E-Filler Archives

From the CBC. At tomorrow's game, the Ottawa Renegades will be giving male fans beads as they enter the stadium. The female fan who collects the most beads during the game wins $1000. Of course the club is not officially encouraging the women to flash their glorious racks, but you have to think some of the women there will be thinking ambitiously.

Seems like a pretty good idea to me. Personally I think we should try the same thing in lectures (or labs, whatever) at university.

I guess we also know now why Jason went to Ottawa this weekend....

Since there's nothing else being posted on here, let me ask the following question: What's up with skill testing questions and contests? I think this phenomenon is uniquely Canadian (but I could be wrong). If so, what's the law say up here that it doesn't in the US? And what about 'No Purchase Necessary'? So many questions...

The IMO yesterday asked us Ontarians to conserve power becuase the striking Ontario Hydro employees forced the partical shutdown of Naicoke power plant. Well, if you're wondering just how close to doom we really are, you can check out the IMO's webpage. The IMO is the Independant Market Operator. If I understand correctly, they buy power from the power stations (both here and in the US/Quebec) and manage the distribution to consumers.

They've even got some pretty graphs. It says the record energy usage was Aug. 2002 (25,400 MW)...why were we gobbling up so much juice then?

Background. Don Boudria is a Liberal MP. Some people registered donboudria.ca and set up a site encouraging anti-same-sex-marriage people to write and complain to Don Boudria. Don Boudria was mad, thinking people would think the site was his site. Conservative MP Jason Kenney called Don Boudria "stupefiedly ignorant" in the House of Commons for not registering the domain first. Our good friend Rick Mercer then registered jasonkenney.org and redirected it to the Marxist-Leninist Party's homepage.

On Rick's blog, he asked for suggestions for better places to redirect it. From today's post:

The suggestions as to where JasonKenney.org should point are flooding in. I am pleased to tell you that many are totally obscene! One “avid reader” suggested a link that took me to a place that I did not know existed. A dark place, a scary place, a place with the word goat in it. There will be no link. I don’t want to be up on charges this early in the game.

Anyone who has seen the scary place will know immediately what he's talking about. Poor Kenney.

At Dan's behest, I have to write something about the flooding here in southern Alberta (where I am right now). Dan wanted pictures, but I don't have a camera, so I guess you're going to have to use your imaginations. There's not much I could show you in pictures anyway. Just imagine rivers like they usually are, except way bigger and faster and browner.

I flew into Calgary Friday night. We got held up in the sky for a while, and then when they did let us touch down, we had to stay on the plane for about 15 minutes because they wouldn't let airport staff on the tarmack (due to lightning in the area), and hence they couldn't set up the gate for us. The drive from the airport was fun. A little bit of hydroplaning action. Good times.

In the newer neighbourhoods (where my parents live) they have recessed soccer fields which double as emergency storm water run-off holding areas. I'd never seen any fill up with water before this week, but they were all full to capacity by our place.

Sunday we went hiking in the Rockies. The mountains, I understand, got snow instead of rain. We were hiking at a pretty low altitude (under 2000m), but there was still snow around, which is unusual for June. The trails were soft. We heard and saw a number of small avalanches on our mountain and adjacent mountains, too. Other than that, nothing unusual.

Monday the rain finally stopped. This was also the day that the mayor of Calgary introduced a water restriction. Because the flood water has so much silt/dirt/etc., water treatment plants are at reduced capacity. Thus, since Monday, non-commerical outside use of water (such as watering your lawn or car) will net you a $500 fine. The water ban is a bit funny, in that is only applies to non-commercial use. So car washes are still open and running legally, but you're not allowed to wash your car on your own property (unless you do it inside...somehow). Nonetheless, water demand has dropped down below supply, so the city is happy, and hopefully the water ban can be lifted by the end of the week.

Monday is also the day I went to visit the Calgary Zoo. Much of the zoo was closed due to flooding. The tunnel to the lions, for example, was underwater, so no one could go see them. Poor lonely lions :(

Yesterday and today I went camping out in the foothills (only about an hour out of Calgary). Pretty hot and sunny both days, too, pushing 30 degrees. Not hot enough to dry up the ground, though. The river by our campground was still really swollen and dirty, running fast. The trails were soft and actually really muddy in spots, but we were on horseback, so it was no problem. As long as it's the horse who has to walk through the mud and not me, I'm happy :)

There were a number of landslides in and around Calgary. Any time you see some sharp cliffs or hills (especially out by the foothills), you'll likely see a spot where the side of the hill has fallen down. The LRT station right by our house in Calgary actually, the side of the hill by the parking lot slid down. Nothing too serious, though.

It didn't affect me much, really. Streets were closed, but other than that, no problem. Houses that were built right on the Elbow River in Calgary were flooded and the residents were evacuated (sometimes with only 3 hours notice), but that's the rich neighbourhood, so no one cares about those millionaire crybabies. They'll probably get to go back home and by new furniture this week anyway. The Bow River (the major river in Calgary) doesn't have any houses on it that I can think of, as it has walkways along the banks, but pedestrian bridges over the river were a little iffy to use I heard.

I've only heard of one death caused by the flooding (guy went off the highway, rolled into a puddle and drowned). There are a couple people missing, including a 15 year-old Calgary girl who disappeared on one of the aforementioned pedestrian bridges. But all things considered, Albertans got off pretty lucky. There are a lot of communities outside of Calgary that got completely flooded, but I guess they evacuated pretty well. The town of Red Deer was expecting really bad flooding, but as luck would have it, one of their tributaries got a log jam just before the crest came, so they were saved. Hooray.

Ralph Klein declared a state of emergency a while back. I think he's put up $55 million to help people out (that number will probably grow quite a bit). He may have to cut down on drinking for the next couple of days to save up the $55 million.

Hey Hey!
I have some net time left so here is a little update.

Let me first start by saying that greece is one of the most beautiful and diverse place Ive been to. The contrasting lands are incredible. The islands are great, each one has its own personality and vibe. Im just about to leave Corfu (yes I stayed at the Pink Palace) tonight on an overnight ferry to Italy. I rented a scooter and booted around the island the other day (I did the same in Santorini). Its pretty fun stuff and a great way to see more of the island. Staying at the pink palace one doesnt get to take in much of the local culture, so the scooter was a must. They also dont care much for traffic laws here in Greece, helmets are pretty much optional and speedlimits only a suggestion.
I have also been dominating the foosball tables over here in Europe. Last Saturday myself and a dude from New Orleans ran the table the entire nite, retiring undefeated(it took 5 games before we allowed a goal to be scored on us).
After a short run thru Italy, I am going to be hightailing it to somewhere to work for a bit. I havnt decided yet, but Lagos portugal is the front runner as a good place to spend a month as it is on a beach and they have no qualms hiring illegals there.
Hope everyone is doing well. Until next post
Brian

Some farmers in Great Britain want the phrase "Couch Potato" removed from the Oxford English dictionary because it gives potatoes (the vegetable) a bad image. They want the phrase replaced with "Couch Slouch". Wow, I hope they win...because if it's not in the dictionary people won't say it any more.

I just returned from the Sound of Music Festival in Burlington this weekend. Sloan played tonight and I must say, I thought they put on a really good show. I'm not sure what other bands were playing as they were the only one I was able to see. I think DDowe was in attendance as well...any pictures?

A new version of Windows, Windows RG (Real Good) has been released. You can preview it here.

Occasionally I like to check out The Daily WTF for a good laugh or two...but yesterday's post takes the cake.

Code:
function isNegative( n ) {
return n != 0 && n / Math.abs( n ) == -1
}

English: If the number isn't zero AND the number divided by the absolute value of itself is negative one, then it's negative.

Looks like JavaScript code to me and the person who wrote it displays a remarkable degree of insight into what a negative number is. The obvious solution (for those not in computer science...although you probably figured this out on your own) is to simply check if the number is less than 0...

This makes me wonder what kind of person finds such a complicated (yet correct) solution for such an easy problem?!

Apparently Michael Jackson is NOT GUILTY.

I guess this finally puts to rest the question of whether or not he's a weirdo.

I have nothing exciting to post, so I'll post a picture of someone cutting dead grass...

It's the 5th hot day this year at the power in my section of town went off for about 2 hours this afternoon. An isolated incident? I sure hope so...but we'll see. The doomsday people have been saying that the electrical grid is overburdened and that power failures on these hot days are going to become a regular occurence. Anyone else have a problem yet?

A new Internet TLD has been created, not to be confused with a BLT or TLC. You're all familiar with the '.ca' Top Level Domain, as well as .com, .net, .org and a few others. The new kid on the block is '.xxx'. This new domain isn't without controversy. I read that critics were claiming that this sends the message that the Internet is an acceptable place for porn...I've got news for those people; whether we like it or not, it's here to stay.

Personally, I think this new TLD is long overdue. It'll make filtering an entire group of sites that much easier. I suppose the converse is also true; people seeking that sort of content will be able to find it. Critics also stated that there is little incentive for existing site operators to move over to the new domain...but it only costs $50/yr (granted, that's about 5x more than a regular .com domain) which is peanuts, so why wouldn't they register? Only time will tell.

It finally happened: Apple is officially switching to Intel processors. The rumor had been floating around for a while, but Steve Jobs confirmed it today. I was a bit skeptical myself. I assumed it wouldn't be the x86 architecture, but it sure is. Apparently the SDK (which is available as of today) comes with a 3.6Ghz P4 (it must be EMT64 enabled) based machine running OSX 10.4.1. Will we all be able to ditch Windows and load OSX on our Intel machines? Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it. :(

Hello from Prague!
I have to first start by saying thanks to Prague for its amazing buildings, old ass history, and beautiful ladies! The funny part is how much girls staying in the hostel are tired of hearing about the hot checzk girls are. They are also pretty crazy as Ive seen on more than oen occasion, guys staying in the hostel come home from the bar with break-the-skin bite marks all over their chest. I can assure everyone that my chest is completely bite-free... for now at least.

In my 4 days here I have managed to pick up one word in the native tongue, bevo (beer). And yes, its because I am drinking it alot. Its justified because its cheaper than a Pepsi or even water. At the grocery store, I get a .5 litre bottle of beer for a whopping 7 Kronus. In perspective, for evey 20 Kronus its a dollar Canadian. Even better put, thats a equal to a 6 pack of bottles (2 litres) for about a buck fifty Canadian.Thank you Prague, thank you once again! I also managed to find a place that allows me to use the net for free as long as I by a beverage... a 20 Kronus pint of bevo it is!

Tomorrow I will be going on a 2 day excursion to the countryside. Its an organized trip that includes a visit to a church decorated by human bones from like plague times or something, and a trip to a boat trip along a river that goes underground through some mountains. So Im pretty excited for that.

Im heading to Berlin after that and then I fly to Athens. So Im sure that it will be nice to to be on the beach for a little while.

My time is running out so I must go. If I werent on a linux I would be uploading pics this time. But free is free.

Brian

Well, I've been back in Canada for a few days now, and I can say that I really miss Japan.

A psychiatrist today testified that Karla Homolka scored a 5 on the test for psychopathic tendencies. I believe this is the same test on which I scored a 6 and Jason scored a 7.

If we hear about a string of unexplained murders happening over Western Canada thes past couple of weeks, I think we'll know who to blame....

I'm sure you'll share my disappointment that the greatest television show ever created in the history of all humanity has been cancelled :(

What's wrong with Edmonton? Some school is going to ban the sale of milk in the school because 2 kids have a milk allergy. Kids will still be allowed to bring their own milk though. Who thought this up exactly? And why just milk? Shouldn't they ban all dairy products? (I'll admit, I don't know much about milk allergies.)

Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier just to tell those two kids not to buy milk? Or if the kids can't handle that, tell the staff "don't sell milk to these two kids"?

This form of 'problem solving' reminds me of this article from the Toronto Star. Apparently TTC drivers don't yell out the names of terminals and large intersections like they're supposed to. So rather than discipline the drivers for not doing their job, they're going to spend millions fitting the buses and street cars with GPS...who thinks this stuff up?