Politics, schmallitics - too much fun
Alright I have a lot of stuff that needs to be done over the next 2 weeks. So what did I do for 2 hours instead? Posting on Globe and Mail's 'conversations.' If you ever get a chance and are insterested in what other Canadians (and what some Americans) think about Canadian politics, I advise you go over and take a look. Just click on any politics related article and scroll to the part after the article itself.
In conclusion I admit it, I am a nerd; this is my idea of fun (just skip over it):
In regards to the comment that Canadians don't care about our money being taken, we do care. But as another commenter has said, "If you look under the covers of every party, you're bound to find some cockroaches. As humans, politicians are not infallible." The Conservative Party has its share of shady characters. Democracies across the global are rift with issues of corruption. Even the United Nations had a major scandal recently. If we delve into history for a second, PM Pearson's government in the 1965 was dogged with all sorts of scandals (including clear out bribery) - but look at the good work that government was able to produce (Auto Pact, CPP).
There are those that believe minority governments are good because they get things done; the alternative of course, is that they do not last. Mr. Martin's minority government, although shakey and lacking in direction at first is finally starting to do something. Of course, Mr. Harper talks of the Liberals not being sincere about their desire to help Canadians. That's baloney - how does one judge sincerity of a politician? Politicians ultimately want to get re-elected; that's the final goal. To do this, they have to win the support of the electorate; to do this, they have to do things that are viewed as beneficial to the country. What do we have to judge Mr. Harper's sincerity to benefit Canadians? All we can assume, is that he sincerely wants to be PM.
As several others have pointed out in this discussion, many people are not convinced of the Conservative agenda. That's not surprising as Mr. Harper has not really made much mention of his ideas, choosing instead to focus Canadian attention on the fallout from the Gomery inquiry. Mr. Martin, on the other hand, has put several ideas into the works and through. Being the party in power, I agree that he is in an advantageous position; however I have seen little in the form of ideas from Mr. Harper...
Oh, I only wish I knew whether all the anti-Liberal posters (there are quite a few you can imagine) are real disgrunted Liberals or just Conservatives who are championing the end of an 'era of corruption.' There's so much anger and nonsense on these boards its actually really funny...
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Back into the Middle of Night
I had a long day today, as I had to take care of a few major things. I guess its coming down to the next months for me to prove my mettle to these schools.
The drive back from downtown T.O. was very smooth as one might expect it to be in the middle of the night. Somehow late night drives always increases the temptation of fast food for me. Sure enough tonight I found myself putting a McChicken combo into the ol' stomach. After getting back home from downtown Toronto at around 1:50 a.m., I made a hot chocolate and settled down for a few hours of reading before bed. That plan didn't last that long.
[MSN] 02/11/2005 2:26 AM: want a coffee?
And thus the title of this post. I have only just returned from the late night rendez-vous. It was nice chilling (literally as we hung around outside) with an old friend whom I have not seen since the summer; it definitely beat any reading I could have done in the meanwhile. I've forgotten how nice it can be to have chats in the early morning; its a laid-back sort of affair that's a pleasant change from the daily busy-busy routine. Thanks D, and try to get some sleep man.
I had a long day today, as I had to take care of a few major things. I guess its coming down to the next months for me to prove my mettle to these schools.
The drive back from downtown T.O. was very smooth as one might expect it to be in the middle of the night. Somehow late night drives always increases the temptation of fast food for me. Sure enough tonight I found myself putting a McChicken combo into the ol' stomach. After getting back home from downtown Toronto at around 1:50 a.m., I made a hot chocolate and settled down for a few hours of reading before bed. That plan didn't last that long.
[MSN] 02/11/2005 2:26 AM: want a coffee?
And thus the title of this post. I have only just returned from the late night rendez-vous. It was nice chilling (literally as we hung around outside) with an old friend whom I have not seen since the summer; it definitely beat any reading I could have done in the meanwhile. I've forgotten how nice it can be to have chats in the early morning; its a laid-back sort of affair that's a pleasant change from the daily busy-busy routine. Thanks D, and try to get some sleep man.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
A Doomed effort from the start
Okay I admit there's been an urge to blog steadily building in my system. This urge was causing all sorts of problems for me, making me do all sorts of irrational things like sleeping before 10 p.m. for two nights in a row! I knew I would have to eventually give in lest something bad happened...
Bad in this case can be definied as "Doom the movie," which I went to see last night with some friends. I got there slightly late and missed not only the previews but also the first 5 minutes of the film. Looking back now, I'm glad I did. I realise now that even if I had arrived 30 minutes late (the movie ran 104 minutes) I probably would have derived the same level of enjoyment out of the experience ie. the first-person shooter sequence created to make gamers go 'whoa.' For the sake of not spoiling it for others who don't know better and plan on viewing it sometime, I'll refrain from get into the details of the "plot." Without even getting into the specifics of Doom's weak example of script writing, there is an overall lacking which can be felt by anyone who has played any of the games which spawned the movie. I can understand that the transition from video game to the big screen is often a challenging one; this is likely especially true for a first-person action-driven series such as Doom.
For example, consider the plot of the original video game Doom for PC. You are a marine, one of the most hardened warriors on earth, who has been deported to Mars for assaulting a senior officer when ordered to kill unarmed civilians. You are forced to work for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a military-industrial conglomerate that is performing secret experiments with teleportation between the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Suddenly, something goes wrong and creatures from Hell come out of the teleportation gates overruning the bases with demons. Realising that you are the only one left alive you try to survive and in the process you have to fight and fight and fight and... you get the picture.
As fan of the series ever since the original games' release in 1993 however, I am largely disappointed in the poor showing of director Andrzej Bartkowiak ("Romeo Must Die," "Cradle 2 the Grave"). Now I know that movies often take artistic licenses with things like plots; even so, cutting out the entire Hell element of the plot is too much. It changes the nature of the quintessensial Doom marine, the hardcore Earth warrior fighting for survival against the minions of evil. Most importantly though, this takes out the bread and butter of the Doom series. Anyone entertaining other conceptions of the movie can dissuade themselves of such notions right now - there are no minions of Hell in the movie. And by that I don't mean that there are no partly invisible spectres; there are no flaming lost souls (the heads that are on fire), no large red cacademons (red ball with one eye), no fiendish revenants (skeleton with rocket launcher built on his shoulders) - not even the ubiquitous fireball-spiting brown imp. For me this was a big let down in a movie with the same name as the game. If the producers had felt that having "monsters of Hell" might have seen as too Satanic and objectionable, I'm sure there were other ways to incorporate creatures other than zombies (although a pinky from Doom III does make an appearance).
Of course it is more likely that studio executives were merely hoping to make a relatively cheap film that would top the box office during Halloween weekend, and in this regard the movie can probably be regarded as a success. *sigh* Sometimes practicalities of business are truly a pity.
Aside from that complaint of mine, everyone else in Doom was standard fare for a campy zombie-shooter. Surprisingly the Rock's character barely displayed any trace of the dry humour that made the actor a passable action figure in his other films. Playing the role of the stoic dutiful anti-hero, there were moments that his character seemed to scream for development before that was quashed with a robotic "I'm a solider, I do as I'm told" line. The closest that his character comes to a humourous moment is when he quips, "I'm not supposed to die" while fighting off a horde of zombies. A failure of the script or a failure of the actor?
If there is one thing that I can credit the movie with, its the lack of a typical romantic subplot. Instead the 'oddly beautiful scientist' (Rosamund Pike) is the sister of the hero character (Karl Urban), together share a tragic family past on the Mars base. Unfortunately although it dodged that bullet, every other B-movie action cliche is used in Doom.
Even racial cliches are apparent in the movie as one of my fellow Doom 'victims' pointed out yesterday. When one of the black marines goes down, its an incredible fight as the man fights the zombie creature despite being slammed into walls, electrocuted, and thrown into a pit. When the asian marine dies, he is not only one of the first to go, but he is taken by surprise and goes down without a sound.
There's a mildly philosophical interpretation which can be extrapolated to the movie which my (useless) artsie mind has come upon but it is probably going far beyond the intent of the script-writers so for the spoilers sake I'll refrain from delving into it.
All in all, if you plan to watch this film don't expect too much. If you have a high performance gaming computer at home or an X-Box, you're probably better off playing Doom III at home if you've not already done so. For more information about the 1990s phenomenon which iD Software unleashed upon the world, click here.
Ugh I can't believe I've blogged again...
Okay I admit there's been an urge to blog steadily building in my system. This urge was causing all sorts of problems for me, making me do all sorts of irrational things like sleeping before 10 p.m. for two nights in a row! I knew I would have to eventually give in lest something bad happened...
Bad in this case can be definied as "Doom the movie," which I went to see last night with some friends. I got there slightly late and missed not only the previews but also the first 5 minutes of the film. Looking back now, I'm glad I did. I realise now that even if I had arrived 30 minutes late (the movie ran 104 minutes) I probably would have derived the same level of enjoyment out of the experience ie. the first-person shooter sequence created to make gamers go 'whoa.' For the sake of not spoiling it for others who don't know better and plan on viewing it sometime, I'll refrain from get into the details of the "plot." Without even getting into the specifics of Doom's weak example of script writing, there is an overall lacking which can be felt by anyone who has played any of the games which spawned the movie. I can understand that the transition from video game to the big screen is often a challenging one; this is likely especially true for a first-person action-driven series such as Doom.
For example, consider the plot of the original video game Doom for PC. You are a marine, one of the most hardened warriors on earth, who has been deported to Mars for assaulting a senior officer when ordered to kill unarmed civilians. You are forced to work for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a military-industrial conglomerate that is performing secret experiments with teleportation between the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Suddenly, something goes wrong and creatures from Hell come out of the teleportation gates overruning the bases with demons. Realising that you are the only one left alive you try to survive and in the process you have to fight and fight and fight and... you get the picture.
As fan of the series ever since the original games' release in 1993 however, I am largely disappointed in the poor showing of director Andrzej Bartkowiak ("Romeo Must Die," "Cradle 2 the Grave"). Now I know that movies often take artistic licenses with things like plots; even so, cutting out the entire Hell element of the plot is too much. It changes the nature of the quintessensial Doom marine, the hardcore Earth warrior fighting for survival against the minions of evil. Most importantly though, this takes out the bread and butter of the Doom series. Anyone entertaining other conceptions of the movie can dissuade themselves of such notions right now - there are no minions of Hell in the movie. And by that I don't mean that there are no partly invisible spectres; there are no flaming lost souls (the heads that are on fire), no large red cacademons (red ball with one eye), no fiendish revenants (skeleton with rocket launcher built on his shoulders) - not even the ubiquitous fireball-spiting brown imp. For me this was a big let down in a movie with the same name as the game. If the producers had felt that having "monsters of Hell" might have seen as too Satanic and objectionable, I'm sure there were other ways to incorporate creatures other than zombies (although a pinky from Doom III does make an appearance).
Of course it is more likely that studio executives were merely hoping to make a relatively cheap film that would top the box office during Halloween weekend, and in this regard the movie can probably be regarded as a success. *sigh* Sometimes practicalities of business are truly a pity.
Aside from that complaint of mine, everyone else in Doom was standard fare for a campy zombie-shooter. Surprisingly the Rock's character barely displayed any trace of the dry humour that made the actor a passable action figure in his other films. Playing the role of the stoic dutiful anti-hero, there were moments that his character seemed to scream for development before that was quashed with a robotic "I'm a solider, I do as I'm told" line. The closest that his character comes to a humourous moment is when he quips, "I'm not supposed to die" while fighting off a horde of zombies. A failure of the script or a failure of the actor?
If there is one thing that I can credit the movie with, its the lack of a typical romantic subplot. Instead the 'oddly beautiful scientist' (Rosamund Pike) is the sister of the hero character (Karl Urban), together share a tragic family past on the Mars base. Unfortunately although it dodged that bullet, every other B-movie action cliche is used in Doom.
Even racial cliches are apparent in the movie as one of my fellow Doom 'victims' pointed out yesterday. When one of the black marines goes down, its an incredible fight as the man fights the zombie creature despite being slammed into walls, electrocuted, and thrown into a pit. When the asian marine dies, he is not only one of the first to go, but he is taken by surprise and goes down without a sound.
There's a mildly philosophical interpretation which can be extrapolated to the movie which my (useless) artsie mind has come upon but it is probably going far beyond the intent of the script-writers so for the spoilers sake I'll refrain from delving into it.
All in all, if you plan to watch this film don't expect too much. If you have a high performance gaming computer at home or an X-Box, you're probably better off playing Doom III at home if you've not already done so. For more information about the 1990s phenomenon which iD Software unleashed upon the world, click here.
Ugh I can't believe I've blogged again...
Sunday, December 05, 2004
A Birthday without Parsley!
I celebrated a friend's birthday earlier today. We went out for a pretty decent dinner at Commerce Gate at Asian Legends. The conversations was pretty light, although there was a pretty in-depth discourse on the manliness of a certain person (imagine with whiney voice - "why do people think that I think like a guy?"). The evening was also filled with stupidity courtesy of Kevin ("I'm a commodity." [not understanding why girls aren't all over him] You know, there's always your stalker in first year Kev...). And I still don't fully understand the metrosexual comments. I mean don't most guys like to take care of yourself? I mean there's looking like a GQ poster boy and there's being a slob; surely there's middle ground somewhere there. Other intersesting tidbits include Joanne thinking that a threesome requires two girls and Kevin's reaction everytime "Miranda" was mentioned (ha! we know you stalk her in secret). It was a small affair but there was plenty of silliness/laughter.
Incidentally there was also plenty of cake to go around as well. We (Joanne actually) had bought a cake - black forest type with real cherries! - and later we found out Bowen's mother did as well. Super greasy dinner + 2 cakes + the best chinese saigo dessert in the world (courtesy again of Bowen's mother) made 4 very full university students. There was so much cake left over that Joanne actually took some with her home! *gasp*
After dinner we returned to Bowen's house for the aforementioned desserts and PS2 gaming. And I'm glad that I'm not the only one who does not know the Chinese happy birthday song. From SNK vs. Capcom 2, we learned that Kevin is a verygood cheap player, although Joanne's button mashing deserves some mention for the sake of ridiculing her. After that we popped in Katamari Damacy and all hell broke loose. That game must be one of the wackiest party games in the world. The premise is this - you are an extraterrestrial ball of glue and you have to roll over as many things as possible to get them to stick to you in order to become the biggest ball of glue! FUN! I modestly admit that I was undefeated in my garbage collecting ball rolling skills. ^_^
Afterwards that mayhem X-Men Legends was popped into the PS2, Warcraft III was started up and Naruto was shown on a 17" screen - all in all, pretty good times. So again, happy birthday Bo!
I celebrated a friend's birthday earlier today. We went out for a pretty decent dinner at Commerce Gate at Asian Legends. The conversations was pretty light, although there was a pretty in-depth discourse on the manliness of a certain person (imagine with whiney voice - "why do people think that I think like a guy?"). The evening was also filled with stupidity courtesy of Kevin ("I'm a commodity." [not understanding why girls aren't all over him] You know, there's always your stalker in first year Kev...). And I still don't fully understand the metrosexual comments. I mean don't most guys like to take care of yourself? I mean there's looking like a GQ poster boy and there's being a slob; surely there's middle ground somewhere there. Other intersesting tidbits include Joanne thinking that a threesome requires two girls and Kevin's reaction everytime "Miranda" was mentioned (ha! we know you stalk her in secret). It was a small affair but there was plenty of silliness/laughter.
Incidentally there was also plenty of cake to go around as well. We (Joanne actually) had bought a cake - black forest type with real cherries! - and later we found out Bowen's mother did as well. Super greasy dinner + 2 cakes + the best chinese saigo dessert in the world (courtesy again of Bowen's mother) made 4 very full university students. There was so much cake left over that Joanne actually took some with her home! *gasp*
After dinner we returned to Bowen's house for the aforementioned desserts and PS2 gaming. And I'm glad that I'm not the only one who does not know the Chinese happy birthday song. From SNK vs. Capcom 2, we learned that Kevin is a very
Afterwards that mayhem X-Men Legends was popped into the PS2, Warcraft III was started up and Naruto was shown on a 17" screen - all in all, pretty good times. So again, happy birthday Bo!
Monday, November 29, 2004
I'm Almost There and He's Almost Here
Well looks like the year is coming to an end. Officially, only 2 more weeks of school left. This translates into 2 tests and an essay for me. Mostly I've been studying this weekend although today I finally got back into some 'Polish Combat' again after slacking off for a month. Needless to say the Pole had not been too happy with me and life becomes an uncertainty when a guy who can bench 250 lbs isn't pleased with you. The pain in my muscles was offset by the relief from knowing that my life was becoming more secure with each arm curl.
It is pretty interesting how much the media is trying to make of the Bush visit to Canada tomorrow compared to the PMO's attempts to play it down. Politics at play, I say. I mean even the fact that Albertan beef is on the menu has been given political significance. I think the whole thing is significant but only because Bush has not visited Canada, its very close and significant trade partner, in all his years in office (I am not counting the 2 times he has come to Canada for international summits). The Martin government has said not to expect anything major stemming from this visit, insisting that time is very tight on this "working visit" - however I think it would be prudent to be aware of any surprises they may through. So far a timeline for the resumption of the beef trade and an announcement on the softwood lumber issues are the primary suspects but we shall see...
On a side note, I think the anti-Bush sentiment in Canada has gone way too far; some people need to calm down and think a little more realistically. I'm a big supporter of political action to express opinion to our leaders but threatening a media outlet with jail for supporting Bush? Then there's the Lawyers Against the War, who want Canada to deny Bush from entering the country because he's a war criminal? Well in the end its all good because the people have spoken and all, but not allowing him to visit Canada would constitute a much more radical policy that I do not believe Canada will ever take. The problem with such protests is that they are not grounded in reality, as spirited and passionate as they are. Canada-US relations are very important for both countries, arguably more for us, and disagreements over past and current American policy should not threaten this mutually beneficial relationship. Admittedly I have to say that a scenario in which Canada gradually broke off all ties with the US has played in my head several times this weekend with interesting fantasy results. There are too many unknowns but I think that would be a case of "that which does not kill you only makes you stronger".
And finally just so none of you are fooled by anything the news outlets will tell you, the Canadian Da Vinci Project to launch a civilian space flight is terrible. It is my firm belief that the only reason they were ever considered a front runner for the X-Prize (which has already been won by the mind-blowingly expensive SpaceShipOne team) was because of their team leader Brian Feeney's amazing ability to lie with a straight face; by making it all appear like they were close to launch, they managed to secure sponsor and media interest in their project. For this reason I find all this hubbub that their launch date has been postponed due to the holidays to be quite humourous. Well for Canadian pride's sake I only hope their balloon-lifted space contraption doesn't disappoint if/when they do launch.
Anyway time to leave. Tired=Very Yes.
Well looks like the year is coming to an end. Officially, only 2 more weeks of school left. This translates into 2 tests and an essay for me. Mostly I've been studying this weekend although today I finally got back into some 'Polish Combat' again after slacking off for a month. Needless to say the Pole had not been too happy with me and life becomes an uncertainty when a guy who can bench 250 lbs isn't pleased with you. The pain in my muscles was offset by the relief from knowing that my life was becoming more secure with each arm curl.
It is pretty interesting how much the media is trying to make of the Bush visit to Canada tomorrow compared to the PMO's attempts to play it down. Politics at play, I say. I mean even the fact that Albertan beef is on the menu has been given political significance. I think the whole thing is significant but only because Bush has not visited Canada, its very close and significant trade partner, in all his years in office (I am not counting the 2 times he has come to Canada for international summits). The Martin government has said not to expect anything major stemming from this visit, insisting that time is very tight on this "working visit" - however I think it would be prudent to be aware of any surprises they may through. So far a timeline for the resumption of the beef trade and an announcement on the softwood lumber issues are the primary suspects but we shall see...
On a side note, I think the anti-Bush sentiment in Canada has gone way too far; some people need to calm down and think a little more realistically. I'm a big supporter of political action to express opinion to our leaders but threatening a media outlet with jail for supporting Bush? Then there's the Lawyers Against the War, who want Canada to deny Bush from entering the country because he's a war criminal? Well in the end its all good because the people have spoken and all, but not allowing him to visit Canada would constitute a much more radical policy that I do not believe Canada will ever take. The problem with such protests is that they are not grounded in reality, as spirited and passionate as they are. Canada-US relations are very important for both countries, arguably more for us, and disagreements over past and current American policy should not threaten this mutually beneficial relationship. Admittedly I have to say that a scenario in which Canada gradually broke off all ties with the US has played in my head several times this weekend with interesting fantasy results. There are too many unknowns but I think that would be a case of "that which does not kill you only makes you stronger".
And finally just so none of you are fooled by anything the news outlets will tell you, the Canadian Da Vinci Project to launch a civilian space flight is terrible. It is my firm belief that the only reason they were ever considered a front runner for the X-Prize (which has already been won by the mind-blowingly expensive SpaceShipOne team) was because of their team leader Brian Feeney's amazing ability to lie with a straight face; by making it all appear like they were close to launch, they managed to secure sponsor and media interest in their project. For this reason I find all this hubbub that their launch date has been postponed due to the holidays to be quite humourous. Well for Canadian pride's sake I only hope their balloon-lifted space contraption doesn't disappoint if/when they do launch.
Anyway time to leave. Tired=Very Yes.