evanroberts.com

Last night, Molly and I decided to go to the AMC at Yonge and Dundas to watch “WALL•E“. I had heard good things about the movie, and considering it was put together by Pixar, I had a feeling that it was going to be awesome. Sure enough, WALL•E didn’t disappoint, and I now consider it my favourite animated movie, with “The Incredibles” as a close second.

Pixar has made some great movies in the past, and WALL•E just takes the cake. The movie doesn’t have much dialogue at all, yet is quite entertaining as you watch the characters come to life through their actions. One of the parts that made me laugh was a chime that you’d hear when you turn on a Macintosh, most likely a nod towards Steve Jobs, seeing as how he used to own Pixar. Overall, the graphics were amazing, and the story was quite good. Personally, I can’t wait until this comes out on DVD.

If you were thinking about seeing WALL•E, I totally suggest you do. I loved every minute of it. I even stayed for the length of the end credits.   

Oh, and a word in about the AMC at Yonge and Dundas; this theatre kicks the crap out of the Paramount (sorry… “Scotiabank Theatre”). My co-worker Les is quick to point out that it is a digital theatre, which makes for crisper sound and sharper video. The popcorn isn’t as good, but the fact that the chairs recline is a HUGE bonus for my back. Also, the arm rests fold up, so its easier to cuddle with your movie date. 

If there is one thing I can appreciate from my old days of phone tech support while working at Interlog, it’s the odd joke or video clip of a tech support agent completely baffled at the logic of some of those who call in for assistance. Everyone has their own way of thinking, and when it comes to computers, tech support agents generally have to adopt the mentality of the person phoning in to understand what the hell they’re talking about, and speak back to them in a language that THEY will understand. This may mean that the “desktop” is actually “the background”, or that “email” is “Outlook”… things like that.

Here we have a little video put together that details what sysAdmins and tech support agents are usually doing with their time, and the frustrations they go through. I thought it was awesome:

http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/

The voices take a bit to get used to, as they’re sped up to “protect the identity of those involved” (which I find odd since they don’t fudge the websites they’re looking at, which are fake anyway), but if you can understand Alvin and the Chipmunks, you should have no troubles.  

Thanks to Mike F. for sending this my way!

I think today was my single most exercise-filled and exhausting day since I started the whole “eating better” and “being active” routine. I am wiped. Check it out:

http://www.evanroberts.com/2008/07/02/185

Part of my fatigue is due to the Quad session, and how I started to be a smartass. For one of the songs, for each “tap up” of a quarter turn of resistance that Quentin told I to do, I instead did a half turn. Near the end of the song, I was dying, and it required me to put my weight into peddling, and I just couldn’t get them to rotate. I was counting on Quentin to tell us to take all the resistance off at the end of the song, but that didn’t happen. As soon as he said “Don’t touch that dial!”, I groaned inwardly.

There was NO WAY I could continue at that resistance level and continue to add more during the next song, so I will fully admit, here and now, that I took a full turn of resistance off. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was too much, and I didn’t want to hurt myself. In the end, it didn’t matter, as we were already back at that resistance level half way through the song, but it could have been MUCH worse.

Anyway, can’t wait to see what my weight is tomorrow. I think I’ve up’ed the bar a little.

Well, June has come and gone, and here I am, still hovering around the same weight… only, a bit less, and more often.  

Riding the bike to work has become a routine thing, and spinning classes are quite frequent. Ultimate Frisbee was a write off after twisting my ankle, and we’re going to hold off on the sport until the Fall; I’m not a fan of the heat and humidity of the summers here in Toronto, and the one year we played during the summer was damn near torture. I’ll make up for the lack of Ultimate with more biking and extra working out, which is also starting to become a routine thing. Sticking with the healthy foods is second nature now, as I allow the odd “cheat night”, which you need to have otherwise you risk insanity.

All in all, I’m quite happy with the fact that I finally got below 180, and while I’ve gone up and down over the course of the month, I’ve hit 179lbs or lower a bunch of times. Now the trick is to ensure that I STAY below 179lbs, and hit my goal of 170lbs in the next month. It’ll be tricky, especially since I’m adding muscle as I lose weight, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find the balance.

As per usual, thanks for all your kind words and support. I can’t believe that its been three months already Goodness.

Happy birthday Canada!

141 years old. Man, that’s a LOT of candles!  

One of the perks about Leopard (OS X 10.5) is that it comes with a feature known as “Time Machine“. Basically, it is a built-in backup solution, runs in the background, and mirrors your drive to another drive via USB or Firewire, and even over your network, if you have Apple’s Time Capsule.

Personally, I have no need for another wireless router, even if it comes with a hard drive, as it is one more thing on my network to worry about, maintain, and the thing ain’t cheap to begin with. Yes, this is a gadget that I decided NOT to get due to cost. How weird is THAT!? 

Anyway, last week, the drive for my work Macbook died. When I say ” it died”, I mean the type of drive death where it clicks, clunks, grinds, and won’t mount. Basically, I can’t do anything with it, so everything I had on it is gone. Was I backing it up? Nope. After setting up everyone else’s machines to backup their data, I never got around to setting up mine. Not much is gone, I use IMAP at work so my email wasn’t stored locally, but all the images, documents, and other things I’ve worked on for the last 3.75 years was lost. Either it hasn’t hit me yet, or I just don’t care. Dunno. But, it made me paranoid about my own machines, so I figured I might as well set up Time Machine at work, ensure it does the trick, and then set it up at home.

I heard rumours about people being able to set Time Machine to use standard SMB (Samba) mounts using 10.5.2 or higher, which makes sense, as OS X is based off Unix, and pretty much operates within the same standards. Sure enough, I came across this site, and it was easy as pie:

http://www.stocksy.co.uk/articles/Mac/getting_time_machine_to_work_how_i_want/

A quick snippet of what was involved:

Within Terminal:

sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Then:

sudo hdiutil create -size [number_in_GB]g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname “Time Machine” -fs HFS+J -verbose ~/Desktop/[mac_network_name]_[eth_mac_addy].sparsebundle

Transferred *.sparsebundle to desired remote directory.

As I have a few Linux boxes that are there only for storage, it made sense to set up Time Machine on my Mac Mini to use one of them rather than spending a chunk of cash on a new device. I had to reinstall Leopard as years of upgrading left me with an operating system that had issues with permissions over network mounts (the weirdest thing), so I backed up my Mac Mini to my Macbook, and started from scratch. After Leopard was installed, it took no time to set up Time Machine. The initial backup took FOREVER, as was expected, but since then, all has been well. I’ll move over the important documents as time goes on, but for the moment, only 14GB on the Mac Mini was used. I’ll have to clear some more space to be able to back up the Macbook via Time Machine, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

So, long story short: if you’re not backing up your data, you might want to look into that. If you want to use Time Machine, and you have a machine on the network that you can use as a network mount via SMB, check out the link above, and save yourself some cash. Why Apple doesn’t allow you to do this by standard, who knows, but I’m glad that the process to do so wasn’t too much of a hack.

Thanks to Stocksy for the instructions.  

Greedy bastards.

So, here in Canada, we’ve been itching to get out hands on the iPhone since it was released in the States. Some even went so far as to get one anyway and have it hacked to work upon the Rogers network. On June 9th, Apple announced that the iPhone would officially be coming up to Canada (and the rest of the world). Needless to say, this will be the hot item of the summer around the world, if not the entire year. It was no surprise that Rogers would be the carrier in Canada; they’re the only one up here who has the infrastructure. This roughly translates to them having a monopoly, which again roughly translates to them being able to charge whatever the fuck they want.

Many thought that this would be the turning point for Rogers… that Apple would pressure them into FINALLY having an unlimited data package for a decent price. For a time, it looked like this might be a possibility. Rogers caving to demand for fair prices. Ha.

Guess what? Rogers said “bollocks” to that (yes, they used that word), and released the following:

400MB per month at the lowest rate? It’s not like I’d be surfing a lot on the thing, but I don’t want to have to worry about paying extra should I go over, especially at $0.50/MB. That shit adds up. I also have the “$20 Value Pack” already with my Nokia 5300, as I like being able to send txt msgs without a cap, and the early evening calling is nice (usually their unlimited evenings and weekends starts at 9pm?! WTF?!), so I would need that too with the iPhone. Right there: $80/month. Then, their system access fees, and taxes, blah blah blah… I’ll be paying close to $100 per month for the damn thing.

But you know what? As much as I bitch and whine about the prices, I’m going to be paying them, as I want the iPhone… and Rogers knows this. Sure, they throw in unlimited Hotspot access, which is cool of them, but how often will I hang out at a Second Cup? Almost never.

It’s so fucking irritating that Rogers gets away with this. Looking at the rates down in the States, this hardly seems fair. Rogers makes hand-over-fist in cash, and they still feel the need to squeeze even more pennies out of the average customer. Sure, it’s all about business, but this goes beyond that. This is just simple greed.

All said and done, though, I can’t wait to get the iPhone.

Update (July 3rd, 2008): To hell with Rogers. I’m not going to get roped into a three-year contract where I essentially agree to pay ridiculous prices just to enjoy an innovative device. I’m going to sit back and wait for the competition to get their act in gear and offer the iPhone on their network. Rumour has it that Telus is working on this for early 2009, and I’ll be taking my number over to them if they’re successful.

This past weekend, Molly, myself, Sparky, Alison, Perry, and Seth all went up to OWL Rafting, which is located just outside of Forester’s Falls near the Ottawa River. I’d been whitewater rafting once before in Alberta, but it wasn’t that hardcore; certainly not like the videos I’m always seeing with people being ejected out of their seats and into the drink. However, my Father told me that he once whitewater rafted down the Ottawa River YEARS ago (perhaps before I was born), and he said it was a blast. Seeing as how I doubt the rapids would change much in the last 30 years, I figured this was going to be a lot of fun.

I figured correctly.  

It took a while to get up there right after work on Friday (like, 1am), but once there we set up our tents, had a beer, and then went to bed. Some jokers were laughing it up and making noise which prompted some dude, who sounded pretty big, to shout at them to shut the hell up… and they quickly complied.

The guides at OWL Rafting were hilarious. Laid back, yet serious, they put everyone into a great mood as we got ready to shoot the rapids. Our boat was guided by a dude named Billy, and we quickly learned the ropes of what was necessary when he yelled out commands. The first few rapids were awesome, and got the heart pumping. As it was a perfect day, sunny and warm, a lot of splash battles were going on between the boats. Unfortunately, we were one of the smallest boats in the group, but that didn’t stop me in trying to start a few wars. I seemed to be the only one up for a splash battle in my boat, however. I was even warned by the guide of a bigger boat to pick my battles. I never learned that lesson.  

During the largest set of rapids, our boat was picked to sit on standby in case anything happened with the remaining rafts as they shot down. Sure enough, the first one attempting to go down hit the rapids sideways, and half the people were thrown out. Instantly, we lept into action, and saved three of our fellow “rafters”, with one of them hurt from a scraped leg. We also paddled after some of the gear that attempted to float down the river. One of the dudes who flew out of that boat, yet was rescued by someone else, was pretty shaken up; white as a ghost, and barfing, he was later taken to the hospital to get checked out. There was a chance he hit his head, and it’s better safe than sorry. Still, I felt bad for him as everyone was watching him, but I don’t think he was really aware of that. Poor dude.

Near the end of the trip, there was a lull where we were all jumping into the river, and trying to do this backwards flip, the name of which escapes me at the moment. My second attempt, I got about 3/4 of a flip through, and it was recorded for the video of the day, which rocked. We didn’t buy the video as we couldn’t justify $35 for perhaps 30 seconds of footage of ourselves, but it was great to see once. At the end of the rapids, we were towed back to where the pontoons were waiting. On board, they had BBQed kabobs waiting with salad, and I ate perhaps two helpings. It was SO good. The trip back to OWL took about an hour, and it was a smooth ride.

Once back, Molly and I helped them load the rafts, and then watched the video of the day. Afterwards, we went for a swim, and the water was a LOT colder than I remembered. Molly took the initiative and splashed me, so in I fully went. We swam out to the raft with the slide on it and hung out there for a bit. At one point, I made the idiotic decision to try sliding down backwards. For those of you who have ever thought that was a good idea, let me help you out and state that the backflop I performed kinda hurt. Anyway, the rest of the evening was spent hanging out at the pavilion attached to the lodge, listening to a live band that came it (yet was under appreciated unfortunately), and having some beers that Perry and Alison were kind enough to pick up.

Sunday, we woke up to the rain, which sucked, but we were leaving anyway. On the way home, we stopped off to visit Sparky and Alison’s parents and had lunch. Then, the final trip home was spent mostly sleeping for me. The weather alternated between torrents of rain, to blazing sun. Quite odd.

Would I go back to OWL Rafting again? Hell yeah! Would I recommend others go there as well? But of course! It was a great time indeed. Special thanks to Perry for setting all that up.

Sparky also had his waterproof camera with him, and took some snaps of the day. Check ‘em out here:

http://gallery.naturespocket.com/?mode=album&album=Owl+Rafting+2008

About a month ago, I ranted about some graffiti on a wall in a parking lot between the Keele and Dundas West subway stations that I liked. Turns out, Danielle had some pictures of it up on her Flickr page! Check ‘em out!

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=keele&w=80901997@N00&m=&s=&mt=

My favourite is this one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielle_scott/433857610/

As I mentioned in my previous post, I liked the one with B.B. King, yet it was defaced. It’s nice to see it as it once was.

Thanks Danielle!!! 

Jared passed this chat quote from “bash.org” my way this afternoon. It made me laugh, so I had to share it:

Apparently, bash.org is a site that has a database full of user-submitted IRC quotes. I can’t get to it right now to check it out, but that one above was hilarious, so I’ll be sure to check it out again sometime in the future.