Blog Title: modsuperstar dot ca

Camo Crock Pot

On our way back from Niagara Falls, NY after the football weekend Corina and I decided to check out the local Wal-Mart. I've always heard how Wal-Mart in the US is so much bigger and better then what we have in Canada. The one that we checked out definitely didn't fall into that category. The one in Cambridge is definitely better. Anyways, while shopping I found this little gem.

After spending 48 hours in Western New York I can definitely attest to how much they love camouflage. We did some tailgating at the Bills game and there was quite a few people sporting, well, that and Zubaz pants(I'm shocked they actually still make those). Now I have to wonder if people are kitting out their whole kitchens with camo appliances? Is there a whole line of dishwashers, blenders and waffle irons covered in camo? Or is this for the hunter who needs to let a batch of 10 bean chili simmer for 10 hours while in his tree stand waiting for that 5 point buck to stroll by? I guess I'll be left to wonder.

Football related holidays

I finally did it. This is the first year that I've been able to take American Thanksgiving off. It's long been an aspiration of mine to take a football related holiday off, ever since I started working at Thompson in 2002. Back then another guy in the art department had been running this scheme for years, where he would take the time off, stay at home and watch football. To me this always seemed genius, there was only one problem. Since it was a small department I couldn't do it too since it would leave us short staffed in the busy lead-up to Christmas. This was the first year I was able to make it happen, given last year the time I took off for my honeymoon kinda put the kybosh on that plan. Either way it should be good. I've blogged previously about my thoughts on US Thanksgiving, so who knows, maybe next year I'll actually do a dinner and invite some people over for dinner as I thumb my nose at Canadian Thanksgiving. So Happy Thanksgiving to and American readers and any Canucks smart enough to take these days off too.

I definitely could use the time off. I kinda forgot to take vacation during the summer this year, so I could use some time off. Corina was on contract and had a limited amount of days off, so I think I only took 2 days off over the summer. In retrospect it probably would have been better to use vacation time when there was actually still sun in the sky, but I guess hindsight is 20/20. This weekend we are even going to Buffalo to partake in some American-style shopping and an NFL football game. I'm going to see my mighty(awful) San Francisco 49ers play the Buffalo Bills. This is the first time I've ever been able to check out a Niners game in person, so I'm excited, even if I am 10 years too late. Luckily we have lower bowl seats, so we won't totally freeze our balls off.

The Dark Ages

The Dark Ages
We could be exploring the galaxy by now

Exactitudes

Exactitudes
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake

Grand Theft Auto for NES

Grand Theft Auto for NES
This is such a good emulation of every video game commercial from the 1980's

Condomed

Condomed
The real lives of top drawer condoms

Ottawa Senators New Black Jerseys

The Ottawa Senators finally unveiled their mystery 3rd jerseys today in their matinee matchup with the New York Rangers. My thoughts are kinda mixed on the jersey itself, but at least they picked up a win and were able to snap a 6 game winless streak. I like the jersey itself, though hate the wordmark 'SENS' instead of a logo. I don't get why they don't just use the revised side profile logo they designed last year. It looks better then both the wordmark and the logo they currently sport on their jerseys anyways. The jersey is actually very sharp and original looking and the piping at the bottom just looks really sharp. The wordmark just seems total cheese. The fact that it uses the team nickname feels like a bastardization of the team. You'd never see Leafs, Wings or Habs printed in bold face on the front of a jersey. Even though Ottawa was an NHL expansion team from the 1990's, they do have a hockey heritage that extends back even older then most of the original six teams. They should try and reflect that in their third jerseys instead of trying to be trendy.

Glorious Cubicle Prank

I give these guys total props. This is the pinnacle of office pranks. This guy went on vacation for 3 weeks and his co-workers built and entire house around his cubicle. The ceiling fan is totally the topper for me.

Hollow Spy Coins

Hollow Spy Coins
Don't know why I would need to smuggle a Micro SD card, but I kinda want one

Spam marketing in all the wrong places

I understand the whole premise of network building for these people. Build a big network and hope down the line you'll find some valuable contacts along the way. But network building on last.fm? Shilling loans on a music social network doesn't make much sense to me. Sure there are forums and whatnot, but the site is essentially for cross pollinating your music tastes with others and being able to find new music. It's probably a little smarter if this person wants to integrate into the community they avoid using such an obviously spammy username and actually listen to some music to build up their account a bit. I mean, far be it for me to tell someone how to spam, as that really isn't my forte, but this really seems like they might be barking up the wrong tree. Safe to say I clicked ignore.

Shake shuffle for iPhone with Pocket Touch

Since the new iPod nano came out I have to say I was a bit jealous of one of its features, that being the shake shuffle. That's probably the biggest pain in the ass about having an iPhone is when you're listening to music on shuffle and you want to skip to the next track. You have to pull it out, unlock the screen, then use the tiny onscreen controls to skip to the next track. That was until I ran across a jailbreak app called Pocket Touch. This very cool little app available through Cydia and Installer allows you to shake shuffle as well as use screen gestures to adjust the volume, pause and skip tracks back and forward. It's pretty cool. I tried it while walking and found the shake shuffle a little too sensitive being in my jacket pocket, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. So for those iPhone and iPod Touch owners with nano envy, this is the answer, at least until Apple builds it into the firmware at some point.

Enough with the government handouts

As we all know the world at large is in a financial crisis. Basically the underlying structure of our economy is faltering and every industry seems to be calling for bailouts, the latest being GM. To me this seems so idiotic. As we grow up we're always taught stories like the squirrel and the grasshopper, yet this doesn't seem to apply in the business world. GM and other North American auto makers have been making oversized gas guzzlers for years because of their high price margins, yet they totally ignored the underlying trend that people want more fuel efficient cars. It's not something new. Whether gas is $.75 or $1.50 a litre, people are always looking for ways to save money. The Japanese, Korean and European automakers have been working on these issues for years, given the fact that the rest of the world isn't nearly as spread out as we are in North America and require compact efficiency in their vehicles. It just shows their business model is entirely flawed.

Why should they be bailed out? What happens when an average person starts an ill advised business, loses their shirt on the venture and has to close up shop? Just because they decided to sell space heaters in Florida and failed at it doesn't mean they should get a government handout to support their mediocre business model. Mom and Pop stores that fail to adapt to the times always end up closing their doors in the face of increased competition. The beauty of free market is it will self correct. If one company goes bankrupt, there is always another company waiting to seize the opportunity and fill the void.

The problem the US has is that they have let so many dinosaur industries remain viable that they are now at a crossroads. The music industry would die if it weren't for the copyright lobby. If the government allowed the market to run its course, the record labels would die and music services like iTunes would fill in the gaps, cut out the middleman and sell music directly from artists. The auto industry would bottom out and be forced to evolve. The US automakers would probably merge and be forced to become leaner and more streamlined to compete with foreign automakers. Coddling these businesses and giving them handouts just prolongs the inevitable.

RSS is dead to me

I came to a realization this week. RSS is really dead to me. If you asked me a year or 2 ago I would have probably told you that RSS was a technology that would be an internet building block going forward into the future. But in the last year I've found using the combination of Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Stumble Upon, Facebook and friends in the office over messenger has pretty much changed that. I used to love using Netvibes. I had multiple themed tabs, loaded with various feeds, all of which were from sites I liked. But then I realized I had a problem. Too many feeds. I no longer even wanted to open up Netvibes, since it took awhile to load up all these different feeds.

The conclusion I've come to is that I need all my content aggregated. Be it by the masses, friends on Twitter, Facebook or over an MSN conversation, I like that someone has certified this content as worthwhile to check out, be it on a wisdom of crowds level or a personal level. Therein lies the problem with RSS. The stuff that appears in my reader is unfiltered, directly from the source. Aside from my original stamp of approval that lead me to add the feed to Netvibes, there is no way of telling whether the content that is published is of any value to me. Sure there are feeds that supply 100% must read content, but what about those that only about 25% of what is published is of interest to me? To me this is a fatal flaw to the whole system. With no way filtering the stuff of interest for me, it really becomes useless. As we all know the web is just a never ending onslaught of content, so being able to distill what is of interest to me is definitely key. Is RSS dead? I guess only time will tell.

To all the Facebook luddites

This is a topic I've refrained from talking about for awhile, but I think probably many people can relate to this problem. Friends who don't use Facebook. This last weekend Corina and I hosted our annual Halloween party. We had a full house show up and everyone had a blast, yet still the most common refrain from friends were inquiries about people who don't use Facebook and whether they had been invited. In most cases my response was no. Sure, I feel bad about not inviting some of my friends, but having to chase them down via phone, email or MSN has just become too much of a hassle, especially when compared to the ease of use the site allows me when organizing an event. In most cases its not just one person that I need to contact, but many. The problem multiplies exponentially the more people you need to contact. It just becomes a vicious cycle or telephone tag, emails for people who essentially want special treatment because they have chosen to be out of the loop. Generally people who don't use Facebook just complicate my life by adding multiple additional steps to organizing any type of social gathering anymore.


I find that most people that I know who don't use Facebook do so with the mindset that they are somehow bucking the trends and avoiding the herd mentality of others around them. I can relate, I resisted the lure of Facebook for quite awhile before giving in. Since then I've come to realize that Facebook is less a social network and more of a phase in the next generation of communication. Smoke signals, morse code, carrier pigeon, telephone, email, instant messenger. They are all means with which we've used to communicate between people. To me, Facebook has become the way to communicate with my friends that I don't see on a regular basis, and I know it has for many others out there. It has become such a crucial tool that those who choose to ignore it essentially becomes recluse in my life. Facebook is so commonplace now that it seems about as stupid as raging against the telephone. It just doesn't make any sense.

For those who don't use Facebook, I'm not telling you that you need to join and add your 3rd grade girlfriend as a friend, I'm just saying sign-up, add the people you would consider friends, turn up the profile security, turn off all the notifications aside from events and your inbox. You don't have to share every gory detail of your life just because you sign-up. Just enable people you know to be able to contact you and include you in what is going on in their lives. To me this doesn't seem like too much to ask.

Halloween Spooktacular 2008

Last night Corina and I threw our annual Halloween party, which resumed after taking a year off last year amidst the wedding, honeymoon and moving chaos that occurred last October. Every year we try go bigger and better and I think we achieved that this year. I think we're on the verge of being labeled those crazy Halloween people, but that's alright by me. Our horde of Halloween decorations is actually starting to rival our Christmas decorations. This year we turned our back patio in a spooky graveyard, which worked out pretty well even though the smoke machine I bought really didn't work that properly outside. It just kept blowing away 2 minutes after the machine pumped it out.

This year I went as everyone's favourite comedic daredevil, Super Dave Osborne. My costume was comprised pretty much of a painters jumpsuit, a bunch of electrical and duct tape and some gold stars. I searched out getting an old motorcycle helmet through Kijiji, painted and taped it the appropriate manner. Corina's mom constructed some pockets and fashioned a collar out of the jumpsuits hood. I even attempted to make an SD truckers hat which didn't really turn out very well. I thought the costume as a whole worked out alright, if a little sloppy in some regards. I heard toward the end of the night that apparently people thought I had actually bought the costume, which I guess tells me I did something right.

Every year we have a prize for the best male and best female costumes, but this year we decided to mix it up by adding a pumpkin carving contest and Halloween trivia component. My buddy Dan was able to supply some corporate sponsorship from Remington, enabling up to give out mens and ladies electric shavers as the best costume prizes, which was really awesome. Nick won for best male costume for his Riddler outfit. He's about the only person I know who is thin and wiry enough to pull it off. For the female award we had our first tie, which always results in a dance off. The 2 females who were tied for best costume really weren't the extroverted types, so we allowed them to choose a designated dancer to participate on their behalf. So Dennis and Carmen battled it out, with Dennis come out the victor on behalf of Laura who had dressed as Harley Quinn.

The best pumpkin award ended up being awarded to "Swissy", who had just arrived the night before from Switzerland and was dressed as a pumpkin. Sure it was a little sketchy allowing a human entry into the pumpkin competition, but what's one of our parties without large amounts of controversy? In reality we all know Chad's The Dark Knight pumpkin was the best entry, but Swiss was so excited by his prize, an Alexander Mogilny bobblehead.

Today we did all the cleanup and dispatched of the pumpkins. Corina's Dad had me load up the tractor loader with all the pumpkins, take them up to the compost pile and smash them all up. He then had me hook up the rototiller and till the compost pile. There was just something so satisfying about crushing pumpkins with a big tractor. So what was a bunch of nicely carved pumpkins last night is now a pile compost. It was a pretty amusing experience. You can see all the photos in the album slideshow above.

Halloween 2007
Halloween 2006
Halloween 2005