A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

Yesterday, I had to find the old, dusty copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). I knew it was among the collection of backups in the DVD storage album. It was an hour and a half well-wasted. I so wish that strange, often irreverent type of humour had a robust, modern-day equivalent. Five .. ahem three questions to cross the Bridge of Death? Flying cows? Knights who say Ni? Come on, don't crack a smile, I dare you.

We were simply doing some necessary homework for next weekend. I Ticketmastered some entrance passes to next Sunday's matinee of Spamalot. It's the first show of this season in Vancouver. The Broadway Across Canada organization sent an email with a discount code. We still went cheap with balcony seats. Having never been in The Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver, I don't know just how far away from the stage we'll actually be.

After the performance we'll know about the seating when booking Cats in October.

Labels: movies, musical theatre, Q2_2008

A big advantage of writing just a paragraph or two a day over a long time is that I don't have to apologize for repeating myself. Yet, even though organization skills aren't necessary, anything added helps form a large data base of my ideas. More than three years ago I once wrote about non-native plants growing here. Many things not generally associated with this latitude will take root. Today, I was prompted to continue this topic. We went up to see the Rose Garden in Queen's Park. Considering the small size of New Westminster, having such a large, centrally-located green space is a blessing of history. The roses were fine but I found something else just as interesting. I enjoyed seeing the banana tree!

Labels: flora and fauna, New Westminster, Q2_2008, Queen's Park

I cannot argue with the weather today. I've been complaining, not so secretly, about how crappy June has been. At least things have improved a lot now that the month's almost over.



I deposited my $100 Climate Action Plan cheque in the bank machine while grocery shopping today. It's sort of an initial bribe from the government due to the upcoming carbon tax which is being implemented in British Columbia. It doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense to try to combat fossil fuel use as a single province alone. For example, it may prompt me to travel more frequently to Bellingham, Washington as while there we could fill up much more cheaply. In the long run that means I'll burn a little more petrol.

We've never had really cheap gas here but this will add an extra 2.4 cents a liter. It comes into effect on July 1st, so I wanted to buy gas today. I filled up at $1.464 but I saw many stations selling at $1.495 a liter. These prices are the equivalent to about $5.50 a US gallon. Starting on Canada Day, the tax will likely push up the price past the psychological $1.50 per liter mark. In subsequent years increases will automatically kick in.

An interesting thing about our extra fees is they're supposed to be revenue neutral. It's not simply an additional tax grab. Although it will cause inflationary pressures, being that we aren't big consumers, we'll probably be better off financially. Reduced provincial income taxes should leave us ahead of the game. To celebrate, when visiting downtown Vancouver today, we took the SkyTrain. We did this more for its convenience than a desire to be eco-friendly though.

Labels: British Columbia, cars, government, money, Q2_2008, transit, Vancouver

Yesterday's entry prompted me to think about making a video clip of part of a Canadian citizenship ceremony. Finding the clip seemed appropriate as Canada Day is fast approaching on July 1st.



After residing as a new immigrant in Canada for four years, one could apply for citizenship. There was a small test one had to study for in order to pass. Then, eventually, an appointment appeared in the mailbox giving the time and location.

In March of 2000, Jay went to Surrey, BC for his ceremony. This old, 2:47 camcorder clip was taken near the end of it. The official paperwork had already been given out. The new citizens had returned to their seats to sing the national anthem. The judge also reads through a list of the countries from where the people had come.

Labels: camcorder, Canada, Canada Day, Immigrating to Canada, Q2_2008, Surrey, YouTube

Twelve years ago, the Cathay Pacific flight landed at YVR. We had flown from Dubai and connected through the old Hong Kong airport. Then, a Pacific Ocean later, we disembarked in our new country. That was June 26, 1996.

Being ever the explorers, we'd not made too many arrangements before arriving in the new land. Little did we know that within ten days we'd be renting an apartment in a place called New Westminster.



This was the view from our first Canadian balcony. Nowadays, three new towers are being built around the New Westminster SkyTrain station and will probably block the view of the river we had. This photo was very well taken before our shipping cargo had arrived, so chances are we were cooking in a few new pans, sitting on the floor, and listening to a radio for entertainment.

Labels: Immigrating to Canada, New Westminster, Q2_2008

I didn't have to work this month. Ordinarily that would leave me deliriously happy. Yet, as I look back over the last weeks, I didn't find them very pleasurable. Yesterday, I realized why. Finally, it was a fine day.

The weather has been pretty awful this month. Psychologically I felt as if summer were coming, but in actuality it seemed like a February. In this place that means it was cold, damp, and overcast. I still have all the winter blankets on the bed. I very well could have been running the gas fireplace during the evenings even though I resisted the temptation. We have seen weather reports showing hot conditions elsewhere, yet they've been no where to be seen. In fact, the snow pack on the mountains has not even managed to melt as it should during a normal year.

Perhaps the weather changed from the first official day of it. Last weekend was okay and yesterday I actually went out without a jacket. I feel better but may get a call that I have to teach a one month class starting next Monday. Why'd this weather get here so late?

To add insult to injury, now the days have started getting shorter!

Labels: New Westminster, Q2_2008, weather

My online presence continues to expand because of these daily snippets. I know I am unique but I don't know of anyone else who has accumulated such a great deal of online memoirs. It's even getting hard for me to remember what, exactly, sits on this site. The introduction of labels has helped me keep track of my eJournal and images, but a great deal of materials were added to the site before I started blogging.

I honestly don't understand a common mindset about the supposed, sacred importance of online privacy which some people have. Most of my peers (read: folks over 40 years old) have a weird fascination in believing they must work to maintain secrecy about private information. Well, all right; I'm certainly not about to blog my credit card number or, in fact, any other information that I wouldn't divulge at any social event. But hey, I certainly don't mind that things about me are publicly recorded and archived. In fact, it's actually quite hard to come up with something that anyone wants to read or look at. I think this matter of not being exposed on the Net is a generational thing. People entering the workforce nowadays have actually grown up with the Internet, so these are not concerns which they share.



I don't even know the full extent of all my digital debris. I accidentally came across this photo among my own online junk. I had been wondering whether I could pull together various photos of the cars I've owned. I'd completely forgotten about the car above, much less that a picture was already online. The K-car station wagon replaced a previous one.

This was the second car driven from New Hamsphire to Seattle. After finishing work in Taif, Saudi Arabia, I went home. My father and I crossed the country in this one in October of 1987. We did a little sightseeing which is why the photo was shot at Mt. Rainier. I was anticipating working in the States, but ended up running back to another Saudi teaching job in January of 1988. I sold the car to friend, Joel, I believe. It smelled awful inside because I used to smoke cigarettes.

Labels: blogging, cars, Internet, Joel, Q2_2008

People are fairly stupid. Wait, let me retract that. People, except me, are fairly stupid. I guess I'm prone to overstatement but I have been thinking about this as I've been involved at trying to dispel two hoaxes in the last two days. The Internet, on the whole, doesn't necessarily make people any smarter; rather, it simply allows them to be stupid faster and more loudly.

Myth #1 - A Device Can Allow a Car to Run on Water

If it's too good to be true then it probably is. This myth always comes around when there's a shortage of oil or the price increases rapidly. Hence, variants on this theme are quite popular at the moment.

The Hoaxes: Example 1 or Example 2
The Fact: Wikipedia

Myth #2 - Multiple Cell Phones Can Explode Popcorn

People love their cell phones but cannot shake the idea that somehow they're bad for their brains. Well actually, I do believe they're bad from one's brain! No, I don't think it has to do with electromagnetic radiation; it's simply bad for human brains because people yack their way through life rather than observing what's around them. Regardless, the recent video myth that a few cell phones can pop kernels of corn is, indeed, moronic. What smart viral advertising it is though!

The Hoaxes: Example 1 or Example 2
The Fact: Tech. Yahoo

Even fairly intelligent, educated colleagues have forwarded ridiculous emails containing Internet hoaxes. It seems that human nature really hasn't seen much development since pre-historic stories around the campfire. There are some things we just need to believe in no matter how foolish. I don't want to end here but I've got to go. I'd include a third myth but I just got an email from Bill Gates that says if I re-send his message to all of my friends ...

Labels: email, Internet, opinions, Q2_2008, telephone

I saw the television promos but figured the program was probably too foolish to watch. At the present time, I find few sitcoms worth spending my time on. Once, I sort of accidentally caught one episode and I was instantly hooked. I've now been recording all the summer re-runs.

The protagonists are younger than I am. Those guys are actively involved in careers which involve hard science although I'm not. Finally, they are just characters written to be clever and funny, but I was born with those traits.



What I'm trying to say, however, is that I really enjoy the show. It proves I'm nerdy but in a good, revenge-of-the-nerds sort of way. Even the theme song, sung by the Bare Naked Ladies, makes me smile.

Labels: music, Q2_2008, television, YouTube

As I'm beginning to use labels here more seriously, I can identify areas of my travels that haven't been thoroughly documented. For example, I looked at the tag Indonesia but didn't find adequate references to Bali.



During the summer of 1992, we went to Indonesia for six weeks. We flew into and out of Jakarta but worked our way as far south as Bali. Sixteen years is a long time ago, but I recall even at the time that I'd wanted to return there someday. We got around the island nicely by renting a jeep. It's not a big place at about 95 miles wide and around 70 from north to south. The middle is mountainous with a nice variety of vegetation. We stayed at different beaches with both white and black sands. We also stayed not far from Mt. Batur which is considered an active volcano. The island is unusually Hindu in culture being that it lies in the mostly Moslem Indonesia.

I'd go back in a flash but our travels probably won't lead us in that direction again in the foreseeable future, if ever.

Labels: Indonesia, mountains, Q2_2008

This should tell you who's looked at this particular page. Dozens of the folks who visit in a day are looking for something in the archives and may never actually see this entry. Are you all alone now?

Labels: blogging, Internet, Q2_2008

Because of Flickr, I've been in an email conversation with a guy named Sampath in Sri Lanka. He initially wrote to ask that I include one of my photos in a Flickr group he created. He wants to highlight Sinhala script. I thought perhaps I had other photos with with text from signs and buildings to include. It was easy to add some of them to that group.

In our email conversations, he mentioned that probably Canada was very cold. He's never actually seen snow. It is often necessary to explain that around the city of Vancouver we seldom see snow that stays on the ground. In the winter though, it's only a hop, skip, and a jump to the mountains. Yes, Vancouver is hosting the Winter Olympics in 2010 but many venues are actually going to take place at the Whistler/Blackcomb mountains.

Today, I wondered if I could find a picture of snow on the local ski hills. Although we arrived to live in 1996, I lack many photos until I went to digital photography in 2002. I did find this old one. There is no date but I strongly believe it was taken in February 2000. I think this was taken with friends on a day we had a winter picnic at Mt. Seymour.

Labels: Flickr, mountains, Q2_2008, scanned, Vancouver

The American Film Institute's 10 Top 10 was on CBS earlier in the week. I love seeing how many of the films I have managed to watch. Thankfully, due to the prevalence of DVD's one doesn't have to go to film school in order to screen the classics nowadays.

On the number two slot under the Western genre was High Noon. I'm about 56 years late to this party. But hey, wait a minute, I'm not even that old. I'd never seen it, so I found it at the library. I watched it today and must say it was suspenseful. Upon reading about it, I find it hard to understand why it was considered un-American during the McCarthy era. I think High Noon is pretty true to human nature.

Labels: movies, Q2_2008, stars

I won't hear whether my June 30th course is a 'go' until a few days before it's to start. Being off from teaching right now is good. I didn't plan anything this month but the time surely seems to be zipping by. A lot of people never find the time to get back in touch with themselves. Okay, that sentence looks a little weird and new-agey. I mean to say taking off one's work hat for a while is needed. Far too many make that the hat they wear most often. It's so unfortunate people build their lives in such a way that being off is simply not possible. Not working allows one to reexamine many of one's goals and priorities. In often cases, they need reexamination.

Another thing which needs reexamination is our relationship to energy consumption. While many people feel as though the sky is falling under the impact of $US4.00 a gallon gasoline prices, I look at this with optimism. At present in Vancouver, we pay closer to $5.50 for the equivalent.

The party is over. Under-priced, cheap oil will never be the norm again. I have always been miserly and so the current realization doesn't come back to bite. My 5-speed, 4 cylinder truck is 12 years old. Keeping it going for another four or five years isn't going to break my bank. I don't feel any sympathy for those must fire up a Ford Expedition to pick up the dry cleaning.

Of course, the price of everything is going to go up. It's the price we pay for organizing society the way we have. My kitchen table is made from wood which was cut in Malaysia while I'm living on the edge of one of the largest areas of that resource on the planet. We will have to start forking out the true costs associated with our activities.

Th Saudis are, rightfully, starting to react to fears that prices may actually drive changes to our patterns of consumption. As the price of petroleum increases, the chances for affordable alternatives multiply.

I will be keeping my truck. Actually buying new at this point would take more energy, in the larger scheme of things. Hardly anyone will be saving energy or money buy running out to buy a new vehicle at the moment. I will hold on, in the hopes that gas hits $10 a gallon! When car companies cannot even give away their product, they'll really get to work on creating alternative forms of personal transportation. People aren't going to have to give up their own car. If there's a space-race mentality and an economic imperative, we'll be driving around in things that are a lot smaller but run on something else. When the going gets tough ...

What an opportunity for society!

Labels: cars, opinions, Q2_2008, relaxing

This morning I received an email from Hong Kong. Back in 2006 we stopped there on our way back from a Sri Lankan trip. We had the chance to meet up with Mr. Bill Ryan and family. We'd known them while working in Dubai a decade prior to our visit. I periodically send out test messages to the list of contacts and Bill got one. Each time, I find folks who have abandoned their addresses, presumably for new ones. In these messages I usually just promote this blog.

In the most recent, I had mentioned the vault page. As well as keeping a simple weekly chronology, labels have allowed me to add a little more structure to the chaos. By labeling entries, I have a quick and easy method to create specialized pages all pertaining to the same subject. Bill wrote back and said it was, of course, interesting for him to visit the Hong Kong and Dubai pages. This does make my information here a little more approachable to those with a specific interest, doesn't it? The listing seems to change quite a bit over time. I can only vouch that it is correct as of today.

Alaska, Alberta, Amsterdam, analog, Bahrain, balcony, BBS, BC Ferries, BCIT, beer and wine, blogging, Bratislava, Bret, briefcase, British Columbia, Brussels, Budapest, camcorder, Canada, Canada Day, cars, Christmas, complaints, computer lab, computers, Creative Zen, credit card, cruise, Daily Picture Parade, dentist, Desert Southwest, digital camera, Don, driving, Dubai, errands, Eurotrip 2005, Eurotrip 2007, feelings, file archives, fireworks, flash memory, Flickr, flora and fauna, flying, food, Fraser River, futurecast, games, glasses, Google, government, GPS, grandmothers, hard disk, hardware, Hawaii, Hayack, HDTV, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Hulu, humour, India, Indonesia, Internet, Joel, Kuwait, labels, Las Vegas, Laurie, library, lists, literature, London, Los Angeles, maintenance, the Maldives, Mediaplayer, Mexican cruise, Mexico, money, monkeys, mother, mountains, movie musical, movies, Munich, music, musical theatre, myBCIT, Nepal, New Hampshire, New Westminster, New York City, Niagara Falls, Okanagan, opinions, parade, Paris, passport, Persian, pets, pig, podcasts, Portland, Prague, PS3, PSP, PVR, Quay, Ranger, relaxing, review, road trip, Royal City Mall, Salzburg, San Francisco, Saudi Arabia, scanned, sci-fi, searching, Seattle, sharing, Singapore, SkyTrain, software, souvenirs, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka 2004, Sri Lanka 2006, staff, Stanley Park, stars, students, Sunapee, Surrey, technology, telephone, television, temple, Thailand, The Harbor Gameroom, The Wizard of Oz, Tim, train, transit, travel planning, Turkey, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Vienna, Walmart, Warner Bros, weather, webcam, weight loss, Windows, World Vision, YouTube, zip.ca, Zurich,

Having things better organized also helps me check what I may have already said or added. For example, Dubai looks a little underrepresented in this blog considering we were there for five years. I'll include this picture of the creek's abra (water taxi) crossing from the Bur Dubai side back in 1991.

Labels: blogging, Dubai, Q2_2008, scanned

I do seem to be adding quite a number of 'clips' and 'mash ups' lately, don't I? I just wanted to add something which shows I was out and about today. (No, I don't say a-boot!)

The sky is wonderful and that makes me feel great. I guess an advantage of having crappy weather is when it stops, it feels so good! The sky really is marvelous when there aren't clouds. Just the weather of yesterday and today has erased the memory of the awful, practically non-existent, spring. Crowds were out yesterday but it was Sunday. Crowds seem to be out today and I don't think they're just taking a long lunch break. Some people may have called in sick.

The New Westminster Quay was beautiful and the babies in strollers, pooches on leashes, and couples in tow seemed to prove it. On the way back I peered into the hole where the old Windsor Hotel used to be. I can hear the pile driving from the apartment although it's three blocks away. I am happy to see downtown booming. The nineteen storey building that's going in there may block my balcony view of the Quay though.

Labels: feelings, New Westminster, Q2_2008, weather

Italy is large and contains lots of must-see cities. It's good that we are doing considerable pre-travel planning just to decide where to go and what to see. Of course, the result of all this homework is just conjecture at this point. We do enjoy being in constant preparation for the next place we may visit.

Naturally, Rome would be the first stop. It's too bad we have noted that the autumn charter flights are cheaper to every other city in Europe. Whether to go north or south first is an important question to answer. Deciding how far south to go is another.

Whether sooner or later, we will need to go far north as Venice is definitely on our list. We've already done a fair amount of reading on what to expect there. The iconic canals are already part of most people's experience though photographs. It even came to mind that Like a Virgin was also in one of the first music videos by Madonna I could remember. It would've been on a Sony Betamax tape sent to my company when I was working in Saudi Arabia.



In 1984, Madonna moved pretty much the same way she does in songs from this year's Hard Candy. However, nearly a quarter of a century ago, although not obvious in the grainy video, she had no need for wrinkle cream.

Labels: Italy 2008, music, Q2_2008, travel planning, YouTube

When I first got an IBM clone in the mid-1980's I had many 'gee-whiz' moments. Over the last several decades they have continued to come my way, even if a little less frequently.

Today, I had another one. A few minutes ago I got all 'gee-whiz' over something that Microsoft is doing. Initially, they were the source of these times but since the advent of the Internet, many more of my moments have come from others.

I stumbled upon Microsoft's Popfly.

It's so un-Microsoft-like. It's an open concept, web-programming, online interface, sort of thingy. I suppose if the recipient user doesn't have Silverlight loaded on their machine, it won't work. I'm curious about that, so please leave a comment if the situation merits. I mashed up a pre-made photo viewing app with data from my Flickr photostream to come up with this. The amazing thing is I did it in about three minutes. Unfortunately, it takes about that long to load. This makes it useless.

Load a Popfly page.

Labels: Flickr, Internet, Popfly, Q2_2008

Okay, it's a little weird that I can sit at my computer and conveniently watch forty-year old television. I am not so sure that in 1968, when I was nine, I would've been keen on watching the pilot episode of Ironside. I'm not even sure we had a colour TV that year in Wendell, New Hampshire.



Strangely, I'm now living in the Canadian city which is the birthplace of actor, Raymond Burr. I can view on-demand episodes of Ironside on my 19 inch monitor right here. Just as interestingly, I can blog about these facts and the result is, in theory, visible from any location on the planet which has the Internet. I can even let you see it too.



If you're not in the US, try loading Hotspot Shield first. The program allows you to VPN to a US-based IP. It is easy to start and stop and a whole lot easier than messing around with permanent configuration on your computer. You only need to run it when you need to appear to be in the United States.

Labels: Hulu, Internet, New Westminster, Q2_2008, stars, television

I sent the link for a larger version of yesterday's blog photo to an ex-colleague who is in Bahrain now. Actually, he's been there since the time I took that photo, making it neigh onto twenty years. In retrospect, I probably had a better life in the UAE, but Bahrain still remains dearer to my heart. I always said the people there were nicer due to the fact they were poorer. Don did send along this comment when I asked if the Adhari Hotel was still there.

Yes it is there along with 88 other hotels, half of them in the new Juffair. The area around Adhari is real run down and trashy nowadays.

You would not recognize Bahrain. High rises all over the island. Your old building there is dwarfed by other, bigger buildings beside and behind. There's not a sqaure inch of empty land any where in Juffair AND the area has doubled in size.

There are several 20, 30 and 40 story towers in downtown Manama, and in the Seef District, there are even more with a 75 story building being planned. Juffair looks like Diplomat area but 5 times the size. Not a place to park anymore and the road to the base is busier than Exhibition Road was; supermarkets, every chain restaurant, coffee shop and pizza place you can think of and some you can't.

All the roundabouts all over Bahrain are being done away with and flyovers are being built in their place. No more roundabouts at all in Manama and they are putting flyovers in at the Manama end of the Sitra Causeway, which will tie in with the new causeway. Also Isa Town, Salmabad and A'ali roundabouts are gone. BTW, they are building a causeway to Qatar.

There's a whole new city being built off the southern tip and a new series of islands were created east of the southern end of Muharraq and already they are built up and all the villas and condos (were talking thousands of 'em) are being sold from 200,000 to 1,000,000 dollars. There are about 25 condos in the Manama, Juffair, Hoora areas built and most of the apartments are sold, starting at $100,000. Just beside Pearl (Lulu) Roundabout, there are three 25-floor towers all sold out. Prices started at $250,000. There are several new universities with entire campuses dotted over the island, too, and 4 or five huge new private hospitals. Dubai might be where it's at, but Bahrain isn't far behind considering its size and resources.

Labels: Bahrain, Don, Q2_2008

When I first tried a hand at blogging, I didn't consider I'd include a photo or image most every day. In September of 2003, I am not sure if I knew I'd still be adding daily posts in June of 2008! Eventually, I did realize that a graphic of some sort could be featured with most entries. Over the years, the images have often become the entries.

Once entered in my eJournal and images, they create part of my historic record. My initial idea that I'd only be able to go forward with present-day images has proved incorrect too. Because of a scanner, I am able to, quite often, dip into the past.

The picture above represents what I didn't do often enough; namely, take everyday shots of my surroundings. There was no reason to take this photograph of the Adhari Hotel in Bahrain twenty years ago. Yet, seeing the details is interesting to me due to the passage of time. For example, I would not be able, in my mind's eye, to put together such simple elements for the feeling of an ordinary street then and there.

It is a real shame I didn't take more pictures of nothing during my lifetime.

Labels: Bahrain, blogging, feelings, Q2_2008, scanned

The taxes on alcohol here make imbibing very costly. Liquor is strictly controlled for sale at provincially-run stores and at those licensed to sell off-site.

When we were in California last month, I'd forgotten about the variety of beer and wine available in most supermarkets. I was also surprised by how cheap it was. A can of beer could be had for the price of cola. Surely, it was about half what we pay here.

This may be one reason that British Columbia allows u-brew stores. They are stores that make wine from kits. It's much easier than trying to become a brew master oneself for they do all the hard work. The customer must throw the yeast into the batch to start off the process and return after a month or two to help bottle the liquid. Before the fermentation process begins, one is simply buying foodstuffs so there's no tax at all. I've mentioned these facts here in the past.

What I've not mentioned is this new product which was introduced to me by friends last weekend. Click the link below to load a PDF file from the company's website.

The Big & Easy Bottle Brew

I brought the three varieties home yesterday and started a Premium Pilsner. It's such a simple process, quite literally one -- two -- three. Imagine, it's a more natural product at 2/3's the price of cheapest brew found at a BC Liquor store.

Labels: beer and wine, Q2_2008

I'm free this month.

I should paint the inside the bedroom closets. I should also paint the living room with the paint that's sitting in the can on the balcony. I should get out the carpet cleaner and use it. I should do the annual waxing on the pickup truck. I should check about replacing the counter top on the bathroom vanity. I should do all these things.

Although it's not really raining, it's still cold and dreary.

I guess I won't.

Labels: errands, maintenance, Q2_2008

I continue to be frustrated by the news coming out of Sri Lanka. The country is well educated, has a strong work ethic, and sits in an excellent geographic location. Unfortunately it continues to be stalled on brink of terrific expansion. Actually, a huge amount of development has and continues to occur. It's just sad to consider how much has been missed due to 25 years of a continuing civil war.

We had long visits in 2004 and 2006. I love being there.

Like many Canadians, I often think of a retirement that includes five or six months in a warm location. Back east the Quebecois head to Florida. Out here, people winter in locations such as Arizona or Mexico.

I cannot help but consider how great it'd be to head to Sri Lanka in November of each year. We don't have to shovel snow in Vancouver but still more sun during the winters would be welcome. Unfortunately, I found real estate prices in the capital region of Sri Lanka to be very expensive. Seriously, property prices can be much higher than in many places in North America. Considering average families on the island have less money, I don't know what fuels such extravagant prices. Click the screen capture to the right to read a May article from the International Herald Tribune.

Labels: money, Q2_2008, Sri Lanka

On Saturday evening I brought the new camcorder to a get-together with friends. So, far I'm pretty impressed with the Panasonic HDC-SD9. The video quality can be quite stunning in bright light; however, it doesn't so very well in low-light conditions. Unfortunately that's a very common type of family-style video. I think our very first Sony camcorder in the 1980's did the best job of any subsequent cameras of being able to shoot excellent night scenes.

The ability to just pop out the SD card and directly insert into the PS3 is useful. The software that copies to a computer is also fairly easy to use even if it lacks a lot of necessary features. Over all, giving up tape has been a pleasant experience.

Its small size and ease of use means that this camera will probably get a lot more exercise than anything I've owned in the past. I have to be aware of this and think in terms of small video clips nowadays too. To help reflect this change in thinking, I have introduced the term camcorder as a blogging label. Viola, I get an instant new page to reflect current and past entries.



Even a clip which is less than 20 seconds can be interesting. This is simply a SkyTrain entering the east end of the tunnel into Columbia Station in downtown New Westminster.

Labels: camcorder, New Westminster, Q2_2008, review, SkyTrain

We're going to have dinner with friends this evening. Rather than waiting until after coming home to comment, I thought I'd just see if I could come up with an earlier photograph.

I archive digital photos on several Duel-Layer DVDs. I also keep them on the external drive next to the computer. This affords me a much greater opportunity to actually make use of the data. I found this picture from 2002. I had only gone to a digital camera a new months prior to this fine day in May.



Who's changed more over the six years that've passed since this was taken?

Labels: digital camera, Q2_2008

It's a rare two entry day.

Actually this isn't much of an entry. The PS3 world is both abuzz and aghast at a brand-new, pay-for subscription to Sony's online gaming magazine. Qore is a really stupid name. It's supposed to be for hardcore gamers, get it?

My only comment is that I've been downloading the 1.5GB issue for hours now but, at present, I'm only 49% there.

This just goes to prove that high-definition for the foreseeable future is going to be on disc. I'd rather it had been HD-DVD but I'm not a poor loser. The PlayStation network obviously can't handle the traffic and seemingly won't be able to get me the the bytes until I need another shave. I can't imagine ISPs being able to ramp up Internet connections so that everybody can easily shuffle around 25 to 50GB movies. "Sir. I guess I'll take that order on Blu-ray, please!"

What? ... already at 51% ... yawn.

Labels: Internet, PS3, Q2_2008

Don't get me wrong, I love getting DVD and Blu-ray discs through the post. We've been with www.zip.ca for a number of years. They have a fantastic selection of not just standard fare, but also foreign and niche titles. Since opening their Vancouver shipping centre, we get very fast service. For the money, we get much more quality screen time for about half the cost of the monthly satellite TV service. I would highly recommend them to anyone who spends more than four or five hours a month watching DVD discs.

Nothing's perfect, however. The people at zip must do some major work on their website. It can be extremely slow. In fact, I cannot think of an example on the Internet where loading a single page can take longer. I'm not just comparing to Canada servers here, but www.zip.ca is often slower than foreign sites on the opposite side of the globe!

I do praise their efforts in going Blu-ray. The number of available titles seem to be quickly increasing. Again, there are problems surrounding the implementation of choosing them on their site. To their credit, there's a way for customers to discuss problems on the site. That's surely more useful than unanswered email to a customer service representative.

Here is a recent conversation:


Me:

I always want the Blu-ray version of discs which come in multiple formats. I've yet to figure out why my ziplist does not show combo selection boxes for most recently-released movies.

When looking through the new release titles and selecting, the standard DVD goes on my list. I have no way of knowing that it is even available on Blu-ray unless I do a separate search only for that title.

This is a major problem but there's no mention of it being 'worked on'. The site can be frightfully slow but usability is also being affected by poor design.

Member #1:

It is because some movies are inserted into the DB separately by format.

Search for Cloverfield, you will get two responses

-Cloverfield
-Cloverfield (Blu-ray)

So it would not have a drop down. I won't deny that Zip needs to fix this, but that is why not all movies have drop downs.

Me:

I generally don't like 'searching' for a specific title. (It takes much too long anyway.) As mentioned above, I usually select from your 'just released' pages. Of course, all end up as the non-Blu-ray version if added that way.

Unfortunately, given by what I've seen, it is not SOME it's MOST.

Of the twelve Blu-ray requests on my ziplist, only 3 are correctly entered in your database. For the other 9, I had to go through searches to locate.

Thanks for your response. I hope you actually have means correct the situation.

Member #2:

Oh, they are working on it, but first they are working on finding a cure for cancer, so hang in there.

Actually, it doesn't matter how many separate entries there are for a title, but rather if the titles are "mated" (joined) with each other or not. If you search for "Superman Returns" you'll get 3 different results but you'll still get the drop down menu on your ZipList because they are "mated" titles. And if you click on ANY of them, you'll only see Blu-ray appear in the dropdown menu window (on your ZipList) if that's what your format preference is set for. Although they may not actually send you the Blu-ray version (even if it shows up in the dropdown menu window on your ZipList) if you happened to click on a different version of the movie (by accident) without realizing it. Confused? So am I.

Me:

Come on, folks, who doesn't enjoy mating?

After reading the thread you provided, I can only revert to my original premise that there are problems with website design and major implementation issues.

Zip Staff:

We mated a bunch of the titles earlier this year, but shortly thereafter a glitch was introduced into the search results for mated titles (Pokerface's "Superman Returns" example should really only have returned one listing in the search results). This is slated to be corrected in the current bug-fixing period, and we'll also be getting some improvements to the tools we use to edit things like this at the same time, and we'll get everything mated that should be put together. Sorry for the current inconsistencies with the Blu-ray listings.

Labels: complaints, Q2_2008, zip.ca

You can count the number of Broadway productions we've seen on one hand. We saw La Cage aux Folles in NYC, Chicago in London, and Wicked in Los Angeles. Rather than just being a vacation thing, we're going to pay a little more attention to musical theatre as it occurs in Vancouver. Broadway Across Canada does provide a few travelling productions each season. I was checking the site for Spamalot and couldn't find a way to locate season tickets in Vancouver. I did note that the Broadway Across America site also matches up different shows for the season in Seattle. That'd be a good excuse to travel down on a weekend.

As well, of course, there are more-local productions. Even in our own city of New Westminster, shows, such as a recent production of West Side Story, are put on at the Massey Theatre.

As a matter of fact, I just put away my credit card after buying tickets to The Producers from the Arts Club Theatre Comany in Vancouver. We'll go to this Sunday's matinee. We've seen both the 1968 and the 2005 movies but absolutely love the more recent one. It's definitely not everybody's kind of entertainment but it sure works for us.

Labels: musical theatre, Q2_2008, Vancouver

Measurement standards are good. I was researching real estate in Sri Lanka and kept coming across the fact that the term perches is used there.

Interestingly, it was used as a measure of length, area, and volume from the times of ancient Rome. Likely, a Wikipedia entry suggests, the term was re-introduced to England during the Norman Conquest of 1066. Since that time, competing measurements have included rods, chains, furlongs, and miles. Unfortunately, few agreed on what the standards really were though. For example, Irish perches were considerably longer than English ones.

A perch was eventually standardized at about 30 1/4 square yards. Or, there are about 160 square perches to an acre. Finally, if you think metric, then consider a perch as 25.29 square meters. Yet just to throw cold water on your new knowledge, as it turns out, perches are an alternate name for rods in the context of measuring area.

Nowadays, we take standardization pretty much for granted. Yet, I'd like to suggest that we still aren't as perfect as we believe. Here, waist sizes are still, of course, measured in inches. The problem is that not all clothing manufacturers agree on exactly what they are. I've noticed this situation especially since I've been shedding a lot of those extra pounds / kilograms / stones over the past year and a half.

If I want a suitable pair of Dickies work pants then I have to buy size 38's. Wrangler, the jeans maker, on the other hand, considers me a size 34! God bless 'em. I think they've got my future business ...

Labels: complaints, Q2_2008, weight loss

I once threw some Italian lira into the Trevi Fountain, not the replica in Las Vegas but the real one in Rome. So, holding to the tradition, it is enviable that I will eventually return to the Eternal City and this time Jay can come. We're still bandying about the idea of spending our big, autumn break in Italy. There's nothing set in stone, so to speak. I did pick up a travel guide at the library today. It's one country that's hard to try see in just three weeks or a month. It'll also be hard buying all the overpriced Euros needed this time around!

I tend to want to again see the southern region as in 1987 I knew I'd return to spend a day on the Isle of Capri during my life. I have already seen Naples and the ruins at Pompeii, but 22 years ago I wasn't nearly as smart and worldly as today. I didn't see the Leaning Tower of Piza nor have I been in a gondola in Venice. Turin and Milan are also far afield, so starting to put together an itinerary will be a task in itself.



Click the title banner above to load a PDF file which was published in my hometown newspaper called the Argus-Champion in Newport, NH. It was published when I returned to work in Saudi Arabia after 10 days in Italy in 1987.

The only photo I could locate from that time was an 8" x 10". I think the others may have been lost in a fire when some of my belongings were stored. The old image of Florence is hot off the scanner.

Labels: Italy 2008, Las Vegas, Q2_2008, scanned, travel planning

Well, one joy surely doesn't happen to be the weather this year. I lit the fireplace last night and it's still running. It's cool and cloudy outside, so much so that I don't even want to walk uptown for a little exercise.

Then there's another unfortunate thing that always occurs during the beginning of June. I found only one envelope in the post today and it was the municipal tax bill. I went running to the place where we keep old copies just to see how much it'd risen. I found the original receipt from the first complete year in this apartment in 1999. Over the last nine years my local taxes have gone up about 24.5%. I suppose an increase of less than 2.75% per year is reasonable. Yet for comparison, I'd like to know similar information for the whole city. I am aware that there are a lot of factors at play. It'd also be useful to find out about the surrounding cites as well as across the province and country. I know, it's probably all online somewhere. You'd have to agree though, as a society, we surely enjoy talking more about sex than taxes.

Labels: money, New Westminster, Q2_2008

I'm feeling lazy today. I don't feel as though I have the energy to write about much of anything. I have made it an absolute necessity to put something here daily though. Even if I'm not within reach of an Internet connection, I scribble down something on the back of a dinner napkin and post at a later point. That's why there's something for every date since September 2003.



I decided to simply look for an old digital photo to post today. I bought my first digital camera in February 2002. The goose above was taken at Burnaby Lake on March 3, 2003 so it must be among my first ever digital captures.

Labels: blogging, British Columbia, digital camera, Q2_2008

This is where I'm sitting now.