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Think before you run

I ventured out on a route this morning that, in hindsight, I should have thought out a little bit more. The massive amounts of wind that played with the trees outside of the apartment yesterday had me concerned about the roots holding. Windows rattled and the whole place rumbled. These are the types of weather systems that start here and end up dumping loads of winter goodness in the lands of the Midwest where I used to call home.

IMG_9296 The seawall was pretty clear, but there were bits of trees laying on the ground that I took care to step around and over. When I got to the part where I anticipated heading into the park, I only got about a hundred meters when I ran into the first tree on the path. Took some careful steps, but I got around it alright. A little further, I came to a Y-intersection. One way took me to Beaver Lake, and there was no way I could get around or through.

The tree covered access to both of these trails, but a slight amount of space let me crawl under it to the other trail option, just enough so that I was drenched by the water trapped in the pine needles. On the other side, I found another tree laying in the path. Luckily, this wasn’t of the same variety, so some careful dancing and ducking got me through to the other side. I got to the top of the path and took the road back out to the seawall.

The weatherman said a couple more systems are to come yet this week. Lots of rain, lots of wind. I’ll keep that in mind before I try running through the park anytime soon. Made for a longer route than I wanted today.

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Students too busy being smart to rock

Maybe it’s because I like Clinic, but this is nuts. Apparently, St. Martins College, a small school in London, England, had students protest their upcoming performance there. The reason? They had too much school work to do.

As previously reported, the university was scheduled to host a sold-out Clinic gig on December 14, but due to “pressure from a small minority of students, who saw the show as a perceived disruption to their studies and were threatening to stage a sit-in protest” (according to the band’s website), the concert was canceled.

A sit-in protesting a rock show?! What decade is this again? The fifties?

Tickets for the canceled show will be honored at the band’s next London show, tentatively scheduled for somet time in February 2007. Tickets can also be refunded from point of purchase. [pitchfork]

Really, I don’t get it, and this is like a strange portrayal of a scene from PCU[imdb]. If there was to be a big show that I wanted to check out when I was in school, then I busted my butt to make time for it. More often than none, the main reason I would skip it would be due to lack of money. And it’s not like the band is setting up in your dorm room. Gigs like this last a couple of hours, not all day. There will be plenty of other time to do your school things. That’s what sleep deprivation and coffee is for.

“These, Tom, are the Causeheads. They find a world-threatening issue and stick with it for about a week.” – PCU[imdb]

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RadioZoom Episode #121 – Christmas cheer; Music and interviews; Listener feedback; Vancouver Trivia

Lots of fun putting this episode together. Download it. You must.

Coming back after being away for nearly two weeks, Rebecca and I sit down in “the studio” to get caught up on our podcasting duties. Illnesses and business aside, we’re back with a variety of topics while sitting down to record without any plan. Christmas is upon us, and we’re getting a gift from Aberdeen City, which is awesome. There is also some discussion of Christmas shopping and what it takes to send presents back to the U.S.

We’ve received some great feedback from listeners about some of the interviews we’ve been doing. Unfortunately, our interview with Wintersleep did not happen, but maybe next time. We do take some time to thank those who have submitted feedback about the podcasts we’ve been putting out there and comment about our music related interviews in general. Rebecca also got a great chance to interview a member of The Could Room and talks about the very cool opportunity.

Also check out this month’s edition of Vancouver Trivia to see how well John knows the city.

52:32 minutes
radiozoom.net

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Fall finales makes good television suck

Now that horribly laugh tracked sitcoms and over-written medical dramas don’t completely over populate the digital cable bandwidth, I’m finding more content that is actually entertaining. The writing is good, the camera work is enjoyable, good editing, worthwhile effects, and, most importantly, the availability of more programs shot in widescreen. If there is anything that has made television better, it’s the forcing of HDTV[wiki] upon the networks. It’s made the suits actually produce something worth watching, and they gotta pay for that conversion somehow.

I guess I haven’t been paying much attention to the television landscape in the past few years because when the hell did they start doing “fall finales” and “fall breaks”? Seasons for some programs are now broke up between fall and winter? When did they start doing that? More importantly, why?

Heroes - Hiro

This is winter time. This is the time in which we need something to entertain us while we stay warm inside or, as it goes in Vancouver, stay out of the rain. In the summer, I could care very little about anything else other than being able to get to the beach on the weekend and enjoying dinner on a patio somewhere at night. If Hollywood thinks that I’m going to be sitting on the edge of my chair while I wait for the next episode of Hereos[wiki] or Jericho[wiki] to premiere in January… then… they’re probably right. That doesn’t mean I like it.

Heroes - Sylar

I had a conversation with a friend not too long ago, and he kept saying that he doesn’t understand how anyone can wait for a new episode of any television show to come out from week to week. I initially disagreed with him, but he kinda has a point now. Marathon nights of watching a single season of some show on DVD sounds appealing opposed to this “clever” marketing technique that networks are pulling now. Oh how I loathe them.

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VCOE going away; the hockey blogging will continue

There has been a bit of news today regarding one of our collaborators to The Crazy Canucks podcast. Alanah, of Vancouver Canucks Op Ed, posted a fairly major announcement this afternoon, ending a three year run of her blog.

No, you didn’t read that wrong — Vancouver Canucks Op Ed will be closing down very soon, probably in the next week or two. I’ve been putting off posting this, but it’s time to explain what’s already happened and what’s coming up.

I’m afraid it’s a bit long-winded, but I’m sort of sentimental about this blog, so cut me some slack…;-) [vancouvercanucksoped]

Read the rest of her post to get the reasoning for the end of VCOE, but the good news is that her hockey blogging adventures will continue. Expect bigger and better things from Alanah in the very near future. Also, be sure to catch the next episode of The Crazy Canucks as we will be sure to expand on this topic further.

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When geeks podcast about WordPress

Just last week, I discovered The WordPress Podcast. Being a podcaster that uses WordPress in all the projects that I’m apart of right now, I subscribed immediately. This is close to being the official podcast about WordPress, but not quite. That’s not to say that the folks involved don’t know what they’re talking about.

Of course, what they are talking about is incredibly geeky. There is something to be said about those out there who understand all the behind the scenes aspect of WordPress as a blogging engine that will not appeal to those looking for entertainment. If you use WP, like it, and are interested in the idea of exploring all the extra things you can do with it, then this might be for you.

So far, I’ve listened to a handful of episodes and been really liking what I’ve heard. The concept goes beyond just the hosts telling you tips and tricks for what you can do with WordPress. Other users, programmers, and designers contribute segments about things they are doing with their own sites. I already have a few ideas that I want to try out based on some of the things have been mentioned.

The one aspect that I really dig is the segment about recently released plugins for WordPress. They give a basic run down on some of the latest releases and updates, and the website for the podcast allows you to find links directly to what they mention. Very useful because anyone who makes WP sites will know what a pain it can be to keep tabs on what’s out there for plugins.

I’m anxious to listen to their two part interview with Matthew Mullenweg[wiki], the guy who basically headed the creation of WordPress at the age of 19. That shows you that The WordPress Podcast has the knowledge and connections for good, geeky content.

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Sausage and gravy or a tuna melt

Hamburg Inn Exterior
Photo credit: peterme on Flickr

I’m not sure why, but after my run this morning, I’ve had a craving for something from the Hamburg Inn[wiki]. I think I’ve sat in every single section, including all presidential booths. Rebecca made a pretty sweet breakfast this morning, but we both know how good that place is. It’s all about charm.

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Fake fire

Faux FireI see this on TV every morning when Rebecca is heading off to work. Yes, it’s a DVD of a fake fireplace. Faux Fire[amazon]. This is nearly as stupid as those Head On commercials. I realize they show things like this during the holiday season, but are you serious? Do you really want to spend money on crap like this?

I say take that money and do something better with it.


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Dinking with things that dink with content

I’ve been cramming a lot into my brain over the past few days. For one thing, I’ve been exploring the lovely world of Drupal. After all the things I’ve seen and heard about it, I’ve been impressed. It’s everything that it’s said to be. Content management system, and they ain’t kidding.

I set it up locally and played quite a bit yesterday. Every time I tried to do something that would be complicated by doing it stupidly, Drupal had some sort of built-in way to do what I wanted. Very interesting. Not sure that I like it from a blogging aspect, but it has that too. It can be oh so much more.

I’m experimenting with WordPress more and more. I’ve been a long time user of the visual rich editor. However, not anymore. It’s come to be such a pain, and the WYSIWYG interface gets so annoying after a while. Being a user of only version 2.0 and on, this is what previous versions did. I’ve gotta say that I like this, non-rich editor, much more. Loads faster in FireFox and has no lag. I’ll stick with this for now.

I did find a really great Flickr plugin for WordPress. Flickr Photo Album adds a nice interface for dropping images from your Flickr account straight into a post, all from within the editor. You can already do this with Flock, but I am still not impressed with its performance. This plugin makes things simple and quick, but the setup takes a little to sort out.

I also got into some Unix[wiki] junk last night. Seems that my external hard drive has the occasional ability of renaming itself at random times and confusing some of my peer to peer programs. How else are we to have our cheap nights in with some ghetto Tivo, aka BitTorrent? This could also cause problems with some of my podcast projects. If I spent enough time with it, Unix could become another language I could start to really understand. I’ve got way too many other things on the list right now. I should get some tape for the middle of my glasses.

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Hello Oscar

OscarThis is Oscar. He’s a yucca[wiki] plant, and the closest thing we have to a pet. Our building frowns upon anything other than bipeds of the human variety. He and I hang out a lot during the day. I wish I could say that I talk to him and stuff, but that’s simply not true. Over the past few months, his health kind of went downhill.

I’ve been feeding him coffee grounds lately, and he seems to really like it. Either the grounds are good for his root system or else he’s become addicted to caffeine. I’m hardly a botanist, but you can’t argue with the results. Three new leaves all started sprouting around the same time that we made the change. Being the middle of winter in Vancouver, that’s pretty good for a plant that thrives in arid climates.

What I do know is that as a kid, my dad always had me put coffee grounds out in the lawn to feed the worms. Then we’d go out at night, harvest a bunch, and take them fishing with us. It would be creepy is we suddenly had huge earth worms growing in Oscar’s pot.