Archive for June, 2006
A “meme” is a unit of cultural evolution that propagates itself through various means, the most common of which nowadays is the internet. Some good examples in the past have been things like the Star Wars kid, Mahir the Turkish stud, Badger Badger Badger, Lazy Sunday and such (see more here). I think there are two new ones that will become the same, just neat ideas that people have done a good job with.
Where the hell is Matt? — a guy does a global dance
Ask a Ninja — similar to the vein of Strongbad, but a real life guy
June 30th, 2006
After a frenzied day (wrapping up meetings and driving back from Bracebridge), my parents arrived for a visit. They look normal (i.e. generally healthy), although mom is still recovering from her broken knee and can’t walk that well. They drove up over the last several days, visiting Bruce and Josie, spending some time visiting Uncle Bob’s cottage and then visiting Merle and Bob, Blair and Sarah in Toronto.
June 29th, 2006
I find out today that Craig, after his four years of living the free life is now gainfully employed again. What’s even weirder… he’s working at my company and we will likely be working on and off together. This year gets stranger and stranger for me. Congratulations to Craig (uhh… I think).
June 26th, 2006
Jonathan got the board game version of Warcraft for father’s day last week. Sean, Shae and I all went over to give it a try to see if was any fun to play. Turns out it was quite good (albeit long at 5+ hours). It helped a lot that we already know how to play the online game, so it only took 1h to go over all the rules. It has so many elements of the online version of the game, which might make it overwhelming for people, but that are translated well to a board game. It was definitely an entertaining afternoon.
June 25th, 2006
Checked the mail today since we’ve been away all week. Ron and Shanmei are getting married. What a spectacular event this is. August 20th this year. That’s fantastic and Karen and I can’t wait to go. We suspected that something was up when Ron and Shanmei went recently to China (thinking that Ron was going to meet the parents as a precusor to marriage)… Didn’t expect it to be so quick though! Very exciting — I’m blown away.
June 25th, 2006
Several of us went to see Lord of the Rings: The Musical tonight. Let me say that this further proves that Saul Zaentz destroys all Tolkien stuff he touches and I’m glad he stayed out of the movies. This also resparked my hatred for theatre and a dawning belief that MOST theatre is crap. Now, I do feel bad for the actors and crew in the show, they tried their best and I hope that they did it because it was merely professional work and not a belief that the show was good. I instead blame the director and the writers for putting that show together in the first place. Now, I have lots of friends in Toronto in theatre and specifically fighting… and they all warned me off of it with frenzied gestures and vocal ranting, but I figured I had to see it anyway.
First off, if you don’t know the story of Lord of the Rings, it might very well be impossible to follow what is going on as they jump rapidly through the story and not always continguously. The play is 3h 45m, which is VERY LONG for something that you enjoy watching much less something that isn’t good.
I’ll have to itemize my issues with the play, as there are too many of them to write about:
- Hobbits are portrayed as stupid people
- None of the characters are good - Gandalf was horrible; none of the presence that the character needs
- The people of Bree are hillbillies and do a hoedown with the Hobbits
- They skip Weathertop (stabbing Frodo in Bree instead)
- They take a moment similar to the movie at the council of Elrond, but instead Frodo puts the ring on the floor
- They skip the Watcher in the Water
- In Moria with the Balrog (hard to tell even what it is), a Florida Everglades airboat is on stage (the noisy fan to blow black paper at the audience)
- Galadriel has a hat on that makes her look like an sprouting potato
- When Frodo accepts the Phial of Galadriel, he takes it from his coat — WORST PALMING EVER
- Boromir dies by being circled and jumped over by Orcs
- Theoden just feels better after talking with Aragorn and goes to war
- Ents look very similar to ZZ-top band members on 35′ stilts (old men with hats, trenchcoats, beards)
- Helm’s Deep has a massive silent battle (as all the cast are using rubber swords)
- Gollum twists and contorts himself constantly for no reason
- Shelob is controlled by people not in all black (so you are somewhat distracted by the “operators” of the spider)
- Two very loud sword hits (SWORD HITS) ring out when Sam attacks Shelob
- The light of Eärendil apparently is about 40 watts
- Battle of Pellinor Fields is skipped and we move directly to the black gate
- The battle at the black gate is done as an interpretive dance sequence and people aren’t actually fighting, just gesturing and falling down
- Gollum when he takes the ring (and dies) descends slowly on a hydralic stage while standing
- Gandalf appears beside Sam and Frodo to rescue them (not sure how he got there or how they get back)
- Saruman comes out of Bag End in a trenchcoat and looking to knife fight (West Side Story anyone?)
- Bill Ferny kills Saruman by accident
- None of the songs (maybe except one) are memorable or even interesting
There you go - I hear it’s not doing well and I guess I now know why. It’s unfortunate but I guess after hearing the warnings I didn’t expect much… but I got even less.
June 24th, 2006
Karen recently helped a few Ontario Renaissance Festival guys (Shawn and Kelly) as they got organized for the first annual Guelph Fairy Festival. It was a beautiful day and Sean, Shae, Sue-Anne, Karen and I were in attendance along with somewhere between 500-1000 others. They put a ton of work into it to make it a success (including building a HUGE wooden gate, something we have yet to do) and it was nice to see all the people we know from the RMF. Additionally, we heard of a PIRATE FESTIVAL coming up in August (a must to attend).
View photos
June 24th, 2006
Haven’t written for the week because I was largely disconnected from the internet. It was a perfect week with the temperatures in the low 20s and swimming every day. It rained almost every evening, but that was fine since we were inside and watching “24“. In the end it was a fantastic deal, a great time to unwind (much needed) and having only four of us there was perfect as there was no organization required. We’ll have to do the same deal again next year if it’s available. If you want info on the cottage, click here.
View photos
June 23rd, 2006
Five years ago, way back in 2001, a bunch of us went to Ireland. I had just gotten a GPS and one of the things I had read about was the Degree Confluence project, so naturally I wanted to try this while vacationing. It’s been a long while and apparently a few people have visited 52N 9W since, but we were the first visit ever. To this day, I’m still mocked for the “oh it’s just 300 more metres” whenever something seems like it might be slightly difficult to get to. I would recommend however, if you do get the chance and you like the outdoors, to find an undiscovered place on that site and go adventuring…
June 15th, 2006
This week has been RMF week - Monday was meeting with City Council and helping lend support to Colleen (our city rep) who was proposing some new changes to the policies around community festivals. Collen is so fantastic, the city is lucky to have her and so are we. Tuesday was the organizers social gathering where we as a group of board and coordinators got together and talked and eat and so forth, it was nice to see people coming back to be involved this year and we met some new faces as well. And tonight was the first rehearsal of the burgundy group (the court, knights, etc.) — that was a great time and the script this year looks really humourous and fun to do, so we’re all looking forward to that.
June 14th, 2006
Had a very good day today talking with Microsoft - lots of good things happening there and I’m excited about what we have planned for 3, 6, 12, 24 months and beyond - the Microsoft guys are really good to work with and I’m happy I can be a major player in that direction.
June 14th, 2006
Ok - last night, apparently I was sleepy and I pulled up the bottom sheet and slept between that and the mattress. That just isn’t that much fun, since it’s not really nice to sleep on a raw mattress. It also makes it weird for the other person sleeping with you if they assume that you are on the same “layer” as them and they try to spoon you. Just say’n s’all.
June 14th, 2006
Today I hear the plans that will have me going back and forth to Germany once every three months (and them coming here once every three months). Should be interesting since, up to now, I’ve been doing once a year to Europe and most of my trips end up being very tiring (as I have to be away on the order of a week to make it worthwhile). Not sure when I go next, but I assume it will probably be July or August and maybe if I’m lucky I can take Karen with me and we can romp around Munich.
June 13th, 2006
At the end of the month, Dan is going to let his Warcraft subscription run out and quit. Probably a smart idea as the time comittment has such a significant impact on personal life. I expect that eventually all of us will also probably give up the goat and move on to better things, as entertaining as it all may be.
June 12th, 2006
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