudbury, (I'm not joking) but with a huge national following. It goes to show how effective community ownership of a team can be, and how valuable methods of profit sharing can be in retaining small market teams.

However, if the sport were more gate revenue orientated, (Therefore more geographically dependent) it wouldn't be economical to maintain any number of small market teams even with profit sharing; which may be why the Saskatchewan Roughriders have only recently become incredibly profitable in the CFL in spite of their enduring popularity.

I dealt with my cold today by taking some tea bags to work with me and made some tea there. I like tea just fine, but for whatever reason I never get around to drinking any; until now. This is certainly a better idea than just cold water or buying hot drinks. I can't believe I didn't think of this before.

I had some Pepsi throwback today. That's the Pepsi with real sugar. Just as the Mexican Coke with real sugar kind of tasted like Pepsi, so too did this taste a lot like Pepsi. I guess that means that Pepsi usually uses more genuine sugar in their regular recipe.

Jeez. My neighbors stink. I guess they smoke a lot of Marijuana or something because I keep getting nasty odors in my apartment often when they open the door to theirs. It's only once a day at most that I'm smelling it, but I don't understand how those fumes it can be so acrid and travel so easily. I'd complain to the building, but I don't think they were interested the last time I phone a complaint in, and I don't know how they'd follow this up anyway.

I made Mac and Cheese today, and in order to clear out many of my perishable ingredients in the fridge, I am planning to make a lot of stuff in bulk; like pasta. I used the Williams Sonona recipe, (Actually having a recipe is 75% of the success) and added some turkey bacon, (Tastes like bacon-light) dill, (It works, but I should have used more, or not cooked it with the rest and left it fresh... its hard to notice for the other ingredients) and some tomatoes. (Which I can't really taste...but at least it added different nutrients and colour) I used cheddar and some of that dense parmesan like cheese, which in monetary terms was most of the meal. Much like my risotto, this dish's economic cost is almost entirely due to one ingredient. (Cheese is expensive)

I finally got ahold of the Rogers rep. They've got the perfect phone for me:

It is kind of heavy but as you can see it comes with a support strap and text messaging.

Running out of internets...

Its funny that I was reading so much in the Globe about disputes over internet usage billing. This month was the first month in a while that I actually went over my limit. I must have downloaded too many movies I guess. : (

What bothers me is that Rogers managed to send their messages days after I had already passed the actual threshold. I guess the mail delivery was slow... (sarcasm)

Once I get this phone mess sorted out, maybe I should check out the other providers of cable and internet. Rogers doesn't seem to be really competitive with everybody else on price.

Storm Front Closing

There's apparently going to be a big storm tomorrow. The possibility of getting out of work early exists. I should remember to bring my boots.

I've been able to talk with Rogers, (That's not the guy's name, but I'm calling him that anyway) about the phone plan. The plan apparently is based off of a phone upgrade with a 36 month commitment:


Hold on there Ackbar. This plan is $26 a month, which apparently includes voice mail, texts and access fee in that figure. Pretty good.

The thing is that Dad doesn't need a phone upgrade, and I was hoping to upgrade his plan. Maybe we can get the phone for me and get the other phone number changed to the new plan. (I don't think they're offering the good phones in this plan, but maybe one of the cheaper ones would be a good upgrade --especially if its paid for by the commitment) This plan also if as advertised, may be even better than some of the pay-go plans as well even for me. But I don't think there's any reason to make two commitments and get two phones so unless the option is available without upgrades or commitments, I think I should be going on pay-go.

Would we have trouble if one phone number was changed to a plan but the other phone number got the phone? Is the phone they send capable of having its SIM switched to whatever other SIM chip I want? Does it matter if they're in different area codes? This could get further complicated as Dad's name is on the account but I'm the employee.

Unfortunately Rogers only contacts me through email once a day. Making this pretty slow.


So who saw that coming eh? I think the big difference between Egypt and say, Iran is that in Iran there was a powerful paramilitary police force made up of like minded violent citizen, whereas Egypt only has police and conscript soldiers. Hopefully this will end up with some basic functioning democracy like Iraq without the secular killings.