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Han Shoots First…Again!

In what is probably the biggest news of today (other than my bus fiasco), Lucasfilm is releasing the original versions of Star Wars on DVD this September for a limited time.

Man, this has been a long time coming.

Something tells me you’ll be hearing about this everywhere from Entertainment Tonight, to CNN, to the Northern Times.

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Beginning of a Good Morning?

6:04 AM – Wake up to the sound of Mike going to the washroom. Man, I would be livid if my body woke me up before my usual 6:45 AM wake time to go to the washroom.

6:10 AM – My alarm goes off.

6:11 – 6:45 – I do my regular thing. Get into the car.

6:46 AM – Decide to take Mike’s advice and drive all the way to Place D’Orleans’ park and ride instead of the Trim Road one.

6:58 AM – Get to the Park and Ride. Park the car. Notice that AChannel and Majic100 are here giving out T-Shirts and coffee mugs. I promptly ignore them to go look at the bus schedule.

7:02 AM – Am waiting for the 7:05 bus which awesomely enough will be bring me right to work’s door. No transfers for me! Driving to Place D’Orleans has its perks!

7:02:30 AM – Realize I forgot my bus pass along with my security pass at home.

7:04 AM – Back on the road back home. Grumbling all the way since I’m 4 kms away from home as opposed to the 1 km I usually am if I went to the other Park and Ride.

7:15 AM – Get back to the house, grab the pass, get back on the road. Please keep in mind that I’m usually at work at 7:30 AM.

7:16 AM – Realize that traffic is just plain dumb if I take the highway so I decide to take the side streets there. Surprisingly enough, no traffic encountered. As Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan would say “Excellent!”

7:25 AM – Get back to the Park and Ride at Place D’Orleans.

7:28 AM – Get onto the packed bus which coincidentally does NOT have an empty seat for my ride downtown. Automatic deduction in Mike’s theory of driving to Place D’Orleans. I was trying to explain to him why I didn’t go to Place D’Orleans to take the bus and I couldn’t put my finger on the reason. This was the reason! Everytime I go there I had to stand up on the bus, whereas if I go to Trim Road, it’s the first stop on the line so I have the pick of the litter in terms of bus seats.

8:00 AM – I get to work. Now I have to stay until 4:00 which in itself is not too bad considering I have class tonight anyhow so I have to kill some time.

Oddly enough, I have discovered the following facts that actually made the trip worthwhile:

  • If I take the 95x bus from Trim Road, it takes me usually between 45-50 minutes.
  • Even though I had to stand up on the 27 bus from Place D’Orleans, it managed to only take 30 minutes to get to my work. That was a surprise.
  • Usually, the 27 bus is a double decker long bus so they would have room.

Verdict: I’ll give the Place D’Orleans one a shot again. I can’t hold the forgetting of the bus pass against Mike. I can hold the fact that I had to stand up on the bus against him. But that was at 7:30 in the morning. Perhaps if my original plan went through and I got on around 7:00, there would have been a seat.

Plus, when I get to the mall, I can just get into my car and drive home. Sometimes I have to wait for the 95x to bring me home which can take up to 15 minutes. Sure, I may use a little extra gas and mileage but the difference is 6 kms a day. Sure that adds up, but at some point you have to find a balance between environment and convenience. Ha! I’m laughing at that statement considering the environment posting below which is all about being inconvenient but necessary. This morning, I am a walking contradiction.

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Metal Gods

The metal Gods doth shine on thee.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=51111

Courtesy of Duffman.

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Green Thumb

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege09

Please take the 10 minutes and read this article on 50 ways you can help the environment (and yourselves!)

I challenge all my faithful readers to do 15 of the things on the list at a minimum. It may be a pain at first, but it will become second nature in time.

Case in point – When I was younger, I used to let the water run while brushing my teeth. Then I heard that that’s a waste of energy. It took some getting used to, but it’s now second nature to me to reach for the tap to turn it off while I brush my teeth.

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Random Tidbits with So Much Information That It’s Always Hard to Comment On

  • If you haven’t picked up the new Tool album do so just for the album packaging. I’ve never seen anything like it.
  • Also, pick up the new Pearl Jam album.
  • I read Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity. It was amazing. My first foray into Asimov was not a disappointment.
  • I biked down Trim Road towards Navan on Monday. It was fraught full of traffic and smells of manure from the farm. Something tells me I should head towards the Ottawa River next time.
  • Alias is back on TV and it’s getting good. Too bad it always gets good near the end of the season and then is kaput. This time around, it’s really gone as in the series is ending.
  • Mission Impossible III is out…tomorrow? Sometime this week…I will definitely want to go see it for the sole reason that J.J. Abrams (of Alias and Lost fame) is helming this one.
  • I started my new class last night – Theories of Communications. My professor’s name is Doctor Strangelove, and yes, he changed his name to that. I think I will enjoy his class as he seems to have an unorthodox style of teaching in him considering I entered the class and he was playing a music video for Alice Cooper – Poison and then through on a Rammstein DVD. Then he was talking about how we’ll take a look at some cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants and talk about Anti-Americanism in the world. It’s two nights a week for 6 weeks so that will be rough, but I don’t think I will be bored. The classroom setup blows though.
  • I got an A- in my English class. Why didn’t I get marks like that when I actually went to school?
  • The Canadian dollar is at an all time high. Is it time to make a trip across the border to buy some merchandise before we need barcodes tattooed to our skin to get across?
  • I had to kill some ants sprouting up around my house yesterday. I bought some powder to do the trick. This morning I saw a few roaming around. Don’t know if that’s a bad sign or not.
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Artoo and Palme Present: I heart Hollyisms!

http://hollyisms.blogspot.com/

In lieu of Holly entering a new part of her life (moving out of her old place), Artoo and I dedicated Holly’s own shrine in Internet land: I heart Hollyisms!

This website will not just be populated by us, but by all of you who has a Hollyism to report! So if you wish to have access to the blog, get in touch with us so you can have the privilege of entering your own Hollyism into the databank!

This idea came from the poll that super_ap conducted on his website awhile back. You may find the poll results here.

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The End

Does it never end? I thought I would have a week to myself without any classes or exams to worry about.

My last exam -> This Saturday night.
The start of the summer class -> Three days later on the Tuesday.

*sob*

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Attack of the Red-Winged Blackbird – Part 2

There are so many things I wish to write about but didn’t have the time yesterday but perhaps I’ll start off with a little story of our friend Agelaius phoeniceus.

I was thinking that I had the bird beat a few days ago when I decided to move my car eight spots farther down the parking lot to avoid Agelaius. I pull into the parking lot space #8 while listening to some morning news, minding my own business when I put it into park and am about to hop out when I freeze.

“Where is Agelaius?” I ponder.

I scope out the territory and don’t see Agelaius anywhere so I think I am safe. It is raining out there so perhaps birds lay low for the time being. I reflect on the fact that I don’t really know a lot about birds at this point in my life and wonder if I am missing out not being a bird watcher. My own mother emailed me the other day and indicated that it is not a morning dove, but a mourning dove. Funny how the spelling of a word can bring such a happy picture of a bird to a tragic one.

I exit the vehicle seeing that the bus is waiting at the stop and it has been known to pull away at the last moment. I have 50 meters of pavement to dash across so I close my door and look around. I’m safe! Agelaius is not to be seen!

At the half way mark I am feeling pretty good until I hear the shrill cry of the Banshee. In other’s ears, they hear “Tweet, tweeeet!”. In mine I hear “You thought I was gone. I have returned. I will wreak havoc on your vehicle.”

In fear, I turn suddenly to find out where my arch enemy is to find that he is hopping and shitting along someone else’s car. Excellent. Perhaps he will be amused for the entire day with this other person’s vehicle, although I now wonder if I should leave a note on their car indicating that I wish to create a task force (perhaps Delta Force?) to take care of this problem.

All was well when I got back to my car that night to find it had rained on it all day long and most of the crap on the car that I had failed to wipe off was gone.

Fast forward to this morning, I am feeling like a new man. I still decide to pull into Parking Spot #8 (a few meters away from my old spot, but all that more to run to the bus with) and am feeling good. The sun is shining, I hear Bluesfest is coming to town (holy crap, I just read Dose on the bus this morning and found out that Matt Mays and Sam Roberts are playing together. I am in heaven.), and life is good (other than the exam I have to write on Saturday night). I hop out of the car.

“Hey buddy, how’s it going?” I hear.

I peer to my right and there he is. The bane of my existence. Agelaius up in a tree. I look around. There are no other cars in this section because I came in a little early this morning.

“Oh no.” I think. What do I do?

The bus pulls up and I have 45 meters to cover. Do I go back to the car and park it on the far side of the lot? That will mean I have to wait 10 minutes for the next bus. But I will have peace of mind when I think of the bird shit and the bird clawing away at my paint job. In a rash decision I run to the bus thinking that Agelaius will find other cars closer to his tree to bother today.

But I still felt the pain when Agelaius swooped in towards my car and started to hop around the side mirror so it could see its reflection in my window. You’ve won this time Agelaius…but the war is not over.

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Reviews

Review: The Island

I’m just full of reviews today so I’ll keep on going. I mean to always review every piece of new media that gets into my hands but it’s surprising how much media that actually entails!

Last night, Mike and I felt like grabbing a movie so we headed over to Blockbuster and scanned the Previously-Viewed Movies section.

Here’s where I go on a tangent in saying that I rarely rent movies any longer, I go ahead and buy the previously viewed ones. Especially the ones under $9.99. For example, we bought 2 movies for $17 + tax which comes out to $19.55. Voila. Instead of renting a movie for…$5.75 (help me out here people…cannot recall how much a rental costs), I can go ahead and just purchase it for a few dollars more, which allows me to lend out the movie to my good friends (read: If you want The Island, come and get it.)

I haven’t bothered pawning off some of the lamer ones that I’ve bought on a whim, but I’m sure I could get at least $5 for a DVD.

Anyhow, back to my story about The Island.

Oh man, we loved this movie. It kicked serious ass. It had a sci-fi story within a mega action movie. I am a fan of the sci-fi but let me tell you that it isn’t hardcore sci-fi so don’t worry about that stuff…just watch it for a cool story and super, super action sequences. We’re talking “OH man, they didn’t just do that, oh, OH!” action sequences where a guy gets a freakin’ crowbar to the face and you’re thinking “Ouch.”

You know, sometimes I want to say a lot about a movie, but then I don’t want to ruin anything about it so I don’t bother saying anything. Just like now. The only thing I will leave you with is…best.movie.ever.

Ha ha, all kidding aside here, Scarlett Johanssen. *meow*

I give it three thumbs up. I really think this was the movie that got away from me in 2005. Why did I not know about this movie? It’s like no one has ever told me about it! I take that back…I can’t remember who (Eric?) mentioned it a few weeks ago, but they were the ones who planted the seed in my head to go check this movie out.

Dad, I know you’re reading this – make this your next movie to rent. Although, we know it’s the summer so no movie rentals will happen until the winter.

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Reviews

Review: Timecode

I forgot that before we watched Deliverance on Saturday, Mike, Eric and I watched a movie called Timecode as recommended by Benoit.

Timecode’s story revolves around a bunch of people working at a production studio and there’s a whole plot about people cheating on one another.

Storywise, not the most original or intriguing storyline, but that’s not the best part of the movie.

The movie is filmed in real time, with four different cameras. Your screen is divided up into four quadrants so that you can see each of the four cameras. At first, the story focusses on different people and different settings, but as the movie goes forward, some characters/scenes interact with the other, which basically gives you two, three, four different angles to one shot.

The movie was a little hard to follow in that they still have people talking in one scene while another is talking. They mix the audio so the one you should be paying attention to has higher volume but at some points I was thinking “Wait, who’s talking? What quadrant should I be watching?”

Plus, it didn’t help any when Salma Hayek starts having sex with one guy and then all of us kind of missed what was going on in the other three quadrants. 😉 Ha ha.

All in all, I would like to say that this movie is worth seeing just for the method they filmed it in. Supposedly the took 15 takes to get the final version – keep in mind that the film revolves around a very roughed in storyline – the rest of it involves the actors/actresses improvisationaling their roles…they even include Version 1 on the DVD so you can see how much was different.

If you don’t mind watching a movie with a ‘so-so’ storyline and are more interested in the concept behind it, I suggest you check out Timecode.

Also, a special ‘sorry’ goes out to Vero seeing as she wanted to watch it but we (I) went ahead and watched it without her. I’m sorry and that won’t happen again.