By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Evidently, the weather we had for Christmas is not normal, but having never experienced anything different I fail to believe what people tell me.
In any case, it was perfect.
On December 25th, Calgary was blessed with a cloudless day, the sun shinning as hard as it could. Around mid-day, it was +15 degrees outside. I kid you not! We took a walk around the neighborhood and we very nearly did it in t-shirts. If it wasn't that the motorcycle is parked in a corner of the garage, under its tarp and without a battery -- so that taking it out and putting it back in would require at least a couple of hours -- we would have taken it out for a ride. Over the weekend, we saw about half a dozen bikes on the roads and we really wanted to be one of them.
Needless to say that Calgary has no snow now. The forecast calls for another week of above-zero temperature. It's great!
Vero was a little disappointed that we had a snow-less Christmas, even with the incredible weather. So on the 26th we drove down to Lake Louise.
Lake Louise does have snow. Enough for the ski hill to be open; enough for the lake to be frozen and a skating rink to be open; enough to warrant us putting all our snow gear on to hike up to the lake Agnes teahouse.
So out here we have the choice: Christmas with or without snow? Stay in Calgary for warm, sunny and a snow-less experience; drive to the mountains to ski, skate and play around in the snow.
* * * * *The 26th was also a different experience for us. I had been meaning to get a new TV for my office (to replace the really old one that now has the side effect of emitting more sound out the back than the front), so I figured we could brave the craziness of Boxing Day and drop by Best Buy to get one. After checking their website I learned that they opened at 6AM on the 26th. "We can do that," I thought: let's get there at 6AM and beat the crowd. Who else but us gets up so early anyway?
We got up a little after 5AM and got ready to go out into that gentle night (man it's dark at that time) down to the Best Buy, a 15 minute drive. We got there at 6:10AM.
Driving in, I saw a couple of people outside the doors, but it didn't have the coherence of a line. So I thought they were just hanging out there, for some reason. The fact that we had to HUNT for a parking space worried me a little, though. Anyways, since it wasn't a mad lineup, and we did get up for it, we walked to the door.
The "security guard" at the door (who wasn't much of a security guy) was all bright and cheery and chatted up a storm with us folks outside. How can these people be happy at 6AM on Boxing Day? They live in Calgary, that's how.
We had to wait about five minutes before they let us in. Inside: complete mayhem. The place was PACKED with people running all over the place. Craziness.
We found a TV I liked, not too expensive, and grabbed the box. A 24" TV is pretty heavy, we learned... Off we go, dashing through the isles to reach the cash, only to see a lineup there. Actually, we saw the BEGINNING of a line; the end was nowhere in sight.
At the head of the line, a bright and cheery employee (yet another one... crazy, I tell ya!) was directing people to the cashes and to the end of the line. Seeing us with our huge box and no cart, he told us to leave the box there and aim for the floating balloon that indicates the end of the line... on the other side of the store! We rushed there -- and a good thing we did because within five minutes the line had grown almost double!
Surprisingly, the wait was pretty short. It took only 20 minutes to reach the cash, where the still bright and cheery employee recognized us, showed surprise at how quickly we got there and pointed us to an available cashier.
Out the door we go with our big-ass box. At the door, the same (and still bright and cheery) security guard suggested we leave the box there, go get the car and this other employee will help us to load it. Which we did, and which he did (happy to see us pull up in a hatch-back).
We were out of the parking lot before 7AM. In and out within 50 minutes, a good ten of which were spent looking at the TVs and picking one.
And everybody, short of a couple of grumpy customers, was happy and helpful. Crazy, I keep saying.
So here's "Matt's tip to shopping for electronics on Boxing Day": avoid it if you can, otherwise bring a friend to wait in line while you pick up your gear!
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, December 23, 2005
This will be my last entry before Christmas, so I wish all of you the merriest one, filled with great parties, friends and families and, mostly, relaxation!
May the presence of your loved ones outshine any gift you get.
Back on Tuesday the 27th.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, December 22, 2005
When we bought our house, we used the services of Glen Weikle of Royal Lepage. He's a great guy, a really good agent, and I recommend him to anyone looking for property in the Calgary region.
When we started looking for houses, in September of last year, we came across Glen. We told him what we were looking for and he spent the next three months helping us to find this house. He then helped us find a mortgage broker and a lawyer and generally make the whole process easier for a couple who knew nothing of the subtleties of house buying in Calgary.
Yesterday, Glen gave me a call. He was in the neighborhood and wanted to drop by. I hadn't seen him since December of last year when we made the last offer on the house. Since then, we redecorated a whole lot so I was happy to show him the new look!
What I did not expect, however, was to get a Christmas gift! As if Glen and Jeanie knew me so well, they got us a really cool set of 4 BBQ tools and 4 skewers. The really manly stuff, too: huge pieces, wood handles, pretty heavy... I can't wait to try them out! (Which will be as soon as we buy some meat since we're living in balmy +10 degrees of late!)
That was the last thing I expected. A really nice thing indeed.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, December 21, 2005
The Wasatch Brew Pub is a microbrewery in Utah that decided to appeal to the slightly less religious people around. If you didn't know it, Utah is known to host many a Mormon. Though I don't know much about that religion, I know they are on the bandwagon against schools teaching the theory of evolution to kids.
Wasatch took it that one hilarious step further. Check out their Beers page. First on the list is the Wasatch Evolution Amber Ale, clearly a direct hit against that whole school thing. Third down is the Polygamy Porter with the catchy slogan Why Have Just One!.
Unfortunately, you'll have to go down to Utah to get some as they don't ship them anywhere.
But it makes a man want to start drinking beer!
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Yesterday, we saw the Barenaked Ladies in concert. This is the third time I see them on stage (once in Montreal and early this year at the tsunami relief concert) and they proved, yet again, why I'm right to call them "my favorite band". The show was, simply put, AWESOME!
I started off a little disappointed because, using the button-mashing technique I've used before to buy tickets (which consists in clicking on the "get tickets" button on the Ticketmaster site until it stops saying "not on sale yet"), I wasn't able to get anything closer than the tenth row. I tried the tenth row at the Montreal concert and, as 5'2" Marianne can attest, the view isn't all that good. Today, I learned that they reserve the first rows to the fan club (what rock have I been hiding under to not realize there's a fan club and they get the good tickets?!?) so I'll be signing up right after I write this entry.
Armed with our first balcony seats, which are actually pretty good, we made our way to a packed Jubilee. I just HAD to stop by the merchandise table because Yanik (father of Edgar) told me they were selling USB memory sticks with BNL material on it. Of course, I got one: it's BNL and geekiness all wrapped up in a slick silver package!
With that in my pocket, up we went to the first balcony. I found it odd that a security guard was causing traffic in the small isle... until I saw why he was there: Tyler Stewart was standing there, signing anything you put in his hand in one swift motion. How cool is that? Really cool, it is. I told him so and he said "thank you". Then I moved on so the mob behind me could move forward.
That was very classy of him. Makes the tickets a whole lot better!
And so the show started (with an opening act of Kurt Swinghammer). It was a holiday concert, so we got a bunch of those songs (unfortunately, no Elf's Lament), but what surprised me was that they played a very large variety of songs from every album -- from Be My Yoko Ono to Upside Down, through many hit songs like One Week and the necessary If I Had $100000. And through it all, the jokes and banter that define BNL as a must see show.
The show opened with a group of kids from a local choir (sorry kids, I forget your name!) singing some Christmas songs, then BNL got on and sang a couple more with them. Really well done. Toward the end, they poked fun at Kevin's squeeze box and poof! enters kids from the local accordion association (whose name I forget too) to play $100000.
Next thing you know, over two hours have gone by and they are coming back for a second encore.
I can name only three things that weren't AWESOME:
- The crowd didn't sound like it was really into the songs like that first show in Montreal. Maybe it was being on the balcony that made it so I couldn't hear everyone singing, at least I hope it was. I'm pretty sure they couldn't hear me, but I sang every word along with them!
- A couple of ladies around us had very loud laughs, so we missed a couple of lines after jokes. Oddly enough, asking them to repeat that last line did nothing. Maybe I should have asked one of those ladies to scream the demand...
- After the show, I can't hug them and squeeze them and pat them and pet them and rub them and caress them and name them George and bring them home with us. Though I'm thinking they might object to the rubbing.
In the end, we drove back home really happy to have been there, with the car radio off so as to not chase the sounds of the concert from our minds (to some country songs Vero likes so much).
If, by some luck the Gods grant me, the band or anyone connected to them happens to read this, THANKS FOR THE GREAT SHOW AND COME BACK ANYTIME!!! (I don't know why I'm screaming that part, as if they could hear it better...) I'm thinking Calgary isn't the prime audience for a show like this, but I promise that anytime BNL shows up here they will sell at least two tickets. Every. Single. Time. And if the venue causes problems, I got plenty of room in my basement!
If you, gentle reader, have never seen their show, remedy that ASAP. You will not regret it!
And to Marianne who is moving here next month: gna gna gna, you should've moved earlier, you missed a great show, IN YOUR FACE! :)
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, December 16, 2005
On a cold and sunny day yesterday, we rented Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (yet another crappy website).
This is the "sequel" to the first Dungeon and Dragons movie. I say "sequel", in quotes, because that's what the folks at Wizards of the Coast call it, but it has nothing to do with the first one. Which is good.
I saw the box on the night I rented Dukes of Hazzard but I left it there thinking that Vero would want to see it too. When we browsed the store yesterday, I pointed to the single copy of the movie they have, she checked it out and agreed.
She actually enjoyed it. I see the "geekiness" growing in her every day!
It was, surprisingly, not bad. Not great, but for a lower budget movie that requires a lot of CGI, they did pretty good.
The whole thing is rushed -- they do fit an epic quest in a 1h45 movie -- but the writers did pretty good at making believable characters. It seems a lot of the creative team knew about DnD (but not from playing it) and they used the complete DnD literature to provide the background and mechanics of what is happening. It was nice to see, in the "making of" feature, the cast and crew flipping through the pages of the player manual between takes.
They dropped the ball on a couple of things, unfortunately, most notably in having a diversity of races and classes. The main character, it seems, doesn't have a class (at least, nothing we could figure out); they made one of the evil sidekick a half-orc, but I only know that because they explain it in the special features. They did a pretty good job on a couple of things, too, like in what the rogue does and how he does it. Quite neat.
To the DnD fan out there, I will stop here (so as to not give too much away) and recommend you go and rent this movie. To everybody else, you need not worry that you are missing out on a great movie by not renting it.
Yes, I saw the movie for the first time yesterday. Vero had another one of those "I'm doing something after work so I'll be home late" where, taking advantage of it, I rent a movie she doesn't want to see.
There was nothing else in the store that I hadn't seen...
I got the unrated version of The Dukes of Hazzard (at the time of this writing, this site SUCKS).
From what I can tell, "unrated" means they added three or four scenes with half-naked women. Like when Bo and Luke go to find Katie at the Atlanta university, they look for her by barging into three bedrooms, each of which containing a number of good looking young women wearing nothing but bikini bottoms and doing, what I can only guess to be, normal sorority girl stuff -- like playfully boxing with each other.
That left me sitting there, stunned, thinking: "WTF?!?"
So one of two things: either I completely missed what university is like (and I really should go), or they decided that the target audience for this movie is 14 year old boys. Which, as I realized yesterday, I no longer am.
For long portions of the movie I really wondered if I really was the target audience -- I mean, I'm a guy who likes movies with pretty girls and fast cars, but last I checked I had more than two brain cells that aren't driven entirely by hormones.
The best part of the movie, therefore, ended up being the stunt driving. They got the reining drifting champion to drive the car around, and it shows through a lot of really good looking slides. "Drifting", if you don't know, is this thing whereby a driver enters a turn by sliding the back of the car and goes through that turn with the car at an angle, the back wheels sliding the whole time. And this guy can really do it: in one of the special feature you can see him drive the car TWICE around this circle, through traffic no less, in a slide the entire time. Quite impressive.
Like the director said in an interview in the special features, the movie is mostly about the car. The car isn't that great, but the driving is pretty cool and the drifting is very, very well done.
And the girls? They do have a lot of pretty young things in the movie, but after the couple of scenes you quickly realize they have no actual personality (other than to arouse 14 year old boys) and it's pretty much a turn-off. And Jessica Simpson shows that, no matter how much practice you have, it is basically impossible to move without wobbling in six inch heels.
So it was a night of stunned consternation and nice slides. But not a movie I recommend... if you're not a 14 year old boy.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, December 15, 2005
So I send you to have a short laugh with some French-chalenged American kids.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Last weekend we went to the mall and has a brief contact with what could possibly be the CUTEST THING EVER.
As we walked into the mall, a young family (mom, dad and daughter) were walking out. I got to the door first, so I opened it for them (like any good Calgarian would). In truth, I was opening the door for my lady, but they were there so I figured I would hit two stones with one dead bird. Or the other way around. Whatever.
Mom and dad thanked me, like any good Calgarian would, and tried to guide their daughter out the open door. She couldn't have been more than five years old, walking around kinda oddly because she was completely concentrated on (what I can only assume were) her new shoes. And I agree with her: not only were they white and pristine but they had lights that would come on every time she stepped down.
So she takes a couple of steps outside, lost in the magic that was her new shoes. Then she abruptly stops, turns around, raises her head to look me square in the eyes and says in a very articulate and clear voice: "thank you". With the cutest little happy inflection that only young girls can pull off.
TO. DIE. FOR.
So she's now in the top of the cutest-thing-ever list. I imagine she'll stay there until I get a kid of my own...
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Last night I bought myself a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (a.k.a. a big-ass digital camera). This, my friends, is one serious piece of technology. Very impressive. This review is much more comprehensive than I could ever be...
Of course, I took a bunch of pictures to try it out!
Here is a picture of our house, as of this morning, in the highest resolution this baby can do. This is 8 megapixels, so 3456x2304 resolution. This file was tranfered to jpeg from the original RAW format after tweaking with the white balance a little. Canon provides the software to do that, of course. Honestly, the software isn't half bad.
The coolest piece of software included (in my personal opinion) is the picture merging utility. You give it a bunch of pictures, tell it you took the pictures from 
the same spot by simply turning the camera around and it "stitches" them together into one panoramic view. Super easy, works very well. I'm rather impressed with that one. To view the image correctly, since my site forces a picture size, click on the small picture here (it will display the picture in larger format) then click on the larger format picture to view the original picture (with the correct aspect-ratio).
The next step is to figure out how well these pictures will actually print. I found a place in Calgary, called Vistek, that will print them to, apparently, 20x30 inches with no noticeable loss of quality. I'm not entirely convinced, though very hopeful, and we'll be doing some test runs to see how it comes out. I'll let y'all know.
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, December 12, 2005
This weekend we made a quick stop by Grotto Canyon, a spot near Canmore where you get to hike along a small river at the bottom of a gorge. The canyon is said to have many native pictographs, though we still haven't seen any of them.
This was the second time we hiked through Grotto Canyon -- a short couple of hours round trip with virtually no elevation gain. For the second time I completely failed to bring the camera. So still no pictures.
When you walk through the canyon in summer, you have to cross the river a couple of times, hopping from rock to rock. It's a lot of fun. When you walk through in winter, the river is frozen (almost completely) solid. Now that we did not expect! So you walk up to the end of the canyon (where we find multiple ice falls which climbers go up on!) walking, for the most part, directly on the river's ice. Quite the interesting experience. But do remember to pack your Yaktrax otherwise you'll just hurt yourself slipping all over the place!
So now Grotto Canyon has gone up on our list of things to hike around here: it's an easy hike that looks really nice in summer and that offers a unique experience in winter!
By Mathieu Legault - Saturday, December 10, 2005
During a Leapster commercial:
"They tried that on The Shopping Bags."
"And?"
"Little girls love it. Little boys would rather have a Playboy."
"A what?"
"A... no, a Gameboy."
"Not exactly the same, wouldn't you say?"
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, December 9, 2005
A band called Steadman, ex-Brits turned Americans, have been making music professionally for a little while and have had trouble with labels. Long story. The end result: they decided that, since they don't make money off selling CDs anyway, they are offering their music for free on their website. No restrictions, no small print, just free professionally recorded music.
They classify as "rock". Paul McCartney actually hand-wrote a message saying he "likes this band". And he's a knight! Are you gonna argue with a knight?
Check 'em out.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, December 8, 2005
You have to admit it, not all bathroom tissue is the same.
We now have two kinds in our house (as we had to refresh our stock last weekend) and it's just... well, not the same. They both get the job done, but one makes me feel better about it than the other.
We've all seen the new Charmin commercial where mama bear uses what can be best described as a car wash to... you know. Every time I see the commercial, I pause and wonder at the idiocy of today's marketing firms. Who the hell thought this image would be a good idea for a commercial, and who is the bigger idiot that agreed it was a good idea and fronted good money for it?
Still, I feel a bit of a connection with that "car wash" bear. Not that anything I do in life did or ever will feel like THAT, but I have to admit that not all bathroom tissue is made alike.
And so, whenever I have a choice in the matter, I go for the good stuff.
Which, evidently, was not the case last weekend.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, December 7, 2005
I reach in the bag full of yummy, squishy, sugary goodness that are gummy bears. The very first to inch toward his delicious death, a green one, sticks to my finger and, instead of landing comfortably inside my mouth, jumps and falls the 37 inches down to the floor.
Cruel, cruel world.
Damn the sticky gummies!
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, December 6, 2005
This weekend we had the chance of hanging out with my in-laws who flew in for four days. This wasn't the first time, but it was the first time they actually saw the Rockies! Not very clearly and not for very long, mind you, but the mountains were right there, undeniable.
We saw them from the house for about an hour, early Sunday morning. The rest of the time: nothing. (Well, there was plenty of snowing and cloud cover and biting cold, but nothing as far as view went.) We spent Sunday in Canmore and Kananaskis Country (on the Troll Falls trail) and, luckily, the day was clear and sunny (though rather cold) and we had a wonderful view of what being in the Rockies is all about.
So (finally, after three tries!) Marc and Magda can go back home and say with confidence that they saw the Rockies!
And we remain here, again grateful for their visit, with fond memories of our wonderful week-end.
Oh, and to explain the title: since we won't be seeing them before Christmas, we celebrated it early on Saturday with a feast and some gifts. Christmas came early to our house and it was great! Thank you again!
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, December 2, 2005
If you haven't seen it, the heating system in our house is a gas furnace. We have the one furnace heating up the whole house. So we only have the one thermostat to control the temperature of the whole house.
I haven't been really happy with it, for two reasons: first, it is not precise at all, often needing us to "play" with it just to get to a comfortable temperature but more often than not going from just a little too cold to just a little too warm; second, the first reason coupled with a bad location means we never change the settings, even during the night. I had been meaning to get some sort of programmable thermostat so I could set it and forget it, knowing it would save us some energy by keeping the temperature lower during the night.
So early this week I bought a 7-day programmable touchscreen thermostat from Honeywell. This, my friends, is the Cadillac of thermostats. It's more expensive than the other ones, at about 150$, but since we only have the one (as opposed to having one per room) I thought it was worth the expense.
Vero agreed so I would shut up about it.
I installed it yesterday. This thing is worth every penny and then some. Wow.
First of all, it has a seven-day programming. That means you can have a different program for each day of the week. Plus, it has four settings per day (called "wake", "leave", "return" and "sleep"). For each of them, you can set a time and a temperature and the thing will adjust it for you. You can program every weekday the same and every weekend the same (like we did), or each day individually, or any grouping of day... in other words, it will match your schedule.
Then it goes one step further with their "intelligent" "adaptive" whatchamacallit, which is this thing where the computer (heck, we can't call this a "thermostat" anymore...) "learns" how your heating system behaves every day and uses that information to determine how much time it needs to adjust the temperature. For example, I want the house to be at 22 degrees at 5AM. Typically, that would require me to set the "wake" program at 22 for 4:30AM or something, so the house is warm by 5. But not with this thing! It learns how long it takes to warm up the house and adjust itself for the next day, so all I have to say is "22 degrees at 5AM" and it will kick in the heat at 4:32, 4:46 or 4:50 or whatever is right.
It also controls cooling, so if you have a furnace and an air conditioning unit, which we don't, you can set the "heat" and "cool" degrees and the computer will start the furnace or air conditioning depending on the temperature of the house.
Then you get into the smart programming stuff...
At any time, you can change the temperature of the house by hitting a button. Doing that, you tell it to "hold" the currently scheduled temperature -- the schedule says 22 degrees, you just asked for 25. It will hold the current schedule until a certain time, a time which you can set; by default, it holds until the next schedule. So if it's a little cold one night, you raise the temperature a bit and it will hold it until your "sleep" schedule, at which point it will resume the regular scheduling and the temperature will drop back down. No need to worry (or even remember) to re-adjust the temperature, it does it itself!
And for the sugar on top, it has a "vacation hold". That means "set the temperature at this level and hold it like that for X days", ignoring your schedules. So if you leave for a couple of days, no need to completely re-program the schedules (and set them back after)!
Plus, it's touchscreen, backlit and completely digital (precise to half a degree Celsius). What more could you want?
This thing makes me feel like somebody out there sat down and thought about how a thermostat could make my life easier. Shows there's analysts and programmers out there actually thinking!
Now, this is a pretty expensive piece of equipment. I wouldn't really recommend it for the East coast, where electric heating is controlled independently in every room. Way too expensive. Although if you have the money, go for it. But houses out there with one or two central control points, like ours, would really benefit from this thing (specially if you have a crappy little mercury-based thermostat). It might be psychological, but it absolutely feels like the temperature is more constant now. I'll see at the end of the month if it really reduces energy costs...
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, December 1, 2005
One of my managers, a really good guy, asked me to do some technical thing real quick to help him out. Our chat conversation ended like this:
Manager: do u have the bandwidth?
Me: sure
Manager: ok, ty
Me: for you, but not for anybody else ;)
Manager: :D
Me: ... unless she's cute, that is
Manager: LOL... right... the request is coming from Pamela Anderson
Me: LOL
Manager: she's really into this stuff
It's been creeping up on me for the last week or so and now it hits me square in the jaw: today is December 1st.
Sainte vache.
(For the French impaired, "sainte vache" is a translation of "holy cow". Don't use it around French people, though, as it's not an actual expression. But it's my expression now, and I like it.)
Today makes eight months of writing this blog; nine months since we bought this house; 19 months since we moved to Calgary. Yet, it still feels like yesterday we lived in Vaudreuil. I guess it's true what they say: time flies when you're having fun!
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Last weekend Vero and Sandra convinced me to go see the movie Rent with them. Damn my weakness for movie popcorn!
It didn't seem that bad a movie, though I felt it was more of a rental. But with promises of popcorn and a good time, I folded like a nervous twenty-something showing a pair of twos. Experience teaches us both to listen to our instincts more closely.
So Rent is a Broadway musical moved to film. I'm a little curious to see the musical, wondering if it perhaps conveys the message better than the movie. I mean, there I saw a movie whose point completely eluded me well past the credits. Ok, it's cute and they sing and they dance and what am I supposed to understand from this?
I guess it's a problem with me: I expect something so all-encompassing as putting a musical play together to be such the undertaking that only the very best actually make it. I think I'm learning that such a complicated effort as getting a play ready for audiences thins out the options so much that anything that can actually be completed is showed, regardless of how good it is, simply because there isn't enough choice. Maybe I missed the point. And truthfully I ask you: who cares?
What was the point? Oh: Rent. You would think the title alone would be enough to tell you what to do with this movie, but in case it didn't here's what I say: rent it. If you're into Broadway musicals turned movies, that is. If you saw Chicago and loved the movie, don't get your hopes up -- it's nowhere near as good. If you like musicals because they sing and dance and everybody seems to take it as normal behavior, then Rent is an option (although I recommend the Buffy episode Once More with Feeling instead). Rent is cute and kinda fun, though it did seem to go on for ever...
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, November 25, 2005
For those of y'all that run Windows, here's an interesting test you can quickly go through.
Create a folder on your desktop called "notepad" (no quotes, obviously). Start Internet Explorer. Right-click in it and select "View Source". Be amazed.
It seems to work for whatever page you're on (I tested a couple of different ones). It also works if you use the "View" menu and "Source" option.
Is that a bug or an undocumented feature? Only time will tell. If it cares, that is.
I have no idea how you could do it, but that could be a way to "protect" your site's source... Hum...
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, November 22, 2005
It's a clear blue sky day, the sun is shining and we just hit 20 degrees. That does it: I'm going outside and taking a walk. Maybe even take the bike out.
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, November 21, 2005
Today is the 33rd annual World Hello Day, a day where everyone should greet ten people during the day as a means to open communications and express concern for world peace.
The web site is pretty basic, but then again so is the idea. Check them out at http://www.worldhelloday.org. This is a neat idea, even if it only means that people will talk more (and not actually bring about world peace but, as they say, you'll never know if you don't try).
The coder in me can't help but think these guys registered to the "introduction to programming" class in university...
So I say onto all of you, on this most special of days: hello!
(Note: for them in y'all that didn't get the programming joke, the most basic piece of code that serves as the typical example usually is one that displays "Hello World!", known in the coding circles as the "hello world" example.)
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, November 18, 2005
It's Friday. Ah, Friday. The Day of the Fri. The day of the Friar? Nah. The day of the Fry? Hum... fries...
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, November 17, 2005
For those of you who have to deal with other people's code, you must make The Daily WTF a routine stop.
If you don't deal with any code at all, you can safely ignore this link and bask in the ignorant bliss of the programming-illiterate. I almost envy you.
The Daily WTF is this site where this guy posts, daily, code pieces sent to him by people around the world. It contains the ugliest, scariest, most complicated code you can think of, code that people have to deal with every day. It's great!
You think your project is overly complex? You haven't seen anything until you read these stories...
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, November 16, 2005
So I had Monday off. I got up late, sat in front of my computer for a little while then thought better of it and walked away. It was a cold day outside and I didn't feel brave enough to test it, so I pulled out a movie.
Actually, I pulled out three. I watched the Matrix trilogy. Seven and a half hours of Keanu Reeves. This was the first time I watched all three movies in such a short period.
I can't say it's any better as one big story. It's not bad, I like it a lot, but you still have those "huh?" moments where the story gets a little weaker. Being told the whole story in one shot doesn't make things any clearer.
Still, I had a blast. Started at 11AM, ended at 6:30PM, stereo blasting and eating too much junk. It was a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone that owns the movies.
The only thing I didn't watch is the Animatrix pieces that bridge the gap between the first two movies. There's a pretty big gap there, but you just roll with it and it's quickly forgotten.
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Last week was a great week to get stuff! I got a bunch, all of which were extremely cool and all of which I tried over the weekend.
First, Vero got us some Yaktrax thingnies, an ingenious little device you strap under your boots to provide traction on hard snow and ice. I wasn't convinced when I saw it -- how can little rings help that much, shouldn't we have spikes? -- but after trying it in a frozen Johnston Canyon I can confidently say: GET SOME OF THOSE! Holy cow. We walked on ICE as if it wasn't there. We climbed hills past people in running shoes that were barely standing up. Everybody looked at us with that jealous look of "now THAT's not fair". It was great!
I also received about three year's worth of birthday and Christmas gifts from Marianne, in a neat little ThinkGeek package. This stuff is the coolest. First off, all geeks MUST get the LED Binary Clock. I can't keep my eyes off it, I'm always looking for a pattern. Great fun.
For the more mobile geeks in us, I got a bunch of t-shirts too. Binary people, there's no place like home, you are here, generic humanoid carbon unit and Joss Whedon is my master now. Vero has that face of "God save me, I'm gonna marry a geek" when I put one on. They're great! If you're looking for a birthday gift for Vero, I suggest this one.
So it's with a geek shirt and an eye on a binary clock that I (sadly) return to work after a great long weekend.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, November 10, 2005
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, a statutory holiday throughout all of Canada except Ontario and Québec. And since I'm not in Québec anymore...
So tomorrow we are off to the mountains, do some hiking. No plans yet. But the time off work will help everyone.
While I'm at it, I have some overtime accumulated and, with my company's "time off in lieu" policy, I decided to take Monday off as well. Yay for the long weekend!
I'm not sure if I'll be updating the site during that time. I might just find something to do that completely prevents me from even looking at a computer screen. That might be good.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, November 9, 2005
I watched Jet Li's Unleashed last night. It's another one of those movies that Vero didn't want to see, so as she went to get a hair cut I watched AN ENTIRE MOVIE, INCLUDING SPECIAL FEATURES! I even had time to spare. I tell ya, it's complicated being a woman...
To be fair to Vero's hair adventure, the special features sucked and her hair color looks good. Special features are one behind the scene and a couple of attitude-blaring music videos. Bah.
The movie has a weird feel. Jet Li is very good at playing this confused guy with the mental and social skills of a kid, but some parts of the story just feel odd. It's like the characters have a vibe that's completely off, like they don't belong together. Then again, that's part of the story too, that they don't really belong together. It's hard to put into words, but it was a weird feeling.
The action is quite rough. Vero didn't want to see the movie because she thought it was too tough for her delicate sensibilities, and heck she was right. Not a whole lot of blood or deaths or body parts ripped off, yet a very nasty look to all fights.
I was surprised when I saw Luc Besson's name come up as the writer, at the beginning of the movie. I didn't expect that. But it didn't have that spectacular humph I've come to expect from him. I guess the idea was to make a very nasty and violent movie and, well, they did.
It's definitely not a movie I recommend your kids watch, but if you're a fan of Jet Li and action movies this one is worth seeing once. It's a different kind of action movie and it's entertaining in it's own, different way.
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, November 8, 2005
So I have this theory. It's not much, doesn't really stand up to any kind of arguments, but it's fun, simple and kinda makes sense. And heck, you can always use it as an excuse to stop fantasizing and just get on with it already.
Let's start with the basic multiple-universes-by-decision tree. I just made up that name, I have no idea what it's called. The idea -- and I make it very basic here because I'm no expert on the subject and we have better things to do than research this stuff -- I like to explain this way:
Think of your life as a line. From birth to death, a straight line. On that line, your life happens. Here you have a birthday, there you buy a house, somewhere else you live happily ever after. Now consider this: every moment of our lives we are confronted with choices and we make decisions. The decisions we make are what creates this line. But in parallel universes, you pick different options. So each decision point on your line is a point where a number of different "life lines" emerge, giving it the look of branches on a tree. On each line come multiple decision points that each branch off with their own option. Soon, you have a pretty large tree; one "branch" of that tree is your life, the other branches are parallel universes. In most universes life is the same, you just have a silver car instead of a black one. In some universes, wars rage because something you did (or didn't do) had that kind of "butterfly effect". You get the picture.
So the idea, to summarize it, is that every decision you make spawns a parallel universe in which things happens just a little differently. And here's where I make the big jump: the chain of events is such that only specific events can happen from a decision, whereas all other events are constrained to other universes. Does that even make sense? Ok, here's a completely fictional example that I never thought of before: you drive down the street in your silver car right by a woman that completely fails to notice you. In a parallel universe, the one in which you got the black car, you drive down the same street and your car catches her eye, you meet, talk, fall in love, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. Having a silver car means there is no way you can meet her (at least, not at that point in time).
Oy, am I getting deep in there. I'm trying to explain it in a way that makes some sense. Hope it's working. And keep remembering: this is just for fun, so stop trying to prove that it's completely impossible...
Now for the fun part.
Consider, just consider, that all this stuff is true: making a decision influences what will happen (duh) and what has the possibility of happening. Now consider this: what if your imagination is an integral part of the universe and thinking about making a decision is just as valid as actually making it?
It would mean that every time you imagine a situation, and imagine the decision you would make, you create a point on your life line from which all other decisions depend. Since a decision point affects what has the possibility of happening, a bunch of possible outcomes have just been moved from your universe into some parallel ones, just outside of your reach.
In other words, when you sit there and think of that cute guy you like and picture yourself walking up to him, engaging in conversation and saying exactly the right thing (and, of course, I'm talking about someone else... I would never walk up to a cute guy, obviously) what ends up happening is that his answers and the conversation that follows get split off into a parallel universe, just because of your thinking about it, and makes the whole thing impossible to actually happen.
Which is why, after having thought of walking up to the cute guy and having a thousand different perfect conversations, you walk up to him and say the absolute stupidest thing. You have no choice! That is the only option left in your universe, all the good lines have been "moved" to parallel ones!
So there. That's my theory on why you should just stop day dreaming about stuff and go and do them already. Because the more you think about how it could happen, the less likely it is to happen that way.
That, or start day dreaming about the thousand different ways you could look completely stupid. Maybe all that will be left will be the perfect conversation, who knows. I personally never tried it, so let me know of your experiences...
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, November 7, 2005
Yes, I finally saw Batman Begins this weekend. Vero absolutely did not want to see it, and before I realized it was out of theaters, so when she left me by my lonesome on Saturday to go hang out with the girls, I took the opportunity to rent the movie.
I have to go along with the majority on that one: it was much better than I expected, much better than the previous films. The story had that darkness we expect from the Dark Knight, yet has humour and a very nice storyline. I think I missed a lot from not seeing it on the big screen 'cause Scarecrow wasn't that scary. And every time I saw Katie Holmes I couldn't help wondering if Tom Cruise was behind the camera keeping an evil eye on Bale. All and all, it was a fun time and I was quite entertained.
So my rating for the movie: I won't buy the DVD, but I do recommend you rent it. And after seeing it, I think Vero wouldn't have had a problem watching the movie.
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, November 4, 2005
I try not to post twice in a day, but this is too good. Steve, of Barenaked Ladies, posted this link on the band's blog: http://www.vgmerchandise.com/misc.html.
Read it, be scared, be amazed, wonder how you can make that kind of cash the same way too.
Have you read it yet? No? Go read it 'cause I want to talk about it now.
Done? Good.
I can't say I know who Vincent Gallo is. Maybe I'm too young, am not enough American or English or have enough general culture, I don't know. For all I know, this guy's a nobody or a has-been. Regardless of who you are, it takes some serious cohonas to post something like that (though, according to the text, the man does have the balls for it). And there's this "bloody accident on the highway" part of my curiosity that wonders if it will actually work.
My favorite part, I have to admit, is this:
If the purchaser [...] chooses the option of natural insemination, there is an additional charge[...]. However, if after being presented detailed photographs of the purchaser, Mr. Gallo may be willing to waive the natural insemination fee [...].
Now there is a precedent for socially inept men: buy at a cheap price, but if you're good looking I might just do it for free. Kinda like prostitution, except backwards.
I came up on this site yesterday while checking out some podcasts: Technorati Search. It's a search engine for blogs. No big deal, but what's really cool (for blog writers, at least) is that you can search for blogs that refer to a link. In the "website URL search" section, type in the URL of your blog and bam! you get a list of everyone that refered to you. Pretty neat.
They already index the major blog sites, like MSN Spaces and Blogger, but you can also have them "ping" your site to get it indexed. All you have to do, it seems, is add a couple of tags in your page. Since I'm hosting my blog (instead of using a service), I'm not automatically indexed and I haven't tried adding their tags, but it seems simple enough.
If you have a blog, that site is worth checking out. If only for the fun factor of the first ten minutes.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, November 3, 2005
Now that is some serious blues. And you know it's serious blues when the second verse starts with:
"She's 3 times 7, that makes 21"
Oh yeah. Just don't ask me what that means, I'm too busy grooving.
(I'm listening to the Roadhouse podcast, "the best blues you've never heard".)
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, November 2, 2005
We had our first overnight snow today. It started snowing late last night and this morning we had a solid inch everywhere!
I know I said I wouldn't talk of the weather as much, but when you walk out of the basement and come face to face with the biggest, cutest bunny you ever saw... how can you just resist that, huh? I swear that thing was bigger than Mr. Electrifying's purse dogs...
As the sun was rising, the small valey down from our house created this dense fog that covered everything... Even the electrical poles were lost in it! But we can still see the mountains, and that's what it's all about.
In this picture, we get an even better idea of how much snow there was. And with the sun rising, it makes for this great scene.
The sun has been out all morning now. It's a little past 1PM and already the streets are clear, as well as most of the roof facing south. I think the snow will be completely gone by the end of the day. This morning was just a quick preview of what is to come in the next months.
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, November 1, 2005
The Barenaked Ladies are touring between now and the end of the year, coming to Calgary on December 19th. We will be there, in the first balcony, row J. Got the tickets as soon as they came on sale.
Today, I checked to make sure BNL didn't release a new album I hadn't heard about. They didn't. But I did come across the group's blog where they mention that they are currently recording a ton of songs for the next album, which we can only hope will be out early next year. The blog is quite the interesting read; I'll see how often it is maintained and just might make it a part of my daily reading...
And so I've been listening to a random of all BNL songs I own since the weekend. It kinda scares Vero that I can sing every single word...
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, October 31, 2005
I realized that a lot of my entries talk about the weather. So I finally decided to get it out of the way: I added a little module from The Weather Network that displays the current weather in Calgary! Well, as current as they have it, at least, which is updated pretty regularly.
The module is located in the right sidebar, under the links section (so you might have to scroll down a bit to see it).
Enjoy!
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, October 28, 2005
Air, it's a good thing.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, October 27, 2005
You might have gathered from yesterday's post (and a bunch of previous ones) that I watch Space a lot. When working from home, having human voices in the room really helps. They have good shows, Space, much better than watching the soaps of "daytime television" -- although usually not as completely out there.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, my afternoons started with a good doze of Buffy. It played every day, and so I watched it. And life was good.
Now they are playing Dark Angel. Yuk. I wished they, at least, had played Buffy until the last episode instead of not showing the last season at all. Then they could have replaced it with Angel or something. I mean, the old Battlestar Galactica in place of Relic Hunter is fine by me. But Dark Angel? Come on.
With that, my constant watching of Firefly and the Serenity movie that will be added to my collection as soon as it comes out, I really should buy me a t-shirt...
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, October 26, 2005
This morning, on Space, was the weekly episode of Firefly, which happened to be Jaynestown, one of my favorite. That episode makes me laugh out loud every time. Heck, I was reading through the script and laughing.
The reason I read the script is to find the lyrics to the song, that "Ballad of Jayne". And as you would expect, but still be surprised to learn, someone tabbed it.
That song is now in my repertoire!
(Ok, my repertoire at the moment is that song and that other from Clapton which I can't quite remember the lyrics for. But as soon as I get back to actively playing my repertoire will include this song!)
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Today is one of those days where I feel like a chicken that just got his head cut off. Running around like an idiot, doing a ton of stuff completely unrelated to each other, trying to get things done only to realize that it's quitting time and my to-do list is just as full as it was when the whole mess started.
Even this entry. I started it about 30 minutes ago and just now got the chance to get back on it. And I'll submit it with this feeling of "it's not quite complete", but thinking it's better than waiting until tomorrow...
Man I can't wait to get some time off.
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, October 24, 2005
Warning: this entry contains explicit material not suited for younger readers. If your kid reads this and starts repeating the bad words, it's your damn fault, k?
Language is a powerful thing. I mean, nuclear bombs ain't got nothing on this stuff. To think that two sounds put together, say "you" and "suck", can actually convey images and emotions is mind-boggling. I can't wait for us to find the babel fish, 'cause from where I'm standing the fact that we managed to create so many different coherent ways of communicating is the most improbable thing ever. Forget sliced bread and the wheel, this is the shitnitz.
I won't go into that l33t sp34k kids are throwing around these days. First I don't understand most of it, and second it'll make me want to grab one by the neck and squeeze until he admits that "ZOMG" doesn't make any sense. Grr.
What I mean is: wow, check out that language stuff doesn't that blow your mind? I can communicate in French and English somewhat fluently (although my spelling sucks just about as bad as them l33t punk ass kids) (man, them kids, I just wanna... grr!) and it occurred to me a couple of times in my life that I would like to learn to communicate in other languages too. I took a Japanese class in CEGEP, though that was a complete failure on my part. I learned a couple of words in Spanish from Vero, but I always forget them. But there's this one language that interests me above others: sign language.
I know, I have no reason to learn to sign -- I don't have any mute relatives or friends -- but it's still the coolest thing to me. Past the fact that you can put sounds together to actually express something, to me at least, is this ability to put movements together to express something. Wow. That's really impressive and so darn attractive to me that it makes me wanna sign up for a class.
I can see myself at the supermarket, standing in front of the canned goods while Vero is getting some milk and asking her "do we need soup?" without having to scream. Wouldn't that be the coolest thing? I think it would. If you don't, you're wrong and you suck.
Vero had a sign class in university and she knows a good deal of them. She started teaching me a bunch and, whadayaknow, I remember them. I can even make a sentence! So I know the signs for "water", "boy", "girl", "chocolate", "want" and how to spell my name. But more importantly, I know the signs for "throw up", "shit" and "sex". I'm still trying to figure out if "fuck" is the opposite of "shit", a variation of "sex" or something else. So I can now make sentences, like "I want sex", "you want to shit?" and, the always fun, "chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, throw up".
Ah! good times.
Of course, I'm just using these signs to have fun with Vero, but it leaves me wanting for more. So it's a discussion I started with Vero: should we sign up for an ASL (American Sign Language) class?
To be continued...
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, October 21, 2005
Yet some more talk of the Calgary weather. I'm still getting used to the whole thing, so every time something weird happens it blows my mind. Give it a couple of years and this stuff will become normal...
Until then, this is really freaky.
This is the weather we got yesterday:
The view from behind our house at 12:26PM. Yes, it was snowing. Big time. It melted to water when it hit the roads and sidewalks, but covered the rooftops and grass (and, obviously, barbecues) about a centimeter deep.
The same view, at 6:15PM. That's right, less than six hours later. And the reason it's six hours is because I didn't think of taking a picture earlier, because by 4PM the snow was gone. It's a bit difficult to see with the sun, but look at the large version and you can see it: no snow anywhere.
Freaky, I tell you. I love it!
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, October 20, 2005
If you remember from previous entries, the month of June this year was wet. Very wet. We had two weeks of non-stop rain, rivers overflowing, all kinds of nasties. Well, it wasn't really nasty, more like inconvenient.
This week we received the Waterways news letter, a monthly little piece of paper distributed by the city to keep us up to date on what's going on with the city's water. In it is a section about the floods of June, "by the number" as they say.
Average rainfall for June (years 1971-2000): 79.8 mm
Average rainfall for June 2005: 376.5 mm
Wow. People told me the constant rain was not typical of the region. I really believe them now.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, October 19, 2005
When I first visited Calgary, a local I talked to told me that the best part of the city was the sunset. I didn't get a chance to experience it then, but I do now every day and, lemme tell you, they ain't lying.
That local just forgot to mention the sunrise.
The sun setting over the mountains, which we have a view of from our living room, is amazing. The sun rising, which I have a view of from my office, is just as spectacular. It needs the right conditions: just the right amount of clouds in just the right spot so the sun can shine on their undersides. Lucky for us, that happens very often.
The sun does not rise over the mountains, obviously, but shines in their direction, making them look more orange and red than usual. It's tough to make out the mountains from the picture, but very easy when you're standing there. The best part is the color of the clouds, such a contrast to the ones on the other side of the house, the next picture. Both pictures were taken within four minutes of each other.
You can't really see much of my desk because of the different light levels inside and outside of the house, but you can clearly see the view I have: a sky that seems to be on fire.
I took a similar picture a little while ago, which I put in my daily picture. It's in the same direction as my office's view, except it doesn't have the neighboring houses in the way.
Alberta is known for it's impossibly beautiful skies, and I can confirm that. Some of our visitors were never lucky enough to see it, but quite often we have sunrises and sunsets that seem to set the sky on fire, and quite often we have the deepest blue skies you have ever seen. Combined with the mountains, it makes for a really great outdoor experience, and we try to take advantage of it as much as possible.
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, October 18, 2005
There's two types of popcorn in this house: the kind that comes in a Kernels bag and the kind that is stuck on the ceiling.
That first one is the good kind.
A guy just came to "fix" a small area of our ceiling above the dining table. It got damaged one night when some rainwater leaked through the roof. That was a month ago, and since then the roof vent has been changed and the "damaged" ceiling fixed. Good points back to the builder.
I say "damaged" and "fixed" in quotes because, honestly, it wasn't very necessary. I didn't even notice it myself. Just a slight discoloration where water touched during that one night. No biggie.
As the guy is fixing the ceiling, I figured I would ask him what is the best way to remove that popcorn, the bad kind.
I don't like the popcorn ceiling, but now I understand why builders do it. I'd like to get rid of it, but I'm not sure when we'll have the time, the energy and the money to do it...
Here's how it goes:
- Cover everything. And I mean everything. This is going to be nasty...
- Get some form of spraying gizmo and moisturize the ceiling. Not dripping wet, of course, but definitely moist. The stuff comes off much easier that way, apparently.
- Scrape the popcorn. No trick there, just elbow grease.
- Tape and plaster the joints, everywhere.
- Prime.
- Paint.
Step 4 is the tough one. Builders like the popcorn because it saves them that step: the texture hides all imperfections so well that they don't even bother with the plaster. Saves them a lot of effort and drying time for a good enough look. Problem is that when you want to fix it you'll have to take on that work yourself. No simple task.
So the plans to remove the popcorn have been shelved for a little while...
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, October 14, 2005
How much can I read on a plane trip Calgary -> Toronto -> Montreal -> New York -> Toronto -> Calgary? A little more than the 367 pages of R.A. Salvatore's The Thousand Orcs, book 1 of The Hunter's Blade Trilogy, the latest series in the Drizzt books.
Therefore, I'm up to the 16th book about the adventures of Drizzt and friends. Vero is up to the 11th -- The Silent Blade -- and catching up.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, October 12, 2005
I came back from New York last night. I should say this morning, actually, as it was 1AM when I got home. I don't much like traveling for business...
I thus spent two days in New York, in meetings. (There is no "Ting" person, that's just me making a funny.) I showed up at the office at 9AM, sat in a conference room, had lunch in it and finally left the room to leave the building completely. Two days in a row. Yesterday, I had to run out basically mid-sentence from that meeting to catch the already waiting cab that took me to the airport.
So a very busy couple of days.
And now I am back, happy to be home again.
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, October 7, 2005
I'm back in Montreal! I just happened to show up in a humid spell, lucky me. For the first time in over a year, I woke up this morning with a thin film of sweat covering my body. I forgot how much I hate that...
I say it every time I'm in town, but every time I forget what it really means. The humidity here is a big shock for a little Calgary guy like myself; it's not that bad, in the end but, compared to the dry climate I now live in, this place hits you pretty hard.
But it's all good in the end. I have a chance to go out with good friends and eat good food and see a good (and not so good) movies. So I can't complain, really, because I'm having a great time.
Other than complain about the humidity. Because I'm human, after all, and complaining is my birthright!
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Believe it or not, they are releasing a movie based on the Doom game. I think it's actually based on the first game, not the second or third.
I have mixed feelings about the previews. I mean, how good can a movie about that game be? Plus you have the Rock as Sarge. Oy. On the other hand, they seem to have some first person perspective (all you see on screen is the hallway and a gun bobbing around), they actually use the chainsaw and it's just possible that they are taking this with a grain of salt the size of Mars. So I'm on the fence: I don't know if they'll just try to scare us with stuff jumping from around every corner or actually try to entertain us by bringing back the excitement we enjoyed playing the game.
It's coming out October 21st. I think I'll check some user reviews and decide whether I spend the money to see it in theatre or just wait for the DVD...
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, October 4, 2005
And like a flash it came to me: that's what I wanted to write about!
A little while ago we went with a friend to "the beach". The beach is this rather large lake about an hour and a half away from the city. It's basically the only one around and man was it ever packed. We had to squeeze ourselves into a small patch of sand, after having spent a good half hour looking for a parking spot. Quite the experience.
But that's not what I wanted to write about.
Our friend borrowed his sister's minivan and her two kids. Two really nice kids, a little under 10 years old both, nice to each other, smart and respectful of uncle's authority. I don't know the parents, but they did good.
That's also not what I wanted to write about.
Here is what I do want to write about. The minivan had a video entertainment system; a DVD player in the dashboard and a TV in the roof just behind the front seats. Once we got on the highway, we put on a movie for the kids which they listened to using cordless headsets.
I'm one of the people that have been dissing DVDs in cars. What is that all about, I've been asking? Why would you ever want something like that, which you can't even use while driving? My car is not so comfortable that I will rent movies to watch in there.
But I don't have kids. And now that I've experienced kids on a road trip my views have changed.
As soon as the movie started, silence took over the van. The kids weren't loud or annoying and didn't need any kind of discipline whatsoever to begin with -- like I said before, really nice kids -- but they were still kids and needed attention. As soon as the movie started, silence. Not a sound, other than the occasional muted laugh.
If you have kids, start thinking about getting a vehicle with a DVD system. If you ever wish to make road trips, it will save you from madness.
But do seriously consider the cordless headset. Without them, the sound comes out of the car radio. Not that it's a big problem, but what the headset gives you, that the car radio can't, is isolation. By putting headsets on your kids, you isolate them from each other. It practically eliminates all interaction with each other (the same way the movie practically eliminates all interaction with you), thus drastically reducing the likelihood of confrontation. Without headsets there is a chance they will start fighting with each other; with headsets, they basically forget each other exists.
Don't get me wrong, though: I'm not suggesting you isolate your kids from yourself and each other just so you don't have to deal with the noise. What I am suggesting is that during a road trip, when everyone is stuck in the same little confined space with no hope of moving around, isolating and distracting your kids is not such a bad idea. Lets face it: a car is not a fun place for a kid to spend hours and hours. But a DVD system does make it a lot more fun.
And that is why I will consider having a DVD in a future vehicle, when we have kids old enough to understand what the pretty moving images are.
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, October 3, 2005
Last night was the premiere of Canada's Worst Driver, a new "reality" show on the Discovery Channel.
The premise is simple(-ish): they took eight people from across Canada that were nominated by friends or loved ones as "the worst". These eight people, along with their nominators, will spend some time in a "driving rehabilitation center" where they will be evaluated and taught driving skills in an effort to make them better drivers.
I like the idea of the show. They have a good sample of different "bad" drivers, from a couple of speed demons to some very infrequent drivers, basically covering the range of the bad drivers we share the road with every day. In theory, the show is not just about singling one as THE worst, but doing so by making everybody improve their skills through coaching and practice -- that's a good idea to me. In application, the show is quite over-dramatic with the host going on long rants to blast these poor skill-less souls. I could live without that part, but short of that the show is quite a positive one.
Watching the show, now that is scary.
First of all, they introduce the drivers by mentioning their "rap sheet". You have people with more than 30 reported accidents (which excludes minor dents that nobody else saw). One has gone through 10 cars in the last 20 years. One has a paralyzing fear of left turns -- I'm not even kidding. Quite... mind boggling. All these people have their driver's license and most of them drive every day.
In the show, they set up some driving challenges, little obstacle courses they have to drive through, where the goal is, quite basically, to not trash the car. Luckily they are driving old cars used only for the show, because after the drivers go through the course the cars need some serious body work. The host, a regular actor and nothing particularly special behind the wheel, goes through the course first to set the bar. Every time he, and the car, comes out unscathed. Then the "contestants" go at it and side mirrors start flying off, cardboard pedestrians get run over and the sweet sound of metal-on-metal makes you cringe.
For most of the challenges, the host sets the bar at a decent height -- say 2 minutes here, 5 minutes there or 45 seconds to parallel park -- then you see the other drivers take 10, 15, 20 minutes -- one actually took an hour! -- and try to parallel park 17 times in 20 minutes...
They also had one where they showed the drivers five actual road signs and only one guy got all of them right. And they weren't particularly difficult, like two cars side by side with a red circle around and a bar across, which means "no passing". I mean, most of them couldn't answer that! And you should hear what they do answer!
The first two episodes were last night, with the other episodes scheduled, I believe, for every night this week. I think it's worth watching out of curiosity just like an accident on the highway is intriguing, though with this show you're not causing traffic by stopping to watch. Plus, it's quite likely that the highway accident was caused by, or involved, one of these drivers...
Check out the show's website, particularly the "drivers" section where they have a short description of each. Quite the interesting read...
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, September 30, 2005
I couldn't really say anything before because it wasn't official. But it's official now, so here goes:
Nobody go to the movies this weekend!
Here's the long story. My new manager wants his new team to meet to kick off the new project. There's me in Calgary, a guy in Montreal and another in New York. The manager had already a trip to Montreal planned for next week, October 6th and 7th, so he figured we could all meet there. Great, I thought, a free trip to Montreal!
So I started looking into how possible it is. Before I could get a final answer, the manager came back and said that the New York guy can't make it so we now all have to go to New York on October 10th and 11th. That sucked.
As I was checking the flights from Calgary to New York, I noticed that all of them stop either in Toronto or Montreal. So I figured "what's the difference between a one hour layover in Montreal and a couple of days layover in Montreal?" The answer: 192$ cheaper to spend four days there.
So I decided to combine the two: I now have a flight from Calgary to Montreal on October 5th and another from Montreal to New York on October 9th.
I will be in Montreal next weekend!
So everybody must now wait for me so we can see the movie together!
I will be working both weekdays in the Compuware offices (downtown Montreal), but I do have those nights available. Plus Saturday and Sunday until noon-ish. I don't think I'll have the time to drive over to Sainte-Agathe to see the folks, but there is an Electrifying Baby I'd love to meet!
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, September 29, 2005
Last night was the night Véro and I agreed to make "house cleaning night". We need to clean the house and we just hate doing it over the weekend when we could be outside doing something more fun. So we agreed to make Wednesday night the night when you reluctantly force yourself to just get it done.
Last night, then, Véro got home early after a full day of parent meetings, walked up to my office, gave me a kiss and said "screw the cleaning, let's go out to dinner and see a movie".
So we didn't clean the house, instead going out to get a burger. There wasn't any good movies playing at the nearest theatre so we came back home and watched TV. That turned an expected pain-in-the-ass night into a really nice one.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, September 28, 2005
As I sat down to begin my work day I thought of the perfect topic for an entry. I almost wrote it down just to make sure I remember, but I figured 30 minutes is not long enough to forget.
I was wrong.
So I'll fill this up with my "backup" topic, from an evening of watching my Family Guy DVD.
In the episode Road to Rhode Island, Brian (the dog) finds himself at the ranch where he was born -- where he was taken away from his mother at a very young age. The owner tells him that his mother passed a year before, but they loved her so much they had her stuffed and placed in their living room (to serve as a table). Somewhat outraged, Brian "kidnaps" his mother's body to burry in the park.
Then Brian and Stewie (the baby) have a quick dialog.
Brian: "Say something."
Stewie: "What?"
"Just say something, please!"
"Oh for God's sake. Hum. Ye and God said to Abraham, you will kill your son Isaac. And Abraham said, I can't hear you, you'll have to speak into the microphone. And God said, oh I'm sorry is this better? Check check, check, Jerry pull the high end out I'm still getting some hiss back here."
"Say something about my mother!"
"Oh yes, hum, sorry. Hum. I never knew Biscuit as a dog, but I did know her as a table. She was sturdy, all four legs the same length..."
"Thanks, thanks, that's enough."
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, September 26, 2005
We can't remember who we informed. And rather than go over it once more individually, and to help me remember things, we figured it would be best to post it here.
After all, that's the point: reach everyone in one quick shot and have proof that Véro can use against me for when I forget.
We will not be traveling to Montreal this Christmas.
It was great to see everyone last year, but we came back home the day before going back to work basically more tired than when we left. This year, we considered going for one week instead of two, but in the end our need to rest and monetary constraints (with the new house and all) voted in favor is staying. We don't feel too bad considering that we saw everyone during the year and everyone will be over for our wedding next summer, so it works out.
This will therefore be our first Christmas out West. I promise a picture of a red cowboy hat with Christmas lights around it!
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, September 23, 2005
I feel like I'm the last guy on the planet that learned of this. But in case I'm not and the rock I've been hiding under is large enough to cover a couple of y'all, here's something I learned of this week.
Podcasts.
From what I understand, podcasts are audio (and now video, in some cases) broadcasts over RSS feeds. As un-specific as that. It's generally one or more people in their basements recording an MP3 and making it available on whatever server they can find.
Whether any of that made sense to you is irrelevant. The important part comes.
Up to a little while ago, finding podcasts was a pain. There was no single repository you could search to find them. Actually, there was but it wasn't known or promoted to the general public.
With iTunes 5.0, Apple has introduced podcasts to a much broader audience. iTunes now has a podcast search function (through their music store) which allows you to search for, find and subscribe to podcasts. Subscribing is free and unauthenticated (you don't need to register or provide any information) and tells iTunes to check for updates to that podcast every minute / hour / day / week / whatever. Podcasters now have a means of reaching a much larger audience, including the less technologically savvy.
That audience now includes me.
Before Mr. Electrifying Daddy told me about podcasts, I didn't have a clue what they were. Even after he explained I didn't really get it. Until I tried it for myself.
Once you filter out all the crap, of course, this thing is pretty freaking cool. What amazes me the most is how, by having iTunes do the work, your podcasts are integrated with your iPod.
So picture this, what I think is the target goal of these technologies:
In your automated house (where a computer runs most of the electronic devices), you have a computer running 24 hours a day. Apple figures you're gonna use iTunes as your "jukebox" application, the thing that will serve music to your house, so that too will run all the times. You subscribe to the news podcast from CNN or CBS or whathaveyou so that iTunes will download it every night or morning, whenever it is updated. When you come home from work, you put your iPod in its cradle to be sync-ed and recharged. So when iTunes downloads the latest news podcast, it's automatically transferred to your iPod. When you leave for work in the morning, you grab the iPod. Sitting in the train you can now listen to the news instead of fumbling around with a large newspaper.
Now that I find really cool.
It absolutely does not apply to me because I could hardly care less about the news. And I work from home anyway. But I did find podcasts worthy of mention:
For the technology geeks out there: This Week in TECH (a.k.a. TWiT) and Diggnation. The weekly podcasts last between 30 minutes and one hour, more or less, of two or more guys talking about the tech stuff that made the news over the last week. They also give you a bunch of links to cool stuff you probably didn't see.
For the blues fan: The Roadhouse. A weekly one hour show of the best blues you never heard. All about independent artist creating some of the best blues you would never hear otherwise.
So far those are the only ones I found. I haven't had a chance to search for stuff in more depth, but I'll try and share the cool ones I come across.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, September 22, 2005
Last night I rented Ong Bak - The Thai Warrior. I think everyone saw the previews to that, claiming Tony Jaa as the next Jet Li and Jackie Chan combined.
Jaa plays a fighter trained by monks in a small village of Thailand. So his character is the strong, quiet type. I listened to the movie in English then went back to hear his Thai voice and I had to do a lot of skipping to find a moment when he said more than two words. That's not a criticism, it worked fine for the movie, but it gives you an idea.
The fighting style, which really is the whole point of the movie, is interesting. Very direct and to the point, but with lots of acrobatics that seem to serve as a distraction to get your point across (or your fist). Lots of elbows to the head, too. All in all, makes me not want to fight Jaa, even if it is all staged.
Other than fights, the movie is acceptable. A cute little story about country boy in the city. The plot holds itself together and is believable -- he doesn't just start fighting out of the blue, you can see how he gets there. Of course, the "bad guys" are really out there, but that's part of the fun of it, isn't it?
Although I won't be buying that DVD, I recommend everyone who hasn't seen it to rent it. And it's ok for the wife, too (even if mine hasn't seen it): not a whole lot of blood or overly dramatic fights, so it won't end with your wife looking at you with them you-are-such-a-dork-for-loving-stuff-like-this eyes.
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, September 21, 2005
The lady from the builder's office called back on Monday and scheduled a visit from the warantee manager for today. He showed up 30 minutes late, but at least he showed up.
It took 15 minutes, as I expected. Which is another thing that pisses me off about last week: not only did they not show up or call, but they ignored us simply to save 15 minutes of their day.
At least this guy took a good look around and offered something constructive. He will have a bunch of people come in to check / change a bunch of stuff, including some very minor cosmetic touch ups that, frankly, I don't really mind to begin with.
And, of course, the time line. They are overworked and undermanned (aren't we all?) so he can't promise when these guys can come in to work on it. Eh. I expect them before the next century.
I don't really care, honestly, because this is a very minor thing and fixing it is just a question of prevention. The important part is that it is now their problem would it happen again and something gets damaged.
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, September 19, 2005
I have a routine in the morning. For weekdays, at least. I like my routine because it allows me to be on time for work and get most of it done while sleeping.
But if I look at my routine, considering I've been doing it exactly the same way for over a year now, and some adaptation of it for over five years, you'd think I was in one of Vero's classes...
(Vero works with special needs kids and the best way to have a working classroom is to have a very, very strict routine and stick to it as if death was waiting for you to slip.)
The alarm clock sounds at 6am. I get up between 6:00 and 6:10, depending on how much sleep I'm catching up with...
Then jump in the shower, get dressed and get some breakfast. Depending on when I got up, it's now between 6:20 and 6:30. I sit in front of the TV to eat breakfast because the noise of human beings already awake helps me to get ready to talk to people -- which is coming up soon. At 6:47, exactly, I walk back upstairs, stop by the office to turn the (very slow to boot) laptop, walk to the bathroom to put on my contact lenses and brush my teeth, walk back to the office to log in the laptop and connect to the office. I am logged in, ready to work, at 6:59. (Note: I work with people two time zones ahead of me, so it's 8:59 for them.)
Most days, I just do that while half asleep. Days like today, I realize what I'm doing and how I'm doing it exactly the same every single weekday and I'm thinking that, on some level, there isn't much difference between me and some of the kids in Vero's class...
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, September 16, 2005
Our house was built by Homes by Avi. It's a spec house, which means they decided to build it and sell it after, as is (as opposed to the other houses where you buy the lot and the house and they start building then). So far, the house is of great quality and their service has been outstanding.
Until last Sunday.
We woke up last Sunday thinking we would go take a quick hike in the Rockies. When we got to the dining room (officiall known as the "breakfast nook"), we found water. It was dropping down from the light fixture onto the table, then off the table onto the hardwood floors. The floor shows signs of tiny buckling at some joints.
It had been raining hard that night, with lots of wind. No doubt it's a simple question of rain making it's way up into the roof above (the second floor does not extend over it). Still, I opted for the safe route and called the builder's office to get emergency support. It's not exactly an emergency, but it being the weekend that was my only option. I also chose to leave the place as is, mostly making sure we don't turn on that light, so that the guys could see it undisturbed.
That was Sunday, early morning. I left a message on some pager. Not knowing what else to do, I also left a message on the voice mail of the lady in charge of all that stuff, which she would get on Monday morning.
The on-call guy called back pretty quickly. He said he has stuff to do but was in the area and would drop by around 11am (it was 9am at the time). So half of our day is shut but we still got some time.
I should mention that I have no way to reach the guy. He leaves me no phone number and call display shows "blocked call".
Thus begins the wait.
At 6pm we finally get a call from the guy who said he forgot about us. And now it's too late to do anything about it. Nice. We just wasted our whole day waiting for him, not even daring to go out in case he called. But he knows I work from home so he says he'll drop by on Monday.
Monday morning the lady calls back. I tell her I got in touch with the guy who forgot about us on Sunday but should show up today. She says she'll send him an email and follow up.
Monday goes by and no guy shows up or calls.
Tuesday goes by, idem.
Wednesday morning I call back the lady and leave her a message saying I haven't heard anything from the guy (and don't have a contact number).
Wednesday wastes away.
Thursday comes and goes. A bit before 6pm, while we're out to dinner, the lady calls back and asks to call her to setup an appointment with some other guy (seems to be the first guy's boss). She doesn't know I work from home, which is probably why she called at night.
This morning, 9:10am I called the lady back. Her message was updated today, so I know she's in, but I leave a message (again) saying to call back anytime during the day since I'm at the house.
What a great week this has been. A week of waiting for calls that never come and of staying away from our dining room just so they have a chance to see the problem. I don't mind them not coming right over, this isn't such a big deal, but I do mind the part where they say they'll be there and never show up and don't even bother to call.
So far, they are losing some points. They are still in the black, this company has a great reputation and has been good to us so far, but it's steadily going down.
I'll keep y'all posted.
By Mathieu Legault - Thursday, September 15, 2005
This is the scene I have in my head, which I'm quite sure has nothing to do with what really happened:
Actor, needs to pay for bills, needs a job, hears that Andromeda needs someone for their next episode. Some guy explains what the role is:
"You're an ambassador for this group of fanatically peaceful people. You just came back from dealing with the Magog, the most evil race in all of the Universes."
"So I'm important."
"And peaceful."
"Fanatically peaceful."
"Exactly. This is the beginning of the episode; you talk to the captain, that's your ten lines right there. Then you convulse a little, fall down, puke this green stuff here -- it tastes like ketchup -- and we'll make your belly explode and little baby Magogs come out. Because that's how they reproduce, you know."
"I'll take it! And I'm guessing my character doesn't come back in future episode, right?"
By Mathieu Legault - Wednesday, September 14, 2005
I bought the Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy DVD yesterday. It came with a cute little (cheap) towel with the H2G2 logo on it. Since it's so small, I'll be carrying it everywhere I go like the hoopy that I am. Because we all know I'm a frood who really knows where my towel is.
I also got a large bag of Kernels popcorn and a small bottle of Coke. Vero is working (very) late tonight, so it'll be a movie party in here and I'm invited!
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, September 13, 2005
A friend sent me this link: http://www.cfsl.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22455. It shows, believe it or not, how to make an X-Wing fighter using two Paris subway ticket stubs.
The first picture alone is enough to make the trip over to that site worth it.
If you don't know what an X-Wing is... well, check it out anyway, it's still amazing.
(English note: the post has an English version in it, just read down a bit.)
Take note that the Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy DVD is out TODAY! And if you buy it at a FutureShop you will get a free towel (while supplies last). I think FS is one of the worst places to buy stuff, but with that deal I just might be tempted.
On a security note, my manager sent me a Dilbert strip this morning. I think the punch line is a good representation of the escalating security techniques in businesses today (or at least what it feels like):
And starting today, all passwords
must contain letters, numbers, doodles,
sign language and squirrel noises.
-- Dilbert's boss
By Mathieu Legault - Monday, September 12, 2005
Serenity, the movie that continues the story of the show Firefly, is coming out September 30th. 'Nuf said.
I know I will be in line (some time soon after that).
By Mathieu Legault - Friday, September 9, 2005
I don't know what's wrong with me today, but the bathroom has been my favorite place. Nothing bad, not like I'm sick, but good God! did I ever needed to pee.
Every time I raised my head from off the desk where I was working on a hole created from my forehead -- I figure banging my head on the desk is less dangerous than jumping off a bridge, specially when you have vertigo and there's no bridge around -- the first thought that came was "man do I need to pee, badly."
What the heck? I drank, like, two glasses of water and had to pee, like, five times! Holy cow! That must be a new record. Well, at least for me. Or it might be had I been keeping track, but why the heck would I do that?
Just sharing this with y'all is good enough for me.
(Thank the Gods it's the weekend...)
By Mathieu Legault - Tuesday, September 6, 2005
This weekend we did two things: head out to Jasper and see the movie Transporter 2. The movie review is in the last four paragraphs.
This being a long weekend, we figured we would take the time to (finally!) go to Jasper, in Jasper National Park. Not to be confused with Jasper, Wyoming, like my New York co-worker did. Oddly enough, when we talk of going camping for the weekend we head out to one of Canada's many national parks, not some town in the US. But it's easy to confuse the two.
The trip from Calgary to Jasper is something like 430km. We're not entirely sure because every map gave us a different value; and I didn't think to reset the trip odometer when we left. Bottom line: it takes about 4 1/2 hours, with few stops.
Jasper National Park is the Rockies' most northerly and largest national park in Canada. It also has the distinction, in my mind, of having just the one town in it and no other settlements whatsoever. So you get to drive for a loooong time in the middle of nowhere, and just around the corner is more lack of civilization, until you reach the town at the complete end of the highway. I love that park!
But if you think Banff and Lake Louise are busy, you ain't seen nothing yet! This was the first week of September, the last weekend for the national campgrounds (they are now closed for the winter) and the place was booked solid. Places that showed vacancy when we got there were full only hours later. So here's the lesson, kids: if you want to go there, leave early! (Or do the smart thing and make a reservation.)
We only stayed for two days and we were lucky enough to get rained on the whole time. Great. So the town and trails looked kinda ordinary with no mountains around (they were all hidden in the clouds). But we did get some breaks in the clouds and got to see some really neat stuff -- not the least of which was a lake filled with little icebergs!
You can see our pictures in our Jasper National Park album.
Even though the weather wasn't cooperating, we had a great time. We will definitely go back next summer! And we do recommend the trip to anyone interested, although we don't yet have a lot of specifics on what to see and where to go. But we're working on it!
That's all for the park for today. Now for the movie bit.
Back home, on holiday Monday, we went to the theatre to see Transporter 2. Although the story holds on its own without having seen the first movie, I still recommend renting it if only because it's a really entertaining movie. I wasn't sure what to expect of the second one, as I figured Hollywood would step in with its own view of what makes a good movie...
As expected, our hero now lives in the US. They make that clear right from the beginning with the intro scene that matches the one from the first movie, except this time the license plate of the car is really obvious. But what surprised me, in a good way, is to see Luc Besson's name in the opening credits. Lucky for us, they kept him on board.
It's a very entertaining movie. Very much over-the-top, of course, but quite funny, with spectacular fight scenes and a lot of references to the first movie (but in subtle ways, like fight moves). Only two things get a bad grade from me: the way the bomb is removed from the car (I won't spoil that) and the evil chick. You see her on the first page of the web site. She's probably an attractive lady, but with the make up and silly costume it just doesn't work. I don't think "silly" is strong enough a word for her "costume". Go see the movie, you'll know what I mean...
In the end, I give this movie a good grade. Turn your brain off and enjoy the show -- and don't be afraid to laugh! So find yourself a babysitter, John, and get yer ass to a theatre. Oh! and I will buy the DVD.
