This Had Better Be The Best Internet Ever, Part 3

I'm on a boat.

Went swimming yesterday on Christmas Eve in Half Moon Cay. It's been a little cooler this time... only about 23 degrees. At sea today, heading to Jamaica tomorrow. I really, really hope it's cold back home right now.

I'm (almost) On A Boat

We're leaving tomorrow to fly down to Fort Lauderdale. On Thursday we board the ms Noordam for 56 3-hour tours. Stops include The Bahamas, Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Mexico. Back on the 30th. I'll see if I can get some of that really expensive Internet while I'm there.

Why Are You Still Using Facebook?

If you have a Facebook account and are active and use it to post comments, status updates, photos, videos, links, etc... this isn't about you.

If you have a Facebook account but aren't active with comments or photos, but keep your page active as a way for people to find you and contact you... this isn't about you.

However, if you have a Facebook account and have, for all intents and purposes, abandoned it... if you don't check it regularly, don't post content, have email notifications turned off, and ignore friend requests and messages sent... what's the point? Why don't you delete the page? Because if someone is actually trying to get in contact with you, there is a reasonable expectation of some sort of response. To not respond, because you have long since stopped being active on the site is, for lack of a better word, rude. How is someone coming onto your page to know that you'll never see any message sent?

Please do everyone a favour and clean up your online presence.

You And Everyone Else

I went to Gamestop to buy a TV mount for the Kinect. Here's how the transaction went:

Salesgirl: "These things are pretty complicated. I hope you have an engineering degree."
Me: "As a matter of fact..."
Salesgirl: "Oh right, this is Waterloo."

So not only is my degree nothing special around here, the mount was ridiculously difficult to put together.

I Wish I Knew A Word That Sounded Like "Kinect" So I Could Make A Funny Title

Yeah, I picked up a Kinect for my Xbox 360 on the weekend. It looks like it has potential. So far I only have the one game that comes with it, but hopefully they can get some other applications built for it soon. Browsing the menu is pretty easy, and it can be done from sitting down, although there's not much to browse through, as the main menu are still controller only. It recognizes gestures really well and picks up voice commands no problem. I have to give watching a movie a shot still, so that can be good.

Best Movie of 2010

I finally got to see the movie Scott Pilgrim vs The World last week. There wasn't much hype surrounding it when it was out in theatres, so I didn't know too much about it. But I knew enough that those who had seen it spoke highly of it. I didn't even know that the director was also the director of Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, two of my favourites (I saw that on the box just before putting in the movie). After watching it, I immediately knew it was my favourite movie of the year, and an instant personal top 5 of all time.

I don't really want to give a review of synopsis, but I think that it is very important that you all see this movie, especially if you're close to my age (give or take 10 years). Movies like this aren't made very often. It's not a normal movie and it's something really fantastic.

That's all I'll say on that.

What A Deal!

I'm approaching the end of my cell phone contract and I was informed by my provider that I have an upgrade credit available to me to upgrade my phone. So I go into the store to see what that credit involves as applied to a Blackberry Torch, and the answer I got was that I get the privilege of purchasing the phone for exactly the advertised price for anyone else. The guy at the store even still called it a "credit".

Tell me, service provider... where is the credit in that?

Vote 2010

It was municipal election night in Ontario tonight. About half of the people/answers I put a mark beside turned out to be winners. I was really surprised by the outcome of the fluoride vote... a narrow victory for the "no" side. I don't personally mind that our water won't be fluoridated, but I just found the "no" campaign was mostly based on fear and ignorance. I hear it called a "poison" and the phrase "evidence suggests there might be adverse health effects" when any major (reputable) medical association I could find said that there's nothing wrong with it. Then there was the "we're not sure, so better safe than sorry", which is one of the worst arguements that anyone can use for anything... being not sure (uninformed) is pretty sorry.

I have this nagging suspicion that there's a swelling of an underground "Tea Party"-like movement happening in Canada. It seemed that every candidate had in their platform that taxes should never be raised more than inflation. Not that that is a bad idea, but the way it was always thrown around made it seems very disingenuous. Is there any jurisdiction in Canada that ties taxes directly to inflation? I'm not sure... at least I've never heard of one.

And the point of tax increases brings me to the subject of LRT (light rail). It seems after approving the project, asking the other levels of government to pitch in financially and getting the funding, almost all the regional councillors are now calling for a reconsideration of the project because they think the Region's financial portion is too much. What I ask is did they think that we wouldn't be on the hook for some of this project locally? Did they think that the other governments would reject the funding, allowing the locals to be able to say that they tried... but then the Feds and Queens Park called their bluff? Do they think there's no cost to not having this project built and running in say, 30 years time? How many widened roads will we need that we don't have space and money for? Do we want to shape our cities to be an all-driving-all-the-time adventure?

All that and I think it's humorous that Toronto elected Rob Ford. That'll be fun to watch (but it also fits with my underground Tea Party theory).

What's the Trade-In Value on a Law Degree?

So I just started up a new video game I purchased: FIFA 11. I went through about 3 "Terms of Service" type documents that I had to agree to to be able to just start the game. Since when was it necessary to be a lawyer to just play a video game? The documents are so long (like so many others that come with software) that it would take an hour to read. So obviously, I didn't read it and just said "agree". Maybe I just gave all my earthly possessions to EA Sports, I don't know.

Seriously EA, it's just a video game, not a real estate transaction.

Is It Still A Band If It's Only One Person?

I downloaded a few new songs for Rock Band this week (Bob Marley, The Tragically Hip and The Doobie Brothers, FYI). It got me thinking, though, that I might be the last person I know that still plays Rock Band anymore. No matter... I'm still really looking forward to Rock Band 3.

Goodbye, Uncle Bryan

I don't really know much of what to say at times like this, so it'll be short.

So long, Uncle Byran. I love you and I'll miss you.

I'll see you later.

Post From A Nerd With Too Much Disposable Income

I bought a new computer today! I've been meaning to get a good gaming rig for a while, and the recent release of Civilization V has finally pushed me over the edge. I trust that this one will be able to handle any game out on the market and last for quite a few years.

I'm excited, because I've got a few games over the last couple years which I've been able to run on my work laptop, but not to the optimal performance. Now I have a personal PC that I can keep my own stuff separate and save my laptop from the extra work.

For those that are interested, specs:
Intel Core i7 870
1.5 TB HD
12 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB)
DVD Writer/Blu Ray Drive
and so on.

As a side note, as the sun was setting tonight, I saw a full on double rainbow all the way across the sky.



What does it mean?

What Happened This Past Week

I took a "vacation" week this past week, and it included a 3 day trip to Cedar Point. We went down on Tuesday, got Starlight tickets, then had 2 day ride and slide tickets for Wednesday and Thursday. All the while, staying in Hotel Breakers, right on site. Being the last full week of the summer, lines were fabulously short. Many rides were walkons, including Raptor, Magnum and Gemini. Longest lines included Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster and Maverick, of course, but none were longer than 30 minutes. We even did the water park, which is a first for me.

I think I've decided that there's no reason to not go on weekdays... it's completely worth the vacation days and the crowds are just so much smaller. Also, staying at Hotel Breakers is completely worth the extra $50 or so just for the convenience.

Next year, I'd like to try weekdays in early June. I think the crowds could even be less at that time.

Goal over the winter: get back on the weight loss, so the rides aren't quite so tight. I got on everything alright, but some were close.

What Happened This Weekend

We ended up 2-2 at the tournament this weekend and in 3rd place, which was our most likely finishing position going into it. The kids weren't able to pull of an upset, but made it exciting taking Guelph to all 7 innings, losing 7-4.

Now... back to my regularly scheduled life.

All Good Things Come To An End... Baseball Too

This weekend the baseball season ends for us, appropriately with the season ending tournament. We finished the regular season in third out of five, a couple games over .500, so it can't be considered a disaster at least. However, we had a terrible time trying to beat both Guelph and Kitchener and it got a bit frustrating as some games we were real close to them and some we were just blown out. We managed a win versus Guelph and a tie versus Kitchener over the course of the season... together with all wins versus Cambridge and Woodstock, we ended up with our third place.

Well, we got one last chance versus Kitchener tonight, but it was one of those "blow out" games. It will be hard for us to make the final now, as Guelph had already beat Kitchener (it's a round robin format). But nonetheless, we still have three games to go and at this age, I just hope they're having fun out there.

I'll have to reserve my thoughts on the experience of coaching for a later date. I'll say this though... we had our first practice in February. It's been a long season.

Well, That Was Needlessly Complicated

I tried updating the look of my good ol' blog here, but with all the alterations made to it over the years and it basically being a hybrid of the classic blogspot, the new blogspot and haloscan (echo) commenting system, the experiment was a complete failure. I couldn't get my title to display right (since I deleted that widget to get that picture up top) and I certainly couldn't get my comments to go back in. Good thing I saved a backup of the template first. Seriously, I should just let go and revert to the default commenting system on blogspot here.

Not Hiatus. Writing Drought.

I haven't had much to write about recently. Truth is, usually I don't but can find something inane to post anyway. But I can't even make something up this time. Since September of 2004 (almost 6 years!) I've managed to post something every month, except for one. I'd say that's a pretty good track record.

There have been many blogs started by people I know, and most of them quickly fizzle out, some after less than a month. That's too bad, because I think the blog is a great way to keep up to date with the happenings and opinions of friends... much better than Facebook. I can understand how it can get discouraging if you have a streak of posts with zero comments and you aren't sure if anyone is actually reading. On the other hand, it's really encouraging when you get some post with lots of activity in the comments (my bar for "lots" is set at 5 at the moment). Just a note to those who have blogged and stopped, if a link to your old blog appears to the right, I was always reading.

Here's the funny thing about this post. I started it as a post basically to fill the gap until I had something to write about and it turned into a post about blogging itself. See? That's how easy it is. You don't have to have great things of great importance to say, just put down a blurb every once in a while. So, if you haven't blogged before or you used to and haven't in a while, give it a go (again). Not everything on the internet needs to be shared through Facebook.

This Sums It Up Nicely

Today post over at Penny Arcade (starting at the 3rd paragraph) summed up why Microsoft shouldn't have cancelled 1 vs 100 pretty well.

I'm having trouble convincing myself why I should renew my XBox Live Gold account when it expires in October.

The End of 1 vs 100

Today, it was announced that there will be no more 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live. This makes me sad. It was one of those video games that I could get almost anyone to enjoy playing, even if they weren't a gamer. Trivia is liked by nearly all and playing against tens of thousands (sometimes over 100,000) other people at once was a great feature.

I understand how they had to find sponsorship to run it, since they offered it free to anyone with an Xbox Live Gold account. If they couldn't find a sponsor to cover it, then I guess there's not much that they could do.

I hope that they can do more Live Primetime games like this, because it really was a great concept. Until then... very sad.

Welcome, Human Child

Congrats to Joel, Pam and Anna on the arrival of Molly. (As announced on the recently restarted blog of Joel's)

World Cup Final

It's a pretty momentous day today... The Netherlands is in the World Cup Final match for the first time since before I was born. I got my KNVB shirt on, ready to watch the game starting at 2:30. I find it a bit surprising that most commentators are making Spain the overwhelming favourite, even though before the tournament (like most tournaments), the Dutch are picked as one of the favourites. However, it was the same situation as when Holland played Brazil in the quarterfinals... the amount of shock people expressed in the Dutch victory was a little much and a bit disgusting at the same time. The Dutch are always talented and are always a threat to win. They're on a 25 game unbeaten streak. I can't see how anyone would write them off.

My pick is Netherland 2:1 Spain in extra time.

One thing to remember is that Spain has proven one thing that The Netherlands has not this World Cup... they've shown that they can be beaten.

New TV Ordered

Thanks for all your suggestions in response to my last post. It seems the overwhelming opinion was in line with my original thought... go with LCD over plasma. I ended up ordering the Philips LCD set.

I'm glad I didn't rush into a sale in the store on Wednesday, because both of the sets I was looking at went on sale a few hours later in the Shop of the Future's online-only Canada Day Sale. I'm guessing the salesman knew about this, and while I can't blame him for trying to make his commission as opposed to telling me to buy it online, it really reinforces the fact that you have to really know exactly what you want when buying there, because you can't ever fully trust them.

Anyway, after the problem I had with my plasma and the other tiny day-to-day issues I had with it, it seemed silly to go with a plasma again. I would have really been kicking myself for that decision. I don't know why I even let that guy throw me off track.

Delivery is Wednesday afternoon. Exactly one day too late to watch Holland's semi-final victory over Uruguay. So, now my dilemma is do I watch it online, or just deal with the crappy picture on my current TV?

Help Me Replace My TV: LCD, LED or Plasma?

So, I've started on my quest to replace my broken Dell plasma. My thinking going into this is that I don't need to go super-top-of-the-line, since just about everything is better in quality than a TV bought 4 years ago, but at the same time I might as well use this as an opportunity to upgrade the size. My initial leaning were towards the 55" LCD range. I know 2 of the issues about my old plasma is that it gave off a tonne of heat and (while I didn't have any permanent burn-in problems) there were temporary ghost images of static images left of the screen for a few minutes... that's why I was thinking LCD.

So, I went out to a local TV shop (not a chain, but just an independent) to see what they had. I couldn't get a feel for what they really offered, but the salesman there was seeming to guide me to Sharp's new line of LED TVs (with the fourth "yellow" pixel). While the image looked great on the showroom floor, I'm not convinced that the extra yellow pixel is anything more than a marketing ploy and that the brilliant picture was just achieved with playing around with the colour settings.

Tonight I went to look at the local Shop of the Future to see what they had. After talking to the salesman about my leanings towards an LCD and what I'll primarily use it for (let's be honest... gaming), he steered me back towards the 50" plasmas. He recommended the plasma due to its superior refresh rate over LCDs, among other things.

So as it stands right now, I'm stuck between a 55" Philips LCD and a 50" Panasonic Plasma. They're about the same price. Pros for the LCD: Larger screen, cooler operation, no annoying ghost images. Pros for the Plasma: Better refresh rate, better contrast ratio.

Help a guy out here. Anyone got opinions/experience with TVs recently?

Things Should Last Longer Than This, Right?

Yesterday, right after the Dutch soccer game, my TV decides it's had enough of being a useful piece of electronics and the picture went all funky on me. Now everything I watch is along with a bunch of horizontal lines throughout the screen, no matter what source the video is coming from.



I'm sure there are TVs out there that have been working for about 40 years, but mine lasted barely more than 4. What is it with these high-end electronics that make them little more than disposable products?

Well, silver lining... bigger and better TV coming soon.

$200 Less Because I Don't Wear A Ring On My Left Hand

I got a letter in the mail from Dalton McGuinty himself today. In it, it explains how the changes to the Ontario tax system will create 591,000 jobs and all sorts of other great things. To help us transition into this new and improved system that makes everything better, Dalton is giving away money to everyone. Seems to me, if it was so great, we should be paying him! Oh, wait... Anyway, ragging on the HST isn't the point of this post. The point is about the amount that we get under this Tax Transition Benefit.

According to the official site, a single person will get $300, while a couple (regardless of children) and single parents will get $1000. Excuse me? So, you're telling me that because two people signed a piece of paper and now live together, they get $200 more each? Maybe the rationale is that seeing how I love being single so much, I don't need as much money. Yeah... that's it. Thanks for kicking me while I'm down, McGuinty.

Plus, I think it's funny that a letter from the Ontario government is return-addressed to Summerside, PEI.

Popular For A Day

A good day for hits on this blog is about 10 unique visitors. Most of the time, it's the usual suspects of people I know who check to see if I've posted something new lately. Well, today I decided to check the stats for my blog, just on a whim. What did I find for last Sunday? 698 unique visitors! Wow, that's just not a new record, but it completely dwarfs any previous daily total. Of course, on Sunday I posted about how I was in Leamington during the tornado. Well, apparently that post ranked high on Google for the search "Leamington Tornado".

Of course, I know that everything I post is public and potentially readable by anyone, but it's still kinda weird when I think of all the people who came across my random ramblings.

Tornado Photos

As promised, here are some of the photos I took walking around the morning after the tornado in Leamington, as uploaded to Flickr. Obviously, the police kept everyone away from where most of the damage occurred, but I still got a couple shots in.

Leamington Tornado

This week I've been surveying people riding the ferries to and from Pelee Island. I've been staying in Leamington this weekend, because one of the ferries begins and end its trips here. Last night a (suspected) tornado ripped through town, mostly along the lake. There are trees down everywhere and roads are closed. So far, I haven't heard of any reports of injuries, just lots and lots of property damage. Locals are all walking around where they can taking pictures... and I decided to join them. If I can get my hands on a USB cable, I'll upload the couple of shots I took to my flickr page.

The ferry service was cancelled this morning, so I got the morning off. It may run later, but out of Kingsville maybe. I still have to call the ferry service to find out.

Maybe I can get some danger pay out of this.

Lost Finale

I, for one, was really satisfied with the series finale of Lost tonight. All good stories must have an ending.

What I'm Doing On My Summer Vacation

This summer I'm coaching a minor baseball team here in Waterloo. There weren't enough parent coaches available so the manager, who I curl with, ask me if I was interested knowing that I used to play and umpire. Thinking it might be good to do some community volunteering for a change, I accepted. It's a Tier 2 Mosquito team (kids born in 1999... scary in and of itself), so we do a bit of travelling, but not too far. It's pretty good, as the kids are good enough to want to be there but they aren't the Tier 1, Triple-A, more focussed on winning pressure cooker. So far, we're at 1 win and 2 losses. If you really feel like keeping track of our progress, here is the league homepage (after clicking on schedule or standings, select Mosquito Tier 2 in the drop down box).

The downside to it is that it's a few more of my evenings every week taken up than I had originally thought. We usually have 2 games (home and away) and 2 practices each week. The consolation is that it's good fun while I'm out there.

Now all I have to do it learn all their names without using the lineup card as a cheat sheet.

Round 2 Picks For You

I only picked 3 first round series correct, which means I did worse than most monkeys. But I got one exactly correct (Sharks in 6), so... consolation? Anyway, round 2 goes like this:

Pittsburgh 4-0 Montreal
Boston 4-2 Philadelphia
San Jose 4-2 Detroit
Chicago 4-1 Vancouver

Barenaked Ladies Concert

I went to see Barenaked Ladies last night at Centre in the Square. I was really eager to catch them live since they became a 4 piece band. They certainly did not disappoint. Of course they played a bunch of stuff from their new album (which is pretty good), but there was a solid amount of their hits. I think my surprise favourite of the night was "Sound of Your Voice". The only song I had really hoped that they would play, but didn't, was "For You".

Of course, one of the things going into the concert was how were they going to be without Steven Page. Honestly, I can say except for one or two times during the concert, I didn't even really notice that something was missing... which I suppose means that there isn't. The only time I really noticed it was during "If I Had $1000000". Speaking of $1000000, someone actually threw Kraft Dinner on stage during the song. Really, guy? Really? I thought they got people to stop that like 10 years ago.

The crowd was a bit weird though. About a third teenagers, a third late 20's/early 30's, and a third seniors (for some reason). That, plus being in Centre in the Square, made the band work really hard to get people up out of their chairs during their songs... but they eventually succeeded. And kudos to them for doing it creatively (an impromtu rap which included the chorus of "get off your ass!"), instead of how I saw the Tea Party do it one time (they just simply said, "Stand up, this is a f*cking rock concert").

So, anyway, that was the third time I've seen them in concert. The first being at the Palace of Auburn Hills and the second at Bayfest. 3 very different venues. I'll see them again for sure.

What's In A (Country's) Name?

Here's something that's always bothered me. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject. Why is it that there are some countries that have completely different names for in English from their native language? I'm looking at you Deutschland. You too Nippon. Don't think I forgot about you Bhārat. Eire, Norge, Italia... you're all on notice.

Maybe the question should be, why don't we call them by their native name? And it's not just limited to English. French has Pays-Bas, Corée, Allemagne to name a few. I can understand, to an extent, when a name is made up of actual words (United States = États-Unis in French, Cote d'Ivoire = Ivory Coast in English), but a name should be a name. If I were to go to another country, they wouldn't start calling me Kodos instead of Matt because that's how they say it. That would be weird... and it's not my name.

I want to single out Germany, because it's case is especially weird. For example... the Olympics, ok? Usually, the countries will be identified onscreen by their 3 letter short form in their own language (NED for Netherlands, SUI for Switzerland) but not Germany... they're GER instead of DEU. What's up with that? Well, maybe what goes on TV screens is out of their control. But then why do they paint GER on their own bobsleds?

Better Late Than Never Playoff Predictions

Yeah, I made predictions for the NHL playoffs before they started. Honestly. So, I'm just posting it late. I'm totally not letting the knowledge of the last 5 night affect my predictions at all. Some of them are already wrong... but I'm still gonna post them.

Washington 4-1 Montreal
New Jersey 4-3 Philadelphia
Buffalo 4-2 Boston
Ottawa 4-2 Pittsburgh

San Jose 4-2 Colorado
Chicago 4-1 Nashville
Los Angeles 4-3 Vancouver
Detroit 4-1 Phoenix

See? Phoenix is already up 2-1 in their series. I can't get that one right now. But, in my defense, how was I supposed to know that Phoenix actually had a hockey team?

Today's Slurpee Conditions: Unnecessarily Frozen and Unofficial

So, I bought a six pack of coke to put in the mini fridge I have in my hotel room. Yep, they're frozen solid now.

CYQG-CYPT-CYQG-CYPT-CYQG and so on

I've been working in a new office since last Thursday.

It's the inside of a Cessna 208 (I think that's what kind of plane it is). I've been doing travel survey interviews (boo!) for people travelling to and from Pelee Island (which, at this time of year is by air). And since it's much easier to get people to participate before they take off, I've been flying in the plane as part of the job (yay!). It's about a 20 minute flight and it doesn't get too high, so you get to see Essex County from a nice aerial perspective. Here's a shot I took of Point Pelee:

The people have been warming up to me as I've spent a couple days there now (everyone knows everyone else on that island, it seems), and the pilot has been super-cool... even letting me sit up front on a couple trips:

Anyway, I'm really glad I like to fly, because it's been a really nice perk of a crappy, crappy job. It almost makes me want to learn to fly myself... but I know that takes a lot of time and money. I'm here for instant gratification, people.

Help Me Help Big Brothers

This weekend is the annual Curl for Kids event, which is a fundraiser for Big Brothers of Sarnia-Lambton. This is my fourth year (I think) of participating. I'd appreciate any help you could throw my way for my fundraising effort.

Click here to go to my donation page.

Thanks.

Geocaching

So, 5 years after signing up on the website, I finally went out and tried Geocaching last weekend when I was visiting friends in Belleville.

For those who are unaware of this hobby, people hide small containers with a logbook in public places and list the longitude and latitude online. Then you use your GPS to hunt it out. It's a fun reason to get outside and enjoy a walk. We were able to find 3 in a conservation area near Belleville, then when I got home I found a couple more in Waterloo Park. While in the park I ran into a couple of really experienced Geocachers and they gave me some good pointers on getting started out.

Anyone else ever try this. I think I might do some more of it, especially when the weather gets better.

Canada Wins The Gold... In Airing Commercials and Pointless Fillers

So, I was actually going to write about how awesome the Olympic coverage has been so far from the Broadcast Consortium. The fact that there are 3 big networks showing coverage (4 if you include OLN, which I don't because it's not in HD) and there is really good online viewing is really great. However, I'm sitting here watching the coverage right now... It's about an hour after Canada won a silver in Snowboard Cross, and on CTV they're showing fluff pieces about the atheletes, on Sportsnet they're showing a replay of the Snowboard Cross final that THEY JUST SHOWED LIVE AN HOUR AGO, and TSN is showing a Women's hockey blowout. I'm thinking, "It's the Olympics... how strange that there's nothing else going on right now". I know the 500m speed skating is coming up tonight (that's one of the oft-played fluff pieces... yeah we get it, Wortherspoon fell in 2002). So I look up the schedule online, and in actuality, the first run of the 500 metres is on right now! It's just that it's not the Canadians' turn yet.

Is that what we've come to? We have a multitude of channels, and we won't show an event live if a Canadian isn't involved. Once upon a time, I remember thinking the American coverage was terrible in 1996 because they never showed anyone but Americans, while our coverage was superior because we gave coverage to whole events... and that was when we only had one station showing coverage. But I guess that's what we, as Canadians, are told we want to be. I'm just waiting for the tape delayed for primetime only coverage that we'll surely be getting in a few Olympics from now.

CTV, you have a chance to show that you're just as good as CBC when it comes to Olympic coverage, but you're quickly blowing it.

And I miss the CBC Olympic theme song.

More 1 vs 100 Fun

With the 2nd season of 1 vs 100 winding down, I finally got to play in the Mob for a real prize today. Me and 37 other members of the mob outlasted the one, and in the process won 80 MS point (about a dollar) and a free arcade game (which this week was Marvel vs Capcom 2... not bad). The only weird thing is that all prizes are virtual, but I still have to wait 4-6 weeks for the prize. I suppose it's for contest verification or something, because it sure isn't for shipping and handling.

Now that I got my 1 vs 100 fill out of the way, I can watch the last half of the Tournament of Hearts. I think it'd be nice to see PEI win in their first final appearance ever.

This is a Dilly of a Pickle

So, the commenting system I've been using on my blog is shutting down. I have 2 options: Switch to another commenting system owned by the same company, or switch back to the Blogger commenting system.

The first option is good because I can keep all my previous comments. The downside is that the interface is quite complex and COSTS MONEY. I've been given a 1 month trial, and that's what is active now.

The second option of using the Blogger default commenting system is good because it's free and relatively easy to use. The downside is that I'll lose all my previous comments.

What to do?

Now THAT'S a Lake Effect!

I drove home today after being in Bright's Grove for 2 weeks. Of course, the day I drove back was some of the worst driving weather I've been through. Highway 402 was actually closed between exits 44 and 69. It took 2.5 hours to get to London. After that, it was fine though. All this after leaving Sarnia with no evidence whatsoever of snow (unless I looked at the Road Conditions website... which I did).