Light Pillars

I was driving home from the Kitchener Rangers/Owen Sound Attack game last Friday (go Platers!) and what do I see? Light Pillars! This is a cool atmospheric phenomenon which is caused by light being reflected off of tiny ice crystals in the sky. In this case, the light is coming from lights on the ground, mostly flood lights, etc. This is the second time I've seen them, and this time wasn't as spectacular as the first, but this time I could get to my apartment and take some photos. It may seem that the pillars are just reflections on the camera lens, but they're not. If you look closely there's many of them in the sky, and you can't see the light source on the ground for some of them. Check it out...

Reason 1701 I Love Garfield minus Garfield

It doesn't just speak to me, it speaks for me.

Cutting The Cord

Today, I did something I never thought that I'd do. I cancelled my cable TV. I didn't replace with with another package, or switch to satellite, but cancelled it completely. For someone who likes his TV as much as me, this is a big step. But why would I do such a thing?

Well, for starters, my current package costs me nearly $100 per month ($98.73 to be exact). That included basic cable, HDTV channels, DVR rental, etc. That's alot, considering my second point...

I don't watch too many shows on a regular basis. Right now, I usually just watch The Office, The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and South Park, and all of those I can see legitimately on their respective network's websites. Now, in the new year a few of my favourites are starting back up: Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and 24 so I'll have to figure out ways to get them, which I don't think will be a problem.

My last reason is that I was finding myself simply turning on the TV and watching whatever was on when I had nothing to do. I never ended up watching anything that I really liked and if I didn't have the TV option I could do some other things, like finish transferring our old home videos to DVD or watch some DVDs that I've been meaning to get to for a while.

So, there I go. We'll see how it goes. Now, while I called to cancel today, it doesn't actually get shut off until the 18th since that's the end of the billing cycle. That works out for me, since after that I'll probably be in Sarnia for most of the holidays.

And, if you were wondering, this is what I was refering to when I said I was thinking the unthinkable in my facebook status about 2 weeks ago... I just didn't think it would take this long.

Back To The Cold

Well, I'm back from my week in the Dominican. What a great week. I've rarely had a vacation where I actually felt like I was relaxing... and that's all I did. The entire group of people I met on the trip down there were a blast. The resort itself had a few areas it could have been better, but really it was a great place. I have no pictures to share, since I was assigned the role of videographer, but maybe I'll get a clip or two uploaded. Or perhaps I can snag some photos from the countless number of people who took pictures down there.

I had hoped that the resort would have been a little more "24 hours" than they advertised... there was no food after 2am and no good food after 10pm, the pool closed at 6, and the drinks stopped flowing at 2am. But those were minor annoyances, all in all. The thing I learned from this, my first all-inclusive resort vacation, is that what really matters is the group of people you go with, because that's what makes it fun.