Archive for December, 2006


The Crazy Canucks #13 – Holiday hangover hoe down

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Living and learning with what Ubercaster can do, but I set the mic levels way too high for the recording. The program had some nice tricks to make it sound decent through editing. Check out episode #13 of The Crazy Canucks. This one was certainly a little nutty.

Dave is a healthy scratch for this episode, but there has been so much that has happened since the last episode that it was hard to keep tabs on how long this episode turned out. There were some issues during the recording, but the audio was salvageable. That’s not to say that it might sound strange, but we will keep this in mind for the next episode to take changes into consideration.

Record as of this episode: 19-18-1
Northwest Division: 1st
Western Conference: 3rd

Four games to talk about, three teams played since the last episode: Boston, Columbus, and Calgary. The first two games were painful for Canucks fans, but the home and home series against the Flames was nothing short of pure delight. J.J gives us the inside scoop of his involvement with the CBC story on the whole Vote for Rory campaign, and Alanah seems to be getting a tattoo after losing a bet on Luongo’s save stats in the first half of the season.

This is the last episode of 2006, so have a safe and happy new year! We’ll see you next year, and expect more to come from The Crazy Canucks.

The Crazy Canucks

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Filed under: Podcasting, Skype, The Crazy Canucks, Ubercaster

It’s always good to remember how it was

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

This popped up on my RSS feeds today from The Onion, and I’m not sure why. I read it when they first published it in September 2005, but this makes me laugh my ass off every time I read it. The Onion kind of does that to me with everything they produce though.

The Onion
The Onion

Yes, remember when we didn’t have hockey? Good lord those were some dark days. And it’s the middle response that kills me the most. I’ve gotta find that first season somewhere…

By the way, did you see the Canucks game last night[yahoo]? Holy crap did that make me feel manic depressive or what? J.J. made a great post about it, and Alanah was pretty stoked about it, too. I know we were yelling from our couch numerous times. Well, ok, maybe I was the one yelling more than Rebecca.

And yes, I do (heart) Salo. How can you stop there? The Sedins were outstanding, Kesler had a nice goal (somehow), and Cooke made Kipper look awful. I always love it when “Kippru-I-live-to-take-my-mask-soff” gets schooled.

What a freaking good game, and you can be assured that we’ll gush about it on The Crazy Canucks round table.

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Filed under: Canucks, Hilarious, Hockey, The Onion

RFID in U.S. passports are here

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

I guess it is not too surprising, but one would think that the era of bar codes coming into the background technology of passports would make life easier for travel. It’s a lot like shopping. Walk up to the counter, swipe it through, and you’re in. It wasn’t until a snippet on BoingBoing linked to the following article that I learned about the changes of international travel as a U.S. citizen.

How To: Disable Your Passport’s RFID Chip

All passports issued by the US State Department after January 1 will have always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it. But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison. Not to mention the “special” customs search, with rubber gloves. Bon voyage! [wired]

It’s not a constant tracking of your movements, but this is getting somewhat close. RFID[wiki] is how large companies, like Wal-Mart or FedEx, track shipments of materials across the expanse of their operations. Like the article says, this technology is pretty much always on. Just like GPS, you just have to have the right tools to tune in and find our where you are. Except in this case, someone can find your general location. Or at least, they can find where you lost your favorite pair of pants that you left your passport in.

I have till the end of this decade until I have to renew mine, and this really creeps me out. I wonder when someone will start selling lead-lined wallets for your passport. After 2010, I’ll become a dot on someone’s grid.

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Filed under: Tech News, Travel, U.S.

The Crazy Canucks sneaking on to the CBC

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

I got a pretty interesting text message from J.J. last night while sitting at home with Rebecca. “Whoa cbc was just over my apt and taped a piece on the rory thing“. I got excited and asked if he said anything about The Crazy Canucks because I’m a marketing sucker like that.

The piece turned out pretty great, but at the 49 second mark of the 2:38 long clip, that’s the last you see of J.J. Still, it’s a pretty sweet shot of the Canucks Hockey Blog in the background on his screen. You can also see The Crazy Canucks logo just a tad. This aired last night on CBC: Canada Now at 6PM. Way to go, J.J.!

By the way, did you vote for Rory yet? I know I’ve done my fair share, and you should, too.

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Filed under: Canucks, CBC, Television, The Crazy Canucks, YouTube

Stanley Park storm damage – day 12

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

IMG_9670 Being that the park is one of my favorite places to tread through, I thought I would give a periodical report on the things that I am noticing as the clean up grinds along from the storm that damaged thousands of trees in Stanley Park on December 15, 2006.

One thing that bothers me to no end is the fact that I cannot run on the trails through the park right now. The furthest I have been able to get into the park, aside from our picture taking expedition[flickr], is the trail that goes around Lost Lagoon. That’s not to say that there isn’t a fair amount of damage to that area alone.

Talking to some friends who live on the north shore last night, the damage is not just inside Stanley Park. I’m not sure many people understand how badly the area was hit because they seemed to be surprised at what we were telling them. Our pal Preston did hit the nail on the head when we were trying to describe it to him. Indeed, it does look like the Iron Giant[imdb] took a nice stroll through the park.

The other day, I came across the point where the Tatlow comes out at Lost Lagoon. Of course, there are barricades preventing you from taking the trail into the heart of the park. I have to question why. Directly on the other side of the orange and white gate, there is a mess of trees lying crisscrossed over the trail. You couldn’t get too far if you tried.

Closed areas of Stanley Park (Credit: Vancouver Park Board)
Courtesy of Vancouver Park Board

The whole route around the lagoon took a hit as well. There are numerous points where a fallen tree has been sliced through the middle at the width of the pathway it blocked off. Sawdust is all over the ground in some areas, but the trail is easily accessible without having to crawl over or duck under anything. The forest of the entire park is noticeably not as dense as it was when you peer into the now forbidden zone. There are a bunch of branches and trunks resting at various angles as well.

I’ll do my best to relay other things that I notice as things progress. It’s taking some time for the clean up to really take shape, but the park is massive in scale. Access by vehicle is one thing, but without the trails being open, what’s the point? I think that’s going to take the most time to recover from.

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Filed under: Running, Stanley Park, Vancouver

Using MAMP for local site development

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Those who pay close attention to the various projects that I get myself involved with will notice that I like to play around with the design of the sites. Call it whatever you want, but it always seems like there is something better that I can add or change to the way a site looks. It’s all apart of learning. You try to do something the old or stupid way, only to discover there is a new way that all the cool kids are using that makes things so much more simple.

The worst part about changing a lot of things is doing them publicly. You just can’t go in with an idea, make the change, and go about your business. When you are restless as I am, and I know there are lots of people out there with similar mindsets, the idea you tryout might not look as good as you originally thought. Even worse, it mucks up the whole site and makes it not function at all. Not a good thing, so you might try something else or go back to the way it was in the first place.

MAMPMAMP has really helped with that. It’s allowed me to install and run numerous test sites of WordPress locally[wordpress]. I play around and change things on the fly. Install plugins and surf the site in a browser with full function. Everything that MAMP can do is already there on the Mac(Apache, MySQL, and PHP) these days, but this application makes it work with far less headache. Launch it, do your work, and you’re golden. When I’m settled with what I want, the site goes into the wild.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with WordPress 2.1, and the changes to the next version are looking promising. Drupal can also be managed this way. That took me a little more thinking to get that sorted out, but I was working without an explicit, step-by-step tutorial for MAMP.

I’ve also tried to install WordPress MU, but stopped short of being successful. Actually, I hit some snags and simply gave up. Some quick searches for solutions came up short, but I know that it can work with MAMP. Will have to give it another shot in the near future.

Tricks of the trade, and this might be more obvious to some. I figured I’d share because this has made work on my projects easier, especially taking that FTP part out of the equation. There are various ways to do local installs for WordPress and Drupal development for the Mac and PC, but I can seriously vouch for this one.

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Filed under: Design, Drupal, Geeky, WordPress

RadioZoom Video Podcast #8 – Cruising in the car with the camera phone

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Taking the cellphone into new territory. Check out the latest video podcast of RadioZoom.

This is a major experiment with cellphone technology to do a video podcast. Not the best quality in the world, but in a pinch, this Nokia can do some nice stuff. Leave comments and do your worst. I told you we’d do something before Christmas, and this is coming in right under the wire.

We were driving around, checking out the festive lights in the area, so I had the idea to make this vid while we made our way back home from Christmas Eve gatherings. A year in review, hopes for the new year, and other various things that I can’t remember. Watch it to find out. We have Christmas things to enjoy right now.

Best wishes this holiday! :)

radiozoom.net

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Filed under: Podcasting, RadioZoom

It’s gotta be funky

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

The one thing to bring you down on Christmas Day, isn’t it? The godfather of soul passing away was enough to make me gasp and let out an, “Oh no!”

NEW YORK (AP) — James Brown’s music career will come full circle when his body is brought to rest on the stage of the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, where he made his explosive debut, and the world changed to his beat.

The public will be permitted on Thursday to visit the Apollo to have one more look at a man who helped steer modern musical tastes toward rhythm-and-blues, funk, hip-hop, disco and rap, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Tuesday. The reverend has been a close friend of Brown for decades. [...]

Brown, known as the Godfather of Soul, died of congestive heart failure on Christmas morning in Atlanta at age 73. He had been scheduled to perform on New Year’s Eve in Manhattan at B.B. King’s blues club. [cnn]

Doing the live, morning shows at The Java House in downtown Iowa City, my favorite CD to throw in as a preshow warm-up was none other than James Brown[wiki] himself. It wouldn’t make the annoyed crowd sing along over their lattes as much as The Beatles would, but I know we, the setup crew, loved it. Makes me sad, but I bet those guys are still using his tunes for pregame.

You have to admire the man. Not only did he make some great music, but he was simply crazy.

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Filed under: Music, News Item, Rock & Roll

And a beer in a tree

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

We just got back from hauling the three kids of Rebecca’s sister through Stanley Park to check out the lights that are on display there. I know that this video from my cellphone isn’t of the greatest quality. I thought I would give it a try, and at least you can actually see that we were there. What you don’t see is how packed it was. People everywhere and a three hour wait to ride that train. Borderline chaos.

20061223(007) Now to try my hand at baking. Then it’s pretty much eating for two straight days. Welcome to the holidays, but I won’t be complaining.

Best wishes to everyone, everywhere this season. May it treat you well.


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Filed under: Adventures, Holidays

Can’t escape the fire

Friday, December 22nd, 2006

Seriously, you stand no chance of avoiding it.

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) – Back by popular demand…

Shaw’s holiday fire log is celebrating its 20th anniversary and will be rolled out again this holiday season.

No need to chop or haul wood or stoke the fire.

For those who don’t experience the crackling of a warm fireside hearth over the holidays, Shaw Communications is once again comforting TV viewers with its yuletide fire log.

Beginning December 23rd and continuing through to December 27th, fire log fans can cozy up in front of their television sets for what’s become a holiday tradition for many viewers. [cknw]

Ah geez. Alright, I can’t quite say why I’m waging my own personal war against this. Maybe it’s because I would love more than anything to have our own fireplace. I don’t know. All I know is that this bugs me to no end.

Seriously…

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Filed under: Buh?, Cable, Holidays, News Item, Television, Vancouver
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