Archive for September, 2004

Well, last Tuesday I picked up the Original Trilogy on DVD, but I didn’t have time to watch it all before I went to New Brunswick. I watched Episode IV last Wednesday while packing and cleaning up. I also was watching with the audio comentary on.

I was stunned with how good the DVD version looked — but because I wasn’t watching too closely, I missed some things. For example the new scenes with Jabba and Han have been re-done again. I checked this morning and the newest Jabba looks much better than the new-young looking-Jabba of the 1997 Special Edition.

There are other things that are cleaned up a bit and slightly massaged that make the movies look better, in my opinion. The biggest mistake change that was made in this 2004 DVD release is in Jedi as you can see. When I saw this online this morning, I was certain it was a hoax. But unfortunately it’s not. Wow.

It only lasts a couple of seconds, but what a change! What a surprize. What a disapointment? I wasn’t very keen when the 1997 release changed the Ewok celebration music to the choir and symphony. I understand why it was done — we need to know that it’s a galactic celebration of liberation from the Empire and not just limited to Endor or the Rebellion — but I didn’t like it. But why show the young Anakin? Ben and Yoda are shown (more or less) as they were when they died. Silly I think.

So, I was looking for random image retreivers this morning. I figured it’d be fun to take keywords from my blog entries and use google to grab an image and stick it in my post. Okay, it could be risky, but how often to I blog about bikinis? Right, well, I went to this one site and this crazy image shows up. Well, it’s a diagram of the congenital heart defect I was born with — which was fixed when I was in grade two but left a cool 52 stitch scar down my chest. Anyways, I thought that was fun. Oh, and if you look at the source of this page, you’ll see a random monkey image grabber.

One of the Fundymen (as they call themselves) brought along a digital camera and has shared some of his photos. Here is a selection from the weekend with a brief overview of the trip.

As a group, we met at the Fundy Wolf Point parking lot and strapped out gear to our backs and out bikes. There were nine of us. I was told that we were going to ride into the campsite about 7km down the “strenuous” trail. It turned into pushing the bike up hills and holding them back down hills for the first 4km. It was tough work, but once we got to the last 3km it was downhill (mostly gentle, sometimes steep) and over roots and rocks. By the end I was so tired it was hard to hold on the brakes.

At the end of the trail, about a kilometre past the campsite, is the seashore at the Bay of Fundy. This map was there that illustrates our route. It states that the second section of the trail (passing over the two forks of the brook) are “moderate” but it wasn’t. The brakes were on full down the hills and it was a tough push up the hills. It’s fair to say it was moderate after the brooks though. Past the campsite there were steep switchbacks down to the beach. We had a great view from our campsite. On Friday when we “rode” out, it was sunny and warm. Sunday was bright and sunny too. Great weather for September. Saturday the fog rolled in. It was cool, but not cold and it didn’t rain — a good day to sit by the fire and play Mafia.

The fire pit was between the cliff with the great view of the bay and the area we slept in. There was a big blue tarp that seven of the guys slept under. Andrew had a hammoc tent strung between two trees and I carted in my colapable cot and slept under the stars. We spent most of our time by the fire cooking, playing games and inhaling smoke.

The ride out on Sunday went much better than the trip in. We had to walk the bikes up the gradual slope about half way to the lot. Then Andrew broke his chain and we didn’t have a tool to fix it. It was okay, we had only to coast down three hills and push up two (at the brooks) and it was a smooth relaxing (we took our time) trip to the cars. Fundy was a good time, and I’d do it again if I was invited. Monday we made the road trip back from Frederickton back to Ottawa and Jenn — it’s good to be home.

Well, I’ve just arrived back in Fredericton, NB after surviving the Fundy camping trip. On the car trip down (with Andrew) I came up with a slogan for the Fundy trip: “Fundy: What We Lack in Substance We Make Up for in Hype.” It became evident to me very quickly that all the purported “hype” was just intended to mislead me and in fact, Fundy was much worse than the hype. My new slogan was “Fundy: Damn Lies!” And while that slogan stuck and was quoted often over the trip, another slogan started coming up time and time again, “Fundy Will Not be Mocked!”

Regardless of the slogans, hype, lies and frustration, I had a good weekend and managed to push myself further that I expected I would. Of course, that’s not saying too much, I was expecting an easy time of it. I learned a few things too:
1. I’m not such a young man anymore.
2. I have no desire to spend time away from my wife in the near future.

Tomorrow, we make the twelve hour drive back to Ottawa and Jenn — sigh. I’m looking forward to that. Perhaps later this week, I’ll give more of a rundown of the events of Fundy 2004.

So, the official result is… I really don’t like being away from Jenn. Regardless, I head off into the wilderness of Fundy National Park this afternoon. Should be a good time. Never the less, send reenforcements — to my heart.

I almost started this entry with “Hey Guys!” I guess that’s telling that I figure I know everyone (all five probably) of you who are reading this. Anyways, on to the substance…

And the winner is: “Hurry up and take the picture. There are 14 other wannabe bands waiting at the kerb. [Note the British spelling.]” by Anonymous on 09.21.04, 11:06 am

There is no list of runner up’s this week because the list of entries was small enough that I was able to choose a clear winner.

I won’t be posting again until next Tuesday. I’m heading off to New Brunswick as part of some crazy Bay of Fundy camping (and not dieing) adventure. If I don’t make it back, blame it on Andrew.

Oh, and in other news, I listened to a really entertaining and thought provoking show on CBC radio yesterday morning about English spelling reform. The Simplified Spelling Society was represented and put forth some interesting arguments why English should move towards a phonetic spelling. Of course there were some other folks on later in the show who had reasons why we shouldn’t.

My first reaction to the show was that I wouldn’t want to change the way we spell things in English (even though we English speakers spell many of the same things differently all over the world.) But as the show went on, I found myself being swayed by the SSS people. Some interesting facts presented were that Canada has a 17% functional illeteracy rate (one of the best of the English speaking world though) and much of it is due to the fact that most of the population has a hard time spelling things. (Yay! I’m not alone!) Countries like Germany and Finland have a much lower illeteracy rate due to a (mostly) phonetic spelling system. Apparently a couple hundred years ago many languages underwent a major reform. Many changed to a phonetic way of spelling to advance the language — English just had a dictionary written.

On the other side, arguments were made that it would be difficult to pheoneticize English because there are so many accents. Which accent would be the basis for spelling? Well, I imagine that other languages that spell (mostly) phonetically have dialects and accents as well. Also, some of the most used languages in the world like Japanese and Chinese are not phonetic nor do the characters represent sound of any sort. They represent words and ideas. Why not treat English words as pictures representing ideas instead of a sting of sounds that confuse people who don’t take the time to memorize how to draw them?

Anyways, it was a really interesting show and while I was glad to hear that I’m in the majority (most people in Canada have a hard time spelling) I still have an inner stickler who would like to be a great speller and gamaticist and all those other wordy things. Oh yeah, and Blogger still refuses to spell check for me.

I don’t feel too worried about letting you in on my little contest entry. I don’t imagine more than a hanfull of people read my blog on a regular basis. If one of you rips me off, I’ll probably be able to track you down. Anyway, what better concept for 8–10 year old kids than pirates, right? So, Polly is the story of a parrot and his pirate who are marooned on a tropical island. Now, here’s where it gets original — the pirate is always coming up with silly plans to rescue himself from the island and his bumbling sidekick pal (Polly) is always messing the plans up (usually by unwittingly exposing the flaws in the pirate’s plans.) There’s also a monkey on the island who drops by from time to time. He’s either going to be a goof-off too, or really smart. I haven’t decided.

I’m also trying my hand at a new technique for drawing the cartoon. You’ll probably recognise my art, but maybe it looks a little more refined or something. Maybe it just looks messy. Who knows. Anyways, you can check out a bit of the cartoon already. It’s just a second or two test of the background and the two main characters. They don’t really do anything yet. But the ocean waves and the volcano smokes. There are no voices. If you’d like to help out with an uncredited story idea, or just other comments, please do!

When I moved to Minneapolis to go to Bible school, I started reading the The Minneapolis Star and Tribune in the morning before class. I actually just read the comics. I found a new comic there called The Norm and I’ve been following it as it paralleled my life (sometime it paralleled closer than other times — if that’s possible) for the past seven years. I missed the first year of The Norm’s existance, and now after eight years, Michael Jantze, the creator, has ended his syndication with King Features and is ready to try it on his own.

The catch is, being the creator of a web comic doesn’t pay as much as national syndication. He’s (or rather, his wife’s) looking for more people to subscribe to the extended features of the website to make continuing the Norm a viable option. I dunno if that’s going to happen, so, it’s best that you check out The Norm while you still can.

Okay, check out mapleshorts.ca and tell me that this isn’t right up my alley? I’ve got just under a month to get it done. The hard part for me will be coming up with an idea — but you can bet your sweet patootie that I’ll be running that through my head for the next few days. By mid-next week I hope to have an idea (or two) so I can start working on it. I figure the final production will end up being about as long as theUnfriendly cartoon and have to be even better in quality. Sounds like fun, eh?

Now, I’ve got to go get pizza sauce for tonight’s calzones.

Update: Did I mention 8-12 year olds is the target audience? Here are my obvious ideas: Pirates, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Castles, Scientists, Space. I figure I can bang a few of them together and get a passable concept or two out of them. Dinosaur Scientists outwitting the dumb cavemen, or Dragon Pirates from Space!

Lots of cars have driven around me in the last day. Most recently I was waiting at an intersection this morning with three other black Jettas. As an aside I heard someone on the Ontario Today Call-In yesterday refer to trafic signals as “traffic signalizers.” Signals will do, thanks.

I’m also apparently the official family car appraisal guy — at least among my sisters-in-law. They figure that I did such a good job choosing my car that I know how to evaluate what makes a good car. Hmm.

The whole car thing started yesterday at lunch where I went out with one of Jenn’s co-workers who is selling her 2000 Golf and wanted someone who kind of knew what they were talking about along to answer the prospective buyer’s questions. I got to drive it around too — good car if you’re interested — but on the way back to the office we witnessed an accident. We were traveling down Industrial Ave. and there was a van turning left in the left lane. A big brown sedan came up behind us and passed us at a pretty good clip — I’d estimate 80–90kph. I was thinking, this guy better make his move soon to get in the right lane because that van is just sitting there waiting to turn. But nope — bang — rear-ended. Both the van and the car jumped forward and up and then came to a rest.

Needless to say, I’ve been watching my rear view miror more carefully in the last day.