Bloggin it up

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2007-03-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

Web 2.0 Video

2007-02-07T14:30:00.000-05:00

Saw it on Gizmodo and well .... wow

My Dancing Brother

2007-02-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

If you missed the action for the bachelor party, here is some of what you missed.

Uhg this is Dorian gulping down suicide sauce from Local Heroes.

Wii vs PS3

2007-01-31T17:37:00.000-05:00

The PS3 is losing more and more ground to the Wii with every day.

The last 2 times through the electronics department at the real canadian superstore, I have seen the same 2 60G PS3 boxes staring back at me. But, I have never seen a Wii on a shelf yet. (And the boxes are not empty, they are out in the open, and they are heavy)

Buying a PS3 is now cheaper used, as I have seen articles about people taking a loss and selling the PS3's below cost, because they can't get rid of them.

The Wii on the other hand is almost viral, most people that I show it to want one, even the people I would consider the least likely to want a game console. Of those least likely people, my parents are one of them. They love it, always want me to bring it over to entertain company for dinner, and have talked numerous times about buying one when they have money for it.
My Aunt Dodie also wants one and is another person I would consider the least likely to own a gaming console. (oh the giggles that came out when she created a short fat, big nosed Uncle Jerry Mii were priceless)

Now I look at my parents, and my aunt Dodie and think, this is a huge market.

The Wii could even replace the PC for them, with the Wii Browser. (I wonder if you could play online Pogo Euchre games on it.) They would only need an IM client with 2 way audio communication to make their PC's obsolete.

Kerazy

I heart Penny Arcade

2007-01-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

Keeping with the iPhone(Pod) theme

2007-01-24T09:56:00.000-05:00

According to the BBC, the cheapest place to buy an iPod is Canada!

Slashdot link
BBC link

Canada Rocks.

**Update, actual source for the iPod data is Comsec**

iPhone .... cooooool I want one

2007-01-09T15:15:00.000-05:00

Coolest phone / iPod / browser ever.
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/iPhone

HOLY CRAP!!
I want to sing the features.....

e-mail
voicemail
tabbed browsing
music
touch screen
cool UI
camera
auto orentation sensor (still singing)
IM
Google Maps
"Pinch" zooming
Sexy
Speaker phone
No Buttons
Widescreen

This phone is frickin' sweet!!!!

(And expensive, whoa$499 4GB, $599 8GB USD)

What's the first thing you did Jan 7th?

2007-01-07T10:11:00.000-05:00

I opened up my windows, let some fresh air run through the house.

What a crazy January.

Media Center vs MythTV??? I find it laughable

2007-01-04T09:58:00.000-05:00

In rebuttal to James recent post "Media Center vs MythTV"

The title alone is misleading"Media Center vs MythTV" glorifies Media Center by comparing it to MythTV.

I will start by saying that MythTV has changed my TV viewing habits so drastically that I do not watch live TV or surf channels anymore, to that respect I have (I am unsure if media center has this functionality) setup my MythTV box accordingly. LiveTV is setup to take a back seat, I am still able to watch live TV but require more than the 120 seconds (waiting for the projector bulb to turn on did take most of my time) I had on new years day to stop a current recording, stop it from picking up another favourite recording, then change to a channel. In hindsight if I had scheduled the recording any time before the ball drop it would have taken less than 30 seconds.

Let me list a few of the features MythTV has.
- Standard PVR functionality
- Watch TV
- Pause, rewind, fast forward, skip ahead, skip back, stop watching in the middle of show X, go watch show Y, come back to show X and continue watching etc..

- Non standard but still basic PVR functionality
- Pictures
- Music
- Movies
- DVD playback
- DVD burning
- Interface with any television provider (Bell, Rogers, DirectTV, Starchoice, antenna, etc..)

Now the Nonstandard (special) functionality is off the chart.
I will miss functionality here, but here are some of the things that MythTV does that are special.
- automatic and manual commercial flagging
- ability to manually or automatically skip commercials
- Games (Mame, and rom organization... cool)
- DVD ripping
- CD ripping
- IMDB lookup for DVD's and CD's
- Playback of any media with codec (including rm, mov, divx, avi, xvid, wmv, anything really)
- Backend server and frontend client architecture allows for many viewers to watch TV off the backend server. (Someone upstairs and downstairs can watch the same or different shows, both pause when they want etc..)
- Intelligent scheduler to avoid conflicts.
- Configurable to work with ANY remote control signal, you can setup the power button for your TV to start playing knight rider on mythTV
- can plays recordings at an accelerated or decelerated rate, adjusting the audio pitch as necessary.
- RSS feed news reader
- Weather
- web browser
- MythWeb will allow you to control your mythtv and schedule recordings from anywhere on the Internet
-Netflix queue viewer.
- make internet phone calls
- Encode your recordings as different and configurable (space saving or higher quality) formats

And all from behind your remote control.

The system itself is fully configurable, I don't add MythPhone, cause I dont want to make internet phone calls from my remote control. Nor do I really need my TV to be a browser, or RSS reader, but I loooove automatic commercial flagging, and the intelligent scheduler.

I could get into the advantages of a free open source program here over a proprietary system like media center, but that would really change this conversation into something different, so I will just add that, security, upgrades, and price are also all better with mythTV.

Matt out.

Mythtv 0.20 stable!!

2007-01-02T14:57:00.000-05:00

Yay, mythtv 0.20 is finally stable in the portage tree. (lamens look away now)

I can now upgrade from my 2-3 year old 0.17 installation.

If you knew what I was talking about you might say,
"But Matt, you could have upgraded to the 0.19 and 0.18 when they went stable"

When I setup this system I decided to leave it when it was working. It's not broken, I don't care if there are any security holes (except in ssh) as no one has access to it but me.

But now the new 0.20 features have intrigued me, especially the ability to burn episodes natively from mythfrontend, as DVD's!, apparently you can also tell it to use your commercial flags and remove those from the burned copy... all too cool.

I know what James is going to say something about media center, but I say bs, mythtv is cheaper and better, although it is harder to setup, but that is a plus for me anyway.

Happy New Year (and Merry Christmas)

2007-01-02T12:33:00.000-05:00

I had a great, and action packed holidays.

My holidays started (Dec 22) with me getting off on call. YAY

That night we went to a holiday supper/gathering at Jolanda's, the food was great, but the weather was baaad, I was very surprised everyone made it to her place in farhaven, we passed 2 accidents on the way, one on woodroffe, and one on her street, which resembled a long skating rink more than a road. I got to see Ava for the first time in months, she was soo cute, and happy and active. Julie and Brian should start an Ava blog. :)

Next day started with breakfast with Cheryl (and a few others) as she was down from TO.
Followed by some cleaning of my place for my dinner hosting. My parents, my brother, his fiancee, Jenn and I were all there for a tasty Christmas meal. Before calling it a night we played a little Wii bowling.

Christmas eve came and Jenn and I headed to my parents for a large Christmas lunch, and pre Christmas gift exchange. Around 7 or 8ish we packed up the car from my parents, left most of the gifts behind and headed up to TO to Jenn's parents, the drive was good, naturally the traffic was light.

Christmas morning woke up with at Jenn's place and opened presents again, The funniest present was Jenn's Grandma got a Nintendo DS and Brain Age. The next couple days was a blur of gatherings with Jenn's family, I can't remember all the places we went. Finishing with a fun and late night at Deb's house playing some more Wii and the Amazing Race boardgame.

On Wednesday (27th) around 3ish I drove back home. Drive was uneventful and clear, even though there was quite a bit of snow that morning. Got home and settled back in.

Next day I lazed around the house for the morning, then headed up to the cottage to help put in some hardwood floors. When I showed up Dad was working on a 9x9 pattern Mom wanted to put on the floor, cut up wood into small pieces and arrange them, and he was getting frustrated with it. So I took over, after modifying the design to something more symmetrical, I cut out all the pieces, and put them in place. They finished laying the floor at around 5, it looks really good.

That night I headed over to Duncan's for a little Xbox 360ing, I have to say I am disappointed with the multiplayer games we had, none of them would let us all play at once. And Co-op games were restricted to only 2 players. (I don't remember the name of the game, call of duty maybe), I cant wait until we get some good multiplayer games for the Wii, like mario kart.

Friday I woke up with every intention of staying at home all day watching TV playing with Jennie, and playing a little Zelda, but I found out my DS-X finally got shipped, so I kept my eye on the fed-ex site periodically through-out the day, and headed into work to wish everyone a happy new year and to get my grubby hands on a new toy. The rest of the day was spent partially in awe and partially frustrated with my new toy. Oh somewhere that day I called/evited around and invited a handful of people over to my place for new years.

Saturday... was spent doing some cleaning, laundry, and other boring chores.

Sunday, I did most of my running around for the festivities that night, got some h'orderves/drinks/booze and finished some cleaning off from Saturday. Guests showed up around 8:30, and we played games until with wii hours of the night, stopping at 11:58 to watch me try to get live TV up to watch the ball drop, I failed, and now have been at the end of James S's jokes about how media center is better than mythtv. Although I have not used media center, I am fairly sure James' insults are just a poor attempt to compensate for his PVR.

Monday was Joelle's annual potluck dinner and games. The food was great, I especially liked the pineapple ham and vegetable soup, yummmy.

It's Tuesday now and I am back at work *sigh* everything went by soo fast...

Upgraded to Blogger beta (not really beta anymore) today

2007-01-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

Chuck Norris

2006-12-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

Found a cool website Uncyclopedia
On it a Chuck Norris wiki, that is endorsed by not only Jesus, but Black Jesus as well (I hear he is hard to please).

My Fav's

“The real hero here is Chuck Norris who came to me in a dream telling me to hunt for the reincarnation of Chewbacca, who tuned out to be me, who turned out to be a ninja-viking-Jedi, who turned out to be Oprah Winfrey, who turned out to be a white man, who turned out to be a bag of leaves, a big bag of leaves, which contained Chuck Norris, who came out and told me not to write run on sentences, and preceded to round-house kick me in the face, which turned out to be owned by the goverment, and we were sent to prison where he brought me to life to help him escape the Death Star. ”

And

“Chuck Norris faced me in an arm wreslting contest. I lost three times in one match."

Also checkout Chucktown (aka Spain II)

I am the Wii Tennis MASTAh.

2006-12-04T15:26:00.000-05:00

Many others have already blogged about it, so I will stick to the important details.

- I already tossed the quick Holly portion in it's respective spot (Hollyisms)
- Ferda's Birthday Party was great.
- While at the party, I organized a tennis tourney so I could skool everyone in the finer points of Wii tennis.
- Slept in late on Sunday.

More Wii'ing (you probably had to be there)

2006-11-27T15:59:00.000-05:00

So I brought my Wii around with me this weekend.

I showed Jenn's Dad (who creamed us at bowling)
And my Dad and Mom (who also creamed us at bowling)

It was really funny when my Dad got to serve in Tennis for the first time.
To start I have to explain that to play tennis, you just use the wiimote, want to serve, make it as if your throwing the wiimote in the air, want to hit the ball, use the wiimote like a racket, simple intuitive, and fun.

So not only was he slamming serves that my mom didn't have enough time to react to (the wiimote can determine acceleration/speed) , but his first serve, he was so into the game that he was taking his left hand, and trying to throw the ball up into the air (no wiimote in that hand)...
So he tried it once, (the guy on the screen didn't do anything)
Ok, better try that again... (still nothing)

At this point my brother Mark (who was watching Dad and not the screen like the rest of us) breaks out laughing, telling us what Dad was doing... Hilarious.

--Correction, Jenn tells me my Dad only did it once, but I think he swung the racket after tossing the imaginary ball up--

by request - Zelda - Twilight Princess Review

2006-11-27T08:50:00.000-05:00

Preface,

I really enjoy RPG's, and adventure games like Zelda, I have played the first 3 or 4 Zelda games, I have not played Majoras Mask, but recently finished Windwaker after borrowing it from James.

So at this point I am about 10 hours ish into Zelda.

I am not really sure how far into the game I have progressed, but if I had to guess, I think I am less than 25% complete, I like to search around every nook and cranny to get 100% completion in games this can slow me down quite a bit. Usually I make up for it by putting crazy hours into a game, but with the DS hogging 1/2 my gaming attention this has not been the case so far.

On a side note, New Super Mario Bros on DS... awesome.
Brain age (Also DS) is edumacationalistic, I got my brain to age 20 last night, YEA!

Back to the review, I am really enjoying the game so far, I was amazed by the graphics, this is the most realistic Zelda I have seen, while Windwaker went for a more cartoony look and feel, Twilight Princess went for a much more realistic look and feel. It is well done, but naturally not really comparable to any of the high def games put out for Xbox 360 or PS3. Personally though, I prefer a cartoony look and feel in a game.

I have not really become caught up in the story like I did with windwaker, again I blame the DS for this, I would be much more into the game without it.

Controls,
Moving around is done with the numchucks analog stick, very easy, becomes second nature right away.

Swinging the sword is done by slashing with the wiimote, doesn't matter how you move the wiimote around Link is doing the same swipe regardless of how you do yours, it does not follow your movement.

Spinning sword to attack 360 degrees is done by shaking the numchuck, again same move for any shaking.

Shooting with the slingshot / boomerang, makes a much better use of the new controls. use the pointer, point at the screen, and move the cursor where you want to shoot, then press the B button (bottom on wiimote). Or you can skip the new way, and use Z locking (press Z to lock onto a target), much more fun to use the pointer though.

There is a neat fishing part of the game, but it seems like it was just thrown in because the controller can make it cool, it doesn't (hasn't yet) really been necessary for the game.

There are a few more controls I am going to skip, they are all pretty intuitive.

- SPOILER WARNING -

Storyline so far. (for some reason I want to type this)

You start out getting a basic, "learn your controls" tasks, with some storyline mixed in.
Your in a very small town, you don't seem to have any parents around, you have your own house, the town wants you to go to Herule (sp?) to deliver something. yada yada.

The first tasks are
go run up and find your horse.
go take the horse through town,
herd some goats,
jump some fences.

Talk to people around town, perform menial tasks.

So far the game has been very linear, you can't go flying around the whole world in search of Heart containers, but the beginning of windwaker was the same, so I might not be at that point yet. I like skipping the main tasks to go do other side quests. So far there have been no side quests to note.

About 4-5 hours in you get kidnapped along with the local bossy cute local girl, and some other little timid boy.

You wake up to find yourself alone and that you have transformed into a wolf, and you are chained to the floor, a very cocky magical female shadow kid comes to your cell, and helps you out, making fun of you when you do the wrong thing.

When you get out of the cell the shadow kid becomes your permanent side kick, riding you like a horse, then helping you jump to unreachable areas (as a wolf) while the level progresses.

You eventually find out that your in Herule (sp?), and that the entire place is covered in darkness, any people that were in Hurule have become spirits, the spirits don't know that they are spirits. You have Wolf senses, that you can use to follow scents, see spirits... Hum, yah that is all they are good for so far. You have to go into sense mode, where your vision is limited to a small area around you,

So the little shadow kid leads you to meet Zelda, Zelda is not a spirit, she is the .... dah dah dun duuuu Twilight Princess. She tells you the story as to why everything is dark... bad/dark people came in, took over the land by force, told Zelda to choose between death (for everyone) or darkness.

She also mentions something about a Dark King. Then we get rushed out of her room before the guard comes back.

From there we go back to our town (the shadow kid can teleport us around), and proceed to find the shattered light and return it to a light protector god type thing. Which returns the light to the little town, and surrounding area.

When the light returns, you return to human form, and walk around as the towns folk ask you to go save the children (all the children got taken away by the darkness).

So you return to the darkness (and back to a wolf), and try to return more of the light pieces (light bugs actually).

That is where I am now.

Overall a good game, being the first game I have purchased in quite awhile it seems unnecessarily expensive, but a great game none the less, it's a must play game for those who like RPG/Adventure games.

Oh, and if your reading this far, go get yourself a Wii

Gaming OVERLOAD!

2006-11-21T15:14:00.000-05:00

So I have the Wii, and it's all it's cracked up to be and more.

And today my lazy ass eBay guy finally got me my Black Onyx DS Lite. HURRAY!!!

Now what do I do? Play Mario Kart DS or Zelda Twilight Princess,

If I could only play both games at once...

lol, damn floor hockey tonight

Can I get my friend code without an access point?

Wiieeeeeeeee 4

2006-11-21T09:27:00.000-05:00

So I guess this all starts with games night at my house (Board games night).

This is the day before the Wii launch,

Oh by the way, Mike I just tried the leftover pineapple meatballs yesterday... any chance there are more, mmmmm.

Ok getting sidetracked...

Games night ends around midnight, but I don't realize how late it is until Jenn tells me the time.
My plan is to hit Walmart at 4AM, and get up at 3AM to do it.

So my head hits the pillow and the alarm clock seems to go off right away, look it's 3AM already.
I get up right away, and start getting ready, chair, warm clothes, gloves, book.

I get everything in the car and head off, I hit Walmart a full 1/2 hour earlier than I expected.
Drive into the Walmart parking lot... everything looks good, I don't see any people.. am I the first one here, that would really suck.

I drive over the speed bumps in front of the entrance, so the other doors are visible...
HOLY CRAP look at the line, the first thing I think of is, this reminds me of my cottage parties, everyone sitting in camp chairs, a tent setup... it looks like a lot more people than I have had at a cottage party though, am I going to get a console?

Well might as well get in line and figure it out.

I get in line and the guy 2 ahead of me tells me, that I am around #41, and that he counted heads and empty chairs when he got here.

There also seems to be a consensus in line that there are 63 Wii's.... Whew.
There are a few people that say there might be 30, but those people tend to be the kind of people that don't really look like they know what they are talking about, or so I choose to believe.

So I am sitting in line for 3 1/2 hours, it was cold, and I wish I had thought of wearing ski pants, but the time went pretty fast.

So around 6:00 the crowd starts getting more excited, the tent is gone, most of the chairs are also gone, and the line has... condensed, everyone is much closer to the doors, there is one or two random people in line yelling things like, "let us in", "Hurry up", but otherwise the line was very civil and orderly (unlike any of the US news reports about the PS3)

Also, at 6:00 my lovely and gorgeous girlfriend Jenn got out of bed to bring me a coffee and bagel from Tim's :-)

Jenn shows up around 6:40, people are getting excited, the line compacted some more, still lots of elbow room but if I stuck my arms out and spun I would smack a good 3-4 people. At 4AM I would have missed everyone and just looked like a crazy person spinning.

A few Walmart employees come out and start telling people, some rules, like "no running" it is impossible to hear exactly what they are saying at the front.

Then they ask everyone to get into a line, and everyone not buying a console to get out of line.
We each get a ticket with our number in line on it (I end up being #38).

They let 10 people in at a time, to get their console / games / controllers. so that the first people have first bids on extras, Walmart managed the line really well.

The electronics section could have been organized much better, but with only 10 people at a time it wasn't that bad.

I get my Wii, Zelda and another Wiimote, and what I think is the last numchuck.

Yay, Wiieeeeeee 5 and sleepy Matt coming soon to a computer screen near you

Wiieeeeeeeee 3

2006-11-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

Looks like getting a Wii won't be anywhere near as difficult as getting a PS3 would have been.

My first thought was, hey, I should buy this at some abstract location.
So I call the Great Canadian Superstore on Richmond, near work.
They tell me they have 6 Wii's.

I bet next to no one will be at the superstore 3 hours before opening.

Then I figure I should find out how many my second alternative has Walmart.
I call the Kanata Walmart and find out how many they have.

Around 50! :-) awesome.

So as long as 50 people don't show up at walmart 3 hours before it opens, then I am set.
The electronics lady also told me that they would have no problem getting more before christmas.

She also told me that the PS3 release they only had 10, and they sold out in 10 minutes.
And they seemed to have a very good handle on the waiting line, telling everyone else to go home before the store opened.

Wiieeeeeee can't wait.

Wiieeeeeeeee 2

2006-11-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

Matt vs. Nintendo DS Lite

2006-11-07T13:02:00.000-05:00

Well I have gone all out and decided to splurge on not only the Nintendo Wii next week, but the Nintento DS as well.

I found an eBay auction I liked with a good selection of games included (this is the actual ebay picture) .

Hopefully it will arrive before the end of the week, and I can take it with me to Toronto this weekend.

How do these friend codes work?

Kerazy Weekend Part 3

2006-11-03T17:31:00.000-05:00

Alrighty, last part.
(make sure to scroll down and read parts 1 and 2 first)

So Jenn and Jenn's Mom dressed me in my costume.
The costume involved a painters smok thingy with hood, gloves socks, some wrapping stuff (I don't know what it was) and uhm.. hot glue. Everything was stained with tea (except the glue), to give it an old worn look.

The costume dressing was... interesting, it involved me getting wrapped from head to toe with this white wrapping stuff, using hot glue to stick it in place. This is not the first time I have had Jenn's mom getting all up close and personal wrapping me with stuff. Last time was suran wrap...

I was not very... comfortable with all the places hot glue needed to be applied, but it all finished eventually.

So everyone finishes their costumes, and we head off (thoroughly late) for the party.

I have heard a lot of hype about this place prior to today.
- The garage is used to store a large car collection (including 3 porches)

This place is HUGE, driving on their street I say something like "Is that the entrance" as I motion to a very large Soprano like metal gate. Jenn says "No we are going to the other entrance"

We drive by what seems to be parking attendants, and park the car on the road along with the other 40 - 50 cars already on the road.

We walk through the second set of gates to the property, and have to walk to the front of the "garage".
This garage is about the size of 2 - 4 large barns, it's dark out, so it is difficult to get a good look at it, from what I can see it looks very new (as it should).

Mr Lee greets us around the side of the building dressed up as a war general. (I didn't know this initially, but Mr. Lee is the host)

We walk inside the garage it is reminiscent somewhat of a stag party. The place is the size as I am used to in carp and kinburn community center halls, except is it 2 stories high.
Rubberish floors (heated I am told).

There is a large number of people dancing in front of a stage, very nice looking stereo equipment that looked very new. A lady at the front takes our picture with a digital canon SLR, I spot no less than 2 other people with expensive SLR cameras taking pictures around the floor (ie professional photographers)

The (open) bar is setup to our right with 2 people handing out drinks from under the tables.

From the looks around the place there was a lot of time spent on decorations.
The place was amazing, the pictures will have to show you the rest of the place as I can't do it justice.

Unfortunately Mr. Lee is a big leafs fan, and has a stanley cup winner, banner, like you would see at the hockey arena, hanging from the ceiling, (It is strung up so as not to touch the floor, it is that big)

There is a loft type area above with TONS of hockey jerseys hanging from the ceiling upstairs, I spot 4 gretzky jerseys, I presume from all the teams he was on.

I get introduced to many of Jenn's relatives, her cousin Chris (baseball player she mentions frequently), her Granny, some cousins, and cousins children, etc...

Me and Jenn's Dad eventually wonder into the back room below the loft, this is the shop / game area, and it is cool, there are 2 lifts, with 4 cars off to the right we go and take a look. Apparently the car under wraps is an older Porsche 911, I don't recall what the cars were on the lift, but the other car seemed to be purely bought to collect, it still had plastic on the seats, and the factory sticker in the window.

Back in the main area, there are a few bikes that are roped off, a harley, a very large honda bike, and a bike with the coolest bike rims I have ever seen.

Enough of the ambiance again. Jenn wanders around and plays with some of her cousins, I have a couple beer, and meet some more relatives, when we are told from the MC on the stage that the garage doors are going to open and we are all to follow the ghouls into the house.

What's this? As we are walking in, I think we came to the conclusion that we are getting a tour of this new place. (this place has just recently been built, it is too new to be furnished, but looks complete otherwise.

The front doors are two huge solid wood doors I would expect to see on the addams family.
The great room we walked into was breathtaking.
Stairs to our left have cast iron banisters, lots of wood, a fireplace (which, I didn't get a great look at). We were among the last people coming in, and it was difficult to take it all in, there were so many people around.

Mr. Lee greets us at the front of the room, and welcomes us into his house, then another person walks forward from behind him talking,
blah blah, some greeting then "Only part of this is a costume, I am actually a priest."

What? Why are you here? This is a pretty big party, he even invites his preist wow.

Jenn's cousin Chris and Laura (fiancee) are called up to the front?
They walk up, but have changed costumes.

It becomes apparent now that this is a surprise WEDDING!

Both sides of the immediate family are called to stand up front. (forgetting the actual order this might have happened earlier)

Everyone seems to have the same reaction, "What? Really!? This is CRAZY! Wow".

Now to step back and give you a better perspective, everyone is still dressed up in Halloween costumes. Even the immediate family, all of them really good. The funniest of which was Laura's brother who was dressed as a slutty female (or prostitute), with makeup, uber short skirt, and some very skinny tube top thing. The crowd as well all dressed up, attending a wedding.

The wedding progresses with everyone in shock, I am taking pictures like a madman.
There is a loft area above, I try and scoot up to take some pictures to find it completely barracaded with people. Then I jump back down.
All my pictures unfortunately are from the same angle.

The wedding finishes and they go up to sign the wedding registry thingy. And the whole mass of people swarm to the front. I stay back where I am, and take some more pictures, and eventually find myself talking to Jenn's grandma.

I am chatting and snapping pictures, when I spot Jenn trying to get my attention, and motion me over... then I realize she doesn't want me, she is trying to get her grandma up there. I follow granny into the swarm, and we end up on opposite sides of the family huddle.

Some people with masks still on, Jenn, Jenn's Mom, Chris' Mom, etc...

Then someone motions to the masked people, who promptly remove their masks, to reveal Jenn's relatives from the states, exactly where they are from I am not sure, but I guess further south from the accents. They have been inconspicuously partying with everyone for hours prior.

At this point as well Jenn's Dad has called Jenn's sister multiple times, I assume to say things like
"Hey, uhm ya... your missing Chris' surprise wedding", and
"Guess who just popped out of masks after the wedding"
"Get your ass down here"
"Did you ever pick the wrong party to miss"
etc...

So as the wedding crowd slowly dissolves, someone gets on the microphone to encourage us to head back to the party. And we head back down, still in shock and awe (shocwe) of the ... whole thing.

The Chris and Laura get back down, and have the ritual first dance, as husband and wife, then the other dances.

We find out from Jenn's relatives (the ones that unfortunately live down in the US) that they have known for about 2 months. To which Jenn's sister says something like "If someone would have told me I would have come...". lol

I play some foozball, take some pictures, Jenn's sister shows up eventually.
The party continues, there are some random speeches, and the party winds down slowly.

We stayed right up to the last song and headed back to Jenn's parents.

The next morning, we go and do some shopping at white feather, to get some chicken breasts and perogies, and go visit Jenn's sister.

Later in the evening Jenn decides to stay another night, and head back Monday morning, so she can spend some more time with her US relatives, so I take off to get back home.
The drive again is wet but bearable.

That was the weekend in a nutshell,
I am sad I missed my grandparents 60th, but heading up to Oshawa turned out to be a great alternative.

Hope everyone enjoyed the wait. ;-)
Oh yea, here are the pics.

Halloween

Part 3 soon

2006-11-02T16:54:00.000-05:00

I have to take off for floor hockey and am forced to put what I have finished into a draft.

Like I said it is uncannily long.

I hope to finish it tonight.

M

Kerazy Weekend Part 2

2006-11-01T17:32:00.000-05:00

FYI, you might want to read Part 1 first (below)

Well I lost most of my first attempt at Part 2 :-( So here is my second attempt.

So we get back to my parents place around 2:00AM like expected, I quickly move my stuff from the van to the car, and head back to my place. I get there around 2:30AM and head to bed. Still up in the air over which party to hit, thinking more about going to bed than anything else.

I wake up in the morning around 9ish. Now is the time to decide.

Duncan's Party
- Close to home
- Good friends at party
- I know it will be fun.
- Easy to get home.
- Must get ready last minute (costume, booze, transportation, etc.)

Jenn's Party
- Already packed
- Catered
- Huge garage with lots of hype
- Open Bar
- Have costume in mind in Oshawa already (Fernie Fest Sumo Wrestler)
- Other sappy reasons
- More driving (through the rain)

I decide I will head to Oshawa provided there are no issues going.

So I call Jenn to see if I can even make the party on time, make sure showing up is alright, check if going to the party without rsvp'ing is ok, see if there is anything I need to bring etc... Everything ok... so I am heading to Oshawa

After surprising Jenn with my news, she told me that they will make me a mummy for the party, and that they would start getting the materials together. So, I hoped in the car and headed off for the ~4 hour drive to Oshawa.

The drive was pretty uneventful, it was very wet, the roads were fine to drive on (partly due to my amazing tires)

Got to Oshawa pretty hungry, Jenn and her mom were out picking up Halloween costume stuff, and showed up about 2 min after I got there. We went inside for a little bit, talked about costume stuff, got a few of my things from the car inside, and headed off to Arbys... Mmmm Arbys... wish still had one in Ottawa.

After food we went out to a few placed to get more costume supplies.

Then we headed back to Jenn's Parents to start getting ready.
Jenn's costume - Evil Queen from Snow White
Jenn's Mom - Morticia Addams
Jenn's Dad - Dark faceless thing
Me - Mummy

Jenn's sister decided to skip the party, I know I don't know all the reasons she didn't attend, but I think her fiance unable to walk around (broken? sprained foot?? or something similar) was the main reason. Although I hear she was hounded quite thoroughly by her aunt earlier in the week.

despite not going she showed up at Jenn's parents to put makeup on everyone (myself included).

A long Part 3 coming soon to a computer screen near you!!

Kerazy Weekend Part 1

2006-10-30T17:31:00.000-05:00

Friday starts off with a well deserved vacation day.

Gives me time to pack for my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary, and some other odds and ends.

So, skipping through most of the boring details of the majority of the day, I pack and head over to my parents place to caravan up to Sault Ste. Marie, with a one night stop outside of Sudbury to visit my Aunt Karen's place.

Dad rented a van so, my parents, my brother and his fiancee and I can all travel comfortably. The trip started out great,about 3:30PM we headed off, stopped for gas once, watched south park on my brothers laptop, listened to my iPod (The ongoing history of new music is awesome).

I had my blackberry with me, there were quite a few relatives coincidentally visiting my aunt Karen's place this weekend. So I spent some time on msn talking with my cousin Adam, who was already there.

We stopped for supper at a greasy spoon about an 1.5 hours from my aunt Karen's, and my dad thought it my grandpa would be amazed if I messaged him on the road. Grandpa is the worlds slowest typer, so when I messaged him we had a very long conversation with very short (usually 2 word) sentences, we finished dinner and were well on our way back to Aunt Karen's when grandpa said "bad driving? hit snow yet?". What? Snow? Bad driving? Can't be that bad, probably just grandpa... Let's see what Environment Canada's has to say "SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT" "SOMETHING ABOUT REALLY BAD DRIVING ALL WEEKEND STARTING FRIDAY NIGHT". Well isn't that just perfect 5 hours into our drive.

What rotten luck! Mom and Dad (and to a lesser extent me and my brother) are not keen on long haul driving through a snow storm. So we slowly decide that we have to head the 5 hours back to Ottawa =(, but being 1/2 hour from Aunt Karen's we will at least go say hi.
The weather still looked fine the rest of the way to Aunt Karen's. We get there to find that my cousin Cheryl already decided to head home before the weather hit. Dad has a coffee, and I get to look through Adams wedding picture and play with Blake a bit (when he wasn't cranky). Alright 45 minutes of visiting it's time to head off. Being 9PM now we are not going to get home until about 2AM....

On the ride back I realize I have a decision to make now, Duncan's Party, or Jenn's Family Halloween bash.
[Part 2 of this 3 part series will be here tomorrow]

Uploaded Pictures

2006-10-22T11:05:00.000-04:00

http://picasaweb.google.com is neat, but needs much more space (250M is not nearly enough)

Family Reunion

Shannon's Wedding

Adam Wedding Dinner

Cool commercial, no CGI it's for real

2006-10-18T14:00:00.000-04:00

My first thought was, No CGI, Ya right!! Keep watching....

French Classes.... where to start?

2006-10-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

Long time no post.

Lets say I would like to apply for some government jobs that require, French.

I am looking for suggestions on how to achieve at least a BBB level. Anyone know of any place to take classes?

Men's room etiquette

2006-10-02T17:44:00.000-04:00

Bad Day

2006-09-19T14:30:00.000-04:00

Amazing Race Season TEN!

2006-09-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Amazing race starts Sunday.

I think Bilal & Sa'eed are going to be the unfortunate first team out...

Reason for choice "Love of Food" to me = slow (not slow in the head, just slow in general)

Followed by Lynn & Karlyn with their "limited traveling experience".

Anyone willing to be $5 that they can pick 2 people that will be gone before my 2?

Richmond Fair, Demolition Derby!

2006-09-14T15:07:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, the Navan fair is over before I even got a chance to think about car crashes.

But, thanks to Trish for keeping everyone informed about the Richmond Fair this weekend!! YAY.

Tomorrow 6:30 PM, Richmond fair grounds, I will be staking out a good seat, and getting ready to watch all the metal crunching fun.

I love watching little Volkswagen hatchbacks, get their entire rear end smashed up to a pulp to the point where the rear wheels don't work. Then still drive around the track without any effort. Or watching a radiator blow on a 6 or 8 cylinder car, and watching 1/2 of his opponents get enveloped in a huge cloud of water vapor....

yah, Wii launch date, and demolition derby tomorrow... today is a good day....

Wiieeeeeeeee

2006-09-14T13:23:00.000-04:00

Nov. 19, is D day for the Wii.

Original Link.

Not surprisingly they are going for a close to Christmas launch date, that is so very popular for console releases.

~ 15 Wii games will be available on release day. Including Zelda.
Or you can play one of 530 Gamecube disks...??? (is this all the GC games, or just a selection of them... hmm)
And the Wii will come with Wii Sports, and a controller (/w numchuck) for $250 US.

You can download old popular NES, SNES, and GC games online for, $5, $8, and $10 respectively (US)

I can't wait... awesome.

New video iPod

2006-09-13T09:28:00.000-04:00

Upgrades include,
- Brighter screen
- Longer battery life
- More storage space

Not worth upgrading from my iPod photo.

No wide screen, no corner to corner display, :-( *sigh*.

Hopefully the Wii will get released next month...

On a lighter Apple note, here is something that can hopefully squelch your desires to play with your little cousins barbie. (weirdo)

Floor Hockey, Changing to Tuesdays

2006-09-12T07:47:00.000-04:00

Due to a ... clerical error, I have lost my Wednesday floor hockey timeslot.

So, starting next week floor hockey has moved to Tuesdays. The Wednesday slot was great, the people scheduled after us that never showed up. I hope we have the same thing for Tuesdays.

If anyone who previously could not make Wednesdays, would like to start coming out on Tuesdays, either occasionally, or every week, just let me know, I will toss you on the email list.

Or if floor hockey isn't your thing this week (today) we are going to take advantage of the weather and play a little Ultimate (frisbee). If anyone is interested. Just send me an email, and I'll toss you the details.

DD....R

2006-09-08T18:52:00.000-04:00

Gaming and beer got me a few love handles, lets see if gaming and flavored water can get rid of them.

I have had the DDR pads now for about 2 or 3 days (opened) and they are cooool.

The pads support all 3 consoles (xbox, gamecube AND playstation.), and have a stiff foam pad under the buttons, (no bunching and very little moving).

Video games + exercise = cool.
This is the first time I have had to stop playing video games cause I am physically exhausted.

There seems to be a BIG difference between skill levels though. Playing on beginner is really easy, playing one level up is challenging but do-able, playing on "standard" is uh crazy, I have not even attempted to see what happens when I select "hard" I think my head would explode at the sight of the first arrow.

I wonder if I can play zelda with my feet? (oh yea, James I finished windwaker, very cool)

2006-09-07T00:09:00.000-04:00

I should be a photographer.... I thought this pic was going to be horrible, smoke and bubbles clouded the entire picture before I started editing. Now it looks amazing

2006-09-07T00:07:00.000-04:00

the cloud seems to be following them... I love this pic.

2006-09-07T00:03:00.000-04:00

I call this the "Adam came home late because of racing look"

2006-09-07T00:02:00.000-04:00

There's the top of little blakes head... he got to jump around with all the bubbles it was great

2006-09-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Shannon (best man) and Maureen

2006-09-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

No smile?

2006-09-06T23:58:00.002-04:00

Jen and Me

2006-09-06T23:58:00.001-04:00

ah yes, Trevor

2006-09-06T23:58:00.000-04:00

My beautiful date... pumping invisible iron? pretending to carry water jugs?? Now you can guess too. :-D
Disclaimer - No points will be awarded for the correct answer, the guess that makes me laugh the most will get the most points and therefore will win a faboulous amazing load of absolutly nothing.

2006-09-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

ah yes, the pre-drinking Matt-tertainment

2006-09-06T23:56:00.000-04:00

Matt and Erin also with random person cheering in background ;-)

2006-09-06T23:55:00.001-04:00

what have we here?

2006-09-06T23:55:00.000-04:00

Nich and Erin

Adam and Nichelle's Wedding Weekend Spectacular

2006-09-06T22:50:00.000-04:00

It all started out on Wednesday, being in Adam's wedding party I needed to head up for the Thursday wedding rehearsal.

So Jenn, Sasha and myself got ready and hit the road around 2ish.

I was a little leary taking Sasha as I have only had her for a little while, but she was great, most of the way we listened to "The ongoing history of new music, by Alan Cross" (rockin' and informative)

We rolled into Sault Ste Marie around 11 ish, had a few drinks helped Adam with a few things, then headed to bed.

The next few days were really busy with wedding stuff, hair cuts, helium tank/balloon filling, tux fitting/alterations, chauffeuring, getting money for different wedding things, printing dinner menu's / church hymns / folding... etc etc. I never really thought about all the things that need to be done for a wedding before, it's crazy.

Along with all that there was the rehearsal, which went very well, despite the priests awful sense of humor. He had to inform us at least once that "That was a joke". After the rehearsal we had the rehearsal dinner (awesome).

Then of course, who can have a wedding without a pre wedding stock car race with the boys, with the groom racing around the track... (wait I guess everyone usually skips that part, anyways) so ya Adam went out and raced in a stock car race the day before the wedding ...... AND WON!! also frickin' amazing. (there were about 20 cars in the final race, with Adam starting almost dead last)

So the day of the wedding comes around and we are still doing random things for the wedding right up to the last second. I get back from getting a hair cut at 2:40 ish still have 50 min before we have to be at the church, plenty of time to get ready, with time to spare. I find out that I mis-interpreted a conversation with Adam over the phone, and I am supposed to go pick up Shannon from the Hotel, no worries, the hotel is close by. So on the way back from getting Shannon, we get a call from Adam, basically saying we have to be at the church 30 min earlier than expected! So ya, the time was up before I started, no worries, I am a speed dresser in a pinch.

Unfortunately, remembering random things extremely last minute is apparently not my forte. I leave the house with my glasses on, without my wallet, and forgetting to shave, greaaat.

I realize I forget my wallet and contacts immediately after leaving the house to go pick up another groomsman, Adam is leading in the other car, and we swing back to pick them up after getting him.

I run in grab my contact case and wallet, and run out. When Adam tells me, John is still not ready, and we need to wait for him... Ok

John shows up very shortly after and we all take off to the church. When I realize I have a nice 5 o'clock shadow, luckily only Jenn notices (or only Jenn comments).

When we got there the wedding went really well, Blake was queued up for comic relief running around the church the whole time, but didn't really affect the ceremony, it was cute.

After the wedding we all went for wedding pictures, 2 of the bridesmaids got lost on the way. (Cheryl and random blond girl you know who you are) So we got all the groomsmen pictures, then the pictures of the groomsmen with their associated bridesmaids.

Then a few funny pictures on the swings and see saw, on the see saw I found out I weigh more than Shannon, but not more than Shannon and Trevor.

Moving on, Adam and Nichelle showed up, then we took a whole bunch of random pictures, then the bridesmaids showed up, and the photographer was able to complete her missing pics.

After that we rushed off to the dinner.

Dinner was great. Drinks were drunk :-), some country music was played :-(, some of my cousin's entertained me by calling each other wussies, and trying to drink my brother under the table, it was hilarious, I can't do it justice with words.

Even though we were staying at Adam's less than a 5 min drive away Me and Jenn ended up staying at the hotel. It was soooo awesome to stay right up to the end, then just walk upstairs to crash.

I will remember this wedding for a long time...

Sappy as it may sound, Adam and Nichelle, you make a great couple, and had an amazing wedding, I am honored to be apart of it.

Sasha (and post #100 wow)

2006-09-06T22:40:00.000-04:00

[Insert Pic of Sasha in the light all shiny]
Blog readers, meet Sasha.
Sasha... blog readers.

So I knew I had to name her car, it's not any ordinary car. But picking the right name is always difficult.

Sasha is named after a scooter, but not just any old scooter, but JD's scooter off Scrubs (I am currently watching season 5 and... it rocks). The only other names I could think of were Gimpy or Cal, from undergrads, but those would be strange names for a girl.

So that aside Sasha congratulations on your awesome new name, I hope that marmy used car dealer fixes your fan soon.

Quick jab at an OLD friend

2006-08-18T13:54:00.000-04:00

Joe is not much to look at, neither is his newly created blog.
Hopefully one of them will change soon.

http://coastguardguy.blogspot.com/

Welsome to the 1337 Joe.

The answer was(is) Prelude

2006-08-15T22:40:00.000-04:00

And here it is.

It's in my driveway, fresh out of the car wash, all spiffed up and ready to show tomorrow at work.

It's black, type SH, 98', and it feels nice going around the corners.
The security system is going to take some getting used to. It kills the ignition, it always seems to take me 3 tries before I have it in the right "mode" to start. At least I know this car won't be disappearing from my parking spot.

It was so rushed today getting it, I have not had a chance to sit back and take it all in.

In my previous post, I did not expect any correct guesses. I should have taken my psychic friend network into account.

So as you probably noticed on the comments.

Super psychic Dave guessed it on his first guess.

Apprentice psychic Ferda also guessed it, increasing the suspense guessing it on her third (and final) guess.

I am a little tired and don't feel like making any more jokes that I will read later and go "ugh, that isn't funny", (associating psychic and lottery was where I was going to head), so I will spare you... this time and head off.

Enjoy the pic.

Sony vs Wii

2006-08-14T09:38:00.000-04:00

Sony vs Wii <- Click it you know you want to.

New Car in 2 days (hopefully)

2006-08-10T12:34:00.000-04:00

Where to start.

So two weeks ago I was going over a speed bump with my... crazy long lasting... 5 years for me... 390,000km... awesome... 93 civic, and I blew a tie rod end. Basically this means my tire decided it didn't like pointing the direction the wheel was telling it to go, and it decided to do it's own thing (sideways). I wasn't going fast, and no one was hurt, and getting it towed back to my house was a story in itself.

I decided that even though dad said it would be relatively cheap to fix, it was time to start looking for something else to drive. First I was thinking something practical, I decided initially on a subaru wagon, a little sporty and I can toss Jennie in the back.
So I went on kijiji and found lots of expensive deals, then on the trader site, I found a few that were more reasonable.

I don't like looking at cars without my dad there to give me the low down of what he thinks about it (for those that don't know dad teaches auto shop). Dad has been busy the last year with building his retirement house, so I got surprised on Wednesday with a call from dad telling me he could look at cars tonight, but then he had to go back to the cottage on Thursday. So after canceling floor hockey, I called around and found 2 Subarus that I wanted to look at.

One unfortunately at a dealer, the other a private sale.

So we went to the dealer first, the car was good, it had everything.... except for cruise control... very strange option to exclude as it was fully loaded with everything else. So I thought about it for a bit, and I decided that no cruise was a deal breaker, I really wanted cruise. Looking around the small lot, I noticed another car that I really like and have admired from afar before. This car (the actual make of car I will keep a secret for now) was a little over my price range, and a little under my year range but admirable to say the least, I asked for a test drive, and was told that someone previously had test drove it previously and left the lights on, now the battery was dead. So I needed to come back later for a test drive. We bartered a bit on the price as well before leaving, and got it a little closer to my price range.

Then we went to the private sale, and had to wait for a few minutes for the lady to come back from a volleyball game, she should have given me a later time to meet over the phone, as I gave her an extra 1/2 hour over the time she said she was available and she was still late. Anyway that aside, this car was even more fully loaded it had everything but a kitchen sink, but when I took it out for a test drive I was amazed at how little power was under my foot, especially since it had a new engine put in a year ago... and I thought most subarus had decent engines. I finished my test drive, turned around to go back, floored it, and slowly crept up to the speed limit. Suffice to say I didn't really want that car.

Then the next day I went to take the admirable car for a test drive, with a friend from work that is a little more knowledgeable about cars. I really liked it but it had a few minor things I wanted him to fix. *note* I hate dealing with used car dealerships I have to be careful with what I ask him to fix cause I know it will be a half assed job. So I ask him to fix the bumper (it is not connected at one side, and looks a little wonky), and to give it an alignment (it pulled slightly to the right) . I did feel a little paranoid that I was going to get screwed with a lemon , but after talking to my dad about it, he suggested giving it a compression test. So after a bit of a hassle with the dealership I took it out to my parents on Sunday. Compression was a decent, not great, but it isn't a new engine. Dad was able to give it a much better look over as well, which gave me a much better feeling about buying it. I also noticed a few other things that I wanted them to fix, the spark plugs could be replaced, and the fan seemed to only work on high (strange).

So hopefully they will be able to fix all this by Friday, and I will be driving my new shiny car up to Toronto and to Wonderland this weekend. Yay.

Meeting the parents (and 4 generations of relatives)

2006-07-31T00:31:00.000-04:00

Executive Summary

- Forgot my wallet at home, so Jenn started referring to herself as a (my) "walking wallet".
- Got many warnings from Jenn's Family, including Jenn's Mom "Matt your very brave for coming up this weekend"
- After realizing everyone is warning me about the weekend and no one would tell me why, started wondering "What am I getting myself into?!"
- I got jailed in my room the second night, and had to wait there until morning.
- Me and Granny kick butt at euchre
- Jenn's Mom and Dad wrapped me head to toe in bubble wrap and saran wrap.
- Had to prove myself in a sumo wrestling match against a male family member that was closest to my age, while the rest of the family sat in chairs around the sumo ring and watched. (Yes of course the Masse males beat the Squires males)
- I endured a strange endurance match where I got wrapped to a chair (also with saran wrap) while 1/2 the family squirted me with water guns, poured buckets of water over my head, and tossed ice cubes down my back, I was graciously given goggles (which at the end were doing more harm than good as they were full of water), and ear plugs for "safety".
- After my endurance match I promptly tossed Jenn in the pool, along with three of her female cousins that attempted to help her. I stayed... uhm, not dry, as I was just soaked in buckets of water, but out of the pool for quite awhile continually pushing the three kamikaze cousins into the pool, until my sumo wrestling opponent decided to assist.
- I assisted in building the best damn dragon boat ever, out of bubble wrap, a net, pool noodles and duct tape. We were given cardboard as well, but decided cardboard and a floating boat were not a good mix. Our opponents dragon boat lasted about 30 seconds while our boat lasted the entire weekend.

Thanks Dawn, Dave, Jenn and family.
Despite, or maybe because of the challenges (and jailing), I had an amazing weekend. :-)

Friday Deals

2006-06-30T13:32:00.000-04:00

If you looking for some cheap merchandise.

Howards Pawn Shop in Bells Corners is going out of business TODAY!

Dad mentioned it to me on Wednesday, but the place is open durring business hours on the week-days :-(.

So I figured I should go check it out today durring lunch.

So I came out with
Prozzac - Hot Show (CD),
I could not find any Cake. :-(

And a Game Cube with a broken controller port, with game and 2 controallers.

Precision tools,

and a chair / cooler bag

for $65 after bartering,
I need to work on my bartering skills I know I could have gotten them for cheaper, ah well still a good deal.

Oh, if you want to go it's in Bells Corners, they close at 9:00 PM tonight forever.
Howards Pawn Shop.
They have tons of CD's, some DVD's, power tools, smaller TV's, stereo receivers, dvd players speakers.
Some guitars, Lots of other stuff that I was not interested in (rings, watches, vaccuum, etc.. )
Also quite a few games.

Make sure you barter the final price.

Poor iPod

2006-06-28T09:45:00.000-04:00

Coolest thing I heard today

2006-06-06T13:50:00.000-04:00

Google Spreadsheet

Cooool.. (I am probably the only one thinking this, I know).

But think about it.
I have a spreadsheet I am using, let's say it's keeping track of my mortgage payments.
(I keep that one at home)

I can now keep it online, and access / change it anywhere there is internet.
(Security issues aside)

I have another document to keep track of systems at work... I can change it and access it while I am on call. Let others access/change it without worrying about 50 different copies lying around.

I am only scratching the surface of my possible uses here.
Lets think of other benefits, by design it has central storage, oops my hard drive died, but who cares I can just go over to this old computer and work while I get my new one fixed.

coooool.

Week / Weekend Recap (End of May)

2006-06-02T00:20:00.000-04:00

Ah long gone are the days of 4 posts in a day for me. ;-)

But, here is a longer than usual recap of what's going on in the world of Matt.

Yesterday, hit a soccer practice / BBQ with Mel's soccer team right beside Mel's house.
The weather was perfect for kicking the ball around, and I was able to grab Evan's cleats to try them out. (I have the exact same cleats on order)
This was about the second time I have played soccer (or practiced soccer) in ... I would say 10 years.
My soccer skillz showed my lack of ability, but at least I got a few balls past the hilarius faux scottish accent of our keeper "locksmith/water tub boy" (damn I am horrible at names, Mel can you help me out in the comments, please?).

After soccer, I was graciously offered some hot-dogs at the BBQ while we watched the spelling B on ABC. (Prime-time spelling B??) National contest with kids from grades somewhere around 7. Some have crazy spelling skills, none of the kids had to spell any words like "National" or "Graciously", they are spelling words I have never heard of like "autochthonous" and "appoggiatura" (go ahead, read it, close your eyes, and try and spell them).
An interesting contest to watch, but do 10 yr olds really want to spell crazy words in front of a national audience? Granted the winning kid did take home $43,000.

Rewind back to Wednesday, and floor hockey practice.
Jenn's first floor hockey practice, awarded her with a few bruises, AND a nice shiner to show off at work the next day. Luckily (from what I hear) no one at her work was associating date with Matt and bruises :-0.
Also this was the first day we found out the gym has AIR CONDITIONING!! It did get a little hot playing, but it's great to know that is as hot as it is ever going to get.

Rewind back to last weekend, Matt S B-day bash was like a flashback of party nights back in college.
(along with associated Matt M patented day long hang-overs)
We hit Heart and Crown early for supper, and stayed while the bands started. Got Matt S a few birthday shots to start the night off. Then we 1/2 listened to the band and danced and 1/2 watched the Oilers knock out Carolina out of the running. Awesome game.

Then we hit Zaphods. What can I say about Zaphods... if you have hit one dance bar, you probably know what the rest of them look like.
But I can say that Matt S, Chantalle and Terry are all HORRIBLE to party around ;-), as they are the main cause of my Sunday hangover (Curse you three).

I promise to write a little about massemania 2006 soon...
M

Xbox360, Playstation3... oh and Wii

2006-05-25T12:09:00.000-04:00

"First we have the xbox360 with it's all powerful power PC architecture
Then we have the playstation with it's immense cell processors and blue ray disks.
Then we have the cute nintendo Wii... aren't you cute, yes you are.. ok back to the real gaming platforms"

This is the impression I usually get when reading about the next gen consoles.
The only new gen console I am considering buying, (who am I kidding, I am going to buy it) is the Wii.
So after reading articles on the new gen platforms, I think of myself as the minority in the gaming market....
Until I read the latest slashdot poll that is..

Your E306 Console War Pick?

Wow, out of the 60,000 geeky slashdot voters, over 1/2 of them picked Nintendo...!
Sony and Microsoft could not even beat the joke vote.
(Sony = 15%, Microsoft = 11%, Joke Vote = 22%)

I wonder if the Wii will out sell the 360 and the playstation?

Deep knee rock squats, 7 or 8! ... in a row...

2006-05-05T11:24:00.000-04:00

And now for a post that does not in any way relate to the title.

Google Calendar coolness.

Google calendar has been around for a few weeks now, I had not really used it much, other than to put in reminders to tell me to feed the neighbors cats while he was on vacation.
Where I noted the ability to get it to SMS me notifications (cool). For the time being I stuck with e-mail notification.

This week, I decided to put in weddings, On-call, and vacations.
Then Evites.
I am pretty impressed with it, not really surprised (It is Google, I expect the app to be impressive)
It is VERY easy to add events, navigate, edit, view data. And it's all very snappy (quick).
And I can use the same calendar, at work, home, at my parents, etc.

As I am putting in Chantalle's B-Day celebration (today), I noticed the "Add Guests" option... what's this... look out Evite!

So I try it out, I invite my work, and my old yahoo account to the bash, (of course they are already in my gmail contacts, and show up the same way that they do in e-mail).
It asks me if I want to e-mail the recipients, and then shows that both recipients have not yet responded.
My yahoo account gets a cool looking email that lets me accept, deny / view the invite.
I thought it might let me do it right from the e-mail, but it does require 2 clicks to accept.
Logging into my work e-mail was a little more interesting. I get a full on outlook meeting request... with the option to accept, deny, tentative, then it puts it right into my outlook calendar! Cool.
Then my google account gets an e-mail indicating that the user "already" accepted. Unfortunately google calendar didn't seem to pick-up the acceptance, but I blame the screwy rogers e-mail migration for the problems, hopefully they will be fully migrated soon.

One last thing to note, you have the option of sharing your google calendar.
So lets say Ryan forgets when Adam's wedding is. Ryan can log in and take a look at my (hopefully read only) calendar. (You also have the option of just showing just free / busy times)

***Update***
Guests can "Discuss this event" just like blog comments in the invite!..

Later
M

Lurker

2006-05-01T16:23:00.000-04:00

What's a good response to being called a lurker?

Creating your own blog of course..

Makes... sense..

(Image search google for lurker... find cool 8 ball pic... makes sense...)

Small world

2006-04-27T09:34:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been over a month since my last post (what a cheesy post too).

Work has been busy, it always seems to get more and more busy, I'm not sure if it's an illusion or not.

As most people probably know, I tend to think of blogging about dating and/or work as a faux-pas. But this was just sooo funny (maybe just funny to me) it has to be said.

Matt's memory of an MSN conversation with Cheryl (my favorite cousin)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cheryl - Hey
Matt - Hey, long time no talk
Cheryl - Ya, it's been awhile
Cheryl - How's LL going?
Matt - Going good, I have been seeing a girl now for a few months.
Cheryl - Go on tell me more
Matt - [Random details about Jenn]
Cheryl - Cool
Cheryl - Me and Aaron are doing well.
Cheryl - [Random details about Aaron]
Cheryl - Do you have a pic of her?
Matt - Not on this computer
Matt - You can check out her LL profile, her nick is [Jenn's LL nick]
Cheryl (without looking at LL) - Your dating Jenn [Jenn's last name]?
Matt (not realizing I didn't tell her Jenn's last name) - Ya.
Cheryl - I've known her since first year (Ottawa U).
Matt - what? really?
Cheryl - Ya, we hung out a lot in first year
[more random conversation about Jenn]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then I find out later that Jenn and Cheryl have each other on MSN!
What a crazy coincidence.

On another note, I am a year older today. Yay.
My birthday wish is for the Sens to win today...

Random post with a little NLP

2006-03-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

Desire to post interesting articles FADING Fading ... RISING.... fading.

I am losing my desire to blog. I am not going to stop completely, but to blog about my exact happenings and thoughts every day is not as interesting as it initially was.

I am feeling a little philosophical today so I will drop a little NLP on you.
Read this slowly please.

Everyone has something they want different, be it appearance, attitude, surroundings etc..

Picture your perfect self, (be realistic, you can't be shaq or madonna)
Notice the details,
- What are you wearing?
- How are you standing?
- Do you look relaxed?
- What kind of mood are you in?
- How are you groomed?
- How is your hair cut?
- Look at the little things nails, skin, hair, etc...
- What kind of shape are you in.
- What makes this the perfect you?
Think about it for a couple minutes... close your eyes, create the perfect you...

Start look beyond the physical attributes
- Are you married?
- Kids?
- House?
- What do you drive?
- Where do you work?

- How do you act? calm, excited, funny, relaxed.
- How do you react to different situations, when your relaxed, excited, attracted... etc...
- What drives you?
- What other little things does the perfect you do?
- What defines you?
- What makes this the perfect you?
Think about it for a couple minutes... again close your eyes, create the perfect you...

Now get behind your perfect self,

and step into ... yourself .... become your perfect self.....

Bathroom Deco

2006-03-10T12:10:00.000-05:00

After seeing the wonderful job of Benoit's Bathroom theme.

I realized I have very little in the way of pictures, and random house decorations.

So as a first step I have decided to dedicate my downstairs bathroom with the theme of the old cottage *sniffle*. starting, (and probably finishing) with 3 or 4 framed pictures

I am looking for some good pictures of the
"House (outside, showing front of the house)"
"2 Storey Outhouse"
"Volleyball Court"
"Someone Swinging off the rope, preferrably me :)"
If you have any good pictures please e-mail them to me.

On a slightly similar note, here is an interesting tidbit of information, after we sold the cottage, the rope tree, which had been in use for about 15 years, and provided us with so much fun, (well before the infamous cottage parties started),
Died, and fell into the water.

I suspect it could not stand to see us leave, the new owners never got to use it.

Learning - Let your inner geek free

2006-02-27T16:42:00.000-05:00

I heart blogs,
When I say things like "I setup this wicked Cisco 1721!" at parties, the girl that I am chatting to usually loses interest, luckly I have my blog to entertain my geeky persuits, and the party girl is none the wiser...

This is another post that almost ended up as a comment. This time from Palmer's Woe is me post.

I agree, a human should be constantly learning... but, I have always preferred learning my own thing.
It is a toss up though to learn things needed to advance a career (usually in a classroom), and learning things for the fun of learning them.

For example, I want a cool home theater. The project has taken a life of it's own, the initial idea looks nothing like what it is now.

- Xbox setup (linux, xbmc, + other programs, and still be able to game.)
- Mythtv setup (coolest tv program ever, very difficult setup)
- Projector setup / mounting, research (Lumens, bulb life, warranties, throw distance etc.)
- stereo setup
- Building proper projector screen...

At the end of the day I feel sufficiently challenged and have something to show for my hard work.
Although this project does require some maintenance, it is near the end of it's life.

My next project is multi-tiered, and I bought my first component for it today (thank you bonus cheque).
Setup a REAL router for internet access.
Cisco 1721 with WIC-1ENET! (possibly another WIC-1ENET in the future) Awesome!

As with the home theater project, I only have a rough idea of how this is going to look when it is finished. I am excited about it.

Anyways, a router you get from best buy will give you very limited control over what you want to do.
This control is more than the average person needs... I am not average...
I want to be able to access data on my home PC from anywhere on the net.
If I am at a place that is blocking port 22, I want to be able to ssh over port 80.
I might in the future want to stream my TV from my home mythtv box, to my laptop when I am sitting at my parents. (this would not be simple)
I want to be able to forward and block ports / IP addresses with an almost anal precision.
I want the option of creating VPN tunnels (strange because I have nothing to tunnel to)
I want the ability to add ethernet ports to my router as they are needed.

Sure I could probably do it on a linux box, but I want to learn how to do it with Cisco IOS, no point in settling for 2nd best.

The second tier to the project is to setup a properly firewalled WiFi connection, that provides limited internet bandwidth, to my street. Why... because I want to learn how, I like my neighbors, I think a REAL network neighborhood (how many people are going understand this pun?) would be cool.

Well I think I have sufficiently confused Ferda, so I will call an end to this post with another link to the hilarious "Fear of Girls" video.

M

Floor Hockey

2006-02-23T10:02:00.000-05:00

Floor hockey practice keeps getting longer.
Last night was 3 1/2 hours.... (no subs)
Legs = tired

Every practice has been getting longer and longer.
If this keeps up we will be playing right through till sunrise, for our April practices.
Great exercise though.

Pickup Floor Hockey (Reminder Today)

2006-02-22T02:11:00.000-05:00

Hey All,

I have a pickup indoor floor hockey that will be running every Wednesday 6-7:30 (including tonight), for all of 2006.

If 6:00 is too early, there is no one after us and we always play past 8:00. If you show up at 7:00 you will still get an hour in.

Other random info
- It's free
- Sticks, Nets and balls... are provided, (no outside sticks allowed)
- Level of play = beginner
- It's at St. Pauls HS.

All are welcome, (hmmm, public blog....)

All are welcome that have been to a social function with me...
or accompanied by someone who has been to a social function with me...
or if you can touch your elbows behind your back...
or....
...what the hell, All are welcome.

E-mail me if you need more info mmasse [atsymbol] gmail.com.

what is the title

2006-02-19T03:06:00.000-05:00

Here it is in it's almost 100% un-edited glory (edited last names to save the innocent),
Dave's LL profile Draft #1. (I don't think this one will make the cut)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi my name is not Dave. I am a sensitive, fun loving, guy, sporty, I like to play with kittens, I like sports that involve alcohol between periods. I am on hemaroids.
I am looking for a girl who are active. No one over 400 lbs. Arms and legs optional. This is not boxing helanaI like long walks on the beach.l My motto in life is "loife is like a box of chocolates and chocolates are good

i am looking for a girl who wets her pants aftyer he reads this . i do not spell well but i'm not dumb i may look iytt but it's just because i competed in the special oilympics once. it was a very special day. i love my ping pong match it made me sad. i don't think I'll complete this ye3arf i won't be able to take the heartbreak. man this keyboard scuks. if you are a fan of the special olympics and all ott things special then give me a call. i masterbate ferociously to toes. my calouses are really big. somed of dave's favourite thigngs to do are weed, coke and sexual experimentation. in my spare time i buil furniture. mostly ladels and spoons. did you know that coke is made of baking soda (otr baking soda I'm not sure) well anyhoo i am not looking for a girfl who will go with me to shoppers drug mart and bug cough syrup with me to support mt crystal meth addiction.

therer once was a man from nantucket who told me he thought I was cute. I said thanks man and went to his house. if this doesn't get all the chicks lining up at my door i don't know what will? do you want tme to shave my head or something because I will. I will do it right now. there I did it! now will you call me please? i also have manners did you notice i said please? I'm not trying to sound desperarate but when you are a single guy with needs you get that way. for yout birthday i will give you a homemade ladel made of saran wrap and popsicle sticks. I am an artisan. Do you not like art? what is wrong with you??? bitch! currently i am working on a crede3nze i am not sure what that means but it sounds french and french kissing is hot (so i've heard). the man from nantucket said he wanted to french kiss me but i said no dude I am not into dudes. we went to denny's instead then to ok a bike ride on a bicycle nuo;t for too but my stomach started to hurt because my grand slam was not sitting well . i had to excuse myself to go to poop i felt better after. I read a cosmo whle i was in there i read that the top 10 sexy things guys like in bed is to have their balls knuckled. . I then enrolled in a ball knucling course with Alex Roberto MD he gives private lessons in his basement. it's smelly in there but if I squint a little and put a clothespin on my nose alex is hot. but then i remembered I am not into dudes but i wanted to get my money's worth so i stayed for the whole class. girls like getting thereir ballls knuckledx don't they? i medan if men do why shouldn't girls? are you iknto that? because i took lessons. anyways... i must go now james humpalot wants to play ping pong with me but he winked when he said that so i'm not sure what it is he wants to do.

A paragraph
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt's Valentines Day

2006-02-15T17:28:00.000-05:00

I choo choo choose you ... and there's a picture of a train...

ahem...

Cheryl (my cousin) came down from TO.

She invited me out for supper after work with a few of her friends.

So reluctanly accepted, and had a date with 5 girls at an Indian Restaurant downtown.
The conversation was good. (squash, LL, work, etc..)

I have an extreme dislike of spicy food (border line obsession), so I ordered the butter chicken, with a side of garlic ... something (flat bread). And then stole someone's excess rice.

When the conversation leans towards male bashing... I realized being outnumbered by the opposite gender is not necessarily the best way to go...

We all went dutch on the meal, whew... (these jokes all seem to be excessivly corny)

After supper, I took some time to get over the fact I was the only one at the table that was not given a rose (again corny), and then went home to fulfill my lego starwars addiction, I beat episode 2 and unlocked a few more lego star wars characters. I would have thought lego yoda would be the coolest character to unlock, but he by far the most annoying character. He walks around SUPER slow, and when he has his light saber out, he jumps around randomly choosing a different spin or flip with each jump... instead of walking like a normal character... this seemed to be taken from yoda's cool fight scene in the actual episode 2.

During my addiction fulfillment my old roommate Erika (Erika is also my current roommate's girlfriend) came over to make her man (and her old roommate) a romantic meal. Evan works the night shift and has a long break around midnight. So Erika made Evan a meal before his break, awww.

After they finished their candlelight meal, I emerged (/ was invited) to sample the left over Alfredo (yummmm) pasta and mushroom dish... it was awesome.

Then I went to bed.

This whole thing almost ended up as a comment on the super_ap site, imagine that.

OOOOOOoooooooo.....

2006-02-09T23:38:00.000-05:00

'True' Video iPod Coming Soon!?

(Picture = slashdot effect)

Google on World Domination (or at least internet domination)

2006-02-07T09:23:00.000-05:00

Don't be evil. You have to love that informal corporate motto.
Putting out amazing products for free is definitely not evil.

First they had the Google search, and it was good (really good).

Afterwards there is Gmail, Gmail starts with it's unheard of 1G of e-mail storage.
Now at 2.692 GB and climbing.
Of course everyone reading already has a Gmail account.

Then Picasa and Hello, (acquired by Google I think), the best photo software ever.
Also there is Blogger.com (Google owns blogger, I am sure you knew)

They also have Google talk, that seems to be a little slow in catching on. I think MSN messenger is too dominant in the IM world to be that easily overthrown.
Today I noticed my Gmail account will keep a historical record of your audio conversations through Google talk, and soon will allow voice chat from the Gmail page!!?

Yesterday I found Google Reader, I was at home looking for a sufficient windoze alternative to akregator, (below) I found a free shareware one, but it didn't quite cut it, it did what I wanted but the program itself was a large step down from what I am used to. Then for some reason I happen by the official Blogger Buzz, and they have an article that links to a feed reader.
Google feed reader (Beta),!!

This program does almost everything I am looking for. I will have to live without the ability to get an atom feed from my Gmail account, and the ability to get notifications on new articles, just to have that cool web interface, and the ability for it to track my read articles wherever I go.

It beats reading through 8+ blogs +Slashdot to see who has new content.
(FYI, If your trying it out Palmer's feed is busted, you have to browse to the page the old fashioned way.)
Now I am looking at the Google Labs, and Google Services/Tools.
Google Suggest looks cool...

Hmm, this originally was a post about just about the Google feed reader.... it got a little carried away.

Technology

2006-02-03T15:42:00.000-05:00

1-0-0-1-1-0-1-1-0-1-1-0-0-1

You may not have understood me but I was speaking technology.

The word technology means magic,
It's basically anything that's really cool that you don't know how it works, and if it breaks you have to buy a new one.

Why, I've got some technology beneath my pants right now!
This is a diskette, diskettes were invented by computers to help us, like how cows invented milk.
The two warring factions of diskettes are floppy disks and hard disks.

I prefer floppy disks because they hold more memory.
Although you have to fold them up to fit them into these new computers.

Another thing you'll need is your very own e-mail address, just take your favorite hobby, add kid girl pie or izzle, and then just put a bunch of numbers at the end.

Robots are technology, shaped like square people.
They're primarily used for destroying Japan, and serving orderves.

-------------------

The Future of technology, or at least what people won't shut up about.
Is wireless, you know things like walkmans, flashlights, and solar calculators.

I can make my calculator say OBOE ShOES.

Mel's Pre-Birthday

2006-01-30T09:40:00.000-05:00

The night started with me making a brief appearance at Paul's (neighbor) 40th birthday party, I had an interesting conversation about telecom with one Paul's friend's wife (names elude me).

Afterwards, I headed off to the Red Pepper, showing up fashionably late and not wanting to walk far I illegally parked in an empty "reserved" lot, two doors down from Red Peppers (holy irrelevant details Batman).

1/2 expecting a cozy pre birthday party of > 10, I surprisingly walked into the room with 30-35 friends and strangers. Nice.

The dinner was great, actually seeing all the usual bloggers was a welcome change, (Bloggers Unplugged). I will have to look through my pictures again when I get home, and post an interesting one up here, nothing extremely hilarious stood out when I looked at them yesterday, Ferda pretending to stick a spoon down her shirt was mildly amusing.

Which reminds me... Ferda!! You need to blog about saving that man's life.... courageous / hilarious stuff like that needs to be written down... (also I want to know damn it).

Mel bought door prizes, bikini clad (stickers?) girls for some of the boys lucky enough to get their names pulled from a hat, the girls got something in little bottles.. makeup, soap, I don't know.

After dinner we headed off to a salsa dance bar, I should have realized before I headed off, that the lack of alcohol in my bloodstream (Matt driving) mixed with dance bar = Matt bored thinking about chilling at home on the couch.
I have always been more a fan of a good pub with a pool table, and the ability to chat without yelling. I did get to chat with Shannon and Maurine about city chase, that's going to be fun.

Mel looked like she was having a great time, Amanda got to salsa dance with a complete stranger.
I was not DD for anyone but myself, so I booked the night early (midnight ish) and headed off home.

(writing blog entries between other tasks makes it a little disorganized)

Happy Birthday Mel!

Fear of Girls

2006-01-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

Got 10 minutes,
Can you laugh openly at work without people knowing you are not actually doing work.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7521044027821122670

I watched this short (10 min ish) clip over the weekend... you NEED to watch it.

I will keep the clip itself a surprise.
Watch the clip before jumping to the comments, please.

Dave on LL (Lavalife), a social experiment

2006-01-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

One night, out at a bar after floor hockey, floor hockey team mates are sitting around drinking and socializing.

The topic of conversation LL (always an interesting topic), being too long ago to remember the exact conversation, we somehow ended up discussing getting a profile setup for Dave, since Dave didn't have any plans on using LL, nor any complaints about getting setup here we are now.

I don't have any expectations of where this is going to head from here, but if Dave ends up going on a date or two with some attractive funny girls, all the power to him.

All of the basics are setup,
- Date of birth (for your age)
- location
- height
- Picture
- sexual preference
- positions
- etc...

The profile right now is hidden, I will allow it to be searchable, after everything is finished.

Dave's profile is missing 3 things,
A nickname, a one liner, and a profile blurb.

Right now I am trying to brainstorm a good profile blurb for Dave. 100 character minimum (easy enough).
Mine took me a little while to brainstorm, I don't expect Dave's to come any easier.

Why don't I write as I brainstorm, suggestions are welcome.

What am I looking for in Dave's profile.

Keep this in mind,
The girls that get to Dave's profile will probably have already been reading through 10-20 other profiles, so Dave's profile should look and sound different to stand out.

Most profiles have a guy blurting out how being on LL is new, and possibly strange, then some things about himself, and possibly what he is looking for, without any return carridges. (all in the same rectangular block)

So Dave's profile will NOT talk about how being on LL is a new strange exciting experience, and also won't be a single block paragraph. It should have plenty of white space, be easy to read, and look and read different (and therefore new)

I also want to show Dave as someone who is picky about who he wants to date.
ex. No smokers, must have a sense of humor, must be smart, confident, etc...
It must have some humor to it.
I expect it to come off funny + confident (slightly cocky).
Of course somewhere in there, there will be a description of Dave's positive qualities (smart funny and confident etc..)

Of course Dave, if you want to add or veto anything let me know.

That is all for now.

Akregator News Feed Reader

2006-01-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

The last day and half I have been playing around with a news feed reader.
Akregator

This is a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) program that runs on ... Linux.
Every time you update your blog on blogger.com, blogger updates an atom (RSS like) feed like this.

http://rochman.blogspot.com/atom.xml
(this feed will show up on firefox, I have no idea what IE will show)

AtomEnabled describes an Atom feed better than I can,
"Atom is a simple way to read and write information on the web, allowing you to easily keep track of more sites in less time, and to seamlessly share your words and ideas by publishing to the web."

That being said, Akregator is pretty simple, to use
- reads rss(just slashdot for now) and atom (blogger.com) feeds.
- it indicates to me when there are new unread articles (like e-mail)
- it sits hidden away in my system tray until needed.
- it allows me to organize all my feeds in a folder structure, and read all the feeds under that structure (ex. all blog posts) , or just read all feeds.
- it neatly shows me how many unread articles their are in the system tray.

I am sure there must be similar windoze news readers out there. Anyone know of any?

What is Linux? Educating the masses.

2006-01-26T10:48:00.000-05:00

Some of you know I am a big Linux fan,
- I use it at work (at my desk and it's on our servers)
- I use it at home when I can (when I am not using iTunes)
- It runs my TV at home (as per my previous post)

Linux is an operating system like Windows XP, Max OSX, SCO Unixware (boo, hiss)
Generically, an operating system sits between your computers hardware and you, it lets you work on the computer. (Use the mouse, see things on the screen, use your network card to connect to the internet, etc.)

Unlike Windows XP and Mac OSX, Linux is free and open source.
Open source means if you wanted, you could download the source code, change it, and use your changed version.

Because it is open source, there are many different people who distribute their own Linux versions (distros).
For example
- RedHat
- Debian
- Mandriva
- Knoppix (Debian derivative)
- Ubuntu (Also Debian derivative)
- Gentoo (My favorite)
to name a few.

Each distribution is a little different, but they can all run the same applications, differences between them tend to be minor.

Some distributions are very easy to install, (Ubuntu, Redhat, Mandrake), put in the install CD, follow the prompts, (ex. What language do you want to use, what color do you want your windows to be blue or red)
Some are made to run off of bootable CD's, no need for a working hard drive (Knoppix, Mandrake Move, Ubuntu (I think)) Put in the CD, it boots right up to a desktop.
Some are more complex, and allow the installer a lot of freedom to configure things (Debian, Gentoo).

Linux can do almost everything Windows can do, but for free. Ex..
- Browse the web
- Open, Edit, Save Office documents (excel, word, powerpoint)
- Talk on MSN instant messenger, ICQ, Y!, AOL IM etc (using gaim, or kopete, or other compatible chat client)
- Download torrents
- e-mail (most e-mail servers are Linux)
- post blog posts on blogger.com
- etc....

I don't expect any people to jump onto the Linux with a simple blog post, most people who don't know what Linux is already probably didn't know what an operating system was at the start of this blog post. A new operating system is unnecessary stick with what works for you.

But, now that everyone has a basic understanding about Linux, those who want to try it don't have to install it.
Assuming you have a burner(and want to try it), I recommend downloading Knoppix (bootable Linux CD or DVD).
You can browse to your own download mirror from the link above, or try this one. (Bootable CD link)
And if you get antsy and want to install a Linux distribution, I recommend trying Ubuntu first, it is the easiest to install and use.
Gentoo is probably too difficult an install unless you enjoy challenges.

That is all for now.

Fighting the temptation to upgrade to a Video iPod

2006-01-25T13:24:00.000-05:00

Almost 3 months after I got my iPod, Apple came out with the Video iPod...

So 3 months after I bought my iPod I have been fighting the urge to upgrade.
Being able to bring around my mythtv episodes on my iPod to watch at my leisure was very very (very very) tempting... I just bought the iPod though... Am I prepared to sell it so soon after buying it?

My best method for fighting this urge was to forget about it, if I am not thinking about it I won't be tempted to act on it.

Today I read a very interesting article on slashdot, re. FREE Stanford University lectures on iTunes.
From what I read, Stanford is all about educating the Public, and is working with Apple to get their lectures onto iTunes store for free, you only need the time to download. If Stanford has any interesting computer or other misc lectures. This will put another big argument towards upgrading..
.... now I am thinking about it again. Looking at the price ... damn you slashdot...

If I buy an iPod now though, they will probably come out with the iPod w/ 15" collapsible video screen in 3 months.... decisions decisions...

Anyone want to buy a 60G color iPod, immaculate condition, lovingly cared for, with full protective iSkin Glow in the dark case? iPod was well used, and the owner is well versed on how to keep lithium ion batteries functioning to their full potential (drain battery at least once a month).

Root Canal Tomorrow ... :-(

2006-01-23T16:18:00.000-05:00

Squeamish about the dentist... I suggest you stop reading.

As a kid I got a large chunk of my front tooth knocked out. Dentists stuck a plastic piece in it's place. Good as new.

Unfortunately, my 1/2 tooth only had a 20 year life expectancy. I don't remember the time frame now, but 6 months to a year ago the tooth died, there was a little bit of swelling and then my first root canal followed.

Well the swelling subsided initially after, then came back, it didn't really puff up at all or disturb me, but it was not the same as the other side. So the dentist suggests leaving it for awhile to see what happens, months go by, no real change, now Mr. Dentist wants to come at the tooth from the top, (around my lips of course)... Damn.

I don't know about everyone else, but the drill, and other instruments in my mouth doesn't bother me. It was the needles to freeze the surrounding area that I hate. Ugh, I am shuddering at the thought of it.
If you are experiencing the same, I apologize, but this is what is on my mind right now.

The awe-inspiring mythTV

2006-01-18T12:56:00.000-05:00

-- TECHNICAL TALK Ferda and Vero LOOK AWAY!! --

I am pretty proud of my new mythtv box, so let me talk it up a bit.

A large amount of my time the last few weeks was involved in setting up a new PVR at home.
I ended up deciding that my existing mythtv box use a new spine, and bought a new motherboard processor (64bit), and a whoppingly un-necessary 1G of RAM (dual channel, cool), oh and power supply.

I got a used video card off Trevor @ work, (used GeForce FX 5700LE)

I kept the existing
- 2 x 200G IDE WD HD's
- Hauppauge 350 TV card
- Random old cd-rom
- Random case and fans

If anyone has seen my setup at home, I don't do the simple ol', BEV PVR or Rogers Digital PVR. I setup a mythtv box, and it is no small feat.

A working mythtv box is best described as epic.
- A myriad of ways to find and record the show you want.
- The ability to record all your shows any way you want. (ex. "record Amazing Race, any time, any channel, priority 99")
- Super smart recording, No recording of the same mythbusters episode twice.
- Fairly easy to use (once it is setup properly) ex. click on TV, Watch recordings, Amazing Race7, then your preferred episode.
- PVR ability comes as second nature now, but it is one of the most important features. ex. pause, rewind, fast forward, slow motion
- Commercial flagging ie. I don't want to watch the commercials, I will press the skip button, and jump to the end
- Hardware MPEG2 encoding to disk, then re-encoded to MPEG4 to save space.
- Dynamically upgradable storage (via LVM) currently at over 400 hours of recording space @ MPEG4.
- Auto rolling shows (delete the oldest, to make way for the newest)
- Ability to move the recordings to any other media, and watch on another computer. ex. Ryan: "Hey Matt I missed Amazing race last night, can you put it on DVD for me, or toss it on an FTP server so I can download it?"
- It can connect to any TV provider, BEV, Rogers cable, Rogers digital cable, Star Choice, etc.. connecting to Rogers cable is a little easier than connecting to BEV though.
- The ability to setup mythtv clients on any PC that has access to the mythtv box (Evan can watch Desparate Housewives upstairs, while I watch The Wrong Coast (hilarious new show I have been watching lately) downstairs.
- Of course there are many other features that I have not mentioned.

The setup was enjoyably challenging. Everything I had problems with last time worked flawlessly this time (ie setting up the Hauppauge card, setting up the linux kernel with the right options), but playing around with a 64bit processor slowed me down quite a bit. This install was faster than my first install though mainly because I had a backup of all my original config files to use as templates.
I plan on eventually posting all my important config files somewhere, to let others on the net use them (if they can find them)

Back from (Land of) the Dead

2006-01-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

Hey All

I have been quite the hermit for the first 1/2 of January. No Piano lessons, Floor hockey was in between seasons, the intensity/workload at work was increasing exponentially, no real blog posts, stagnant interest in LL.

Now hockey has now started back up, I have a healthy profile in LL, hopefully Piano lessons will resume next week, and here is a real blog post.

January was not completely un-eventful, I spent a week of spare time setting up my new mythtv box. As the next post will delve into much more detail. My unbelievably wondrous new years party. And I have --uhm-- a few more xbox games.

Of course my new and superhuman roommate moved in for January, most of you probably know him, Evan.

A special thanks goes to thesaurus.reference.com, for this excitingly stimulating blog post.

NIN in Ottawa...?!!

2006-01-06T12:46:00.000-05:00

Palmer - "Guess who is coming to the Corel Centre. NIN."

Matt - "WHA!!!!. shut up. no way"

Awesome and here it is.
--***UPDATE***--

3_03_06 ottawa_on corel centre public on-sale: 1_14_06 spiral pre-sale: 1_11_06 support: TBA

Now all I have to figure out, is it March third or the other way around..?

Lan Party

2005-12-29T16:20:00.000-05:00

Went to a great Lan party last night.

Ian (Shannon's old roommate) has them very sporadically. 6-24 months between each.

We deviated from the usual starcraft extravaganza to play Day of Defeat 2. Even though I prefer a good challenging game of SC, DoD2 was nice in the fact that everyone got to keep playing. Unlike SC, you can't get obliterated 20 min into a 2 hour game and have to wait for the next one to start.

This party was held right out of Ian's work, great big open concept office. I didn't expect to stay too long, with Jennie at home. Ian suggested I bring Jennie over while we game. So I took off and got her 1/2 way through and let her wander around while we gamed. She had a little scuffle with Ian's co-workers dogs (who came briefly to visit), Jennie needs anti-bully lessons.

Gaming nights usually go to the wee hours of the morning. Luckily I was able to keep my mind semi conscious of the time (thank you iPod), and was able to slip out at 1:00.

All in all a good night, that helped me procrastinate from getting ready for my own party... I hope to have the house all ready by EOD tomorrow.... hmmm we will see.

(---Funny, I just noticed that Ian (IAN) and lan (LAN) look the same, I have capitalized the L's in Lan.)

Microsoft(XBOX) and Nissan.... Damage Critical

2005-12-29T10:37:00.000-05:00

Have you ever played a racing game (crash burnout perhaps), just to get in your car after and think in the back of your head. "I need to hit that car right there, to create the most damage in a multi car pile up" ?
Or after playing a regular racing game thinking, "I need to get into on coming traffic to take this turn properly."

You realize though "I am in a car here not a video game!"

Now what would happen if the lines between video games and reality got a little more fuzzy.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/28/microsoft_nissan_urge/

In a marvel of technology, you can park this concept Nissan car, and then use the steering wheel, gas, and brake of the car to play racing games on a drop down screen. When you are done, get the screen out of the way, and use the same steering wheel, gas, and brake to drive home.

If you are playing Project Gotham Racing, and are lucky enough to live in one of the cities they have in the game, you can race on the same streets that you drive on....

Granted this technology sounds really cool, but just seems wrong.

Lots of snow!!

2005-12-21T18:22:00.000-05:00

Someone here LOVES the snow.

Hmm, new years outdoor activities sounds fun right now (might not sound fun later).... like sitting at a table outside and drinking.... or outdoor winter volleyball / football / other ball.

Anyone else have any suggestions?
(note a very large (and seldom used) field is easily available 10 steps out of Matt's back door.)
I am leaning towards tackle football.

Bad Days - The Flaming Lips

2005-12-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

Your sorta stuck where you are, but in your dreams you can buy expensive cars,
and live on Mars and have it your way

You hate your boss at your job, but in your dreams you can blow his head off.
In your dreams show no mercy.

And all your bad days will end.... And all your bad days will end.
You have to sleep late when you can.

And all your bad days will end.

Weekly update

2005-12-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

Survivor finale just finished.
Danni won, awesome. She was my favored to win out of the final four.
Although I would have preferred Brian or Gary to win, they were not in the final four, Brian didn't even make it to the jury.

My least favorite survivors, Brandon and Jamie, surprisingly not Judd. Judd was fun to watch.
It wouldn't be a good show if there weren't people to root to win, and others to root for them not to win.

Amazing race finale this week!! (I think). AWESOME!! Please don't let Florida win, please please please.

Speaking of which I am still looking for a Bell City Chase partner. My first two choices turned me down, I am not going to go naming names, Cheryl and Palmer know who you are.

Almost done Christmas shopping, only one more gift to go...

On a completely separate note, Dave I have not forgotten about you, but I need some more information, ie. Birthday, uhm.. something else too. This probably isn't the best medium to ask, but hey, why not.

Later for now
M

Floor Hockey

2005-12-06T00:11:00.000-05:00

My first season playing floor hockey, I have dived right in.

- Playing Mondays
- Thursdays,
- Team captain for the next seasons Monday team.
- And used to practice on Wednesdays

I am only playing one team next season. Three days a week of floor hockey is a little nuts.

We are in playoffs right now with both teams.
Next Monday we are playing for 7th place.
This Thursday we are playing for 1st place.
(It's only rec, does it really matter what we are playing for?)

Yesterdays game was awesome, best Monday game ever!, (We won) unfortunately, I didn't score a goal. James (Joelle's James not Ferda's) was cheering on the other team. The losing team got to play a double header, and James really wanted to play another game. (Un-)luckily, the other team had an injury during the game and James subbed for them for the next game.

At about the first quarter of the game we were winning by an impressive margin of 4-1, then the other team took some strange pills (I assume this) at 1/2 time, and ended up getting 5 goals, making the score 4-6, luckily the pills wore off during the last quarter of the game and we scored another 3 goals.

Final Score 7-6. Awesome.

I hear our last Thursdays game might be a little rough.. (rough for rec that is) Good thing we have Joe 2.0 to score double hat tricks for us.

Key-sword-tar

2005-12-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

Nevermind an air guitar.

I hear key-sword-tar's are a much better way to impress the ladies.
And to thwart your enemies.
I think I know what I want for Christmas... someone should bring a key-sword-tar to Palmers gift exchange. I have to discourage everyone from bringing one though, that would defeat the purpose of a Chinese gift exchange, although everyone would be instantly cooler and would make for a rocking party with little to no evil-do'ers.

Matt's Aspirations

2005-11-29T14:05:00.000-05:00

Someday I will play Guitar like a rock star.
Air Guitar that is.

Very cool project.

This guy looks like me too, go figure.

Heart and Crown

2005-11-27T09:55:00.000-05:00

Awesome night,

Small group of us (Amanda, Joelle, James, Carrie, Philip, Phil's really drunk friend, Palmer, Vero and of course me. All crammed into the mosh pit that is also known as Heart and Crown.

The Band was AMAZING, Ten Mile House, Everything they played is on my iPod under "Top rated music".
- White Zombies - More human than human especially surprised me, with me thinking at first, " I know this song... what is it... OMG this is more human than human, AWESOME!!"
A small mosh pit started when they were playing "She F#$%ing hates me", followed by the dance floor sized mosh pit when they played "Killing in the name of".

I showed up fashionably late, 11:30ish, and found Vero already waiting in line to get in. Unfortunately the place was packed and we had to wait another 1/2 hour to get inside, Boooo. Worth the wait. Drunken Palmer spotted us just before we were about to be ushered inside, and gentlemanly came outside (without a coat) to wait with us.

We got inside and made a b-line to the back of the bar where everyone else was, seeing Palmer already inebriated, I tried desperately to catch up, but after 6 shot gunned vodka and cranberries, I gave up, and just enjoyed the band.

We almost lost a lot of things last night. Amanda's Sweater, Matt's work cell phone, Phil's drunken friend "Random German" (that is up visiting Ottawa, and doesn't really know Ottawa that well) Amanda found her sweater somewhere, after searching for the cell phone, I had already given up, when someone else spotted Vero helping to look, and said "Are you looking for a cell phone? My friend over there has it.". Thanks anonymous blond girl.

After everyone had all their belongings, we went to look for Phil's drunken friend, unfortunately, with no success. I hope he found his way back, but it didn't sound like he knew where Carries house was. Thinking of this, I called (right before I wrote this sentence) Carrie, Phil's Drunken friend had found a cab, and him and the cab driver eventually found their way to Carrie's house. Surprisingly they all showed up at Carrie's house at the same time, even with the +1/2 hour they spent looking for him... nice.

After getting a thick slice of gooey pizza, I ended up crashing at Vero's huge ass res room. With Vero and Palmer. Vero is in charge of the entire Thomas residence, so she gets the best res room in the building. Her own bathroom, kitchen, both off of the bedroom, and a living room, AND she gets PAID to live here. Nice, (Palmer I still think you should sell your house and move in with Vero, make sure you get paid for your 1/2 of the rent though.)

Palmer and Vero are up now I will write a little more later.

Parking Lot into work?

2005-11-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

2 Hour drive to work today... at least I had my iPod, NASTY weather, they need to get the snow removal service up to full strength, that was horrible.

Slow Internet

2005-11-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Why is my internet connection so sloooooooooow....

I would be happy to hit a mere 1/10000 of this.

Poker with host, "Shannon (boy)"

2005-11-19T19:52:00.000-05:00

Ah, Poker with the guys.

My second time playing Texas hold-em.
I drove Duncan to the party, who was not going to play, but was going to hang out. After forgetting to hit the ATM on the way, I figured I would just hit up a little xbox with Duncan.

But I ended up putting in an IOU $10 and grabed my share of poker chips.
The card game, along with the Maureens chip dip extrodinaire, Shannons beer, and my fictional bus ticket money, made for a great game.
I think I did pretty good, although I was the first one out.
Technically, James was the first one out.
James and Dave went all in on the FIRST HAND!!!

"Unlucky James" had to buy back his chips from Dave for the second hand.

After my humiliating walk of shame away from the table without any poker chips, I hit up Duncan for some "Super Monkey Ball" Bowling. It is interesting bowling with a floor that is doing the wave. But as we noticed "Super Monkey Ball" Bowling is only fun for a very short period of time, then people just get bored.

Then "Unlucky James" joined in the bowling for a few frames before we gave up on it.

"Unlucky James" disappeared shorly after, to be replaced by Maureen who came back from the Girls night out.

It was getting to be a little later in the night by then, and Palmer and Shannon were still battling it out for about 2000 or so chips. They were still raising 1 or 2 chips at a time when I came back in, I guess that is the way to win.

At the end a Dave ended up being "perma-dealer" and Ryan and Shannon started playing a little more un-conventionally, I think they just wanted to finish the game before 2:00.

"Lucky Shannon" ended up winning the pot at the end.

Thanks for organizing Shannon, IOU $10. :)

Too long between posts

2005-11-18T12:06:00.000-05:00

I had grand plans of posting some cool description of Ducans peril at the Whiskey bar on Saturday.

But, it has been almost a week.
So I have decided to just post the cool "Duncan behind bars" pic.

NIN in MTL

2005-11-14T13:17:00.000-05:00

Awesome Friday, took the day off from work to hit MTL early.

As it ended up, I was stuck in the morning, my parents were picking Jennie up at ~ 10-11PM, and Jennie needed a bathroom break before that.

This means I am going to be late to get to Palmer's for our 11:00 departure time. I talk to Palmer (was it MSN or the phone... ? I don't remember), he tells (luckily for me) that since we are bringing women along with us, that we will be delayed until noonish. Perfect.

At about this time I remember that I ordered that 1Gig SD card for my camera, so I would have plenty of space for pictures. I call up Nitro, and ask them if it has arrived yet (it was hitting them via UPS that day), unfortunately, nothing yet, but they promised to call me as soon as it got in. My hopes were suprisingly high that it would be there in time, despite the 1/2 hour left before I was supposed to hit Palmers.

So I keep looking for a bathroom helper, my brother was not available, my parents were willing to do it, but it was waaaay out of the way for them. Looking out the front window, I noticed my neighbor has both of his cars at home, I suspect that he and his wife must have taken Friday off too. Good Stuff.
So I call them on the phone and Paul gratiously agrees to give Jennie a bathroom break, and offers to walk her around the block as well, perfect..

So I finish getting ready only to realize (again) that I am going to be late, luckily it's only 10-15 min late not that bad.

As I pass by the queensway exit for Nitro I decide not to call them, if they haven't called, it probably isn't there yet. Oh well my 256M card will have to do. (Palmer lends me his 1G card when we get to his house, and I never use it)

I hit Palmer's a little late, parked behind his car, and walked up to the door.
*knock knock knock..... door bell....*
No one home... hmm, Palmer did mention Trish was picking him up... for some reason I assumed he would have his car with him... Trish must be driving.
I call Palmer's Cell phone, he tells me that they are just getting off the queensway, good timing.

After a LONG awaited tour of the Palmer residence. Palmer, Trish, Jennie and myself all pile into Palmer's car and head off to MTL.
The drive up was good, a couple of things to note.

- Some of David DeAngelo's views on women are funny, and up for debate.
- Palmer and myself getting a picture with the Hawkesbury sign

(this post is getting freaking long.... and we are not even in MTL yet.)

As we drive into MTL, I get a call on the cell phone... My memory card is in now. Oh well, it will have to wait until Monday.

We end up parking in Palmer's usual MTL parking lot and head off shopping around MTL.
Palmer decided to pick up a HUGE purple duck.
I got myself the brown pair of leather mittens from Simons from the picture.. I don't know where they are now hopefully in Palmer's car, or hiding somewhere around here somewhere.

Along the way 2 stores tell me "Pas de photo [something else in French]", so I turn the flash off, and make sure the rest of my photos in those two stores are inconspicuous.

As I am writing this I decide to take a look at Palmer's blog to see if he mentions the purple duck or not... I see Palmer has found my mittens...

We eat at a great smoked meat restaurant (I forget the name), and continue to shop.

I end up picking up a very cool looking strategy game, and a deck of "invisible" cards (I didn't name them), they are, unfortunately, just transparent.

At this time Palmer and myself are just about ready to head off to the NIN concert.
We call the girls and tell them we are taking off, and not to try and find us where we previously agreed to meet. And off we went. (hitting Palmer's car briefly to drop off our goods.)

We get into the NIN concert a little early to allow us enough time to drop off the camera if security has a problem with it. Luckily they don't care. They just say "blah blah your section might not like the flash" (Everyone was taking pictures)

The concert was AMAZING, although it did take awhile for the crowd to warm up. It wasn't until they played "hurt" (1/2 way through) that the crowd started getting really into the show.

I screamed out a few of the songs, I thought my voice was going to be hoarse after the concert (but it wasn't)

Palmer picked up an expensive NIN/MTL poster, for a souvenir, the first booth we went to did not have any, and was "100% convinced" that they were sold out of that poster through the whole stadium. Luckily the second place we went sold Palmer one of their many copies.

They had an amazing set, which was 1/2 of the show, A huge semi transparent screen was raised and lowered a few times during the show. It acted both as a projection screen, and to provide cool shadow effects when the band played behind it. And the light show was equally amazing.

After Palmer and myself took in the rest of the euphoric NIN concert, we headed back to the car. The show went a little later than expected, so we called the girls to see where they were, no answer.. so we waited in the car. The girls showed up 10-15 min later, as we were looking at the pictures I took from the concert, complaining about the horrible Antonio Banderas movie they saw (which also ran later than expected).

And we headed back home.

That was an awesome day Palmer, thanks for organizing.

Piano Lessons

2005-11-10T12:14:00.000-05:00

Starting to get into playing actual music now, makes it much more fun.
Although trying to remember what keys to press, count the beats, and keep track of the music all at once gets a little complicated. Especially when I am asked to say the notes as I play them.
lol, I always lose track of the music first... "where was I in the song, I am pretty sure that this key is next, then this key" I need more practice, I think once playing sheet music gets to be a little closer to a second hand reaction, everything else will fall into place.

That aside.

Music:
Barnyard Dance - Mastered
Twinkle Twinkle little star - got it
Mary had a little lamb - got that one too
November rain - ....not so much

I need to buy or make some sort of sheet stand for the keyboard. It has holes to put the stand in, but it did not come with one.
Also it would be nice to have another monitor connected to my computer that is within visible distance from the keyboard. Hopefully by next week.

Luckily, Mel (Mel, just started her own blog) thinks that holding an xbox controller while Burnout - Revenge is on, is equivalent to legal tender. I think I over-paid,lol , man that game is fun. I think I will try and get Shannon hooked on it (hmm good date/bad date?, lol). This game is so fun, picture yourself playing the old super mario brothers (orig) and then mario getting run over by a old weathered (3D) 4x4, then the 4x4 exploding right after running over mario.... then the camera doing a fly by and telling you how much damage you caused to mario..... wow...
(this is probably funnier if you have played a burnout game before)

What is a good movie to watch on a date?

2005-11-09T00:05:00.000-05:00

When you are picking a movie out for a date, picking a movie that you remember really liking is a good idea. A better idea is to also look at the name of the movie.

For example, Fight Club, if you just think about the movie itself, you probably remember really liking it.
But, then if you think of the name, it will get you thinking, hey wait a minute... do you think there are lot of graphic bloody fight scenes in that movie?

Note: reading too much Jack Handy might make your posts confusing.