Christmas

Hobbies

One of the earliest toy memories I’ve ever had was a barn with animals, which was the first time I can remember getting a gift where I said to myself “WTF?”. I also got a flashlight that would double as a Hanna Barbara film strip projector. The flashlight batteries died long after my interest in the barn. Moo.

One year I got my own bike. No small feat for the youngest in a hand-me-down family of 7.

I’ve told you about the Big Trak.

After my religious hajj to Star Wars (8 times the summer it came out), I would get model after model of space cruisers, battle ships and star destroyers. In my tiny bedroom, the fumes killed off most of my brain cells. I would hang the damn things from the ceiling and line them up neatly on shelves to gather dust and discolouration.

My last big hurrah of a gift as a kid was an Atari 2600. After that it was like I had matured and would get socks and shirts every year. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve had a banner year for gadgets this year and I’m quite happy for it.

I’ll be away for the season so I want all of you, dear readers, to have an excellent holiday, no matter what or how you celebrate it.

Do Right

Celebs and Media

Sharkboy’s post of the Cure swinging a camera around all crazy like made me think of one camera effect back in the MTV era that I really enjoyed. A camera is mounted onto an arc and flipped over the actors, but with the arc supports outside the frame, giving a smooth ride down bizarre perspective street. I’ve searched for a while and could not find the name of this camera or effect.

Originally seen in this Cabaret Voltaire video:

Then echoed by ABC (embedding disabled, worth a look just for Martin Fry’s hair)

Then U2 did it too in one of their videos a decade later. Such innovators.

How to Write a Michael Bay Movie

Celebs and Media

Start out with homoerotic images of US Army soldiers spouting guy comments about not understanding their wives/women (girl soldiers can join in too!), but loving them a lot.

Cut to some catastrophe mixed with some buzz saw rock guitar anthem. Make people die while this happens but ensure that our hero(es) get a good look at the attacking monster/asteroid/robot. They narrowly evade the attack.

Cut to a war room in full bloom. Dig up some B list 80s actor to be the Secretary of Defense. Make him wise, but angry. Order barking time! Swing the camera around as techno-jargon is released into throat mikes. Onscreen Graphics!

Cut to a atypical US upper middle class family in an upper middle class home that is in danger of dropping a few pegs to lower middle class. Make sure you write in a kitchen scene to place products on the counter: Aquafina, Pepsi, Vagisil, etc. Introduce troubled teen, a good kid really, who is just misguided. Teen discovers opposing force to Monster/Asteroid/Robot but doesn’t understand the gravity this discovery may entail. He may use the new discovery to overcome a bully or get a girl. He’s on top of the world!

Cut to more catastrophe from the attacking Monster/Asteroid/Robot. Show that the Monster/Asteroid/Robot has the potential to fuck up everyone’s day. Cut back the soldiers numbers a bit by a slow motion death scene. Great teary eyed, slow mo of battle ravaged soldiers pulling their own onto Blackhawk helicopters.

Cut to the destruction of an American city. After, show survivors erecting flags. Severe gloom and doom.

Cut to War Room. Slow pan over everyone’s worried face. Will we make it past this catastrophe? Sub secretary may mention having family in newly flattened city. Secretary may utter “Damn” under his breath.

Cut to Teen being a teen, impressing a young girl who is three strata out of his league, with his new found power. Pay attention, this is pivotal: Show the teen in sharp focus just right of frame being goofy, totally unaware of the impending doom of the Monster/Asteroid/Robot that is advancing behind him slightly out of focus. Swap focus. The Monster/Asteroid/Robot is coming after the kid! Upshot kid’s head. Add movie catch phrase here, such as “Damn! Gym class is looking good right now!” or “Mother. Of. PEARL!” or even “SonovaXBOX!” (this one will ensure product placement!). Teen is rescued by his opposing force power.

Cut to the teen leaving home to ensure the safety of the opposing force. He may need to get to a military base or some recruitment centre or some official office, but he’s gotta get there now! Cue car chase! Cue music!

At any time throw in African American people being “urban” for comedy effect. Have them shout at their parents to “shut up or they’ll come over there and give them what for”.

Battle scene.

Battle scene.

Hopeless moment of teen getting injured. Hopeless moment of soldiers losing one of their own. Slow motion moment.

Cut to war room where the teen has finally made it. Secretary is stunned that the fate of the world rests on this kid’s shoulders. Shouting ensues. Teen spouts second movie catch phrase: “Yes, many will die.” or “You can forget me, but can you forget that crater out there that use to be Seattle?” or even “You, sir, are an asshole!”

Teen convinces Secretary that he holds the key. Stunned faces as the opposing force thing does something amazing. But it’s quickly interrupted by–

Battle.

Girl might get hurt. “Funny” soldier may die.

Battle.

Teen overcomes impossible odds in a deus ex machina moment and rams home the solution to the Monster/Asteroid/Robot’s demise. Ta da!

Slow motion of Monster/Asteroid/Robot’s death.

Cheering in the War Room! Secretary takes off his glasses and whispers “You did good, kid”

Sunset shot of teen with girl.

Fade out.

Abuse of Power Comes As No Surprise

Tech

Rogers Death StarTorontoist has an scary interesting article about how Rogers is watching you surf the web by inspecting the packages that are sent to your IP.

Of course they’re disguising it as “a friendly reminder” that you may be approaching your monthly bandwidth limit by inserting their content into other people’s pages. How do they do this? Easy, they inspect the request packet when you call up Google.ca and add on their “notice” into the header of Google’s web page. This is “data shaping” at work. They know exactly what you are doing on the web, much like a bitter IT manager at your office, and are manipulating the content in their favour.

The sinister aspect of this is that Rogers is testing their network to be able to deliver their ads on web pages that may match what their selling. You call up The Globe and Mail and across the top is an extra banner for one of Roger’s many magazines. Oh goody! More ads! Why else would they be developing this? Has their autoresponse emailer broke?

Does anyone remember when you would get spam through the Instant Messenger service on your computer (not the chat program, but the Network administrator notification app)? Remember how even Microsoft recommended you disable it for home use to avoid this spam? Now how do we disable our IP?

Broken 電話

Distractions

Old as the hills, but still as fun: I used Altavista’s translator to put a caption over JaySF’s Flickr account. I pumped in: “I would like Sushi. Oh that is original” and it translated English to Japanese to get this:

私はある寿司を頂く。元であるオハイオ州。

Running it back through the translator from Japanese to English gave me this:

I receive a certain sushi. Ohio state which is the cause.

Yeah it’s a slow Thursday.