I'm a happy guy

So they're (the Hollywood-type folks) are making another Superman movie.

My favourite superhero flick of all time was the original Superman movie back in '78.

But if you have a look at the Internet Movie Database entry for this new one (which is still in production)--

Superman Returns

Kevin Spacey is Lex Luthor, which is great 'cause I've liked everything that Kevin Spacey's done.

But more importantly, look who gets to play the 'Man of Steel''s daddy, Jor-El...

Yep, Marlon Brando.

That boggles my mind.

Seems they're taking the unused footage of Brando from the original movies and putting it in this one.

I wonder if they're going to use the same score as well.

I can't wait to see this flick!

'Cause I'm gonna be on the telly!

I received a phone call earlier today from Mr. Frank Steele (one of the organizers for the Toronto Christmas Train Show). He asked if I could do a television interview for the local cable station regarding the train show on the weekend.

Well, I was slightly taken aback--I mean, me, of all people, on the television? In a live interview situation??

Well, I hmmm'd and hawww'd but after a few minutes said yes.

So with much further ado, on the show 'Daytime' on Rogers Cable Television Mississauga (channel 10), between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m., I'll have 5-6 minutes to talk about LEGO Trains, rtlToronto, the Toronto Christmas Train Show, and whatever else the interviewers wanna talk about.

I'll see if there's a way to get some 'media streaming', but I rather doubt it.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Watch the video!

Home made rollercoaster!

Once again, the guy continues to impress me...

A really small car...

My friend and former professor, prof. David T. Koyzis, linked an article on his blog regarding the latest nanoscale research.

Seems that the researchers at Rice University have developed a nanoscale car.

Read the PC Magazine article here.

First, reading other people's blogs is a great source of wonderment!

More to the point, isn't technology grand? I think this nanotech stuff is pretty nifty (from what I know about it). I originally read about 'Buckey Balls' years ago and was very intrigued, considering that until the discovery of C60, there were realy only two true states of solid carbon--one being a 'layered' version, a la graphite, and the other being a crystal lattice structure, a la diamond.

Then the BuckeyBall comes along and turnd chemistry on its head--a third form of pure carbon. If you want a good visual--picture a soccer ball. Where the 3 seams come together is where the carbon atom would be. The seams are the bonds between the atoms. If you count the number of 'points of intersections', you'll notice that there are 60 of them on one soccer ball. Hence, C(arbon)60.

Kinda like (and I'm sure someone'll correct me if I'm wrong) in 1967 when some university brat decided not to listen to the professors or the textbooks when they all stated unequivocably that 'inert gasses cannot react in a chemical reaction'.

Turns out that after 1967, well, they really can. The "laws of chemistry principles" changed that year.

Anyway, 'Buckey balls' turned into 'Buckey tubes' and the whole nano-tech thing was 'off to the races'. Now, 'off to the races' for nano-tech is more of a physical description instead of a figurative one, considering that they're now making cars

I know (most of) my sins...

I know that I haven't done my best in the life I've lived thus far. I know I've been the direct cause of emotional/spiritual pain in other people's lives. I know I've been a burden on my parents at times. I, of anyone reading this, know the havoc I've wreaked in the lives of people I've deemed to be close to me.

What I don't need is some complete stranger questioning my morals and integrity when I block their newsgroup from displaying pictures that are stored on my website! Most of the pictures, mind you, that I've taken myself! (so we won't even get into ownership and such...)

For the love of all things webby--what ca-joonas you have! Sending me an e-mail ranting that I blocked your website from accessing files located on 'Sparky's and Sandy's Space'!

I'll tell you something--I coudn't give a load of dingo's kidneys about your opinion of my supposed illegitimate birthing and my website running abilities--and the only reason I'm actually posting this rant is 'cause I haven't had a good rant in a long time. And when I'm finished ranting about how idiotic you were to send me a very poorly written e-mail about how I 'banned' your site from ours, I'll forget about you and yours.

My life will go on.

This website will go on (minus the bandwitdth suckage that your site caused mine)

And you will still be there, without being able to access this site directly.

If I could find it, I would try to find a way to care less about you and yours, but I'm not going to put the energy into that.

As for now, if you're running a website and your content is getting posted directly on other people's websites, I offer you this--

Sparky's Exclusion Configuration

It's a 'blacklist' of sites and words that I deem to be inappropriate for my website. This list is an ongoing campaign of mine to stop spammers and other non-legitimate web-related entities from accessing my site and stealing my bandwidth.

Anyone coming to Sparky's and Sandy's Space with any of the words in the excusion list in their 'referral' is blocked. Anyone attempting to post a comment to this blog, or add a trackback that contains any of those words will be blocked from posting.

Try it--take any word from that list and add a comment to this blog containing that word. Can't do it, can you? Ahh, the beauty and simplicity of mod_security...

I've mentioned in a previous blog as to how to set this up, so by all means, go for it.

Don't be surprised, however, that when you do, two things'll happen--both pretty good, in my opinion--

1--you will lose alot less bandwidth to bandwidth stealers

2--you'll really annoy those people that are trying to use your website for nefarious purposes, i.e. post padding for Google rankings, (the aforementioned) bandwidth stealing, spamming your blogs/trackbacks/guestbooks/any other pages that allow users to post things... etc.

I update this configuration file semi-weekly for now, thoguh I've noticed that since I started, the updates are getting less and less frequent as I add the 'bad words' to the list.

Many people have tried to come up with a way to stop spam/bandwidth stealing/blind page hits for search engine rankings, but I think this one is the best thus far whilst still allowing 'real' people to see/post on our website without going through some sort of CAPTCHA thing.

To reiterate--all you porn sites, all you message boards that steal my images without asking, all you sites that want to increase your Google ranking by 'blindly hitting' any websites across the world--you're not welcome here.

And to make sure you're not welcome, I'm not even letting you near the door.

Banned!!! All of you!!!!

And, as someone wise once said, 'There's not thing one you can do about it, either'.

And if I can let my inner child out for just a sec--

So there! Nyaah!!

And the phone call you never want to get...

To start, everyone's good--no call for worry.

But we got the phone call--"I think I have to go to the hospital--no rush, but I think I need to see a doctor" says mom.

So we scoot over to Mississauga, get her in the car, and head over to the Credit Valley hospital.

We arrived at approximatel 11:30 a.m.

We saw a doctor at approximately 7 p.m.

We got home around 10:00 p.m.

Seriously, something's got to be done about that. Nothing but admiration and respect for the medical profession--it's the government gerrymandering that I have issues with--but that's not what this little blog entry's about.

So here we are--Sandy, her mom, and me sitting in the emerg. waiting area.

Sandy looks out the window--"Hey! There's Don Cherry!!"

I look. "Nyaah, can't be him--what's he doing here?"

Sure enough, Mr. Hockey comes into the emerg, visiting someone. He's all dressed in a suit and everything--looking as if hejust walked off a taping of 'Coach's Corner'.

I'm not into the 'celebrity scene' (a story for another time) but I do respect those that I feel deserve respect and Don Cherry is one such person. So I manage to say something like, "Hope all is well, sir." Dunno if he liked the 'sir' but he smiled. I was thinking about reaching out my hand for a shake, but we were in the emerg after all, and a little respect for personal space was in order--the emerge is not the place for gawking/celebrity chatting/autograph requesting.

So he walks back to the info center and was escorted to whomever he was there to see.

After a while, since we were still sitting there, a much 'looked relieved' Mr. Cherry came out from his visit and walked out of emerg. Once outside, since we were still watching him, some more-than-likely fans came up to him en route to the hospital building and he conversed with them.

That's class.

He also made the day of all medical/staff personnel--they were all "Didja see Don Cherry??? He just walked in here a few moments ago!!"

As for me, I was in the company of two wonderful women so the 10-12 hours went by pretty easy.

A wedding web page

Dave and I set-up a wedding web page to keep all our family and friends up-to-date with the plans.

If you want to take a look or sign our guest book, click the link below.

Sandy's and Dave's Wedding Page

We will be updating our page periodically with wedding deatils.

Only 342 days to go...not that I'm counting our anything

Raspberries!

A friend from work gave me a twig last year. Actually it was a raspberry stem. I was told to dig a hole and put the stick in the ground. Which is what I did when I got home that evening.

I didn't think much of it but the stick grew a little before winter hit.

Well, when spring arrived, that little twig became the little twig that could! At the end of just one season, the rasperry twig turned into a huge raspberry bush! So big, in fact, that I had to start trimming the thing down lest it block the dining room window!

Anyway, not knowing much about hte harvest season of raspberry bushes, we were pleasantly surprised today to find that there are still raspberries ripening on the bush!

So with much joy and happiness, we're eating raspberries today!

As if you really want to be one...

Wil Wheaton posted on his blog a link to a site where you can take a quiz to find out which science fiction character you're most like.

I took the quiz a few times--the first time I was--

I got a really bad feeling about this one, so I did the quiz again. Don't know if it's much better, but I was

Hmmm, not liking this I am!

One more time--

Now get the hell out of our galaxy!!

See, there were a few questions that were left up to interpretation, so I could use a few different answers.

So I did.

At least I'm not

Preciousssssss....

It's a-comin'...

I had to scrape the frost off my windshield this morning.

Remind me to park my vehicle in an easterly direction so that the sun'll (hopefully) melt wht it can before I get out there.

Eh, I live in Canada for four seasons, so I'll take the cold as well. Hopefully we'll get another great winter--i.e. snow'll stay on the ground from December until late February!

Beyond that, stay safe and, as Red would say, keep your stick on the ice.

No, it's not a 'Battlestar Galactica' quotation...

My friend, Rob A> pointed me to the following--

Rising Concepts is offering a free (for now) service that adds a little fun to the 'blog-o-sphere' and the internet in general.

So with much further ado, I set up a Frapper for Sparky's and Sandy's Space. The link is to the right, under the calendar, or see below--

See, what you're suppose to do is click on the link and add yourself to the map--it's kinda a cheap way of having stats on the visitors that visit a particular website or blog. Or just do it 'cause you get to see lots of nifty 'pins' across the globe!

So there you are.

and a good read

BrickJournal!!

Joe Meno has published another BrickJournal magazine. Even if you're not into the LEGO building scene, I think that you'd still find some articles interesting yet alone the really cool pictures of all the various LEGO built things!

So go to the website, download a copy and have a boo! It's free!

due to water

I love my shower.

It wasn't always this way--as some of my peers from my high school days may remember, I really didn't shower on a daily basis--I wasn't slovenly or stinky, but I wasn't into showering daily.

As a tangent, I was told 'Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' is derived from a few centuries back, when people bathed once or twice a year--the family would take turns in 'the tub' (whatever container was available, I guess)--the youngest being bathed last. The water being so filthy after everyone had a turn in the tub, that sometimes when it was thrown out in the back 40, the baby, heretofore unnoticed in the wash bin, would go with it!

Kinda glad I didn't live in that era.

Anyway, almost every morning since, well, after high school, I have a shower. I'm not into baths or the like--I'll take a shower over a bath any day of the week. I brush my teeth in the shower, I shave in the shower, lather/rinse/repeat in the shower, etc.

So when I'm done my shower, I'm all fine and dandy--all cleaned up!

The other day, I'm having my occasional evening shower (this in addition to my every morning shower, which is just fine by me)--just relaxing under a hot stream of H2O. Our shower head was drooping a little (we have one of those flexible tube/massage showerhead thingies) and I push it back up to get a nice 45 degree stream of water.

The showerhead droops again--pointing straight down.

Grr!

I readjust it. Few minutes go by and it droops again!

Well...

I start tightening the connection to the chrome pipe coming out of the wall.

Still droopy.

So I tighten it even more.

Droop.

Really Grr!! This is ruining my shower time!!

I get right in there with the tightening thing and all of a sudden--*CRACK!!* (did I mention the shower connection was plastic?)--the whole kit-'n'kaboodle comes off in my hands. The hot water which was formerly impeded by the shower massage thingy and was a nice, gentle shower turned into a high pressure hose of water hitting me right in the chest--almost knocking me over a la Kramer from Seinfeld.

OWW!!!

Rushing to turn the water off, I put it on 'super cold'

AYIIEE!!

Finally getting the water turned off, I'm standing in the tub, dripping wet and with a broken shower massage thingy in one hand.

I knew just what I had to do.

"Honeeeeyyyyyyyy...."

Sandy comes into the bathroom with a towel. She's thinking that I probably needed one 'cause I never check to see if there's one available when I start my shower, and I've been caught a few times without and she doesn't like the wet footy prints going from the bathroom to the linen closet and back.

She sees the shower head in my hands and me dripping wet.

"Oh right, I noticed that the shower head seems to be drooping a bit."

In the end, she had a spare shower head that a friend gave her a while back. We installed it and I'm back to having my wonderful daily showers.

Life is good!

hopefully many more to come

After a few nights of codeing and modifying the mechanical bits of my train layout, it's running pretty smoothly.

See the first step of the plan--

Palisade Villa 001--The Beginning (61 meg)

If you could save it to your local system and run it from there, it'd be appreciated.

Anyway, it's a start. Hopefully, with continued efforts, it'll actually get somewhere

New news--

A good friend resized the video so it's much smaller--2.3 meg!! It's only half the video, but you'll get the idea. See it here--

Palisade Villa--The Beginning (the tiny version)

Even more new news - 10/17/05--

Palisade Villa 002--The Beginning (30 meg)

Palisade Villa 003--The Beginning (55 meg)

About the website

Sparky's and Sandy's Space had over 1000 visits yesterday...

October Stats

That's over 1000 unique visitors. Even with all the filters in place to keep spammers and moron referrers from padding their link counts, our website still broke 1000!

That made me happy.

So there you are.

And the gas mileage thereof...

First, note how we Canadians still say 'mileage'--"How's the mileage on the vehicle?" when we're not using 'miles' anymore--we use 'kilometers'. Then again, 'kilometerage' hasn't really caught on yet.

All that said, I've been keeping track of the mileage of The Mighty Dodge (TMD) over the past year and a half.

See this Excel spreadsheet tallying my results thus far.

The good news is that, at least according to the Fuel Economy website (is a US gov't one, but whatreya gonna do?), TMD is fitting right in or exceeding the average specs for gas mileage!

That was a surprise to me. I know I take reasonably good care of TMD, but after almost 18 years of service, I thought she was really showing her age.

Turns out that all that talk about routine maintenance and driving sanely on roads really are true--you do get better gas mileage.

Now I'm not geting the 7 litres per 100 kilometers that my cousin's getting off her '88 Civic--I'll have to settle for the 11-13ish litres per 100 km that TMD is getting.

Whilst we're here, let's have a look at a few newer vehicles, shall we?

2005 Cadillac Escalade - 15 litres per 100 km

2005 Ford Expedition - 15 litres per 100 km

2005 Dodge Durango - 16 litres per 100 km

2005 GMC C1500 Yukon - 20 litres per 100 km

That's still not my personal favourite gas guzzler, however--I had to see how the Hummer stacked up--

2006 Hummer H3 4WD - 17 litres per 100 km

and OMGoodness time--

2006 Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup - 24 litres per 100 km

Now all this said--well, a few things--why on earth would anyone own a full sized SUV today? I mean, let's have a look at the 'best' one for gas mileage--

2006 Ford Escape FWD - 9 litres per 100 km

Over twice the gas mileage as the Dodge Ram, but hey, what do I know.

Now sure, we all don't want to go down to this--

2006 Honda Insight - 4 litres per 100 km

because let's face it--I'm a Honda lover but this one's not terribly attractive.

But if you have your heart set on an SUV, why not the Ford? It's got the gas mileage and you can throw the camping gear in.

Let's be honest with each other, folks--you've seen the Expeditions, the Yukons, the Durangos on the road and in parking lots usually driven by some middle-aged person--you think they're ever going to see the off-road races in Baja?

I hear that folks think they're safer in one--well, all crash tests say you're not so there goes that excuse.

Yes these things are status symbols--Basically what any owner of a gas guzzing SUV is saying is--"Well, I don't give a rip about the environment, and I don't care about wasting money on gas."

Don't try to argue--that is, indeed, what they're saying.

My new thing is I'm going to point and laugh at anyone driving a Hummer 'cause, well, they deserve to be laughed at. My cousin owns one--I can't wait until the Christmas party this year! For the price of that one Hummer, he could have bought 3 hybrids.

I'm going to point out (again) that my truck is almost 20 years old and it gets better gas mileage than these SUV's. I think that there's something fundamentally wrong with your mind if you're okay with that.

Anyway, I'm just ranting again so I'll be quiet now.

Did I mention the nature?

I think we talked about the owl a few weeks back.

Well, today on the way back to work from our regularly scheduled 'Friday Mall Day Lunch Thingy', there on a concrete railing sat a very large hawk. The hawk was just sitting on the railing, watching the vehicles and the pedestrians go by. ight after we passed it, it flew up about 10 feet, then swooped arond and landed basically where it was sitting earlier.

Of course, no camera anywhere near me! Eh, whatreya gonna do?

So we talk about Gods great creations in the world en route to work. As we pull into a parking space at the job, a gopher (and quite a large one at that) scurries right in front of the car into the tall grass at the edge of the parkinglot, and dives into what I guess is it's burrow. Then it pops its head back up and watches us getting out of the car. We weren't but 4-5 feet from it as we made our way back into the building.

Love that nature.

Don't even know where to begin...

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan October 13th, 2005

Quite the read, isn't it?

For those that haven't been following the politics of our neighbours to the south, you might not know that the U.S. is in the middle of a quagmire in Iraq, in the process of making a political appointment to their Supreme Court, and in the middle of an investigation of an 'out'ed CIA agent.

So, with all this going on, it's amazing that, well, anything's geting done at all.

Now I try to put things into context--y'know, to give people the benefit of the doubt. I mean, there's always 'gray' areas--nothing is ever 'black and white'.

That said, here's an excerpt--

"

MR. McCLELLAN: Bob, anyone that knows Harriet Miers knows that she's exceptionally well-qualified to serve on our nation's highest court, and no one that knows her would make such a suggestion. And no one that knows her record and her qualifications would make such a suggestion. We look forward to people getting to know her like the President knows her. She is someone who has not sought the limelight, but she is someone who has served with great distinction and has a distinguished career and record. And that's what this should be about when it comes to the Supreme Court. I welcome the opportunity to engage in this discussion, because this should be based on qualifications and experience and judicial philosophy.

Some people want to create a different standard. And, Jim, you can sit there and shake your head, but she's exceptionally well-qualified.

Q Wait a minute, wait a minute -- excuse me --

Q Scott, yesterday both you and President said that it was important for --

MR. McCLELLAN: Anyone -- anyone that knows her record and experience wouldn't be making such a suggestion.

Q Scott, yesterday, both -- yesterday the President himself said that the American --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, some of you all wanted to focus more on religion. We focused on her qualifications and record.

Q Scott, isn't the idea we ask the questions and you provide the answers?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and I was providing the answer. Can I not say what I want to say?

Q Don't you wish that Scott would get back to you?

Q Can you characterize --

MR. McCLELLAN: Isn't it my right to talk and say what I want to?

Q I defend your right, Scott.

"

Wow. Reminds me of watching our very own parliamentary channel during 'Question Period'--everyone's yapping but nothing gets said.

Beyond that, Mr. Scott McClellan is getting quite the reputation for 'opening the door' for converations that he doesn't want to have. For example, when Pope JP passed away, 'Scotty' was all 'Oh the Pope and Dubya were such good friends--having the same views on many issues'. When a reporter called him on that remark, reminding Scotty that the Pope was, well, not so impressed with Dubya's 'War on Terror', Scotty was all, 'Well, now is not really the time to talk about that...'

Not the time? Scotty, you yourself opened that door when you were waxing on about JPII and Dubya. Hate to throw a reality check in there, but reality was needed, nonetheless.

But the record continues--

"

MR. McCLELLAN: You all want to focus on side issues like religion. We've said from the beginning --

Q Side issues --

Q You focused on religion.

MR. McCLELLAN: We've said -- no, we have always publicly talked about --

Q When has religion been a side issue?

Q Scott --

MR. McCLELLAN: Come on, Jim, we've always talked about her record and her qualifications --

Q You call this a side issue.

Q Scott, yesterday --

Q The opposition to her is in your own party. What are you going to do about that?

Q Yesterday, Scott, the President said that the American people did want to know about her background, and that her religion was part of that. And you pointed out repeatedly that her religion was part of that, as a means of letting the American people know more about who Harriet Miers is. The question was whether or not she is the type of person that has the tenacity to deal with any criticism in a confirmation process. Could you describe her and who she is, relative to her tenacity? The President has called her a pit bull in size six shoes. Could you elaborate?

"

You opened the door on how 'religious' your new SCOTUS nominee was (possibly to 'win over' votes from the conservative base), and then you don't want to talk about it--calling it a 'side issue' (and then, of course, in pure political-ese, say that it's not a side issue, but you don't think people should be focusing on it.)

And of course, the political double-speak--

"

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Helen, the President recognizes that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. And when you're engaged in a war, it's not always pleasant, and it's certainly a last resort. But when you engage in a war, you take the fight to the enemy, you go on the offense. And that's exactly what we are doing. We are fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here. September 11th taught us --

Q It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism. The President recognizes this requires a comprehensive strategy, and that this is a broad war, that it is not a law enforcement matter.

Terry.

Q On what basis do you say Helen is opposed to the broader war on terrorism?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, she certainly expressed her concerns about Afghanistan and Iraq and going into those two countries. I think I can go back and pull up her comments over the course of the past couple of years.

Q And speak for her, which is odd.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I said she may be, because certainly if you look at her comments over the course of the past couple of years, she's expressed her concerns --

Q I'm opposed to preemptive war, unprovoked preemptive war.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- she's expressed her concerns.

"

In which he states, "I'm sure you're [reference to a reporter] opposed to the broader war on terrorism" when no evidence of that is shown anywhere. But then a few seconds later, he says "No, I said she [same reporter] may be, because..."

First Scotty says the reporter is against the war on terror (and we won't even talk about that one right now), then, in the very same conversation--"No, I didn't say she was definitely against it, I said she may be against it..."

Drives me nuts.

The thing is I wouldn't care if this was in reference to anything else, because if it doesn't affect me, then go do what you want.

However, people are dieing out there, based on what Scotty's boss is doing.

Death concerns me. It concerns me a great deal. And if people are dieing needlessly (and in this particular case, I believe they are), then you're right--I'm going to get involved.

So why focus on Scotty and the press briefing? Well, I've written about Dubya elsewhere, but you can see that this 'plausible deniability' and 'avoiding responsibility' and 'spinning issues' is so entrenched in the current US administration's infrastructure, that it's blatant even in the press room.

And it makes me sick.

It ain't what it used to be...

Well, this article may state that warchalking is on the way out, but right now I'm sitting on a couch at my mother-in-law's abode and my laptop's not plugged into nuttin' and I'm composing this little blog entry.

I don't know whose bandwidth I'm pilfering--probably someone in a close unit.

But pilfer I will. I may knock on a few doors and let whomever know that their wireless connex is quite unsecure and they should read their owner's manual.

When I set up my wireless at home, the instruction manual had an easy walkthru for securing the connection--like hiding the SSID and having at least a network key and minimum encryption.

Maybe more people should read the manual.

Then again, if they did I couldn't be writing this blog right now.

So there you are.

Along the Bruce Trail

All summer we wanted to go on a hike but we just never seemed to find the time. There was always something that had to be done or somewhere we had to go, so it just never happend.

Well, we finally found the time and had a very nice hike along the Bruce Trail.

Here are some pics from our hike

Bruce Trail Hike

Here's hoping the weather permits and we will be doing some hiking again this weekend with the family on Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

And Serenity...

If Orson Scott Card states on his website that Serenity is the best science fiction movie ever made, well then... I think that's something.

OSC reviews Serenity

To quote--

"I'm not going to say it's the best science fiction movie, ever.

Oh, wait. Yes I am."

Further, he says what I've always felt about the entertainment industry--

"The key to this kind of movie is that you create a community that the audience wishes they belonged to, with a leader that even audience members who don't follow anybody would willingly follow. That will be the key to Ender's Game if the movie is ever successfully made; and it is the key to Serenity"

You create your particular vision of what you want and you have characters that I want to hang out with, then you've got something. This is the exact reason I loved Sports Night and WKRP. This is why I love Gilmore Girls and West Wing--I want to be part of what I see on the screen--the characters are 'real' to me--I feel their pain, I share their joy.

The people aboard Serenity were like that--Their hopes and dreams--well, not necessarily becoming my personal hopes and dreams--meant something to me.

Anyway, I'm very pleased that a pillar of the science-fiction community really liked Serenity

K, I wasn't much of a hockey fan

But last night was the funnest experience I've had in a public place in a long while.

First, see pics of our time here--

Toronto Maple Leafs Home Opener at the ACC

So here we are at the ACC. The last time I saw a regular season NHL game was when I was around 8 or 9 at the gardens. I'm with a person who loves hockey and has seasons tickets to the ACC, so I better become a fan pretty quick.

In my defence, I do know a little about the sport--all coming from hanging around friends and family that love it.

All that said, I was a little misty-eyed when #88 skated onto the ice. Here he is--Eric Lindros--playing for the team that he always wanted to play for since he can remember.

Some people in the stands were not too happy that he was wearing a Leaf jersey, and there were a few 'boo!'s from around the centre. You could barely hear the naysayers, however, because it was the second biggest cheer during the introductions (the first belonging to Mats--the team captain).

The pre-game show was great--from the 48th Highlanders to Stompin' Tom doing 'The Good Ol' Hockey Game' to BNL singing the national anthem accapella--all was fantastic.

Then the game started--#88 at center ice for the face-off (fantastic again!) and we're off to the races.

As the game progressed, the few who boo'd for Eric earlier were cheering for him, especially when he got the Leafs second goal of the night. I might mention to nay remaining naysayers--again, not that I know much about stats and such of this particular sport, but the Leafs took 25 shots at the Ottawa net, and 5 of those shots were from Eric--and he got a goal with one. See what I'm trying to say? Stop being an armchair quarterback--sit there, drink your beer, and shut up.

Rant over.

Well, for my first NHL game attendance this millennium, I was treated to it all--tie game, 'sudden death' overtime (still tied) and then a shootout.

In the end, the Leafs lost 3 to 2.

But no one seemed to really have a problem with that--hockey is back and the fans are very pleased

That's really the bottom line, isn't it?

Wow! More pictures!!

In what has to be the easiest feature I've ever got running on our website, I installed Gallery 1.5.1.

There aren't that many pictures as of yet, but hey, it's a start.

Click here to see Sparky's and Sandy's Photo Album online

The only downside is that Gallery and Greymatter really don't seem to fit together easily, so, for now, there'll be this blog for us to go on about things, and the photo album for our pictures. I'll work on getting 'em together.

Huh...?

I'd love to meet the guy who came up with this one--

So Compaq puts out this 'high end' server (well, high end at the time). This server comes with a SCSI array so you have your hard drive space, and you have 'em on a nice RAID controller, so you get some protection there.

The ML350 also comes with a Primary IDE, a secondary IDE and a floppy controller port, presumably for plugging in IDE and floppy devices.

Then the geniuses decide that you shouldn't be able to connect IDE hard drives to the IDE ports--just CD/DVD Roms.

Brilliant!

Why would you go thru all the effort of building primary and secondary IDE ports onto the motherboard of this high-end server if you don't want people plugging in IDE hard drives?

So it comes down to this--anyone who wants to add an IDE hard drive to an ML350 server has to buy an IDE controller card. Not expensive at all--25 bucksish, but why oh why have the on board ones in the first place if you can't use 'em???

Eh, I wanted to vent today.

I get there really early...

And there's no one there. About an hour before the show I showed up 'cause I thought there'd be a line-it is, after all, opening night.

Well, I misjudged the Serenity-movie going audience around Hurontario and the 403--I was the first, and, when Sandy and the other couple we were seeing the movie with arrived, when we went in--nada.

Yep, first ones to sit down. Of course, the 5th person to enter the theatre had to sit in the seat right in front of me and act real annoyed 'cause we were sitting behind him...

Anyway, the commercials and previews were lengthy, but finally Serenity began.

Around 2 hours later I realized that there was, indeed, a movie theatre with people around me.

No seriously, it was that good--I completely lost myself in this film. The dialogue, though not up to par with the highlights of the series, was still exceptional. The special effects/CGI, as per standards these days, was still very impressive. The best part, however, was that Serenity wasn't a Star Wars/Trek look-a-like--it was a unique way of looking at the potential future of our race as it goes out into the galaxy--there was no 'utopian ideal', a la Roddenberry (I still love the Great Bird of the Galaxy's outlook, but that was a previous blog entry), and there was no mystical 'all powerful force'.

Nope, pretty much Serenity is how humanity is today, with our sins and darker sides being right where we left them, except in Serenity there are space ships.

Were there downsides to the movie? Well, I didn't expect to be scared as much as I was, but that's what you get when you add Reavers to the mix. As well, I really liked Serenity in the series--it looked too 'hodge-podged' in the movie--too many extraneous things added 'just for atmosphere'--specifically the engine room, but that's just nit-picky.

As well, some characters seemed more subdued--Wash had a few great lines but he wasn't 'This is a fertile land an we shall call it... 'This Land''--'I think we should call it your grave!'--'Ahh curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!'--'Rah! Mine is an evil laugh!!'

K, that didn't come aross nearly as good as it did in the first episode.

Anywho, so much for a semblance of a movie review.

In the end, all the characters from the series were there on the big screen, doing what they do best--loving playing these roles that Joss wrote for them.

So I'll leave it to Jayne for the last words--

"Let's be bad guys!"