Had the theatrical version included this as the ending--

Star Trek Nemesis--Alternate Ending

That would have made suffering through the rest of the movie worth it. This alternate ending alluded back to the TNG series in so many ways, with Spot, Sherlock Holmes, and other 'Data' things. Yes we did get the Riker reminiscing of the first time meeting Data on the holodeck and the trying to whistle thing, but this added so much to that.

Seeing Jean Luc and Beverly leave things open for the future was a beautiful touch, and Geordi and Worf appreciating Will's humour--cute.

And the music/Enterprise in 'drydock' tied this right back to where it all began in ST:TMP (k, one sometimes doesn't want to be reminded of TMP, but it did have its moments)

Anyway, now I'm thinking that I just may have to get 'Nemesis' on DVD to check out what other gems the idiot editors/producers decided to leave on the cutting room floor. But I don't want to waste my money.

When I saw Nemesis, it looked like it had the Star Trek 'life' sucked right out of it, and this alternate ending just showed that to me.

Eh, Ron Moore is showing us what adhering to a 'true vision' can do, instead of 'producing by committee'.

Whilst I'm on this particular rant, I've heard many justifications for why edits are made the way they are, but most of 'em boil down to this--'Well, we want to appeal to the broadest market potential!'

That's a load of hooey and I'll tell you why--Star Trek, after 40+ years, doesn't owe Paramount a dime. Paramount was willing to bank on the ST franchise so much that they were going to launch a 4th television network back in the late '70's with the 'lead show' being 'Star Trek'. You don't get to that point without knowing you'd make money on it. Due to having basically *no other show* that would be a money maker, the idea of a 4th TV network at that time was scrapped. And yet they did it again with TNG and, well, it worked. So Paramount--did Star Trek always come through for you when you needed it to?

Leaving the very theme of Star Trek on the cutting room floor--that of the relationships between the characters and how they are there for one another--how they 'play off' one another and how they grow together--goes to show that the execs at Paramount just don't get it. The pursuit of the 'almighty dollar' is, well, paramount.

I'll let you in on a little secret--I saw Star Treks 2 thru 6 a multiple amount of times in the theatres and bought the VHS versions. Why? Because Roddenberry's theme of people being there for one another was adhered to.

Star Treks 7, 8 and 9--pretty good. Paramount pretty much made somemoney off of me on those.

Star Trek 10: Nemesis--saw once. That's it. And I don't own a VHS/DVD/any downloaded copy at all.

Why? Because it wasn't Star Trek. Sure, it had the characters and it had some nice moments, but it was dark and lifeless. You even left Wil Wheaton on the editing floor--whatever certain vocal elements of Star Trek fandom may say, not having Wesley Crusher at Will and Deana's wedding was absurd! Would it have killed you to have a scene--a moment with Wesley to show how the 'boy' grew up into a man?

Anyway, this is one Star Trek fan with his little opinion of 'what could have been, but wasn't'. And this 'production by committee' is why I've moved on from Star Trek to 'better venues'. The sad part is, these 'better venues' are what 'original' Star Trek was. It's illuminating to think that, after all this time, I hearken back to Roddenberry's Star Trek as being the best of the best.

I'll finish this with a note to Paramount--you would have made more money, at least from me, had you ran this alternate ending instead of the 'watered down' version I saw in the theatres.

Cozy, isn't it?

So we're almost to the point where we can start winding down the basement reno.

Sure we have a few small(ish) things to complete--some painting and flooring in the hallway, and redoing the ceiling in the same hallway, but we're doing pretty good!

Couch Crazy!

We have to decide on what the layout's gonna be. However, right now it's the way we want it.

Entertainment unit

Sandy and I were so exhausted on Saturday night that we fell asleep on the couches whilst watching the telly. It's a pretty comfy room, and well worth the efforts to get to this point.

Unfortunately, over the course of construction, the rest of the house got pretty dusty, so we have a wee bit of cleaning up to do.

We'll get more pics up when the project is complete. I'm heading over to Ikea tonight to pick up some flooring for the hallway.

Feeding Frenzy

Sandy and I, in an ongoing effort to help Gods little furry woodland creatures, have occasionally put deer feed out on the back patio when the temperatures plummet.

The deer are so hungry, and it's so cold sometimes, that they end up eating all the deer feed that we leave for them, and they turn to the bird feeders for some nourishment.

Anyway, here's a quick video taken at dusk last night--Deer in the back yard

If that's too slow to download and watch, I've uploaded it to YouTube--Our Deer on YouTube

We'll continue to try and do our best for the woodland creatures. Sandy and I are always reading and learning about 'best practices' to limit the negative impact of the furry animals on people's property, as well as limit the negative impact of human intervention on nature.

We do what we can.

See all deer-y goodness here--2007 Winter Pictures

Mostly of political natures.

One blog that I frequent on an almost daily basis is this one--My Blahg. I appreciate the writers support for the NDP (though I don't appreciate the current NDP leader, but that's another story).

Anyway, one blog entry--IGNORING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM reads as follows--

So that lead me to this page (to see what it was all about)--Account closures bad business, in which I read the following:

Seriously, I had to call my bank. I've had a Royal Bank account since my mom opened one for me when I was 6 years old. I've been adhering *staunchly* to the Royal Bank through all these years because I'm not one of these 'Oh, that bank will give me X.2 percent interest instead of the X interest I'm getting now, so I'm jumping ship!!!'. I'm not that guy. Sure, you screw me over and you'll see a puff of smoke where all my money used to be--it'll be in another bank so fast it'll make your head spin.

But I'm more of a 'stick to the folks who've done you right through the years'. Loyalty--in a time when it's increasingly rare--means something to me.

However, when I read that my bank may be 'sticking it' to my fellow Canadians (whatever country their other citizenship may come from, they're still Canadian), I wouldn't hesitate to yank my money out of the bank, cancel all my accounts there, and look elsewhere.

Thus the phone call.

I talked to a very polite RBC banking-type person working in Mississauga (who, first, mispronounced 'Winona' and, secondly, didn't know where Winona was, but, eh, whatever). I explained to her that I've been a loyal RBC customer since the age of 6, and that I've appreciated all the efforts and support of the kind and caring staff through the years, but the idea that the RBC may be denying accounts to some other Canadians--well, that was too much for me.

She stated that it's not an RBC thing--all banks are following these 'new rules'.

'Oh,' I said. See, that part didn't appear in the article, or any of the other articles that I've read.

Turns out, according to the RBC person on the phone, that, well, RBC is the biggest in Canada so they're the ones that show up in the news where this issue is concerned.

I mentioned to her that instead of the RBC facing my 'wrath' over this issue, I shall now direct said wrath at my local MP.

I'm going to look into it more, but, at least for now, my accounts (and money) are staying right in that little RBC buidling at the corner of Highway 8 and Winona Road.

Of course, none of this reconciles what Stockwell Day stated--

But, knowing the current governments perchance to 'wiggle out of' and deny any culpability for things that they did or said in the past (look at daycare and gun registry for starters), it would come as no surprise to me if we find out that it's the Conservative Government that's been telling the Canadian banks to not issue U.S. bank accounts to these dual citizens.

We shall see.

Continuing on the two-tone paint thing

We're still at it. Haven't updated here in a bit so a brief rundown--

Now with added trim!!

Nice Header...

We are replacing the carpet, right??

Nice Lights

Ahh, there it is--new carpet

I've seen worse carpet seams

Lazy guy--always sitting on the job

So that's where we are right now.

On the remaining 'to do' list--

Steam clean the carpet

Kick in said carpet

Finish the painting and the trimwork

Get the fuse box casing done

Lessons learned--

Be aware of where exactly the headers are when you're sanding the ceiling--have the bumps on my head for that one.

Tape or mesh *all* drywall seams!!!! Yeah... cracks... Not so good.

Verify that all rolls of carpet are actually the same colour before kicking them in.

And never get upset because you missed something on sale--something else will come along when you least expect it.

That's it for now. More as we finish things.

That's the problem with having your very own web server--you actaully are responsbile for it.

Many of you know that access to this website has been intermittent as of late.

I'm sorry for that.

The issue is that, well, I really need to get this site on a new server. I have the new one--right now it's sitting in the basement just rarin' to go.

Unfortunately, the basement is kinda in a state of 'reno flux', so setting up the new server is really down there on the priority list--Finish basement, *then* work on website.

I'll try to monitor the existing web server a little closer, to prevent extra-long outages. And I'll let y'all know when the new one's up and running.

Until then, thanks for putting up with the 'Hey!!! Where's my Sandy/Sparky fix!!!!!'

We're working on it.

Our new pet

Cleaning up the ol' cellphone of pics--y'know, to make room for yet more pictures...

Trying on Christmas sweater from Momma Jean

Someone corrected government grammar

Honey... wanna buy a couch??

The Happy Couple

Click on the pic above to see the 'full size' version--Warning! It's 5 meg--it's kinda big, but, in my opinion, worth the download.

The good bit about the digital age? All your friends take pics at your wedding on their digital cameras and give you copies!

You can then take all these pics and run them through a cute little program like EZ Mosaic and, et voila! A picture comprised of pictures!

Sandy and I appreciate everyone that attended our wedding. As well, thanks to those that gave us their pics (on CD! Sweet!). All your efforts made the above picture possible.

We are planning on getting this pic (or another similar 'picture made of pictures' from our wedding) enlarged to poster size for display in our abode.

We're still having fun!

I did go on a bit back when some Melanie lady yipped about how Global Warming was a myth.

I thought Canadians were smarter than this--

It was sarcastically written by a 'Dark Blue Tory'

See, he links to a report about the cold winter weather that has finally showed up in Canada, in this, the third week in January.

'Cause in his mind, now that there's actually snow and ice and we're all scraping windshields and stuff--Dark Blue Tory logic--this 'Global Warming' thing is a hoax.

Yeah, one thing to say about that--take a stats course! Look at a temperature over time graph for, say, the last 50 years. Or, better yet, if ya wanna be Canadian about it--go build a skating rink in your back yard. I can guarantee it won't last as long as the ones we had in our back yards when we were kids. How? We started our rink in mid December. Couldn't have done that in the past 15 years--it'd be more like a swimming pool (though a very cold one).

And what does that tell ya?

Obviously nothing to Dark Blue Tory.

Thanks to Canadian Cynic (Not Safe For Kids) for pointing out Dark Blue's entry, and for constantly calling out the stupidity of the 'Ridiculous Right'.

Drywalling

Sandy and I, in a flurry of activity, went wild with walling!!

And more drywalling

We had to leave part of the ceiling undone 'cause we haven't run the 220 volt wire for the future kitchen. The reason we haven't run the wire is 'cause we haven't got the 220 volt wire. Home Despot wants $7.33 per metre! I need 12 metres--that's alotta dough!

Exposed wiring

So we have our first coat of goop on the drywall. It's a learning process--hopefully we'll have less sanding to do.

Junction box cut in all nice and cozy-like

We should be ready to paint by Monday or Tuesday, all things going well.

And so we continue...

Drywall on the ceiling

Since I really like using power tools, and since our friends were wonderful in purchasing said tools for the 'Sandy/Dave Marriage Experience!', the renos in the basement are going along swimmingly.

However, what I haven't picked up yet--and it's become abundantly clear that I really need one, is your average everyday framing square.

For if you had your average everyday framing square, you might have checked to see if, say, the joists in the house are actually square.

Not sitting quite right

Turns out that the joists are about an inch or 2 'out of square' across the span of the wood. I really didn't notice this until I put up the first piece of drywall. I measured and cut it so the end of the drywall would cover half of the joist. Turns out that I foolishly assumed that the joist was square to the main beam. When I put up the piece of drywall on the ceiling, sure the one side was covering half the joist, but the other corner of the drywall was fully covering the joist with about a quarter of an inch extending beyond.

Eh whatever.

Cut a bit off the drywall so I could put the next piece on the joist, and went from there.

Sandy and I attached extensions on the joists so we could support the drywall corners that were left hanging in open air.

Working quite well, actually. We have most of it up, and we'll finish the drywalling and mudding this weekend.

Almost got the ceiling covered

We also decided to add some soundproofing to the interior walls. For no specific reason other than maybe at some point in the future we may get noisy neighbours.

Insulating the walls

It's coming along. We'll go all out on Saturday and see how far we get.

So far, though, we're having a great time doing it.

- - -

Oh, forgot to mention (and as one of the pics shows)--all IKEA Blixt pot lights are wired up and conencted to the dimmer. First time in over a month and we have lights on switches in the basement! No more bad wiring! No more icky pot lights!!

And these Ikea lights really give off alotta light--we were worried at first 'cause the two we did in the other section of the basement weren't doing much. Now, though, when you have all 8 wired together--well, let's just say that our idea of 'supplementing' with table lamps--not needed so much...

So a good friend of mine, Mr. Greg Hyland, produces an on-line comic--

Lethargic Lad

(conveniently linked in the side bar to the right)

Greg, coincidentally, is friends with this guy--

John Kovalic

(or at least Greg does lotsa advertising on his site for John--haven't asked Greg yet about whatever...)

John also produces an on-line comic--

Dork Tower

Turns out whilst reading one of my favourite blogs--

Wil Wheaton

That Wil is friends with John.

So a friend of a friend of a friend of mine is my connection to Star Trek!

(k, I'm reallly a geek now)

It's almost as good as my wife's friend's cousin is Shania Twain.

(Shania, being the second cutest Canadian)

So there you are.

Somethign tells me that the logic of '6 degrees' should be updated. I'm thinking that the separation between me and anyone else on this planet is somewhat less now.

Cleaned up work area and now good to go!

Sandy and I spent the evening prepping the rest of the basement. Sandy did some patching and painting as we went along.

Done some stuff, lots more to do!

Sandy and I will miss the yellow--NOT!

Mmmmmmm.... yellow....

Can't wait until that yellow is covered over.

Anyway, rerouted some wires, added some co-ax drops here 'n there, and basically cleaned up the dirt 'n dust that accumulated from the renos thus far.

The good news is that we've gone from this--

Corroded and exposed wiring

To this--

Properly wired up

I sleep alot better now knowing that the house is properly wired up.

We'll be picking up the drywall sometime this week and starting that bit. Hopefully we'll be done before the end of January, at which point Sandy and I are going to relax a bit in our new basement!

So there you are.

Nice, eh?

So we started with this--

Check out the mess!!

Cleaned up a bit--

Ready for work!

Fixed some duct work--

Replacing the pipes

Built new headers--

Wood worker extra-ordinaire!

Threw up drywall--

Hard working woman

Primer and lights--

Looking better!

Painting--

Two tone basement

Putting down carpet--

Nice on the ol' footsies!

Adding trim--

Adding the touches that make a room worth living in

And now (cue Holmes on Homes walk-thru 'finished' music)--

Done!

Okay, so that's not the entire basement. But we needed this part done to store things so we can do the rest. The rest sorta looks like this--

A little more work to do...

I think the tough part's all done--all the work around the headers and stuff, along with the windows/ductwork/electrical...

The rest of the basement, after rewiring a few things, should be pretty straight forward. We'll get pics up here.

Greymatter is the software we use for our blogging endeavours. Unfortunately, support and updates were discontinued a long while back!

Recently, some new developers took it over and are now updating and maintaining said software--

Greymatter 1.7.1

Changes of note to you, the reading masses--

You will now have to type in a 'security code' in order to post a comment. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of spam comments (not that we had much spam lately anyway).

Don't worry--the security code is something like 7 letters--shouldnt' be that difficult.

Letting you know.

So there you are.

Thinking that the issues will miraculously just go away.

Melanie Morgan, over at WorldNetDaily, went on a bit of a tirade about the Weather Channel (I won't go into her little snip about the democrats taking over congress--very immature though!)--

The rest was a very interesting read. I especially like the overall theme that people who try to predict the weather have been wrong--

--therefore anything they say or support must also be wrong--

Because we all know that saying that it'll snow sometime in the next 4 months is exactly the same as saying that it'll snow sometime within the next 100 years.

Weather has never been easy to predict *short term*. That's why we have the POP--*Probability* of Precipitation. Forecasting the probability of precipitation for 2 weeks from now has always been hit and miss--even the forecasters state that. However, I don't think that anyone--forecaster or political pundit--can state that it won't rain anytime next year.

See, that's where the patterns come in. People have been keeping records of the weather for centuries--what the temperature is, the amount of rainfall/snowfall, and other weather related phenomena. Any stats major can take these records and, you know, actually put them on a graph or something. Every graph I've seen shows that, *on average*, the days/months/years are getting warmer.

(I say this on January 5th, 2007. According to the radio host I listen to on the drive in to work, last night was the warmest January 4th night since people started keeping records--8 degrees celcius, and today already hods the record at 10+ degrees as of 11 this morning. Hmmm....)

So some, like Melanie, hear this trend towards warming, and point out, "Hey! Not one hurricane befell us in 2006!!". I could enforce her point by reminding us that just before Christmas, the people from Buffalo to Port Colburn on Lake Erie had about 2-3 feet of snow. 'Melanie Logic'--Therefore this 'global warming' thing must be a hoax.

Okay then. The more intelligent people who know something about stats, trends and such, have a differing view. Heck, even those of us who have been around since the '60's can see the change.

So I wrote this response--

Melanie,

Please stop with the partisan right-wing talking point regarding the lack of evidence to support global warming. I'm no 'Chicken Little', but in my 40 years of living on this planet, I've noticed (without the 'Weather Channel' telling me so) that there is a definitive change in the weather from one year to the next. The 'winter months' are almost reduced to 'Winter Weeks'. Back in the '70's, winter would last from before Christmas to March. We would build our ice rinks in the back yard and it'd last through the months. A few years back, a friend of mine tried to build a rink in January--it lasted a week and a half before it melted. The rest of the 'winter season' didn't get cold enough to try it again.

It doesn't take a climatologist or a reporter from WND to make me see that the weather patterns are gradually changing from one year to the next, with a definite trend towards warmer winters and summers. My example isn't definitive proof of the concept of 'global warming'. One example doesn't make the case, nor do a thousand examples. However, common sense does dictate that our actions--with the burning of coal for electricity, with the emissions from our vehicles, and with the thousands of other 'wasting energy' things we do on a daily basis--does have an impact. I am reminded of the acid rain issues that occurred when I was younger. Many naysayers stated that industry pollution wasn't the sole or root cause of acid rain . That said, when industry was forced by legislation to reduce the toxic emissions, the acid rain issue lessened.

Cause and effect.

Yes our planet does have weather cycles over hundreds of years--the expanding and receding of the glaciers through the course of earths history will attest to that. Maybe, as some naysayers of 'Global Warming' state, the earth is experiencing a 'natural warming cycle'. Even if we use that 'natural warming cycle' hypothesis, we should not exacerbate the situation with our actions. Forest fires happen naturally as well--doesn't mean we should fill up those liquid carrying planes with gasoline and dump that on the fire.

It makes sense--environmentally, socially, politically and even financially--to lessen our negative impact on our environment. You don't need Al Gore to tell you that. You also shouldn't ignore environmental concerns because in your mind 'Global Warming' is just a myth pushed by the 'Far-left political ideologies'. Ignoring the issue won't make it go away, and when you do finally realize that we've been 'raping and pillaging' the planet upon which we all live--to the detriment of us all, by the way--it may be too late to fix it.

Take care,

Sparky

- - -

I just may send it to her.

This is definitely a discussion that is at least PG 13!

In the realm of 'You can get the Bible to say whatever you want', there's this website--

LIBERATED CHRISTIANS

(not safe for work or for kids--you've been warned)

Here's what the website's all about--

And a quotation--

Again, I'm no Biblical scholar. I did, however, attend various sorts of Christian institutions for the better part of my life (not so much anymore, but that's another story). Who I am right now was directly influenced by said institutions--my moral compass was pretty much set to what I took from the churches I attended.

And whereas I pretty much thought that the padres that preached 'fire and brimstone and eternal damnation' were full of hot air (I'd much rather hear a pastor talk about 'social responsibility' any day of the week, and the preachers that I respect to this day actually did), I don't recall a single instance of a preacher going on about the joys of threesomes.

Yep--searching my mind and I've got nothing.

Yes the bible doesn't specifically mention that poligamy is bad. heck, the entire Old Testament is full of 'wise leaders'--God appointed rulers and such--with their little harems. One need only look at Abram for a fine example of that.

So the Bible doesn't expressly state that having a fling with your wife and her best friend is bad. The Bible also doesn't expressly state that me coming over to your house and punching you in the nose is a no-no, either.

Look people, you can't use the Bible as the 'end all' of all your life's rules to live by, and you can't use the workaround 'The Bible doesn't expressly forbid this' as a way of doing whatever you want, either.

For me, if you grant me this one delving into 'Dave-ness'--The 'Rules of Life' are written in your heart--you know what's right and wrong for yourself. Any intelligent person can discern what the 'right thing' to do in any given situation is. You don't need a book written around 2000 years ago, and you certainly don't need an institution that's so convoluted and contradictory from one denomination to another--from one pastor to another--from one year to another.

For me, the right thing to do is to not partake in *any* situation that may jepoardize my relationship with my wife.

The right thing to do, whether the Bible tells me to or not, is to make sure that my wife knows she is in a loving, caring and committed relationship and that she can trust me at *all* times and in *all* situations.

Yes I'll screw up--that's the human element. That said, because the potential to screw up is inherent in being alive, does not give me leave to, y'know, purposely and willfully, threaten the sanctity of our marriage.

That's the oath I consiously--and with great deliberation--took just a few months ago--to protect and love and remain faithful to 'til the end of my days. I didn't take that oath lightly, nor do I have any reservations for doing so. Nothing written in the Bible (or not, whatever the case) will change that.

So these 'Liberated Christians'--all the power to ya. By your actions, you've once again reinforced the idea that Christianity can be 'anything to anyone'. I don't need that in my life, and once again, I'm done with it.

For me and my house--what I do need in my life is my wife--safe, sound, and happy.

So we have a year named after Ian Fleming's most famous character. Eh, whatever...

It's been a little busy around Sandy's and Sparky's abode--

First, we had the family over for Chirstmas dinner--Sandy made a most scrumptuous feast for the masses.

We also did alotta traversing from here to the 'Saug, from here to Winona, and from here to other places to spend Christmas with other family and friends...

Right after Christmas, Sandy and I decided to rip apart the basement--we'll save the details on that one for another blog.

And New Years Eve was at Booch and Andrews playing Settlers--a custom scenario that we seem to like.

We'd have posted earlier, but life, as always, has a tendancy of keeping us busy.

From both Sandy and me to all of you--all the best in 2007.