A Snark By Any Other Name

Recently I’ve decided playing a most dangerous and unwise game.  A player engrossed in said game may find it so addictive, may throw caution and wise judgement into the wind.  Let me present to you the game of snarking.

snarking (v): (1) The delivery of sarcastic but humorous comments.  The humour may be lost on the recipient of comment.  (2) The humorous practise of using bands small voracious Xen aliens against other Half-Life players.  This humour may also be lost on the recipient.  Still other players will display amusement watching recipient run screaming through a level, followed by a horde of jumping squeaking snarks. (3) The insanely humorous practise of combining practises (1) & (2).

And that is the game I shall play…  Yes, kids this the stuff idle minds come up to keep themselves amused during a workweek.

Sick and Spammed

Excuse the interruption in my regular updates for the blog.  I was sick most of last week, and could not write anything past: Ugh, not feeling so well. 🙁

Today I am back, ready for whatever the week can throw at me.  And I plan on throwing a bunch of well-thought out and edited articles back at it!… Err… blog entries… and maybe not completely well-thought out and with a quick edit.  Come on folks, if I did writing as my job I’d crank out fine articles on gaming, free software, technology and life stuff on a regular basis.

Anyways, where was I?  Ah yes!  I plan on throwing a batch of blogs back at life.  Two things I wish life would not throw at me:  more sickness as I already have a decent collection of cold bugs.  Let someone else get the free virus/bacteria starter kits, and KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME!  Also I could use less spam.  Two articles in particular receive a ridicilous amount of incoming comment spam.  And my poor blog notifies me by e-mail when someone tries to post a comment.  My IT (internet tablet) likes to make loud proclamations whenever I get an e-mail.  Nothing is worse than walking up to a dingy noise and flashy blue light, to moderate spam.  Nothing worse except that being sick and receiving over 10 of these suckers over the course of a weekend.  PLEASE STOP IT YOU EVIL SPAMMERS!  I am sure none of my readers are interested in a life time supply of viagra.  Nor is Google happy with your attempts at google bombing.  Just go away.  Please.

Anyways I wish everyone else a good and happy week!

A Short Paper on Snowfall and its Effects on a Northerly People

We take a break from our regularly scheduled program on technology, gaming, freedom, life management and progress updates; for a totally pointless post.

Up in the frigid northern regions called Canada, there lives a nation of people who well… basically live there. The very thought that someone would want to north of the 49th parallel, is downright shocking to Canadian’s southerly neighbours. More shocking is the revelation that said Canadians in fact do not normally consider dog sleds a mode of transportation. Nor do they consider igloos as mortgageable housing. Something that is not shocking is the presence of a substance known as snow.

Snow, or the collective name of crystalized water droplets in flake form, is a common occurence in Canada. In fact snow is the second prefered form of precipitation in the wet winter season. Rain is naturally prefered but not when combined with freezing temperatures. Oddly regardless of the number of times a Canadian has experienced snowfall, they react as someone who has seen the phenomena for the first time.

A Canadian will at first mention of a coming snowfall, will deny the existence of snow or its falling. Once the first snowflakes appear near the ground, a Canadian will appear shocked. Then dismay will follow. This dismay may lead to a near complete loss of driving abilities. Additionally, a significant amount of flakes accumulate on the ground, can profoundly affect the mood of a Canadian. A normally cheery and sensitive Canadian can be an unhappy, grumbling, insensitive individual. While other events can affect Canadians such as: election day, a referendum on Quebec separation or the unlikeliness of a Canadian team winning the Stanley Cup; these events happen with significantly less frequency. Such behaviour in a northerly people is confusing, given the frequent nature of snowfall.

There are a select few who worship the coming of snow. But even these rare individuals admit it, they prefer if the snow remained solely on top of hills and mountains rather than on roads. Also children seem to appreciate snowfall more than adults. However this appreciation is shortlived if the quantity of snow is less than required to close local schools.

The benefits of snowfall in Canada are multitude. Snowfall for one gives Canadians free exercise. It also cultivates the skill of shovelling. While a more profitable skill in the 19th century thanks to the use of coal and steam engines, shovelling can provide meaningful employment in construction, irrigation maintainence and ditch digging. Paradoxically, snowfall also provides a form of national unity.

The researchers of this paper recommend that a more thorough study on the contradictory nature of snowfall and Canadian attitudes is in order. The researchers are currently applying for a grant from the Metrological division of the National Research Council to cover costs of supply, equipment and travel to conventions held in more southerly countries.

This message was sponsored by local snowplow drivers and disgrunteled snowshovel wielding Canadians. And is dedicated to a certain ice princess.

Supermarket!: The Action Show

This has to be a first. I saw one of my coworkers who works on a handheld-related project, dual-wield barcode handheld scanners. Quite an amusing sight to see, and yes he can read the barcodes too while doing so.

Two Rocks + Three Branches = Wet Shoes

A glorious Sunday, and a Happy Mothers Day to all you Moms out there!  Anotherday in that recent string of warm weather we started having here in Brampton.Feels like summer is around the corner… or actually already here.

As an aside, my mother’s laywer told me to write/chronicle all the things I did on a daily basis.  Since this is Mother’s Day, and already have had allthe nagging I can stomach for this month… I devote this flimsy paragraph to that subject.  You can comfortably skip this.  Unless you have a secret fetish for house chores. 😉  Anyhow, did the standard routine of washing dishes for each meal and keeping the house immaculately clean.  Dad did breakfast, which makes me so happy, one less thing to do… I am lazy by nature.  Make that extremely lazy.  Uh.  And I washed the car.  Because my Dad was driving ME crazy with it.  And it has been two years already.  And I am lazy (Did I mention that already?).  And dust didn’t accumulate more than two millimetres on the sides, so it never had chance to peel off by itself (strong belief in that after the dirt is two centimetres it auto-cleans itself via gravity).  And hang out some laundry.  That is it.  Oh and I blogged.  But that doesn’t count does it…

Talking about legalizee… I have started to edit it.  I have done many editing session in my short (or old is your age is < 21) life.  Never was it so slow or painful.  It is about as exciting as a slugging match with a wall.A brick wall.  Standing toe to toe.  Or should it be toe to wall?  Anyways…this is almost as bad as a reading Vogon poetry.  Almost.  Without the internal neural hemorrhaging…  No I can’t spell… Tragic.

Finally summoned the courage to call Kat.  No I am not nervous when talking togirls.  Well maybe.  And only if I like the person a fair bit.  OK, like alot.  I was thinking that she would be tired or irritating at me bugging herso often.  But no.  She seemed to enjoy hearing from me.  So naturally, I amwalking on air ever since.  Thanks Kat!

Unfortunately (for me), Kat was celebrating Mother’s Day with her Mom and sister… so no walk.  So instead I pulled Dima out for a walk.  Maybe I should of gone with me parents instead.  😉  Anyways, so first of all we go for the long route… to the end of the park.  Which is fine, but on the way back Dmitri was getting tired of plain old paved walkway.  Actually it was notgood enough for him.  And he saw three rocks in the Etobicoke river/creek, and dared me to jump across…  *sigh*  And I thought I had grown out of the peer-pressure influenced age…  Anyhow after a hop, skip and jump, we found ourselves in the unkempt meadow on the other side.  Being too lazy to retrace our steps… and being too chicken to attempt jumping back across… we set off on a wilderness trek.  Or the Great Adventure.

Dima directed me to write this like some sort of great epic.

So, the two brave, and fearless explorers set off through the tangled mess of grassland.  Each step of the way, beset by strangely lumpy, lumps of grass that made walking similar to that of walking on perilous jelly.  As they trekked across the grassland in the baking sun, the river curved in front of them.  But that didn’t stop them.  No… the intrepid pair devised an ingenious (Dorian quotes “There is no way I am going to cross on that!!!”)bridge spanning a fearsome (small but wet) rapid.  Dmitri crossed first, but in the process almost wrecked the bridge.  His companion, Dorian attempted to fix the damage but the current was too swift… at last he attempted to cross it.  But fell off!!!  Fortunately Dorian managed to save himself (and keep mostly dry except for the left foot).

*pics*

After the incident, the two continued their journey through the wilderness.They encountered more grassland, and then an immense jungle (tangled undergrowth).  Dima came out unscathed while Dorian got stuck a few times on thorns (man-eating thorn bush… ;-)).   When they tore through the jungle (Dima kept on muttering about wishing to have a machete), they were greeted with the sight of two rare waterfowl (Canadian geese).  The pair continued to tear their way through forest and wilderness and plain.  Until they finally reached a grassy hill (with trees), and so a lowly (paved) trail.  They descended down back into civilization.

*pics*

And Dorian went home with a wet sneaker.  *cry*  But we did see a garter snakeon the way back.

*pics*

Anyhow my day ended more or less after that.  Ate dinner (a restaraunt boughtpita with sovlaki, my favorite, yum!), and then started to edit the tortourousdocument.  And then fell asleep.