I have a new Camera … again

I have a new Camera … again

About a week ago, I caved and bought a new piece of technology. Yes, as the title of this post suggests it is a new camera. Not just any camera it is the Canon PowerShot SX120 IS. Although not that much better than my S5 IS it is really the form factor that made me buy it. On the downside first, it is a smaller lens and only mono audio of the video, I can’t see the viewfinder for taking great one try self-portraits and I can’t set voice memos for the photos. On the good side, it only takes 2 AA batteries, and it is a 10 megapixel with a 10x optical zoom (my old cam is 12x). If you are wondering what the pictures look like, the strawberry waffles were taken with this camera. This has pushed me to update my SnapShots gallery that it is now run by WordPress and Gallery is about to be shut off, I just have the 2 largest albums to go through.

Travels and planning

As we progress into the year 2010, the only New Year’s resolution that I haven’t broken yet is my vow to only see 100 movies in the theatre this year (yet) I’m currently at number 10 as we speak, and I have my annual Toronto trip ahead of me next month, and the beautiful AMC Theatre on Dundas Square. While on the topic of travels, my first ever passport arrived by courier two weeks ago. I can now leave the country again and am so excited about the upcoming plans. Before I announce where I must point out that despite my love for History in university non-Canadian History seemed somewhat less interesting. The more I reflect on the topic, it may be just that it seems so distant, therefore why not going to see it in person. This is where I announce that in September I am travelling to Europe. I’ve decided to go on a guided tour with Contiki Tours. Now I just have to decide on the exact date and trip. Currently, I am leaning to the European Whirl from September 11th – 30th, but that may change after discussing with a Travel agent. If you notice this…

The Spambots are amazing sometimes.

I have to be amazed at some of the spam bot comments made on this site. The following has posted to my NB Sports Site List: “I was studying something else about this on another blog. Interesting. Your linear perspective on it is diametrically opposed to what I read to begin with. I am still reflecting over the various points of view, but I’m leaning heavily toward yours. And regardless, that’s what is so super about modernized democracy and the marketplace of thoughts online.” It has nothing to do with the list of links but amazed me how they try to fool the system. Usually the bots just post 20-30 links with no posts, and are posted to parts of the site that are so obscure.

Haven’t we learned how to settle our differences?

This morning I was reading the Political Blogger Charles LeBlanc’s site when I came across the following little gem. Worker was confronted by a nut with a Machete because he was making too much noise while shoveling snow on Regent Street in Fredericton. Doesn’t that just make you want to say OMG! The sad thing is that this is not the only recent event like this. Last week there was the 15-year-old Hampton NB native charged with 2nd degree murder for bringing a kitchen knife over to an alleged sexual assulting drug dealer and killing him in the back or side. Then about a year ago the guy chasing after another down the streets of uptown Saint John with a freaking broad sword. I once heard that you are more likely to get stabbed than shot in Canada, does that really make you feel any better?

The Tale of Two Frozen Bananas

The Tale of Two Frozen Bananas

This past week I was reading a new post on my friend Andrea’s blog. Where she posted about making a dairy-free ice cream substitute by pureeing some Bananas. I thought to myself that sounds good especially with the peanut butter they suggest. I also have a can of coconut milk that has sat in the pantry for a while now. In hindsight, it now occurs to me that I never read the directions properly, or at all, as I seem to missed an important step. I bought the bananas last night and took two and put them in the freezer. Now what I am stuck with is two perfectly frozen bananas. I missed the part about peeling and slicing before freezing them solid.

2010 Golden Globe Award Predictions

Once again as the award season approaches here are my predictions for the 2010 Golden Globe Awards tonight. Best Motion Picture – Drama Up In The Air Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama Morgan Freeman – Invictus Best Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Julie & Julia Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Sandra Bullock – The Proposal Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Daniel Day-Lewis – Nine Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Anna Kendrick – Up In The Air Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Matt Damon – Invictus Best Animated Feature Film Fantastic Mr. Fox Best Foreign Language Film The Maid (La Nana) (Chile) Best Director – Motion Picture Jason Reitman – Up In The Air Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner – Up In The Air Best Original Score – Motion Picture Karen O and Carter Burwell – Where The Wild Things Are…

What a year this has been!

I started writing this 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, but 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…

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

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

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,…

2009 with 300 Movies!

2009 with 300 Movies!

As we are wrapping 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,…

The New Moon where I hope they serve beer in Hell to the Forth Kind!

The New Moon where I hope they serve beer in Hell to the Forth Kind!

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…

WordCamp Victoria 2009

WordCamp Victoria 2009

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 widgets 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…

Arriving to Victoria BC

Arriving to Victoria BC

At long last I have finally arrived in Victoria. Five hours on a plane is really long much longer that I had really imagined. During the longest lag of the journey I got to see “My Sister’s Keeper” for the first time. I found it to be really an enjoyable movie, in the respect that you did not know who to feel sad for. Then it throws a huge twist that make the plot even more intriguing. Upon first impression of Victoria is that it has an appearance of a fairy tile that has come to life especially now that its the holidays and the lights of colour in and on everything. View Full Album

To sell or not to sell ‘tis the question…

Selling of electrical utilities is becoming of a common occurrence in the news this month. When the common opinion is to never sell anything one must take a look a the pros and cons of every situation. Like all situations it will prove to be devastating if careful consideration is not taken. Part 1: NB Power to Hydro-Quebec I really like this plan. Not only is it a short term win for New Brunswick it is good in the long term too. In the spirit of the 1920’s when NB Power was created to protect New Brunswick from the scheming of several private hydro utilities the were ripping off everybody in New Brunswick. It was to be decided then that a public utility was the way to go. Hydro-Quebec is such a utility that values affordability and the environment. This agreement to match the wholesale industrial rates is guaranteed to be a personal benefit since I live in Saint John and my power is provided by Saint John Energy a large local wholesale buyer. Which brings us to… Part 2: Mayor Ivan Court is trying to see if the city can sell-off Saint John Energy. What a really terrible idea!…

The Future

Last weekend I received my LSAT score back and it was not what I had expected. It got me thinking about what I really like doing and to a greater extent what I want to do. Lately I have been obsessed with words of the day on various online dictionaries and one of my favourites Wiktionary had the word “tranquil” on Saturday when I first opened by LSAT score e-mail. It became a matter if irony of that words full definition in relation to the experiences of the weekend. Wiktionary defines it as “Free from emotional or mental disturbance.” which has firmly been at odds with my passions, in fact I have had to turn down many paths to make this transition fit. Paths that would have led more to the path that destiny seems to have written. In the class Modern Europe History: Renaissance to the French Revolution one of the main figures in Protestant Reformation is John Calvin. John believes that our salvation or destiny is predetermined to the extent that our actions cannot make a difference and that we can cannot fight nature. Which is interesting with tranquil or brought further tranquility the calm inspired by nature,…

Thought Piece

When reviewing the subject of the course I am reminded of when I started to research something a while back. I started writing and entry for my blog on whether the “Digital Revolution” was really or not a revolution that lead to a bigger philosophical question of other revolutions throughout history. Then, I started to ponder the question about revolutions in general. What does it take to make enough people to take the big jump to start the revolution? The larger question that also I keep asking myself if it was considered before a revolution begins: “Will the king end up dead, and do we really care?” I then proceeded to start an introduction that was never finished. It is suited to be used here since these are some of the questions that I am hoping to be able to answer by taking this course. Over the course of recorded history, revolutions have changed the course of the future to countless Peoples. To these ends certain questions would be asked, and answers pondered. The first question is why would people change the comfort of the things as they are to instate change. How bad do things have to get for…

Barron writer does not understand nature of Saint John

Barron writer does not understand nature of Saint John

Today I picked up a copy of The Barron, UNB Saint John’s student-produced paper. I came across the article “Travelling around Saint John: what you need to know” by staff writer Simon Jack. It does not take long for one to realize the writer did not understand the history of Saint John or the Transit system. The first point so I can move on was the reason he did not find information on the “Night Owl” run was that it was cancelled in Spring 2008. Now to the areas of Saint John, to refer to drawing a random line to determine the limits of both Millidgeville and South End is vastly poor research. The boundary for Millidgeville dates back to the 1950’s era boundary of city limits. Basically, the official boundary is if a line was drawn from Somerset Street and Sandy Point Road westward to Pokiok Point that was the city limits pre-amalgamation in Saint John. To define the South End one has to go much further back in time, back to 1785 (the beginning.) The Royal Charter that created Saint John defined the 4 wards of the “South Central” peninsula was split into quarters at Duke and Sydney…