Charles E. Frees-Melvin's WebHome

I started writing thing on December 29th but researching the links has taken some time, in fact much longer than I thought to find all the links. I have defiantly accomplished a lot this year, looking back this has been the best year in a while. Of the things that stand out as my holy crap moment of the year was standing at the window in the Vancouver airport with the setting sun breaking a bit through the clouds. That was the moment it rang true to me that mountains were more than just really big hills.

One of the biggest events that kicked off the year was the 2009 Atlantic Major Midget Regionals at the LBR. This one event not only was my first time writing for sports, I also learned what makes up a shot on goal in a hockey game was. In addition, actually pulling off the live feed was amazing. That and meeting Don Mabee for the first time.

The next moment of this year, happened when I attended to Faces of Fusion dinner in May. That is where I ran into Ian Finley from East Coast Connected. It was from that meeting that I ran into him again on my annual birthday trip to Toronto, that I learned about the monthly East Coast Army nights at Gracie’s.

During that trip I had the privilege of attending my very first WordCamp in Toronto. It was amazing to see all the interest of all the web community in a town so driven by media. It was there that I met some very interesting people who I hope to never forget such as Jeremy Clarke, Brendan Sera-Shriar, Accordion Guy, Alexa Clark, Erin Blaskie and George O’Neill. But even better from there it lead me on the path to attending WordCamp Montreal where it was there in that little town (humour people!) of Montreal. The place was amazing when during the very early dawn morning that I got to walk through the Montreal Jazz festival that made me realize I was so wrong about Montreal and its many misconceptions. Then meeting folks like Kim Valee, Matt Mullenweg, Jane Wells, Eva Blue and many others.

And then there was Victoria, where at WordCamp Victoria I ran into many more amazing people. I kind of really like BC, despite only seeing it for 2 days. Perhaps I can find a way to go back sometime this or next year.

In the view of what may be in line for Canada over the next year in the camps of the Fee-for-carriage debate between “Save Local” and “Stop the TV Tax.” Although this seems unfathomable in the current landscape, the near future will see broadcast, cable, and satellite a thing of the past to internet based distribution methods.

Why pay for 100′s of channels that you do not watch? Why can the creators of the content not just distribute themselves? With devices like the Roku player, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox 360, and many others, we can feasibly get HD to your TV. Problems with getting broadband will als be a thing of the past soon as 4G LTE cellular networks with 51 mb/s connections will make getting fast internet to people easier and cheaper. Even more so in less that 5 years with 5G

“In the last 12 months talks between cable operators and program providers have become even more tense. Programmers have been seeking better affiliate fees as they have seen advertising revenue hurt by the U.S. economic downturn and remain uncertain about the future of TV advertising as more marketers turn to the Web.”  Yinka Adegoke for Reuters.

Fox, Time Warner Cable reach deal to avoid blackout – Yahoo! Canada News.

As we are rapping up the year, I have seen a movie in the theatres 300 times. The record for this year for most is Star Trek x 6, Twilight: New Moon x 5, and The Reader x 4, and many 2 and 3 timers. Here is the list of 2009 releases that I have seen (I took a list of 2009 movies and filtered it, there are some missing that I added, but I forgot every movie:)

17 Again, 2012, Adventureland, All About Steve, Angels & Demons, AstroBoy, Bandslam, Blind Date, The Blind Side, Bride Wars, Capitalism: A Love Story, Confessions Of A Shopaholic, Couple’s Retreat, Dance Flick, Did You Hear About The Morgans?, Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Drag Me To Hell, Doubt, Duplicity, Earth, Everybody’s Fine, Extract, Fame, Fanboys, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Fast And Furious 4, Fired Up, The Fourth Kind, Funny People, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, Gigantic, The Goods, The Hangover, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Harry Potter And The Half, Blood Prince, The Haunting In Connecticut, He’s Just Not That Into You, Hotel For Dogs, Ice Age 3, I Hate Valentine’s Day, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, I Love You Beth Cooper, I Love You, Man, Imagine That, The Informant, Inglorious Bastards, The International, In The Loop, Invictus, It’s Complicated, Julie & Julia, Knowing, Last House On The Left, Trailor Park Boys 2: Countdown to Liquor Day, Love Happens, Love Hurts, Madea Goes To Jail, Mall Cop, Management, The Men Who Stare At Goats, My Bloody Valentine 3D, My Life In Ruins, My Sister’s Keeper, New In Town, New Moon, Night At The Museum 2, Nine, Obsessed, Observe And Report, The Pink Panther 2, Post Grad, The Proposal, Rachel Getting Married, The Soloist, Star Trek, State Of Play, The Reader, The Stone of Destiny, Sunshine Cleaning, The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3, The Ugly Truth, Up in the Air, The Vampire’s Assistant, Watchmen, Whip It, Year One, and Zombieland.

Despite this for 2010, I am going to attempt to cut my movies to only 100.

Comments are open, What do you think did I miss any good gems that I should see?

Yes once again the post with a really long esoteric name is a movie reviw post for the following 3 movies I have seen (at least once) over the past week.

Lets start with the biggest New Moon the continuation of the Twilight Saga. I never left a theatre before so wanting to read a book then with this most epic cliff hanger of an ending. The first movie introduces the love story, where the second explains the relationship between the native’s haterid towards the vampires and introduces the senero to be portrade in the final two incarnations, and then stop abruptly that the story is not complete, and disappointment that you must wait for the next one.

The next movie is “I hope they serve beer in hell” for such a long title this is one of the best comedies fo the year, based off a true story, up along the same genre as the Hangover. It crosses elements between Weading Crashers and The Hangover. This is most definately a must see.

The last movie is the Fourth Kind. This is a really bad movie a slight thriller based of a (possibly) true story about abductions across Alaska. It blew, not worth even renting.

Tris Hussy Presentation

The first session I am attending is Jodie Gastel talking about installing WordPress. She is cheating a little bit using cPanel Fantastico. Which is good for beginners, although the regular way is not too much harder.

Next I went to see Jeff Richards presentation on widgets. It was very interesting to see the basics of widgets and how they can be used to link people’s sites together. It somehow left off many of the cool and fun stuff that widgets can be used for.

Tris Hussey’s presentation on extra tools for WordPress users was absolutely amazing. I haven’t had a chance yet to download all these tools yet but I sure plan on trying them.

The last presentation I attended was Jeff Richards about widgets. He has posted his presentation on his personal blog at Widgets:Making Your Site Great and Letting Others Help. It was very informative on how widget can be used to enhance a site or a marketing tool for others to put a link back to your site.

The best part of this WordCamp was the discussions in the breakout room about everything from Copyright, Creative Commons, WordPress MU, legal issues with hosting internationally, and many other topics.

In addition the after party at The Office Lounge was very enlightening on every topic imaginable from a Victoria point of view.