Ontario Sucks! First off their normal highways are a mere 90km/h. They compensate for this failing by completely ignoring the speed limit with impunity but that is beyond the point. Next there are the store hours. On a Monday, nothing is open after 6pm. I mean nothing … okay well a few gas stations and the Sobey’s but that is the expection, not the rule. 6pm! I kid you not. Then there is their firesale orange construction signs everywhere. They don’t seem to be doing any work, simply ripping up highways everywhere which sucks. There are TWO, yes two, 7-11 stores. There are no real pizza joints … oh yah, and they city police in Waterloo have a crappy idea of what a highway is!

I ask one simply favour from Delg … and he doesn’t do it. I travel nearly 3000km to help Fyn move and all he has to do is post stories up here to keep the blog going while I’m gone but nooo… no new stories. Most annoyed. Delg better be very good at hiding. PS, I will eventually post the story of the great move … it was … well … I travelled 3000km with Fyn, what more can I say at the moment.

Last night, me and me beloved beermates, a group of merry prankster they be, were bound for bottomless love at the local pub when we ascertained that Delg would be bouncing back forthwith. Delg, one of me other mates who had wander astray all summer, was inbound from afar by means of motorized flight, and Garrek suggested that we’s should bushwhack the Berk when he exited into the burg. As expected, Delg’s clay pigeon dilly-dallied its way to us and breezed in over half an hour late. So we were good and ready to pinch ‘im when the seat covers left the cloud buster. While we strained to find the Blurke, he sighted on us first, and we soon realised our plan had gone to buggery when it was apparent he bushwacked us! He told us he was gagging for a pint, and after ditching his bergens with his pops, we recce’d to the closest public house, where me other beermates were informed to head to. We drank to get rat arsed, and spent time calling Delg a shirt lifter, which he may well be, between his frequent visits to the bog. This was followed by a slasher flick with a lot of nice bristols. All in all, it was big league merriment. Cheers!

Be prepared for the closest view of Mars in more than 50,000 years. Come August 27, Mars will be the third brightest object in the sky (after the Moon and Venus). Contrary to rumour mills, Mars won’t be as visible to the naked eye as the Moon. The highest magnitudes of Moon and Venus are -12.7 and -4.0 respectively (The more negative the magnitude, the brighter the object). Mars will be only -2.9 on August 27. However, it is said that with the help of a 75-magnitude telescope, the red planet will appear as large as the moon, an event worth seeing (and hence the reason to buy my fancy telescope in Toronto when I’m out there). Mars has had its share of urban legends, the most famous being The Other Face. Know about the position of Mars here. Check this link for all activities related to Mars in 2003. You may also want to know more about perihelic oppositions.

I am having an extremely weird day. Not only have I done more real actually work between the hours of 7:20 am and 10:30 am this morning then I have in the last two weeks (yes, I know amazing), but weird throughts are wandering through my brain (and no, not the usual “kill kill” mantra chanting I’m use to either). In particular the thought I will share with you momentarily. The line flowed through my brain so wonderfully, I had to record it. I have no idea where it came from … or where the hell it was heading, but meh I’ll share it with you all.

“Me and me beloved beermates, a group of merry prankster they be, were bound for bottomless love at the local pubery.”

I have no idea how to continue it … but it makes an excellent first sentance to something … what I don’t know … a blog entry, a short story, a novel, and e-mail maybe. In any case, if anyone has a use for the line, your welcome to use it.

Okay, so this is the second time I have had my car in for Warranty repair. The first time I asked them if they could find anything wrong with the electricial system because I was haven’t troubles when the heater, fan, lights, and stereo were on full blast … basically the fans would cut down, the lights would dim, and the radio would get very quiet. Some of you might recall this. In any case, the first time they couldn’t find anything wrong. Well I was taking it in today to get a couple of other things looked at so I figured I’d have them look at this problem again. This time they tested the alternator and realized it wasn’t providing as much power (or rather it was fluxuation) as it was supposed to be. Thus when I was putting a heavily load on my electrics I wasn’t necessarily getting all the power I needed and thus the “brown outs”. Okay, great. Next is the fan that Garrek disassembled for me. They don’t have the tool to reinstall it so they are fixing the problem by replacing the entire unit but they don’t have any fan vents in stock for my car so I have to wait until tommorrow morning for that to be fixed, not an large problem but annoying. Now we get to the prize of this visit. I have wind noise from my driver side windshield. Want to know why? It has been replaced and inproperly installed. Okay, so install it correctly right? Well here is the problem. While I didn’t have the window replace (and it had been replaced by the time I purchased the vehicle), the simple fact it has been replaced means it isn’t under Warranty. IE I have to pay for this. So now I have begun the game of phone tag with the Head Mechanic Kevin to see if I can convince them that to my knowledge the window was never replaced and can they tell me for a fact that it wasn’t replaced under warranty? I know it could have been replaced because it was smashed (wouldn’t be suprising if it happened since the vehicle was owned by a rental company before myself), but at the same time they sold me the vehicle and from my point of view I don’t really have a recourse here. See if I had had it replaced I could go scream at the company that replaced it but since I didn’t … how the fuck am I supposed to get this fixed for free? Now, mind you if it is less then like $50 I’m not going to make a big deal about this but I replaced my entire windshield on my Berretta for $250, and it only took like 30 minutes to install so most of that should have been like the cost of the materials … right? ARGH! In any case, I’m just venting and, well, it is my right, right? I hate mechanics … they remind me of computer techs at Future Shop … very slimy.

UPDATE: Since we are on the topic of slimy. Since no one told me that the fucking window was replaced and thus wasn’t covered by warranty, they are not only not going to fix it for free, but they are also charging me $42.50 for “diagnosing” the problem. I think it would have been at least kind to say, “Oh by the way you have no warranty on your window.” It could have influnced my decision to by the car because quite honestly the only reason to buy a fairly new car is for the warranty coverage. ARGH!

A slight old new article that I stumbled upon (during a random search on news.google.ca) claims that Japanese scientists have figured out how to use glucose (from human blood) as a power source. The article talks about how it could be possible for nano-generators to turn the people into ‘human batteries’. While it isn’t to the scale of something like the Matrix, the break through could theoretically be used to power devices embedded within the human body (cybernetics here I come!). Just think of the weightloss applications!

ash nazg durbatulúk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul

Name the source of this quote, and more important what it translates to (and no cheating by plugging it into Google and searching on it).

Embodiments of the invention provide a method and apparatus for storing multiple items across different categories in a database. One embodiment of the present invention provides a database that includes an attribute value table that has item entries for items of different categories. Each item entry has attribute values for attributes of the items. The database also includes an attribute map table that has attribute map entries. The attribute map entries have attribute map values. Additionally, an attribute value is associated with an attribute map entry, such that the attribute values are translated based on the attribute map values of the associated attribute map entry. In one embodiment, the translating of an attribute value includes determining an attribute type associated with the attribute value.

[ Source: eBay patent #6,604,107 ]

Are they trying to patent the concept of a relational database or what here? It’s like if you make a table and another table and a third table that maps two tables together and do a join, you’re suddenly in violation of this. But everyone does stuff like this all the time.

For those of you who don’t know, the US encountered a new threat in Iraq today at roughly 11am Iraqi time. An unknown terrorist organization blew up a car bomb in front of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, killing 19 people and wounding 43. This attack on a “Soft Target”, an undefended civilian building, is such a radical departure from the attacks on the Americian Occupational Forces that they are certain it was not conducted by operatives of Hussein’s Baath party. Hussein’s men have limited their attacks exclusively against armed military targets and they seen no reason for them to shift their attacks against unaligned civilians (since there were no Americian troops in the vicinity). The car bomb was so powerful it damaged many of the surrounding buildings and threw the car onto the roof of a nearby building. It also fairly clear that the Baath operatives and the foreign terrorists are not working together and seem to be working towards different goals. In either case, they are definitely not co-ordinating their attacks. The fear is now that even if the US can located and remove operatives of the Baath Party, the violence in the region will not go away. Also, later in the day a US soldier was killed while guarding the upscale neighborhood al-Mansour in Western Baghdad. This, US forces are certain, was conducted by operatives of the Baath Party. Elsewhere in Baghdad, gunmen attacked a U.S. patrol on a busy shopping street, sparking a fierce gunbattle between Iraqis with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles and Americans with armored Bradley fighting vehicles. Two U.S. soldiers were reported wounded in the attack but it is comforting to know now that Uday and Qusay are dead that random acts of violence in the region have disappeared. As if in a pathetic attempt to exact some revenge, the US raided a market in Tikrit, killing two men carrying weapons and wounding two more who escaped. One of deceased was a suspected weapons dealer who actually opened fire on the US troops while the other casualty picked up a discarded AK-47 and attempted to flee the market with it. Two other men were wounded when they grabbed discarded AK-47’s and made a run for it. �When people pick up weapons and carry[] them freely, they become combatants and we will engage them,� said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, whose 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion executed the operation. �I think we sent out a strong message today that you cannot walk around the streets with weapons.� Good for you. Planning on shooting anybody else in the back any time soon?