A snipet I wrote
Just came across this little piece of a conversation I wrote after watching The Departed. I’m not sure what to make of it now though. So to setup, it is a fictitious conversation between a disenchanted mafia man and a low level recruit during a lull before a big scene. Try to discount the grammar and any spelling mistakes if you can; if fact consider them part of the grit of the piece.
“Every crime must have the twin pillars of crime, motive and opportunity. Now opportunity is the easy part and every person at all times has the opportunity to commit some crime, be it murder or speeding. Knowing this it becomes obvious that no crime is random since at the time it was committed their was opportunity, obviously and more importantly a motive, you just have to figure out what it was. Motive is the interesting part and the part that nobody really understands fully because it is so personal.
“What I have come to realize is this: You are either moving up or you are moving down. Organized crime is only different in that the motive is always the same, to move up. We are sent daily to specific opportunities with our motives in tow. Bang, bang. Only thing is that when you stop to investigate your motive you realize that it is bullshit. Moving down means death plain and simple no matter your level and moving up is moving down in societies organization. Once you realize that there are two choices for guys like us. Either run, run like the wind, never stop and never look back but always be looking over your shoulder. Or realize that your motive is actually within, deep down in the bottom of your caveman head, and it is desire.”
What do you think? Leave a comment to let me know. :o)
Rethink Breast Cancer
I just caught a really good commercial on Bravo for the Rethink Breast Cancer campaign. It played on the idea that if us men had breasts we would spend a good portion of the day “getting to know” them. The message, of course, is that women should not be afraid to do informal self-exams on a daily basis. Here is an excerpt from their site:
Rethink encourages all women to get familiar with their breasts. [bolding preserved] There is no need to follow a fancy routine for examining your breasts, just be familiar with how they look and feel so that you notice changes. You can do this by looking and feeling in any way that makes you feel comfortable – in the bath or shower, when dressing, standing or lying down. If you find anything unusual or are worried, you should talk to your GP.
It has always baffled me to hear that large portions of the population (generally female) are “scared” (for lack of a better word) of their bodies and especially of getting to know them. I suspect that the problem is due to the generally conservative attitudes of most parents. We learn through their teachings and more importantly by their examples. I will bet that very few parents in the last two hundred years have said to their young “masturbation is not a crime” or more importantly “masturbation is good”. It certainly wouldn’t take much effort using Google to find a hundred quality websites that agree with me and can quote scientific studies. The key thing to note is that you would have to wade through thousands of sites that disagree with me. I’m tempted to blame religion, especially Christian beliefs, but I think parents are just generally uncomfortable with that topic and avoid it more than the infamous “birds and bees” discussion. It is easier to be negative.
Exploring your body is natural and more importantly it is necessary. In this day and age a great number of illnesses are treatable in their early stages (such as breast cancer) so it is important to notice changes. The earlier you see a doctor about that lump or mole or pain the more likely you will be diagnosed and treated successfully. Your health is more pressing than what your conservative mother will think about you spending a few extra moments in the morning examining your body.
Light bulb woes
Like most people light bulbs are generally the furthest thing from my mind. We essentially now take light for granted, as it is never further away than the nearest wall switch. Within the last month I have been reminded twice of how fortunate we are compared to those that went before us, both times during a movie.
The first was while watching The Prestige with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale (Sara’s favorite since Little Women
The second was yesterday while watching The Muppet Christmas Carol
However, I am not from that era and take for granted light as much as anybody else. The only exception is of course when a bulb dies and I need to replaced it. Our apartment has multiple dome light fixtures per room with dual 40-watt bulbs in each (a lot of light bulbs to be sure). Due to the fact that bulbs are the furthest thing from my mind it is always an after thought to buy them and thus I usually pick them up at the grocery store (when Sara reminds me). Sobeys sells super cheap Our Compliments brand bulbs and I have had nothing but problems with them. The bulbs die constantly, sometimes within a week and other times within a month. I’ve even had dead bulbs come right out of a fresh package.
I am going to make a special trip to Canadian Tire to pick up some Noma bulbs this week and will never buy another grocery store one again. I suggest you do the same, for your own sanity. After all I enjoy taking light for granted, don’t you?
It is that time of year again…
X-Mas party season!
How many are on your schedule this month? I have four so far. One for the loft building we bought a loft in, another with friends from work and two for work during office hours. I think I’m a bit anti-social because I never feel like going to these things. I know, however, that I always end up enjoying myself and having a great time so I just push through the tendencies and go anyway. The only one I’m unsure of is the loft one because I think most people will be in a bad mood due to the delays in building (~6 month, so far). So it might turn into a bitch-fest between the tenants and the builders.
Are you participating in secret Santa? I wonder sometimes what percent of people, through their work, are doing the same. I’ll bet it is a fair percentage of people in general although less than 50% for sure. I’m having trouble figuring out what to give for the fake gifts leading up to the main exchange. It is difficult to choose something interesting that doesn’t give away who you are. I could just send Tim Horton’s coffee every morning but how boring is that. Maybe I’ll make a deal with someone else to do their stuff so it looks like I have person X when I actually have Y … nah, too complicated. I think I’ll just break a McDonald’s coupon book up into its dollar components, at the end of the week they can get a happy meal. Kidding, kidding.
To you and yours a merry x-mas and happy new year; here is to hoping you make it through to the other side with a few coins left in the ‘ol piggy bank.
Casino Royale
I finally made it out to see Casino Royale tonight. We caught the local 6:30 showing and even after a week the theatre was packed to the screen. It really is no surprise as movies that are good don’t come out of Hollywood with much frequency. Rotten Tomatoes (a very decent review amalgam site) has had the rating above 90% since the very first review. All this sets the stage for another positive review from me. (Sans spoilers so don’t worry)
I mentioned in my last post that I wasn’t at all worried about the chosen Bond. Daniel Craig was amazing in Layer Cake
Let us start at the beginning; the action teaser was very subdued in comparison to pretty much every other Bond movie. In the past we’ve seen skydiving, plane wrecks, multiple murders, explosions, etc. not so this time and it is an interesting and welcome twist. The next surprise was Chris Cornell singing the opening theme during the titles. I was blown away, being of exactly the right era to feel nostalgic about Soundgarden
If you have read Casino Royale you can’t help but remember how the main plot line of the card game was covered in detail. It can be said that you could use the book as a How to play Baccarat manual which makes it sound boring, instead it is fascinating. I heard from a friend that they had changed the game to No-Limit Texas Hold-em which is that one you see on TV all the time. At first I was angered that they would change something so integral to the story. Bond only ever plays Baccarat when cards come up in the series (except for a game of solitaire in Dr. No). Much to my surprise I found myself barely noticing the difference and quickly accepting it as a necessary change. Bond movies target audience would know the ins and outs of poker and thus would alleviate the need for lengthy explanations. This also helps to better involve the audience who (at least in my theatre) gasped and cheered at the various hands. I still think Baccarat is a real mans game compared to Hold-em as it is so much more about the players and their skill in bluffing.
It has been quite a while since I read the book but as far as I could remember they did quite a good job at using the relevant pieces and ignoring the bookish cruft. The fighting and gun play were spectacular as well as the Free-running during the first after titles action. Watching Bond wantonly murder is what makes this Bond great, there is true dispassion in his eyes.
Now for the issues:
- Too many ads, although thank god for no Microsoft Windows ads
- Reference to 9/11 which set the time/date very precisely
- Bond is Bond because he was a cold-war spy, now the dates don’t work
- Bond is somehow a computer genius who can get M’s password?
- Umm… Why would she do that at the end, you know with the key?
Go see it as soon as you are able, you won’t regret it.
Bond, James Bond.
“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”
I love movies and have since I was about 16 when I first started plowing my way through the extensive collection of my girlfriends family. They had over a hundred titles in almost every genre but to me the Bond movies were my stand out favorites. I even went so far as to borrow the entire set and watch them marathon style. (Just to get this out of the way, Sean Connery is the best Bond.) Ever since those days I have been a frequent flyer at Blockbuster and Rogers Video watching a lot of the old stuff and of course the new as it arrived. I’ve reveled in Comedy, Drama and especially Action. I’ve dabbled in Foreign, preferring the Asian masterpieces such as Seven Samurai
Quite a few months ago now I heard rumors of Parkour being used in a movie and more specifically that a few of the more prolific free-runners were going to be in it. I then found out that the movie was going to be the next Bond movie and was going to star Daniel Craig, who? I ran out and rented Layer Cake since the Internet recommended that as his most impressive work and was blown away by the dark grittiness of his character and personality. I no longer had any problem that he wasn’t Dark and Handsome (as are the cries from the peanut gallery currently) and started counting the days until November 17th. It has now come and gone and I still haven’t gone to see it, but I will be once I get paid. Stupid theater charges and arm and a leg for a ticket these days all in the name of piracy. I can’t wait! Only a few more days!
For now I have started working the classics (that I have on VHS) into my viewing rotation. Queue the Bond theme!
You know you want the entire set!! Stupid thing is you have to buy it in a hundred pieces, well 4 but still.
Umm, ya, ok?, whatever (Part 2)
A friend of mine has a Blogger blog that I’ve been enjoying reading. I thought to myself, randomly, “everybody enjoys web traffic statistics, I wonder if Blogger supports Google Analytics“. Quite a while ago I had a Blogger blog so I dusted off my login and went to see if it is possible.
The blog that I had there was the same as this one which I now host myself using WordPress so, many months ago, I deleted it. I suspect I was probably in a web presence consolidation mood at the time. Today when I tried to recreate that blog at the same location, ahewgill.blogspot.com, I found out it was already taken. No biggie, I’ve experienced issues with persistent data in web services before, so I pointed my browser to the site and was totally surprised by the result. Why is my site all in Japanese? Where did all my posts go? Wait … something seems fishy here.
It seems that a Japanese blogger took over my old URL for what I can only assume is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reasons. I suspect that they wanted the benefit of the PageRank of the URL and all the links from random search engines around the world. I can’t confirm this of course because there are no markers that would suggest it was true. There is only one external link that goes to another dead blog with no links which wouldn’t help anybody, its all very curious. It just goes to show you that cleaning up your web presence might not always be the best idea. Now I am just biding my time until he deleted his blog to take it back :o).
Note: I didn’t actually link to the URL of my old blog since it would cause a chain reaction of linking in the Blog-o-sphere via the ping-o-matic system that would suggest I promote that persons site, you know … FYI or whatever.
In the last couple months I have stumbled upon a few different blog posts by Scott Adams on various things, usually on the reddit front page. One really struck me as a great and heartening read. He recently regained his speaking voice after over a year of it being inconsistent. It is such a striking story that some people went so far as to wonder if he was just pulling everybody’s legs with his gigantically massive MENSA member brain, you know for his own amusement. I certainly didn’t think so and that good impression tucked itself away in the back of my head until today when I saw another Scott Adams post hitting the front page, this one is a rebuttal of sorts to comments and commentary about voting based on previous posts. Again, it was a witty and humorous read and the previous good thoughts came back.
My next step was the hit the previous post link to see what sort of a writer this guy was. The previous post was about fences and again was quite humorous although filled with Americana (which makes sense as he is an American). His argument was why not fence in Iraq to keep the terrorists in and included the quotes “How do I invest in fences?” and “Cant we just put a fence around Iraq and hope they turn into Australians over time?” which I actually laughed out loud at. Going back further required wading through a few more posts about voting and being sick but I then came upon the post Blame Room Service which totally sold me on reading the rest of his blog in the coming months. He gives an anecdotal account of an experience he had with a belligerent author who was humiliated at work by her co-workers using cut and paste and an old Dilbert comic. She had the lack of brains to assume it was Scott’s fault and went so far as to call and attack him about it over copyright issues (of which there are none in the first place). I highly recommend you stop what your doing and read that post because it is hilarious and gives me leave to call him a pompous jerk.
For now I am adding the Dilbert Blog to my RSS.
Umm, ya, ok?, whatever
So random google searches can be fun. For some very random reason I came up with this McAfee SiteAdvisor page about my site, weird. At least I pass the test and have a green rating. Heck I even only link to green sites, whatever that means. Make sure to check out your sites just for fun.
Waterloo: The Dead Zone
Some people really enjoy listening to CDs or MP3s while driving in their vehicles. It makes sense because you know you will like every song since you created the play list. Personally I get really bored of a rotation of CDs and am too lazy to hunt around to maintain a constantly evolving MP3 collection. The alternative? Radio, of course. Yes, there is a lot of talk that can be annoying. Yes, there is a lot of advertising that can be annoying. Yes, there is a limited variety of music on each station (note I’m talking about traditional free radio here not satellite or podcasts). Despite all these problems I can’t help myself. I enjoy the limited variety but most of all I like the talk, no not the annoying talk the good talk. For the most part I listen to the Edge 102 out of Toronto since they tend to avoid playing rap and (most) pop. I like to catch the morning show since their antics are usually pretty funny for example when they got Alan Cross to say “Douche Bag” on air recently. My favourite program is “Ongoing History of New Music”? by the same Alan Cross who it seems is an elephant of music history trivia.
Here in Waterloo, for some unknown reason, there is a huge amount of interference with the weaker Toronto radio signals. I drive around the city and on some days everything comes in crystal clear and its great. Other days I drive around and at all times there is a hint of static and certain points in the city cause either the entire channel to cut out or to become inaudible. As you can probably imagine this is very frustrating, especially when I am listening to my favourite program and its to a very interesting point in the story. Today the section of the show that had me very interested was regarding the early days of Nirvana when they had a drummer who wasn’t Dave Grohl or that other guy. I’ve always really liked Nirvana partially because of the music which is great and partially because of Kurt Cobain who was a true musician.
I’ve always lived at arms length from Toronto: Muskoka, Waterloo, Ottawa and St. Catharines. In all of those places except Ottawa I listened to the Edge and wished that they would crank up the signal so it would come in clearer. In the case of Waterloo I don’t really actually believe increasing the signal would overcome the interference. I’m just out of luck until I move on to another location or buy myself a satellite radio receiver (although I think I’m too cheap for that).