Awesome Breakdance Video

Check out this video of some of the best breakdancing you'll see. I could do better, but I just don't feel like it on account of my bad knee, which I injured while fighting a sabertooth tiger while treading water in the cold, unforgiving, arctic seas.

Click here to view the antics of this merely competent dancer.

Cali Blog Created

Well, as you all know by now, I'm moving to the Los Angeles area for a 6 month contract job. I've been busy getting ready for the move so haven't had time to update this blog, but I've created a new, separate blog to chronicle my time there. The address is http://caligila.blogspot.com. If you want to keep up with all of my adventures in the land of sunshine and uhh... boobs, bookmark that site.

The Funny Bug

First, a warning: If you are allergic to math, computers, or generally not a fan of geeky things... Stop reading this now.

Still with me? Okay, so today at work I saw one of the funniest software bugs in my short career. We make a set of map publishing tools, and one of the capabilities of these maps is to store data about each shape or area of the map. So in the course of testing, one of our QA guys discovered a bug in an election map. Basically each state had associated with it some attribute values for what percentage voted for Gore and what percentage voted for Bush. The bug was discovered when someone tried to use our expression engine to create a new attribute column that simply stored the result of adding the two percentages together. This expression looked like "PCTGORE + PCTBUSH". Simple enough, right? Well the engine evaluates expressions you put into it and reports back on any errors. In this case it spat back an error "bad token at position 0", which basically just means that it didn't recognize the "PCTGORE", even though it was a perfectly valid "column".

Half the development team was huddled around the QA guy's computer as we tried to figure out why it doesn't like Gore. It's pretty confounding because if you do "A + B" it works fine. Anyway, long story short, I had a eureka moment when I realized that "GORE" contains "OR" which is one of the permitted operands. We all laughed pretty hard at the initial notion that the computer didn't like Gore. I was given mad props for figuring it out. I felt quite smug and satisfied, and proceeded to tell the guys the story about a GM engineer who was sent to investigate a man's claim that his car wouldn't start if he went to the store to buy vanilla ice cream, but it would start fine if he bought chocolate. You can read that story here.

Girl Of My Dream

Last night in my dream I met someone. It was strange. There are certain things I remember very clearly so I feel like writing them up. The girl was introduced through a faceless friend, and she was a cute dirty blonde. This is where things go off the rails. She had the Starbucks logo on her forehead, and a green/black button somewhere else on her person. After talking for a while and getting the "I want to brew you" vibe from her, I literally pushed her button as a show of affection. I'm not sure if this spinning metal apparatus came out of the top of her head, or the top of her head might have opened up to reveal it, but I was totally dumbfounded 'cause I had no idea what its purpose or meaning was. This morning as I was driving to work I realized the spinning metal thing was the blade of a coffee grinder! So it all fit perfectly in its own self-contained nonsense. I think the dream originates from a Starbucks barista I thought was somewhat cute when I went there a few days ago. It's odd that the stuff you think about super-briefly and then forget ends up being the contents of your dreams. I wish I could will myself to not think about Jessica Alba so she'd make an appearance too. Ah well! Here is a slightly freaky image I made to visualize what I saw in the dream... I hope she doesn't mind me adding a blender to the top of her head, but it'd be really useful in the evolutionary sense.

Brokescent of a Womountain

In preparation for this year's Oscars, I decided I had to see as many of the best picture nomenees as I could. Since Brokeback Mountain is a favourite to win, I decided to download it. Honestly, it was one of the most boring movies I've ever seen in my life. The entire movie's runtime reminded me of the dawn of civilization montage in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The only thing breaking up the monotony is a couple of dudes going at it once in a while and some nice booby shots of Michelle Williams. I didn't think much of it as a love story. The courtship and relationship consists of the two dudes just mostly grunting at each other incoherently. Later on in the movie, there is a sense of anguish at being apart that resonated with me and I think everyone can relate to that aspect of it. But overall when it was over, I wanted my 2 hours back. I also realized that I enjoyed Brokeback To The Future a lot more than the movie it parodied.

I noticed Scent of a Woman was on tonight so I watched it too. Now here is a movie I can see a hundred times and not get bored with. In many ways besides the obvious, it's the opposite of brokeback. If the cowboys living in the middle of buttfuck nowhere had seen Scent, maybe their lives would have turned out differently. Maybe they would have found the strength to hang on to each other longer than the 5.4 seconds Jake Gyllenhaal lasted on a computer generated rodeo bull. Damn, why'd they have to add fakey computer effects to this kind of movie? But I digress.

Favourite quote from Scent of a Woman: "You've been the sugar business for so long, you've forgetten the taste of real honey!"

Dinner and Indecision

So after work I went out for dinner with two lady friends. They are both hot and on the rebound. I am a perfect genitalman. Anyway, we decided on Milestones (the one near the Paramount).

I like talking about food, so I'll regale you with what was had: We all shared the spinach & artichoke dip, which is warm and gooey and tasty in a way that nobody under the age of 20 could appreciate. We also had the calamari, which I think is my favourite calamari anywhere. It's thick and juicy like slices of steak. I'm pretty sure the Milestones chefs go on an expedition to the south pacific once a year and hunt a giant squid, then feed their patrons with its carcass until next season. Hat's off to those dudes.

Main course: In the interest of not violating anyone's privacy, I will not tell you what the girls had. Girls are crazy, and I've learned not to tell anyone anything about any choice a girl makes. I had the portobello chicken on capellini pasta. It was tasty but I didn't really pay much attention to it because we were talking about the girls' ex boyfriends and the circumstances surrounding their breakups.

Now let's be real subtle about my hypocrisy: One breakup involved cheating and malicious horrible things said, after a 6 year relationship. The other breakup was (I think) over a general understanding that the two are not meant for each other. A key hint might have come from the fact that he got her a box a of muffins for valentines day. It's the thought that counts though, right? right...

The highlight of the dinner had to be our server, Michael. He was a tool. I've never seen a guy try harder to pick up customers in my life. His game was off, though. First, he made sketchy choices, like pruning the girls' names from their credit cards. Second, he never chose which girl to focus his attention on. I can sympathize with him, as can any guy. You have a 50/50 situation if you make a choice, or a 0/100 shot if you make no obvious choice and neither girl is aggressive and makes a play. After we paid I went to the bathroom to give the guy his opening, so that my presence isn't threatening. He wasted his time dwelling on neither girl in particular and not closing the deal. Once I got back and we started to leave, he started saying a pretty awkward goodbye. For once, I was glad to not be the guy trying to close a deal. As we walked away I went a bit ahead, and I think the guy saw an opening, so he practically ran after us, but by the time he caught up at the door, I was standing there holding it open for the ladies, so he fumbled the ball, said goodnight and went back to the kitchen to whack off in the dip.

The lesson of the night? If you chase after people for one last chance... You had better take it! Mike: you fucked up brother. You make me look suave, and I have a blog!

Things You Hear That Aren't In MP3 Format

Yonge & Eglinton is the nexus of the universe. Anything interesting that's happened to me during my commute to or from work has happened around this stop. It is a magnet that draws to it the best and brightest that Toronto has to offer.

Today I overheard two young ladies having the following exchange:

Brain: I need some caffeene! I need Starbucks and like stat.
Pinky: Stat! haha! What does that mean, anyway?
Brain: You know, it's what they say.
Pinky: YA! Stat! But what's the other word for that? umm...
Brain: Pronto! I need Starbucks pronto, mister!
Pinky: HAHA! Ya!
Brain: Or even ASAP!
Pinky: A-S-A-P
Brain: Ya!
Pinky: What does that stand for, anyway?
Brain: As Soon As Possible.
Pinky: Oh ya!

And they got off at their stop (Eglinton).

Yes, I would hit that.

Blunch

Today I went to a Thai restaurant for lunch. The place was empty except for me. Talk about a table for one! They were playing some soothing lady jazz. I only recognized two songs: Almost Like Being in Love, and I Love You For Sentimental Reasons. This is probably why the place was empty at the peak of the lunch hour. Anyway I ordered a combo #7 (for those ignoramii among you, that'’s a spring roll, soup, and pad thai) for $7.95. The soup & roll came pretty quickly. The hot & sour soup smelled like sweaty socks, and the spring roll was about as bland as any I'’d ever had. Why don'’t they know that taro and shiitake make the roll?!? Instead it just had some cabbage and carrot and nothing else. The pad thai itself was very generous and filling. It only had the slightest hint of spaghetti sauce flavour. There is, unfortunately, a lot more going on than what I had for lunch. But it's so much easier to sum up pad thai than try to get into the other shit. May we live in less interesting times.

It's Not Stopping Me From Posting So...

Saturday night, after 11, and I'm gazing at my navel. It's linty. Blogger still refuses to stop me from posting, so I am doing a little pre-bed mental wanking.

Last night I went to Niagara Falls with T-Bone, a quasi religious lady friend of his, and some other dude from out of town who wanted to do unblogably dirty things to her. Anyway, as is usually the case when I'm around religious people, I got into debates with her about the hypocrisy of religiosity. Damn that was wordiostically delicious! I've managed to distill my problems with religious people down into two things that bug me:

Firstly, most of their activities and observances take place not out of an internal desire to perform those acts, but an external system of judgment where everything originates from a form of fear. Ask Yoda where fear leads! That green dude knows his shit.

Secondly, all of these activities and observances are in worship of something that (even if he/she/it exists) may not necessarily want to be worshipped. My puny mind can only wrap around the concept of God as a parallel for parental (pro)creation. When I create life, I won't want that life to be wasted in idle worship of my existence, but in the pursuit of further creation and the manifestation of goodness. I still have little debates in my head where I ask "Why would someone waste their lives in worship, rather than in production?" and then I answer, "That's love", but then I turn back to myself and say, "But even the beloved don't want to be worshipped, it's intolerable to be around."

So you see, I sort of get the second one, but I'm still not convinced about worshipping a deity instead of a particular beautiful girl. People have committed horrific crimes in the name of both.

Game Charged as Accomplice

Two 18 year old douchebags were racing their parents' luxury cars last night when one of them hit a cab and instantly killed the driver. Both guys were arrested and will be charged with some serious offences. I think their lives are pretty much over at this point, since they'll spend most of the next 10-15 years going to court and sitting in jail, and all the time after that regretting what they did.

The older I get, the more I subscribe to the belief that people are completely incapable of making rational choices until after the age of 22 (and sometimes never).

The illusion of invulnerability is likely responsible for more deaths in the 16-22 age range than any disease. I personally think it's due to permissive parenting and not enough exposure to the real world. This is a disease of affluent living in the 'burbs, where the worst thing that happens is getting caught smoking weed in the park late at night. In this case, though, a car racing videogame was found in one of the cars and will very likely be blamed for the disconnect from reality that these guys suffered (and are surely cured of by now).

It's really kind of funny to see the reporters holding up a copy of the game and talking about how it involves illegal street racing and encourages reckless behavior. They are charging the game with being an accomplice to a crime, or maybe even positioning it as the perp, with the teens being just naive followers of every command given to them by a box. I think "people" (and by that I mean everyone over a certain age that doesn't have a clue) are just scared of a relatively new art form. Mind you, video games have been around for over 30 years, but they've only recently evolved from things that we could easily separate ourselves from (moving rectangles on the screen) to completely real looking simulations of things that we might see or (psychopathically) do in real life.

It seems perfectly natural to blame a street racing game on the real life enactment of the things depicted in it, but really it's no worse than watching a movie featuring the exact same things (The Fast and The Furious).

I think the problem is not in the content of video games, but in the value players place on their own lives. There are no 1-UP's in real life; you only get one go of it. Young people tend to forget this and end up fucking things up before they even get to the interesting part of the game (where they face off against the boss/spouse character). Parents should strive to keep their youngens grounded by not spoiling, sheltering, or (God forbid!) boring them.