I’m blown away. I bet s/he used some wicked math to create it.
(Via StumbleUpon)
Bored Sunday?
Victory Cafe. Sunday at 8pm. PWYC.
Bill Gates, Ottawa to Create AIDS Vaccine
Stephen Harper and Bill Gates have announced plans to sink millions of dollars into a working AIDS vaccine.
When completed, the vaccine, codename Strongbow, will be available in 4 different forms:
Windows Strongbow AntiViral Home Edition Basic will keep HIV away for up to 6 months unless the user was infected by HIV that wasn’t Microsoft certified. New features await you and your loved ones when you switch over. It provides a breakthrough design that brings your health into sharper focus. Remember the 7o’s? Experience the “Wow” all over again! WSAHEB is lisenced for only one human.
Windows Strongbow AntiViral Supra Edition Ultra provides HIV protection on a subscription basis. Experience more robust HIV protection with Defender and Firewall membranes. Scheduled upgrades and service packs are included and uploaded without your knowledge as you sleep. Relax! It’s just a hose! Ultra provides the power, security, and mobility features needed for all the entertainment that you want for fun.
Windows Strongbow Small Business is perfect for your small sex trade workers. You’ll spend less time on medical support-related issues—so you can spend more time making your business successful. Multi-use lisences are available for your growing business of 10-13 escorts. If one goes down, you can rest assured that all can go down!
Windows Strongbow Business Pro will defend you and your business across a wide platform of diseases, not just HIV but whooping cough, hiccups and explosive traveller’s diarreah as well. Experience the full coverage!
Some product features are only available in certain editions of Windows Strongbow and may require advanced or additional costs.
Go ahead. Call me bitter.
Batman, Your Hidden Cousin
Anna Nicole to Upgrade to Vista
I know. Cheap headline grab.
Last night I was woken up at 3am by my computer rebooting itself. Like a cat hoarking up a hairball, my box was trying to purge a trojan virus it had caught. I’m usually careful, especially after being on the web for so long. But no one is 100% safe, right? Anyway, my machine is sick.
Originally, I was a good boy and purchased XP Home (full price!) when it came out and suffered through it’s first year of updates and upgrades. Then SP2 happened. You remember, don’t you? Can’t get updates if you don’t install SP2! So I download the patch, like a good drone, and experience a 30% drop in operating speed, much like everyone else. I suffered through it as long as I could but had a glimmer of hope when it was said that XPsp2 on disk mysteriously doesn’t have the speed problems. But as fast as the glimmer came, it was snuffed out: I was told I was uneligible for the SP2 on disk upgrade because I had it already installed on my machine (or some such Catch 22 nonsense) and I would have to re-purchase XPsp2. Wha? A techy friend came to my rescue and installed a multi-license XPsp2 on my machine. Glory! However, now, I can’t install any new updates like Windows Media 11 or Defender as that I am in violation of someone’s rules somewhere. Save me, Cory Doctorow!
Now I have a trojan bug in my machine and I am thinking that the fastes route to get rid of it would be re-installing. What about upgrading to Vista? I’m not feeling the WOW with Vista, to be honest and at best, I would only be able to use the paired down, unfun version. What’s the point, anyway? Vista is a Mac-in-the-Box cute pony show much like XP’s new interface and logos were when it came out on the heels of OS X.
I’m in total agreement with John Thompson when he says (emphasis mine)
Consumers should not be confused. Vista is not a security solution. Vista is an operating system, and Vista provides some very important advances from Microsoft’s perspective
In short, if it’s not broke, don’t upgrade to fix it. It’s sort of in line with Gizmodo’s editor emeritus, Joel Johnson’s rant about jumping on the bleeding edge bandwagon. (very funny read!) Was the announcement of the iPhone the shark jumping moment in the gadget world? Are we tired of dumping money into hastily produced product? I know I laughed at the PS3 line up joke: “Hey guys! The line up for PS4 is starting on the other side of the building!”
So this weekend I’m off to buy XPsp2 on disk somewhere to remedy this viral problem and in the fall, I will be installing it on my WintelMac dual core dual boot. Wish me luck.
Usted Es Mi Amor
Primarily this is for Sharkboy but I love you readers too…
My First Ever Audition
The gig? A 30 second MTV promo spot, filmed as if 12-13 people are interviewed in the street, rambling on about random topics. That’s about as much as I got.
I entered the Masonic Temple at noon and was herded into the main stairwell with 20-30 other people. Including myself, there were about 2 other people over 35. Everyone else was young or made up young, fresh from an emergency “GOD I NEED THIS FOR MY AUDITION!� shopping trip to H&M.
Did I feel old?
A bit.
Thing is, I had nothing to lose. I already had a job. This is a hobby.
As I waited, hungry actors mouthed the words from the sheet the AD handed out. Random lines like “Yeah. Fucking awesome! Bob Dylan was the best!� or “I just signed a contract!� or “This country is run like a Canadian Movie of the Week! Go read the news!� (my personal fave, more later). Even though the AD said “just be yourself� (confirmed by people offering hints as they left the audition room), the hardcore actors still practiced their lines.
There was one guy dressed in a light blue dress shirt that was beyond form fitting, his buttons were straining to stay in place like a fat drag queen who found the last small D&G frock at discount prices at Winners. When this guy got up for his digital head shot, his back revealed that someone must have pinned that shirt right down the yolk in the back to make it LOOK that way. For whatever reason, I don’t know. I wonder if he felt like a dolt when the AD said that the audition had nothing to do with how you looked…
There was the nervous girl so freaked out that she thought she might have hypothermia just from walking from the subway a block away. Her leg was bouncing a mile a minute. She punctuated everything with a “Really? Hahahah!�
There was the calm guy, reading a mythology book. Cool as a cucumber.
There was the over-confident guy who revealed all to us what the director wanted when he came out. Then again, I thought, he might be doing that to throw us off the audition!
Then there was me. All smiles and goofy eyes.
The audition room held three people sitting around a big board room table. I stood at one end and delivered the 12 lines. Normally, I thought. I think I channeled my brother at one point by putting my hand to my neck. I remember him doing that move during one of his plays. I know I tanked a couple. How do you deliver “Vanilla ice cream IS the best! Everyone in the world knows it!� with the words “Punk eating out of a can� in parentheses after that. Was that stage direction?
They asked me to reread the lines I liked. I did.
They asked me to reread the same lines but ad lib if I wanted. That’s when I spewed that aforementioned line like this in my best frantic guy way:
“This fucking country is run like a bad Canadian tax write off movie of the week. What is this?! Stargate SG-1!? Go read a fucking paper!�
Yeah I chewed scenery.
Did I get it? I don’t know. I was in there longer than some, shorter than others. Who can say? I did wonder as I left the room about my brother and how he dealt with this kind of uncertainty. Did he ever turn to the director and plead for a second chance? Did he leave angry? At himself?
I’ll keep you posted if any news comes to me.
Rude Camel?
I had laid out this image for my Air manager for an ad when he came back to me laughing:
I see a camel in full trot. He saw a camel with a huge schlong. In fact, a couple managers saw that. Am I becoming sexless?
What do you see?
Get Your Heart On!
Acme Heart Maker.
(Via LifeHacker)
Dinner With PhotogRod
We invited PhotogRod over for dinner and a free movie at the OzFlix festival last Saturday night.
PhotogRod: Thanks for getting me out of my apartment tonight. The café below our apartment is hosting another rock band and I know I’m going to do something crazy if I have to call the manager and the landlord and the police again.
Sharkboy: That has got to suck.
PR: It sounds like I’m just hovering over the band, it’s so loud. Last week they had a punk band. I hate punk bands!
Dead Robot: At least you don’t have a drunk guy above your head.
PR: Are your neighbours bad?
DR: We hear him in the hallway going up the stairs every so often. I think he’s got a night job in a bar. Or at least he’s been in a bar because a couple times he stumbles. Twice he’s woke us up by having to be brought home by friends or police.
PR: No!
SB: Yep! A couple times we’ve been woken up by him falling out of bed or off his couch.
PR: Ha!
DR: True! It sounds like a sack of melons in a bag hitting the floor. BLUBBABDDUBUBAUBU!
PR: But it’s not as bad as a rock band.
SB: True. Hey the apartment we looked at before coming here just came available. It’s right by Carlton and Ontario and its sweeeeeet. Two storey, 2 1/5 bedroom, open kitchen/livingroom, overlooking Carlton. Huge south facing patio.
PR: Really?
SB: Yeah but it’s a bit pricey. When we looked at it a couple years back it was $1700. Plus utilities.
PR: Kinda steep.
DR: Get a third to share or insist that PhotogBill’s harps pay rent. They take up a lot of room. Here. Try the chips, they’re Lay’s Spicy Curry.
PR: (chomp) They taste like shoe. But strangely addictive.
SB: Yes! They do! They make my bum explode.
(BAM! BONK!)
PR: Man your cat is crazy.
SB: He gets really rowdy sometimes. He’s a destroyer. We can’t keep the carpet in the hallway or the throw on our bed neat and in one place. As soon as you make the bed, wham! It’s crumpled on the floor.
DR: Let me try this camera and get a shot of the cat without a non-reflective creepy eye.
(click)
DR: Nope.
(click)
DR: Nope.
(click)
DR: Aw fuck it. Hey dinner is on. “Damn Quesadillas� with rice and over-cumin-ed chicken!
PR: So you saw this “Kenny� guy yesterday?
DR: At the OzFlix opening night, yeah. He was dreaaaamy!
SB: I’ve never seen Deadrobot so star struck!
DR: Thank god for Sharkboy. I stood there like a lump hoping to make eye contact so we could get him to pose, but this Shane Jacobson is the kind of guy that pays attention to whoever he’s focused on. At one point Sharkboy said “Hey! Mr Kenny!� and the woman beside him looked at him and said “It’s ‘Shane.’ �
SB: I said: ‘He’s Mr Kenny to me tonight’. She just turned away.
DR: But we got a few moments with him and Sharkboy got my pic with him. Here.
PR: He’s hot.
DR: Uh hunn! A great guy. Originally he was a roadie for music videos and he started to do improv comedy. He and his brother were goofing around creating characters and he did the first 5 minutes of the film on video his brother’s camera. They loved “Kenny� so much they built the movie around him.
PR: The power of comedy!
DR: Too right!
Later, at the Theatre:
DR: Hey there’s that frigging image I wish we could ban from using for at least 20 years. It’s in all our marketing material. All of it!
SB: Shhh! The event co-ordinator is going to speak.
DR: He looks embarrassed about the Gay Mardi Gras Foam Party on Saturday.
SB: I’m embarrassed about the Foam Party. Who wants to go get wet ‘n foamy in the dead of February? Bah.
DR: Originally it was just going to be Priscilla drag queens and such – Sydney on Dundas, but it ballooned to a Foam Party. Gay excess strikes again.
After the movie:
EmCee: We have a special treat tonight. We actually have Kenny here in the audience. Come on down Kenny!
PR: HE TOUCHED MY HAND!
SB: You should have done that.
DR: Damn.
A nod of thanks to Brett Lamb for the “diablog” idea.