Bathroom Etiquette
Hopefully no-one reading this will be educated by my rant, as that is what this will be, but I was this close to calling this article "Stop pissing on the goddamn FLOOR!".
Seriously, I witness gross abominations every single time I go to the A4 men's restroom at my office. For your amusement and education, let me list the offences I have witnessed.
- People taking their laptops into the stalls with them. Why? And even if there was some reason why you HAD to take it in the stall with you...
- People taking their laptops into the stalls with them, and proceeding to use the laptop (I could hear the "ding" sounds of instant messaging) while in the middle of taking a crap.
- People leaving without washing their hands.
- People engaging in conversation while busting a leak at the urinals. Worse if you are in between the people talking. Can you WAIT? Or at least stand beside each other.
- Every other urinal is free but the guy decides to choose the urinal closest to you.
- And my MOST HATED - A putrid pool of piss which accumulates under the same urinal every single day. Someone cannot aim or really hates the cleaning staff, and obviously has a favorite pissing spot.
Honestly, I wish that floor pisser was caught and had his urinal license revoked. If you're that bad, you don't deserve to partake of one of the great pleasures of being a man, you deserve to sit.
Some helpful links for the bathroom retarded, or people from a different "bathroom culture" as some helpful politically correct intellectuals advised me:
What is interesting is that even Islamic bathroom etiquette includes the classic tenets of "not talking while taking a piss" [sic].
Design Resources
I wanted to share some of my favourite design resources on the Internet.
First, the one that I honestly use the most, is Google.
Google Image Search to be specific, or GIS as some people like to shorten it. If you need a reference image for a piece of design, GIS really gives you some quick results. I've used it many times for my professional content, and also for material to create the images I post in my blog.
Second,
deviantART. There are so many talented people out there to get inspiration from. If I need a new wallpaper, that is one of the better places to look for unique and eye-pleasing designs.
Third, another image reference resource, this one specific to photographs, and they are all royalty free to use:
stock.xchng - free stock photography.
Fourth, a bulletin board known as the
Messy CHILLROOM, home of amazing artists like the legendary "
HOON" and others of much reknown on deviantART. Go to "The Hallway" and check out some of the very interesting work that people post, and the insightful constructive critique that follows. Intelligent discussion of art, it's great.
Just today I found this interesting online design magazine. I know there are tons out there, but this one has a really solid offering of clear and well written articles about design. You have to be a subscriber to read their back-issues I think, but they have 3 that are "open" to the public in PDF format and I liked them, so I wanted to share:
Before & After magazine.If you have some good resources to share, maybe even your own art gallery, let me know.
I will give a nod to Cibbuano here, his
photos of asses taken through the hole in the crotch of his pants is most definitely Canadian "ART".
Winter settles over Richmond Hill
This was the beautiful view from my balcony this morning. While people in Edmonton were enjoying temperatures over +10C, we were dealing with a light sprinkling of snow. Of course people here don't know how to drive in snow, so there are accidents and excessively slow drivers. Thank goodness for rear wheel drive and a limited slip differential, I love my fish-tails.
And I finally got my projector hooked up. I had to drill some holes in the cement ceiling, but it worked out without anyone getting electrocuted, breaking his neck, and rotting until the smell drew the attention of the neigbours. In fact, the only difficulties I encountered were the arm strain of pressing straight up as my drill slowly bit into the reinforced cement, and the extra trip I had to make to Home Depot to get larger cement screws after I used a drill bit that was a little too large for the screws I already had.
Soon I was enjoying playing my Gamecube in progressive scan at a screen size of 100"!
Unfortunately right now I am projecting on to my venetian blinds, so if someone happened to be watching
*something-interesting* in projection mode, then the neigbours could possibly be watching too in mirror-image style. A little bird told me about that, thanks for the warning... it's funny because Raymond's mom (from "Everyone Loves Raymond") says this when she sees Raymond's wife has come home with a new DVD player:
Marie Barone: What is a
DVD player? Is it for
pornography?
Debra Barone: Yes, Marie, I bought Ray a porn machine!
Marie Barone: I don't like that, Debra.
But like Derelict said, I wouldn't spend my money on that - otherwise how would I afford all these games!?
Ninjas of the Night
Everyone loves ninjas. AttackBeaver's "
white ninja" is proof positive of that fact. Well, get a load of this,
a machinimation farce of a ninja movie (hint: click "download movie"). It's pretty clever, and the game that is used to make it, "
The Movies", reminds me of this old school program AttackBeaver and Derelict used to use to make hilarious electronic plays at school. I can't remember the name of it but you could have virtual actors enter stage left, stage right etc, and speak lines. Well Beav went a million levels past that with the movies he made with some other weird program on his Mac.
A memorable scene from Beav's play: After violating a cat, the two actors groan about being bored and not knowing what to do. Off stage, the moo of a cow is heard. The two actors look at each other knowingly, smile, and exeunt stage right.
It's hard to remember if it was funnier watching his play, or watching his other two house guests become intensely offended.
Canadian Attack Beaver - you got skills, but where did all your creations go??? Shame on you man... losing comedy gold like that.
Mario Kart DS
I picked up Mario Kart DS for my Nintendo DS last Friday, and I've been enjoying it all weekend. It's great fun, and really brings back great memories of playing the SNES version with all my friends at Derelict or BP's house (I refuse to keep typing BeaverPhear). Usually it was more of a race between the two of those racing fools (since they owned it and thus practiced), but the great thing about the game is that it is full of equalizers that give everyone a chance to have fun. Way in the back? You get a lighting bolt or super mushroom or something to help you get closer to the front.
Well Mario Kart DS honours its roots as it is truly a great game (personally I felt that the GameCube version of Mario Kart wasn't that great - I didn't buy it), and not only does it have the same amazing gameplay as its forebears, but it even includes some "Retro" tracks harkening all the way back to the SNES version. That is just so cool, and something I appreciate a lot. It adds a couple new items, the neatest is the "octopus" that spits black ink on opponents screens to obscure their view, and the cheapest has to be the "flying blue shell" which flies and homes in on the player in first place; it cannot be avoided.
The big deal about Mario Kart DS is that it can be played online. Not only that, but thanks to the Nintendo DS's wireless networking capabilities, it can be played online wirelessly! The downside of online play is that occaisionally you may run into a poor sport that just disconnects when the race isn't going his way. Upside: it's nothing compared to playing computer controlled opponents, it's actually exciting! You get to create a custom emblem for your kart using the touch pad and a decent 32 colour palette. If you need some help or don't feel that artistic, you can use the nifty
Mariokart Decal Maker with any of your own image files.
Now if you do manage to get a hold of this game, you can add me to your "friends" list by adding this friend code: "171858 314937". However, I will also have to add your friend code, so let me know what yours is. Sign up at
wintendofi to exchange your friend code with others.
Derelict Folds
May I be the first to congratulate and welcome
Derelict into the world of blogs that people can actually comment on without being a member of myspace. I especially liked his parting comments on his myspace blog.
T DOT
Hey you can't have T.O. without some hip-hop flava whhhhhhhhaaat? Off the chain!
N.E.R.D. :
She Wants To MoveGotta love this line "..spaceship that I want to ride"... classic. The kind of stuff Sunny would think up and Mike would profess to be thinking while walking around campus.
I love the comments left on
that site. Some of the real winners:
GURLZ_WISH_THEY_HAD_MY_LAFFY_TAF : "GGGGG-UNIT THE G STANDS 4 GAY!"
????? : "all 50 raps about is his money its gettin mad gay"
young savenger : "bitch learn how to write"
peter : "but im kinda feeling lonely, on top of that a kinda horny IM SPRUNG"
CJ : "what kinda punk gets sprung over a bitch like that..."
dariy queen : "50 cents i think you or so damn fine on your movie you really sondamn fine i would like to meet youone day."
But damn if you don't think
this chick is hot, you're broken.
Dishwasher Magic
I didn't post for a while because I spilled OJ on my keyboard while playing BF2. The keys got sticky and unusable. Then I put the (wireless) keyboard into the dishwasher and hit "rinse only". Needless to say the keyboard didn't work afterwards.
However, it is working now. I guess it just had to dry out.
And my coworkers and family were incredulously mocking me... for shame.
Battlefield 2 - f5 Heli Team
Today was well spent. Indesin and I took turns unleashing terror from the skies upon the infidels below. Battlefield 2 is an amazing game, and it definitely has combined some of the most successful and addictive elements found in other games. It is a multiplayer FPS at its heart, but add to that a wide array of vehicles, squad based fighting, battlefield commanders to direct overall
COA strategy, and incentives for players to press ahead and not camp or lurk. Needless to say I literally spent the day engaged in this battle simulation. But, fear not, for I have something to show for my efforts.
Behold, the f5 Heli Team in action! I have produced a video in both low and high quality versions:
Download the low quality (320x240) video - encoded in DivX 5 - 35MBDownload the high quality (640x480) video - encoded in XviD - 70MBIf you are missing a codec to play the video, go
here for DivX and go
here for XviD. You can also find and
download the necessary codecs here, at the great video resource website doom9.net. Click the "codecs" link and then choose what you need.
Indesin usually pilots and I man the machine gun turret and camera guided missles. I take my turn piloting as well, but sometimes we end upside down hurtling towards the ground. I blame my
dual analog controller... I think a joystick would do a much better job. But where is the
Thrustmaster of yore?? Now it seems that if you don't want a joystick that looks like some B-movie "
joystick of the cyber future", then you better be prepared to open your wallet, take out a knife, cut out one of your kidneys, and then sell it on ebay - then buy a
HOTAS cougar.
I loved my Thrustmaster... it was a the perfect instrument to use to utterly destroy Derelict in
Descent. Also, Tie Fighter,
Strike Commander,
Privateer,
Wing Commander. Where did all the cool flight PC-games go? I want an excuse to buy that HOTAS!
Fear little girls
There is something primal about the fear of little girls (and boys for that manner) singing nursery rhymes off key, laughing little unnatural snickers, slowly stalking towards you with a dead stare and slight smirk. The only thing scarier than watching something like The Ring is practically living it by playing "
Fear", the horrifying FPS that I bought last night and proceeded to terrorize myself playing until midnight.
Now I will admit that there are a slew of self-styled horror survival games out there, and Silent Hill is one of the scariest games I have ever played (and I'm sure it took a couple years off of my life purely from stress), but they did an amazing job with "Fear". The defining moment for me was when this girl started walking towards me and the room starting going to hell. I made the inital mistake of running towards her thinking the "ghost" would disappear or, well maybe she needed to be saved from the fire... My screen was filled with "you have been killed" pretty fast. After that I learned that when little girls are walking towards you, surrounded by exploding firey death, you run, away, fast. You can just make her out in the screenshot, in the white circle.
Oh, and I picked up some memory for my computer that has totally enhanced my
BF2 performance. It's crazy that you NEED 1 GB of memory now, I thought 512MB would be more than enough.
The Game: A must read
Aside from the heavy work schedule I have been under the last week, I took the time to *not* play my DS, and instead, brace yourself, read books. The first book I read from cover to cover on my trip, loving every minute of it, was "
The Game". At first it comes across as a bible for how to pick up chicks, with tips on approach strategies, how to ditch the cock-block, and number close the deal. And damnit, that did lure me in, but what followed was a hilarious recount (keep in mind this book is non-fiction) of the author and his exploits over 2 years as he learned from and hung out with the pro PUAs and their various misadventures.
The next book (of which, admittedly, I still have 30 more pages to go) was "
North Korea Another Country". We have all been exposed to the propaganda that North Korea is a crazy rogue state with Stalin-1984 trappings. Well this book is the result of extensive research by "America's leading historian and political analyst of contemporary Korea" and it sets the story straight. I don't remember learning any details of the Korean War in school, and the media doesn't do us any favours either. The truth, detailed over several hundred pages filled with hundreds of footnotes (over 30 pages are dedicated to references), illustrates why North Korea is in the position it is now, and just how belligerent the United States has been on the Korean peninsula.
I'm getting hooked on reading books, it's so satisfying, and it's so portable. Amazing invention, the printed word is.
Oh and yes, I am back.
Labels: book
