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This past Saturday, Sparky invited me out with his friend Eric to go “wheeling“. Basically, this is a form of off-roading… but with a Jeep. The idea of a road-worthy vehicle driving up rocky paths that are difficult as it is to traverse on your own two feet is astounding. He’s been doing this for years, and after many invites, I finally was able to go along with him.

We went to a place known as Greens Mountain, which is about 40 minutes outside of Bobcaygeon. Its a mini-mountain located out on Crown land, and what I initially thought was going to be the trail turned out to be the trail TO the trail. During the day, we caught up with other dudes with Jeeps who were going over the same obstacles, which ranged from muddy hills, ponds, and rocky slopes. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, which was great, and the weather was pretty much perfect. The only complaint I had was the amount of mosquitoes and deer flies… my legs were chewed to pieces. Still, we were going through some swampy areas, so it wasn’t too unexpected.

I recorded some videos on my Nokia, but they’re pretty crappy (Nokia isn’t known for it’s amazing ability to create camera phones). Also, it records them in a *.3GP format, so Windows users may need Quicktime installed. Either way, they’re better than nothing, so if you so choose, here they are:

• Sparky’s first obstacle - 1.6MB
  • Sparky takes his Jeep down a minor rocky incline, and drives up the other side. Essentially, this was a giant rock ditch with some water at the bottom.
• Eric decends the “Superman 1″ - 2.5MB
  • There’s a certain decline known as the “Superman”. Apparently, it is so called due to the fact that it looks like you’re angled at 170 degrees and about to topple over. There are two ridges side-by-side though, so it’s questionable which one is the actual “Superman”. Both look insane though. Here, Eric goes down one of them, which we’ll call “Superman 1″.
• Sparky decends the “Superman 1″ - 2MB
  • Sparky takes his Jeep over the edge. I’m standing in a swamp to film this, which also happened to have the highest .
• Dude decends the “Superman 2″ - 2MB
  • One of the other dudes on the trail decends the larger of the “Superman”s.
• Dude plows through water - 2.6MB
  • It was either go through the pond, or go down one of the “Superman”s. This guy decided that the risk of water damage is preferable to structural damage from driving off a cliff.
• 2nd dude plows through water - 3.2MB
  • Seeing that the other dude made it through without lasting injury, the last dude of the group makes his way through the water.

All in all, a fun day.

Afterwards, we headed back to Lindsay to get some wings at Wild Wing, which were decent wings. The service wasn’t the best, and they had the air conditioning on full for some reason, but wings and beer were a welcome reward for getting through the day unscathed. There, we met up with a dude named Mitch that Sparky and Eric met before, and visited his place for a bit to check out his shop, and then made the journey home.

I’ll spare you all image of what my legs look like, and instead, provide you with this nice image of Sparky and Eric’s Jeeps:

WOOHOO!!!

July 11th cannot come fast enough!

http://www.apple.com/ca/iphone/buy/

As expected, Rogers will be providing the service for the iPhone when it is released in Canada. This rocks, as I am currently with Rogers.

Still, I’m going to wait a bit to see how well the new iPhone works on the Rogers network before shelling out cash to get one. Always a good idea when dealing with new hardware upon a network. As well, I want to be sure that I won’t have any issues when it comes to using my calendar.

Either way, it’s about time we got the iPhone up here!

So, the widely-anticipated WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs starts in a little over an hour.

Here’s hoping that he’ll announce the new iPhone that everyone is talking about and eager to snap up, and also that he’ll announce that it’ll finally be available in Canada. I can’t BELIEVE that it still isn’t available up here. Sure, you can snag one and unlock it and make it work on Rogers if you really want to, but I prefer to have a legit one that I don’t have to hack and worry about bricking when installing future updates.

If we do get the iPhone up here, hopefully Apple has pressured Rogers (whom I’m assuming will get the iPhone contract) to have a fair price when it comes to unlimited data transfer. For far too long, Canadians have been raped when it comes to cellular charges, and the CRTC has done fuck all about it. Maybe the demand for the iPhone will turn some heads and make the greedy bastards running the telcos realise that charging the prices they do isn’t in their best interest.

Then again, most likely not. I plan on getting the new iPhone as long as a few things are for sure:

• An affordable data plan with Rogers.
• An affordable iPhone with Rogers.
• WebDAV support with the iPhone iCal app.

We’ll see.

…what a disappointment, in my opinion.

Last night, Molly and I met up with Sparky, Seth, Perry and Alison at the Black Bull for some drinks and some eats, prior to making our way down to see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull“. I didn’t have high hopes for this movie, partly based on what I’ve heard, but mostly due to the fact that a lot of the times when directors and movie companies try to revive a previous franchise, they also try to “modernise” it, in an attempt to appeal to today’s generation. More often than not, the result is a poor representation of the original franchise.

That is exactly what happened with the new Indy.

Ignoring the use of computer graphics and chomekey for a bunch of the scenes, the story just didn’t have the same feel as the previous Indiana Jones movies. Personally, I rank them in this order:

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• The TV commercials that played prior to the movie
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The Last Crusade is by far my favourite and I thought it was an amazing story that dealt with religious overtones, and at the same time had a underlying feeling of a battle between good and evil. There was a sense of wonder, anticipation, excitement, and I really felt like I was there with Indy, and couldn’t wait to see how he would get out of the situations he found himself in. The other two movies were good in their own regard, but they didn’t captivate me in the way that the Last Crusade did.

But this new one, 19 years after the Last Crusade, seems to have lost what the previous movies had. The story had giant holes in it, it was easy to guess what would happen next, the enemies seemed over the top, and the movie just didn’t seem to try and test the intelligence of those who watched it. Seems that these days, people expect a movie to throw everything at you, explain everything, so you just sit there, turning your brain off, taking it all in. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just didn’t seem to engage the mind, mostly because it was so over the top.

I’m glad that I bought the three original movies on DVD, as I will watch them over and over again, without ever getting bored. This new Indiana Jones movie, however, is one that I have viewed once, and don’t plan to subject myself to a second time. Basically, it’s another case of George Lucasism: releasing more movies in a franchise that should have been left where it ended in the 80s.

It’s been a topic of Toronto for years: Should the Gardiner come down or not?

Personally, I think that the Gardiner is not only a landmark of Toronto, but it is also extremely valuable to Toronto as a means of transportation. There are some that say that it is ugly, or a barrier from the waterfront. Well, it’s a HIGHWAY. It’s not meant to look pretty, it’s meant to be practical and functional. It is also NOT a barrier to the waterfront; the actual barrier to Toronto’s waterfront is what my Father calls the “Berlin Wall of Condos”.

The Gardiner handles TONS of traffic each and every day, and that is not including Lake Shore Boulevard which runs below it for at least 2/3rds of it’s length. To bring down such an artery of traffic into Toronto only cause the city to suffer a mild heart attack, in terms of this analogy. Traffic would be snarled up all the way back West to where the QEW and the 427 meet up. The DVP would become what previously was just a nickname during rush hour: The Don Valley Parking Lot. All the roads that took the traffic from the exits prior to reaching the Gardiner would be flooded, and the lines to get off at those exits would stretch for at least a kilometer. Essentially, traffic within Toronto, which is already congested as it is, would become worse, and road rage would increase. All because David Miller has been brainwashed by the condo development companies into thinking that bringing down the Gardiner is the best way to develop more of the waterfront.

But, with all this said, something has to be done about the traffic situation on the Gardiner. On it’s busiest day, the Gardiner is usually at a standstill. It can’t be expanded, as all those condos now line to each side. Putting the Gardiner underground is the next best option, but in our politicians’ minds, that would require bringing the Gardiner down before anything could be done. Far be it for them to ever consider digging a new tunnel UNDER the Gardiner, which would make the most sense (if they can dig under the English Channel, I’m betting that digging under the Gardiner would be a tad easier). They focus on the costs of such a project, which is well beyond what they’re willing to commit to; it’s much easier, and cheaper, to piss everyone off by bringing down a highway, than to tunnel under it, and slowly transition between the two. Wake up guys: Sometimes, the cheapest alternative isn’t necessarily the best one. I’d be willing to pay more taxes for such a project.

Anyway, enough ranting.

Owen let me know that I apparently sent a letter to the Toronto Star with regards to this very issue. I must say, I sound quite articulate:

The wisdom of removing a section of the Gardiner Expressway must be evaluated by its concrete benefits and drawbacks. The abstract claim of “removing a barrier” ignores the roughly 10 lanes of pedestrian-level traffic that a grand boulevard would create.

We must ask ourselves: How is the Gardiner a barrier and how does removing it remove that barrier? A close examination will reveal that traffic and multi-stage crossings on Lake Shore Blvd. are the true barriers to waterfront access.

Evan Roberts, Toronto

Not bad, eh?

Thing is, while I told Owen that, yes, I submitted that letter (hey, I was bring praised about my vocabulary!), I must confess: It wasn’t me. Looks like there is another “Evan Roberts” residing in Toronto who seems to be on top of current events as well, yet appears to have been educated at a better school than I. I’d like to think that I can be as eloquent as that other Evan Roberts, but alas, my blog speaks for itself.

However, I’m sure that this other Evan Roberts and I have the same stance when it comes to the Gardiner; bringing it down is not the most viable option when it comes to dealing with this issue.

Today, I’m bringing my new Macbook, Prometheus, into the Apple Store to be repaired. Hopefully he’ll be up and about in no time, but this isn’t the first time I brought him in.

When I first got Prometheus, the space bar was not seated properly. Every time I was typing, it would seem that there was a dead zone where pressing the space bar would either register or not. As well, the feel of the space bar being pressed was enough to throw me off. If you’re reading this blog, you have obviously used a keyboard at some point, so I would assume you know what I’m talking about when I say it feels weird when a key doesn’t press down correctly. If you don’t… well… you don’t type as much as I do.

During my last visit to the Apple Store, they replaced the entire keyboard chassis (thanks Andy!), which fixed the space bar issue, but unfortunately introduced a new issue with the mousepad button; it felt weird when pressing down on it on the left side as it didn’t “click”. I took Prometheus in again to be looked at, and the Mac Genius I dealt with was initially skeptical that it was an issue, but she took it into the back room for a second opinion, and they’ll be replacing the part. I would have been somewhat irritated if this wasn’t going to be repaired on my less-than-two-week-old Macbook, but in the end they said it would, so all the rumours I heard about the Apple Store at the Eaton Centre having poor customer service are completely unfounded, in my opinion. Personally, I have had nothing but great service from them every time I’ve gone there, so those who have complained about the Apple Store’s customer service must be acting like jerks to them or something.

Anyway, since taking Prometheus in the second time, the mousepad button has become a bit more stiff, and it also squeaks sometimes when pressing it. Oh, and the left side still doesn’t “click”. Either way, I’m looking to getting this all fixed!

I’m not sure if this repair will take a few days, or even a few minutes, but I’m eager to get Prometheus back as soon as possible!

While not paying attention, I forgot to press “9″ to get an outside line when I was trying to call my Father for something. The call didn’t go through, but for some reason it screwed up my phone. The “FEATURE” button was flashing, which I found odd, and didn’t think anything of it.

However, Molly tried to call me after her shift, and she couldn’t get through to my extension. I tried from my cell, and it didn’t work either. Even more alarming, I tried to call my extension from a co-worker’s phone, and it didn’t even work then! So… somehow, I had knocked myself out of the phone system. I could still take customer calls (yay!), but other than that, I couldn’t be contacted via the phone.

Great.

The manuals we have here for the phone system are beyond useless, as they expect that you’ve gone through a course to be taught how to configure this thing with your eyes closed. Unfortunately, I have not taking such a course, and the manuals quickly made my existing headache worse. I didn’t want to have easyDNS contact the phone system company and have them send someone out just to fix this, thus resulting in a service charge, so I opted to see if I could figure it out myself (what the hell… I had to stay late anyway).

Turns out, the power of the internet has been proven to me yet again, and has saved my ass.

Thanks to this post, it would appear that I had inadvertently set my phone to “do not disturb”. Simply pressing “FEATURE”, then typing “69″ (hah!) on the number pad, and hitting “FEATURE” once more, returned my phone to it’s normal accessible self. Kick ass! Not only did I save a service call to the phone system company which might have cost us some dough, I was able to fix it and don’t have to fess up to ANYTHING!

…well, other than the fact that I wrote about this on my blog… but who cares?

I guess I can leave the office now!

It’s hard to believe that two years ago, Molly and I went on our first date. Time flies when you’re having fun… and in a great relationship.  

Babe, you are the light of my life. The one shining star within the sky. You make my world a brighter and better place. Your radiant smile warms my heart, and your laugh fills me with joy. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve pulled through all hardships, and have come out stronger than ever. I can’t imagine my life without you.

I love you more than mere words can describe.

Two years… I look forward to many more.

I will admit, I like graffiti on walls. Not those stupid “tags” that some no-talent idiots draw with a marker on a door, I’m talking about nice colourful graffiti, which I usually can’t read, but at least can admire. Some of these guys are really artistic, painting impressive renditions of people on the walls, or even cartoons of characters doing things. All in all, as long as it looks decent, and that someone with talent was the artist, I think graffiti is quite nice to have on an otherwise drab wall.

It’s because of these no-talent dimwits that graffiti gets a bad rap. What is the point of “tagging” a door, or a wall, or even the TTC, with a scribble that a three year old could do, or even improve upon? That’s just plain and simple vandalism. Graffiti to me, is art.

On the subway between the Keele and Dundas West stations, there is a wall down in the parking lot on the south side that has some wonderful graffiti. There is a depiction of B.B. King. There’s a woman who looks to be from the 1920s. There are some amusing cartoon characters. All of it is colorful and while you can tell that this was put together by different artists at different times, it does flow together really nicely. For the longest time, I planned to take a panoramic shot of it, just so I could have it. Unfortunately, I never got around to it. Now, some fucking asshole has used a paint roller to put his idiotic moniker up over some of the best drawings on the wall. For what? What does that prove? If I knew who was responsible for this, I would happily kick the shit out of him.

Anyway, enough ranting.

Guy forwarded me a link to a short movie where some artists in Buenos Aires and Baden created an animation short using graffiti. The time involved to create this blows my mind, as they would have to paint each frame, then paint over it, and paint the next frame, and so on. Some of these frames are the entire sides of buildings, so this was no small feat. The animation itself is pretty good for what it is, yet the imagery is pretty messed up (people coming out of people’s mouths, etc), so some of you might not like it. That’s your only warning. View at your own discretion.

Also, as a joke, I sent the following to Mike as he watched it and noted how messed up it was:

Surgeon General’s Warning: Do not consume mushrooms or other hallucinogenics prior to watching this animated short.

Check it out: http://www.blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm

If YouTube is better for ya, use this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4

For the last few weeks, Molly and I had been planning to head down to San Francisco with the desire to surprise my brother. Even his wife Liz was in on it, which helped immensely, as we planned to meet up at one of his favourite restaurants, and eagerly awaited to see what would happen.

As it turned out, the look of surprise was only on his face for a split second, before he burst into laughter at how we just showed up, seemingly out of no where. I couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. 

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQVJEi_XQ3c

San Francisco was just as beautiful as I remembered it, but this trip we got to know the city for what it is: a city. Before, Molly and I walked away from San Francisco seeing it as a utopia, which is many ways it still is, but as with all cities, there are some shady aspects. There are a great many homeless people always asking for change, or urinating in the streets, and a number of mentally-disturbed people walking around shouting their heads off. This, of course, was mostly observed in the downtown region, and we also happened to be near the “Tenderloin”, which is a neighbourhood that is best described as “sketchy”. Every city has an area like this, so it’s easy to pass quick judgement, and I shall refrain from doing so.

All in all, it was a great trip down to San Francisco, and it was awesome to hang out with Greg and Liz again. Our two resident experts of the city (pun intended), they introduced us to new delights, and expanded our knowledge of the metropolis they reside in. Molly and I also found some new places as we wandered around, and wander around we did; on an average of 7km per day, we racked up at least 28km of travelling by foot. Going up the hills was a task in itself, especially while we journeyed with our luggage, but we enjoyed the exercise involved, which helped as we weren’t really following our diets… hey, we were on vacation, remember?  

As with any travelling, it’s always good to be home. My father was kind enough to take care of the cats while we were gone, and the little furballs welcomed our arrival with plenty of meows and excessive purring. Looks like they didn’t trash the place while we were away.

And so ends a highly-anticipated trip. I’ll probably write more as I think about it, as a lot of amusing things happened. Pictures are located in my gallery.