It’s just something you do on a day like today. Below freezing temps, hardly any wind, all the sun you could ever ask for, and a hot coffee in your hand. It’s been a nice two weeks to have Rebecca off from work, even if we haven’t left the city. In due time, you can bet that we’ll plan on making our holidays in much warmer climates. Not the greatest quality, but the cellphone can only do so much.
The Crazy Canucks #15 – Seventh Heaven
With only two games since the last episode and a seven game win streak, you wouldn’t have thought that this episode would have gone on so long. Good times, and the latest version of Ubercaster has really impressed me. Will make an updated post about that soon.
Yes, we’re on a total high having hit a 7-game win streak this past week. All parties are present to discuss the most recent games, winning in OT and by shut out. Rory’s out of the All Star running, Luongo’s integrity and stamina will last until the summer and it sure is fun beating the pants off another Alberta team.
Record as of this episode: 24-18-1
Northwest Division: 1st
Western Conference: 3rdOn top of the world, we’re looking at tomorrow’s game versus a division rival, and Saturday’s contribution to Hockey Day in Canada.
46:15 minutes
The Crazy Canucks
I’m a sucker for the Apple hoopla
For years now, I’ve been a slave to the keynotes that Steve Jobs[wiki] has been putting on nearly every six months. I think it’s safe to say that Rebecca will soon become a switcher, but that will have to wait until this freaking country says I can have a job. Let’s also hope that I won’t be making a double dip for her next birthday of multiple Apple products, but she got a good account of what it’s like on keynote day with me.
Because I know that there are other Apple heads out there who don’t follow the bleeding edge like I do, here’s the major bullet points of what was unleashed today.
- The iPhone was officially announced; shipping in June (freaking sweet)
- Apple Computer, Inc. will drop their middle name, now known as Apple, Inc. [macrumors]
- iTV is to be officially known as Apple TV; shipping in Febuary
- Paramount Pictures is now offering their catalog of movies on iTunes [macrumors]
- Not in the keynote, but Airport Extreme with 802.11n compatibility released today
The keynote will be available for viewing on Apple’s website later today[apple]. And for the most part, this I can handle. Not pressing hard for a new cellphone right now as much as I’d like to upgrade my laptop into the Intel world. I think Rebecca will be the first one in our home to get one though. Aside from me saying that just because it’s her birthday, but she’s put up with me for this long? Yeah, I’d say that she’s deserving of some new toys.
Veinte y siete
Happy birthday to my birthday girl. My best friend and partner in crime. Couldn’t ask for more in life than her.
Somebody leaked it onto the subnet
I’m not sure how it’s happened, but the first four episodes to season six of 24 have been released into Internet-land. Yes, that is the upcoming season that has yet to officially premiere. I leave that up to you to track down where and how, but it is some pretty good television, not to mention the really great quality you can find it in.
Trust me, I’ve been scanning the headlines over the past few days to hear of Hollywood crying foul over it, but there hasn’t been anything. Clever marketing technique or rogue pirates on the loose? You decide.
Our coffee maker has decided to not make coffee
Actually, the element has crapped out. It happened a while ago. I put the grounds and water in it, hit the switch, and it wasn’t doing anything nearly thirty minutes later. We had a french press, so I decided to worry about it later and default onto our other alternative.
Notice that I said “had” in referring to the french press. Doing dishes the other morning, it fell out of the strainer where I had put it to dry. I heard it hit the counter when I turned away. It was nice to pretend that I didn’t hear it crack, but it was neatly held together in three various pieces by the metal bindings around it.
This morning, I got a screw driver and pulled apart the coffee maker to see what I could find out. Aside from being amazed at how very little goes into the technology of our particular maker, some burnt spots on the wiring under the element was enough to alert me to potential problems. Still, I tried it out to see if it worked anyway. Sure enough, the element didn’t even get lukewarm. I could try to replace the part, but it’s much easier to just say, “it broke!”
Rebecca took the ghetto engineering up a notch after that. Boiled water, a strainer, and a coffee filter stuffed inside of that, we had some tediously made, delicious coffee. It worked fairly well, but the waiting is a little painful.
A second attempt proved a little better. Take away the paper filter from before and the process was much quicker. There was a little bit of grit, but not too bad. A second straining proved to make it just right in terms of consistency.
We just have to replace either of the two broken appliances, but this works when in a pinch. I Googled various other possibilities, but Rebecca took to the experiment undaunted. We could just have done tea instead, but that would have been boring.
I almost called it
No big secret that I’m not the biggest football fan in the world, but I do enjoy catching games from time to time. The Chiefs got eliminated, so the season is really over for a part-time fan like me. It’s tough to not be a Seattle fan in Vancouver though. And to tell you the complete truth, I’m with Rebecca on this one. We both like the color scheme on their uniforms, and that’s the main reason we dig the Seahawks. Other than that, couldn’t tell you much about the team.
Their playoff game against Dallas was on while she was cooking the other night. Late in the 4th quarter, Dallas was down by one point and setting up for a field goal attempt. Easy three points for the lead with just over a minute left to play in the game. I pretty much said that the season was over for Seattle. A bummer for sure, but just before the snap, I looked over at Rebecca and said, “it would be outstanding if they blocked the kick.” I didn’t expect this.
They played the botched snap over and over again, showing the guy who screwed the pooch, Romo, sitting there with his head down. Yeah, great for Seattle, but I’m surprised that Romo wasn’t crying somewhere in a corner. We both felt so horrible for him. You could just feel his pain.
I know I’m late to the post here, but the replay of that gets me every time. True pain might come next week for Seattle. Chicago’s next up, and the game is in the windy city. Odds are, my brother will say that the Bears will whoop the Seahawks.
The roof is exploding!
I have to state the obvious. Today’s collapsing of the roof at BC Place[wiki] was the hot topic across so many media outlets, and everyone in the world of blogging, at least here in Vancouver, was looking to be apart of the madness. Yes, Rebecca did make a post about it. I won’t deny that, but we were about 30 minutes late to the whole event as we were driving around the mayhem of slush covered roads in the GVRD. She just amended a post that she made earlier in the day to include a photo she snapped while on our return home.
The significance is nothing to sneeze at. I get that much. This is a huge landmark for Vancouver, and the issue runs deep. The winter olympics are coming, local officials might have over thought the longevity of the dome, and so on. I get it.
The inflated roof at B.C. Place stadium in Vancouver has collapsed, but no one is reported hurt.
The office of Vancouver Fire Chief Bob Smith says there are no injuries following the collapse of the roof of BC Place Stadium.
Emergency personnel are calling this a mechanical problem that caused the stadium’s fans to cut out and bring the roof down.
The fabric dome came down into the bowl of the stadium during a storm that brought wind and heavy, wet snow to the area. [cknw]
But holy crap, was there ever a rush to publish everyone’s vantage point of it all. While in the car, CKNW was doing their damnedest to cover the story to every last end of the catastrophe. Apparently someone made some sort of statement at some point just after the collapse that led one of their on air guys to to wonder about some cover up over some one somewhere being killed during the whole thing. Their coverage was a tad on the extreme, bizarre, and near insane side, but we were able to dissect the jest of the story from the outside in.
And honestly, what was the guy on that they were interviewing about the noise of the roof collapsing sounding like “zoo animals running through your kitchen”? I’ve never had the opportunity to have any sort of wild animal run through any of the households that I have lived in. I experienced some parties in college that might come close, but the sounds of zebras and elephants is something I’m not all too familiar with. He was on the field at the time of initial tear. Outside, people said it sounded like thunder. Inside, this dude was tripped out by the sounds of the circus parade punching a hole in the roof.
The various blogs from the area didn’t fail to amaze me though. I figured someone would, at the very least, have pictures on Flickr or YouTube when we got home late this afternoon, but this was nuts. The Vancouverite[1, 2, 3], Darren Barefoot, Breebop, Derrek Miller, Jeremy Latham, Metroblogging Vancouver, Beyond Robson[1, 2], and my good pals Dave Olsen and Alanah even weighed in. You all lived up to your expectations, and it was a rush to have your stuff up there as soon as you could. That’s what amazes me the most.
Everyone has their view, but there has to be a point where a roof collapsing on a sports stadium can only be done to a certain extent before it’s saturated. This has happened back in my home state a few times to the UNI-Dome[wiki], but they fixed the issue by slapping on a metal roof. Not saying that this can be easily solved in a similar way for BC Place, but don’t worry folks. Life will go on.
If it only took a phone call to fly in replacement trees for Stanley Park and a few weeks to make that look normal again, then we’d totally be in business.
And the U.S. won the bronze
I like to add that tidbit about the U.S. winning the bronze medal round against Sweden this morning because neither of their countries seem to care(World Junior Ice Hockey Championships[wiki]). There was probably a very slim chance of catching the game in the states, and there wasn’t much of a crowd supporting team Sweden in their home country. Lack of U.S. coverage and support is one thing, but Sweden? Come on. The core of the Canucks is made of guys from there.
Watching the young guys play is amazing. Truly the future of hockey to come. You just know that with the new rules in the NHL and the way these guys play in this tournament, the game will just keep getting faster and faster.
The other thing is, there is this new dynasty of hockey brothers in the game. I don’t think there are anymore Staals left, and little Tom Pyatt certainly shows some promise. I can’t be too sure about the boys from the states, but only three of those players don’t have pro statuses with the NHL listed yet. Still, not too many people there care.
Canada 4, Russia 2. Good game. I was hoping for a battle, and Russia fought hard to come back. Just wasn’t enough gas left in the tank to combat Canada’s onslaught. Combine this with Tim Ho coffee in my hand at 10:30 in the morning. Doesn’t get much more north of the 49th than that.
iChat Update 1.0
For the past few months, I’ve been having problems with iChat connecting up with my family back in the states. Bandwidth issues are one thing, but these errors would give me headaches because no solutions seemed to work. Quiting out of all other applications, deleting certain preferences, and running on a non-wireless connection would give me nothing. Every time that the connection would error out, I’d hit that button to send a report directly to Apple.
Yesterday, Apple released iChat Update 1.0. These are the only details.
This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio, and video conferences.
This document will be updated as more information becomes available. [apple]
That’s it? I can’t be sure if this solves the problems I’ve been having but am really hoping so. I won’t even get into the fact that the speakers on my Powerbook just decided to stop working about six months ago. Combine these two issues and I’m a little peeved.
Is anyone at Apple keeping track of all the problem reports I’ve been sending in? I’m not the only guy doing this. My godson has sent in numerous on his end when he has had problems syncing up with me over iChat. It’s annoying, and I’m banking that this helps with what I’ve been so desperately trying to figure out.